It’s been a long time…

April 2nd, 2011

It’s been a while since ol’ Fatbeard was able to sit down a blog.  I’d love to regale you with tales about how busy the pirating life can be, but, if I had time to do that, I’d have more time to blog. 

My New Year’s resolution was to keep this blog updated, but pirates are not well regarded for their honesty…

We brought Game Design: the Shafting to Fire & Ice.  We sold quite a fee copies… and I lost my voice.  It’s still not fully recovered after five weeks… which wouldn’t bother me so much if ChaotiCon wasn’t just around the corner…  It’s the weekend of the 8th, 9th, and 10th of April if you’re at all interested.  I highly recommend it.  Not only will it be a good time for all those involved, but it happens to fall on the most important holiday of the year – Fatbeard’s birthday is on the 10th of April…

Work on After Earth is coming along.  We switched gears mid-way through production, so we haven’t started play-testing just yet.  Normally that would scare me just a little, but things fell together so nicely after change that I don’t have any doubts it was the right decision. 

The book is going to have a unique format.  We’re going to keep with our traditional “fluff them stuff” mind-set.  I hate it when rules get in the way of a good story, and that hold doubly true when I’m reading about a setting.  So the front of the book will describe the setting without going into the rules.  Then we’ll cover everything from character creation, leveling up (yes, this game will be level-based), and all the things you do while adventuring… like killing things… In this part of the book we’re going to try a new approach.  We’ll outline a rule and then give you the reasoning behind it… unless the reasoning is self-evident… We ran into this during design meeting.  Someone would propose a rule that someone else didn’t like.  The rule simplified something that is a pain in the ass in most games of this nature.  Most people either decide to toss realism out the window in the name of the game.  Others toss the fun out the window trying to be realistic.  Once we actually heard the rationale behind this rule, not only did it make the problem go away, but it did so in a way that was simple, realistic, added to the fun of the game, AND (I emphasize because this is an important and) corrected a horrible faux pas in one of my favorite movies.  It’s a win-win no matter how you look at it… but you’d never know it unless we explain the reason for the rule and tell you why it actually makes sense. 

So, there are just a few more things to wrap up, and play-testing can begin.  If you happen to know a botanist that might be willing to delve into the absurd, send him or her my way.  It would help.

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Osh Con 2010

September 26th, 2010

Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, Ol’ Fatbeard hasn’t been keeping this blog updated like he should.  I’ve been so busy lately that I don’t know whether I’ve found a rope or lost a horse.  Being a pirate, of course, finding a rope would be significantly more useful…

At any rate, if you don’t have plans for the weekend of October 9th and 10th, head on down to Osh Con in beautiful Oshkosh Wisconsin. 

Osh Con is always a good time.  Many of your old favorites will be there, and, rumor has it, some new faces as well. 

For our part, we’re planning on bringing Game Design: the Shafting, our new, NON-Customizable card game that allows you to take on the role of Game Designer.  It’s a humorous and sadly realistic look at the world of game design that is sure to waste 30 minutes of your otherwise dreary life… and likely make you chuckle if not laugh out loud… though some of the jokes might be on you… (If they are, don’t take it personally.  Quite a few of them are on me as well.)

If you do make it to Osh-burg for Osh Con, be sure to stop by the EE booth… we’ll be camped out like the kid that snipes you from across the screen in that FPS you love to play… Say hello, well met, bon jour, avast you scurvy swab, or any of the other numerous greetings that are perfectly acceptable in the company of your fellow gamers.

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ChaotiCon 19 Discounts

April 9th, 2010

I don’t have a whole lot of time to post tonight, but i would be remiss if I didn’t run a special for ChaotiCon this year… so here it is…

Lady’s Rock $5.00

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/index.php?discount=27182

Codex of Creatures $5.00

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/index.php?discount=92796

Plying the Aether $5.00

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/index.php?discount=85855

Enjoy!

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Sometimes even a blind squirrel happens upon a nut!

