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FFG Rants Archive — Early 2006When the FFG Rants page gets too full the excess is dumped here to rot. After fermenting for a while the updates will be rendered down to their component letters and recycled. Files will be transferred to the Archives at random intervals, whenever we remember to do it. 6/14 - Brian S. I was just putting the finishing touches on “The Art of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos” book when the rant cow came flying into my office. Without a better topic, I guess I will write a little something about that project…maybe something about part of the job I don’t find all that interesting; but maybe someone will. Covers are tricky. Not only do we buy art for all of our covers in advance of the graphic design department actually working on the project, but often before we even finalized a title for the project! This means when the time comes to put together a cover, the graphic designer has to make the pieces fit together in an attractive way. For example, the The Art of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos book cover is basically these rectangular shapes here. Notice the yellow border area marked “BLEED”. This is an area the printer requires us to place around the image so that they can wrap the printed paper around the actually stock that makes up the cover. Go ahead and grab any hardcover with a printed image on it. See how the printed image wraps around to the inside of the book. It is barely noticeable and makes the book wrap a tiny bit more attractive.
First, I drop the cover art for the book into the template and position it so the great Cthulhu’s head isn’t being chopped off at the top. Since his head is so close to the top border, I have to move him down. Otherwise the top of his skull ends up inside the book on the bleed area. Anywhere you can now see pure yellow has to be covered with something.
So I fire up Photoshop and start painting or cloning areas of the image to extend the artwork and cover up all the yellow areas. (a) is the original art in the template. (b) is after I have painted in additional details and covered all the yellow in the bleed area. On this image I needed to fill three of the four edges and this took a good chunk of my morning. (c) the image after a tiny bit of color correction to lighten the image up for printing.
Below is the completed image with the art extended all the way around. Spooky!
Of course there is a lot more that goes into the cover. Things like the title/logo design and placing all the informational copy like back cover text has to be done as well. This book we also have a dust jacket which required a little more work and is an entirely different file. Below are images of the front cover (with dust jacket) and the complete dust jacket (minus the actual text that will go on the back and sides).
The art in these images was painted by the very talented Michael Komarck.
6/12 - Luke Nate can attest that, without notes, I can (semi-)accurately remember 56 of the 58 players at the three regionals I attended (and I really just loathe the two I “forgot”). And youse guys here in the US can take that as an unspoken (but not unwritten) rebuke, that the nation of Italy had almost that many at their national. I don’t know if that’s a testament to my memory, or an indictment that I don’t have better things to think about (like FAQ 4.2015). As it is, I have some very fond memories of the trips, but I didn’t enjoy them one bit. I mean, they can’t be paying me to have an enjoyable time, right? If anything, I’m sad I couldn’t make one for Cthulhu, particularly Pittsburgh. L I guess I’ll end my rant by saying thank you for all your forebearance as I learn my job in a rather public venue. I sometimes think it would be easier had I not known anyone (or at least certain ones of you :P And I think you know who I’m talking about). I did get some very nice complements, and I look forward to doing an even better job (which is purely ulterior in motivation, as I worry less when I feel I’ve done a good job) as I get a handle on my responsibilities and on the best ways to do things. I may even think of some ways to improve things on my own (not that you shouldn’t feel free to share those ideas with me when you have them). Take care and good luck.
6/09 - Dan I have already acquired a copy of Battles of the Third Age to defend myself with if it comes to that. It's also possible that they're having a meeting about how best to arrange their schedules to meet our aggressive production goals for this year, a dry, boring affair that includes spreadsheets and laser pointers. But then what was that copy of Ingenious for? Maybe they're all off playing games and laughing at us poor schleps in Marketing, drinking beer, eating pretzels, and dropping brightly colored tiles onto a hexagonal board. And don't try to tell me that it's their JOB to be well versed in the games of both us and our competitors, that they have to be familiar with a wide variety of different game mechanics and gameplay experiences in order to provide the best possible of each to our fans. That's just a really, really good excuse for playing games and getting paid for it. A really good one. Think it'll fly with my boss?
