Fantasy Flight Games to Publish Warhammer Fantasy Board Game

Over the past couple of years, Fantasy Flight Games used their game publishing agreement with Games Workshop to revise and republish a number of classic Games Workshop board games from the late 80s. Among these classics are Fury of Dracula, Warrior Knights, and Talisman. Old editions of these games were grabbing onerously high prices on eBay and preventing new gamers from discovering these gems and it has been a blessing that Fantasy Flight Games has brought them back into the marketplace. Some of us are still hoping that Fantasy Flight Games will release a new edition of Space Hulk or Warhammer Quest, though we're not holding our breath as Doom and Descent are pretty good replacements for those hard to find gems.

Following up on the success of these reprints, Fantasy Flight Games will be releasing an original board game based on Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy line of products. The game, entitled Chaos in the Old World, puts players in the role of one of four gods of chaos who are descending upon the world in order to remake it as they would see fit.



As Fantasy Flight Games' website describes it:

Chaos in the Old World makes you a god. Each god’s distinctive powers and legion of followers grant you unique strengths and diabolical abilities with which to corrupt and enslave the Old World. Khorne, the Blood God, the Skulltaker, lusts for death and battle. Nurgle, the Plaguelord, the Father of Corruption, luxuriates in filth and disease. Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, the Great Conspirator, plots the fate of the universe. Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure and Pain, the Lord of Temptations, lures even the most steadfast to his six deadly seductions. Yet, as you and your fellow powers of Chaos seek domination by corruption and conquest, you must vie not only against each other, but also against the desperate denizens of the Old World who fight to banish you back to the maelstrom of the Realm of Chaos."

The description implies that the players compete not only against one another, but against the mechanics of the game itself. As in Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings -- also published by Fantasy Flight Games -- this can be a rewarding play experience. I eagerly await seeing how Eric M. Lang applies his excellent card game development skills to a competitive board game. The hardest part, other than the waiting, will be choosing between the "six deadly seductions" and the Blood God.

The games first print run will also include two cards that will interact with the Warhammer Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. The Signet of the Cursed Company lets you wander the battlefields of the Warhammer Online MMO as a fearsome skeletal warrior. The Call to WAR will instantly teleport you to your capital city.

Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design Announces Origin Awards Nominees (Part Two)

Today we continue our coverage of the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design Origin Award nominees. Yesterday we covered the miniature and book related nominees, but today we get to focus on my favorite group of nominees...the games themselves.

ROLEPLAYING GAME

This year's list of Roleplaying game nominees is one that should give fans of the hobby a great deal of hope for the future. While the folks at Boing Boing may lament the new GSL and believe that it is the end of the roleplaying game industry and the beginning of the end of civilization, they are wrong.

All the OGL did, and still does by the way, is allow other people to make money on the backs of other people's hard work. The GSL will still allow that, it will just require that your derivative work be attached to a newer "operating system." This is not to say that a great deal of OGL products weren't creative and worthy products, they were (the Iron Kingdoms or Paizo's Pathfinder come to mind), just that they were derivative. Even the True 20 RPG, one of the most innovative adaptations of the d20 system ever created, is still an innovative adaptation. It should be noted that most of the independent gaming press is "closed."

Meanwhile in the world of game designs not dependent on other people's work, some game companies have created some remarkable game systems of their own and attached them to some great settings. For years we've seen high quality narrative design, but this year's nominees are showing us that design creativity is not a thing of the past.

Grimm
Published by Fantasy Flight Games
Written by Robert Vaughn and Christian T. Petersen

Ever since 2003 when I first caught a glimpse of Fantasy Flight's d20 mini-campaign book for Grimm, I have wanted to see Fantasy Flight Games develop this great concept into its own roleplaying game with its own task resolution system. The initial book had promise and style, but the integration of the d20 system with the dark -- yet playful -- tone of a game where children adventure "in a world of twisted fairy tales" never quite meshed.

I waited four years until I was rewarded with last year's non-d20 GRIMM RPG. Gone is the d20 system and in is the Linear d6 system. This new system is easy to learn and allows those that are skilled at a particular task to succeed more often than they fail. Sure, there is still room for failure at tasks that should be routine or success at tasks that should be impossible, but those cases are rarer in the Linear d6 system than they are in many other games. This lack of wildly disparate results allows for the darker side of this game to shine. If a task needs to be done in order for the children to escape, but no one has sufficient skill in that area the tension of the scene is escalated and that is the root of horror.

