Google+ The Geeks Menagerie: January 2012

Sunday, January 29, 2012

RPGCON 2012 was a big hit!




I'm happy to report that yesterdays RPG event was a huge success! We had 14 people that came early and we played for nearly 12 hours!

The morning session (4 -4.5 hours) had the following #'s


Shadow Run: 4 players
A Song of Fire and Ice (Game of Thrones): 4 players
Zombie Apocalypse - Medieval (Harn Rules): 3 Players 


Afternoon session (5 hours) #'s

Savage Worlds - Gas Light edition: 6 players
Zombie Apocalypse - Modern (Harn Rules): 5 players (

AD&D 2nd Edition - Game was canceled - as it turned out zombies and Gas Light won the popular vote.


I would like to thank all of our GMs and attendees for joining in all the fun yesterday. I had a blast! As I mentioned before I am planning on Hosting RPGCON 2013! So if you would like to attend next years event contact me and I'll add you to the mailing list.

Green Ronin RPG Product Updates

 Wanted to share a few interesting items i found over at the Green Ronin web site. Game of Throne fans will really like their new offerings this summer.

A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying (SIFRP)( Game of Thrones)
I think it's fair to say that 2011 was a great year for fans of A Song of Ice and Fire. A Dance with Dragons was released, HBO's excellent Game of Thrones TV show debuted, and our SIFRP Chronicle Starter was released in time for the holidays. This confluence of events lead to a big spurt of SIFRP sales and it soon became clear that by 2012 we'd be out of core rulebooks. We could have just reprinted but the rising tide of Ice and Fire enthusiasm argued for something grander.
This May we'll be releasing "A Game of Thrones Edition" of A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying. This takes the existing core rulebook and appends the entirety of the Peril at King's Landing adventure. This will give you all the rules and a full adventure in one glorious 320 page, full color package. We've commissioned a new cover from Michael Komarck that we're expecting any day now. We also replaced a dozen pieces of interior art, and of course we're fixing errata and such. If you already have SIFRP, there's no need to panic. Nothing major is changing in the rules and you don't have to re-buy them. We just want to take the opportunity to make our core rulebook bigger and better. And having a sexy new book to sell during season 2 of the TV show is no accident.
We'll be following that up this summer with The Night's Watch. Yes, it's a full sourcebook about the black clad heroes who hold the Wall. The book includes rules and advice on running a Night's Watch campaign, as well as providing the order's history, organization, personalities, and so on. Then later in the year we'll be doing a SIFRP Starter Set aimed at introducing the game to new players and gamers. As awesome as the new edition of SIFRP is going to be, it's not the sort of thing you want to drop in a newbie's lap and say, "Here, read this!" With all the attention the novels and TV show are getting, we want to have an accessible entry point to SIFRP and that'll be the Starter Set.
Another thing the "A Game of Thrones Edition" lets us do is name the game's system. We've dubbed it the Chronicle System and Hal Mangold is designing a logo for it. This will allow us to release material that is useable with the rules but not specific to Westeros. As with the AGE DLC, you'll see a series of Chronicle System PDFs this year that expand the rules in different ways. You can use these options in your SIFRP game if you like or use the rules in other settings.