6/05 - Nate One thing I’ve recently discovered about this job is that gratification is sometimes delayed. A couple months ago, I was excited about finishing up my work on the Song of Night expansion set and I watched it go off to our translators, and from there it went to the printers. I couldn’t wait for the set’s release, to actually hold the cards and see people playing with them. The closest feeling I can compare it to is that of buying someone a gift, wrapping it up, and then having to sit on it until their birthday, or your anniversary, or that special holiday, before getting to see them open it and let you know what they think. But even that analogy comes up a bit short. Sure, it was exciting playing in my first Song of Night draft tournaments over the weekend and hearing what everyone thinks about the cards, but this release hit shortly after I wrapped up (sic) development on the Iron Throne Edition and sent those files off to our translators, who are currently hard at work on the set. So (back to the metaphor), even before you (the recipient) have opened the first gift, a new one is hiding in the background, waiting to be delivered a couple months down the road. And as excited as I was at the completion of Song of Night, I’m far more excited about the set that’s waiting in the wings, and it’s killing me not being able to tell you what’s on the horizon… (Which goes back to that delayed gratification thing, and the fact that by the time you’re opening ITE there’ll probably be something new in the works that I’m even more anxious to release…) One thing I can talk about, fortunately, is the new multiplayer component that is currently in development. While I can’t tell you exactly what it is (as it hasn’t quite taken on its final form, yet), I can tell you a little about its history and some of the things it’s not, and give you a few clues as to what the final product will (or perhaps may) eventually be. Multiplayer Love The AGoT multiplayer component was born in a CCG meeting we had the first week I was here. We wanted to design a new card type that was only useable in multiplayer play, and one that enhanced and encouraged both player interaction and the unique, pseudo-roleplaying dynamic that is multiplayer Game of Thrones. It’s long been argued that multiplayer was the ideal format for capturing the spirit and flavor of the novels, and we wanted this component to make that “immersed in Westeros” feeling even more a part of the multiplayer experience. It’s been a long time coming, but I’m finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Here’s a quick look at some of the stages through which this project has evolved. Initially, when I talked to Eric Lang about what we were going to do, he was drawn to the idea that it had to be as simple and unobtrusive as possible. Three cards, one for each challenge, that moved around the table based on in-game circumstances, and provided a shield from certain forms of attack. It was simple, unobtrusive, and it worked well enough for what it was… but it was too simple, and too unobtrusive, and it didn’t really add anything new to the game. It was like playing multiplayer with a slight, artificial restriction placed on top. Nothing flavorful, nothing immersive, nothing that enhanced the fact that we were playing multiplayer Game of Thrones. Back to the drawing board. Numerous ideas were tested, but they all came up short. The number of cards moved from three to five to seven. We tried a deal making system where the cards were traded amongst the players, and a system where the cards were dealt out at the start of the game. At one point, the cards were randomly dealt, and then moved between the players based on over the table events. Nothing seemed to work the way we wanted it to. Several obstacles stood in our way: the multiplayer cards couldn’t take primacy over the decks and ideas that people were bringing to the table (this is a CCG, after all), the cards couldn’t create a “solvable” scenario (who wants to play in a solved environment?), and the cards couldn’t be too abstract in what they represented or in how they affected the game. At one point in the new component’s life, it pretty much got nailed down that each Title (as they’re currently called) would provide a basic resource to the player holding the card, and that each of these resources are different. (One of them allows you to draw an extra card during the draw phase, and this extra card does not count towards your draw cap!) We finally settled on having 6 different titles, as there are 6 Houses in the CCG and the “ideal” multiplayer game, in the minds of many players, is the game in which each player represents one of 6 different Houses. The secondary function of the cards is that they provide a relationship with the other players: a cycle of allegiance and animosity that is broken by a couple figures that exist outside of the circle. The final touch is the introduction of a new role selection mechanic that should make initiative more important than ever before in multiplayer AGoT. I wish I could tell you more, and share some of the specifics (specifics that are currently being nailed out in playtesting) on these cards, but that would spoil a little too much of the surprise. And as far as surprises go, the new multiplayer component is just the ribbon on the package of everything ITE has to offer. 5/31 - MULTI-RANT WEDNESDAY
Dan
And of course, you, the lucky fan, will get to reap the benefits of our super secret awesome project once it's ready. We promise it won't cause brownouts on your end. Until then, enjoy some Rants.
James
Scott N.
So until next time may the large roll of toilet paper in the sky never run out on you.
5/22 - John Goodenough One of the coolest aspects of roleplaying board games is being able to control the advancement of your Hero. The standard Runebound game gives you a few options, such as the items you buy and which experience counters you purchase with your experience points. The Runebound Character Decks give you several more options, including permanent special abilities and an entire deck of new spells and feats. The Character Decks were designed for players interested in gaining even more control over how their Hero plays during the game. A lot of thought was put into creating a skill structure so that you can customize your cards to create any type of hero you want. You could build a Brigand character by including fighting and subterfuge cards, you could blend divinity and fighting cards to create a Battle Priest character, or you can simply make a wizard archetype by just focusing on spell cards. For this example, we’re going to explore some of the deck-building possibilities by blending dark magic, stealth, and fighting prowess to turn Bogran the Shadow into a deadly wizard assassin. Below is a complete list of cards you need to build this deck.
SPELLS
FEATS
LOCATIONS
CHALLENGES
STRATEGY:
YOUR HERO
YOUR TALENTS
Bogran the Shadow is strongest during the ranged phase, and with the help of a good bow you can defeat most green and yellow challenges with one attack. The Dagger Expert talent lets you make a melee attack with an attribute of 3 and 2 damage, not to mention any other bonuses you might receive due to weapons or artifacts. This gives you the option of attacking during the enemy’s weakest combat phase. Sneak Attack gives you the same flexibility as Dagger Expert, but it’s even more powerful since you add your attributes instead of just substituting them. Even without the aid of item cards, you can make a 4 body, 3 damage melee attack. Poison Adept follows the same theme but has the advantage of inflicting 4 damage during the ranged phase, which is enough to defeat most yellow and blue challenges. Combined Attack is a very powerful talent since you should have several ally cards by now. Try to pick up allies with a strong ranged attack, like Sir Gareth the Black and Ingan the Bold. You also have several tricks up your sleeve to gain more allies when you need them the most, such as Spell Familiar, Dominate, Mercenary Camp, and Construct Golem.
 The Shadow Walker talent can be a game winner if you plan your strategy around it. When you reach your level 3 or 4 talent, try to attempt as many blue and red jewels as possible. If you draw a really difficult challenge or your opponents pump up the challenge with spells and feats, simply escape automatically with Bogran’s special ability! The main goal is to position undefeated challenge counters around the board so that you may use them to “teleport” with the Shadow Walker’s special movement ability.
YOUR SPELLS
Phase Shift is one of the most powerful defensive spells in the game. Now you can skip your enemy’s biggest damage value and attack him during his weakest combat phase, all for the low cost of only 3 menace. Summon Fiend is a great way to kick your opponent when he’s down by forcing him to attempt a challenge when his hero is wounded. The best time to play Summon Fiend is when another player has 8 or more menace on his hero. This not only increases the chance of drawing a more powerful challenge, but also limits his options for spending menace to help his hero. If he fails to defeat the challenge, this adds one more card to undefeated challenge track which you can easily defeat with Shadow Walker talent. Dragon Shape can give you a big boost when you need it the most since your class deck includes the most expensive dragon challenges in the game.
