Steve Jackson's Blog, page 55

May 6, 2024: Shattered Pixel Dungeon

There are a ton of great tabletop and digital roleplaying games out there, but sometimes you just want to enjoy some dungeon delving, monster slaying, and treasure hunting. If that sort of thing appeals to you, consider picking up Shattered Pixel Dungeon as soon as you can. It's a simple but addictive game that is easy to play but tough to master. My husband and I have become increasingly obsessed since downloading it to our phones a few weeks ago.   Shattered Pixel Dungeon is based on Pixel Dungeon , a roguelike game that came out in 2012. Shattered Pixel Dungeon retains the charm of the original, but builds on its predecessor with new music, new unlockable characters, new items, and plenty of other surprises. You start with the option of playing either a Fighter or a Mage. As you continue to play and earn achievements, you'll unlock the Rogue, the Huntress (my personal favorite), and the Duelist as options. Each dungeon level is procedurally generated, so you'll never play the same game twice. You will, however, face bosses like the Giant Ooze and the Tengu, and meet characters like the Sad Ghost and the Troll Blacksmith. My personal favorites are the various Shopkeepers that you encounter on different levels – the incongruity of visiting a fantasy convenience store after facing a deadly adversary makes me laugh every time. (The Shopkeepers themselves never seem terribly worried about their position. Who are they, and what do they know?) Ready to test your skill? Shattered Pixel Dungeon is available on Google Play and the App Store, as well as Steam, Gog.com, Itch.io, and GitHub. 

– Katie Duffy

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

May 5, 2024: If You Don't Succeed, Dry, Dry Again

I came across some random notes from our household's visit at the end of March to Who's Yer Con, a local three-day Indianpolis convention that punches way above its weight class in terms of fun. However, all these notes seem to be dry-erase-marker based: "Check dry-erase markers. Reinvigorate dry-erase markers? Buy extra dry-erase markers."

Playing it back in my mind, I recall that the markers we had weren't up to the task, and our various "works well with dry-erase markers" accoutrements did not work well with dry dry-erase markers.

Me Circa March was really invested in dry-erase markers, and so I feel prompted to share this tip with you: If you have forthcoming conventions and like dry-erase markers, plan accordingly.

– Steven Marsh

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

May 4, 2024: Train Games On The Train

Last Saturday, to be exact, on a special Austin Steam Train ride. Along with Jimmie, Randy, and Bridget, I demonstrated Express on a trip with more than 150 people. The point was just to go out and back, playing games. And we did that thing. Everyone had a good time and the railroad would like to do it again.

E xpress has been out of print for nearly 30 years. Now it's back. Designed by Darwin Bromley, this is the grand-daddy (well, one of the grand-daddies) of train games. If gin rummy and Mille Bournes loved each other very much and had a little game, it might look like this. I like it!

When a demo starts, everybody sees the cards with the nice train pictures and thinks "Oh, this is going to be a cute, friendly game." Then the shin-kicking starts, and the next thing you know, somebody's 12-point train is a smoking wreck. Did I mention that I like it?

Check your friendly local game store around the end of the month!

– Steve Jackson

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

May 3, 2024: The Curious Appeal Of New Games

I saw an online point made recently about games that I found very interesting. The thesis was this: Why do so many gamers buy new games when they probably already own so many other games?

The poster theorized that one reason is because of asymmetrical skill level in competitive games. That is, if you play with different groups constantly, then the player who's played 500 sessions of Crush All Who Oppose Me Mwah-hah-hah is going to have a tremendous advantage over a player who's struggling to read the CAWOMMhh rulebook for the first time. Sure, the new player might get the hang of it after a few tries, but if a typical CAWOMMhh game is 1 or 2 hours, the newbie will likely decide that constantly losing for many sessions is not a great use of limited personal gaming time.

In contrast, if players are cracking the seal together on (say) The Kittens Seem Cute But Hunger for Blood together, then they all start at a similar skill level. Even if one of the players is naturally skilled at a similar-playing game, no one has the intrinsic optimal strategies internalized that a TKSCbHfB veteran would have.

