The big news of the week is a deal that I’ve been working on at my day job with Human Head Studios for the past couple months. In short, Green Roninhas agreed to publish the adventure games that Human Head produces. If you’re interested in the full press release, you can find it here.
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Spiritkeeper Release Date Change
Apparently The Secret of the Spiritkeeper is slated for an August release. The date currently on Wizards’ website is from the original plan, before they decided to release the first and second books in the series at once. This is good news, as it should give Wizards more time to rev up the marketing machine. They have plans for a full website and book club to support the line, which should help crank up the interest too.
[Posted with ecto]
Comment Spam
I got my first bits of spam in the comments sections over the past week. Unless, of course, I number Levitra sales reps and online gambling casinos in my readers. I blocked the offending IPs, but I’m told this sort of thing may get bad. Movable Type 3.0 is supposed to have some powerful tools to fix this sort of thing, but it’s in beta right now.
In the meantime, we’ll hold on tight and see what happens. If worse comes to worst, I may have to close down the commentary sections. If that does happen, remember you can always reach me by e-mail.
On the cool side of things, I’m testing out this new posting program for Mac OS X: ecto. So far, it’s pretty darn neat.
[Posted with ecto]
d20 and Me
A while back, Jon Leitheusser (currently of WizKids) asked me to write an essay about my opinion of the d20 System. I did, and he published as the last page of issue #2 of his Campaign Magazine. I edited it a bit to bring it up to date, and “What I Think of the d20 System” is now available in the Downloads section.
Notifications
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More Awards
The awards season seems to have hit the adventure gaming industry full on. As I mentioned earlier, GameWyrd.com recently opened voting on its Weird GameWyrd Awards. The Redhurst Academy of Magic has been nominated as “The RPG or Supplement Most Likely to Spark the Imagination.”
Also, Pen & Paper just announced that it’s taking votes for its Pen & Paper Awards. Allow me to make some (perhaps not very) humble suggestions:
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Spiritkeeper News
My natural curiosity led me to check out the Wizards of the Coast website to see if they’d posted my bio yet. It turns out they’re quicker than I thought. You can see the bio here.
Better yet, the official product page is here. I was told the book would be released in August, but it says June here, so who am I to argue?
It’s also available for preordering at Amazon.com. Although Amazon lists the book at 256 pages, Wizards claims that it’s 192. I’d go with Wizards on this one. Either way, I encourage you to preorder it through your local game store first if you can.
Revised Bio
Wizards of the Coast recently asked me for an expanded bio to help them market The Secret of the Spiritkeeper, a new young adult novel I wrote for them that’s due out this August. I liked it better than what I had before, so I posted it here under my About Matt Forbeck link.
There’s also a picture of me and my kids. As I explained to Nina Hess, my editor on Secret, I hope to come up with a traditional head shot someday. In the meantime, this photo sums up my life better.
Real Authority Cover
Adam Jury of Guardians of Order just sent me the final cover for The Authority Role-Playing Game. Click on it to see a much larger version. This is essentially the same as the first cover I showed with the exception of the names along the spine.
It’s common for authors to drop in and out of projects for various reasons. Not having been involved in the development of this book—that honor went to the ever-capable Jesse Scoble—I couldn’t tell you the individual stories behind the shuffle here. I can only say that I was thrilled to be able to work on this book, and I’m proud to have my name up there on the cover.
Don’t be fooled by the fact my name is toward the top of the book, as I only wrote the player’s chapter. I suspect the names are ordered by the amount each of the writers contributed, starting with Jesse, who’s at the bottom, and ending with me. Still, that’s fine company to find yourself in.
The Game Has Changed
When Ryan Dancey set up the OGL and the d20 System license (which allows people to use the Dungeons & Dragons rules system for free), he relied on the idea that a game isn’t just a set of rules. It’s a network of people who know and play the game. When you buy a copy of a game, you’re buying into that network.
The larger the network, the more valuable it is. Dungeons & Dragons already had the largest roleplaying game network around, but the d20 System license cemented its position by letting any publisher or fan legally tap into the network (and, by doing so, growing the network too).
One perhaps unforeseen side-effect of this is that anyone who publishes OGL/d20 System material produces a commodity, defined in economic terms as “a physical substance which is interchangeable with another product of the same type.”
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