YOUR FEATS
Parry is useful early in the game when you use your Dagger Expert or Sneak Attack during the melee phase. Berserker Charge is an excellent card to play later in the game with a level 4 or 5 talent. If you’re low on gold, Dominate is great card to take an expensive ally like Runemaster Baras for free! Death Trance is a premium defensive card, especially since your mind value is your greatest strength. Treasure Hoard is another way of adding cards to the undefeated challenge track to later defeat with your Shadow Walker talent. Plus this gives you the opportunity to “steal” your opponent’s best item or ally.
YOUR LOCATIONS
Dragon Rage is a great way to move red adventure jewels from spaces surrounded by forests or mountains. You can also play Dragon Rage to prevent another player from buying a powerful item or ally, since they would then need to fight their way through the red adventure jewel before they can take a market step in the town. Make sure you wait to play Winds of Magic until you have plenty of spells in your hand. This location can help your opponents as just as well as your hero, so make sure you take full advantage of it Hopefully this will help illustrate the endless possibilities players have to customize their character decks. It can be very rewarding to take a card that is thought to be weak and create a combo that makes it very powerful. It’s also very exciting to discover interesting interactions with cards that you never thought would work well together.
5/18 - Eric I'm back in sunny Minnesota, assisting Nate and Luke in wrapping up the shiny new IRON THRONE edition of the A Game of Thrones CCG. This is the most ambitious base set of the game we've done to date, not so much in a design and development sense, but in the sense that we're going to be "relaunching" the game this year. Worry not; the game isn't changing radically, and all your old cards are still good ... but we are making a concerted effort to get new players for the game this year. There are a couple of neat surprises in store for you. The new block is going to be really good. If you're a lapsed GOT CCG player, or have never tried the game, August will be the best time in the game's history to give it a shot. If you're an established player, expect the results of years of "focus testing" to pay off. We've been spending a lot of time listening to fans of the game and are trying to give as much of what most people want back to the community. Having two other people in the CCG department (a first!) is making things a lot easier, especially for me, to stand back and start focusing more on big picture design issues. I'm already working on the follow up expansion (and a bit on the expansion after that - names will come relatively shortly), and getting pretty impatient to show off these new cards and mechanics. Unfortunately, I can't say anything of substance about this set and block (par for the course for an Eric rant, right?). I can say that it's a good day to be a GOT CCG fan. You'll be in good company come August.
5/17 - Brian S.
5/16 - Dan & Kevin & Rob Rob: Playtesting is interesting for a fairly new board game developer like me because you get to see how other designers do MATH! It may seem a little off, this whole “math” thing; board games are about cool figs and neat powers, right? Wrong. Usually, they’re math equations first, THEN you add fun. If that sounds boring, keep in mind that the better the math, the more solid and interesting and smooth it all is, the more fun it inherently is, so the less fun you need to add later. All of this is independent of the flavor, of course, which is what captures the imagination and allows a non-math-guy like me, a storyteller and roleplayer and adventure gamer rather than a strategist, to get into a game. I mean, I’m the guy who plays CCGs because I like the art and the story . . . which is very uncool in game design circles, let me tell you. The game we’re playtesting right now (we being Dan and I, along with the game’s designer, Kevin) is Starcraft, which turns that normal setup on its head. The fun and the flavor are in some ways predetermined for you, because you know what the races, powers, and special abilities HAVE to be. Dan: Well, we know that we’re going to play Protoss, Terrans, and Zerg, natch. In fact, here I am with my Terran Dominion Terrans from Korhal IV – go me! I’m setting up on my homeworld with some Marines and Firebats and looking to smash me some Zerg. (Kevin’s playing Zerg. The default assumption is: Gang up on the game designer because he’s the only one who knows he’s doing!) The fun part is seeing how the Terrans (and the others, but who cares about them?) are realized in this board game format. I can already tell that I have more flexibility than my enemies – I have the special “Regroup” order, which is way better than their puny special racial orders. Honest. I hope. Oh man, Kevin just cranked out a transport and a whole mess of Zerglings on his homeworld. I see where this is going. Kevin: Now, I’m only going to be semi-coherent since I’m running the playtest, but Rob just built a really nice tech building and Dan has started moving towards his coveted Goliaths. Rob: Everyone else has lots of scary troops, and I don’t. I’m setting up good for the long term, but I hope they don’t stomp me early. Pshew, Kevin just researched and “creeped” (Zerg don’t teleport things like nice, civilized folk like the Protoss . . . which is me). Everyone seems jealous of my tech, but I think they’re just trying to lull me into a false sense of confidence before they eat/shell me. Dan: HERE THEY COME! Oh man, Kevin just loaded four Zerglings up into his transport and launched to orbit. Hopefully, they’re not coming for my homeworld. You’re not coming for my homeworld, right Kevin? Because humans are not very tasty in their hard metal shells with lots and lots of guns – I need to make more Firebats. And maybe a transport of my own. At least Rob’s Protoss are being nice and peaceful over there with their scientific discovery and – hey, hang on, he just built another Zealot! Those things hurt! Kevin: Geez, you leave your first planet and people start panicking. We’ve gotta eat, right? Anyhow, I’m just heading out to wrangle up some resources. Rob: Never trust a Zerg. We end our dramatic re-enactment here, dear reader! Will Kevin's Zerg descend onto Rob and Dan's unsuspecting heads with tooth, claw, dripping slime, and other unpleasantness? Will the heroic Terrans drive the alien menace from this corner of the galaxy? Or will the long-term planning of the Protoss pay off as Rob's advanced technology pays dividends later in the game? We'll never really know, because we only played two turns to test out the basic mechanics!
