Steve Jackson's Blog, page 91

May 23, 2023: Top Sellers At DriveThruRPG

In addition to selling our many PDFs at our own online store, Warehouse 23, we also offer our PDFs at DriveThruRPG. With over 700 titles listed at the site, it's sometimes fun to dig into the numbers and identify the current top sellers. Not surprisingly, the two GURPS Basic Set books come in as numbers one and two . . . and the stand-alone Girl Genius , Dungeon Fantasy , and Discworld RPGs are also in the top ten Steve Jackson Games titles at the site.  GURPS Basic Set: Characters GURPS Basic Set: Campaigns Girl Genius Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game Discworld Roleplaying Game Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game - Powered by GURPS Murphy's Rules Dungeon Fantasy Companion 3 GURPS Classic: Supers GURPS Magic GURPS Social Engineering – Phil Reed

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 22, 2023: In Praise Of Dice

This may be the least controversial post I've ever written, but I – a gamer – like dice. A lot. And beyond the dragon-horde delights that come from sifting my fingers through a brimming bag of dice, they're useful. Here are some unusual uses for dice to spark your imagination:

• Impromptu Counters: Often when I'm playing games (RPG, board, or card), it's useful to keep track of things . . . even beyond what the game designers necessarily intended. Flavorful dice make that quick and easy. Need to keep track of 20 hit points in a card game? Four dice from an Eye-in-Pyramid Dice Set serves me well. (I tend to max out at 5 on a six-sider, since four 5s are easier for me to tally than "6-6-6-2".) If I'm playing a weapon with ammunition in my beloved Marvel Champions , I might use the Raygun d6 Dice Set . And so on.

Dice are really useful (for me) because I can either use their pips or their entire bodies. If my game blaster has three charges, I might use one die to count down from 3-2-1. Or I might use three dice, and just ignore the pips entirely; when I use a charge, I remove an entire die. As long as we at the gaming table know what we're looking at and what the dice "mean," it works great.

• Impromptu Minis: When playing RPGs, I'll often need a visual aid so the table's on the same page. Dice are ideal "minis." They don't fall over easily, they're colorful, they're easy to grab and manipulate, and they are handy. Need to keep track of two opposing forces of vaguely military folks? I reach for my Army Men d6 Dice Set . Various similar-but-distinct baddies (like orcs or zombies)? I might grab the Rainbow Skull d6 Dice Set ; each side has its own "face," so I can have six distinct baddies attacking the heroes!

• Small Deck Shuffling: I play a lot of games with decks containing a small number of cards . . . often less than eight. I don't trust my ability to shuffle them – at least, not in a way that doesn't make me feel bad. If I know the Awesome Card of Awesomeness is the top card of the discard pile, I can't shake the feeling that I subconsciously cheated during the reshuffle if it's the first card I draw, or feel like I've hampered myself if it's on the bottom. Nowadays, I lightly shuffle the deck until I'm pretty happy I don't know where they are, then roll a die (like The Fantasy Trip d8/d4 Resin Die ) to pick a card from that shuffled stack to form a new, totally random stack . . . repeating until the lightly shuffled stack is empty. I started doing this about five years ago, and it's made a huge difference to my gaming well-being.

Can you ever have enough dice? On the one hand, "No"; on the other hand, "Definitely not." If these ideas have sparked any excitement, I humbly note we have an assortment of other dice available on Warehouse 23. If you come up with any cool uses of dice that you think are off the beaten path, drop me a line. Our fans are amazingly creative!

– 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 21, 2023: Munchkin Tails Of The Season Now Shipping!

The Tails of the Season expansion for Munchkin Tails has been out-of-print for a little while now (we ran out last Christmas), but we have great news: the reprint is now shipping to distributors and game stores! The 15 game cards in this mini-expansion bring festive fun to your Munchkin Tails sessions, reaching stores in plenty of time to be available for the holiday season later this year.

The only thing people love more than cute animals is cute animals at Christmas, and that's what you'll get in this holiday mini-expansion to  Munchkin Tails.

– Phil Reed

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 20, 2023: Draw A Random Card With Pick A Card Dice

Need a card? Roll a card!

This "deck" will never get old and ragged or ruined by a spilled drink!

Roll these dice together to get any card from a standard deck. The 4-sider gives you the suit. The 26-sider gives you the rank.

Play poker with virtual cards! (An identical pair beats a regular pair.) Or just match cards to see who pays for dinner . . .

