Flaming Monkey

Clinton R. Nixon, co-founder of The Forge, game designer, and the guy who created FindPlay, now gives us The Cheap and Cheesy Adventure Generator!

This year’s Iron Game Chef contest will held from March 11th-19th. I’m looking forward to finding out the details of this year’s contest, and to seeing what excellent news games emerge from it. Who knows….I may even be inspired enough to give it a shot myself.

Technorati Tags: igc

The question is, do I want to drive up to Boston and pay $20 (the one day registration fee) for this?

Panel: Game Design
Guest event run by Michael Von Korff
Time: Saturday, January 28 beginning at 2:30 PM and running until 4:30 PM
Location: Sever 102 (Guide to Locations)
Short Description: Vincent Baker, Luke Crane, and Jared Sorensen talk to us about designing role-playing games.
Details: They’ll rant and discuss. They’ll answer questions. It’ll be awesome.
Availability: Open event—show up at the start to participate.

The power of Squidoo has been used by both Rob “Muadib” Mosley and Chris “Bankuei” Chinn to build “lenses” focusing on the RPG community. Rob’s is about RPG theory and design in general, while Chris’ concentrates on the Forge diaspora.

I expect there’ll be one for Amber-related gaming any time now.

And no, I won’t be the one doing it.

Probably.

Take a tour guided by….a game designer?

Abandoned Military Base Getaway Weekend
Tour Guide: John Tynes
Location: Seattle area

ABOUT THE EXCURSION
Join veteran author and game designer John Tynes for a weekend excursion to the quaint Victorian seaside village of Port Townsend on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula, three hours’ drive from Seattle.

You and five other brave souls will join John for an eerie tour of Fort Worden State Park, a naval defense complex built before World War I and derelict since the 1950s. You’ll be hiking, climbing, crawling, and exploring dark, decaying spaces by flashlight in this intensely weird, crumbling ruin half-covered by wild growth like the remnants of a forgotten empire. What strange government experiments happened in these burned-out bunkers and graffiti-strewn command posts?

Those who retain their sanity will retire to the grounds of Manresa Castle, built in 1892 as a rich man’s mansion, then a Jesuit college for ascetic theology, and now a 1920s retro hotel rumored to be haunted. After an elegant dinner, John will guide you in an original tabletop roleplaying adventure of modern horror, to reveal the occult mysteries and government secrets lurking all around you.

Your accommodations at the Castle will be eminently luxurious, but the Otherworld Travel Agency cannot offer a refund if, after the game, you are too terrified to sleep.

ABOUT THE TOUR GUIDE
During his twelve years as a tabletop game designer, John Tynes earned a reputation for pushing the boundaries of modern horror. He is best known for his work as an author (Delta Green: The Rules of Engagement), game designer (Delta Green, Puppetland, Unknown Armies, The Hills Rise Wild!), and editor (The Unspeakable Oath).

There’s also a tour listed with Ken Hite!

[via Boing Boing]

Greg Stolze posted this to The Forge yesterday.

Those of you who’ve followed the successes of the Ransom model (the funding mode for Meatbot Massacre and …in Spaaace! may be interested to know that a new game’s in limbo, waiting for gamer dollars to buy its freedom.

The game is “Executive Decision” and it’s a real-time LARP set in the Oval Office. Players assume the roles of the President and his closest advisors as they confront a crisis and have to pick the best option based on limited information and political pressure. It’s diceless and rules-light (the resolution mechanic is pretty much “talk to the President and he decides”) but there is a scoring system that determines which player won the game. It’s fun. That’s the good news.

The better news is that it’s a collaboration between Ron Edwards, D. Vincent Baker, Dennis Detwiller, Chad Underkoffler, and me. You’ll see some A-Game when this comes out.

The best news of all is, we’re ransoming it for charity. 100% of all proceeds will go to the Red Cross to help victims of Hurricane Katrina (and, by the time we’re done, possibly that other one too).

More will be revealed at www.gregstolze.com but if you’re ready to poke some cash in now, you can go straight to http://www.fundable.org/groupactions/ExecutiveDecision and do your good deed for the day.

It’s an excellent idea, and, given the talent involved in creating the game, I’ll likely be helping to ransom it out, especially since the proceeds are going to the Red Cross

[via anyway]

I’ve recently started reading a few new gaming blogs, so I thought I’d point out that they’d been added to the “Blog links” section of the sidebar.

This Is My Blog — Ben Lehman’s blog for talking about game theory and design.

Shining Dodecahedron — Jay Loomis’ views on role-playing and games in general.

Random Encounters — Random RPG materials, speculations, and blather from Bradley “Brand” Robins.

Yudhishthira’s Dice — A place where Brand Robins talks about game design and theory as a companion page to Random Encounters.

This morning I upgraded Flaming Monkey to WordPress 1.5.1.1, which, in theory, should fix a few minor bugs that made it into the 1.5.1 release. Hopefully it didn’t introduce any new ones.

There was apparently a bug in WordPress 1.5.1 that disrupted my RSS feeds after the upgrade, but I think I’ve fixed it now. I hope.

I just upgraded Flaming Monkey from WordPress 1.5 to 1.5.1, and apparently I managed to do so without breaking anything.