A Dorkland Interview with Max Brooks

Max Brooks, the best selling author of World War Z, The Zombie Survival Guide, the comic book series Extinction Parade and the riveting historical graphic novel Harlem Hellfighters, sits down with Dorkland! to give us further insight on what makes undead creatures tick, what inspires his creations and a glimpse of what he is working on for the future.

Dorkland!: Thank you for taking the time for this interview. Before we discuss the new chapter of your Zombie vs. Vampires book, Extinction Parade: War, can you give a little background about your inspiration for writing the Extinction Parade single issue comics? What gave you the idea to put vampires into a world filled with zombies?

Max Brooks: I've written a lot about how countries and individual humans would survive a zombie outbreak, but I wanted to focus specifically on the emotional and psychological survival skills. Beyond the guns and blades and bottled water, there’s the mind and heart and without those you have nothing. Humans have proven themselves to be phenomenal survivalists and I believe that talent was earned clawing our way from the middle of the food chain. Our greatest strengths come from compensating for inherent weaknesses. Our problems have made us amazing problem solvers. But where would be if we had natural strengths; claws and fangs and agility and immortality? How soft and arrogant and unprepared for adversity would we be? That’s the problem with vampires. It’s a precarious place at the top of the food chain. I wanted to explore how vulnerable they are to a major crisis (and hopefully whisper a warning to some humans as well).

DL: In the beginning of Extinction Parade, the vampires find the initial chaos of the zombie outbreak to be entertaining and then advantageous. When some of them realize that their human food supply is on the verge of extinction they spring to action. Why are the vampires so unwilling or unable to predict this catastrophe earlier?

Max Brooks: Vampires have no history of adaptation. Why should they? They are apex predators. Life’s been very good to them. In my world humans have never hunted them, so anonymity is just one more supposed advantage.  To make matters worse (or better, at least in the short term), they have a class of human caretakers who do the grunt work and get their hands dirty with all the little details of life. This existence has made them comfortable and complacent. Unlike humans who are always looking over their shoulder, vampires just assume that they’ll be fine.

DL: Without giving away too much of the story, what can readers look forward to enjoying in Extinction Parade: War? Will we see the further development of the vampire characters that were introduced in the single issues?

Max Brooks: Definitely! Each issue will be a journey of self-discovery for vampires, which is in itself hard for a species that’s been too inward looking. Each issue they will have to make choices about HOW to fight the war against the zombies. Will it be more effective to go down the path of innovation, creating new tactics and weapons completely from scratch? Or will they just copy the humans and try to fight like them? They will also have to confront their limitations, both physical and mental. For a species that has never bothered (and never needed) to challenge themselves, this will come as a particularly cold shock. Lastly, they will discover something the world has never seen before, an entire army of nothing but Vampires.

DL: You have written a survival guide for humans to use in the event of a zombie invasion and also the various ways that people might fight against zombies in your work of fiction World War Z. What advantages do vampires have when battling the living dead?

Max Brooks: NONE. Every supposed advantage will turn out to be a disadvantage. Every physical strength will be paid for with a character weakness. As we will see, they are a painfully vulnerable.

DL: If you had to choose between the existence of zombies or vampires in the real world, which would you pick and why?

Max Brooks: Vampires, definitely. Zombies are a true threat to humanity. They are a potential extinction level event. Vampires are just a bunch of blood sucking parasites. Statistically, you’re more likely to be hit by a car than be killed by one of those well-dressed dear-ticks.

DL: Over the past several years there has been an unending stream of books, movies and comics that prominently feature zombies as well as a treasure trove of vampire-centric media. How would you respond to critics who dismiss the theme of the zombie or the vampire as a fad?

Max Brooks: I don’t dismiss them. Maybe they’re right. I have no idea what’s going to be popular and what’s not. I will say that I've been hearing about the zombie ‘fad’ being over since 2004 so go figure. As far as vampires, well, I will say that we don’t see as many vampire movies as a few years ago, but that’s mainly because the bulk of ‘Twilight’ fans have, by now, lost their virginity.

DL: From the different periods in human civilization that you reference in the "Recorded Attacks" chapter of the Zombie Survival Guide to your compellingly written graphic novel The Harlem Hellfighters about a real, heroic black regiment in World War I, you draw from history as an inspiration for your work. How do you go about researching these different histories?

Max Brooks: I’m always devouring history. I've been fascinated by it as long as I can remember. I’m always watching some new documentary or listening to an audio book on my ipad (dyslexia makes reading a challenge so audiobooks are how I compensate).  There’s always so much more to learn, you can never stop.  Specifically with Harlem Hellfighters, my sources were books, documentaries, and even the actual recordings from their regimental band. It’s one thing to read about early WWI jazz, but to listen to it, to hear that tinny voice and rapid beat is a much deeper education.

DL: In some of the other interviews you have given, you mentioned that you write about what interests you. Which of your  other interests could you see potentially influencing your future projects?

Max Brooks: I don’t like to give too much away. I've got a few things in the pipeline, but, right now, I have to finish The Extinction Parade comic series and the screenplay for the movie version The Harlem Hellfighters. That alone are more than enough work for the next 12 months.

2014 Diana Jones Shortlist Announced

From a long and extremely diverse long-list of nominees, the secretive committee of the Diana
Jones Award has distilled a shortlist of five items that it believes best exemplified ‘excellence’
in the field of gaming in 2013.

The Diana Jones committee is proud to announce that the shortlist for its 2014 award
for Excellence in Gaming is:

EVIL HAT, a publishing company run by Robert Donoghue and Fred Hicks

Ever since the release of Fate as a free RPG in 2003, Evil Hat Productions has aimed at two
usually difficult goals: skill and elegance in game design, and professionalism and transparency
in publishing. Honesty and openness about business realities, and excitement and
perfectionism about game possibilities, built the Evil Hat audience from a corner of the
Internet to a loyal horde numbering in the tens of thousands. From Don't Rest Your Head
through Happy Birthday Robot, Penny For My Thoughts, Diaspora, and Swashbucklers of the 7
Skies, Evil Hat has combined the key features of a design house and a best-of-breed imprint
while nurturing its core Fate system through three major editions without forking its player
base. By co-creating Bits and Mortar, Evil Hat pioneered PDF-retailer cooperation; using the
Open Game License and Creative Commons, Evil Hat built on a tradition of trusting players
and designers to build better games. In 2013 Evil Hat hit both its design goals and its
deadlines with Fate Core: five books Kickstarted, printed, and delivered, and over 60,000
copies sold. And Fate Core is still a free RPG.

HILLFOLK, a role-playing game designed by Robin D. Laws (Pelgrane Press)

The Hillfolk Kickstarter asked for $3000 and offered a 96-page softcover; it raised $93,000
and delivered two full-colour hardbacks filled by some of the brightest names in story-game
design. But it only happened because of the game-engine at the heart of Hillfolk: Robin D.
Laws’s DramaSystem, an elegant and clever take on group storytelling that puts gameplay and
competition on an equal footing with structured narrative and individual creativity. Hillfolk
and its sister-volume Blood on the Snow showcase a leading ludonarrative designer at the
height of his powers, and inviting his friends to come and play.

PAIZO PUBLISHING, a publishing company run by Lisa Stevens

One of the hardest things in business is to unseat a market-leader, particularly when that
market-leader created the entire field, but 2013 was the year when word spread that Paizo's
Pathfinder RPG was outselling Dungeons & Dragons. It’s official: Paizo has used the OGL
and a single-minded commitment to talent and quality to create a better D&D than D&D. Its
achievement only seems extraordinary to those who don't know CEO Lisa Stevens’
extraordinary track record in the games industry, from Lion Rampant through White Wolf
and Wizards of the Coast. Paizo's ability to raise $1m to crowd-fund a Pathfinder-based
MMO in January 2013 was simply the apple at the top of the industry's new tallest tree.