Available now at your favorite local game store! If your local store doesn't carry the Pick a Card Dice pack, you can find yours today at the Steve Jackson Games online store, Warehouse 23.

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 19, 2023: We've Got New Titles!

I was speaking (via email, living as I do on the cutting edge of 1996) to someone regarding our products, and I noted in passing that they could – of course – check out recently released items via our New Products page. My recipient didn't know what I was talking about, so it occurred to me that this may not be universal knowledge.

For those who want to know what we've recently released, we keep that info all in one spot on the New Products page. You can also poke around for other info, such as announcements about what's forthcoming and what's come out in the less-recent past. Do you want to make sure you haven't missed anything cool that's been released in 2023 so far? That's just a click away, 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 18, 2023: Crowdfunding Focus: Goodmire (Delightfully Swampy STL Minis)

The boom in 3D printable miniatures for tabletop gaming continues! We've all seen endless riffs on classic fantasy orcs, goblins, knights, wizards, and even cute (but menacing!) cat people. But the Goodmire project on Kickstarter is, in my memory, unique: a Southern US swamp village, the sort you might find somewhere in the bayou where the walls with the worlds of fantasy have grown thin, where the inhabitants are all anthropomorphic swamp creatures.

Check out Dorothy Featherspoon, the roseate spoonbill matron. Or Grandma Prawn, with her basket of slugs. And there's the Wet Log Hopping Band, whose lead singer, Jeremiah, is naturally a bullfrog. The creatures are biologically accurate. And they're not the ones you see everyday in KS projects – the mayor, for instance, is a catfish. A catfish in a suit. In addition, the project comes with a set of components for building the classic southern "shotgun" house – interchangeable walls, floors, porches, etc. I'm imagining them as the homes of degenerate cultists in a  Call of Cthulhu  game, but they have endless possibilities, including in modern towns (there are some, modernized and updated but still recognizable, in the town where I live). This project would be worth the money for those buildings alone. The project is funding through May 31, so y'all hurry up and back it now!



– 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!

May 17, 2023: Experimenting With AI

I recently read Dave McKean's Prompt: Conversations With AI and found myself inspired. AI tools are powerful, inaccurate, and ethically questionable, but we cannot deny that they're here to stay unless something dramatic happens. I had toyed with AI software a little, but it was McKean's work that led me to take a much closer look at the tools and how they could possibly be used in gaming.

After several tests, I think that AI text generators can trigger some ideas, and maybe provide the gamemaster with some snippets of text to use in a session, but the AI systems are a long way from replacing talented game designers. 

I ran several experiments, and Steve thought it might be fun to share the results with you. Here are two prompts and the responses from the AI.

Prompt - A fairly simple idea. Let's see how the AI handles crafting a rumor for an RPG.

Please give me a 132 word tabletop fantasy roleplaying game rumor regarding an ogre, an apple pie, and a lost dog.

Response

Rumor has it that deep in the forest, there is an ogre who has developed a taste for apple pie. It is said that he will stop at nothing to get his hands on a freshly baked pie, and he has been known to terrorize nearby villages in his quest for the perfect dessert. Some even claim that he has kidnapped a local baker and forced them to make pie after pie until he finds one that satisfies his cravings.

However, there is more to this story than just an ogre and a pie. It is said that the ogre has also taken in a lost dog as his companion, and that he treats the pup with surprising tenderness. Some say that the dog is the key to defeating the ogre, as he will do anything to protect his furry friend.

Will your adventurers be able to outsmart the ogre and rescue the baker's lost dog? Only time will tell . . .

Prompt - This time around, a two-step process. I found an AI image (located here) and then wrote a prompt inspired by that image.

Write a 100 word fantasy roleplaying game encounter where the party is lost in a giant hedge maze and has to find their way out before sunrise. Why? When dawn comes, anyone trapped within the maze is eaten by the plants.

Response

As the moon rises high above the hedge maze, the party finds themselves hopelessly lost. Time is running out, as the legend goes that when the sun rises, the plants within the maze will come to life and consume any who are trapped inside. The twisting paths and towering walls seem to change with each turn, making it impossible to navigate. With the clock ticking down, the party must rely on their wits and teamwork to find the exit before it's too late. Will they be able to escape the deadly maze and see the light of day once more, or will they become another meal for the ravenous plants?

The tools aren't perfect, but they're definitely worth your time if you need a quick idea or two before the next session starts.

– Phil Reed

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 16, 2023: Crowdfunding Focus: Hunter's Camp STLs!