5/15 - Dan I've been playing Marvel Heroes today, can you tell? It is, of course, essential for the guy who's going to be writing website copy to play all of these games before they come out, so that I can ... uh ... write ... copy ... more ... better. Yeah. I mean, I can't be expected to proofread a rant about, say, the Great Canadian BayCon (and can I just say that is an excellent, excellent name for a convention?) without having played Marvel Heroes! That just wouldn't do! Back me up here, I have to justify this to Bobbi and John Grams somehow. Right, so, what was playing Marvel Heroes like? Rather than speak with authority on the rules (which we were cribbing from a hastily-translated early draft of the Italian rulebook) or the components (which were assembled using a laser printer and some scissors, while the real game gets ready for the printer), I'll just relate some of the stories. For example, did you know that the Hulk and Thor are a mystery-solving duo extraordinaire? It's true! Hulk put on his sleuthing cap and tramped around Lower Manhattan and Queens with Thor in tow, solving mysteries left, right, and center. After all: are YOU going to tell Hulk he's wrong? To be fair, Thor did most of the solving, and Brian was rolling pretty well, but I can just see the next title from Marvel Comics: Hulk and Thor and the Case of the Missing Puppy. Across town, James's X-Men ran into a few problems, first with Juggernaut and Titania, acting as pawns of the Red Skull, and then with Rhino ... just ... being Rhino. Well, with Storm down and Jean Grey embarassingly outwitted by the Rhino, it was just lucky for James that he'd had a much stronger first turn. Aside from having my Red Skull's Dust of Death master plan come to fruition, despite the best efforts of Storm (who was the only hero brave enough to even TRY and thwart me, pathetic Americans all - woah, sorry, getting too in-character there for a moment), the most memorable moment for me came from the Human Torch's unlikely victory over a brigade of Sentinels supported by - oddly enough - Doctor Octopus. In a true triumph of "dumping my entire hand of cards to power Invisible Woman's support power over and over again and also using my Scarlet Witch ally card" and some lucky rolls, Johnny Storm managed to survive multiple assaults from the massive metal malefactors long enough to outwit them to victory! (We're not sure how - maybe blew some smoke in their ears or something.) Okay, that last sentence probably deserves some clarification, and since it's one of the pieces of the rules we're pretty sure we got right, and it's really nifty, I'll go more in depth. When a hero and a villain fight, each of them has a number of powers available to them, with different values for attack, defense, and outwit. First the hero rolls his attack vs. the opponent's defense, then the villain does the same, and then, if everyone's still standing, you roll outwit. Since each of your powers is different, carefully choosing the one that will give you the greatest success in all three contests - and doing so secretly while your opponent does the same - becomes a vastly satisfying experience. I'm fairly certain that the Sentinels, who have the initiative on me (and therefore will attack first, completely contradicting what I said earlier) will choose their Blast power, giving them a whopping 4 attack dice and 4 defense dice! I can't hope to beat that with brute force, so choosing my Flame Control power, I hope to survive the first round of combat and win the outwit contest ... which will not only deal some damage to the Sentinels, but grab me the initiative on the next round! The act of choosing our powers in secret and revealing them simultaneously was far more fun than it should have been - especially with Brian shouting "Hulk SMASH!" each time (I don't think Hulk changed his strategy at all over the course of his battles, but it seemed to work for him). We can't wait for the final rules, not to mention the final bits. Now if only I could find a way to play Doctor Doom in our next game ...
5/11 - Scott W. We arrived at our hotel at about 1:00 am and crashed briefly before attending the Open House held at Lion Rampant Imports on Friday. Tony and I spent the afternoon talking about FFG products with retailers and getting a chance to eat some barbecue hamburgers and brats. My thanks go to Ross and everyone else at Lion Rampant for the nice setup. Saturday and Sunday were spent at the convention doing demos of various Fantasy Flight games. I spent most of Saturday demoing World of Warcraft: The Board Game. On Sunday, Ross’s 14-year-old son Angus demoed World of Warcraft and that gave me time to demo Ingenious several times plus getting to actually sit down and play a game of the forthcoming Warrior Knights. On a related note, Warrior Knights will be available from your Friendly Local Game Store in the very near future!
5/10 - Corey To brag this time, I won both games. I know what you are going to say, “Well of course you won, you know the game inside and out!” Let me explain why I won by sheer skill*, political manipulation**, and an uncommonly genius strategy***.
The Red Herring Strategy:
Was there luck involved? Sure.
Oh, I forgot to mention one last thing:
* Gross Exaggeration
5/9 - Luke A very short “Day in the Life of a Collectible Game Community Support Associate(/Art Director)” Today I have worked on post deadline art descriptions for changed cards coming up in the next base set of the Game of Thrones CCG, reviewed some final submissions for the same game, written back to several artists as to necessary changes for said game, and reviewed some online art to evaluate future talent. I also pondered my way through a couple deck ideas, so I can work on playtesting that new base set. Then I moved over to the new Mutant Chronicles CMG and did much the same. Only I also had to start preparations to rework the connection between concept art and character types, as there is a shift under way in that regard. I did however get the fun assignment of finishing a playtest, when our developer Nate was called away to talk to designer Eric on the phone. I was able to finish displaying the awesome might of the Brotherhood in their demolition of Brian S (Poor Brian. Did he broadcast his strategy on the rants page again? -ed.). Back to my desk and a third hat: dealing with prize support and foreign relations for our regional and national CCG tournaments. A few kind words and the promise of actual attention to someone’s problem goes a long way to improving a situation. It is always nice when I feel like I have done something to make someone feel better. And then, just for a brief moment, I got to reminisce about the more pleasant part of my weekend… interacting with the AGOT CCG community at the North Central Regional tournament in Iowa City, IA. The camaraderie made up for the more than nine hours spent on the road to and from the event. And now it is time for me to make ed. happy and turn this in so we can both clean off our desks and go home. Though I’m sure he’ll have to spend some time editing me into some semblance of understandable written ‘speech’ as I have a tendency to write in a rather loquacious stream of conciousness. (Nah, why bother? -ed.) In short, I’m really busy. But not bored.