ROFL!, a family card game designed by John Kovalic (Cryptozoic Entertainment)

In game design nothing is harder than simplicity, and in no category is that quality more
required than in the family/party game space. With the brilliant, elegant and delightful
dynamic animating ROFL!, designer John Kovalic provides a masterstroke of the KISS
principle. Just as amazingly, he does it by finding an original take on the word game sub-genre.
ROFL!’s phrase compression conceit rewards both clue-making and guessing, supplying an
essential skill-levelling element many party games lack. And if that weren’t enough, he
somehow inveigles tabletop’s most beloved cartoonist to lend it the light, joyous visual look
that its play style demands. Though created by someone steeped in the adventure game
tradition, it could and should appear on shelves at mass-market retailers wherever they are
found. GRTGMJK!

TERRA MYSTICA, a strategy board-game designed by Helge Ostertag and Jens
Drögemüller (Feuerland Spiele/Z-Man Games)

In the land of Terra Mystica dwell 14 different races in seven landscapes, each bound to its
home environment. Each race must terraform neighboring landscapes into their home
environments in competition with the others. It's a brilliant piece of state-of-the-art design:
there are no stunning new mechanics here but the game takes a number of clever, intriguing
systems and combines them in a bravura piece of game-creation to build a sublimely engaging
experience.The game emphasizes strategy over luck, rewards planning, and provides a huge
amount of delightful replayability.

PRESENTATION
The winner of this year’s award will be announced and the Diana Jones trophy will be
presented at the annual Diana Jones Party, which will be held at the Cadillac Ranch, 39 West
Jackson Place, Indianapolis, at 9pm on 13th August – the night before the Gen Con games
convention opens to the public. All games-industry professionals are invited to attend.

ABOUT THE AWARD
The Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming was founded and first awarded in 2001. It
is presented annually to the person, product, company, event or any other thing that has, in the
opinion of its committee, best demonstrated the quality of ‘excellence’ in the world of hobbygaming
in the previous year. The winner of the Award receives the Diana Jones trophy.
The Diana Jones Committee is a mostly anonymous group of games-industry alumni
and illuminati, that includes designers, publishers, cartoonists, consultants, and some content
to rest on their laurels.

Past winners include industry figures such as Peter Adkison and Jordan Weisman, the
role-playing games Nobilis, Sorcerer, and Fiasco, the board-games Dominion and Ticket to
Ride, and the website BoardGameGeek. Last year's winner was Wil Wheaton's webseries
Tabletop. This is the fourteenth year of the Award. More information is available at www.dianajonesaward.org.

CONTACT
For more information you can contact a representative of the DJA committee directly:
committee@dianajonesaward.org

Looking Back At Weapons of the Gods

This is one of those RPGs that I regret never having had the chance to run. My copy was a gift from Brad Elliott for running some Unhallowed Metropolis events for EOS Press, back at my first Gen Con. While I had never read the comic, the idea of it was cool sounding, and I liked the idea of the scope of the game. It may not show from the stuff that I run nowadays, but I love big, epic RPGs and I don't get to run them enough. Honestly, I think this comes from my love of super-heroes and comics. Regardless, this isn't a review, or anything like that. It is just a semi-organized collection of my thoughts on the game.

Written by R. Sean Borgstrom (now known as Jenna Moran) and Elliott, Weapons of the Gods is really my only look into the realms of Wuxia role-playing. I've liked a few of the movies in the genre that I've seen, but overall it has never really sucked me in as do some other genres do.

Why, then, did this game suck me in, and why do I regret never having had the chance to run it?

That's a good question.

I wish that I had some better answers. For me, the mechanics of Weapons of the Gods share some similarities with Godlike, the originator of the One Roll Engine rules. I'm sure that some will disagree with me, and admittedly my memories of the system are foggy, but the mechanics came across as similar to me. The one thing that I like best about the game is the mechanic called "The River." The River is a combination reserve of dice and a resource management strategy that allows you to take dice from rolls that you make and "float" them into the River, saving them for later in a session when you may need the matches in a more important roll. I like the idea of sacrificing now for a potential benefit later because it matches my concepts of what heroism is supposed to be.

Still, it was an interesting game and I am sorry that I didn't get a chance to run it. I'm not sure that y current approach to gaming has a place for it, which is definitely a bad thing for me.

There is also Legends of the Wulin, a kind of/sort of second edition of Weapons of the Gods that came out as a generic form of the game, not tied to the licensed world of the comics.

Do you have a game that you regret never having had a chance to play or run? What is it and why. The why is the important part, much more important than any list of games.

Own Some Tunnels And Trolls History

Artist Liz Danforth is selling a couple of pieces of art that may be of interest to fans of Tunnels & Trolls. Over at her website she is auctioning off the original art for Two Seconds Later (which was used at the cover art for Fiery Dragon's 7th Edition of Tunnels & Trolls) and Elven Lords (used as the cover for the Elven Lords T&T solo).

The pages for each piece of art give an interesting insight into Danforth and her creative processes with each of these pieces of art. One of the interesting reveals was the fact that, when she started doing art for Tunnels & Trolls, she wasn't exactly sure what a troll should look like. This might explain the iconic look of trolls in the game.

You can check the status on the Elven Lord auction here and the Two Seconds Later auction here. If you have ever wanted to own a piece of gaming history, now is your chance.

Ordinary By Rob Williams And D'Israeli From Titan Comics

For me, picking up a comic with art by D'Israeli is a no brainer. I've been a fan of his art since Lazarus Churchyard and  Scarlet Traces. If you have no idea what those comics are, you should do yourself a favor and pick them up.

There are two things to think about with Ordinary: 1) this isn't an ordinary super-hero book and 2) this comic isn't anything ordinary.

Michael is a somewhat ordinary guy in Queens. He's a plumber. He's divorced from his wife, who has custody of their kid. He owes a Samoan criminal some money (that part might not be as ordinary). And then something happens...everyone else in the world suddenly gets weird powers or is transformed in some way into something different. It may have been triggered by terrorists, or an airplane accident.

Ordinary is an ongoing from Titan Comics from artist D'Israeli and writer Rob Williams.

Is this the apocalypse? It is hard to tell, but there is a lot happening in this issue. Michael is our eyes and ears into this story, and I like that approach. The fact that we don't know what is going on, why all of this weirdness is happening, gives the story more power. Too often comic stories over explain themselves and take away the mystery and wonder inherent in a lot of genres that are used in them. Writing a review of a new comic is difficult, because you don't want to spoil the story when you want other people to read it, and you want to spread your enthusiasm.

In a few ways, this issue reminded me of the Wildcards series edited by George R.R. Martin. You have the weirdness of super-heroes grounded in a real world, along with a trigger accident that causes the "birth" of super-powered individuals. Fans of that series will probably find this comic to be interesting as well.

Not since Grant Morrison and Richard Case on Doom Patrol have I seen a comic that embraces the strangeness of the super-hero genre and at the same time presents that strangeness in such a matter of fact manner. This book was a page turner, and while I didn't get the explanations that I hoped would come with each new page that didn't disappoint me. What did disappoint me was when I realized that I finished the book and would have to wait a month for the next issue to come.

If you're looking for sophisticated comic story telling devoid of most of the cliches that you will find in those other super-hero books you really need to check out Ordinary. You won't be disappointed. This comic reminds me of the 90s and Vertigo Comics, when you had comic creators who still wanted to use the old super-heroes but tell stories that would appeal to grown-up sensibilities.

You should run out to your comic store (or Comixology, the digital version is available there) and pick this up. You should put it on your pull list and keep getting it, month after month.

Shut Yo Mouth - Shaft Comes To Dynamite

Some of you may remember John Shaft from this:

or from this:

but he started out from this:

Screenwriter Ernest Tidyman (who also did the screenplays for The French Connection and High Plains Drifter) created John Shaft in the 1970 novel Shaft because he wanted to create an American James Bond. Why are we talking about Shaft?

Dynamite Comics announced that they've acquired the "comics and prose" rights to Tidyman's creation, including the rights to reprint the original novels and publish new ones. How long until Shaft teams up with the Six Million Dollar Man or The Green Hornet?

