New Video Series About Race In Gaming Needs Our Help

MYNG's Samantha Blackmon and Alisha Karabinus have announced "Invisibility Blues" which will be an online video series that aims to cast a critical eye on how video games deal with the issues of race and minority representation in video games. They plan to produce a five part series presented in a web documentary format and feature their own analysis as well as input from other gamers. The are looking to crowdfund the series via Kickstarter because "We love what we do, and we want to bring the discussion to a wider audience. We hope you’ll stand with us, by sharing, supporting, and talking about the project as we work."

Check out their progress at the hub page here and think about kicking in a few bucks to help out. They have 16 days left and are 3/4 of the way there.

GenCon & Gaming's Race Problem

Image courtesy GenCon LLC

GenCon 2014 officially starts today. It's a four day convention that draws over 40,000 attendees to a celebration of gaming, from tabletop games, miniatures, war gaming, board games, collectible card gaming and the like. This year will be its 47th year of operation, making GenCon the longest running convention of its kind (Friend of the blog, Drew of Drew's Robots will be there showing off his walker robot throughout the convention, btw).

However, for all of its long and storied history, there is little doubt that its demographic makeup hasn't changed as drastically as it could have. As A.A. George writes, in "Gaming’s Race Problem: GenCon and Beyond" for Tor.com:

As a lifelong gamer, I am excited to go to GenCon. 

As an ethnic minority, I am apprehensive about going to GenCon. 

For all that GenCon offers, it lacks in minority gamers. Last year was my first GenCon, and as I explored the convention, I saw almost no one who looked like me. By far, the most visible minorities at GenCon were the hired convention hall facilities staff who were setting up, serving, and cleaning up garbage for the predominantly white convention-goers... 

... GenCon is emblematic of this problem. Of the twenty-seven Guests of Honor (in various categories), only two are people of color. The judges of the prestigious ENnie Awards for role-playing, hosted at GenCon, have been almost exclusively white since its inception. The same is true for the nominees and winners of the Diana Jones Awards. There may be more efforts to include people of color in gaming artwork, but where are the real life people of color on the grand stage of gaming? 

Furthermore, GenCon is disturbingly tolerant of deeply offensive material. Shoshana Kessock wrote about her experiences with Nazi cosplay and paraphernalia at Gencon shortly after returning from GenCon 2013, and I had similar encounters... GenCon has weakly worded policies to prevent these horrific violations, but it has failed to enforce its own rules.

There are lots of well-meaning gamers that say that race isn't a factor in what they choose to play or who they choose to play with. I've even heard a number of gamers insights that they don't even see color, just a gamer. A.A. George responds:

I’ve been told time and again by gamers, “I don’t see race” as if they were doing me a kindness. This is not enlightenment or progressiveness. It is ignorance. If you do not see race, you do not see me. You do not see my identity, my ethnicity, my history, my people. What you are telling me, when you say “I do not see race,” is that you see everything as the normal default of society: white. In the absence of race and ethnicity, it is only the majority that remains. I am erased.

He does have suggestions, however, on what allies, advocates and those that want to make gaming an open, inclusive and more accepting and diverse:

• Listen. The Gaming as Other series is a great place to start. There are a handful of panels at Cons on the topic and I’ll be sitting on two of them at GenCon: “Why is Inclusivity Such a Scary Word?” and “Gaming As Other.” 
• Keep engaging, listening and supporting. We notice your support and it gives us the strength to keep going. 
• Hire more people of color and give them agency, visibility, power, responsibility, and credit in a wide variety of meaningful and important areas in your organization. Do not simply hire a token minority. Do not use people of color as a form of marketing. 
• Reach out to minority groups and invite them personally to conventions. Your neighbors, your co-workers, the people at your church, all of them. 
• Offer and play games that are actively and intentionally more inclusive.

These are all excellent starting points. I'd also encourage you to read the entire post of George's, because he addresses how fantasy gaming both helped and hindered acceptance his own identity.

Mattie Brice on Identity, Representation and Game Design

Image via mattiebrice.com

Mattie Brice (who first came ot my attention when writing about the excellent "Depression Quest" by Zoe Quinn) has a great personal essay up about what she's been studying and considering about game design and identity entitled "Passing Through: Another Take On Identity In Activism & Design". An excerpt:

This past year, I've sat down with a lot of creators about representation in games. One of the first questions out of their mouth is “How do you depict minorities well in games?” Maybe it’s because this is usually over dinner, knife and fork in hand, that I want to reply with “Human?” Thinking of my grandmother who doesn't have a clearly identifiable race by American standards trying to explain herself to an official. ‘Human’ is loaded though; dominant identities are conflated with universal traits of humanity while minoritized people must be loud about their diverging qualities. Usually, I would fall back on trying to tap what is really human, and in turn, interrogate and separate what we assume is default about humanity and is really dominant culture... 

