Sunday, December 2, 2012
NaNoWriMo 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Space City Con 2012
In the main ballroom, the Doomsday Wrestling was in full swing. This comedy/action troop has such wrestlers as El Baño - whose finishing move involves a dirty toilet, Hot Flash - the menopausal menace, and Father Superior, the battling priest.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Savage Worlds Deluxe Scores a Gold ENnie
Here are the rest of the winners.
The Troll Interviewed on DnD Digest
Recently, CJ over at DnD Digest, invited the RPTools Staff in for a YouTube interview for his site. The interview is in five parts spanning over 2 hours. It goes through a huge number of topics relating to MapTool and RPGs.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
The Space: 1889 Planet Project
Space 1889 is a Steampunk role-playing game set in a fictional Victorian Era of the Earth. With the help of steam-powered spaceships, human explorers flew through the ether and colonized Mars, Venus, and Mercury.
To support the new German edition of Space: 1889, a German fangroup created the Space: 1889 planet project which currently is in it's beta phase. The project uses Google Earth to project Space:1889 maps onto a planetary sphere which is movable and searchable by users.
Check it out the promo video here depicting Mars:
See the Der Globus home page for ways to support the project and check on its progress.
You can learn more about Space:1889 and the Victorian Era by visiting our review of Space:1889 - Red Sands or from Frank Chadwick's blog. Our review of The Kerberos Club contains additional Victorian background.
Links:
Monday, July 23, 2012
DriveThru Christmas in July.
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| Click on Image for Savings! |
Some of our favorite titles on sale include:
50 Fathoms - Review
Deadlands Reloaded: Marshals Handbook - Review
Deadlands Reloaded: Players Guide - Review
Deadlands Reloaded: The Flood - Review
Deadlands Reloaded: The Last Sons - Review
Hell on Earth Reloaded Player's Guide - Review
Savage Worlds Deluxe - Review
Savage Worlds Horror Companion - Review
Savage Worlds Super Powers Companion
Slipstream
Solomon Kane: The Savage World of Solomon Kane
Space 1889: Red Sands - Review
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Dreamers
Some days I wonder why I do all this. By 'this' I mean writing. It takes up a great deal of time and there is no real compensation other than the act of creation itself. Often times I feel as though I'm grasping at clouds.
I've wanted to be a writer most of my adult life but a childhood spent in rural Texas, where proper grammar and spelling are considered uppity made that dream difficult. Still, I had stories to tell. Gaming gave me an outlet and I exploited it to my great joy. To this day some of my best stories have been co-authored by my fellow RPGers. But still that wasn't enough. I wrote short stories and even novels that I shared with friends. They commented how much they enjoyed them so I wrote more. Eventually I hit upon one that many said should be published and so I did. It was much more difficult than I imagined and I feel very much like a mouse on a dandelion; both scared and in awe of what will happen next.
Thanks to all of you for joining me on this journey. Thank you for supporting this blog and purchasing my book. It's been a wonderful climb.
So here's to the dreamers. God bless us one and all.
In other news: a link for those who like going into diabetic shock. The 50 Cutest Things That Ever Happened.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
ENnie Awards Voting
You can now drop by and cast your ballot in the ENnies. Please remember our friend, Jonathan Roberts. His work's been nominated in the category of Best Cartography for The Shadowlands Conversion Guide. Other votes we encourage is for the Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition from Pinnacle Entertainment Group for Best Game and Agents of Oblivion by Reality Blurs for Best Supplement. Of course we also encourage voting for Pinnacle, Triple Ace Games, GRAmel, Reality Blurs, and Arc Dream Publishing in the Fan's Favorite Publisher category.
A word about voting: you're able to vote for first, second, third, etc. Don't vote for a product if you don't like or know it. No vote is better than a low vote, if you catch my meaning. Remember, vote early and vote often. Well, strike the last one but do encourage your friends to vote.
Regarding the vote in November, consider this write-in candidate
Friday, July 20, 2012
Ace of Aces Kickstarter
I loved Ace of Aces when I was a kid. It was a great picture game of WWI biplane action and has been out of print for over twenty years. Please consider supporting the kickstarter to have it reprinted. It's a great game to play with your kids in the car or on an airplane.
