A Role Playing Games Blog
Archive for April, 2009
The Stargazer’s World has passed the 200 posts mark!
7Just a few minutes ago I noticed that my post about Wizards pulling the plug on PDFs was actually the 200th post I made on this blog. When I started this blog last year I never thought I would reach this mark in such a short amount of time. And this wouldn’t have been possible without the help of my fellow bloggers from the RPG Bloggers Network. Thanks again to all of you! We have achieved a lot during the last months together and I am very happy being a part of this community. Now let’s have a look back on some of the posts I published since I reached the 100 post mark back in January:
- Wizards of the Coast stops all PDF sales
That was really a post to rule them all. Eventually someone posted the news about the so-called “PDFgate” at Slashdot and linked back to my post. In mere hours several thousand people came to this blog. And I hope a few will come back after the dust has settled. - Review: Open Game Table
Another very recent post, but it’s representative of a lot of posts I made about the OGT. I can’t stop to mention how great this book is and if you haven’t bought it, you should do now. A lot of hard work and dedication went into this RPG blog anthology, so every gamer should get a copy. Thanks again to Jonathan Jacobs and all the assistant editors, artists, judges and contributors!
Did I mention it’s only $22.95 and available here or here. GET YOUR COPY NOW! - Gender bender – or why I don’t like when men try to play women in roleplaying games
The most controversial post I’ve published in recent times. Sometimes I am a bit naive and I really didn’t believe this topic would be as controversial as it turned out to be. But I was wrong. So, if you are tough enough, put on your flame-proof underwear and check out the posts comments. - Old-school renaissance
Old-school games were a great topic recently and in that particular post I asked my readers to help me understand what makes a game “old-school” or “new-school”. It’s an interesting read and gives some insights on the old-school phenomenon! - Legal Information
In early March I finally added some Legal Information to my site. A lot of other bloggers have done this before, especially when there was some controversy about whether a blogger owns the comments made on his blog or not. Thanks again to Berin Kinsman for letting me use parts of his copyright notice and adapt it to my site. I am not good when it comes to legalese! - Gary Gygax, I never knew thee
Perhaps my most emotional post so far. That said I remember that Dave Arneson passed away today. May he rest in peace. My best wishes go to his family. - Dungeonslayers: The deed is done!
Another pet project of mine was the translation of the free, old-fashioned roleplaying game Dungeonslayers from German to English. As the one, who has almost single-handedly translated the whole thing I am very proud of what we have accomplished. And from what I’ve heard there is already a French and Italian version in the works based on our English translation. I never would have guessed … - Creative Commons
Since January this blog was released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license. And I haven’t had any regrets about this decision yet.
And following the tradition I started in my “A look back on 100 posts!” post, I will now give you some stats:
- Total number of posts: 205 (including this one)
- Total number of approved comments: 756
- Number of (unique) visits: 25.241
- Active WordPress plugins: 24
- Technorati authority: 28
- Google Page Rank: 3
- Cups of coffee consumed by me during the writing of that post: 0 (damn, I need another coffee)
- Word count of this post: 663
Woah, that was some pretty long post! I hope you’re still with me. So, what are your thoughts on the last 100 posts?
Ad Astra!
5April 8, 2009
For the last weeks I have been working on a science-fiction campaign setting that I call “Ad Astra!”. I have finally finished writing down the background story and descriptions of the various factions and I want to share a few bits with you. Please let me know what you think. Every comment is appreciated.
21ST CENTURY
The first manned mission to Mars is a success and a semi-permanent research base is established on Mars. A couple of years later the remains of an alien space ship are found under the surface of the red planet’s desert.
The alien technology salvaged from the derelict ship is far beyond human technology. The leader of the research team calls the unknown aliens Elohim. Nobody knows what happened to them and why they crashed on Mars.
A international research team finally uncovers another alien artifact. A huge Elohim jumpgate orbits the Mars moon Phobos. Using alien technology and human ingenuity the scientist and engineers manage to start the millenia-old gate opening a wormhole to the far away Omega Centauri star cluster. Several probes are sent through the wormhole and return with information about several habitable worlds.