Mutants & Masterminds and DC Adventures
The year is starting off right for the World's Greatest Superhero RPG. The Gamemaster's Guide for Mutants & Masterminds Third Edition is in stores this week. We also just wrapped up the Threat Report series with the free Atom Family PDF, and started a new PDF series last week called Power Profiles. In each Power Profile, Steve Kenson takes a look at a particular type of super-power in Mutants & Masterminds game terms, and presents of plethora of ready-built powers and options you can choose from. These are a steal at 99 cents, as they make creating themed characters much easier.
The next print product for Mutants & Masterminds is the Threat Report. This collects all the PDFs of that series along with a few additional villains to challenge your super-heroes. Then this summer we'll be releasing our new setting for Mutants & Masterminds: Emerald City. We had previously announced this title as a softcover book but we decided that wouldn't do it justice. We're thus upgrading it a full boxed set with multiple books and a poster map. Emerald City is a great place to kick off a new campaign. It's also in the "Freedomverse," so it's fully compatible with our previous Freedom City books.
We're rounding out the year in Mutants & Masterminds with a mysterious October release. We'll have more to say about this later. We believe you'll find it more treat than trick.
Last but by no means least is DC Adventures. As you know, our license with DC was for four books only. Two have been published already (the Hero's Handbook and Heroes & Villains Volume I). The remaining two should come out this year. Heroes & Villains Volume II is in for approvals now and we're shooting for a March release. The last book, Universe, is scheduled for this Fall.
With all of our licensed material, the thing to remember is that we don't control the approvals process and this can affect our release dates. We do our best and so do our partners but sometimes patience is required. We'll keep you updated as the year progresses.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

RPGCON Logos

Here are a couple of the logos I created last night for the con:





Friday, January 27, 2012

RPGCON 2012 is a go!

Well its been an exciting task getting this event underway and it looks to be a lot of fun. Thanks to everybody  for volunteering to GM/DM our first annual event!  Here is a run down of the days events:

Morning 10:00am to 2:00pm
Shadow run  - 
Zombie-Apocalypse - Medieval edition (Harn Rules) - 
Game of Thrones -


Afternoon 2:30pm to 6:30pm
AD&D -
Zombie-Apocalypse - Modern edition (Harn Rules) -
Gas Light a Victorian Age - (Savage Worlds)

We have 15 people including GMs attending as of now, but we might have a couple stopping out in the afternoon. I'll post a follow up tommorrow!

Friday, January 20, 2012

DC comics new Logo


So I finally heard about the new DC Entertainment Logo and I have to say I'm not real impressed. They look kind plain and boring. From what I understand DC filed a lawsuit against a shoe company saying their logo looked to much like DC comics logo. As it turns out DC never filed a patent on their image and the shoe company filed a counter suit and won. So DC has been paying them to use the current logo.
Here is the press release from DC on the identity change: dcu.blog




I do kind of like these versions but part of me wants them to go back to the old target style logo. What do you guys think of the new logo? let me know leave a comment!

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Comic Store Visit


Finally made it to the comic shop last night, here is a run down of what I picked up, its been a while:

DC Comics -
Red Lanterns # 4+5
Batman # 3+4
Nightwing # 3+4
Aquaman #3+4
Green Lantern: New Guardians # 3+4
Green Lantern Corps # 3+4
Green Lantern # 3-5
Green Arrow # 3-5
Justice League International # 4+5
Demon Knights # 3-5
Savage Hawkman # 2+3
Batwoman # 3+4

IDW Comics-
G.I.JOE: A Real American Hero # 169-173
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles # 3-5

Dark Horse Comics -
Star Wars: Dark Times # 3
Star Wars: Invasion - Revelations # 5
Star Wars: Knights of the old Republic - War # 1
Star Wars: Crimson Empire III # 1
Usagi Yojimbo # 140-142

Marvel Comics -
New Mutants # 33-35
Secret Avengers # 19

Holy Crap! I have a lot of reading to do!

Walt Simonson - Usagi Yojimbo!

Walt Simonson is providing the introduction to Usagi Yojimbo Book 26: Traitors of the Earth. This is a pencil drawing that he did to go with the intro. (Posted on the Usagi Yojimbo Dojo Facebook Page by Stan Sakai) I love everything Walt Simonson works on, I look forward to picking up this book up. Go read Usagi people, it is a wonderful comic!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The Silverblade Family

Happy new year! Well its the beginning of a new year and I am multitasking once again. I've been working on the Cal'thel site and the TMNT game I will be running at the end of the month. there have been a few updates on the Cal'thel web page, I added a full family tree so go check it out! The Wiki is coming along nicely, but it is taking me a bit longer to add content than I wanted. its coming! go check it out.