[Note: It’s a special double-header Friday for Ronin Round Table. Here’s another post, from Steve Kenson, live at Origins in Columbus, OH!] By the time you read this Ronin Roundtable, I should be attending the Origins Game Fair in downtown Columbus, OH, as a guest of honor, since the convention’s theme this year is "Superheroes" […]
More than once, Green Ronin has been accused of having "an agenda" when it comes to its published products. Now, it’s no secret that the owners and core of Team Ronin skews to the left politically and socially but, generally speaking, I can’t think of any products where those personal beliefs took precedence over accurately […]
Steve Kenson The new Wild Cards SCARE Sheets series for Mutants & Masterminds got underway this month with the release of the free "Issue #0" conversion guide for the third edition of the game and overview of the Committee (the focus of the "Committee Triad" of Wild Cards novels), followed by Issue #1 with everyone’s […]
In 2013, Green Ronin is launching our two new alternating weekly series for Mutants & Masterminds, what I’ve been working on since Power Profiles wrapped up at the end of last year: Gadget Guides and SCARE Sheets for the Wild Cards setting. Gadget Guides premiered with Robots, a guide to creating and using mechanical marvels […]
By Steve Kenson It can be strange, sometimes, living in "production side" time in the game business. As folks are increasingly becoming aware, via the transparency of the Internet and services like Kickstarter, the production of an RPG product (particularly a new game) can be quite a long time. Larger companies plan their production schedules […]
As I write this, the Mutants & Masterminds Tenth Anniversary Kickstarter has passed $25,000 in funding and a stretch goal I’ve been looking forward to: an opportunity to revisit some beloved characters from previous editions of the game and update them to the current (third) edition game stats! Now the big question is: which characters?
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 […]
There are times when it would be easier to not see the world from the point of view of a gamer and game-designer. Why? Because once you make the language and process of narrative game design a significant part of your vocabulary, it can be difficult to see things without those "game design glasses" on.
I’ve been asked in interviews just how much of the Freedom City setting for Mutants & Masterminds is my "home" game setting. Surprising to many, the answer is "not much at all." I based fairly little of Freedom City on my own superhero games, partly because the setting started out as a project to create […]
Gamers can’t what? Not, not "gamers cannot," gamers’ cant, the unique jargon and terminology that develops amongst gamers and gaming groups. You know, the way you know somebody you’ve just met is a gamer when they slip, laugh, and say "Missed my Dex roll!" Then there are the specific "dialects" of gamers’ cant that develop […]