Roundup of News

Just a short update, rounding up some news of interest…

Yesterday, Paizo Publishing released v.2.0 of their Pathfinder RPG‘s Alpha playtest version. Get it here. It is good. I talked about the Pathfinder RPG back when the first Alpha came out, and it still looks very promising. It’ll also presumably be the most playtested roleplaying game around when it’s released in 2009.

Meanwhile, Wizards of the Coast has announced that they’re still considering whether to take part in GenCon Indy, while the event registration is already open. The following is copied off the front page of EN World. Since I can’t link directly to the news item, I will reproduce it here.

Here is a brief FAQ concerning your questions:

Q: Why are there no D&D or Wizards events on the schedule posted for Gen Con at http://www.gencon.com?

A: Wizards had not submitted a schedule of events by the Gen Con deadline. Since we hadn’t submitted our own schedule, none of our events are in the official Gen Con schedule at this time.

Q: Will Wizards attend Gen Con in 2008?

A: As you may be aware, Gen Con is currently in chapter 11 bankruptcy. Wizards’ plans relative to Gen Con are dependent on the course of proceedings in US bankruptcy court. While we hope to participate in Gen Con, we must await further proceedings in the bankruptcy matter before we are able to confirm our plans.

Meanwhile, they’re also messing about with the Game System Licence, which may or may not be available at some point in the undetermined future. The current deadline they’ve set themselves is June 6th, the same time the 4th Edition rules are supposed to come out. There’s also been some confusion about the contents of said licence, which may or may not include a clause that prevents a company using the GSL from releasing anything under the Open Gaming Licence. There should be a clarification on this one by the end of the week.

Yesterday saw in fact two interesting game releases. The other one was the second printing of Stalker, Burger Games’ roleplaying project that suffered more delays and unforeseen setbacks than Bridge Over Svartjet. It’s based on the science fiction novel Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky and Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky’s movie based on the novel. I’ve got my copy, and it looks good. I may be reviewing it here in the coming week, depending on how time allows.

The shop I bought my copy from is the new Puolenkuun pelit in Tapiola, Espoo, incidentally. They stock RPGs. Not much, but some. Also, miniatures. And board games. And it’s right along my commute. They opened up on Saturday. I also picked up a copy of Arkham Horror and Games Workshop’s new 25th Anniversary miniature, Harry the Hammer.

Keeping Busy

Keeping busy. Work, deadlines, studying, more deadlines, gaming, trolling on the RPGA forums…

I felt I should do a short roundup of news, just to show this blog yet lives.

Last week, the second edition of Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures was officially released, in the form of the Dungeons of Dread set. The rules, in my opinion, dilute the tactical depth of the first edition in removing morale and fog of war, and instead make it a D&D Lite. Additionally, the new miniatures include some of the ugliest, most hideous things I have ever viewed. See for yourself. The ultramarine blue Grick is my favourite. They’re not all Assface, though, and a couple of them are actually pretty nifty, like the Eye of Flame. Here, our local game store came to the rescue and started selling single miniatures. I got a vrock.

In other news, the interactive Swedish tv-show Sanningen om Marika won an International Emmy for Best Interactive TV Drama. The Finnish larp organiser, game writer and who knows what else, Mike Pohjola was one of the minds behind it, and apparently got to geek out at the red carpet in Cannes. He’s going to be completely insufferable now. The former Ropecon guest of honour and Swedish larp writer Martin Eric was apparently the art director. He is also responsible for the most trippy piece of Ropecon programming I’ve witnessed. In any case, congratulations!

To me the most interesting piece of news is that after gods know how many years of blood, sweat, toil, tears, and delay after delay, the Finnish game designer Ville Vuorela finally got his science fiction roleplaying game Stalker out of the door. All 17 copies of it. Printing trouble. Then it had to be fixed some more, and edited, and as of now we still don’t know when the final printing will hit the shelves, but it is good to know that it’s finally done and we’ll get our mitts on it soon. In the meanwhile, the writer himself is recovering from antibiotics poisoning. Get well soon, man.

Finally, Fantasy Flight Games got their Dark Heresy website up and running. The corebook, sold out in a record time back in January, is marked “Coming soon…” YEAH!