From the Dynamite press release:

Ernest Tidyman was quoted on the origins of Shaft: "The idea came out of my awareness of both the social and literary situation in a changing city. There are winners, survivors & losers in the New York scheme of things. It was time for a black winner, whether he was a private detective or an obstetrician."

Curtis Brown literary agent Steve Kasdin, who represents the Tidyman estate said: "The literary craftsmanship that built John Shaft sent him into the world fully formed and moving. You knew who and what he was from Jump Street. So much so that even a less than stellar sequel or two didn't kill his standing. The consensus seemed to be: ‘Oh my Lord, they done put poor Shaft in another bad movie.'  I'm thrilled with Dynamite's vision for Shaft, and look forward to his new adventures."

Talking About Dust Devils by Matt Snyder

I got a copy of the recent Indie Bundle from the Bundle of Holding. As I've waded through them, a couple of games have popped out at me. One of them was Dust Devils from Matt Snyder. As someone who grew up in the 70s and 80s, I do love Western movies. Between my father having been a fan of them from when he was a kid (back in the movie serial days), and the surge of Spaghetti Westerns during my formative years, escaping an interest in them would have been hard. This is why Dust Devils caught my eye.

A Jon Hodgson cover didn't hurt with catching my eye. With all of the complaining about D&D covers right now in gaming circles, I would like to think that this evocative cover is something that we can all agree upon.

For me, Dust Devils comes across as a reworking of the "Devil And The Bluesman" trope, redone for the Western genre. And, really, it fits well. But there's not a huge amount of difference between the early cowboy music and the Blues, they approached a lot of the same topics coming at them from different angles of entry. The difference is that the  Devil chasing down your Dust Devils character is metaphorical. Or is it? One of the nice things about gaming is that things can be as literal, or as metaphorical as you want. With the game as written, the Devil represents those things about your character's personality or psyche that drives them to do the bad things that they do. This is at the heart of good story telling, having a difficulty that your character has to overcome. Too many games want to make it easy on characters, but I think that the mark of a hero is someone who knows their shortcomings, realizes that they may be too much for them, but still struggles against them. They might not always win, but that doesn't make them less heroic for the trying. This is a valuable life lesson that years of Marvel Comics has taught.

I do think that there is a danger in overwriting the past exploits of the character, between the Devil and the Past of the character. My idea of a character is that is should be allowed to breathe in the current, during play, and that there can be a tendency to throttle that with too much back story from some players. Having a lot of big things in the past can undermine the play of the present, so for me this would be something to watch out for during character creation.

Now, this game isn't going to be for everyone. I'm really not interested in the whole "is it an RPG" territory. It is a storygame and it is one of those games where everyone shares control of the growth and direction of the story. Some people don't like that. A lot of the stuff in the section on conflicts is fairly standard RPG stuff, however, and most gamers (regardless of the types of games that they play) should be able to understand the underlying logic of how things work. The character creation and resolution systems do remind me a bit of the old Hubris Games' Story Engine (now published by Precis Intermedia). The explanation of Devils and how they are used in play remind me a bit about that game, but I could be wrong and it could be an old-fashioned case of parallel development. The main difference is that Dust Devils uses playing cards for it's determination.

Having an explanation of the different poker hands is "handy," because I know a lot of gamers who have never played poker...and having a table to point them towards would be much easier than having to explain it to them. It would even make a handy cheat sheet at the table.

I also like the fact that in Dust Devils stories have an end to them. As I get older, I become lest interested in games that last for years and years, or have no ending in sight. I am becoming more interested in stories with a beginning, middle and (hopefully) an end. Or at least some semblance of these things.

The game also has a lot of good advice for players and narrators. You get a good idea of what you are supposed to be doing with this game. That is something that I like. You also get some interesting worked examples of how to play this game in non-Western situations. Of course one of those examples is about samurai. That's another good thing.

Overall reading Dust Devils did what I think that a good game should do. It made me want to play it. I'm not sure when or how I will get a chance, but this is definitely on my gaming to-do list now.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. Partners With Dynamite Entertainment On Mars

I can say that I didn't see this coming. Considering that not long ago the Burroughs estate was saying that Dynamite's comics were "pornography." Good for Dynamite, but I think that these characters shouldn't be controlled by some company that has nothing to do with the creator. Our copyright laws were created with Public Domain for a reason.

Here's the press release from Dynamite:


(May 19th, 2014 - Tarzana, CA & Mt. Laurel, NJ) - Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., the company founded by the author to protect and maintain his literary creations, and one of the comics industry's leaders, Publisher Dynamite Entertainment, announced today a comprehensive agreement that will see the return of Burroughs' original "John Carter: Warlord of Mars" to the pages of comic books, comic strips and graphic novels.  The agreement allows for the world-wide publication of the John Carter universe as well as "Lord of the Jungle" and ERB's library of archival material.

The initiative comes on the heels of the reacquisition of comic book rights by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. that had been held by Walt Disney Pictures and its Marvel Entertainment subsidiary, as well as a recent legal settlement with Dynamite that cleared the way for Dynamite to introduce key characters and plot elements from the John Carter backstory that were, until now, absent from recent comic book interpretations.

"It was important to us that we reacquire the comic book and comic strip rights from Marvel Entertainment so we could reintroduce them in the market place.  We're excited to see the exploits of Edgar Rice Burroughs' first science fiction adventure hero brought to life in their fullness by the passionate creative talents assembled by the folks at Dynamite," said James Sullos, President of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. "They're true fans - and it shows on every page and in every idea they've shared with us.  Now fans everywhere will be able to appreciate the original adventure stories that later spawned Flash Gordon, Superman, Star Wars and Avatar."

"Working together with Jim and the team at ERB, we will be taking the worlds of John Carter and The Lord of the Jungle publishing initiatives to a new level.  There's a rich history, and an incredible amount of archival material in the ERB library, and we're looking forward to bringing it to the fans around the world.  This is the beginning of a great relationship." states Nick Barrucci, CEO and Publisher of Dynamite Entertainment. "I can't express how happy and excited everyone at Dynamite is to be working hand in hand with everyone at ERB, Inc".

John Carter debuted in 1912 as the lead character in Edgar Rice Burroughs' first novel, serialized as Under the Moons of Mars in the pulp magazine, The All-Story, and later published as a complete novel retitled A Princess of Mars.  The character excited the imagination of readers and quickly imprinted onto the public psyche. As many literary and popular culture scholars attest, John Carter served as the template for a litany of adventure heroes to follow, from Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, and Superman to the Jedi knights of Star Wars fame and most recently, Avatar.

In planning for a late 2014 relaunch, Dynamite Entertainment confirmed that the new comic book series will be titled John Carter: Warlord of Mars.  Dynamite will also republish other John Carter assets, going back as far as the early 1940s comic strips by John Coleman Burroughs, the son of Edgar Rice Burroughs.  
In a related development, new John Carter: Warlord of Mars "adventure strip" episodes will make their online debut in early summer as part of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Digital Comic Strip Service at www.edgarriceburroughs.com/comics.  Written by the legendary Roy Thomas, with art by Pegaso (Rodolfo Perez Garcia) of Mexico City, this series will invite readers to accompany John Carter and his compatriots on exciting adventures that delve into the rich, storied history of Barsoom (as the inhabitants of Mars refer to their planet).  As with the other nine series featured on the site, including Tarzan and Carson of Venus, the first four episodes of John Carter: Warlord of Mars will be viewable at no charge.

