The Southwest Gamer's Fair was big fun. They had all sorts of games going on, including an outstanding recreation of the 1813 Battle of Leipzig in 15mm miniature that was played on a historically-accurate, painted felt map that was 30 feet square. It was awesome.
I ran some INWO, Car Wars and GURPS, ate a little El Paso Tex-Mex and bought a Gene Simmons action figure (another of my hidden pleasures revealed -- I believe that KISS was an extremely underrated band ...). Anyway, it was big fun, and I hope to go back next year.
-- Scott Haring
He's following his heart to Chicago, but will continue to work with us on some licensing matters and will be joining me at the Computer Game Developer's Conference this May in Long Beach.
Yes, this leaves one, or possibly two posts, up in the air. No, we have not yet posted job descriptions.
-- Steve Jackson
This is the end of Pyramid as a paper publication -- Issue #30, going to the printer this week, will be the last one. Subscribers will be sent refund checks for the outstanding balance within 30 days.
Of course, we hope you'll reinvest those refunds in Pyramid's new incarnation. We think it's a much better deal -- you'll get more articles per year from us, plus better industry news coverage, access to playtest files and magazine archives, live chats and more, all for half of what an old subscription cost!
Everything you need to know is at the all-new online home of Pyramid Magazine -- see you there!
-- Scott Haring
I will be depending heavily on my Eastern-seaboard MIBs for help; thanks in advance. We will be talking.
This will be an interesting gig. In the first place, it's the same weekend as GenCon, so the gaming-geek turnout may be smaller than usual. That means we have to pitch our presentation to people who are FANNISH, and game (or might game) OCCASIONALLY.
In the second place, it's a somewhat spread-out convention, and it is possible that our game space may not be right on the beaten path. We are working on that . . .
And in the third place, their dealer room is already SOLD OUT. If you don't have a table now, you can't expect to get one. That might change. Don't hold your breath unless you look good in blue.
But with all that, it's still thoroughly neat to have the opportunity to present gaming to the WorldCon attendees, and I'm looking forward to it. Feel free to correspond if you plan to come to the con and want to volunteer some time . . . or if your game publisher wants to run some demos or tournaments . . . or whatever.
We'll be creating a web page with more info about Worldcon gaming, when I have more info.
-- Steve Jackson
You've heard the story over and over. Fellow finds a mysterious
book; when he reads it, he's terrified; before he can finish studying it, his home is broken into and the book is taken. Happens all the time, right? But the creator of the website called The Incident just happened to scan some of the pages first, and here they are on the Web. If you recognize the people in the photographs, write and tell him; he seems to like mail.
-- Suggested by Sunflower
I'll be running a GURPS event, an INWO tournament and some Car Wars mayhem, too.
If you're in the neighborhood, please stop by.
-- Scott Haring
Also, Adventure Distributing of Cohoes, NY is closing. Their inventory is being picked up by SyCo Distribution of Manassas Park, VA.
We can only wait to see what will happen next.
-- Loren Wiseman
OK, it's not in a steel cage, and it's not to the death. But we did just recently get this really cool large chessboard with magnetic pieces (from our friends at Chessex Southwest -- thanks guys!), and the upstarts in our shipping department challenged the rest of us to a match.Anyone who's interested can participate, which can lead to some complications when somebody walks by and makes a move for your side that the rest of us don't agree with . . . but it's not like we're playing for money or anything. Everyone Else has already beaten the Shipping Department once, and a second match is in progress. We'll keep doing this until we get tired of it. When this game ends, we'll let you know who won.
Coming next . . . Steel Cage Knightmare Chess Death Match!
-- Scott Haring
We're happy to bring this important book in the GURPS line back into print. The new printing should be in game stores by mid-April.
-- Scott Haring
An Illuminated motorcycle club (very Discordian, it appears), with some
beautiful art on their pages! Visit the online turf of the
Bavarian
Illuminated Motorcycle Cabal. Are they real? Come on. Is ANYTHING real?
-- Suggested by Drakken
![[ cover ]](/pyramid/img/covers/pyr-29.small.jpg)
The advance copies of Pyramid #29 arrived this week, and they look just beautiful. The rest of them are on a truck somewhere, and when they get here (along with a couple of other items), we'll have some stuff to send out that should be in the stores by mid-April.
-- Scott Haring
Micah and I both appeared on panels this year. He got to talk about multiplayer online games, which is a hot topic right now. I was on a panel with Gregory Kallenberg (who covers tech culture for Austin's daily paper, and isn't it great to live in a town that NEEDS a tech culture writer); Warren Spector, once of SJ Games but now in the stratosphere with Ion Storm; Ellen Guon Beeman, co-founder of Illusion Machines; and Tim Little of Charybdis. All of Austin. And the subject of the panel was basically "Austin is already a gaming center, though it's not up there with Silicon Valley yet. Why not? Well, we have the talent here, but the control and the money are in California."
For now, anyway. It was a very interesting panel.
-- Steve Jackson
Earning a battlefield promotion to Marketing Director is Loren Wiseman, who will continue to work on the GURPS Traveller line, but must give up his Art Director position.
Enter Alain Dawson, fresh from the drive down from Chicago. The original plan was to use Alain exclusively as a production artist and game editor, but what with this Art Director thing opening up . . . what the heck. Alain will continue her work on In Nomine as well (she's writing the adventure for The Final Trumpet).
And as long as we had the digital camera out, here's a picture of Jack Elmy, the new production guy we hired about two months ago. What a good-looking crew!
-- Scott Haring
Remember, GURPS Russia is available only by direct mail from SJ Games – which means if you want it, you need to visit our web catalog. We thank you, the <>author thanks you, your nation thanks you . . .
