PRESS RELEASES & NEWSLETTERS (Full text below)
RPG Newsletter #36
SOCIAL
Help Preserve the Mini Ackermansion
Catfishing Arrives in the Book Review World
Really? Revenge Rating a Critic?
Hacker-Thieves Gathering Key Fob Data (via Karen Davidson)
Jo Walton Repudiates Slates, Joins other Authors in Preemptive Action
Male Cartoonists Withdraw From Awards in Protest Over NO Female Nominees
ENTERTAINMENT
A take on Star Wars that largely reflects my own feelings (except I don’t hear laser sounds, I think of Peppie….)
More SW: Artist Mashes Up Star Wars & Calvin & Hobbs
If you like Jack Clemons’ series on the space program, you might like this shirt
Short films using NASA imagery
Hey! That’s MY Bag! (What? You couldn’t tell?)
Revolution 60 Close to Shipping
Janet ‘pink is for girls’ and Brad ‘blue is for assholes!’ actors set for RHPS remake. (Where is the outrage? A transgender black woman is playing Frank. I mean, we can’t have black Stormtroopers, but a black transgender woman playing a male transvestite from planet Transylvania is perfectly ok? Where are your priorities, haters?) (Me? I think they should remake it with LOLCats. And turtles.)
Puppy Supporting Tangent Online Demonstrates What A Recommendation List Looks Like – then sends readers to a slate
That’s Not a Beetle! That’s a Car!
SF & Fantasy Television Coming in 2016
Star Trek 50th Celebration: Never before seen images
INDUSTRY
MidAmericonII Hugo Award Base Competition Open (closes real soon)
BOOKS Are Back! (Publishing Trends for 2016)
Kim Stanley Robinson to receive RAH Award
RandomPenguin Cleans House: Sells Author Solutions, More
Phoenix Picks for January Features Jack L Chalker (The Well World!!!)
Traveler Black Books Special – but only till this Tuesday
Tangent Online’s Wilson Tucker Photo Gallery
Fodder for Steampunks, Dieselpunks and Regency Folks
Fodder for AltHist Folks: WWII Battle unites US, German & French Troops
Stuff at CES (what happens in Vegas better not stay in Vegas)
Some brief reviews for consideration
Odyssey Workshop Open for Applications
64 SF Classics That Ought to be Audio Books
JCW Still Pushing Conspiracy Theories
Behind the Scenes at The Walking Dead, it’s not so pretty
I’ll take the drone chair to the office
SCIENCE
Incan string with knots may be subject to translation
Is there anything more awe inspiringly beautiful than nebulae?
Keep Watching the Skies! (in 2016)
Put your head in the hole and repeat after me: ‘there IS no such thing as global warming…there is NO such thing as global warming…’
Marine Corps Wants Future Wars To Be Quiet (psss! pass the ammo)
Millions of Uncharted Asteroids Could Spell Our Doom
Space Race II (Who will win this era’s competition?)
What Does a Multiverse Really Mean?
Quantum Foam (What floats at the top of your quantum beer)
The ENTIRE Universe in One Illustration
PRESS RELEASES & NEWSLETTERS
RPGnet Newsletter #36
January 5, 2016
Introduction
Welcome, readers, to RPGnet and the RPGnet Newsletter in 2016. We’re back after a short hiatus to catch up on the new material posted on the site in the closing weeks of last year. As always, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please PM me (Iustum) or Shannon Appelcline.
New Columns
Kicking off the new year, RPGnet’s own Shannon Appelcline of Advanced Designers & Dragons is back with “2015: The Year in Review”. Don’t miss this fantastic overview of the last year in RPG-industry news!
Jonathan Hicks was also back with another edition of Observations From A Gamer’s Chair, this one containing some great advice on developing realistic bad guys:“Threat Assessment.”
Brent Dedeaux of Tales from the Rocket House set down some thoughts on how to promote non-violent solutions in RPG sessions in “Peace on Earth, Middle Earth, Faerun, Tatooine….”
Last but not least, over the break Christopher Cecil added not one, but two new issues of Fuzzy Thinking: “A Very Fuzzy Christmas” and “A Legendary Tale.”
New Reviews
The end of 2015 (and, technically, first day of 2016) saw RPGnet add a bunch of great new reviews, listed below.
- Antonios S’s review of “Dust Adventures” (Alternate History RPG)
- Endzeitgeist’s review of “Ryuutama” (Miyazaki-esque RPG)
- Matthew McFarland’s review of “OmegaZone” (Post-apocalyptic Fate RPG)
- Asen Georgiev’s review of “Cadaver Draconis” (Dragon Warriors supplement)
- Ryan Isaacson’s review of “Underdark” (D&D 4e supplement)
- Antonios S’s review of “Lair Of The Saurians” (Mutant supplement)
- Antonios S’s review of “Oath Of The Brotherhood: The Chosen” (Board/tactical game)
- Antonios S’s review of “Dice City” (Board/tactical game)
- Antonios S’s review of “Among The Stars: Revival” (Card game)
- Antonios S’s review of “Ashes: Rise Of The Phoenixborn” (Card game)
Threads You Might Have Missed
It’s the New Year (at least in some parts of the world) and that means that is time to discuss “Any Roleplaying Resolutions for 2016.” Stop by and get inspired by your fellow RPGnetters’ goals for the coming year and add your own.
Attempting to run a mystery in an RPG is a challenge – one element in particular that frequently appears in mystery media but that can be hard to translate into game terms is a red herring or other false clue. Stop by “How to do false leads in Gumshoe?” and share some wisdom on how others have handled this issue in games (not just Gumshoe).
Don’t judge an RPG by its cover. Head over to “Systems that Played Better Than They Looked?” and share your pleasant RPG surprises.
In addition to looking forward, the turn of the year is a good time for looking back. In that regard, check out “What are the must-have elements of a classic OSR dungeon?” for a discussion of what gives a dungeon that great nostalgic feel.
What you are calling a conspiracy theory I heard from the lips of my editor at Tor Books. He told me that Tor had been gaming the system for a decade or more, and that everyone inside the industry knew it.
I do know one denier who denies it because his ego is wounded: he thinks that if there were a group of insiders gaming the system, he would have been in the inner circle.