5/8 - Bryan While Warrior Knights isn’t the simplest game we’ve ever produced, once you see how all the parts interact, it comes naturally. I won’t delve that much deeper into the game mechanics, but if you want to know more check out this link. The game went over well, even though I didn’t have as much time as I’d like. It will defiantly be coming out the next time I head home. Dangit, Bryan, I haven't even played a full game of Warrior Knights yet! -ed.
5/1 - James One thing I love about FFG is that we publish both American-style and euro-style games, and several games that are somewhere in between (the A Game of Thrones board game comes to mind).
For example, I recently worked on the rulebook for the English version of Blue Moon City. We’re publishing the game in partnership with the German publisher Kosmos. They developed Blue Moon City, and the game’s components are language-independent, so my work on it consisted mostly of polishing the English translation of the rulebook. For the most part, this was easy, since the rules are fairly simple and straightforward. Rob also worked his magic on the thematic elements of the rulebook text, and Brian and Ryann did some graphic design for the game. But since the game was already developed, we all worked on it far less than we would an “in-house” game. Blue Moon City is a board game designed by Reiner Knizia and based on his Blue Moon customizable card game. (Come to think of it, the Blue Moon card game is another example of a game that incorporates elements of both euro and American styles.) A common question about Blue Moon City is whether you need to be familiar with the Blue Moon card game to enjoy the board game, and the answer is a resounding no. The board game has all the thematic flavor (and great art) of the card game, but is very much its own game mechanics-wise. We found it quite interesting. We often play our games here at the office when they are in a less-than-final form, and the whole time we’re usually playtesting rather than playing, on the lookout for rules holes and such. So it was pretty neat to play a game in its final form before beginning work on it. Now I just have to wait for the English edition to come back from the printer so that I can get my own copy.
4/28 - Kevin It used to be that when an investigator went insane or was knocked unconscious, he lost half of his items, all his retainers, and restored his Sanity or Stamina to 1 before going to the appropriate location to heal up. Well, with Madness and Injury cards, you can take some of the sting out of being beaten up – or at least, you can trade it for a different kind of sting. When knocked unconscious/driven insane, you may choose to draw an Injury (if unconscious) or Madness (if insane) card. If you do so, you don’t lose any of your items and your Sanity or Stamina is restored to full instead of just to 1. Pretty sweet, right? Well, it comes with a price. Injury and Madness cards stick you with some permanent disadvantage that can only gotten rid of in a few very rare ways. Injuries tend towards skill penalties or physical hampering, while Madness cards tend to create extra circumstances under which you lose Sanity (such as ending your movement in a street area, if you’re agoraphobic). Worse, there are two copies of each Madness/Injury card, and if you manage to draw both copies of the same card, you are instantly devoured. Still, Injury and Madness cards give you more options when you die, as well as an interesting way to add more story to your games and potentially even a way to handicap yourself if you think that you’ve gotten too good at Arkham Horror. Don’t worry that you’ll wind up stuck with a permanently crippled investigator though. Once you’ve accumulated a total of 2 Injury and/or Madness cards, you can choose to retire your character and draw a new one, just as though your old investigator had been devoured (only without the nasty side effects). So, you may be thinking, what sort of Injury and Madness cards will there be? Well, you’re in luck, because here’s 2 of each for your edification and amusement. Until next time, stay sane…
   
4/27 - Brian S. At the beginning of the week my Illian forces could at least put a dent in Scott N’s Bauhaus troops. But yesterday I was laid low in less than two full rounds. Not to be deterred I am crafting a devious and more destructive force once I finish typing this and boy its going to be a dozy! This time I am bringing nepharite Psions, Telepaths and Empaths and my ladies are going to show those Bauhaus human scum what the power of the Void can do to mere mortals! Long live the mistress of the Void! (Brian, haven't you now given Scott N. everything he needs to know to build an army expressly to beat you? -ed.)
4/26 - Bobbi Although I spent much of today dealing with the nearly 700 emails in my inbox, I did manage a few moments of Gen Con Indy planning. Although the Best Four Days In Gaming is still about four months away, we’ve been planning our presence for 2006 since about a week after 2005 ended. Just before leaving I spent most of a day registering our events. At this time we have well over 100 scheduled events planned, not to mention all the demos we’ll be running of our new products in our booth. We’re also planning a few surprises for you all. Hope you can make it there!
4/25 - Dan Note to interested readers: when viewed in one's rear-view mirror, the ISUZU brand name becomes, quite legibly and believably, USUZI. Intentional or not, I can't say, but the next time I write a piece of sci-fi fiction, you can believe that USUZI Corp will be featured. Note to the rest of you readers: Ignore the previous note, it wasn't that interesting. Who knows why those other guys read it?
Hear that, science? Invent the 3-d goo-printer! Kevin and I didn't come up with a good way to get the finished product out of the goo that didn't involve lots of goo. Everywhere. (Goo is a fun word to both say and type. Can you believe that MS Word claims I have misspelled it?)