-- Steve Jackson
The Infernal Player's Guide for In Nomine went to the printer this week.The IPG has expanded writeups on all seven major Demonic Bands, and tons of information for players and GMs alike on roleplaying all sorts of demons in all sorts of situations, incliding climbing the infernal ladder of power and influence; dealing with your Superior; demonic reproduction; imps, gremlins and demonlings; even Redemption.
Look for the Infernal Player's Guide in a store near you in the latter half of April.
-- Scott Haring
We get a lot of requests for "true" information about the "real" Illuminati. And we laugh madly, because our part of the Conspiracy has
nothing to do with straight answers. So if you want a digest of data about the historical Illuminati, IGNORE THIS PAGE FNORD and visit the Bavarian Illluminati FAQ of A-albionic Research. This is not even a regular web page (maybe if we asked nicely we could get permission to duplicate it here . . . ?) Read it anyway.
The current issue of GameSpot has a more detailed report.
Actually, the entire DRAW site is well worth visiting, with play-by-email games, arena maps, vehicle designs and lots of cool graphics. Check it out.
-- Scott Haring
Click here to go directly to the review.
-- Scott Haring
Isn't it pretty? The picture doesn't really show scale, but it's more than a foot across. This was carved by Dana Blankenship, who the Illuminati really, really like. Thank you! It's going home now, to increase the already-high level of Slack in my garden.Stefan Jones reports this coooooooool news from Lunar Prospector, via the NASA web site:
Ice. Between 10 million tons and 1.2 billion tons (depending on depth), spread over 15,000 km2 and 70,000 km2 at the North and South lunar poles. It's apparently a minor constituent of the polar moon-dirt – it will have to be mined and purified – but it's there.
Novelists, near-future game designers and dreamers, start revising your scenarios for Luna for the next century. The moon colony just became a LOT more feasible. (I'm already thinking about what this does to Triplanetary . . .)
-- Steve Jackson
The three were flying to North Carolina on Feb. 25 for a miniature airplane meet. Essig, who was flying the 1949 Cessna from Illinois, overcorrected when he tried to abort a landing, according to a follow-up story in Wednesday's edition of the Chapel Hill News.
Essig underwent surgery to repair a badly broken ankle, and also suffered broken ribs, a broken nose and a fractured shoulder. Powell had his leg operated on, but seems to be in the best shape of the three. Essig and Powell are due to be released shortly. Volny is in intensive care after spinal surgery Monday.
-- Scott Haring
Hallelujah! Praise the Toupee! Here's your chance to get in on the
ground floor of a lunatic millennium cult - with a difference! Point
your browser to The First
Church of Shatnerology and bask in the awe and majesty of all
things Shatner.
-- Number 2, Illuminated
Sitekeeper. Site suggested by Jeff Hitchin.
We have reason to fear that one distributor ignored the release date and shipped Liber Reliquarum early. It should have shipped FROM the distributors YESTERDAY. So if you saw it in a store before TODAY, March 5, there's a problem. (If you see it in a store today, that's still probably a problem.
If you saw Liber in a store on or before today, March 5, please drop e-mail to Woody Eblom (woodysan@io.com). This does not create trouble for the retailer; retailers have no way of knowing they were shipped early. But if a distributor really jumped the gun, we want to know, and we want to have a talk with them, in fairness to the other distributors.
-- Steve Jackson
Liber Reliquarum is the latest supplement for In Nomine. Lots of cool and frightening relics, reliquaries, artifacts and talismans for your campaign, and enough adventure ideas to keep a campaign going until Armageddon (coming to you later this year . . . what, you don't read the newspapers?).
Also at the distributors are the reprints of GURPS Grimoire and GURPS Alternate Earths. Depending on how tight your local retailer is with his distributor, these books could even be on the shelves by the time you read this.
-- Scott Haring
![[pic of SJ (left) and Stang]](/ill/img/s42.jpg)
The Most Illuminated, Slack-ful and Wholly-Something-Or-Other Rev. Ivan Stang has been our guest the past few days in the SJ Games offices. Rev. Stang, the Sacred Scribe of the Church of the SubGenius, has been here helping with the final tweaks on the production of INWO SubGenius. Art is being refined, cards fine-tuned, box covers slathered in slack . . . it's a beautiful, and somewhat strange, thing.The results of all this will be apparent to you all sometime in April, when INWO SubGenius hits the stores. Ask for it by name!
-- Scott Haring
Well, it's back.
Loren Wiseman has hit the ground running, and the first GURPS Traveller material will be posted for playtest soon. And he's also picked up TNS where it left off in 1987, when GDW ended the "classic" Traveller continuity and moved into the Rebellion Era of MegaTraveller.
Since GURPS Traveller is set in the official alternate history where the Imperium didn't fall, we're restarting TNS. As it did for almost 20 years, it will tell the ongoing story of the universe of Strephon's Imperium.
But now it's on the web. Loren Wiseman will be updating it regularly, and you can check out current events any time.
It sent a chill down my spine when I read Loren's first new TNS dispatch (which you can find under "Previous Trasmissions" at the TNS site).
I hope you enjoy this revival of one of gaming's classics as much as I do.
-- Steve Jackson
In the special presentation "Beyond T-Rex" on the Discovery Channel, a kid goes into the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, goes into the museum shop, and buys a plastic T-Rex. However, for the entire scene in the shop, a display box of Dino Hunt is prominently shown on the opposite end of the the small register counter from the register itself. I wonder which of the secret masters were responsible for it being the only commercial dinosaur product so displayed in the entire show...