From the Kickstarter
32 years ago, a phenomenon hit the adventure game convention circuit. Alfred Leonardi had invented a game about World War I planes dogfighting, a subject that should have had limited appeal. But it used a unique (and patented) system - each player had a book of pictures of his plane and his opponent, in various combat positions, and the game was played by calling out numbers representing various air combat moves. It was like a two-player computer game, without a computer. It became hugely popular and spawned several follow-up games using other aircraft. In 1993 it was added to the Origins Awards Hall of Fame. www.gama.org You can play this game anywhere with just the two books - no dice (or batteries) required. But eventually the novelty wore off, the publishing company closed up shop, and Alfred retired from the game business.But now Flying Buffalo games has gotten permission to do a reprint. At the time of this posting they only have $250 more to go before they fund. Please help us kick this thing over the edge!
Monday, July 16, 2012
Review: Last Sons - Deadlands Plot Point Campaign
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
People: Shane Lacey Hensley, Matthew Cutter
Price: $34.99
Pinnacle continues their release of Deadlands’ plot point campaigns with Last Sons, adventures in War’s domain. The story picks up with The Flood left off taking your posse into the Disputed Territories of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and the Sioux Nation.
For those those of you not up to speed on the Deadlands setting, below is a little alternate history.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Mono: Prospero Rising. The 1939 hero lives again with new art by Gary Gianni. And more Cthulhu!
The Troll and I really like pulp adventures. We've been playing a Savage Worlds Pulp adventure for years and its always fun to discover a new (to me) pulp property. I was stunned to discover that this isn't a new but actually quite a vintage find.
At the Spotlight on Gary Gianni panel in room 4 on Saturday at noon, Gary shared his new projects. His recent departure from the Prince Valiant strip freed him to explore new projects. His discovery of MadeFire and their partnership brought us Mono, Prospero Rising. The original words by Anthony Brock have been published with new Gianni art, previewed here below. Of note, MadeFire is working on a web comic app for iPhone / iPad that really expands upon the capabilities of comics on these devices. Some motion is involved in the demo we saw but its more like the iPhone or iPad screens were windows that you can move around in and see more for an immersive feel.
In the past year he illustrated a short story by Ray Bradbury called the Nefertiti-Tut Express that is also visually stunning. I won't give the story away but maybe you shouldn't use old mummies for burning in your steam locomotive.
The panel also shared Gianni's next project: The Illustrated Call of Cthulhu. Here are some sketches in progress:
Step Dancing Zombies at J. Michael Straczynski's New Studio JMS Announcement
Step Dancing Zombies at J. Michael Straczynski's New Studio JMS Announcement! Only at Comic-Con. Saturday, July 14th, 2012
With much anticipation, J. Michael Straczynski (of Thor, Babylon 5, etc..fame) announced his new studio's launch! Studio JMS is his baby and he's excited to have full control over all his properties. One of the new properties is Living Dead: The Musical. I am not kidding. He teased us with footage of Riverdance, while under cover of darkness, a Zombie Step Dancing company shambled in and lined up on the wooden floor in front of the stage.
We knew something was us as a crew came in and frantically quickly put a wooden floor down before the panel began. I began wondering if the Robot from Lost in Space that was in the Sails Pavilion all week was going to run in on the new floor.
Here is the video I took and put up on YouTube:
Crazy fun at Comic-Con!!!
Saturday, July 14, 2012
San Diego Comic-Con 2012 Buck Rogers Panel ends with a Crazy!
Hermes Press presents Buck Rogers: Past, Present, and Future panel took place from 6p to 7p on Friday the 13th, in Room 4. The big news was Howard Chaykin is doing a new 4 part Buck Rogers comic book in 2013. They were kind enough to hand out a promo poster and Howard signed it. The panel was moderated by Daniel Herman, Publisher, Flint Dille, Erin Gray (if I have to explain the connection...), and the excellent artist Howard Chaykin.
[Editor's Note: Any geek male between 45 and 50 will admit to having a huge crush to Erin Gray from her portrayal of Wilma Deering in Buck Rogers from 1979-81 - Troll]
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| Flint, Erin, and Howard |
Daniel Herman had a short movie prepared going back to the original newspaper, radio, and serials including a very special 1935 reel shown at the Chicago Worlds Fair of a Buck Rogers episode made in Flint Dille's uncle's basement with neighborhood friends. I have the audio of the session and will have to put it up so you can get the remarkable story of how the reel found it's way to Flint 60 years later. Chaykin insisted he tell the story.