Our STL team members are all big fans of Matt from The Forge of Many Things – check out this mimic fireplace from his first project, with a cat-shaped tentacle as a "lure" like an anglerfish uses, and you'll see why! And we're thrilled to have him sculpting for Steve Jackson Games; you'll see some of his work in an upcoming project . . .

His new Kickstarter is a hunter's camp, including tents, cages, a wagon (with  moving parts  – watch the video!), and a wide assortment of accessories.



This set lends itself to all sorts of scenario ideas. What are they keeping in those cages? Or whom? Where are they going? What is the party doing there – were they hired to guard the caravan, are they rescuing the occupant of a cage, or have they stumbled upon the scene by chance? The accessories are useful elsewhere as well. There are multiple styles of campfires, for example, and a little rack of drying fish that belongs on the dock in front of any fisherman's cottage. And one of the stretch goals is a set of roleplaying scenarios using the miniatures – potentially very useful for  GURPS  or  The Fantasy Trip  encounters on the road! 

The Hunter's Camp campaign runs through June 9. You can also find The Forge of Many Things on TikTok, where you can see in-progress shots, painting videos, and the occasional very cute cat.

– 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!

May 15, 2023: Groo: The Game Tooling Samples

As part of our preparations for the upcoming Kickstarter campaign for Groo: The Game , we've already worked with the factory to create tooling samples of the components. Rather than start the process after the close of a Kickstarter project for the game, we thought it best to spend the time and money pre-Kickstarter and prepare samples. This guarantees that everything looks great, and it minimizes the time between close of the project and delivery of the game to as few months as possible.



Shown here are early test shots of the game box and cards and the game's dice. The dice deserve special mention, because they're as chonky and wonderful as we could have hoped for: 25mm! These are the big boys, and they feel great when you scoop them up and roll them. You might even want to use both hands!

Please follow the Steve Jackson Games account on Kickstarter to receive email notification when Groo: The Game is ready for your support. We're still on track to launch the project in the next month!

– Phil Reed

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 14, 2023: Kickstarter Reports, May 2023 Update

We're as hard at work shipping funded Kickstarter campaigns as we are preparing new projects for launch. Recent changes have shuffled our schedule around a bit, slipping a few new items into the calendar as planned projects have been pushed back a tad. We have a very, very big Munchkin Kickstarter campaign in the planning – and creative! – stage that we're hoping to crowdfund this summer, and that's a massive enough undertaking that a handful of smaller works are now pushed into the second half of 2023.

Overall, our Kickstarter efforts continue to perform as desired: funding a small number of our new releases while raising awareness of some titles that are already in our warehouse. Read on to see the active projects . . . and please follow us on Kickstarter – Steve Jackson Games and Warehouse 23 – to see what comes next.

Steve Jackson Games' GURPS Print-On-Demand ExtravaganzaMay 10 to May 15 (currently live; closes Monday)241 backers and counting!The team is hard at work getting the next five titles ready for POD. Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game Monster Seeds April 24 to April 27476 backers and on scheduleAt print and expected to ship to backers late this month or in June. All is proceeding nicely. Choose Cthulhu  – Solitaire Gamebooks by Steve Jackson GamesMarch 27 to April 6960 backers and on scheduleThe survey stage is wrapping up and we'll start distributing Kickstarter rewards this month.Steve Jackson Games' Hack & Slash Game, Plus New Promo CardsMarch 8 to March 16586 backers and on scheduleEverything is now in the Austin warehouse and we're expecting to complete shipping all rewards before the end of this month. Wiz-War, Tom Jolly's Classic Boardgame Returns!January 23 to February 21,769 backers and on scheduleWe're officially looking at shipping the rewards in June. Wiz-War was received in our primary fulfillment warehouse in Georgia last week!Munchkin Witches, 30 Cards for Steve Jackson's MunchkinOctober 31 to November 10984 backers and officially running lateContainer delays have pushed fulfillment officially into June. The good news, though, is that the container has finally arrived and this project should be only a month late . . . which is essentially on schedule for the average Kickstarter project.For more news on upcoming projects, please join our mailing lists by visiting this page and signing on today!

What's next? Most likely, the Tribes Pocket Box, and then finally, Groo ! We do not yet have exact launch dates for our next Kickstarter campaigns, so please follow both Steve Jackson Games and Warehouse 23 on Kickstarter so that you don't miss anything.

– Phil Reed

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!