Meanwhile I spent some time learning how to play Warrior Knights, so I can effectively demo it as part of my marketing duties. Something about the layers of politics, military conquest, and trade that this game so simply captures really speaks to me on the most basic level. I just love the idea of taking over my opponent's city and then promptly passing a law to hurt him even more. Am I a jerk? Maybe, but Warrior Knights is so close now I can taste it and I can't wait to get my hands on a copy myself, so I don't care what minor barons I have to trample to get my way. We've also got some dynamite sketches in for Mutant Chronicles. I wish I could show you guys, but as sweet as they are, they're just not sweet ENOUGH yet. We're going to keep working on the look of this game until it sparkles as much as the gameplay already does. And by the way - the gameplay is tight. Our graphics department (resident miniatures fanatics) can't seem to stop playing it, and that's with commandeered Doom minis. Imagine what they'll do once some of Nate's art descriptions come to life in 3-d? Man, that goo-printer cannot get invented fast enough.
4/24 - Nate For my second rant I’d like to share with you a completely unanticipated but surprisingly rewarding aspect of my new job here at FFG: the writing of art descriptions. “What is an art description?” you ask. Well, it’s basically a paragraph or so of text that we send out to an artist telling him or her what the art should represent and how it should look, function, and/or feel. “Sounds easy… maybe even a little fun,” you might be thinking. Well, it is… at first. The challenge comes when you’re doing art descriptions for a collectible game, with 100’s of moving parts that all need their own piece of artwork, and you're working on a deadline. Two weeks ago, I didn’t even know what an art description was. Now, after writing all of the descrips for the Mutant Chronicles CMG base set, and about 150 of the little buggers for the new Iron Throne Edition AGoT CCG base set, I feel like a seasoned pro. There’re about 5 more cards on my docket that still need descrips, and at this point they’re looking like the last 100 meters of a 10K, but I’m also seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and feeling a tremendous sense of accomplishment. Not only have I immersed myself in the Mutant Chronicles source material and refreshed my appreciation of George R.R. Martin’s ASOIAF, I’ve also taken my mind through the rigors of almost 300 writerly “push-ups,” and, as a by-product of all this, contributed to the final vision of both of these games. Not bad for a week and a half of work! Just to give you a better taste of what an art description is all about, and whet your appetites for what Mutant Chronicles CMG and the Iron Throne edition of the AGoT CCG have to offer, I’d like to share a few sample art descriptions. Let’s start with the new game, and take a look at the Bio-Giant: “Bio Giants are hideous amalgamations of flesh and plant sinew. They resemble giant, war scarred humanoids, with flesh covered in a patchwork of stitches and sutures with great spikes protruding from their body. This is a double hexed figure, so the giant will have to be taking a long stride forward and leaning down for an attack...” There are a couple things going on in this description. One is that it’s giving the artist a basic vision of what the piece is going to look like. This is a little bit trickier than it sounds, however, as you want to give the artist a description without giving him a prescription. We want the artistic vision that our best artists can provide to shine through in their final work, and instead of shackling that vision, a good art description simply inspires it. The second thing this description does is point out a game-related issue, the size and shape of the piece’s figure, and explains how the art will need to fit into the game. Here’s another Mutant Chronicles art description:
“Golgotha is nicknamed the Mistress of Pain. She stands 9 feet tall with a brutish yet feminine body. Her skin is eerily pale, and it suggests both Bauhaus nobility and diseased death. Golgotha dresses in a way that emphasizes both her physical musculature and her femininity. Her preferred weapon is the claw, and she fights with two versions: the Necrotech Claw (an enhanced mandible attached to one of her hands) and the Carcass Claws, huge tentacle like appendages that encircle Golgotha, protruding from her back (think Doctor Octopus, but worse) and able to embrace and draw in nearby enemy units.” Golgotha is a specific, iconic figure in the MC universe. This description, thanks to my time spent reviewing the source material, provides the artist with a number of details that will allow a successful re-imagining of that material. The parenthetical “(think Doctor Octopus but worse)” is another trick of the art description trade: the familiar point of reference. Grabbing a point of reference (in this case Doctor Octopus) and twisting it (but worse!) is an excellent means of building a bridge between the vision in my head and the spark that will inspire and motivate and guide an artist at the other end of the description. As I pointed out before, it’s amazing what you learn doing 300 of these things! Let’s move on to AGoT, and see what this new set has to offer…
Cersei Lannister - Named character from the books. Cersei showed a moment of softness and humanity when she spoke with Eddard Stark in the Godswood, and asked him if he loved his children, and pointed out that he loved his no more than she loved her own. See if this vulnerable, softer side of Cersei’s personality can be captured along with her manipulative beauty and her calculating, crafty methods that we’ve seen thus far. Another base set, and, of course, another version of the iconic Cersei Lannister. One thing, however, that I tried to do when writing art descriptions for some of the main characters was examine aspects of their personality that haven’t yet been explored in our card game by looking at scenes and emotions that thus far have not been explored in the game’s artwork. Maybe this is a little too ambitious, but it should at the very least make for some interesting art.
Pyromancer Hallyne - Named character from the books, Hallyne is a Wisdom of the Alchemist’s guild. Hallyne is an obsequious, pallid man with soft damp hands. He dresses in striped black and scarlet robes, trimmed with sable, but they appear more than a little patchy and moth eaten. He should be demonstrating (to Tyrion, if you wish) the explosive nature of Wildfire, a glowing green, highly combustible material. There you go, a new unique character. The art description is ripe with details from the novels. But I’m sure all you AGoT fans out there are going to be more excited with speculation on what Pyromancer Hallyne is going to do. Well, I’ll just say for now that one of my major goals with Iron Throne edition is to tweak that nostalgia bug that, with our game entering its fifth year, is just about ready to come out and play. There are many new and exciting things planned for Iron Throne edition, but we’re also going to throw out a bone or two to our loyal fans who’ve been with us from the start by revisiting a number of older, iconic cards in a new way. And you probably won’t have to think too hard to come up with the card that Pyromancer Hallyne is revisiting. With that, I’ll end this discussion of the art description. It was one of those things that I didn’t really think I’d be doing when I took this job (technically Luke is the new art director for our collectible games) but, with deadlines approaching and Luke brand new in the office, I was able to help out a bit and it turned out I had something of a knack for knocking these things out… or maybe I was just bullheaded enough to keep at the grind, pumping them out, day after day and night after night, while everyone else was laughing at me. At least I’ll have the last laugh: The most rewarding part of the whole art description process will be when the final art comes back, and I see these descriptions evolving into a tangible incarnation, that will itself evolve into the collective consciousness of the fans of these games. And who knows, maybe down the road, those final pieces of art will guide someone else’s initial attempts at penning an art description.
