I was mildly surprised to see a Slashdot entry on the new Steve Jackson Games releases shown at SXSW. Can't say I recall that site focusing on SJG in the past – but then again, even this "old fashioned" tabletop gaming company is going to have a lot of cred with the tech-focused Slashdot readership. As the blurb notes, the company's infamous run-in with The Law over its GURPS Cyberpunk book helped lead to the creation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. And, as the comments clearly show, there's a lot of recognition of and love for SJG among the techies. There's a ton of wistful praise for Car Wars (and calls for a modern computer version; hear, hear!), as well as kind words for GURPS and other products.

Oh, there's also one fellow who wants us all to know that Steve is overly litigious, "irrational and greedy", and "not a nice guy", and we should all quit buying his games. That devolves into a long thread, without much to back the charges. The poster doesn't help his credibility with the statement "Growing up I was a big fan of his games, including Car Wars, Ogre, and Traveler". (You'll see a quick Anonymous Coward post pointing out the problem there; that's me.)

But anyway. The discussion makes me want to play Car Wars all over again. As well as try out the new games. Zombie Dice? Hmm, will that be anything like the discontinued TSR Dragon Dice?

"Dinosaurs may be lighter than we thought!" That's the news item I welcomed in RPG science: Designing dinosaurs just got easier? a couple of years ago. I liked the sound of that discovery, as the crushing weight of dinos made realistic designs a challenge when considering the effects of weight vs power.

But now? T. rex was bigger than thought, mused paleontologists more recently – over 9 tons for the Chicago Field Museum's resident specimen, Sue ("I'm not fat, I'm just really big-boned"). So we may be back to super-heavy reptiles (go easy on the carbs there, Rex!), and back to various tweaks needed to keep the big dinos mobile under design rules that consider weight.

None of it's a problem. The T Rex designs in my linked article above still work great, even if you want to boost the weight and the required support for it. Don't worry if your final design comes out a wee ponderous, as the new heavy-dino hypothesis suggests a T Rex top speed that's awfully modest for such a big predator: 10-25 mph (about Move 5-12 in GURPS terms).

The big range of that estimated top speed is a reminder of just how much sheer guess work palentologists still have to deal with – so if you want to stick with lighter weights, that's fine too. Which leads right to the key point: While it's an amusing diversion to try "designing" realistic dinos using detailed rules, in the end you can just slap on whatever power, agility, Move, and so forth that the game scene calls for. If you scare the bejesus out of the PCs, you've found the right numbers.

Whatever the poundage, T Rex will always be the king of the dinosaurs. Even if the T stands for "tubby".

I earlier called attention to a premium "wish I had one" product, the ultimate gamer's table. It should surprise no one that I haven't yet plunked down my $8K for this handcrafted piece of furniture. But I'm rather tempted by a premium gaming product that's a bit more affordable: custom hand-made dice. 

I'd say these are more than handmade dice, really. This is art, with gaming dice as its medium. The creator/artist, Abraham Neddermann, was kind enough to answer some questions about his work. Please read on! Read more...

Here's a collection of online bric-a-brac with connections to this site's gaming material:

Dinosaurs and their tails

Having written about both dinosaur design and tail design, I can't help but comment on the Smithsonian blog's report that dinosaurs may have had thicker, beefier tails than often depicted. Sounds fine to me, at least until we get that cloning process working to verify things! 

What does that mean for critter design? Read more...