Will Hindmarch on Canon

For a while, I wrestled with the ways I could handle canon in my home Dragon Age RPG campaign.

Canon, of course, refers to the works of an author or setting that are counted as authentic lore—the books, stories, games, and more that interact officially and are regarded as What Really Happened. For a vast world like Thedas, that exists across multiple media under the Dragon Age banner, canon is both important to track for verisimilitude and sometimes intentionally blurry, imprecise, or even unreliable. At the risk of spoiling certain Dragon Age stories, for example, characters who are declared dead in earlier works may turn out to have stories left to tell in later works. Just because something is canonical doesn’t mean it won’t have twists and surprises.

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Night’s Watch: Pre-Ordering Now!

Night's Watch: Pre-Ordering Now!Night’s Watch gives you everything you need add this once noble order to your A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying chronicle. It includes rules for playing men of the Night’s Watch and wildlings alike, as well as new information about the mysterious Others. Pray, men of the green lands, for Winter is Coming! When you pre-order, get the PDF for just $5! (Or you can just buy the PDF.

We also have a second PDF preview available, The Spearwife, to go with the first, Night’s Watch Introduction.

Pre-Order Night’s Watch

Night’s Watch PDF Preview

To tide you over while we put the last few finishing touches on the Night’s Watch book for A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying, here’s a PDF preview, showing off the awesome cover art by Slawomir Maniak and revealing all about Night’s Watch.

Night’s Watch PDF Preview

Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile: Radiation Powers

Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile: Radiation Powers"There’s something different about you… You’re positively glowing!" Command the unleashed power of the atom! In the modern age, no powers are associated more with changing ordinary people into superhumans than Radiation Powers. The "radiation accident" is a time-honored origin, and radioactivity offers a powerful weapon and tool for those able to wield it. From radiation blasts to blinding light and burning heat, radiation powers let you nuke ’em until they glow! For M&M Third Edition.

Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile: Radiation Powers

Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile: Life Powers

Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile: Cold Powers"It’s alive!" Life Powers grant influence over the essential stuff of life itself: not just biological systems, but also the mysterious, vital "life force" differentiating the animate and inanimate. Users of these powers can heal—perhaps even restore life to the dead—but also harm, literally holding the powers of life in their hands! For M&M Third Edition.

Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile: Life Powers

Ronin Round Table: Bill Bodden on Pre-Order Plus

Green Ronin has a problem. Frankly, it’s no different than any other RPG publisher’s problem: how many copies do we print of any given title?

It’s an old problem. Print too many and we’ll be sitting on the extras for years—either that, or keeping ourselves warm in the winter by burning them. Print too few, and we run out, killing any buzz and the momentum that buzz can generate. Plus, the more copies we print at one time, the cheaper each copy is and the more likely it is we can turn a profit from that book. It’s basic economics, really, but not everyone knows how it works.

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Ronin Round Table: Steve Kenson on Con Life

This past GenCon in Indianapolis was my 23rd consecutive GenCon (I’ve attended every year since in 1990) and my 24th total; my first GenCon was GenCon/Origins 1988 in Milwaukee when I was 19 years old. This past year at GenCon I was an Industry Insider Guest of Honor for the first time, after more than 15 years of working in the industry. Quite the transition! (Next year will be my Silver Anniversary with GenCon…I should start making plans…)

As a Guest of Honor, much of my GenCon experience this year was all about the seminar tracks, which was fine by me as the seminars were always one of the things I loved about GenCon. I liked shopping, talking with my industry idols, and trying out new games, but attending seminars has always been one of my favorite parts. I looked forward to the "Superhero Summit" seminar during the years they held it, and made it a point to attend all the seminars for my favorite games and publishers.

So being able to present seminars at GenCon felt like giving back to me, an opportunity to provide some of what I enjoyed when I first began attending the con. Out of my various seminars, two stand out in particular:

The first is technically a couple different seminars: "Cons for Pros" and "Freelancing" both different looks at how to break into the game industry as a professional. I relied on some expert advice from industry professionals in my early days (still do, in many regards), so it was good to talk to other freelancers and would-be freelancers about the opportunities and pitfalls before them. Never before has it been both so exciting and scary to embark on a career as a creative professional in our field. The opportunities for self-publishing and self-promotion abound, but the hobby (and therefore the industry) has changed, and some of the "farm teams" publishers relied upon, like periodicals and the boom in third-party publishing following the Open Game License revolution, are not as available.

My favorite seminar, though, was "Queer as a Three-Sided Die" (which you can watch on YouTube, thanks to the effort of a couple of the attendees): a panel discussion on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered visibility, inclusion, and awareness in the RPG hobby and RPG publishing. I was thrilled at how well-attended the seminar was and how enthusiastic both the panelists and the attendees were about being there. Having first attended GenCon as a shy, closeted geek who didn’t even know any other gay people, to organizing an event like this was a very special moment for me, one I hope to remember for my next 25 years of attending the con!

YouTube links:

Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile: Cold Powers

Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile: Cold PowersFreeze! With Cold Powers, you can make that more than just an order to crooks. Cold controlling characters can create ice and snow, chilling temperatures, and use ice as a weapon, armor, and mode of transportation. Put your foes on ice…literally! For M&M Third Edition.

Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile: Cold Powers