April 8th, 2010

As some of you know, EE is currently working on a sci-fi RPG.  We’ve tentatively titled our efforts After Earth because it takes place after humanity messes up Earth so badly that it must be abandoned.  With all the 2012 nonsense floating around it seemed like the thing to do.

At first this was going to be an OGL game, but after my trip to Citadel Games and talking with the peopel there, I decided to write this one for our own d10 System.  This was somewhat of a set back since it was almost complete as an OGL game, I was convinced that it would be worth it… Besides, outside of a few select fans and the artists working on the game, no one knew about it… so the set back wouldn’t push back a release date…

The biggest problem was trying to get psionics / magic (they’re pretty much the same thing as far as a RPG goes… anyone who argues otherwise is either a psionics fan looking for an edge in the game or an liar… which is the same thing really…).  I had done it already with the OGL spells and psionics, but our more freeform magic system was going to be a bit more of a challenge.  This was even more true because I wanted the After Earth system to mesh with the Lady’s Rock system.  Nothing irritates me more than when two games claiming to use the same system tray and ascheive their goals by changing the scale on something… making the games effective incompatible without considerable effort on the part of players and people running the games.  That’s horseshit.

A three strength in a given system should be a three strength in that system – PERIOD.  None of this “supernatural” strength score crap… or “Supers scale” BS.  If you start moving numbers around and changing their meanings they become meaningless.   If you have to do that in order to make the setting work either your system is broke or you’re trying to make it do more than it should.

Well, attributes and skills weren’t my problem.  My problem was that we expect certain effects from psionics in a sci-fi setting that we don’t neccessarily expect from magic is a fantasy setting.  Now I could just write completely different rules for psionics… the thought crossed my mind… BUT that’s part of the problem with games that include both.  Psionics seem to operate by a different set of rules, and, since the rules were written with magic in mind, this can make psionics unbalancing.

When this reality is added to the axiom we try to live by – “If the rules and the story conflict, the rules are wrong” – it added a whole new set of problems.

Do any of you remember reading the books about a certain dark-elven ranger?  One of his comanpions had a magical bow that she used to shoot down a stactite and crush a temple below it.  Unfortunately, the rules published for this weapon meant that this particular part of the story was dramatic license.  It happened in the novel, but it couldn’t happen at the gaming table… unless the person running the game also invokved dramatic license.  This is unfortunate because that’s the kind of cool stuff players want to be able to do.  And I want them to be able to do it WITHIN the rule set, NOT inspite of it.

To curb this dilemma, part of my writing process for our game books is writting novels.  If the characters are going to fdo something in the novel, I ask myself how it would happen in the game.  If the rules support the action, we move ahead.  If the rules don’t, we work on the rules until they do… without messing up the game or having a unique set of rules to cover one specific action… which is also a pet peeve of mine…

Anyway, while sitting up late at night watching Justified on FX, because it fills my Sons of Anrachy time slot and turned out to be a pretty decent show itself, the answer came to me.  Like most problems I have, I was over-thinking the issue and thought right passed the solution.  It turned out to be a very easy thing to do.

Cybernetics and the CEA (my setting’s version of the galaxy-wide internet) fell into place last night… and my staff computer genius signed off on it shortly after midnight.  That’s exciting because I didn’t have to make arbitrary rules in order to balance them… or make asinine statements about the way the game world seems to work in order to make it all playable…

Now all I have to do is meet with the naval architect, the physicist, and the engineer to make sure my spaceship rules are plausible and play-testing can begin…  Once we know how that’s going, we can set a release date… With any luck, Citadel will let us come back and do a pre-release party at their store… I’ll have to call them and see what they say.

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I did NOT sign that shirt!