About Dynamite Entertainment
Dynamite was founded in 2004 and is home to several best-selling comic book titles and properties, including The Boys, The Shadow, Vampirella, Bionic Man, A Game of Thrones, and more. Dynamite owns and controls an extensive library with over 3,000 characters (which includes the Harris Comics and Chaos Comics properties), such as Vampirella, Pantha, Evil Ernie, Smiley the Psychotic Button, Chastity, Purgatori, and Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt. In addition to their critically-acclaimed titles and bestselling comics, Dynamite works with some of the most high profile creators in comics and entertainment, including Kevin Smith, Alex Ross, Neil Gaiman, Andy Diggle, John Cassaday, Garth Ennis, Jae Lee, Marc Guggenheim, Mike Carey, Jim Krueger, Greg Pak, Brett Matthews, Matt Wagner, Gail Simone, Steve Niles, James Robinson, and a host of up-and-coming new talent. Dynamite is consistently ranked in the upper tiers of comic book publishers and several of their titles - including Alex Ross and Jim Krueger's Project Superpowers - have debuted in the Top Ten lists produced by Diamond Comics Distributors. In 2005, Diamond awarded the company a GEM award for Best New Publisher and another GEM in 2006 for Comics Publisher of the Year (under 5%) and again in 2011. The company has also been nominated for and won several industry awards, including the prestigious Harvey and Eisner Awards.

About Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.
Founded in 1923 by Edgar Rice Burroughs himself, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. holds numerous trademarks and the rights to all literary works of the author still protected by copyright. The company has overseen every adaptation of his literary works in publishing, film, television, theatrical stage productions, licensing and merchandising.  The company is still a very active enterprise and manages and licenses the vast archive of Mr. Burroughs' literary works, fictional characters and corresponding artworks that have grown for over a century.  The company continues to be owned by the Burroughs' family and remains headquartered in Tarzana, California, the town named after the Tarzana Ranch Mr. Burroughs purchased there in 1918 which led to the town's future development.  For more information, please visit EdgarRiceBurroughs.com.

Crowdfunding - Help A Blogger Get To GenCon

If you look to the top right side of this blog you'll see a link to a Fundrazr campaign page. The idea for this is to help fund my going to Gen Con this year (along with other incidental expenses of the blog, like our podcast hosting). Air fare isn't cheap, travelling from the South to the Midwest, particularly when there's a convention going on.

For over 10 years now, the Dorkland! blog has provided news, information and free gaming content without ads or any sort of monetization of the blog. I have also been unemployed for a while now, making these things even more difficult. I know, some will say that being unemployed is a good reason to not go to GenCon, but it makes for a great opportunity for blogging and for freelancing. In addition, as a writer for Bleeding Cool now, I can bring a much wider audience to the new games, news and happenings at GenCon. However, that takes money.

If you have enjoyed any of the free gaming content that I have put up over the years, or if you have received useful information or news over the years, please consider putting some money into the Fundrazor campaign jar. The sooner that the money is raised, the sooner I can stop talking about it here and around the internet.

There are some perks to the campaign, for gamers and publishers who wish to donate a little more money. If you're a publisher, you can get sponsorship of a blog post here at the blog or you can sponsor an episode of the Geeky Voices Carry podcast. What does this mean, exactly? Well, with the podcast it means that we mention your company and/or product at the beginning and end of an episode of our podcast. We will also mention weblinks. It would be something to the effect of "This episode of Geeky Voices Carry is brought to you by..." Sort of like the old soap operas. Sponsorship of a blog post would mean a footer to the post with a reasonably sized image and a link to your site, or perhaps your OneBookShelf pages. Both of these are open for negotiation. Sponsorship mentions will also be included on the YouTube page for the live recording and in the podcast's description. Further details can be worked out, if you want to contact me via the blog.

For gamers, getting one of the perks means that I will run a game for you at GenCon using one of the systems that I have blogged about (either Fate Accelerated or Swords & Wizardry) for you and up to four of your friends.  For the Fate Accelerated game, you can pick one of the mini-settings that I have written about on the blog, while the Swords & Wizardry game will be up to me. It could be a classic adventure reworked for Swords & Wizardry, or it could be something new just for this game. In either case there will also be pictures taken and a blog post made about the game.

I know that gamers like to help out, it isn't something that I am as good about asking for, but I would appreciate any help that I can get. If you can, also please consider spreading this request around the internet. I can use all the help that I can get.

Thanks in advance!

Summer Game Convention Returns to Milwaukee

Nexus Game Fair Event Registration Begins May 12th, 8:00pm CST

MILWAUKEE, WI – This Sunday is Mother’s Day and Nexus Game Fair is encouraging everyone to spend the day showing their love, respect and appreciation for all mothers. But on Monday, May 12th, Nexus wants you back thinking about summer convention gaming, and to be ready for the start of Event Registration!

Nexus Game Fair has over 400 individual events on their schedule, with a great variety of events spanning across the entire show. From role-playing games to miniatures and collectible card games to board games, there is certain to be something for everyone to enjoy. All events at Nexus are free, once you have registered for a badge, and there will even be tournaments for Magic the Gathering and Netrunner that offer great prizes!

Nexus Game Fair has an impressive list of industry special guests attending, who will be hosting panels and special events throughout the show. The complete list includes:

• Jolly Blackburn (Knights of the Dinner Table)
• Mike Carr (Dawn Patrol)
• Chris Clark (Inner City Games Designs)
• Dave “Zeb” Cook (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition)
• Jeff Easley (Staff Artist, TSR, Inc.)
• Todd Fisher (Revolution & Empire)
• Matt Forbeck (Deadlands)
• Kenneth Hite (Trail of Cthulhu)
• Tim Kask (Dragon Magazine)
• Dave Kenzer (Hackmaster)
• James Lowder (Author, Prince of Lies)
• Matt McElroy (Drive Thru RPG)
• Frank Mentzer (Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set)
• Merle Rasmussen (Top Secret)
• Lester Smith (Dark Conspiracy)
• Monica Valentinelli (Firefly RPG)
• James M. Ward (Gamma World)
• Rob Wieland (Line Developer, Firefly RPG)
• Skip Williams (Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition)

Nexus Game Fair will be hosting a massive board games library, which consists of nearly 1,100 unique titles. The library, free to attendees, is being provided and run by the Milwaukee Company of Gamers (MilCoG), an association of gamers located throughout Wisconsin and northern Illinois.

“We’re excited to bring summer convention gaming back to Milwaukee,” says Event Manager Harold Johnson, the former director of Gen Con in Milwaukee. “It’s been 12 years since Gen Con left the city and Milwaukee is eager to become a summer destination for gamers once again.”

Nexus Game Fair runs Thursday, June 19th, through Sunday, June 22nd. A 4-day badge for the convention is $45, and the convention hotel, the Clarion Hotel & Conference Center, is offering a special rate of $99 per night for show attendees. Only a few rooms remain, so be sure to make your reservation soon!

For more information and to register for the show, please visit http://www.nexusgamefair.com.

The Secrets Behind The Naming Of The Fantasy Trip RPG

One of the cool things about being a blogger is that you get to take part in interesting conversations, and when you ask odd questions of people they take you seriously. Yesterday, over at Google+ James Maliszewski asked if anyone knew how the early Steve Jackson game The Fantasy Trip got named (I would link to the discussion, but it was a private one, so you'll have to settle for this). The conversation ensued, and no one really knew, but there was a lot of speculation about it having to do with drugs. I figured the easy thing to do was ask the man himself. A few emails and hours later, and a response from Steve Jackson was in my email inbox.

You know how hard it is to come up with an interesting and original fantasy game name now? It was hard even back then.

I don't know whose idea that name was; all I remember of the discussion was that everyone agreed that it would not be two alliterative words separated by "and."  I'm sure it was not intended as a drug reference.

[W]hile I have always been good with the name, I'm pretty sure it was not my own idea - it just doesn't "sound" like me.

So there we have it. The complete answer is unfortunately lost, but enough is still remembered to be useful. Will that stop some from still asserting that the title was a drug reference? Probably not.

The Thundering Skies Saga Press Release

“Thundering Skies Saga” Marks Major Turning Point in “Shaintar – Change the Game” Initiative


Toney, Alabama, US - April 21, 2014 – The Shaintar: Justice and Life globally shared tabletop RPG campaign takes the next big step in the stated effort to “Change the Game” with a new, campaign-wide event called The Thundering Skies Saga.


“When we launched this last year,” says Shaintar creator and Evil Beagle Games publisher, Sean Patrick Fannon, “we set out to change how everyone sees the concept of a truly shared – living, if you will – roleplaying game campaign. We've been working hard for months now to put all the pieces into play, and now we can point at something huge, something transformative, and something that is truly working to show we're succeeding.”