I've started to think of my grandmother’s story a little differently lately. I feel like there’s a more active, personal dynamic with identity than what we currently conceive. Contemporary activism has a strong slant towards self-identification, particularly within established minoritized groups. This makes sense; a person is who they say they are, and that needs to be respected. What does that say about my grandmother, who didn't have an answer for her race until she lived in America? Would she be outside today’s activism if she didn't explicitly label herself?

It's a thoughtful and engaging read, and I wholeheartedly encourage you to read the entire essay.

D & D & D (Dungeons & Dragons & Diversity)

The newest version of Dungeons and Dragons is finally released this week. Last week, Wizards of the Coast released the Version 5 Basic Rules as a free PDF download.

Among the mechanics changes and rewrites and other things that come with a new release of a tabletop system come another welcome change in both the free and full price version: an explicit welcome of diversity! In the character creation section, the rule-set encourages players:

"Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture's expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behavior... You don’t need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon’s image. You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, a man who feels trapped in afemale body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character's sexual orientation is for you to decide."

Dungeons and Dragons has attracted players from all walks of life for ages, and in a nerd culture that can often feel ignorant of, or even downright hostile to, players from marginalized groups, seeing an unapolgetic and matter-of-fact welcome to this player base in the game instructions itself is awesome. Kudos to WotC!

Castlevania Symphony of the Night As Trans Narrative: Your Asshole Dad's Castle Is Back

 

Writer Eva Problems contributes a moving, funny, profound and profane take on the events of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in her latest short story for the Medium, "YOUR ASSHOLE DAD'S CASTLE IS BACK AGAIN".  Your name is Elvira and you'll be damned if your asshole dad will try and threaten the world again OR saddle you with his own name, only backwards.

From the story:

"you thought there was a system. there were supposed to be contingencies in place, there were people with unhealthy fixations and large weapons available for this specific scenario, to ensure that you would never have to even think about him again. but, well, here you are. looking at the gate to your asshole dad’s castle... 

so those contingencies pretty fucking obviously failed you, and no one’s about to tell you why. so you have to go in, and you do. and what a surprise! it’s your asshole dad’s asshole friend, taking all your best shit. it wouldn't be the first time someone in this castle took away the things you cared about because they thought it wasn’t right for you. but it’s not like you’ll want for swords, at least. your dad always buys every shitty mall katana he can get his claws on and just leaves them around all over."

 It's a really great read, and you can read the whole story here.

Dungeons & Dragons Has Influenced A Generation of Writers & How It Helps Kids Today

Artwork courtesy of James Howe.

From a recent New York Times article:

For a new generation of writers, especially those raised in the 1970s and ’80s, all that time spent in basements has paid off. Dungeons and Dragons helped jump-start their creative lives. 

When he was an immigrant boy growing up in New Jersey, the writer Junot Díaz said he felt marginalized. But that feeling was dispelled somewhat in 1981 when he was in sixth grade. He and his buddies, adventuring pals with roots in distant realms — Egypt, Ireland, Cuba and the Dominican Republic — became “totally sucked in,” he said, by a “completely radical concept: role-playing,” in the form of Dungeons & Dragons.

When you think about it, it's not really too surprising. Speaking personally, while D&D offered an escape from an abusive home life, coming up with character back-stories that fit within an adventuring party was my first taste of collaborative storytelling. There are a lot of skills you can learning playing D&D-  collaborative problem solving, team building, working in groups, spatial awareness, multiplication, plus all of the creative things involved with running or taking part in a campaign, like character and world building.

And the current generation of D&D players are finding ways to use D&D to not just instill a love of the game in kids, but also teach children development skills. One author has even come up with a version for pre-preschoolers!

Laura Petelle has released a free game called Monster Dice Fight, a proto-D&D game for preschoolers that also teaches Early Learning Standards skills. As she describes it:

My husband was eager for our sons to get big enough to play D&D with him, and I suggested they were big enough now -- if we adjusted the game. I had recently been in early learning standard presentations, so that was on my mind as well... Parents can adjust the game in a variety of ways to help their children with specific developmental tasks, and can at the same time create appropriate challenges within the game for children of different ages.