March 14th, 2010

Let me start by making it perfectly clear…I did NOT sign that shirt. I don’t care what Chris says.  One of us is obviously more trustworthy, and, since I (being the more trustworthy, of course) am telling you that I didn’t sign, that can only mean that he’s lying through his teeth… 

That being said… though i won’t be able to post this until i get home, I’m too excited to wait to write about the trip… so I’m writing this on my cell phone in the hotel bathroom (so the light doesn’t wake up the kids)… That’s how much fun i had at Citadel Games! I got to the store at 11:30 in the morning on Saturday and didn’t make it back to the hotel until a little after 3:00 in the morning on Sunday. Despite having an 8 hour drive home tomorrow… today, I’m still too hyped to sleep… and I didn’t consume that much caffeine today either… 60 ounces to be precise… that’s barely even breakfast…

So where do i begin talking about Citadel Games? Well, for starters, I didn’t eat today. I was at their store for roughly 15 hours, and I forgot to eat today… or yesterday… I guess… For those of you who have met me, you know that I didn’t get this sexy body by skipping meals, but I didn’t even realize that I hadn’t eaten until it was too late to get food somewhere…

Alright, I should probably start at the very beginning. Let me describe Citadel Games to you. Imagine hanging out in your own living room with a bunch of your friends… now imagine your living room had shelves filled with games… and a cooler full of soda and pizza (I should have eaten a pizza – damn it!)… that’s Citadel Games. I’ve been to Minnesota once before (that I’ll admit to), and I felt right at home the minute I walked in the door… not at a homy store – AT HOME!

Now the store itself, located at Washington and 8th in Brainerd, is either built atop an old indian burial grounds or a temporal rift because time passes outside the store, but it does not pass inside the building. The only indication that time passed at all was Collin calling out times for the Magic (R) tournament that was also going on in the store…  for all I know, he could have been calling out “15 minutes,” “10 minutes,” “5 minutes” at random intervals just to give the illusion that time was passing. 

The staff at Citadel were incredible. To say they made me feel welcome would be an understatement… It was about as close to being royalty as I’ll ever get in my life.  Honestly, I was a little scared at first… and a lot scared once we started talking… but it was a good kind of scared… I kept hearing Darren’s voice from the night before echoing “Are you sure we don’t know each other?” 

On Saturday, the store had quite a crowd… It was such a fun and festive atmosphere that people were circling the parking lot just to get a taste of the fun eminating from within…  Listening to the stories told by the gamers that frequent Citadel Games, I could tell how much they enjoyed playing, and I was genuinely flattered with how much they seemed to like my stuff.  (A testament to their good taste… though I might be a bit bias…)

But like all good things, it had to come to an end… the alarm clock rang at 6 am… and thanks to daylight savings time, that meant I had been back in the hotel room for a grand total of 1 and a half hours… does anyone know how much Super 8 charges for a broken alarm clock?  We loaded up and headed home…  As soon as I saw a muddy Cadillac sitting on a hill with a for sale sign in the window, I knew we were back in Wisconsin. 

Anyway, I’d like to thank Chris, Collin, Amy, Darren, Steve, Rob, Colin, Chris (the Chris that gave me “Herpes”), Jesse “El Hippie” Garcia, Michelle, Dan, Emma and Ken… Thank you for entertaining me. If I missed anyone, I’m truly sorry… I look forward to seeing you all again in the (hopefully) near future.

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Trek to the Citadel

March 8th, 2010

This coming up weekened, the Erisian Entertainment crew is going to visit Citadel Games in Brainerd, MN.

As those of you who’ve met us know, EE doesn’t believe in being a faceless bunch of degenerates that happen to make RPGs. We want to be in the thick of it meeting, greeting, and shooting the proverbial shit with the people that play our games. It makes life more interesting. Besides, gamers are some of the nicest people you’ll probably never meet unless you get up off your ass and find them.

We first heard about Citadel when we were contacted by a member of their staff named Chris. After conversing with Chris for a few days, we decided to check out the store he worked at and navigated the web to Citadel Games. Once we had read what the web had to say about Citadel, it was just a matter of scheduling the trip.

I’ll report more fully once I’ve actually been to Citadel, but I’ve spoken to both Chris and Collin so far. If they are any indication of what goes on at this store, you’re a fool not to visit it at least once.