Shaintar, an epic high fantasy setting for the exceedingly popular Savage Worlds rules system, is supported by a core web presence (shaintar.com), where content created by Sean and by all the participants in the Justice and Life experience is shared openly and equally as canonical content. As well, all of the Shaintar campaigns are live in their own section on the award-winning Obsidian Portal campaign management site.


“Thundering Skies represents a next step for this idea, as does the newly-launched shared Calendar of Events on the Shaintar site. Now all the Game Masters, across the globe – and we have people on more than one continent involved here – are implementing the campaign-wide event, with the weather changes and the scenario elements active in every game. As well, we're running official events at three conventions; the first set already happened at ConGlomeration in Louisville, the next one is at ConCoction in Cleveland at the end of May, and the finale happens at AndoCon in Atlanta in June.”


Sean maintains that this is still just the tip of the iceberg. “I have so many incredible volunteers worldwide, and the fans are really driving this. We're not huge, and that's OK. That may come in time, but for now, we have a ton of people all helping to change the way gaming can happen at the table, online, and at conventions around the world as one truly shared experience, where each character's story and each GM's campaign has real and canonical significance to the official, published setting.”


Sean Patrick Fannon is the sole creator-owner of the Shaintar property; he shares the Evil Beagle Games DBA with Carinn Seabolt, and DriveThruRPG is the sole distributor of their products.

Out Of Office Message

Just a quick notice that I will be away from April 23rd until April 26th. If you have pressing new, contact +Josh Thompson through his G+ profile or his Twitter account @JoshakaPlacide. Anything that isn't pressing/breaking news, or already in the pipeline, we will get to you next week.

Thanks!

RPG Campaigns: Beginnings And Endings

Two of the hardest things for an RPG campaign are the beginning and the ending. Like a popular television show that has lost its spark, a campaign will sometimes just limp along lifelessly until people just stop showing up and it dies a lingering death. Letting go of a campaign is a hard thing, but sometimes...just sometimes, it has to be done.

One thing that I have come to terms with as a GM in the last few years is the idea that the open ended, potentially endless role-playing campaign isn't something that I am much interested in being involved with any more. I like the idea of a campaign that has a beginning, middle and endpoint to it. I think that it can make for more interesting campaign stories and character development. I know that this isn't the standard for how a lot of people campaign, but I think it is one of those things that puts a bar to the entry into the hobby. Meeting 5-8 hours weekly for an indefinite amount of time just isn't feasible for many people these days.

Pasts, Personas & Prophecies Kickstarter

If what you're looking for is an RPG with a rules light system then you might be interested in Sly Fox Games' new RPG: Pasts, Personas & Prophecies that has a Kickstarter currently running (and with just under two weeks left to go).

What's Pasts, Personas & Prophecies (AKA P3) about? Well, it seems to be focused on a story driven game experience with quick character creation and rules designed to flow with play. It also seems to be fairly light on the setting. From the art it seems to be focused on fantasy, with one of the touted features being a very flexible and creative magic system. One other feature is the 'prophecy' system which allows a character to undergo a 'semi-random' story arc that is rolled up, chosen, and created by the group (or, at least a few people within the group at a time). These prophecies can have a positive or negative effect on the character, though. Just hope you don't lose all your money.

Speaking of money, (segue!) how much would all this prophecy and rules light gaming cost? To get your reader on the PDF will set you back US$20. And a physical copy at US$30-33 (free shipping within US, US$12 additional outside), that also includes the PDF. Basically, if you want the book you likely want the physical copy (unless you live outside the US). There are a variety of other rewards up for grabs, too, like creating characters or NPCs, or joining in a game with the developer, Hunter Fox.

Now for the burning question: how is the project's Kickstarter? For the most part, not bad. The layout is nice, there are plenty of images, videos and information about the game (you do need to go through all of it to get the full picture, though). For the things that I didn't quite like we can start with the main Kickstarter video. This video is quite long, the 'background' music is a bit too loud and distracting, and the attempted humor, while I did get what he was going for, might be a bit of a turn-off for some potential backers. There really is a decent bit of information in that video, but it would have been much better if it were a little more serious, straightforward and short. Another part that I didn't quite care for were some of the pledge tiers -- there are several that seem rather pointless and just thrown-in for the sake of more tiers. Also, the price of the PDFs being so close to the physical copy is  a bit of a turn-off from the PDFs -- if it was cheaper it might draw in more impulse pledges. Lastly, while I did like the amount of information it was too spread out and required too much time to go through it all to get a solid grasp on what the game is about. And, really, a game being light on rules or mechanics, with fast, flowing combat and creative magic is not something all that uncommon or unusual these days -- this project really needs to show how it does those things, why its different from the rest and present this information succinctly.

If you are interested in Pasts, Personas & Prophecies be sure to check out its Kickstarter page and/or Sly Fox Games' website.

Dorkland Interview -- The Dangers of Daggermore with Hal Burdick

The Dangers of Daggermore Kickstarter is in its final stretch with just a few days left to go. Hal Burdick, the man behind the project, took some time to sit down with us here at Dorkland! for a short interview on the film, Kickstarter and RPGs.

Dorkland!: How has the Kickstarter project been for you and what, particularly, have you learned from this experience that you feel might help in future projects?

Hal Burdick: I’m reasonably happy with this Kickstarter project. The gaming community is a great one. The community has a lot of passion, a lot of loyalty, and is willing to support new projects. I once read that 33% of all funded Kickstarter projects were game related. I’m just happy that this community was willing to support the making of The Dangers of Daggermore, which is game inspired, but not really a game project.

DL: What kind of setup are you using to film The Dangers of Daggermore?

HB: Kersey Valley Spooky Woods is a haunted attraction near Greensboro, NC. The sets there are ideal for shooting The Dangers of Daggermore. Much of the haunted attraction features dungeon corridors, sewers, and dark alleyways. If they only had a tavern with a sign hanging outside reading “The Affable Adventurer,” it would be a one stop shop for shooting the entire webseries. 

DL: What types of special effects and props will be used, if any? Also, what's your personal favorite special effect or prop and why?

HB: Victoria Singleton has made some great costumes as you can see in the test footage. We got our cool looking weapons from Medieval Collectibles. Joh Harp is the art director of Spooky Woods and does special effects for us. He’s done the special effects for movies like Bombshell Bloodbath; so the effects will have a horror movie feel as well as a fantasy feel with elf’s ears and the regenerating troll monster we plan on having the adventurers fight.

DL: What are the inspirations behind The Dangers of Daggermore? Any particular RPG settings?

HB: Jon Carpenter’s The Thing was a film I ran a few adventurers about in my younger days. The Thing is a doppleganger in that movie, but it had a lot of features of a regenerating troll as well. There’s a classic scene where a head separates itself from its body,  pulls itself along by its tongue, sprouts its own legs, and starts walking across the floor like a spider. Sounds close enough to a regenerating troll to me. We’re paying homage to that with the monster the adventurers fight in the pilot.

As for setting, I have a gaming website called World of Atlas which features my home world that I game mastered for 20 years. Daggermore is set on this world. The key feature of the world is that Atlas is a real being holding up the world on his mountain. The campaign started with characters that lived on his mountain who then ventured out on a mission to save the world from Chaos who had come to destroy both Atlas and the world he held up. I’m thinking of making the world open source and OGL so that anyone can create adventures for it. I know I am frustrated by the fact that all the great adventures my friends created for our gaming group upon Greyhawk can’t be published by us or played by anyone else. 

The website also features tools for those who can’t play as much D&D as they’d like anymore due to real life intrusions.  Though I love Skyrim and Lord of the Rings Online, I also love the freedom that adventuring in an unbounded RPG setting gives you. The goal for the site is to create a never ending need for new adventure modules.  I don’t need another gaming system – that’s a solved problem. I want more adventures so that I can create characters that tell their own story through the adventures they have.