My only quibble is that at $39.95 the book isn't full color. Given that the 1983 DMG for AD&D cost the equivalent of $31.93 in inflation adjusted dollars, this isn't too big a deal, but I would have liked to see more of the fairy tale artwork in color.

The Savage World of Solomon Kane
Published by Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group Written by Paul "Wiggy" Wade-Williams (with Shane Lacy Hensley)

I have long been on the Savage Worlds bandwagon. If you want a quick and easy, yet surprisingly adaptable, game system you can do a lot worse that the Savage Worlds roleplaying game. The original Savage Worlds rpg was inspired by pulps, Flash Gordon serials, pirate movies, and westerns and the games focus was on fast, furious, and fun action. Savage Worlds succeeded in general at this task. With The Savage World of Solomon Kane, Shane Lace Hensley and Paul "Wiggy" Wade-Williams take that general success and apply it to the particular. The result is one of the finest licensed roleplaying games ever written.

Wade-Williams writing is clear and concise, the artwork is of sufficient quality to capture the tone, and the fast, furious, and fun Savage Worlds rules set works as a perfect skeleton to run adventures in the world of Robert Howard's dark Puritan Kane. If you are a fan of Howard, or a fan of good rpgs, you can't go wrong with this game.

CthulhuTech
Published by Mongoose Publishing
Written by Matthew Grau and Fraser McKay

This game combines four things that any real geek loves: HP Lovecraft, Mecha, Modern Horror, and roleplaying games. CTHULHUTECH takes high concept to the next level and it pays off. Like the other games in this category, this game uses a "closed" system. As the designer puts it, "Framewerk, the proprietary system upon which CthulhuTech is built, is not only simple and intuitive, it is cinematic, exciting, and puts destiny back in the hands of the player. Its easy to grasp nature makes the game straightforward to learn and quick to start. Its clever dice mechanics make even the simplest of task resolutions exciting." At $49.95, you might balk at the price, but this is a strong entry in the field.

Battlestar Galactica
Published by Margaret Weis Productions
Written by Jamie Chambers

Jamie Chambers applies the Cortex system he developed for the SERENITY roleplaying game to Margaret Weis Productions second licensed television show roleplaying game and it works equally well. The system focuses on quick and easy resolution in an attempt to simulate the subject matter. The rules are very good, but as with any licensed product one must ask how well they apply to the material and how well researched is the material in the game. In both cases, the answer is quite well. Jamie Chambers is one of the hardest working people in the industry and it shows in this game. I can't wait for MWP to release their SUPERNATURAL roleplaying game and I will certainly be purchasing the forthcoming Cortex rulebook.

Faery's Tale Deluxe
Published by Green Ronin Publishing
Written by Patrick Sweeney, Sandy Antunes, Christina Stiles, and Robin D. Laws

FAERY'S TALE DELUXE attempts the very difficult. It attempts to be a roleplaying game that can be taught to children 6 and older while still appealing to the core (older) roleplaying audience. I think that it succeeds. Patricia Ann Lewis-MacDougall's artwork is reminiscent of Arthur Rackham's work providing the book with a real sense of wonder, but allowing it to be (as Barrie would put it) "innocent and terrible." The fairy's that the players of the game control are good at heart, but if their magic is put to evil purposes there are consequences which can be terrible. The game system is easy to learn and simulates its source material well. It's not a "universal" system by any means, but it is a good simulation of fairy interaction. The game, and supporting adventure products, is high quality and inexpensive.

Aces & Eights
Published by Kenzer & Co.
Written by Jolly R. Blackburn, Brian Jelke, Steve Johansson, Dave Kenzer, Jennifer Kenzer and Mark Plemmons

Have you ever wanted to play a really robust simulation of a showdown at High Noon? Have you ever wanted to use a plastic overlay to determine just what part of the varmint you just shot with your Colt Peacemaker was pierced by your bullet? Have you ever wanted to play in a detailed "Old West that Never Was?" If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then ACES AND EIGHTS might just be written for you. This is a game which has rules tailor made for its source material. Blackburn and crew put their nose to the grindstone and created a worthy successor to BOOT HILL.

MY PICK: All of these are worth your money, but there's something about GRIMM that keeps me coming.

Next Week, I'll hit the remainder of the nominees.

Like Frodo, Tabletop Gaming Lives!

How's that title for a combination age giveaway and cred establisher? Seriously though, our friend David N. Scott of Pererro asks a question near and dear to my heart, "So... anyone out there still tabletop?" The underlying assumption to this question is that gaming has moved from the tabletop to the desktop, or to the console as the case may be. Let me say, that for me tabletop gaming is alive and well. I might spend weeknights playing Mass Effect (when I'm not doing the Geekerati podcast), but my Saturdays are filled with gaming goodness. Let me share with you the games I play regularly with my gaming group (Wes, Jo, Eric, Steven, and Joel) every Saturday in our marathon 10 sessions. Then I'll mention a couple of the other games I've played this year.

