Steve Jackson's Blog, page 77

October 10, 2023: Archives Are Amazing

I have some photo albums in my closet. They're under several boxed games (of course), and they'd frankly be a pain to get at.

However, I have another archive: my computer. Due to the vagaries of copying over and folders with names like ###Backup-Backup Don't Delete March 3, 2014 and the like, I have a personal computer archive that goes back surprisingly far. I just did a search on my computer, and the oldest dated JPG files I have immediate access to are circa 1998. (I quite possibly have older ones on external drives, archival storage, and the like.)

I find it neat how much personal information I have available at my fingertips. Now if only Past Me had been more diligent at appropriately naming and filing files; I have far too many folders with names like "iPhone Photos" and images named IMG_2861.JPG or the like . . . But at least I don't need to get up from my desk to poke around them, unlike the closet with the buried photo albums.

– 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!

October 9, 2023: Checking Out A New FLGS In Austin

We're very fortunate in Austin to have a number of awesome game stores, so I know it comes off as spoiled to say the following: I wish there was one that was within WALKING distance of me! Well, now there is . . . with Bat City Games & Comics, a new friendly local game store in my own neighborhood. I was able to visit during the grand opening and inadvertently was the first purchase of the store (shoutout to Smirk & Dagger Games! I had to pick up BOOoop) . The store is spacious, well organized, and filled with lots of natural light. And did I mention it's close to me? Like I said, very spoiled, but very fortunate. And of course, they carry Steve Jackson Games products, including lots of Munchkin and Zombie Dice !

If you're in the Austin area, it's worth a trip. And regardless of where you are, make sure you support your friendly local game store! 

– Hunter Shelburne

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!

October 8, 2023: Today's Recommendation: Walking

This is a post where I recommend walking. This is no doubt old advice, perhaps existing since the moment walking was invented (circa 1987), but I don't recall ever plugging it myself.

I've been walking more-or-less daily for nearly the past 20 years. It's nothing too intense: about 20-30 minutes a day most days, with longer walks occasionally. I do basically nothing else to keep in shape, but – despite living an otherwise desk-jockey existence the rest of the time – I feel pretty good, with enough energy and general well-being (and annual doctor's visits confirms my health). These walks give me plenty of time to think about my day, what I want to write about or work on, catch up with friends who walk with me, etc.

I know not everyone can get out and walk, owing to the limitations of geography, weather, and bodies. (Some days my knees have made their displeasure quite known.) But if walking is something that you can slip into your daily flow, it could be exactly what you need to free your mind to envision your next brilliant GURPS campaign.

– 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!

October 7, 2023: Book Tape!

Here's a quick DIY recommendation: book tape.

Libraries and other bibliophiles rely on this sort of tape to make repairs and keep spines happy. (Book spines, that is . . . I'm still working on my own long-suffering bony counterpart.) Of course, book tape works great on books, but I've been most interested in it for its "off label" applications.

As a crafter, one use I've found for book tape has been as a sturdy "hinge" on paper goods. If I'm making (say) a box or binder with a fold that I want to ensure can withstand a lot of wear, some book tape at the fold on both faces of the material works wonders. In fact, I've even joined separate unconnected items to form a more-than-usable larger construction. For example, if I take three magazine boards (printed or plain) and affix them together with book tape, then I suddenly have a quite-usable GM or player screen for my favorite game.

Of course, book tape is incredibly helpful for a long-lasting, acid-free repair mechanism for a game box you accidentally stepped on because you failed to pick it up off the living-room floor. Hypothetically.

Book tape is not without its disadvantages. Most notably, it's opaque (at least the cloth stuff I favor), and is obviously a strip of tape. I like that aesthetic, but I can imagine how others might want something that looks a bit cleaner or less obvious  Still, it's a recommendation I wish I'd had about a decade before I discovered it.

Here's a link to the roll I purchased most recently. I like this particular brand, but my search has not been exhaustive. I encourage you to experiment and find what works for you. If you do find a method or product that you like, please feel free to share your recommendations 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!

October 6, 2023: Your Best Gaming Haul?

I still remember my best gaming haul. I was an early teenager, visiting my dad as part of the child-of-divorce visitation package. My dad liked to go to garage sales; they were rare in my childhood south Florida, so they were pretty novel to me.

At one garage sale, I found a collection of modules for Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons , with the price written on each of them with a ballpoint pen: 5¢

I can't remember the exact numbers, but I easily got dozens of adventures that day, for just over a dollar. I mean, sure, that was in 1980s dollars, so it was . . . like . . . two or three bucks today. It was still a really good deal. (Admittedly – collector as I was – I was a bit miffed by the fact they wrote with a pen on the adventure; apparently I complained enough for my dad to tell me to knock it off.) My summer was spent poring over that collection. And (as you can tell by the picture) I still have them.

Gamers are always thinking about their most-special loot, so if there's a haul you fondly remember, we welcome you to share your experiences 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!

October 5, 2023: Evil Genius Games Sues Netflix

The world of roleplaying games is no stranger to legal issues; pretty much any company in the space has dealt with its fair share (including us!). However, this may be one of the highest-profile lawsuits in recent memory, with Evil Genius Games laying down the law to Netflix, so to speak. Evil Genius Games has created a library of licensed tabletop roleplaying games covering properties like King Kong, Rambo, and Highlander. This lawsuit is centered around an RPG based on the upcoming Netflix movie, Rebel Moon.

