John Wick at Shadis magazine told me that they're on the lookout for articles about our hot new roleplaying game, In Nomine. Their e-mail address is Shadis2@aol.com.
We'd love to see some support for In
Nomine (or any of our other games, for that matter) in other
magazines -- so much so that we'll pay for it! See our
Matching
Payment Plan page for all the info.
-- Scott Haring
The big winners were "old out-of-print items," "GURPS items," and "SJ Games memorabilia." The chance to interfere with our upcoming products in your own perverse way scored almost as high, and if you check out the auction now, you'll see it's started . . .
Some of your suggestions were interesting . . . and will happen. Again, thanks!
-- Steve Jackson
-- Scott Haring
So we've created a Card Suggestion Web Page. On this page, you can input your ideas not just for INWO, but also for Dino Hunt and Knightmare Chess.
Submissions become the property of SJ Games. We don't offer to pay for
individual card ideas - not that many people expect it, but every so often
we hear from an optimist :-). If you have a whole game idea you
want to sell, please see our writers' guidelines.
-- Steve Jackson
And David Millians, in Games & Education, says "If you are teaching or
enjoying dinosaurs, this is the game you have been seeking!"
If you haven't seen Dino
Hunt yet, you owe it to yourself to give this game a look.
-- Scott Haring
Three complete sets will go to auction Real Soon Now.
About 150 Starter Sets will be available through Direct Mail. They should be in the
catalog by now. $12 apiece while they last fnord. Yes, the card back is in English -- you could put them in a deck if you knew what they said. No, we don't yet have a guide to the Polish edition; we need to find a Polish-speaking Secret Master on the net.
-- Steve Jackson
So either we're doing something right... or the Mind Reading Markup Language tags we added are working.
So thanks, and stay tuned. More evil plots are in the works.
-- Kira
Dear Ladies and Sir,
some days ago I acquired the GURPS Celtic Myth supplement. By now I have read most of it, and I wanted to tell you (and Mr.&Mrs.Walton, which at least Mrs.Walton is noted as a internet addict in the foreword of the book, even though I failed to find any email adress for her) that I was deeply impressed by the quality of the supplement.
There are some minor errors in it, which I assume, however, are most often due to usability in roleplaying games rather than to lack of knowledge.
Yours sincerely,
Raimund Karl Mphil.
Chairman of Brennos - Austrian Society for Celtic Studies
University of Vienna, Austria
Department of Prehistory
Things seem to have gone very smoothly while I was away. I'm grateful to Scott, Kelly and the whole crew for making that happen.
OrcCon was great. Those of you who live in the Bay area should really check out this con and its sister events. It wasn't just a card game show -- as a matter of fact, the boardgame auction was far bigger and hotter than the card game auction.
Yes, I visited Interplay while I was on the West Coast. Marathon six-hour negotiating session with the programmer who is now in charge of the FALLOUT project. Clearly all the original problems could be resolved; I made a lot of concessions because I want to save the project. The GURPS implementation they've created is *worth* saving. But their decision won't be made by the programmers. All I can say is "wait and see."
It was a busy trip. Other computer deals, with other companies on other games, are in the works. More as it develops.
It's good to be back . . .
Written by mainstay David Pulver,
GURPS Bio-Tech
gives complete
rules for gene engineering, nanotechnology, and other science-fiction ideas
for making people stronger, faster, smarter -- why implant chrome and steel
when you can re-engineer the meat? Mother Nature was always more efficient,
anyway.
There's also a discussion group for
GURPS Bio-Tech
comments at
io.games.sjg.gurps.bio-tech
-- post your comments and questions there. Have fun!
The March issue of Comics Retailer (#60) is their annual Games
Extravaganza issue. They cover the game industry year-round, but this
issue puts special emphasis on it for the store owners who are the magazine's
primary readers.
As I mentioned previously, they survey a bunch of game stores every month to
report what's selling out there. Here's the skinny, for the month of December,
1996:
In "Trading Card and Card Games," the #1 game is -- surprise! -- Magic:
The Gathering, selling nearly three times as much as #2, Star
Wars. Wizards of the Coast accounts for 55% of the industry card game
sales all by their lonesome. Our
INWO is a regular on the list,
#18 this month -- not bad considering nothing new for
INWO has come out in over a year.
