Tonight (Jan 31), 7pm: David L. Pulver
Guardians of Order staff writer and GURPS freelancer David Pulver discusses his current projects, including the newly-released anime horror RPG DEMON CITY SHINJUKU, his ongoing work on TENCHI MUYO! The RPG, and his two current projects for GURPS Traveller.
Wednesday, Feb 2, 7pm: Steffan O'Sullivan and Ann Dupuis
Steffan, the author of FUDGE, and Ann, whose company Grey Ghost Games publishes FUDGE products, discuss anything FUDGE.
Wednesday, Feb 9, 7pm: Bob Portnell
Bob Portnell takes questions on SIMPLY ROLEPLAYING! from MicroTactix Games, his super-hero gaming column at Comic Book Life, and the joys
and trials of line editorship.
Or, for a really SHORT experience, try the Richard Cory Text Adventure. Or "Corey," as the case may be; the authors can't make up their minds. You will want to give the art at the end of the game a miss; subtle, it's not. But the text game is definitely worth the very small investment of time . . .
-- Steve Jackson
When they're all out to get you, your day can fill up fast: changing buses, dodging metal detectors, renting P.O. boxes. Now, for the theorist on the go, intricate plots - all of them - come in this quick, easy-to-digest article from Brunching Shuttlecocks.
I will also be doing three game store appearances, along with our Managing Editor, Alain Dawson. There will be demos, prizes and book signings. All you Chicagolanders, shake off that cabin fever and come out to play!
On Friday, January 28, we'll be at AF Books in Frankfort, Illinois, from 9:00-11:00 pm. For directions or information, please call (815) 469-5092.
On Saturday, January 29, we will visit Games Plus in Mt. Prospect, Illinois from 12:00-2:00 pm. For directions or information, please call (847) 577-9656, or check out their Web page.
Later that day, from 4:00-6:00 pm, we'll be at Something Wicked (the mystery/game store) in Evanston, Illinois. For directions or information, please call (847) 328-1300.
-- Steve Jackson
On the one hand, he asked for a lot of money to reveal his formula. On the other hand, if his intentions were malicious, he could have wreaked havoc by publishing it on the Net. And it certainly looks as though the "offense" for which he was arrested - buying ten subway tickets with his gimmicked cards - was performed at the request of the bank, after he contacted them!
In late February, we'll know what the French courts thought about it . . .
-- Steve Jackson
Fighting Plastic, a game by Corey Butler. Still in playtest; tell him what you think!
The Army Men Homepage, with collector/nostalgia information and another set of rules.
-- Steve Jackson
And we've got some new items . . . Wear the new pendants, earrings or pins creations based on the infernal bands from In Nomine. Proclaim your membership in the Illuminati with new sizes of pendants and pins and earrings. (Actually, it's a great cover. Who would suspect you of being Illuminated if you CLAIM to be Illuminated?)
Our thanks go to the people who make this possible. We have a number of volunteer editors for various pages. They're the ones who keep the news, errata, and other content up to date. Think good thoughts about them . . . And, of course, none of it would happen without webmaster Kira and assistant webmaster Keith, and the people at IO who keep the the T3s up and running.
And, of course, without the fans it would be nothing at all. It's nice having you folks visit. Please keep coming . . .
-- Steve Jackson
We're now shipping The Munchkin's Guide to Power Gaming and the French version of Illuminati.And we've just done another print run of the GURPS Basic Set, and we printed another 2,100 hardbacks. Almost all of them have gone to distributors already; yes, once again, it looks like we should have done some more.
For the full-scale blurbs for the new stuff, see our New Products page. I will, however, take this opportunity to say that the Munchkin's Guide is an EXTREMELY silly book and, if you like humor about gaming, you should definitely check it out.
Steven Brust, author of such excellent books as To Reign In Hell, The Book of Jhereg, and The Sun, The Moon, and The Stars is joining us on the Pyramid chat area next Wednesday to discuss his writing and current projects. Don't miss out - if you're not already a subscriber, join now!
-- Kira
Check out conspiracy.com . .
. but don't tell them where you found out about it.
Said David Cooke, VP of Alliance, "Starting February 1, Alliance will offer a 100% fill rate guarantee for all Steve Jackson Games items that are currently in print and available."
-- Steve Jackson
Visit Slashdot for much more on this.
You wouldn't think from looking at all those benign, smiling faces that Canada could field a cutthroat group of spies, and you'd be right. According to All Things Considered, they've been lax of late, letting little things get in the way of the finer points of international espionage.
-- Suggested by John Dunn
But they called for a "national dialogue" to study the issue of government supervision of employees who work at home. I'm still going to write my letters.
-- Steve Jackson
But the Feds have to get involved . . . These OSHA regulations make employers legally responsible for the employee's HOME, which gives employers a very good reason not to hire telecommuters, or to fire the ones they already have.
Here's the whole CNN.com story.
If you think this is insane, write to your Congressman. I'm going to. Our telecommuting employees are very valuable, but I sure don't want to have to snoop around their houses every few months, and the government shouldn't force me to do it.
-- Steve Jackson
With the recent Illumination of Purity Software, Inc., Steve Jackson Games has launched an ambitious play today. With Purity's added transferrable power, in the form of a WebSiphon version of The Fnorder, the attack is sure to succeed. To join the ranks of the Illuminated, visit Purity Software's booth (#3458, in the North Hall Net Innovators pavilion) at MacWorld Expo today through Saturday and mention the secret word of passage.You don't know the secret word of passage?
Interesting.
-- Ben Kimball
Meanwhile, looking at their site, we see that their next featured chat is "January 6th, 6:00-7:00 PDT - Turn those pesky insects into delicious meals! David Gordon is a biologist and author of The Eat-a-Bug Cookbook. Chat with him about the benefits of eating insects."
O-o-o-o-kay . . .
-- Steve Jackson
No, not a GURPS book. Actually it's a CGI book for beginners, entitled CGI Programming 101. I've been working on it for longer than I care to think about... 3 years is a conservative guess, though admittedly about half of that was procrastination. The other half was a lot of hard work, since I chose to self-publish, and had to not only write the book, but also do the layout and print buying.But it's finally done now. I had it printed by Bang, the same printer that does many of SJG's books, and it turned out really nice. I doubt it'd have gone so smoothly without the help and advice of a lot of people at SJG: Jack Elmy, who designed the spiffy cover; Gene Seabolt, who showed me how to tame Quark; Monica Stephens and Russell Godwin, who answered a great many of my questions about printing and shipping books; and SJ, who edited the English parts of the book (as opposed to the Perl parts) and who proofed the cover text for me. I also have to thank Mark Cogan, one of our Pyramid subscribers, who proofed the Perl code and helped me refine many of the chapters and code examples. Many thanks to all of yall for helping me turn this crazy dream into reality.
If you'd like more info on the book, visit http://www.cgi101.com/class/. The table of contents, ordering info, and first six chapters are online, along with code and examples from the entire book.
-- Kira
Looks like we've all made it into the new year, even if the new millennium technically IS next year. The calendar rollover has gone more smoothly than expected by anybody but the most Y2K-complacent. And I am *delighted* that the emergency preparations were unnecessary. Working on GURPS Y2K certainly killed any lingering ideas I might have had about the romance of chaos . . .So now it looks as though we'll start 2000 about where 1999 ended. Which is fine with me. 1999 was a good year for gaming and for SJ Games. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to write an "annual report" for you . . . after all, our customers are very important stakeholders in this operation.
Oh, and here's MY new year's prediction . . . next year we'll start listening to everybody who said that the real millennium starts in 2001. And we'll do another round of mega-parties!
-- Steve Jackson