If the kids are a little older and you want to introduce them to D&D, collaborative storytelling and some of the game mechanics, artist Jason Howe has you covered with "D&D For 8 Year Olds". As he explains it:

For my son's 8th birthday party he convinced me to run Dungeons and Dragons for four 2nd graders... I decided to take actual characters made in the DND Insider and simplify them us that the boys could have fun without much of a learning curve. Here are the six characters I made from scratch for the game. I am happy to report it was a huge success, each boy had a fantastic time... and so did I. I would happily do it again.

Howe didn't leave girls out, either, and created a number of boy and girl character sheets in full color, all ready to print out and personalize, which you can check out here.

Why BattleNet 2.0 Is Ruining Starcraft 2 Explained-- WITH KITTENS!

Controller Company teams with Video Gamer With MS To Make Video Games More Accessible

Steve Spohn has from muscular dystrophy. He is also an avid gamer. With a bag of rice, some duct tape and Xbox 360 controller parts, he is working with a video game accessory company to keep himself in the game.

Arizona-based Evil Controllers specializes in modding video game controllers to make them accessible to gamers that have special needs. Steve's prototype X-box controller is modular. That means that every input component, from the buttons to the directional pads to the thumb-sticks can be positioned and repositioned however the user needs. They also have created a set of buttons that employ the use of mobility Steve has by rigging another pair of buttons that are activated when he shrugs his shoulders.

The controller in the video below is a prototype of a model Evil Controller hopes to produce and mass market.

Accessibility in video games is something that I think both game developers-- and more importantly, console manufacturers-- sorely need to improve upon.

The big thing in gaming from Nintendo's WiiMotion, Sony's Playstation Move and Microsoft's Project natal are all about encouraging people to control a video game by getting up and moving around. While it is an exciting and immersive development, it's not very inclusive to the disabled community.

You'd figure that increasing the user base for video game would be a good thing! Larger audience means more money, right? While I understand the economic realities of making and manufacturing different peripherals might incur extra espense, there are some things that seem like a no-brainer to me. Like closed captioning in all games with speech. A mode for colorblind players (I have seen this in PopCap Games' Peggle series and wondered why more companies don't do this). And... more I probably can't think of.

What about you, members of the gamer and disability community? What would you like to see?

Kevin Siembieda Calls Me "A Nasty Critic/Hater, Spreading Lies"; My Head Explodes

UPDATE: Kevin Siembieda has apologized; you can read his apology in the comments section. Thank you, Kevin.

In my recent Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles Review & First Impressions, I basically said the book looks good, the new art looks good, the rules have some welcome tweaks on one hand but don’t come close to genre emulation on the other, briefly discuss the “G.I. Joe rule change” and conclude by saying that the source book is still "the best you will have in North America as far as source material goes".

So, apparently there’s this clownboat that has a hate-on for me—he’s sniped at me before in stupid little forum posts over the years—and decides to “report” the post to Palladium—apparently trying to say that my quoting from the rule book verbatim in one paragraph is tantamount to reprinting large chunks of Palladium intellectual property. Blah blah blah fair-use-cakes, right?

So then I get a forwarded e-mail from said online loser entitled “Suck It, Hater!”. And that email contains a forwarded message to said clownboat from Kevin Siembieda himself! Here it is, in all its glory:

“Thanks for alerting us to this website. From what I could tell, he's a nasty critic/hater who is slamming us and tearing about the product, but I didn't see him using or reprinting our rules, stats, etc. Did I miss something.

Can't really do anything about jerks spreading lies and flaming Palladium and its products. Try not to let guys like this get to you.

Thanks again for the heads up. I appreciate your support.”

Wow.

So, apparently because I wrote a review of a product that said I liked some parts of it, but not other parts, the CEO OF PALLADIUM says I am a nasty critic/hater. And a liar.

Never mind that one of my roommates is a Megaversal Ambassador, that I practically drool with anticipation when our GM decides to run a Heroes Unlimited game, or that that I’ve played in a little over half a dozen RIFTS games run by fellow RPGX.org member Wraith. Who knew that all this time, I was actually a Palladium hater?

Can you imagine the CEO of any other company acting like this?

E-mails sent to staff last week asking for a comment were not returned.

DIY D&D: Faerie Dragon PC Write-Up For Dungeons and Dragons (2nd Ed)

With the permission of her writer, I am pleased to share with you the write-up our gaming group uses for the Faerie Dragon as a PC Race. Enjoy.