DL: Why have such a focus on RPGs and their tropes -- why not focus on fantasy, in-general?

HB: A fantasy film is like sex.  When it’s good, it’s really good.  When it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.  I pretty much watch any fantasy film I can get my hands on.  The stuff from Arrowstorm Entertainment, Dead Gentleman productions, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Sword and The Sorcerer, Soloman Kane, Game of Thrones -- The Guild even counts at some level.  There can’t be too many.

That said the ones that have focused on RPGs have either been funny and campy or pretty mediocre.  The three Dungeons and Dragons films had potential and good moments in each, but none of them brought out the paranoid claustrophobic fear that I think adventuring in a dungeon would bring.  The best movie for this is actually an offbeat horror film called The Descent.  It’s about a group of female spelunkers that encounter ghouls in the uncharted caves they were exploring.  Good stuff.  They just needed to be in armor, leathers, or robes covered in moons and stars complete with a pointy floppy hat.

DL: What will fans of RPGs find particularly interesting in The Dangers of Daggermore?

HB: Hopefully, the old school tradition of it. My first gaming experience happened when there was little more than Space Invaders in the video arcades. The drip of water from ceilings, the listening at a wooden door set in the wall of a long stone corridor, the anticipation of the monster growling behind it, all stimulated distinct images in my mind as I played. Now, I’m just trying to recreate my mind’s eye for others to partake in the same experience that so captivated my imagination in those early days.

DL: What will there be in the film for film buffs, especially if they have little to no experience with RPGs?

HB: The Dangers of Daggermore is not intended for art-house aficionados, nor as a primer for learning how to play the game. Our intended audience is gamers and lovers of fantasy and horror films. We’re using the conventions of the genres to bring the game to life. Intense situations, misdirection, lightning quick decision making, and monsters that threaten more than just your life. As I tell the others, this is not a film looking to bring the character side out of D&D; this is a film looking to bring the D&D out of the characters. 

DL: Why choose the Knight, Elf and Wizard?

HB: Partially, it’s due to the acting talent available. Gabrielle Boni makes a great elf, Brandon McClean makes a noble knight (though he could have been a bard), and James Filanowski is an actual magician. 

The script was written with these archetypes as the names of the character to highlight the fact that this is a film about exploring a dungeon more than about the characters themselves. That said, the actors have found depth to their characters, motivations for entering such a dangerous place, and ways to incorporate these backgrounds into the actions they take in the face of danger.

There is a little vagueness to these character concepts as well, which enables flexibility to how we tell the story, given the budget we’re able to shoot with. Is Knight a paladin or a fighter? Is Elf a ranger/rogue/ or arcane archer? How high a level is wizard, a prestidigitator or a mage?

DL: Why have a dungeon instead of another typical (or atypical) RPG location?

HB: Lord of the Rings, Eragon, and Conan the Barbarian have all done wilderness adventures well.  Peter Jackson did large underground spaces like Moria or Goblin Town, well. They haven’t done dungeons.  None of the three Dungeons and Dragons movies have done a dungeon either. What do those guys have against dungeons?  I mean, it’s in the title of their movie!

In addition to The Descent, I think Indiana Jones films were good for bringing out aspects of delving into a dungeon. The Well of Souls is the place the characters seek in Daggermore and the name is a nod to Raiders. I bet Spielberg would have loved D&D growing up.

My favorite part of ET when I first saw it was the guys gaming at the kitchen table and ordering pizza. No joke. Spielberg deftly brought out the essence of playing D&D in such a brief scene.  Boy, I wish he’d just go full bore one last time on a D&D film. I’d camp out for that one.

DL: Combat encounters are common in RPGs but so are social encounters. What kind of social aspects, if any, will there be in the film?

HB: The gathering of the party is an interesting aspect of the film. Wizard needs a team to enter Daggermore with him, he’d never survive alone, but none would be foolhardy enough to join him unless they had reasons to enter the dungeon themselves. If we are fortunate enough to expand the film to a webseries then those mysteries will be revealed and the social interactions between the characters will deepen.

DL: Lastly, what is your favorite aspect of The Dangers of Daggermore -- at any stage of the project -- and why? What do you feel really makes this film stand out?

HB: Though it may take a nerd, a geek, or a dork to realize it, dungeons are cool!!!

We here at Dorkland would like to thank Hal for his time and wish him the best with The Dangers of Daggermore. If you would like to know more about the project (or would like to show it some support) be sure to check out its Kickstarter page -- in its last few days!

The Dangers of Daggermore Kickstarter

Here's a Kickstarter project that blends two things I love together -- RPGs and movies. The Dangers of Daggermore project aims to create a film that is a good representation of what it is like to go dungeon delving in a typical RPG (in this case, 3.X/Pathfinder).

The general setting of this project is as mentioned above -- a pretty standard (fantasy) RPG. The main characters in this film are an elf, knight and wizard. There's a dungeon, monsters, combat, and hopefully lots of experience and loot. Most of the things you want in your adventure.

The rewards for the pledge tiers are where things get a bit different. It seems that the film will be presented as a web series and, thus, free to watch (though, correct me if I am wrong), so the rewards are not the film itself but tie-ins to it. These rewards escalate based on the pledge amount and each tier has two sides to it -- a gamer side and a film buff side. For example, the first tier (US$10) comes with character sheets and concept art of the main characters (the gamer side) and the shooting script (the film buff side).  As you go up the tiers you get more and more adventure material and more behind-the-scenes material.

On to the critique, I should start off by pointing out that the project has hit its funding goal -- as of this writing it is sitting right on it. It's done what it has set out to do, so I'll throw my guesstimates at what might have helped it get there (and what might have helped it get further). The funding goal is fairly low at US$1,000 -- it seems that this is to help produce a pilot episode, so that might be enough (I assume there is additional funding being put into the project). There is also the video on the page -- one that you should watch if you have any interest in this project. I typically skip the videos on Kickstarter pages and move straight into the text -- if you do that on this one you'll be missing out. The text on the page does give a general overview but it is far weaker than the video. The video is quite good in general and shows off some of the potential the film might have, it also shows that the project's crew does at least have a decent A/V setup (though there is some audio quality issues in one section). You also get a lot more information about the project and get to see the faces and personalities behind it -- that's all good. The pledge tiers, however, are not quite as attractive. The prices tend to be fairly high for what you get. If there was a bit more offered on each tier it would make them more enticing. As it stands, you basically are pledging more on the basis that you really want to see this project go through -- which does attest to the dedication of the backers who helped it reach its funding goal. Still, its a bit of a hard sell to the average joe.

If you would like to know more about The Dangers of Daggermore be sure to check out its Kickstarter page and be sure to watch the video.

Extreme Earth Kickstarter

A new Iron Age of comics and dystopian-themed RPG campaign setting is on Kickstarter -- Extreme Earth, promising plenty of corruption, conflict and super powers. The campaign setting is being published by Fainting Goat Games in seven different rules systems -- BASH!, Bulletproof Blues, Fate Accelerated Edition, ICONS, Mutants and Masterminds, Savage Worlds, and SUPERS!

The setting of Extreme Earth is that of a contemporary Earth with some minor changes -- namely, less resources, more corruption, and the introduction of super powers. This all leads to plenty of conflict at every possible level of society and between every possible entity. The emerging supers are, of course, tools and weapons to be used in the growing conflicts.

The price of all this conflict starts out at US$15 for a PDF (US$20 for PDFs of all seven systems -- a much better deal) and US$45 for the POD physical copy of one system. And a limited edition print copy, of a single system, can be had for US$75 (international shipping is an extra US$15 for both physical copies). There are extras at the higher tier levels, if you are so inclined, and they include goodies like getting pieces of art or having characters of your own creation implemented into future products.