1. Dungeons and Dragons 3.5: The first, second, fourth, and possibly fifth Saturday of every month (holidays excepted), I run an Eberron campaign based in that campaign's city of Sharn. The basic theme of the campaign is CSI: Sharn and the characters solve murders, battle terrorists, and are currently beginning to scratch the surface of a possible continent wide conspiracy that will begin with an assassination (if the players don't do their job). The game begins Saturday at 1pm and usually ends around 6pm.



2. Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 (Backup Games): Did I mention earlier that we have marathon sessions on Saturday? Well, we do, but one of our group leaves at 6pm. I didn't want this player to feel left out of the regular campaign, which has been running for three years, so the group runs a couple of back up games after our 6pm break. Starting at 7pm and lasting until around 1am, we adventure in the world of Paizo's GameMastery world. We alternate two different campaigns in the Paizo-verse. In the first of our Paizo games, the players are running through Nicholas Logue's series of Falcon's Hollow adventures in the GameMastery Module line. They started with Hollow's Last Hope, continued with The Crown of the Kobold King, and will soon face The Carnival of Tears. Characters in the second Paizo game are attempting to finish the Rise of the Runelord's adventure path contained in the pages of Pathfinder magazine. They are about a third of the way through Burnt Offerings.


3. Star Wars Saga Edition: Every third Saturday (minus holidays as usual), Wes runs our Star Wars Saga Edition campaign where our struggling rag tag group of heroes attempts to thwart the plans of the Sith during the Clone Wars. So far we are having a great time, but my Jedi character (Resh Sal'Gana) is pretty sure that every Jedi, who isn't in his immediate group, is a Sith Lord. So far, we like the new rules set, but have some issues with the layout in the core rulebook (especially when it comes to GM advice).


4. Chill 1st Edition: Around Halloween, during our "backup" game period, we played a little 1st edition Chill and had a great time. I imagine that we'll be playing another session sooner rather than later. Pacesetter games was a company founded by former TSR employees who created a number of games that were criticized at the time, but which feature elements that are common now in horror RPGs. Chill may not be Call of Cthulhu, but then again, it never was meant to be.


5. d20 Modern: Yep...we've played this, and will again very soon, in our backup game time.


6. Marvel Superheroes: The players got a little taste of this game earlier this year, and we had a blast.

There's more RPG gaming that we've been doing this year, but needless to say we've been hitting the tabletop pretty hard. Speaking of tabletop gaming, here is a list of some of the board/card games I've played with this year.

1. Bohnanza: A wonderful card game (5 of 5 stars).


2. Bull in a China Shop: A very good card game (4 of 5 stars)


3. Cthulhu 500: A poor card game (2 of 5 stars).


4. Formula De: My favorite racing game (5 of 5).


5. Mr. Jack: An amazing two player deduction game (5 of 5)


6. Tannhäuser: A fun tactical miniatures/board game (4 of 5)


7. Descent: New classic dungeon crawl game (4 of 5)


8. Runebound: My favorite "adventure" board game (5 of 5)


9. Zooloretto: Great fun (5 of 5)

There are many more, but these are just a few of the highlights from the past month.

Movies: Now for Gamers by Gamers

In the second issue of their customer newsletter, The Strategic Review, the upstart gaming company TSR claimed that the inspiration for the company was the "satisfaction in creating and/or publishing a good set of game rules." Brian Blume put a great deal of emphasis on the fact that TSR was a company of gamers who would make games for other gamers. In other words, TSR was a company that produced games "for gamers by gamers."

It was a battle cry that the company was compelled to make due to two things. First, the rapid rise of success TSR experienced was making some people, who are particularly "precious" about their interests, question whether TSR was "genuine" or "corporate." Second, TSR had set itself apart from a good deal of the gaming hobby. TSR's roleplaying game D&D would have long term negative affects on the wargaming industry, as it existed in the late 70s, and TSR quickly set their own gaming convention GenCon against the industry standard Origins convention. There is a long editorial in the April 1976 issue where Gary Gygax responds to Don Greenwood, the New Products Manager for Avalon Hill (one of the sponsors of Origins) at the time, who claimed that Origins was "the national convention."