Faerie Dragon (As a Player Character Race)

by the Awe-Inspiring Snowflake F. Dragon

Human Legend: A chaotic offshoot of the pseudo-dragon (though we all know this is not true), the Faerie Dragon lives in peaceful, tangled forests and thrives on pranks, mischief, and practical jokes. (Well, not really… We actually thrive on apples!)

Faerie Dragons resemble miniature dragons with thin bodies, long prehensile tails, gossamer butterfly wings, and hug smiles. (In other words… PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER… In an industrial-sized package!) Their colors range through the spectrum, changing from the red of a hatchling to the black of a great wyrm. (Or whenever they feel like being fashionable with a new trend.) The hides of females have a golden tinge that sparkles in sunlight; males have a silver tinge. (Of course! More proof that females are more valuable!)

All Faerie Dragons can communicate telepathically with one another at a distance of up to two miles. (We’re still hunting down whoever let THAT secret out…) They speak their own languages, along with the language of sprites, pixies, elves, and the birds and animals in their area. (Well, duh!?! We ARE part fey after all! Sheesh…)

Faerie Dragons make their lairs in the hollows of high trees, preferably near a pond or stream, because they are quite fond of swimming and diving. (Okay, we can forgive the humans for this little flaw… They’re only human after all… Of COURSE we live in trees… Preferably apple trees… It’s just easier to get at’em that way… However, not all of us are that fortunate. Also, not ALL of us can swim, but we all love to dive… It helps in our aerial tricks.) They often live in the company of a group of pixies or sprites. (Actually, we live with whomever we choose! We ARE all powerful after all. We’re just seen more often with pixies and sprites because they know how to PAR-TAY!)

Faerie Dragons take advantage of every opportunity to wreak mischief on passers-by, frequently using forest creatures to help in their pranks. (Okay… NOW, I’m insulted! We do NOT take EVERY opportunity to “wreak mischief.” Only on those who deserve it!) Though many of these pranks are spontaneous, months of preparation can go into a single, spectacular practical joke. A tell-tale giggle, which sounds like the tinkling of tiny silver bells, often alerts potential victims to the presence of invisible Faerie Dragons. (That would be the males’ fault… They’re ticklish.)

Faerie Dragons eat fruit, (apples,) vegetables, (apples,) nuts, (apples,) roots, (apples,) honey, (dandelions,) and grains (and apples). They are especially fond of fruit (apple) pastries and have been known to go to great lengths to get a fresh apple pie. (Well, not any more since they started putting out Faerie Dragon Shrines on their windows.)

Statistic Adjustments: Due to our phenomenal powers, yet compact bodies, Faerie Dragons have the following adjustments to their Attributes:

-4 to Strength

+4 to Intelligence

-2 to Wisdom

+3 to Dexterity

+2 to Constitution

Basic Information: Here’s what’s common in the physical abilities of Faerie Dragons…

Alignment: Chaotic Good or Chaotic Neutral. (NO EVIL! That’s just nucky!)

Base Armor Class: 5

Base Number of Attacks: 1 (Usually by Breath Weapon, spell, or Bite for 1 – 2 points of damage.)

Diet: Herbivore

Hit Dice: Same as Class

Movement: 6, Flight 24 (A)

Size: “Tiny” (1’ to 1½’ tall.)

Natural Abilities: All Faerie Dragons are capable of the following… It’s just getting the right amount of “umph!” behind it that counts…

• -15% from all Experience Gained due to our phenomenal abilities.
• 1xDay per Level – Able to use Breath Weapon
  o A 2-foot diameter cloud of euphoria gas
  + A victim failing a Saving Throw vs. Breath Weapon will wander around aimlessly in a state of bliss for the next 3d4 minutes, during which time he is unable to attack and his Armor Class is decreased by 2. Even though he is unable to attack, the victim can keep his mind on the situation if he succeeds in an Intelligence Check each round; if he fails an Intelligence Check, he completely loses interest in the matters at hand for the duration of the breath weapon’s effect.
• Able to communicate telepathically with another Faerie Dragon at a distance of up to two miles. This is a natural ability, and non-psionic. (So, you squid faces and dehydrated platypuses can just stay away!)
• Able to speak (or converse) with any fey for Faerie Dragons know all their languages; They are fey after all.
• Able to turn invisible at will;A Faerie Dragon must make an Intelligence Check to remain invisible if they attack a victim.
• Any spell cast (regardless of what class or school it’s from) by the Faerie Dragon has the same chance to surge similar to a Wild Mage. (See Tome of Magic for Surge Chart.)
• Comeliness Statistic is actually considered “Cuteness.”
• Due to the number of Cantrip: Color spells that are available to Faerie Dragons, they are able to choose whatever color they wish to be. Most are usually a variety in colors.
• Due to their delicate frame and nature, Faerie Dragons are unable to wear armor and weapons are to be made especially for their small size (i.e., pixie bow).
• Gains 8% Magic Resistance per Level;Up to 96% MAXIMUM!
• Upon Character Creation, a Faerie Dragon must decide which natural “school” (cleric, druid, or wizard) their magic is based from. Each time their class increases, the amount of natural spells they are able to cast also increases. (Intelligence and Wisdom Bonuses do apply.) See chart below.

