news item: AnimalBall games now free

[The press release below is pretty cool news. The AnimalBall gang are nifty people. A while back I reviewed Instant Game: Barebones Edition and RPG Pundit took a look at Sandbox Hill. Both Hill and their mythic Greek game, Ascension to Olympus, look right up my alley.]

Everything's Free at Animalball Games!

After many months of studying the market, spending dozens of dollars on various demographic studies, and reviewing the balances in their checking accounts, Animalball Games has decided to start offering its products for free download. Games that had previously been for sale through RPGNow, like the Steadfast Shield and Sandbox Hill, are now available for free download.

Animalball Co-Founder Kyle Jones stated, "We stuck with a 'traditional' business model for nearly two years, but realized we just weren't making any money selling pdfs of our games through the internet. After consulting with some of the greatest entrepreneurs in the rural midwest, we decided to go to a radically different business model-- volume, volume, volume. Our advisors concluded that we could move far more product if we reduced the price. We figured that nothing's lower than free, so we can really expect to move large volumes of product under our new business model."

Animalball's other Co-Founder, Mike Jones, added, "We're still creating great roleplaying games and over the next few weeks we'll roll out several more games that were originally intended for retail. But we decided that getting people to actually play our games was more important than making money. We decided that we do this because we enjoy it, not because we want to get rich from it."

Click here to go to Animalball's download page.

Animalball Games is a small, independent publisher of free, unique games that do not fit the traditional mold of "mainstream" rpgs. When developing its products, ABG heavily depends on the assistance of its online community to give feedback, input and playtesting help. It is ABG's philosophy that the best games are those developed by the gamers themselves.

A long time ago in an exceedingly cute galaxy....

The Star Wars Galactic Heroes toyline makes action figures and a few vehicles for the preschool set. I own a bunch of these and my daughter and I play with them pretty regularly. The usual scenario involves Darth Maul throwing a pizza party and inviting everyone. But sometimes Darth Vader is a school teacher and everyone else is a student. So far I have managed to resist the urge to buy the new Marvel Super Hero Squad line, where the apply a similar design ethic to a bunch of Marvel characters. But honestly it's only a matter of time. Those things are adorable. How can you not like tiny kawaii Punisher? If they made a Ben Grimm I'd probably already own the whole line.

Anyway, here are two of the more unusual Galactic Heroes figures that we've got at home.

The armored mummy you might recognize as Dengar, one of the bounty hunters that Vader hired in Empire for the purposes of rounding up the good guys. According to StarWars.com he went on to have some expanded universe adventures of his own, like pretty much every other named character in the original trilogy. What makes this figure so special to me is the fact that it looks like he's wearing the best shoes in the galaxy. Nearly everyone in Star Wars wears boots. Some aliens such as Chewbacca or Bossk go shoeless. But this little Dengar looks like he's wearing some comfy moccasins. I love that!

The little black robot is R2-Q5. I didn't even know this character existed until my wife got me the Death Star themed Galactic Heroes tenpack for Christmas. Back in the day I loved R series astromech droids. R5-D4 was one of my favorite robotic action figures. That was the red R2 unit with the bad motivator that futzed out right after Uncle Ben bought him. Turns out R2-Q5 is an R2 unit working for the bad guys. Given the recent revelation that R2-D2 was one of the Alliance's top agents, I can't help but wonder what roll this droid really played in the Empire.

By the way, while I was poking around Hasbro's Star Wars hub I found that they had a slick custom Heromachine just like the GI Joe version I found a while back. Dig it:

found another D&D comic ad

This one has made the rounds on the net before, but with both hot cleric ass and a red dragon making puppy eyes I could not pass up a chance to share it again. Especially with such a bright, clean copy.

Click to feast your eyes upon the nostalgic goodness.

Low Impact High Weirdness

You know what I like? Games that make it easy to get into but then go deep over the long haul. I've mentioned in the past how both Eberron and S. John Ross' Uresia both make it super-easy for D&D people to hop on board. You can create a bog standard surly dwarf or axe-wielding viking for either campaign and then let the GM spoonfeed you the deeper weirdness of the two settings. Similarly, you can play Traveller without knowing much about sci fi other than what you can get out of watching Star Wars, yet there is so much more under the surface.