Now we come to the 'critique' of the project page -- my favorite section. The video essentially summarizes the first couple of paragraphs of information on the page -- it is done well enough, though the video and audio quality can always be improved. If you would prefer to just read and not watch a video, you can skip it quite easily, otherwise it is nice to put on while checking out the pledge levels and such. The general layout of the page is good and there is detailed information -- including imagery -- of the rewards for the different pledge levels, so everything is pretty easy to understand. The information on the page for the project is just satisfactory enough to make me curious, but I would still like to see a bit more information on the setting and maybe an example or two just to get a feel for it all. As it stands I am curious but not quite assured to the point of dropping money on it -- very close, though. Speaking of money, the goal seems reasonable and they are already around the half-way point with some time to go. There are a few stretch goals listed, which is nice -- I don't like having too many out on the page before the project has funded. If they begin including some imagery for the stretch goals as they did with the pledge tiers (once the stretch goals are the next target), it would be beneficial. All in all, the folks behind Extreme Earth have run successful Kickstarter (and Indiegogo) projects before and it shows.

If you would like to know more about Extreme Earth be sure to check out its Kickstarter page. 

The ENnies: It Is An Honor Just To Be Nominated...

For the first time ever, I submitted the Dorkland! blog for consideration for the ENnies. Do I expect to be nominated, or even win for that mater? Nah, not really. I've been doing this blog for just over 10 years now, and I've been plugging away at it without really caring who likes or who doesn't like what I want to talk about over here. I staked this out as my little corner of the internet, to let the dice fall where they may (so to speak). Why the sudden need for affirmation? To be honest, the whole thing is more of a PR thing for me than anything else. Additional eyes on the blog never hurt, and having links on the ENnies site will help drive some traffic, perhaps to people who have never seen the blog before. A contradiction, I know.

Super-Soldiers And Super-Spies For Fate Accelerated.

Many of you probably know that I am a fan of the Agents of SHIELD show on ABC. With the Captain America The Winter Soldier movie coming out tomorrow, I decided that I needed to put up something inspired by the Marvel Cinematic Universe that was gameable. This mini-setting for the Fate Accelerated rules (although you can just as easily use it with Fate Core) hits the spot that I was looking for. It gives a Gm the starting framework to build a campaign using the Cinematic Universe as an inspiration, while creating your own adventures.

You can download the PDF over here. Let me know what you think either here, over at G+ or on Twitter.

Combat Description Cards Kickstarter

I've covered several RPG Kickstarters so far for Dorkland, and this project is indeed involved with RPGs -- just in a bit of a different way. So, have you ever been sitting around the game table (or webcam) and thought, "Wow, combat is so boring -- I wish it could be spiced up a bit"? If so, the Combat Description Cards Kickstarter might be the project you need to liven up the play session.

How does it work? Pretty simply, it seems. There are three different suits of cards -- blunt, slashing and piercing -- each with three different types of styles -- stylish, power and ranged -- that each have two descriptions -- damaging and death. Need a descriptive way to describe something that just happened in combat? Pull a card from the respective suit, read the style and description that best fits the situation -- or just use it as inspiration and wing it a bit. That seems to be about it. There are some 100+ cards in the set (around 120+ now, with the stretch goals, I think) so there are plenty of descriptions to use. One aspect that the Kickstarter page made sure to point out, and that I think is good, is the lack of detailed information in the descriptions -- so they can be used with any weapon in nearly any setting or situation.

Interested? Then read on for the tiers and pricing and such.

The first tier of interest is at US$10 where you can get a digital PDF of all the cards to print on your own. For a physical deck the lowest tier is US$25 (includes free shipping within the US, additional for outside), and then several tiers of additional deck, digital and other goodies in a mix. Some of these other goodies are the Conflict PvP Rulebook from the same company (Conflict Roleplaying) and other gaming aids like battlemaps. If I have read the FAQ correctly, it also seems that backers at the US$25 tier and higher will receive the physical stretch goal rewards, too, of which there are several. Overall, not too expensive considering the cards look to be pretty well made.

Now for my favorite segment: the judging of the Kickstarter page. I really don't have to do it for this project, though, as it has already more than smashed through its original funding goal and many stretch goals -- clearly, it has done something very right. Still, let's run through it quickly -- starting with the video. The video is well made -- seems like there might have been a company hired to do at least the first half of it. The one problem I had with it, though, was the bright ball of light behind the text -- that was a bit blinding and made it a tad difficult to read some of the words. Moving on to the page content -- there are quite a few images that clearly show the product, images that show the different tiers and their rewards, and images that show off the stretch goal rewards. You hardly have to even read the page and you know generally know what's going on and what it's about. I like that. The written portion is okay, as well, and does thoroughly describe the product and its uses. It's a fine Kickstarter page all-around, but I feel it is all the clear images that really help take it a bit further.

And there you go -- liven up the deaths in your game with some ready-made descriptions. If you'd like to know more about the Combat Description Cards, feel free to check out its Kickstarter page. For more information on the company behind the cards, Conflict Roleplaying, be sure to check out their website.

Dorkland Interview -- Orin Rakatha Kickstarter with Mike Penny

Orin Rakatha, the RPG setting with a long and storied background as a U.K.-based LARP, is in its final couple of days of Kickstarter -- and, as of this writing, it only needs a few more quid to reach the funding goal! Despite the busy final stretch, one of the developers, Mike Penny, sat down with us here at Dorkland! to answer some questions we had about Orin Rakatha.

Dorkland!: First up, how has the Kickstarter experience been for you so far? What do you feel you have done especially well? What might or would you change?

Mike Penny: I’ve been a fan of Kickstarter for a year or so, have backed a couple dozen projects and have like I am sure many people thought ‘I could do that’. Well now we are most of the way through and it does look like we will have made it but it’s been a bumpy ride and I have much more sympathy for those successful / unsuccessful Kickstarters I have watched. It has been an immensely exciting project but somewhat all consuming, there’s been some high and low points; the highs have to be the fantastic support we have received I think the lows have been ‘no comments’: we’ve had hardly any comments / questions which I was looking forward to!

The most challenging part has been creation of traffic, Kickstarter is a great platform but you don’t get pledges from them, almost all of our pledges have been via social media links; the best advice I got very early in our campaign was ‘in crowd-funding the crowd comes before the fund for a very important reason’ meaning build your own crowd first; which we did go out in earnest to create from an early stage and it has proved to be successful.

As for changing something not sure I would, lots of people have said that our initial campaign and video were too ‘amateur’ and I agree, we aren’t video of typesetting professionals and our Kickstarter was very much about getting the funding for these professionals for the end product but saying that if we come back to Kickstarter I think we would get some seed funding first for such things on the campaign as it does seem to be ‘expected’

Overall a very positive experience I feel and the support has been tremendous.

DL: How did Orin Rakatha come to be, all those years ago?

MP: Our Live Action Roleplaying campaign started on a world called Murandir; for a while at the time (and this is almost 30 years ago) we had a permanent fixed site for our adventures and most of the LARP games took place there. When the time came to give back the lease on the permanent site and look to the future the decision was made to write a new world to mark this change.
There was also a want to create a world that worked perfectly for the LARP environment, addressing a challenge that we call ‘Suspension of Disbelief’ in that when we LARP we want to minimize the number of times that we have to accept something ‘as it is’ because we cannot physically create it in the real world (something which table-top is not limited by). So we wrote a world that had rules supporting the concept; one of the easiest methods of describing this is via the ‘Laws of Orin Rakatha’, there is an actual law on the lands described as follows: “The Law of Gathering: The people shall not travel the land in groups larger than twenty individuals”, the LARP reason for this is although we might want to we could stage enormous battles every other weekend, our LARP events had 10-15 players and a similar number of crew (monsters) so we wrote a law that made sense of this in-character. The cool thing about transference of these laws to the RPG is that this means that the most powerful unit on the world of Orin Rakatha is the ‘adventuring party’ and here they become the armies of the towers of people they represent.  I’ll cover a bit more about this in the question about sentience below.

The original spark of Orin Rakatha came from a fairly small tight knit group but the development over the years has been handled by a large team of referees and like all the best campaigns but on the tabletop or not by huge input from the players and crew.

DL: What are some of the challenges with bringing a setting with such a long history to print?