In "Roleplaying Games," the discrepancy is even bigger. AD&D is
the top dog, selling almost six times as much as #2, Vampire.
GURPS is a top-ten regular
(#5 in December).
If you want to get a real inside look at the game industry, check out
Comics Retailer. It's fascinating stuff.
Coming in to try to fill the void is Gene Seabolt, a recent Austin transplant from Tulsa, OK. Gene's a gamer from way back, and has years of newspaper experience -- plus he's pretty handy on the production side, too. You'll be seeing his name in plenty of books in the future . . . welcome aboard.
Now I'm off for an 11-hour (agh) flight to LA, for OrcCon.
I had problems with a couple of features of the otherwise very
impressive alpha version of GURPS Fallout. As I corresponded with
Interplay staff about this, I got handed up the ladder but their
responses remained puzzling -- and that is the most detail I'm going
to give for now.
Just before leaving for Europe last week, I got a call from
a reporter asking me to comment on the Interplay decision to drop
GURPS.
I told him this was the first I'd heard of it. Calling
Interplay, and talking with the last man I'd corresponded with, I
got first "We haven't decided that, where'd you hear it?," then
"Well, we have been talking about it and somebody must have gotten
the idea it was decided," and finally "Yes, we have decided to drop it, so
sorry."
The statement on the Interplay
web site, to the effect
that this was a mutual decision of SJ Games and Interplay, is not
true. Scott Haring tells me that no written correspondence from
Interplay has YET been received at our office. We are not clear what
their proposal to finish and release the game without the license
entails, for us or for the game, and have absolutely not agreed to it.
I can't imagine how Interplay could take three years working on a
GURPS.
computer game, and then be able to create and install a completely
dissimilar game engine in a few months. Nor have I read (or heard) any
explanation of how they might plan to do that. So "no comment" on that
for now, too.
I've been invited to meet with Brian Fargo, who I understand owns
Interplay, when I'm in LA in a few days. I'll be very interested to see
what he has to say. I hope we will be able to announce that this was a
tempest in a teacup.
I'll admit -- I'm impressed. Knightmare Chess has gotten stronger and stronger every month. Thanks to all the fans who helped make it #1!
More interesting tidbits from Comics Retailer tomorrow.
Steve left for Scotland yesterday. Before he gets back here to Austin (nearly two weeks hence), he'll also be stopping out in L.A. for OrcCon. And I'm sure he has some relaxing and touristing time built into his schedule somewhere, as well.
So that leaves the rest of us, well, large and in charge. We sent Pyramid #24 to the printer this week, and the Feast of Blades adventure for the In Nomine GM Screen is going off to the printer today.
More news as it happens . . .
In the spirit of things, here's a firsthand look at hell on the web:
Evil People, Inc.
Make money fast, sell your soul on the web! (and read mail from other
hopeless folks who did.) Or get a job in hell - they're hiring.
Disclaimer: SJ Games is not affiliated with Evil People, Inc., in
any way. Really.
-- The Other Evil People
We're also taking a poll
to find out what sort of items you'd most like to see in the auction.
Check out the auction page
for the latest info!
There were three other guests -- Erick Wujcik of Teenage Mutant Turtles and Amber Diceless Roleplaying fame, Justin Achilli from White Wolf and John Curtis from Iron Crown. There were all sorts of games (including live-action Vampire and Amber), demos from all of the guests, and a game auction that made over $400 for the local Habitat for Humanity chapter.
One odd thing happened during the INWO event. In a head-to-head game, I and another player fought to a draw. The NWO card "Apathy" made it very difficult to take anything over successfully, and we were so busy beating up on each other that we both found ourselves with not enough groups left in our decks to reach victory. So I guess the world got off scot-free in that one . . .
February 8 and 9 I'll be at
Conpulsion 97 in
Edinburgh. This will be my first trip to Scotland -- I'm looking forward to
it. I will have some In Nomine
with me, and they may just be the first copies to hit Europe.
The next weekend I'll be at OrcCon (horrors! they don't seem to have a web
site!) in Los Angeles. I plan to eat sushi.
If you're going to be near either of those sites, look me up! If you're at
BOTH, we have to talk . . . .
Here's a collection of Broccoli pages for you to check out. Trust me,
they're worth a look:
These are just a few of the Broccoli-oriented sites I've found on my sordid
web-wanderings. Enjoy!
