Let’s face it, I’ve definitely been on a Warhammer 40K kick lately, but even if you’re not into the miniatures game, you’ve got to admire the fluff. Black Library gave us the completely awesome Dark Heresy RPG, but its hampered somewhat by forcing players to play within the Imperium with a fairly limited range of character classes. With the RPG rights for the Games Workshop properties now at Fantasy Flight Games, we’re about to see the answer to this criticism in the new RPG: Rogue Trader. This new core setting will allow players to create characters not confined to Imperial space, with greater options for exploration and interaction with the myriad alien species of the 40K universe. The game is fully compatible with Dark Heresy and will be available for purchase at GenCon 2009. Given their amazing production qualities and slavish attention to the history and flavor of the 40K setting in Dark Heresy, this one is very likely to be another FFG winner.

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Actor Derek Mears (Friday the 13th) played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons as a teenager. Punk painter and road-kill sculptor (huh?) Jamie “Jimbo” Easter keeps his D&D books close at hand in his studio. And LA Times columnist Joel Stein reluctantly reveals 25 random things about himself, including this item:

19) My favorite Dungeons & Dragons character was a wizard named Solon who did not, to be honest, really deserve all his experience points. That felt good to finally say.

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Birmingham, UK: The online retailer Card Empire sold trading cards and accessories and was co-owned by Mark and Helen Findlay, who were the only workers. Mark just killed his Helen (his estranged wife) and then killed himself by jumping in front of a train. Helen had complained to the police about Mark five days earlier. They had two children. (source)

Tecumseh, OK: 40 year old former friend of family is chief suspect in the disappearance of a 14 year old girl on her way to an anime convention. Contact police if you have information. (source)

Kalamazoo, MI: Man shot and robbed over his winnings in a dice game. (source)

San Diego, CA: Card cheater pleads guilty to robbing casinos in California and Canada. He is part of a ring of cheaters, 26 of whom have pleaded guilty. (source)

Belize City, Belize: Stray bullet kills man enjoying a dice game. (source)

Concord, CA: One man hits another on the head with a golf club at a dominoes game because he was laughing. (source)

Detroit, MI: Dice game leads to school shooting. Click on the video link for a scaremongering TV news report (“Inside the scool … they were … GAMBLING!”) (source)

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Writer, poet, ex-TSR staffer, and still gamer designer Lester Smith is giving his work away for free. The game designs, that is. The components you’ll have to provide for yourself. On his blog are five games requiring a deck of cards, some standard dice, and paper and pencil. So far, there’s:

• Clashing Blades for a duel with swords,
• MonsterCon, where real monsters stalk a convention of horror fans,
• Powerhouses of Wrestling, a dice game of professional wrestling, and
• Invasion of the Saucer People, a cooperative game in which the players fight off an attack by aliens.

For this generosity, Lester, thank you.

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Karanja Crews, a high school teacher in Jefferson Oregon, created a board game workshop to help his students learn black history, reading, writing, philosophy, and a slew of other subjects, all while having fun. The game  is called Journey to Freedom: The Power to Read and Write. Like school, the competition is the game itself, not the other players.

Unlike other “educational” board games, this one is a fully-developed integrated part of an entire curriculum. Crews is trying to use the game to found an institution called Speak for Life.

(source)

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