Low Impact High Weirdness is my new catchphrase for these kinds of games. The big thing about these games is that you don't need a PhD in the setting to whip up a PC, or for the player to know what to do with that PC. There are a lot of rich, wondrous games out there I simply will never play because I don't want to spend umpteen hours conveying the setting to the players so they can make appropriate characters. Most versions of Tékumel, for instance. Or Fading Suns. At its most basic, I don't want to tell players why the setting is cool, I want get them into the game and then show them.

Example: at my Eberron game this last Tuesday the PCs met up with Ms. Johnson in an abandoned tower. Since the party is composed of despicable sky pirates, she brought some back-up. When I described the kobold mercenaries perched on the tower, wearing ewok-style hang-gliders, one of the players nearly jumped out of his seat. This was something new and weird for him. He was startled with the idea of hang-gliding kobolds, pulling quasi-legit merc work in a human city. I loved that reaction.

The player was Jon, who does the same thing to me all the time in his awesome World of Alidor campaign. You can make a regular D&D character for that campaign, and go on regular adventures. Someone with no knowledge of the setting can show up and play cold, but the campaign is chock full of awesome memorable stuff. Hell, after the first session I wrote up a list of things I wanted to do in his campaign, just 'cause it was so loaded with coolness. (Hmm, I've only got three items crossed off that list. Looks like I need to get to work.)

Many games set in the modern world do a good job of being Low Impact High Weirdness. With its easy premise ('occult investigation in the Roaring 20s'), D&D style stats, and percentage skills, Call of Cthulhu is extremely newbie friendly. At least when you don't make the mistake of fetishizing the source material. Most other horror, spy, or action movie games work that way as well. Feng Shui has a boatload of wacky setting info, but actually works better if you only dole it out to the players in bitesized morsels. You start out in a stock action movie and only later see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Most White Wolf games don't work for me precisely because I need to grok too much at the beginning of a campaign. If the Storyteller has to explain the difference between a Tremere and a Brujah before I can make my PC, then I just don't really want to play. Is that fair, considering that back in the day I had to learn the difference between an elf and a dwarf? Not really. But nowadays I just don't have the time to absorb vast amounts of setting info prior to starting a game. Put me in the game now, and freak me out later.

Wrestling Society X sneak preview review

Okay, so this show is a little unpolished and a little trashy, but it had some good wrestling. And they squeezed two long (for TV) matches into a 30 minutes show. I gotta respect the high wrestling to talking ratio. The main event was a battle royal that was screwed up with a lot of hardcore props, including stupid Japanese gimmicks like "live electrical wires" and cheesy explosions.

But the first match, Jack Evans vs. Matt Sydal (two unknowns to me), was a respectable match that would not be out of place in TNA's X-Division. The finish was weak, as it featured flagrant outside interference that the ref clearly acknowledged. Yet there was no DQ called. If the ref is not going to keep up the pretense of officiating, then make it a no DQ match and get the dude out of the scene.

I really liked the way the main event was designed to set of Wrestling Society X's first championship bout. The battle royal was designed to have two winners, with the goal of the match to reach one of the two championship match contracts suspended above the ring. The winners of the match, who next episode will fight for the chance to be the first WSX champ, are these two guys:

Sean Waltman,
a.k.a. Six-Pac, a.k.a. X-Pac, a.k.a. Syxx, a.k.a. the 1-2-3 Kid,
former member of both D-X and the nWo.

-versus-

Vampiro,
"scary" goth guy

I loathe Sean Waltman with such a passion that I'm going to be rooting for the Vampire LARPer. Seriously, this Waltman guy sucks. It's not that he's a badguy I love to hate. It's not that I want to see Vampiro beat the crap out of him. I just don't want Sean Waltman on my TV at all. And I'm not the only fan like that. The term "X-Pac Heat" was coined for him. It means heat (wrestling slang for 'crowd reaction') against the wrestler and not his badguy character. Lots of people find this guy annoying as hell and I'm one of them.