4/21 - Corey Koniqueszkalaladingdong Hello Everybody! Today I thought it would be a interesting for you could see all of the stages we go through to make high quality plastic figures! It is a long and involved process but as you will see, it is quite worth it.
When we start on a project that is going to contain plastic, the very step is to get a talented artist to sketch up poses of the figures from multiple angles.
Hang in there fans, the release of Warrior Knights is quickly charging toward us. Not too much longer now!
4/20 - Scott W Before getting into the various match-ups that have already been played, I will explain some of the methods to the madness that Scott and I have embarked upon.
Normally a match-up of Blue Moon is played until one player wins 5 crystals. A player gains 1 crystal for each Dragon they have captured, plus 1 crystal for winning the game. (There are other ways to gain crystals with the use of the Emissaries & Inquisitors expansions.) For purposes of these match-ups, however, Scott and I have agreed to ignore the normal match-up rules and play three games and to total the crystals won after three games. For those really interested in how I’ve been keeping track of these match-ups, take a look at the Excel spreadsheet that I am using here.
At this point, Scott and I are not using the Emissaries & Inquisitors expansions and are playing the decks as they come pre-made. This takes out the aspect of deck construction, but will allow a fair comparison to be made of the decks.
Lastly, I have played quite a bit of Blue Moon and Scott was just beginning to learn so we have just been randomly choosing match-ups, and already in hindsight I think we should have played a match-up of two of the decks and then immediately swapped decks and played again. I guess what I’m saying is this: If you want a scientifically balanced and controlled experiment, this is not it.
Our first match-up, I played the Hoax and Scott played the Vulca. As I’ve already stated, Scott was learning to play and I’ve found it easier to teach someone if they start by playing the Vulca. They’re pretty much a straight-up, “I’m going to fight in Fire” and try to win kind of people. The Hoax are, well, tricky. I won the first game with 4 crystals (4 crystals is the maximum you can win in a game and, hey, I might be teaching him how to play, but I’m not going to LET him win!). The second game, Scott played a tighter game, and I won with only 1 crystal. The third game, Scott proved that Fire can burn and picked up 3 crystals.
The second match-up, Scott continued to play the Vulca as he felt comfortable with them, and I chose the Mimix. I squeaked out a 1 crystal win for game one. Scott stomped with Fire in game two and gathered 4 crystals. I came back and picked up 4 crystals in the third game. An interesting aspect of Blue Moon became apparent with this match-up. Each of the decks revolves around one of the 8 peoples of Blue Moon: Aqua, Flit, Hoax, Khind, Mimix, Pillar, Terrah, and Vulca. While each deck focuses on one people, they also include 3 cards from different people. This became important while playing the Mimix because they can play cards in pairs, but the Terrah deck has one of the Mimix pair cards in it. In game one against Scott, I kept waiting to draw that other half of the pair and when Scott happened to play it out of the Terrah deck on one turn, I realized I could stop waiting for it, since it wasn’t even in my deck.
In the past few weeks, over our lunch break, Scott and I have continued to play and have done the following match-ups as well:
Pillar (Scott W.) versus Khind (Scott N.)
The current total crystal score is: 20 (Scott W.) – 18 (Scott N.).
I have also recently been able to play the forthcoming Blue Moon City board game. It was a four-player game and had an intense ending as everyone positioned to be the one to complete the rebuilding of Blue Moon City. Look for this all-new Blue Moon title early this summer.
4/19 - Autorius of Greyhaven
Excerpts from the Chronicles of Autorius of Greyhaven, Emeritus of History, Greyhaven University
The Free Cities
Since that time, the Free Cities have each ruled themselves as an independent city-state. Each city, ruled by its own laws and methods of governance, controls the territory around it. Gone are the days of Empire.
The Dragon Lords
Not so the dragonlords, unfortunately. The origin of the dragonlords is just as mysterious as the origins of dragons, although it seems fairly certain that the true dragons predate these mysterious creatures. Dragonlords were every bit as powerful as their brethren, but they were much more human in their shape and, sadly, in their thinking. Dragons may lust for gold, but there appears to be no more to this fact than the magpie's attraction to precious jewels. The dragonlords, on the other talon, knew that gold can be spent. A man could speak and even bargain with a dragonlord (something not generally possible with a dragon), but of course this fact had its own uniquely horrifying consequences. Dragonlords did not just lust for gold and food, no. They lusted for power, for fame and wealth (a very different thing from gold) and all the other things humans have murdered each other for over the aeons since the dawn of time. When a man kills another man for a gold coin it is terrible enough, but dragonlords could murder cities.
