Ooh, more ships for Traveller! I love space ship designs. Pictures would have been nice, but deck-plans for all 13 ships is pretty cool.

Oh, the latest issue of Mongoose’s house magazine also has flora and fauna for Earthdawn, horror scenes for Traveller, and a preview of Cthonian Stars (a Lovecraftian setting for Traveller). Signs & Portents #84 is available as a free download.

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Pentology by Trevor Cram is a 60 card deck system of fantasy symbols. Trevor supplies a number of games to start with, but are hoping for more contributions.

Games range from 1 to 3 players. The deck lends itself to storytelling games, as well as a small amount of combat mechanics (RPS). I think it’s still undergoing beta testing; anyway, there’s no way to buy a deck, just yet, except to ask to be a play-tester.

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Spica Publishing adds another to its line of Traveller support products. Allies, Contacts, Enemies & Rivals is a book of pre-generated NPCs, including many individuals, crews for three ships, a complete marine striker platoon, and 48 “redshirts” for use in generic combat situations.

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Seven Springs, NC: 8 arrested at a high stakes poker game. (source)

Carson City, NV: Caesar’s Palace fined $250,000 for allowing a Baccarat player to dance on the table during a game. (source)

Ahmedabab, India: 14 arrested for gambling on cards. (source)

Memphis, TN: Man shot and robbed while playing dice. (source)

Srinagar, India: Police open fire on men playing a board game, killing an 11 year old boy. (source)

Ogema, MI: One man stabs another twice in the chest in an argument over a card game. (source)

Tahoma, WA: Detectives look into the possible connection between online D&D and murder, since the murderer indicated that he went to relax by playing online D&D after the murder. (source, via)

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First the sales…

Geek Chic is running a virtual tent sale for orphaned orders, factory seconds, and show pieces. You can get their amazing furniture at significantly reduced prices. Unfortunately, the company is too busy to post the list of available pieces on the web site and I don’t have room for it here. If you’re interested, I suggest emailing them.

Mongoose is unloading out-of-print items from the warehouse at reduced prices, including RPG books and miniatures.

War games are on sale at GMT.

Also for the war gamers, the C4 Corner Cutter is on sale through Labor Day.

Now, the giveaways…

The NewbieDM blog is giving away a copy of the Red Box Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. Standard comment-or-tweet requirements.

Myriad Games is giving away games to Facebook fans every Friday.

North Star Games is also giving away games on Facebook, monthly for meeple photo submissions.

Big Daddy’s Creations is running a contest for Neuroshima Hex on the iPhone/iPad. Ten people who solve the puzzle will get promotional codes for free downloads.

Aspiring game designer, Michael R. Keller, wants a logo for his venture, Visible Hand Games. He’ll give one prototype game now and one published game later to a selected designer.

Thomas McDonald’s State of Play blog has Bicycle Poker Playing Cards and Dice to give away.

Cincinnati Coupons is giving away Education Outdoors’ Camp Board Game Travel Edition and S’mores Card Game. Every method of following is another entry.

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Supari is not really a board game, as much as it is a social game such as Werewolf. Players are given a target, and they must assassinate that target my throwing a glass of water at them.  The game is over when only one assassin is left. Assassinations can take place either inside or outside of work.

The game was created by Board Game Bash, a game group out of Mumbai, India.

I checked their Facebook page for a more detailed description, but haven’t come across it yet. Sounds like it could be a good time if you got enough local people to play.

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Charles S. Roberts was arguably the founder of the modern war games, and indirectly the founder of role playing games and probably every other modern board game to some degree. His first games, Tactics and Tactics II, introduced the ubiquitous CRT, and his next game, Gettysburg, was probably the first simulation war game. He founded the company Avalon Hill to sell these games; AH is now one of the better divisions within Hasbro. Since 1976, the biggest game award in war gaming is named after him.

(obit (from the train hobby perspective), image)

Aileen Osofsky was chairperson of the ACBL Goodwill Committee for 25 years. She promoted the bidding boxes in bridge to help include deaf players in the game, and championed both ethics and friendliness at the Bridge table.

(obit, image)

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To celebrate the 36th birthday of Dungeons & Dragons, the d20 Source blog is giving away 3rd Edition PDF supplements.

The Most Unread Blog on the Internet. Ever. (that’s its name, not my assessment) is giving away one electronic copy of The Inquisitor’s Handbook for FFG’s Dark Heresy.

QuikLink Interactive’s Traveller license is about to expire, so it’s inventory clearance sale time (figuratively speaking). All 25 T20 (d20 Traveller) electronic products are on sale for a bundled price of $35.

Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog products for Mongoose Traveller are also on sale.

Highmoon Games is bundling all the One Bad Egg D&D 4E products for 32% off.

And a couple of board game sales…

25% off at ThinkFun. Use the code “BACK2SCHOOL” at check-out.

Several games at Winning Moves for $10, including Conquest of Pangea and Terra Nova. King of the Hill and Play on Words for $5.

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Josh Graye sent us a heads up of a new RPG board game that he and his wife have designed. The game is Heroes of Feonora, and it’s a massive print-and-play game. The game can handle up to 6 players, and cen even be played solo. It’s co-op, but only one player can earn the “Hero Award.”

The game allows players to create a custom character that levels like in a traditional RPG.  There’s also some traditional role playing elements in the game.

While I’ve only skimmed the rules at this point, but the game looks like it has some serious promise. I plan on putting together a set soon, and giving a thorough Second Look.

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At various times before, we’ve covered publishers’ efforts to support local game stores. Now, several have banded together to offer free PDFs with in-store purchases of print RPGs. They’re calling the program Bits and Mortar, and participating retailers will even be able to deliver the e-books at the point of sale. Better, I think, than the individual efforts that we mentioned before, Bits and Mortar will provide a coordinated program so that retailers don’t have to go through the trouble of signing up with separate publishers.

The game companies involved so far are Arc Dream Publishing, Cellar Games, Cubicle-7, Evil Hat Productions, Galileo Games, Pelgrane Press, and Rogue Games.

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