Which, in the crazy world of wrestling, means he'll probably win the championship and have a long and glorious reign.

The joys of ROM #24, part 2

In issue 24 of his book, Rom teams up with Nova to defeat some Skrulls, who are attempting to conquer the planet Xandar. Rom fights the Skrulls alone while Nova, an Earth kid with Xandarian superpowers, seeks to free the Champions of Xandar from imprisonment. Things look desperate for Rom, but the local populace decides they aren't going down without a fight.

Holy crap, but that old guy with the mustache is awesome! And the eyebrows! And the outfit! Why this guy doesn't have his own 12-issue miniseries is beyond me. It's a tragedy that his only appearance in the mag is this one panel. This unnamed Xandarian reminds me of half the oldsters in my Masonic lodge: tough as leather and not taking any crap from the likes of you!

In fact, I so dig this dude that he served as the inspiration for the first fully statted character in New Bronze City!

---

Space Geezer
Gee-Zar of Zandaria, pensioner from the stars

Fighting: Incredible (40)
Agility: Good (10)
Strength: Typical (6)
Endurance: Poor (4)
Reason: Remarkable (30)
Intuition: Excellent (20)
Psyche: Remarkable (30)

Health: 60
Karma: 80
Resources: Excellent
Popularity: 0

Contacts: Space Geezer is on good terms with many of the old guard of the Zandarian Space Corps. Locally he has limited but friendly contact with the Zandarian Embassy to the UN.

POWERS

Inhuman Grumpiness: Once per day Space Geezer may attempt a Psyche FEAT to enter a fit of righteous fury, boosting his physical abilities for 1-10 rounds. A red result boosts his Fighting, Agility, Strength, and Endurance by two ranks. A yellow result boosts the same stats one rank. After the period of enhancement all of Space Geezer's physical abilities drop to one rank below normal for 1-10 minutes. A green result boosts a physical stat of Space Geezer's choice by one rank, but with no subsequent rank reduction. If the Psyche FEAT yields a white result nothing happens but Space Geezer cannot attempt further Grumpiness for 1-5 hours.

TALENTS

Marksman, Martial Arts A & C, Pilot (including spacecraft), Military, Leadership

EQUIPMENT

Ultrium Swagger Stick: Space Geezer occasionally carries a metal cane of alien design. It is made of an unearthly alloy of Amazing material strength. When wielding it in hand-to-hand combat Space Geezer does +1 rank of damage. The head of the cane contains a laser emitter capable of doing Excellent damage at a range of 4 areas. The power of the laser is variable and can be turned down so as to light cigars or toast bread.

BACKGROUND

Gee-Zar served 8 terms with the Space Corps, the mighty military machine of the Zandarian Star Empire. He's seen fighting all over space, participating in most of the colonial wars of the last three decades. When Sergeant Major Gee-Zar reached mandatory retirement age he pulled a few lucrative mercenary tickets and then opted to settle down on a shiny little planet outside of the major interstellar trouble areas. His pension keeps him very comfortable on this backwater world and his only trouble's nowadays is the occasional local hooligan in need of a drubbing. And frankly, Gee-Zar enjoys the workout.

---

Incidentally, if you look back up at that panel you'll see that old guy's left fist is behind the blonde woman in the foreground. But there's a second purple gloved fist on the left side of his body, completely visible. I think the penciller intended the visible fist to belong to the dude to the left, the guy in the green. The colorist's decision to make that guy's fist purple confuses the image and almost makes it look like the elderly gent with the mustache has two left arms. That confusion actually worked to my advantage when I tried pulling the old guy out of the panel with a paint program.

Always remember...Yeah, I'm digging up a year old meme here, all for a character I just made up. I have no shame.

the links came marching five by five

On costume color in DC comics

Futurama: Super Happy Fun Show - a picture (click on it for the close-up)

Claw the Unconquered: Cliché and the Perfect Genre Piece - about a comic, but perhaps useful to the non-comic reading sword & sorcery fan

Loren K Wiseman on Traveller and Star Wars

Those Magnificent Mandarins in Their Flying Machines - colonial airship sci-fi from a different empire than usual