MP: The two biggest challenges we are firstly living up to the expectations of those people that have actually been in the world of Orin Rakatha, there are now words with which you can replace a live experience (but we do feel that these live experiences will create, colour and infuse our words) and frankly we want to make sure that those people feel its great, as they will be our harshest critics, get it right for them and we feel it will work for the wider audience.

Secondly the volume of the editing task we have to undertake, there is a lot of stuff to compound into words suitable for a book, and a lot of it was created prior to all the common sharing mechanisms we take for granted today. We haven’t underestimated this task hence why there are 6 of us on the team and we’ve allowed enough time in our plan to do the primary edit (and re-write where needed as not everything fits from LARP to RPG) to meet our current delivery targets.

DL: What unique benefits or challenges, if any, are there in bringing Orin Rakatha back from the LARP to the tabletop?

MP: A fringe benefit to us is that as the campaign has developed over such a long time, there has never been one steward of the history and it has never been collected into one place, this will re-energise our LARP world as much as it will launch the RPG product. As for challenges on top of the ‘we already have a lot of people to impress’ I think it will sit around ‘crunch’ or the stats and rules not covered by the story element, as we can’t directly transfer the LARP stats to the RPG (as the LARP has it’s own unique rule set); so we do have to re-stat everything to suit a couple of the key existing fantasy campaign rules sets, we are currently targeting Pathfinder, the OGL direct, Fate and potential Savage Worlds; this is the area with the largest amount of work we have to do ourselves but we are experienced gamers and are looking forward to it!

DL: Orin Rakatha is a fantasy setting and there is a bit of info about it on the Kickstarter page, but how does it really differentiate itself from existing fantasy settings? What would get existing fantasy-game players psyched up about it?

MP: For me it’s simple to answer this, characterization and plot! This is a long story-line and the characters have actually been played by real people and been ‘experienced’ by hundreds of others. It’s a bit like re-writing a major fantasy novel, after you’ve seen the film but also asked all the audience what they thought about both the book and the film.

DL: 'Sentience' is something mentioned in the description of the game -- what are these semi-sentient lands and sentient towers?

MP: So I am not going to give too much away here! But simply put the land is alive and controlled in a mystical way, it responds to the actions of others to uphold the laws.

The structures in which each of the groups of peoples (small nations) live are called towers and these towers are linked to the mystical power that controls the land, protect the people from the mists that transform the land and also are unique in their own way, in that they are larger on the insider than they appear and have internal climate (which is where all food production and mundane activities take place), you cannot harm a person within a tower nor can you lay siege to them. They are a completely safe haven; but to retain a tower your people must have sufficient power and wealth to do so, this is measured together and known as ‘status’ on Orin Rakatha; so they must send out ‘adventuring groups’ to maintain their status (or in game terms gain xp and gold!) I said I’d talk some more here about how Orin Rakatha came to be; one of the elements we wanted a ‘reason’ for under the ‘suspension of disbelief’ was to answer this question ‘When adventuring as a low level party how come we hardly ever meet monsters that are much higher level than we are? And when we meet some lower level monsters or ones that we out-number how come they just don’t take one look at our cool armour and magic weapons and run away?’ So here the sentient nature of the land actually ‘responds’ to effectively marshal not only its own forces but also the opposing sides of towered people so that much of the time they meet others of a similar rank or level (not always GM’s!) The Mystics achieve this by the pathways being physically changed to redirect those that are travelling across the lands to ‘meet’ in a particular way. The nature of random encounters are also influenced by the lands sentience, many of the indigenous creatures have a simple culture and believe in reincarnation to such an extent that they are actually willing to fight against greater more powerful odds because they will be ‘brought back by the mists as a more powerful creature’

DL: What are some of the inspirations behind Orin Rakatha?

MP: The team and the players of Heroquest LARP developed as the fantasy genre developed in the UK, early on it was 'Dungeons & Dragons' & 'Lord of the Rings' and it's moved over the years as the fantasy genre has developed and become more accessible to everyone. But the single most significant influence during the creation of Orin Rakatha has been our players; most GM's will know this secret - the players come up with all the best plot ;0)

DL: Who or what were the Ikarthians?

MP: The Ikarthians are, or more correctly were, one of the towered people of Orin Rakatha (as described earlier all the towers are akin to a small nation of a few thousand people); they are part of the pre-history of the world (in that they date from a time prior to the player character history) and were in a traumatic incident all destroyed in a single heart-beat. You’ll find out more about them in the starter module ‘Burning Night’ and if we meet our stretch targets the campaign module ‘The Shadow of the Ikarthians’ will reveal all their story).

 DL: The art on the Kickstarter page (which I quite enjoy) seems to give off a bit of a grimdark vibe -- what exactly is the tone of the setting and how is it expressed?

MP: So there are elves, orcs, wizards, goblins, warriors and priests so it is in one way a traditional high fantasy setting but we do agree that it has a gritty more real edge to it, fundamentally this comes from the way the story was written, so firstly in the more traditional sense the story was written down by the referee organizing the LARP events, but what defines Orin Rakatha is the nature of the story development, in that it has been played out and the story developed by hundreds of people both taking part in events and writing and developing the plot as it went along. So as we commute this into the books you'll get the flavour of a number of peoples perspectives on the story. So in short it's a high fantasy campaign but with a real edge!

DL: Lastly, what is your favorite part of Orin Rakatha and why?

MP: For me it has to be the lands and towers around an area called the Ikarthian Triangle, this is made of of 3 towers; one was destroyed long ago (and some of its history is revealed in our first module Burning Night) and remains haunted by its once inhabitants the Ikarthian people; who were all tragically slain in the same moment (the whole tower of 1000's of people all at the same time), and of the other two I really love the Labyrinth of Xenos a tower of enchanters that create golems and clockwork constructs to carry out their will and whom are all linked to a single consciousness. This triangle of towers is one of the few places on Orin Rakatha where the open land is protected from the mists and it is also therefore a hub for the undesirables that have now tower sanctuary to call their home.

We here at Dorkland would like to thank Mike for his time in answering these questions and if you would like to know more about Orin Rakatha please check out their Kickstarter page -- only a couple of days left on it!

March Book One By John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell

While at MegaCon last weekend I inadvertently stumbled upon the Top Shelf Productions booth and found what is one of the most powerful comic book stores that I have encountered in a long time.

March Book One is a biographical comic, based on the life of U.S. Representative John Lewis, and written by his aide Andrew Aydin with art by Nate Powell.

One of the great things about picking up a book for the first time at a comic convention is that you often get to meet the creators. Aydin's enthusiasm for his writing on the book and Lewis' life was infectious and got me to pick up the book. I don't think that a comic creator's direct enthusiasm has influenced me as much since I met David Mack back in the 90s, and he sold me on his Kabuki comic. Of course, these two have little in common outside of an emotional impact.

This first book in a trilogy talks about Lewis' early life as the child of Alabama sharecroppers, up through his college years and early involvement in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Early on, Lewis' empathy is shown, in his treatment of the farm's chickens when he was a child. This sets the stage for what would become his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.

Don't think that is is a dry recital of facts and dates, like some high school history course. Through Aydin's talent as a writer, Lewis and the people in his life are vivid and engaging as you follow them through their fight for equality. Powell's art beautifully compliments the writing and helps to bring the writing to life.

It is amazing how much you think that you know about a subject, until someone who was actually there shows how little that you really know. This book is like that. Not in a "trying to teach a lesson" kind of way, but with the methods that can only come from natural storytellers like Lewis and Aydin. It is obvious from the writing that Aydin has a great deal of respect for Lewis and his accomplishments, and after reading this first book it is a respect that we all have as well.

I don't think that I can speak highly enough of this book. This comic is something that I am going to stick into the faces of friends for years to come, telling them that they need to read this book. In fact the point of this review is that you need to read this book. One of the things that I talked about with Aydin, while he signed my copy of the book, was that comic, and really all forms of geek media from games to movies, need to expand beyond the power fantasies that you often find and explore new territories with emotional maturity. This comic shows how you can do that.

If it isn't obvious yet, you need to pick up this book (and the next two parts when they come out).