February 19, 1997
Steve's Back
Whoa, what a trip. And what a stack of e-mail to read last night.
-- Steve JacksonFebruary 18, 1997
New Auction Lots
We've added several new items to the
auction, including
a set of Deluxe Illuminati
cards, and the chance to design an
In Nomine angel or
demon for an upcoming supplement. Check it out!
February 17, 1997
Bio-Tech now online
The first draft of
GURPS Bio-Tech
is now online and available for downloading, playtesting, abuse and comment.
-- Scott HaringFebruary 16, 1997
More Industry Info
OK, so it wasn't exactly the next day . . . a few other news bits got
in the way. But to continue our discussion of what's hot in the
industry . . .
-- Scott HaringFebruary 14, 1997
Goodbye, Susan. Hello, Gene.
We're sorry to be losing Susan Pinsonneault, a game editor who's been working around here for the past four years or so. Susan has edited tons of stuff in that time -- just open up any recent GURPS book at random and you'll see her name -- but is moving on to the much more lucrative field of technical editing in the computer industry. Susan's been a dear friend for years, and I'll miss having her around.
-- Scott HaringFebruary 13, 1997
Report from Conpulsion
Conpulsion is over. This was fun. We had a couple of hundred
people from Edinburgh and across the UK. I got to play some new
unpublished card games; to look at a really spiffy new fantasy boardgame
called City of Chaos from a company called Monocle; and to
run a couple of sessions of
In Nomine.
They went really well; further
writeup later. (Nothing like watching someone play a Seraph to remind you
how much of our day-to-day conversation is made up of little social
lies...)
-- Steve JacksonFebruary 12, 1997
Rumor Control about Interplay
Executive Summary: We wish we knew.February 11, 1997
Knightmare Chess is #1!
Comics Retailer magazine surveys a number of comic and game stores (and these days, it's getting hard to tell the difference) each month to find out what's selling. They're most recent issue, reporting on December 1996 sales, has Knightmare Chess as the #1 seller in the "Strategy & War Games" list.
-- Scott HaringFebruary 10, 1997
The (not so) Secret Warehouse
We'd like to thank all of our secret operatives, who've been busy recovering
dangerous items for the warehouse.
Hundreds of new items have been added in the last few weeks.
We've boxed everything up and placed it all in a safe location... inside
Warehouse 23.
February 9, 1997
In Nomine Chat
If you're reading this on Sunday night, you might swing by
Gamer's World for a live chat
with Derek Pearcy,
author of In Nomine.
February 8, 1997
Roman Adventure
The Gold of Tolosa is a GURPS Imperial Rome adventure, written by Luiz Claudio Duarte (arcadia@elisium.com). It's set in 106 B.C, and designed for four to six 100-point characters. This is a very nice example of the way the Web can be used to present an adventure . . . see what you think!
-- Steve JacksonFebruary 7, 1997
The Cat's Away . . .
So let's play! I wish . . .
-- Scott HaringFebruary 6, 1997
Evil People (Inc.)
In Nomine is officially
out today; bug your local retailer for it! (or, if you just can't stand
waiting, or you live on the moon or something, you can
order from us).
February 5, 1997
Speeding Up the Auction
We think our first cut at
auction deadlines
was a little bit long.
We don't want it to lag, so . . . From here on out, anything that draws no
new bids for three days will go to GOING ONCE! After two more days, it's
GOING TWICE! After one more day, it's GONE!
February 4, 1997
Back from WarCon
I had a very nice time at the WarCon game convention last weekend. The NOVA game club put on a fine con, and showed great hospitality.
-- Scott HaringFebruary 3, 1997
SJ in Edinburgh and L.A.
It's convention trip time again.
-- Steve JacksonFebruary 2, 1997
Scooby-Doo, Roleplaying Guru
Did you know that the Scooby-Doo cartoon show can be a valuable
paradigm for campaign planning and party design? Neither did I, but certain people
appear to have given it a lot of thought. This is not to be missed.
-- Steve JacksonFebruary 1, 1997
Aaaah... It's Broccoli!!
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's our fine green vegetable friend - Broccoli! The
vegetable that you get to hold up and pretend it's a tree and that you're
really huge when you eat it! So what about virtual Broccoli?
-- Matthew D. Grau