Anyway, we’ll be heading up to Brainerd on Friday morning. We plan to stop at the store to say hello before finding our hotel, but we’ll be at the store Saturday until they get tired of having us. So stop on by and say “Hello!” Who knows, you might find something you can’t live without while you’re there. Just don’t tell them that Ben sent you until after we know how the trip went…

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I’ve got a bad case of Con-Burn

March 1st, 2010

It’s Monday night and I’m barely functional. After 36 hours of hanging out with everyone at Fire & Ice, I’ve got a terrible case of Con-Burn. I haven’t had that much fun earning a feeling this bad since Matt got married…

For those of you who did not attend Fire & Ice… there is not much I can say to you… though that will not stop me from trying.

Fire & Ice was thrity-six hours of gaming wonderment that you will never be able to experience… until next february. And even then you will have missed out on some of the greatest moments in role-playing history.

In addition to the wonderful deals offered by Old favorites like Bob from Chimera, Phil of Cheap Books fame, and Chad and Adam from ChAdam, there were new friends to meet.

As always, Bob had some wonderful deals on close out merchandise and other things that had been taking up space in his warehouse. Hero Clix packs for a $1 each. Twilight, Warcraft, and Dogma figurines for half price. You missed out.

ChAdam brought their game face as well with Warhammer starter sets for less than $90. They also had on their shelf the game with the best name I have ever seen – Mongolian Goat Rodeo! It’s two parts board game and one part RPG… and looks like a whole lot of fun.

Phil, as always, had cheap books. Chad snatched up an X-Men and Star Trek: the Next Generation crossover novel and the X-Men board game.

As usual, Sam (and his harem) was on hand to demonstrate some rail games… and I learned to play a type of chess that I have never played before…

Victory Games was there with all sorts of gaming goodness. Michelle almost repurchased her childhood in the form of vintage NES and Super NES games… all for just a few bucks.

Mark, Kevin, and Lynn from the Game Board were on hand promoting their store… which allows kids to come in and play games all day long… and unlike most stores, you don’t need to bring the games! Rumor has it that they have a life size chess board in their garden for all you Alice in Wonderland fans… or you History of the World: Part 1 buffs.

A local artist was on hand promoting his comic book – School: A Ghost Story. There were people selling hand-made posable dragons. And Privateer Fanny was selling her Bags o’ Holding…

In short, there was something for everyone… but I haven’t even begun to sing the praises of Fire & Ice.

Check this out… They had convention food that didn’t suck. Seriously, the burgers were awesome… and the chili cheese dogs sublime. I should know, I lived on them for three days straight.

More than that, Fire & Ice 2010 was the birthplace of Game Design: the Shafting. It’s a card game you’ve never heard of because we just made it up over the course of the Convention. We’re getting the art for it on Wednesday, and playtesting it during the next two weeks. With any luck, it’ll be ready to travel with us to Chaoticon and Oshcon this year…

See what you miss when you don’t follow ol’ Fatbeard around…

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Fire & Ice 2010

February 10th, 2010

Well, it’s about as official as anything ever is around here. EE will be at Fire & Ice in Manitowoc on February 26th through the 28th.

Hours of Operation are as follows.

Friday 2pm until 11pm
Saturday 9am until 11pm
Sunday 9am until 9pm

Admission is very reasonable, as most good conventions are, so stop on down and take a look. It’ll be a good time… If nothing else, you can make fun of the fat guy sitting at the EE booth.

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Haiti

January 19th, 2010

So why am I writing to you about Haiti this evening? After all, EE is a game company, not a charity or a relief effort.

Well, I’m proud to say that, along with many of my fellow publishers at One Book Shelf, we’ve put together a great bundle of products. For a nominal fee, you can get a whole bunch of great games AND help out the people hurt buy the earth quake. Just go to www.drivethrurpg.com or www.onebookshelf.com and follow the links. If you have trouble, email me…

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Osh Con 2009

October 12th, 2009

We just returned from OshCon late last night. For those of you living in northeastern Wisconsin, if you failed to attend OshCon this year, you missed one hell of a good time!