  
  Class Level     1  2  3  4  5  6*  7**
         1     1  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---
         2     2  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---
         3     2  1  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---
         4     3  2  ---  ---  ---  ---  ---
         5     3  2  1  ---  ---  ---  ---
         6     3  2  2  ---  ---  ---  ---
         7     3  3  2  1  ---  ---  ---
         8     3  3  3  2  ---  ---  ---
         9     4  3  3  2  1  ---  ---
         10     4  4  3  3  2  ---  ---
         11     4  4  4  3  2  ---  ---
         12     4  4  4  3  3  1  ---
         13     4  4  4  4  3  2  ---
         14     4  4  4  4  3  2  1
         15     4  4  4  4  4  2  1
  

These are spells to be treated similar to any other mage or priest spells in that 8 hours of rest is required to regain the energy to cast them, and the spells selected for the day.

Post any question or comments you have here

GTA IV: New York City vs Liberty City

Boing Boing Gadgets has come across and AWESOME photo-set on flicker; it's a side by side comparisons of Grand Theft Auto IV's Liberty City landmarks with their real-life counterparts in New York City. Some of them are amazing. Here, check out this example at right.

On the left hand side, you have the actual Hearst building. On the right you have the GTA IV's analogue.

You can view the entire flickr photoset here.

Two More Great Tributes To Gary Gygax

There are two more great articles released in the wake of Gary Gyx's death that I wanted to call your attention to:

Jeremy Parish and the 1UP.com editorial staff compiled a wonderful article entitled Five Things Games Have Learned from Dungeons & Dragons that shows just what sort of far-reaching effects on video games and computer games Gary Gygax has wrought.

From the 1Up article:

It's taken three decades, but videogames are finally catching on to one of the most fundamental elements of D&D: emergent gameplay. Because the rules and guidebooks for the tabletop game were merely a suggestion, a set of conditions and constraints for building an adventure, the actual content and outcome of every group and every session varied wildly. This wasn't a matter of the random math, though -- it was the human factor. The dungeon master was a sort of guide, nudging the heroes in the right direction and adapting rapidly when they strayed. Not surprisingly, videogames have generally kind of sucked at this. The computer serves as a dungeon master by proxy for the creators, and computers aren't known for their boundless imagination. But they're catching up thanks to canny design. MMOs are very much the successors to D&D, bringing people together to deal with the randomness that results from so many real players gathered in a single place (not to mention the occasional interference of the game masters). But even smaller-scale games like Battlefield and Halo 3 have become sandboxes for goofing around, and single-player games like The Sims and Grand Theft Auto give players enough freedom to make their own fun.

And Wired has a great article chronicling the life of Gary Gygax, and includes lots of little-known games and some photos from Gygax's family. A choice personal bit of trivia from the article:

Gygax and a few of his buddies carried that DIY spirit even further, devising a game of their own around WWII tank combat. He was determined that his game would avoid the "goofy bell curve"that resulted from rolling a pair of six-sided dice (2s and 12s are rare, while 6s, 7s, and 8s are comparatively frequent). To achieve a more linear curve, he determined that players must pluck 1 of 20 numbered poker chips from a hat, so that there was an equal 5 percent probability of each outcome. Gygax later found the perfect replacement for this clunky system: In a school supply catalog, he discovered dice shaped like all of the Platonic solids, including the icosahedron: A 20-sided die.

But don't just take my word for it; check 'em out!

Dungeons & Dogerell: Spell POems in AD&D

Okay, so it's probably no big surprise that I am Dorky McNerdpants, and thus play D&D once a week with a bunch of friends (and it's house-ruled 2nd edition Dungeons and Dragons, to boot!).

One of my characters is a Celtic-flavored bard by the Name of Daffyd ApOwen, and one quirk I gave him are the fact that along with whatever requirment he has for casting spells, he has to end it with some sort of poem.