We all asked questions and got wonderful answers. Lots of on set stories from Erin Gray were alot of fun including how she almost wasn't cast! The last question was asked by a self identified "Tycho". He was recognized by Flint and his conspiracy theory rant began. I immediately popped on my camera phone and recorded this which captured all but the first sentence of "you all know what's going on." When Tycho was grabbed and escorted out, he dropped some of his conspiracy posters and I was able to grab 3 of them. Here's a mystery to solve for sure. Nothing like a little crazy to spice things up!!!Here are "Crazy Tycho's" posters. They are signed Tycho: 3 of 5 (green headless), 4 of 5 (bottom), and 5 of 5 (blue '2 will die?' on top right).
And now for the crazy.
[Editor's Note: A convention goer believes there is a grand conspiracy wrapped around Buck Rogers involving actual portals to other realms. I just hope the gentleman gets his medication adjusted to the proper levels. - Troll]
Friday, July 13, 2012
World creation panel by Maxwell Alexander Drake - 10 Thinking points
A packed room listened intently as Drake worked thru his 10 "thinking points" of World Creation. You can find his writing guide online along with the forms he uses. Drake made clear that almost nothing will be directly used for your novel but it will give you all you need to make your world real. "Remember," he said, "you aren't creating an RPG adventure."
"Well," I thought, "what if I am?This is an excellent exercise for world building for an RPG setting."
You can find his site at http://www.maxwellalexanderdrake.com/. His guides are located at http://www.maxwellalexanderdrake.com/pages/MADWriting.html
Look for his 10 Thinking Points and Building characters.
His advise is excellent if you just ignore the obvious novel specific info and stick to the world and character building advice. He does several panels here for fantasy writing.
Enjoy!
The Savage Duck
Savage Duck at San Diego Comic Con finally meets Cheyenne Wright!
Thursday late: I finally got back to my excellent room at the Sheraton Marina with a beautiful skyline view of the home of Comic Con!
This is my postcard to you. The 5 to 7 right most buildings are the hotels clustered around the Convention Center.
Hotels become huge posters for upcoming computer games, movies, and TV series.The Marriott just to the right of the convention here is home to Anime and many sessions of DnD and Pathfinder as well as others. But no Savage Worlds! I have to work on that.
The Hard Rock Cafe and Hotel was covered with Total Recall!
Once inside, the madness begins.
The Trolls from the upcoming Hobbit loomed large over the crowd. I wish pictures of the Hobbit posters at the pavilion they built could convey the awesome 3Dness.
I found such imagination inspiring things. Weta had Greg Broadmore's excellent Victorian Ray-gun wielding Lord Cockswain zapping Moonmen and Venusians
That's Lord Cockswain on the right again taking target practice.
Now this I'd love to have as a poster!
Lastly and most importantly, I caught Cheyenne Wright at the Girl Genius booth with an excellent limited edition print from Pinnacles upcoming Deadlands Noir. Naturally I picked it up.
He also had a sketch book with drawings of badge and robots from Machination: A Game of Evil Genius that I supported on Kickstarter. Nice!
Several of his badges were for sale. I'll stop back by tomorrow and pick some up!
Until Then!
Goodnight!
Thursday, July 12, 2012
The Savage Duck at Comic Con
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
The Lost Podcast
The Podcast!
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
d20 Cartographer Strikes Again! Mega Townscapes - Human Town
Publisher: D20 Cartographer
People: Joshua Bennett (artist and author)
Price: $9.99
The d20 Cartographer strikes again with a massive town map for use in your fantasy RPG. This huge map features a walled town with multiple shops, temples, guildhalls, barracks, and houses. There's also a bazaar for your characters to explore. You can even go inside the city walls to defend the town from invaders.
The map is beautiful with rich colors and textures making it highly appealing to the eyes. You can print out the sections to make one large map or print out individual buildings for use in any town.
The true magic happens when you use the map in MapTool. First of all it comes with a set of Devin Night's villager tokens allowing you to populate your town quickly. The MapTool campaign file has two maps representing the interior and exterior of the town's buildings. As you move across the entryway the token is taken to the other map for further exploration.
The level of detail on these maps is amazing. You can see the sunlight hitting the floor on the image above coming in from the windows. On top of that, the maps already have the vision blocking layer populated so your PCs have no idea what's around the next corner or in the next room.
By The Numbers
I hate to sound like a cheer leader but this is what you get for $10.