After hearing this, I realized this isn't universal; for example, our household loves co-op games, so if one player is better than the others, then that can be helpful. Alternatively, I suspect one of the reasons Munchkin is so beloved by gamers – outside of being fun, fast-paced, and fall-down funny – is that it has a built-in experience-mitigation system; if one of the other players is clearly a more-obviously skilled threat compared to the rest of the table, then the other players all have a vested interest in backstabbing their chum. And some games – such as Zombie Dice – are so fast and easy to play that pure skill can take a back seat to rolling well and feeling lucky.

Of course, as someone who loves new games, I needed no convincing. But the underlying question was an interesting one, and I'm grateful to that content creator for making the point. (I wish I knew the source of the original idea, but if you know what I'm talking about, drop me a line or let me know on the forums and I'll give credit where it's due. For that matter, if you Googled either Crush All Who Oppose Me Mwah-hah-hah or The Kittens Seem Cute But Hunger for Blood , I'd love to hear that, too.)

– Steven Marsh

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

May 2, 2024: Munchkin Big Box – Two Terrific Weeks!

As we begin the third week of the Munchkin Big Box crowdfunding campaign on BackerKit, we look back on the two terrific weeks that have passed so far. As of Wednesday night we had broken $800,000 (!!!) with over 5,500 fans having made a pledge!  That means that the newest stretch goal, the Loaded Deck, has been unlocked! It will include 10 cards to combine with the already-unlocked stretch goal Loaded Die. More munchkiny new rules and chances for evil interactions. As the pledges continue to tick upward and more folks are jumping on the Backer Train, we'll be adding even more exciting stretch goals! As a matter of fact, if you'll click on over to the campaign, you'll see that we've already posted the stretch goal for $900,000! Backers will now receive an art book, Kovalic's Munchkin Miscellany, a zine-sized book with some rare color illustrations as well as some black-and-white sketches most of you have never seen!  There are only 14 days left to back Munchkin Big Box , the most epic collection of Munchkin cards you can imagine. Hurry over to BackerKit to make your pledge and add more Munchkin mayhem to your game collection!

– Michelle Richardson

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

May 1, 2024: Voice Advice?

(Or should that be "advoice"?) I love using different character voices at the table in my tabletop roleplaying games. This technique helps differentiate characters, provide atmosphere, and separate what I'm doing as the GM (or player) from what the character(s) I control are doing. However, I've run into a problem: Keeping track of the voices I've used. This is especially hard in a larger or longer-running campaign. As a result, after a while a lot of my characters end up as BBC-drama-reject vague intellectuals (insert your own conclusions about my default personality here).

I feel like there should be a better way to keep it straight, but I haven't found a magic bullet in that regard. I've tried to jot down notes to myself ("scatter-brained Humphrey Bogart" or "goth-tinged weather announcer"), and that'll often get me close. If I'm feeling really inspired, I might include a typical quote or bit of dialogue from them, to find the character and get back in the mood. I feel like there might be a technological solution, but – if so – I haven't discovered one that's quick and easy enough for my purposes.

This half-baked idea is provided as-is, in case any of you all have found a method to make the process easier; if so, it might make good conversation fodder on the forums.

– Steven Marsh

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

April 30, 2024: Forget The Hook

I recently posted an idea about how you can use hooks to come up with cool ideas for your tabletop RPGs. Here's another quick-and-easy trick: You can still use those hooks even if you don't use those hooks.

No, this isn't some Yoda-esque Zen koan – although I wouldn't mind a cool cape-wearing action figure of me. Rather, it's an observation that the point of inspiration is the inspiration . . . and once you're inspired, you might no longer need the hook.

In the previous example, I developed the start of an encounter based on the hook: "What if the heroes are in disguise and combat breaks out?" I had a hypothetical GM contemplating how that might mean the heroes were given the idea by their supervisor to go in disguise to infiltrate the hidden base to retrieve vital plans. But what if the players hear the Commander's plan and decide, "That's a terrible idea! We're not gonna do that; you're probably only suggesting it because you want us to get in a combat while in disguise!"

No problem! The hook led you to the idea: "There's a secret base with plans that the heroes need to steal." The inspiration – heroes in disguise – isn't needed anymore! If the players have an idea that's cooler or they like better, let them do it!

