Steve Jackson's Blog, page 9

August 2, 2025: We Are At Gen Con!

Hello, Indianapolis!

If you're at Gen Con, come see us at booth #2401 in the dealer hall – we have  Munchkin Big Box  in stock, as well as a limited early supply of  Purrfect Potions ! The first two days of the show have been excellent, and we are looking forward to a great weekend. 

I've been running one-shot RPGs from  Dahlia's , and it's been a blast. Jimmie told me about a scenario for Three Raccoons in a Trench Coat that he ran at FlameCon, where the impostor accidentally winds up competing on a cooking show, and I thought it was hilarious enough to steal it and run. And today I played through a particularly demented Gritty Reboot based on a children's show featuring animated vegetables . . .

If you can't make it to Indy, you can fight your FOMO with our Virtual Gen Con sale on Warehouse 23, where you can shop the booth selection and get some great discounts on bundles.

– Irene Zielinski

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!

August 1, 2025: Toon Jam!

Which is NOT something that you spread on bread to make it funny. Although if there were such a thing, I would totally buy it.

Until September 1, there's an open call, hosted by Pony Press, for short dungeon-related Toon adventures on itch.io. Like, right here.

So think of some unlikely things to put in a hole in the ground, maybe create a silly table, and share your monstrous best!

– 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!

July 31, 2025: Not In Indy? Shop Our Virtual Gen Con Booth!

It's the best week of the year – Gen Con! Tens of thousands of die-hard gamers are descending upon Indianapolis, Indiana, for four thrilling days of around-the-clock gaming.

If you're not able to make the trip to Indy and browse the exhibit hall in person, we have just the thing to combat your FOMO. Today through August 6, we're hosting a virtual Gen Con sale on warehouse23.com! (This was such a hit last year that we've brought it back for an encore!)

We have several new offerings among our latest releases, plus we've got some favorites on sale at 10% off. 

We've also curated five incredible bundles at a deeper discount, including one for cat lovers, one for Warhammer: Age of Sigmar fans, and one for those who love rolling all the dice!

Visit warehouse23.com today to find your new favorite game.

– 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!

July 30, 2025: The Comic Book History Of Roleplaying Games

I recently stepped into my friendly local comic shop, for the first time in too long, and something caught my eye . . . Gamemasters: The Comic Book History of Roleplaying Games . Naturally I picked it up, and after a few minutes of flipping, I decided it had to come home with me.

The art is bold and whimsical, and the storytelling is extremely tight. It was especially cool to see just how much page count a certain Steve gets. Of course, much of the coverage deals with the Secret Service Incident and its *ahem* fallout, but the book also discusses the impact of GURPS and more. They even got most of the specifics right. And, perhaps best of all, it depicts Steve and his minions as just the cutest little anthropomorphic pyramid-heads! I've mentally been calling them fnordlings.



Anyway, if you're a comic fan and enjoy learning about the history of gaming, drop by your local comic shop and see if you can find a copy of Gamemasters! Now I just have to decide whether I shelve this with "books about gaming" or "comics and graphic novels" in my collection . . .

– Irene Zielinski

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!

July 29, 2025: Tom Lehrer

 Tom Lehrer died Saturday, at the age of 97.

If you don't know who Tom Lehrer was, look him up immediately. I'll wait.  waits  Yeah. That guy. You've probably heard some of his work without knowing it was his, or who he was.

His irreverent, satirical songs were part of the soundtrack of my youth. Even though he stopped performing – he was never comfortable with it – before I graduated from high school, his work remained everywhere. I've got the lyrics to "Wernher von Braun" stuck in my head as I write this. His music was cheerful and catchy, but the lyrics were . . . well, "dark" would be one word, I suppose. "Downright sick" might cover some of them better. He shone a bright, and very snarky, light on political and social issues, upset some people who badly needed upsetting, and appealed to many more, especially in the counterculture of the time. He said in an interview that he doubted that his words changed anyone's mind . . . but they did. Not directly, perhaps, but through the people whose feelings and beliefs were reinforced by his snark. Some of us who thought "Hey, this Lehrer guy gets it" grew up to become the people who did affect others, and changed the world.