28 Tokens
12 Highly detailed buildings with Vision Blocking and Fog of War
2 MapTool campaign files, one with the entire town on one map and another with a map per building
100+ object png files to use for set dressing on any other map you care to draw
The Savage Troll considers this town map a must have for any MapTool fantasy games. You simply can't beat the price for all that's in this product.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Review: Hell on Earth Reloaded
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
People: Shane Lacey Hensley (Author)
Price: $24.99 for full version, $14.99 for player's guide
My second experience with Savage Worlds was in a Post Apocalyptic setting of my own creation. I documented some of the action on the RPTools.net forum. Thus I have a special fondness for PA settings combined with Savage Worlds.
I was pleased to see Pinnacle released another setting book in their award winning line of Deadlands products: Hell on Earth Reloaded. Like most Savage Settings, this one takes the a genre and applies a Savage twist. Aside from the normal PA problems with mutants, psykers, and road gangs - the players must also contend with horrors from another dimension and their minions.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Space City Con - Houston August 10 – 12
Space City Con is an all-ages festival of comics, sci-fi, fantasy, gaming, literature, and art, in the spirit of Houston, Texas! Envisioned as a "geek festival with free parking," SCC is conveniently located at the Westin Galleria convention center & hotel, August 10 – 12, 2012. Their goal is to put on the best convention possible for current generations of fans, and instill a love of , comics, Sci-fi and fantasy in the next generation.
Space City Con is the Gulf Coast’s newest fan culture convention, offering a robust mix of authors, artists, sci-fi, fantasy, comics, gaming, fan group networking, literature, writing workshops and more, in a venue meant to be more approachable to families and children. It was founded in 2012, and will be held at the Westin Galleria convention center & hotel, August 10 – 12, 2012. Conceived as a “Geek Festival with free parking”, the event is attached to the 4th largest mall in America, in the 4th largest city in America—Houston, Texas. The grand Galleria Mall boasts 375 stores, a large food court, ice rink, various restaurants with a taste of Texas.
For the inaugural year, Space City Con embraces the Kids Need to Read foundation, since their founders consider these elements as fuel for creative thinking, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and most of all, expanding the boundaries of what is known, into dreams and a yearning for what is unknown, what is unseen . . . but can be painted by the incredible human mind and spirit. Space City Con wishes to pass on the torch from one generation to the next, echoing the cry for “Inspiring Imagination!”
You can follow Space City Con on Twitter or Facebook.
The Savage Troll will be there! Will you?
Monday, June 25, 2012
Deadlands Comics
For the non-gamer, Deadlands is a genre mash-up of the Wild West, Horror, and Steampunk called the Weird West. It features card shark spell casters, mad scientist inventing infernal devices, quick draw gun men, preachers that can call down actual fire and brimstone, and shamans on first name basis with nature spirits. There's lots of Kung-fu action as well.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Win Free Stuff
Savage Worlds Fantasy Companion [Pinnacle Entertainment]
Realms of Cthulhu [Reality Blurs] Review
Karma Roleplaying System Core [Bards and Sages]
FantasyCraft [Crafty Games]
Fat Dragon's Dragonshire Deluxe [Fat Dragon Games]
Paths of Power (Pathfinder System) [4 Winds Fantasy]
Spycraft: Real American H.E.R.O.es [Crafty Games]
Fellowship of the White Star Campaign Book [Thenodrin Presents]
Ninja Burger RPG (2nd Edition) [aetherial FORGE]
Heavy Gear Blitz! Locked & Loaded [Dream Pod 9]
Hero's Handbook: Dragonborn [Goodman Games]
Splicers RPG [Palladium Books]
Noir Knights (Savage Worlds) [Savage Mojo]
As a bonus, anyone that comments on a post between now and June first will be eligible to win a $10 gift certificate to DriveThruRPG. The only criteria is that you be a follower of this blog (see friend connect in the side bar) and you have a DriveThruRPG account.
A Savage Thanks,
Keith and Derek
Kickstarter is new for Pinnacle, but not Savage Worlds
I am no longer a Kickstarter newbie. I've supported 6 projects and enjoyed them all. I have, however, started to see some interesting differences in the various approaches. With Pinnacle entering the fray, I'm both excited and a bit quizical.
Note: This blog is only concerned with the gaming projects on Kickstarter with a special focus on Savage Worlds projects.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Felicia Day Wielding a Chainsaw
We're getting a fair number of hits for Felicia Day with a chainsaw thanks to our reviews of Geek and Sundry along with this odd post (I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I put that one up). So, for those looking for the actual Felicia Day with a chainsaw video, it's posted here in hopes the gods of Google will become distracted by this clever ploy.