So...


Armor: "Gather energies around me/ Magic armor doth surround me."
Burning Hands: "Heart's passion, desert sands/Inner flame brings burning hands."
Color Spray: "From my hands, I shall show/ Wonders of the sky's rainbow!"
Comprehend Languages: "With my touch, words are clear/ Whether I must read or I must here."
Enlarge: "Girth now grows with but a word/Magic can be its own reward/"
Reduce (reversed form of Enlarge): "Larger creature, now ye ken/The diff'rence 'tween mice and men."
Featherfall: "Gentle winds, heed my call!/Gift me with a feather's fall!"
Hypnotism: "Trust in me I suggest/ That you heed my one request."
Light: "Glowing softly, captured day/Sliver o'Sun, light our way."
Magic Missile: "Mage's missile shall do harm/ All in sight should take alarm!"
Message: "Bear my words upon this gust/of wind to whom that i must trust."
Read Magic: "Open my mind that I might see/ Reveal thy secrets unto me."
Shield Magic: "Magic Missile, do no harm/Mages now should be alarmed!"
Sleep: "Close your eyes and dream deep/Now 'tis time to go to sleep"
Ventriloquism: "Magic's weaves, place my voice/ In a location of my choice."


Now for second level spells, I figured that instead of just doing the rhyming line again, or adding more lines, a spell could just have a one line evocative image, like so:

Blur: "'Tis neither here, nor there/ but everywhere."
Continual Light: "And thus! The Sun opens its unblinking eye!"
Detect Invisible: "Lo! The Weave's hand parts the Unseen's veil!"
Detect Evil: "Hark! Evil's shroud is ripped away!"
Flaming Sphere: "Doom in fire's what I desire!"
Knock: "No matter the lock, my will is the key!"
Leomund's Trap: "Wand'ring fingers, prying eyes/Rogues'll get a nasty surprise!"
Magic Mouth: "Speak when magic deems others should be spoken to."
Melf's Acid Arrow: "Sizzle, bubble, bowstring and trouble!"
Pyrotechnics: "Snake of smoke, coil about me."
Web: "What a tangled Mythal Weave..."

Now, while this character will not be able to cast 8th level spells for quite some time, I figured that the second-highest level of spells in the PLayer's Handbook needed an awesome for to go with it: Haiku!

I only have one written so far, though.

Binding:
"The Mythal weaves ties that bind/
Mine bind further still/
An unbreakable circle."

Ninth level spels are the highest level available in the player's handbook, so what sort of epic form should be used for these spells?

Limericks, DUH!


Wish:
"I'm finally of magickal skill
Enough to bend it to my will.
Of the Mythal I ask
This one humble task:
Make the following wish be fulfilled."

Astral Spell:
"When body and soul're combined,
the complete person's intertwined.
Separate 'em, you're dead,
but with an astral thread,
and this spell, well, you're totally fine."

Palladium's Robotech RPG Re-Launch May Release On Time

In a recent press release from Palladium, it was announced that the Robotech RPG re-launch is almost a done deal:

"We are working hard to get the Robotech® The Shadow Chronicles® role-playing game done and to the printer by next Friday."

An since Palladium did announce a release date of February '08, this looks like it's shaping up to hit its release target! Further details include:

We estimate 70% of the artwork is ALL NEW and it looks fantastic!

Awesom-- wait, what? So is 30% of the artwork recycled?

Well, uh, um... the book's gonna look hella-cool, and the staff's pretty sure it's going to the printers by this Friday, right?

The writing is close to completion and many sections are undergoing final editing. That means we are also still shooting for an end of February release, though it could slip into the first week of March (we hope not).

Awww, Palladium, why ya gotta do this to me? Writing is close to completion? With 4 days to to hit the printers? And the release date might slip AGAIN? Of for the love of --

All the text is new, updated and brought in line with the official timeline, data, stats and info of Harmony Gold, plus additional details, info and gaming data... Stats have been adjusted to reflect the official Robotech data and satisfy a new generation of gamers.

Oh, Palladium, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, come back!

My new year is starting off hilariously!

I don't know which has left me laughing harder whilst on-hold with vendors for work today:

• Supporters for Presidential candidate Ron Paul decided an effective use of their time and energy to garner support for their candidate of choice was to lead a campaign rally march... in the middle of WORLD OF WARCRAFT, or
• this RPG.net thread devoted to brainstorming a new game setting, "Weaboo Fantasy"

Either way, it looks like my year is starting off with a lot of laughs.