We met a lot of interesting people at OshCon and had a chance to visit with some old friends. Now I’d like to take some time to shamelessly plug our friends and let you know what you missed all at the same time.

Chimera Hobby Shop was there as usual. Also as usual, they brought a truckload of merchandise. They had several tables of games ranging from versions of monopoly that I had never heard of to miniatures and RPGs. If you’ve ever seen the selection at either of their stores, you might have some inkling of what they brought to the convention. If you haven’t been to either of their stores, you’re missing out.

GuardTroll T-Shirts was there with the new OshCon shirts as well as some old Favorites. I proudly wore my “Where are my minions?” shirt on the first day of the con, but no one seemed to have the answer. I know more than a few people who should be wearing their “I’m only here because the server is down” shirt, and I can’t help but laugh each time I’m reminded that you don’t have to outrun the dragon… just the dwarf.

Snarling Badger Games did demos of their products during the convention. If you haven’t played Zombie Rally, well… It’s a race with Zombies… What more needs to be said? Their philosophy of only making games that they would like to play is more than admirable. Their products are inexpensive and fun to play. Check them out.

Cheap Books by Phil was also on hand to provide us with literary wonder. Phil goes around collecting the paperback novels we all know and love, and then sells them for a buck or two. I don’t know about you, but the way I forget to return books, that’s cheaper than checking them out from the library! I bought a bag of books from Phil… for my children… yes, honey, for the children… really… I swear… It cost me about $5. At that price, even if you don’t read it, it’s a bargain. You can send Phil your wish list at philfromocs@gmail.com. If they’re out there, Phil will find them, and ship them to you… shipping fees, of course, will depend on where in the world you live.

We also met the guys from ChAdam Games. Not only are Chad and Adam good guys, they provide a valuable service. Check this out… Let’s say you don’t have a game store in your area… or you’re too lazy to leave your house… Talk to ChAdam Games and they’ll find what you’re looking for and ship it right to your house! SWEET! I just ordered a game from them that I saw at the Con. Once I’ve played it, I’ll let you know what I thought.

In addition to these fine people, there were other great vendors their. I bought a chainmail keyring that holds my lucky d20… Just in case I need a critical hit while driving. Of course, Dave pointed out that the one was also showing… He always sees the glass as half-full… While I see it as too large for the amount of liquid you’re trying to contain.

We’re almost done with the shameless plugs… I promise…

Last, but most certainly not least, is Lisa… I don’t know how to start. One of the guys from OshCon asked if I had taken a look at the sculptures in the Art Room (Yeah, there is even an art room). I had and told him that I was impressed by the painter. To my amazement, he informed me that these sculptures weren’t just painted but sculpted by the young lady sitting behind the table. I was floored. These things seriously looked like professional models that you order and paint.

The great news is that she’s also a talented artist… and we’ve asked her to do some art for us… look for her work in upcoming Erisian Entertainment products. You will be amazed!

Alright, plugs are done… Now for the news…

OshCon was the first place you could buy Plying the Aether, and it was very well received (Yay Us!). We sold a bunch of stuff, hired a new artist, and met a bunch of great people. I can’t not say enough how much I love OshCon!

As with last year, we’ve put some of our PDF products on sale through DriveThruRPG in honor of OshCon. Our three core books, including the new one, are $5 off their regular price… which is already half off the cover of the physical book. If you didn’t get the newletter, you’re in luck, here are the links to the discounted price. These three offers are good until the end of 2009.

Lady’s Rock $7…

Codex of Creatures $5…

Plying the Aether $5…

As a special treat for reading our blog, here is a link to get Slivers of Dawn, the first book in the Malaclypse Cycle for Free! That’s right, FREE!!!

For those of you who don’t know, the Malaclypse Cycle is a quadrilogy (is that even a real word?) set on the Lady’s Rock. It’s a good story and a fun read… though I might be more than a little bias…

Anyway… Until next time…

This is Fatbeard the Pirate saying, “May all your dice roll well and may all your games not suck!”

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