Wizards is offering a new online newsletter to UK fans of D&D.

If you introduce friends to the newsletter, they’ll also send you a free T-shirt and possibly other stuff.

(source)

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A seventh-grade  student created a KKK board game as part of a project for school on racism and oppression, but flippancy in the game raised the concerns of one parent, who photographed the game and send her concerns on to a local chapter of the NAACP.

The offensive part: “You forget to clean your white robe so you can’t go to the lynching. You are punished. Move back two spaces.”

The principle assured the parent that the student was not trying to be offensive.

(source and image)

Update: Actually, more of the game was flippant than the original source indicated. See the NAACP’s post for the rest of the spaces.

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The attached graphic was posted on the Privateer Press forums over the weekend and created an understandable stir. The picture itself is from the Game Developers Conference (GDC), an industry trade show for software developers, producers and artists that has a reputation for serving as a showcase for new developments. Unfortunately, the man himself, PPS_Kevin (guardian of the PP forums), provided the details today:

The screenshot taken at GDC is of a technical demo created by Emergent to showcase their latest middleware product release and features the WARMACHINE intellectual property. While this is not an *actual* game, it is about five minutes of fun demonstrating what warjacks might look like in a video game environment. We have a fantastic article coming in next month’s No Quarter that will tell you all about Emergent’s efforts and how they brought a little piece of WARMACHINE to life on the computer.

We’re trying to track down a video of the demo so that we can all drool uncontrollably. In the interim, we can all look forward to the next issue of No Quarter…

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Ben Baldanza, CEO of Spirit Airlines, cites his 1700-strong board game collection as his learning materials for how to run an airline. He even made a Geeklist about it on boardgamegeek.

“For boardgamegeek.com, I put together a list of games that I think you’d need to play well if you were going to run an airline,” he says. “The skills translate. In both realms, you use negotiation, forward planning, strategic thinking, close attention to detail and tactics against competitors to give you an edge.”

(source)

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For the purposes of this list, I excluded any arcade-like, mmo, social trading, trivia, quiz, or voting games.

1. Texas Hold’Em Poker (11,200,000) by Zynga. Number one game on Facebook, period.
2. Word Challenge (3,800,000) by Playfish.
3. Poker Palace (2,400,000) by Playdom.
4. Scramble (1,100,000) by Zynga.
5. Word Twist (810,000) by Zynga.
6. Scrabble (586,000) by Electronic Arts.
7. Lexulous (585,000) by the Agarwalla Bros.
8. Blackjack (559,000) by Zynga.
9. Scrabble (349,000) by Gamehouse.
10. Bingo (244,000) by David, Davy, and Robbie.
11. Twirl (205,000) by The Social Gaming Network.
12. The Dot Game (183,000) by Player Axis.
13. Wordscraper (183,000) by the Agarwalla Bros.
14. Challenge Sudoku (150,000) by Zynga.
15. Word Island (119,000) by Metrogames.
16. Poker Texas Hold’em (83,000) by Gamedesire.
17. Okey ve Tavla Oyna [Backgammon] (73,000) by 6Q.
    
18. UNO (67,000) by Gamehouse.
19. Chess (61,000) by Chess.com.
20. Wordy (48,000) by 6Q.
21. Poker (38,000) by Real Dice.
22. Dice Challenge (36,000) by David, Davy, and Robbie.
23. Zebra Mahjong (35,000) by MegaZebra.
24. Mahjong II (35,000) by The Internet Content Network.
25. Four in a Row (34,000) by The Internet Content Network.

Poker, word games, bingo, classic abstracts, UNO, and dice. Looks like there’s plenty of room for some more innovation and not a lot of competition here, folks.

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UNO is steadily gaining in popularity on Facebook, and now has over 60,000 registered players.

It’s still in Beta, and has a few problems with crashing and slowness. And it’s really not that interesting a game, compared to Scrabble, but I don’t make the stats.

Expect a boost if/when the game gets integrated with all the other platforms that support UNO, such as mobile phones and ipods.

(source)

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Hero Games has announced that they will be releasing the 6th edition of their venerable Hero System in August. This 6th of the rules reflects changes based on the experiences of lead designer (and long time industry veteran), Steve Long as well as changes they felt would enhance the release of the Champions MMO later this year by Mythic Entertainment (the Hero System is the underlying rules system for Champions) – though rumor has it that some of the changes will allow the translation of characters from the MMO to the pen and paper RPG. The first two books in the new line will be released at Gencon:      

• The Hero System 6th Edition: Characters which seems to be a player’s handbook of sorts for $39.99
• The Hero System 6th Edition: Combat and Adventuring (not Advertising as has been reported elsewhere…) which looks like it will have the basic game mechanics and will sell for $39.99

Hero Games will be releasing a number of other books this year to support the release, including a shortened rulebook (128 pages is shortened???), a martial arts sourcebook and a new version of the Champions Universe sourcebook (a who’s who in the Champions superhero universe).

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Privateer Press has announced that open testing of their Warmachine Mk II rules will begin on April 6th. On that date, players will be able to download the new rules from the field test site, although registration will be required (this is a beta test folks, not a free rules release!). It goes without saying that we’ll be downloading the rules and providing you with the details on what’s changed, different and improved (and whether it’ll get me excited about the game again…).

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To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Shadowrun, Catalyst Games has announced the release of the 4th Edition 20th Anniversary Core Rulebook (doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue…). This beastly full color tribute includes all of the 4th edition rules, a 22-page master index (which covers the core rulebook and the core expansions for the game) and re-described rules to improve readability. Not content to simple re-release things we all already own (you do own a copy, right?), Catalyst is also releasing several other projects, including a new boxed set, the Runner’s Toolkit, which includes an adventure, a book of adventure seeds, new fiction, reference cards and a book of tables (could you pack any more stuff in there guys?).

What’s that? You have no idea what Shadowrun is??? Shadowrun is one of the oldest RPGs still in publication, blending a cyberpunk future ruled by international mega corporations and hard core fantasy elements like elves, dragons and vampires. If you’ve never experienced it before, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

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The winner of Paizo Publishing’s 2009 RPG Superstar contest is Neil Spicer of Waxhaw, North Carolina. Neil survived five rounds of competition to win a professional contract from Paizo to produce his proposed Realm of the Fellnight Queen as a full adventure for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

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