I'm going to just say the word "allegedly" here at the top to make it clear this is all simply what has been reported and what Evil Genius Games has shared. The contention seems to stem from Netflix asserting that Evil Genius shared some of the movie without permission while promoting the roleplaying game based on the movie, so Netflix canceled the contract. Evil Genius claims they were given permission to share that information, and that this is a way to try to legally take control of the game and "World Bible" created for it. Allegedly. 

There's surely more to be revealed, especially with the game's "World Bible" allegedly being integrated into the movie itself. Tired of hearing the word allegedly yet? This will be an interesting story to follow which could have ramifications for all of us working in the gaming space. Allegedly. 

– Hunter Shelburne

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!

October 4, 2023: Unconventional Storage

This advice might be a decade or two out of date, but you all are clever souls, so this suggestion may still be of use to someone out there.

The simultaneously goofiest and most practical storage solution we have in our house is this unassuming wooden unit. It's 29 inches tall, 24 inches wide, and 12 inches deep. It's lived on an open spot of our walls for over a decade. And inside? Paperback books.

We discovered someone getting rid of this unit many moons ago. Astute individuals may realize what it began life as: a VHS cassette holder. Of course, nearly all our VHS cassettes are gone nowadays, and they were gone when we got the unit. But it was a decent size, and – hey, free! – so we brought it home. That's when I discovered it's the perfect size for mass-market paperbacks.

This size of books has been the bane of my storage existence for 20+ years, because they take up a lot of wall space if you put them on a shelf spine-out. But if you stick them in boxes, you can't see what you own, access them easily, or indulge in a manic gamebook revelry on a quiet weekend. This unit was a "best of both worlds" solution, taking up no more space than a traditional bookshelf, while allowing for easy access to double the storage.

As noted, this advice is probably a decade-plus too old to be widely useful, but if you happen to stumble across a unit like this in a second-hand store or on the side of the road, you might now realize its value. If you go shopping for one, you might want to bring a paperback or two to see if they'll fit the specific unit's configuration. Plus, if you're still holding onto some VHS tapes, you can make them at home on the same shelves!

– 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!

October 3, 2023: On Demand Prices NOT Going Up!

"Does the lack of a price increase warrant an exclamation point?" you might ask. It seems like we're constantly not raising prices; what makes this noteworthy? You're absolutely right, rhetorical question-asker. I need to unpack that a bit.

In recent years, we've spent a lot of effort to offer as much "classic" material in print as possible, especially through our popular On Demand program that keeps the GURPS library a click away. As arguably the primary chin-stroker at the company in this realm (complete with regulation goatee and everything), it came to my attention that the costs to print these items have gone up due to universal increases made in June by various POD printers.

We ran the numbers and decided we would not increase our prices for now. Obviously, the odds pull inexorably toward future price increases, and new cost increases will make the calculations more challenging. We hope that keeping these books affordable now leaves more room in your budgets to add them to your shelves.

Still, if you've been considering color reprints; classics like Man to Man or GURPS Basic Set for Third Edition; or new-to-print releases such as GURPS Gun Fu , GURPS Adaptations , or the first three volumes of the GURPS Monster Hunters series, you might want pick them up sooner rather than later. Even our vaunted ties to the Illuminati are no match for the cosmic forces of inflation.

– 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!

October 2, 2023: Now Available In Print: Game Design Vol. 1: Theory And Practice

The print-on-demand revolution is amazing and allows for long unavailable material to join the physical realm again. Case in point: Game Design Vol. 1: Theory and Practice .

Written by Steve Jackson and Nick Schuessler, this is a snapshot of gaming advice that began life in the pages of Space Gamer magazine in the early 1980s. That material was compiled, edited, and updated, resulting in a well-received book that soon fell out of print. This tome provides an overview of theoretical and practical considerations, including insight about combat, components, playtesting, and designing with the market in mind.

The early days of our digital publishing efforts let us bring it back as a PDF. But we know how folks like having physical books in their hands, and it's hard to dog-ear a download. So, we're happy to bring it back in print, as both a source of insight and a retro artifact.

Be aware this is a scanned version of the original volume, reprinted as a facsimile . . . complete with the original bibliography (most of which is probably hard to find nowadays) and the original vintage ads (presented for historical interest only!). Some advice is dated and some is timeless, but regardless of whether you're a curious hobbyist or a would-be entrepreneur, you're quite likely to find food for thought here as an aspiring game designer. And it's just a click away!

– 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!

October 1, 2023: Halloween Is Coming!

For fans of Halloween, noting that this holiday's arrival is (from a temporal standpoint) just around the corner is probably the most obvious statement in the cosmos. But if you're like me, it's too easy to get distracted, only to look at the calendar and realize, "Oh, right . . . that's coming up soon."

It's good to have a firm understanding of how much time you have to plan if you want to do anything unusual or special for an upcoming event. During the height of the pandemic, I spiced up the occasion for our household by having "The 13 Games of Halloween," where we scheduled 13 spooky-themed games throughout October, games on our shelves that had either been unplayed or underplayed, including Chez Cthulhu , Give Me the Brain , The Stars Are Right , Mystery House , the original Ghostbusters RPG from West End Games, and more. I even made T-shirts for us! (Hey, we were all stir-crazy during the pandemic . . .)

So, if you're considering any elaborate plans yourself during this forthcoming season of frights, it's not too early to think about the details. As for myself, it's been a few years, and my personal shelves have gotten restocked with games I haven't had a chance to experience fully yet, such as Gelatinous , Nanogames: Dragons and Jack-o'-Lanterns , Quick Quest 8: The Maddening Song for The Fantasy Trip , maybe some Munchkin with Munchkin Witches and Munchkin Deathly Pail . . . hmmm . . .

– 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!