Duck Note: This is from the G&S Channel Flog (Felicia's Blog).
The video also has stuff on cute animals with Felicia hitting glass-breaking pitch yelling "They're so CUTE!" Of course we, being savages, aren't into that sort of thing.
(but they are cute).
Duck Note 2: Since we are wayyy off track but having fun: Shout out to fellow Savage Blogger: Wine And Savages! (you'll see why in a second) According to Felicia's Flog above, she is a big Lord Darcy fan! AND, before she plays with the chainsaw, #2 on her Fave Five is the Lizzie Bennet Diaries on youtube. So, to Sean B. at Wine and Savages, we're discovering more Jane Austen gamer fans all the time. Your idea for a Regency / Gothic Savage setting potential audience is getting bigger and bigger! I now return you to your regular programming.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Tabletop Episode #2 Settlers of Catan - 5 Fun things I learned
by Savage Duck
(returning to Savage Worlds and MapTool soon)
Geek and Sundry and Tabletop YouTube Channel
Host: Wil Wheaton - Dr. Isaac Parrish on Eureka
(returning to Savage Worlds and MapTool soon)
Geek and Sundry and Tabletop YouTube Channel
Host: Wil Wheaton - Dr. Isaac Parrish on Eureka
Neil Grayston - Douglas Fargo from Eureka
James Kyson - Ando from Heroes
Jane Espenson - writer/producer Buffy, Caprica, Game of Thrones
- Each player's dice roll can end up giving others new resources. Nice!
- Roll a 7 and the robber comes out. "The robber is a d*ck," sayeth the Wheaton. There were ALOT of 7's rolled in this game which moves the robber around. If it sits on your property, you can't get any resources from it. Ouch. 20 minutes into the show a 7 was rolled 29% of the time instead of the 18% that statistics say should happen.
- Goals: Build: Settlements, upgrade to Cities, build the longest road, build the largest army, and buy Development cards. Get 10 victory points and you win.
- Coolest trivia discovery - in the Neil Grayston bonus interview: He just finished making a Syfy Movie called "End of the World" with Greg Grunburg (the telepathic cop Matt Parkman in Heroes) where they play two video store clerks trying to avert the end of the world with their disaster movie knowledge. Tongue in cheek fun coming soon.
- Grayston credits his playing DnD in High school for prompting him to become a professional actor. His group loved drama and it was a natural fit.
Jane came out strong and appeared to really know what she was doing. Then Neil pulled a series of Eureka moves.....just watch and enjoy!
Stay Savage!
Monday, April 30, 2012
Review - Deadlands Reloaded: The Flood
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Author: Shane Lacy Hensley, Matt Cutter
Price: $19.99 on DriveThruRPG
The Savage Troll continues its trek through Deadlands and I must admit, it's a scary journey. Those of you who read the reviews of the Player's Guide and Marshal's Handbook will be glad to know this review will ere on the side of brevity. While I believe in exhaustive reviews of rule books, adventures - such as this one - need to remain far more secretive. We don't want to give away any surprises to your posse.
Deadlands is easily the largest property in the Pinnacle Entertainment Group's product line. The 15+ year old setting has seen four RPG systems with a mountain of supplements including rule books, adventures, trail guides, and plot point campaigns. The Flood is a plot point campaign centering around the starved region of the West coast.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Review - Deadlands Reloaded Marshal’s Handbook Explorer's Edition
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Author: Shane Lacy Hensley
Price: $19.99
The only thing to fear is fear itself, unless you’re a character in Deadlands. In that case it isn’t Fear but the thing generating it you have to worry about.
In Deadlands, Fear feeds evil in a very real way. It generates energy to feed the Reckoners. The Manitous bring that energy to the Reckoners who use it to spawn even greater terrors.The Manitou’s job is to Terrorform the Earth for their masters. It’s a vicious cycle that ends when Earth has turned into a mirror image of the Reckoner's home, called The Deadlands so the they may walk the Earth and feast on humanity's fear first hand.
It’s the job of the heroes - called a posse - to fight the plots, persons, and panics that infest the Weird West. Sadly, humanity generates a great deal of fear on its own. The two American nations may have a truce but their spies and provocateurs cause all sorts of mayhem, especially in the disputed territories of Kansas, Colorado, and what’s left of Oklahoma.
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