TSR was a company establishing its identity and place in the world of gaming and it wanted to make sure that its audience new that TSR was a company "for gamers by gamers." In the 1980s, a computer game company by the name of Interplay also used this battle cry in the promotion of its products.

Members of a niche audience, in this case gamers, have a desire that the products designed for and destributed to them are made by members of the niche audience. This may sound like an exclusionary attitude, and in some ways it is, but it is also a good defense mechanism. After all, is it fair to ask a gamer to only be able to purchase "games by people who disdain gamers but what their disposible income?" I think not. Often those who are best able to make a product for a desired audience are those who have an appreciation for the product in the first place, Joss Whedon's run on the X-men comes to mind as a perfect example of a for x by x synergy.

I have been keeping track of one upcoming product "for gamers by gamers" and was alerted to another just the other day. There was one difference this time, both of the products are upcoming movies. That's right, some gamers have decided to make movies "for gamers and by gamers."

The first of these film projects is the Midnight Chronicles which is being funded by Fantasy Flight Games, the people who designed the world in which the film(s) will take place. The Midnight setting is a game world Fantasy Flight Games designed for use with the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game. The setting is a typical Tolkeinesque setting, with one significant alteration. In Midnight the bad guys won the big war and the setting is about what happens after "the Dark Lord" has been victorious. What isn't emphasized enough in the film clips/discussion is the reason the Dark Lord won, which is what I think actually makes the setting an interesting adaptation of the cliche. The Dark Lord's victory was secured when the "heroes of the age" sided with him instead of battling against him. The what if of the setting isn't just, "what if Sauron won?" The question is actually, "what if Aragorn, Boromir, and Gandalf sided with Sauron?"

The Fantasy Flight project is already deep into production, and has produced both a short and long trailer. By the discussions on the site, it appears that the hopes are more to make the Midnight Chronicles into a SciFi channel original series than into a single movie. The film(s) are being shot on HD and are being entirely produced by Fantasy Flight Games.

The second project, which I am equally excited though more worried about (more on that below), is the news that a movie inspired by the Brave New World roleplaying game is on the way. Reactor 88 Studios, a group of independent filmmakers in the Chicago area, have begun work on the project. The work is still in the early stages, but Brave New World is a roleplaying game with a devoted audience. Brave New World was a superhero roleplaying game created by Matt Forbeck which featured a dystopian present day America. The tag line for the game was "superpowered gaming in a fascist America." The setting was dark, but no completely hopeless. The game itself featured "functional" mechanics, unless you wanted to know exactly how much your superstrong character could lift, and one of the best innovations in the history of gaming, website's devoted to the milieu's resistance. Brave New World was in many ways a precursor to the modern Alternate Reality Game, in that it attempted to use existing communications media to further immerse gamers into the world environment. The game faced tough competition in the Hero Games dominated superhero rpg market, in addition to other pressures from a changing rpg marketplace.

I am excited about both of these projects because they are inspired by the hobby that I love. Both these projects have the potential to increase exposure, in a positive non-creepy way, to the roleplaying hobby and demonstrate the creative and inventive natures of those who participate in the hobby. I just worry about quality.

When it comes to game design, by gamers for gamers is a good philosophy. I don't know if the same maxim holds true for different entertainment media. Fans of Dungeons and Dragons the game shouldn't forget that Courtney Solomon claimed to be a fan/player of the game when he was promoting his Dungeons and Dragons movie. Integrity and a respect for the target audience are certainly necessities for quality in a gamer targeted movie project, but so is talent. In fact, directorial/creator talent is the single most important attribute necessary in the production of entertainment. So far the Midnight project looks like it is being done by people who are proficient at what they are doing, though some of the acting is suspect. I worry more about the Reactor 88 project, only because I have yet to see what their work looks like. I am limited by what I have seen of their website, which I hope isn't an omen of what their film will be like. To be fair, it is highly possible to be a talented filmmaker who only has limited web-programming skills so it isn't the best criterion with which to judge.

Gamers can be a forgiving, if hard to access, audience. Sales of the rough, ragged, and sometimes insulting "The Gamers" were enough to warrant a sequel and special edition. Though I prefered Gamers the Movie, if only because it was directed by a classmate of my wife's who I know is a real gamer. Gamers the Movie featured rendered environments and special effects that dwarf The Gamers and a score by Battlestar Galactica's own Bear McCreary, that and the fact that the Sound Editor, Wes Kobernick, plays in the Eberron game I DM. Speaking of USC student films, if you ever get a chance to see Fist of Iron Chef go immediately. It may be one of the single best student films ever made, that and it was a selection for 2005 Taipei Film Festival.