22ND CENTURY
Huge colony ships are sent through the wormhole to establish colonies and research outpost on the other side of the wormhole.
The data crystals found in the Elohim ship indicate that the Elohim have tampered with human genome in order to give them abilities like telekinesis and ESP. Using alien technology it’s possible to identifiy people with a latent ESP ability and awake the dormant gene. This is called the “Prometheus Effect”. Over the coming centuries hundred thousands of people are identified as “espers”.
Among the abilities of espers is the capability to attune to Elohim technology. At the end of the 22nd century millions of humans live in the Halley II colony thousands of lightyears away from home, when suddenly the Elohim jumpgate is destroyed.
A NEW BEGINNING
For several hundred years the human colonists fight for survival far away from Earth. There are wars, famines, natural disasters, but in the end the former colonists build a new civilization. In memory of the world left behind they call themselves Gaians and their new homeworld Gaia.
Several hundred years after being stranded on Gaia the former colonists start building space ships again to explore the Halley system.
On Halley III aka Alexandria they find Elohim ruins and more artifacts that allow them to build their first psitech devices. Psitech devices can either be used to grant some basic esper abilities to ordinary humans or greatly enhance the abilities of a talented esper. This technology leads to the first hyperdrive. But even after extensive research the Gaians scientists are unable to build another jumpgate.
If you like to read more about the world of “Ad Astra” let me know in the comments! Then I will post more details on the factions of the Omega Centauri star cluster. And by the way, when you still remember my “Ad Astra!” posts from a few months earlier, you’ll notice that I changed the backstory a bit. The “we don’t know where we come from” idea was perhaps a bit too much to handle. 
Wahoo! I have been linked from Slashdot!
7It seems someone has posted a link to my post “Wizards of the Coast stops all PDF sales” on Slashdot! And I am experiencing a lot of incoming traffic. Until now my host’s servers are still working fine, but if you experience some slowdowns you know what happened.
To all Slashdotters: Welcome at the Stargazer’s World! Have a look around and feel free to check out my other posts! And if you like what you see, tell your friends about me. 
Update: It seems this blog has had more pageviews today than in the whole month of February. I have to admit that’s a bit creepy!
I usually don’t agree with RPGPundit …
3April 8, 2009
… but this time, he’s right. His comment on the current situation with Wizards of the Coast pulling the plug on all of their PDFs is spot on. And if you check out his post, make sure to read the comments by Ryan Dancey. It’s very interesting to read what a former WoTC employee thinks about all this.
Get Exalted 2nd Edition for free!
3April 8, 2009
Obviously White Wolf recognizes the opportunity and celebrates their devotion to PDF products by giving away the Exalted 2nd Edition rulebook for free!
In light of recent announcements, some fans have expressed concern over the future of electronic (PDF) format book sales in the RPG industry. White Wolf Publishing today has announced that it currently has no plans to discontinue its existing PDF products.
“Quite the opposite,” says Eddy Webb, the Alternative Publishing Developer for White Wolf. “I believe this is a growing market with potential we haven’t yet had a chance to fully explore, both as publishers and as fans of role-playing games.” Eddy remarked that he has dozens of upcoming PDF-exclusive products on his schedule in addition to continuing to provide PDF versions of upcoming products, and that White Wolf is still actively looking into returning to the print-on-demand arena.
To celebrate White Wolf’s continuing devotion to PDF products and reward their growing, loyal fan base, the company is offering a free download of the Exalted Second Edition rulebook
as well as a one-time 10% discount on the purchase of any White Wolf PDF titles through DriveThruRPG.com and RPGNow.com. Simply enter the coupon code wwlovesyou to receive the discount. Both offers expire by midnight (EST) on Sunday, April 12th.
Source: Just Jess
What are you waiting for? Point your browser to www.drivethruRPG.com and pick up your copy of Exalted 2nd edition now!
Wizards of the Coast stops all PDF sales
26April 7, 2009
Yesterday RPGNow announced that WotC has notified them that they no longer are allowed to sell or distribute WotC’s PDF products. That means even if you have purchased WotC PDF products over RPGNow you can’t download them again after April 7th. Today I received an email from Paizo informing me that Wizards has asked them to stop distribution of their PDF products, too.