But being a world-famous satirical songwriter was really just his hobby. His day job was college mathematics instructor. While he never finished his PhD, he taught math in Harvard, MIT, and UCal. When he left music, he went happily back to academia. He popped up every now and again, but what he really wanted to do was teach math, and retire to rest on his laurels. Which is what he did.

A lot of people, not just me, thought he died decades ago. That's how he wanted it. He said, once, that he hoped people believing he was dead would cut down on the junk mail.

There isn't enough space in a Daily Illuminator to say even a fraction of what I want to say about Tom Lehrer. He was one of the people who mattered.

– Jean McGuire

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!

July 28, 2025: A Dungeon For All Seasons

TFT fans, rejoice! Howard A. Kistler – well known to you as the creator of Shamat , our go-to map software, and the author of many Hexagram articles – has released a collection of short adventures: A Dungeon For All Seasons . It's available either as a PDF download or a POD book. While this is an unofficial release, I am very happy with it . . . 16 adventures, with a lot of fine illustrations by Michael Da Sacco.

Please visit Howard's site and consider adding this to your collection!

– 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!

July 27, 2025: The GURPS Summer Sale Ends Tomorrow

Our epic GURPS summer sale comes to a close tomorrow!

For the last few weeks, we've featured Deals of the Day on a different GURPS series every weekday. Now you have one final chance to save 15% off on the top two favorites from both the daily deals plus the entire essentials collection.

Visit Warehouse 23 before time runs out on these outstanding discounted PDFs . . .  and begin your best campaign yet!

– 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!

July 26, 2025: Fun With Resin

I'm back with another YouTube video recommendation. One of my favorite nerdy celebrities is Adam Savage, and if you haven't been paying attention to his work since the end of the Mythbusters series, he has a great channel called "Tested." His content varies widely, but it's all interesting. Occasionally he collaborates with other makers to show off cool things they've done. He recently had Evan and Katelyn bring some neat things they've made out of resin to his workshop. They showed him some of their fun resin experiments, including some light-up dice and dice they made with powdered tungsten. You should check out both their channels, and here's the link to that specific video to give you a good jumping-off point.

– Will Schoonover

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!

July 25, 2025: Searching Without AI Drek

I have been using &udm=14 for a little while. It's a Google-created variant of their search engine . . . but with no AI additions, and therefore none of the various annoying things that AI-"enhanced" search does. I wish there was a similar solution for Gmail (if you know of one, please share!!)

– 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!

July 24, 2025: Last Chance To Ride The Last Train To Bremen

Crowdfunding for Last Train to Bremen  by Possum Creek comes to a close today at 2:00 pm CDT!

Last Train to Bremen is a thrilling one-shot RPG in which players take on the roles of four ill-fated musicians who make a dangerous deal with the Devil and must now pay the ultimate price. Hopefully one will escape the contract, save their soul, and make it out alive. Will it be you?

The project includes four exciting pledge levels, beginning wtih a digital copy and going all the way up to a deluxe collector's edition with exclusive content.

We've partnered with our friends at My First Dungeon, presented by Many Sided Media, on a special podcast series. Caro Asercion, designer of Last Train to Bremen , talked about the project and shared some behind-the-scenes info during a recent interview. The My First Dungeon team has also recorded a two-part actual play, and act 1 is now available! You can hear both the interview and the actual play's first chapter on YouTube and all your favorite podcast channels. Act 2 releases on July 31, and a cast talk-back goes live on August 14. Stay tuned to the social media channels of SJ Games and Many Sided Media to be notified when the episodes are posted.

Ride the rails over to BackerKit to make your pledge for Last Train to Bremen  – only a few hours remain!

– 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!