Green Ronin Publishing is offering Savage Worlds Freeport Companion for fans of the Savage Worlds roleplaying system by Pinnacle Entertainment Group. The PDF supplement will support use of Green Ronin’s City of Freeport campaign setting with Savage Worlds rules. It includes details on fantasy races, new hindrances, edges, and arcane powers, statistics for both common folk and key characters in Freeport, and a new adventure, “Fury in Freeport.”

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Rothay Manor offers specialized “gaming getaway weekends” at its resort, including weekends geared to Chess, Bridge, and Scrabble.

Along with scheduled game times and equipment, they offer lectures, tutorials, courses, and competitions, as well as the usual resort amenities.

(information)

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The Kentucky Kernel, a student-run publication at the University of Kentucky, recently ran a story on the games club. Sure it had the expected references to Mountain Dew, Cheetos, and “stereotypical gamer physique,” but it was also among the nicest social assessments of dedicated gamers that I’ve seen in a general publication. The article quoted one participant, “This is for people who are tired of the pre-packaged, 10-second morals offered in current media… This is one of the last remaining venues for expressive, involved storytelling.”

(article)

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Game systems are open by default unless they are patented. In Wizards of the Coast’s case, they specifically designated their game system as an open gaming license with their third edition of Dungeons and Dragons. This was a good move, as thousands of products labeled themselves after the idea, boosting the D&D system in turn.

Apparently the party is over, as Wizards plans on telling all other publishers: if you publish anything that uses the new D&D system, you can no longer publish anything under the previous open gaming license. So you have to choose: support D&D 4the edition, or support open gaming.

I am not a lawyer, but I don’t see how this can be enforced, since systems are not protected unless they are patented (copyrights are not enough, as they only protect the wording, terms, and pictures). But Wizards can probably make your life difficult enough that, even if they would not win an eventual court case, you’ll probably go broke in the meantime.

(source, hat tip)

Update: Wizard forum posts seem to belie this interpretation, as noted by Boing Boing a week or so later (May 3). (source)

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Fantasy Flight Games, publisher of large scale Euro-war sci-fi games with lots of pieces and great artwork, is set to publish yet another space themed galactic conflict game, Gears of War. It’s also another space themed galactic conflict game based on a video game, ala Doom, Age of Empires, etc.

It is set to be released in November at the same time as the second edition of the video game. It’s just another word for licensing, folks. Just how many six hour space themed galactic conflict games does one need?

(source)

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