In fact, it's almost certainly going to be a better encounter if the players use their own agency and creativity to overcome it. Now they're personally invested in the plan rather than having some NPC spoon-feed it to them.

Once the hook serves its purpose of creating a memorable encounter, feel free to discard it entirely if it no longer works for whatever reason. But keep my action-figure cape; those things are a pain to replace if they're accidentally vacuumed up in 1987.

– Steven Marsh

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

April 29, 2024: Munchkin Big Box: What A Difference A Week Makes!

Munchkin Big Box went live on BackerKit on April 18, and it's been a whirlwind ever since! This crowdfunding campaign reached its initial funding goal of $75,000 in under 5 minutes, and it never looked back. Rather, we never looked back! As of Sunday evening, the campaign was a little bit south of $750,000 and a little bit north of 5,000 supporters. Our fantastic backers have unlocked 15 stretch goals, including an enamel pin, wooden meeples, another set of dividers, and a dice tray.  We've spent the weekend brainstorming some more neat stretch goals, and yes! We listened to your suggestions. This should be an exciting week! Head on over to the Munchkin Big Box campaign to check out the impressive contents of this box as well as a complete list of the stretch goals that have already been unlocked.  Munchkin Big Box  is chock-full of goodies, and there will be many more surprises. (It's so much stuff we're gonna need two boxes!) The campaign runs through May 16. That's not as far away as it sounds! Secure your  Munchkin Big Box  today, and be the envy of your gaming group!

– Michelle Richardson and Susan Bueno

 

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

April 28, 2024: Deck Of Many Games

Here's a handy idea if you're having a hard time deciding on a game and want to rotate through your collection more often. Write the name of each game you're considering on a card (such as index cards . . . or perhaps using a permanent marker on the cards of a game that you've decided you never want to play again but you want to secure some additional utility from it). When it comes time to pick a game, deal a card from your "deck." Put that card aside so you won't draw it again. When you want to play another game, draw a new option from the deck. Eventually all the game-possibility cards will be in the "discard" pile, and it'll be time to shuffle 'em together and start again.

You can tweak this idea to suit your library and play preferences. For example, if you like to play a certain game twice as often as others, you can add two cards with that game into your deck. But the base idea is a way to get you started.

– Steven Marsh

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!

April 27, 2024: Tips And Tricks For Your Best Game Night Ever

It's Saturday. Finally, the weekend is here. Your friends are coming over for gaming tonight, so you want it to be perfect. Here are some of our best tips and tricks for hosting a fantastic session that your friends will remember.  1. Before the evening even begins, it's important to curate the guest list. Consider the games you would like to play and think about whether the night is best suited for a TTRPG, a cooperative game, a war game, or a whole lot of dice rolling. Once the games of your choice are locked in, invite accordingly. Also, be sure to send out the invitation well in advance to ensure your friends are more likely to be free to attend. Have a backup game planned if the number of attendees suddenly changes or if someone needs to leave mid-party.  2. There is always a concern about drinks spilling on cards, sticky fingers on miniatures, and Cheeto dust on the game board. Head to the store and choose snacks that won't make a mess on the table, and know if your friends have any dietary restrictions. As we pointed out a few months ago, it can also be a great idea to use chopsticks to pick up candy, cheeses, meats, and more. One of the best ways to prevent spills is to have a few TV trays around the table for glasses and plates. Starting the evening with a snack can set the tone for the evening. 3. Setting the mood can take your evening to the next level. Playing a fantasy TTRPG? Check out fantasy-themed ambiance videos on Youtube. If you'd prefer music, pair the game with a movie score, such as the epic soundtrack from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. You might also choose to slightly dim the lights for an extra added effect. 4. Finally, it can go a long way to ensuring the perfect evening by anticipating any hiccups. If games tend to turn ultra-competitive and someone becomes upset, think of ways to diffuse the situation before it happens. Be ready to provide hand wipes or sanitizer should someone bring buffalo wings as their snack.  With these tips and tricks, you can be sure to have your best game night ever. Let us know if you have any other suggestions for a great night!

– Michelle Richardson

Warehouse 23 News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action

There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! GURPS Action 9: The City shows how you can add GURPS City Stats to your GURPS Action campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from Warehouse 23!