There was some discussion on Twitter tonight about the reasons why Wizards of the Coast should cease all sales of PDF products until Fred Hicks provided us with an interesting link. And obviously they played the piracy card again. I think I’ve must have heard that somewhere before…
And I am pretty sure that’s not the real reason. Over 20% of all legal PDF sales are WotC products! Over 20%, that’s a lot. So what’s the problem with that. You’ll always have piracy even if you don’t sell the books in digital format. There are a lot of illegal scanned books floatng around on the net. So you don’t need a digital version of the book in order to distribute it over a P2P network. And I am pretty sure that this announcement will not end piracy of D&D products.
So, what’s the real reason? There may be several reasons, why Wizards slaps into the face of the customer again:
- Killing the competition
They want to create their own online distribution shop, and before they do so, they want to make sure noone else sells their stuff. And even if that’s the case, they dropped the ball again! - Removing all older edition material from the shops
Perhaps they are less then happy with the fact that some of those pesky customers prefer older editions instead of buying their shiny new 4th edition. Books are aleady out-of-print, but PDFs were still available… until now!
Whatever the real reason is, it has nothing to do with piracy. Period! This excuse didn’t work for the music industry, the movie industry or the computer game industry. But it’s easy to tell the public that the evil software/music/pdf pirates are responsible when you just want to kick your customers into the proverbial nuts!
Review: Open Game Table
2April 6, 2009
When I today crawled out of bed I found my copy of “Open Game Table – The Anthology Of Roleplaying Game Blogs, Volume 1” in my mailbox. And I have to admit it looks great in print! The faux tome cover has a certain steampunk feel to it, which I like very much and the quality of the printing is top notch.
The approx. 140-page book is available from Lulu and Amazon.com for just $22.95. And the book you’ll get for your hard-earned money is worth every cent, you can trust me with that! Jonathan Jacobs and his assistant editors and the members of the judging panel have chosen only the best of the best roleplaying blog posts.
The translation from the blog posts to the book format works surprisingly well and if you want to check out the original posts, you can just point your browser at the URLs provided. The appendix of the book also contains a list of all members of the RPG Bloggers Network, so you get a good starting point if you want to delve into the world of RPG blogs yourself.
The “Open Game Table” contains ten chapters and a foreword written by Wolfgang Baur (www.koboldquarterly.com):
- Chapter 1: Play Style
- Chapter 2: Game Play
- Chapter 3: Characters & Players
- Chapter 4: Monsters & NPCs
- Chapter 5: Encounters, Settings & Location
- Chapter 6: Adventure Design
- Chapter 7: Campaign Setting Design
- Chapter 8: Classes, Action & Equipment
- Chapter 9: RPG History & Commentary
- Chapter 10: The RPG Tool Box
Especially Chapter 8 is a bit heavy on D&D 4th Edition material, so if you don’t play the latest edition of D&D you wont get too much out of this chapter but the rest of the book contains great articles that can be used with every roleplaying game. But if you are using D&D 4th Edition you get a complete class, a warlock pact variant and rules for firearms and additional ranged weapons!
One of my favorite articles in the book is Berin Kinsman’s “Get Your Dice Off My Lawn!” on page 110. It’s a very humorous posts that I actually missed when it was posted at his blog. And there are a lot of other articles that I never read on the web although I try to keep up with things on the forum. So even if you read the RPG Bloggers Network member blogs from time to time, you should get this book.
If you want to spend $22.95 on any RPG book this year, make sure it’s the OGT. You’ll never get so much RPG goodness in one book for less money! And don’t forget to spread the word and tell your friends, family, neighbours etc. about it. The more copies Jonathan can sell the higher the chances are, a Volume 2 will see the light of day! So, don’t hesitate and order your copy now!
You have a question about an existing or upcoming Stargazer Games product? Ask away! You want to know what we think about a recent development in the RPG industry? Send in your questions. You always wanted to know what we think about game X? Send us an email.