After the Elder Kings came the dragonlords. As years passed, these dragonlords made contact with the free cities – some peaceful, some less so. The dragonlords demanded tribute, offered protection, traded, made alliances, broke alliances, and generally comported themselves like men with teeth and claws and powers beyond comprehension. Over time, the various dragonlords became associated with individual cities (a sort of inverse of the human tendency to feel fond of the land where his fathers were born and died – the dragonlords grew increasingly attached to places where they watched successive generations of humans live and die), and over more time, the cities became associated with one another. There were no Empires or Alliances or Kingdoms, no League of City-States or United Guilds of Terrinoth, but there was Margath, and the northern cities, and there was Korina, and the cities in the south. Eventually, it came to war.
The Dragon Wars
I can say that the great city of Thelsvar, the seat of Korina's power, fell to Margath's armies of dragons and dragonlords. I can say that cast out of her home and near to defeat, Korina turned to the elves and the dwarves, to the men and the orcs of her land for aid. The bonds of trade and fellowship proved stronger than Margath suspected and cities and armies rallied to Korina's cause. From near-defeat in a single strike the forces of Korina's cities recovered and fought, and fought, and fought. War raged for years as the lesser races joined into the fray on both sides, and terrible casualties were suffered by all peoples of Terrinoth, even the mighty dragons and dragonlords.
In the end, Korina led her band of Rune Keepers to victory over Margath and his dragonlord lieutenants. Korina gave her life to slay Margath, but her mortal Rune Keeper followers were unable to kill the remaining dragonlords. Instead, they bound them into rune stones to be imprisoned for all time. As the longest-lived of the lesser races, the elves were entrusted with the task of keeping these stones safe.
Recent History
Their population dwindled to the barest ember of their former glory, and newly burdened with the responsibility of protecting the Dragon Runes, the elves retreated to their forests. Disgusted with the insanity of the surface world, the dwarves turned their backs from the light and retreated once more into their underground citadels. Humanity, meanwhile, rebounded with the vigor for which it is known, while the orcs, who had proved their worth as stalwart allies and fierce warriors on both sides of the Dragon Wars, were accepted into civilized society to a degree never before imagined. Orcish barbarians that look to ransack civilized towns now often find themselves opposed by orcish mercenaries or even Town Watch, and so the slow march of civilization continues.
It has been nearly three centuries since the Dragon Wars and still their shadow is felt.
4/18 - Luke
After a frantic attempt to get into my apartment late Sunday afternoon, and realizing I didn’t pack an alarm clock, I managed to make it to work twenty minutes early on Monday morning. This may have set a bad precedent of high-performance, time will tell on that one. Now that I’ve survived the onslaught of projects whose previous owners’ realized could be safely dumped on me, I’m actually looking forward to coming back next week. Now that I have some small semblance of an understanding of what goes within Fortress FFG, I should actually be able to produce some output, and not just spend my time improving my knowledge and understanding to the point that I can actually contribute.
For example:
4/13 - Eric
As we speak, I'm on my second to last day of Mutant Chroncles CMG design, getting ready to hand it over to development for polish and preparation for production. The game design has been finished for about a month or so, giving me ample time to tweak this thing to a shiny perfection. I'm really happy with the game; it's simple enough that most non-hardcore gamers should have no trouble picking up the basics, but tactically "chewy" enough that it will give pause to any old school casual dismissal.
There are three modes of play for this game: skirmish, tournament, and epic. Skirmish is so compact you could play it just about anywhere (I was about to say you could play it on a plane ... but maybe not quite *that* compact!). It's the perfect way to learn the game, or just test out some of your new units in practical combat. Tournament is the standard way most people will play; games take just under an hour (less for experienced players, but not for slowpokes like me) with lots of rich decisions to make at every turn. Epic is crazy; this game scales well enough that you could cover a huge table in terrain and just go nuts with a big chunk of your collection. The coolest part is that there are very few rules changes between formats ... just a few numbers tweaks.
As with many games, you can play standard or scenario, although the standard game has a small but intuitive twist on the usual "kill 'em" victory condition ... and it's a variable enough experience that I suspect quite a few players will never even feel the need to play a scenario in their lifetime. For the more creatively inclined, I've worked out a ridiculously simple foundation to build scenarios on ... anyone can make one.
I can't talk too much about the game mechanics at this point, but suffice it to say that most who have played the game seem to feel that this game is almost as simple as it can be (from a comprehensive standpoint), but really tough tactically. You have a lot of control over the flow of the game, mainly because there is a heavy resource management element to it. But fret not! Even for all of its twists, this is a miniature game at heart. Those of you who want to collect cool pre-painted guys and expect a miniature game style experience, it's here.
A fresh take on familiar territory. I can't wait until you all get a chance to play it.
4/12 - BELATED GTS REPORT!
What I’ve moved up here to do is handle the customer support. If you’re missing an elite Gondor unit from War of the Ring, I’m your man. Speaking of which, if you ever need a part from us, be sure in include an address. I also get to handle general e-mail, answer the phone, and generally take care of odd jobs around the office.
While I’m still fairly new and still have some perspective on the whole thing, let me tell you a little what it’s like to work for a game company for the lower levels. On the surface it would appear to be like any other office, albeit with a lot more Lord of the Rings posters than most. But the experience here is not like that of an insurance company. There’s something really cool about walking by a conference room and seeing the developers play-testing Reins of Power.
While there may not be ompalompas running around (that I know of) it’s a lot a fun to work here. I’ve been able to find a couple of really good gaming groups right away. There’s always somebody to talk to about the latest comic, TV show, or movie. Plus I’ve gotten to play some sweet games on my lunch break.
If all this sounds like fun, and you live in the Twin Cities, or are willing to, you should check out this link!
3/21 - Dan
What this means is that I got to go through the Originals folders for a few of our card sets and choose out the best of the best of the art. I have a few criteria, of course.
Here's one that I considered.
So that's three pieces that I didn't use, and each is a really top-notch piece of art in its own right. What does that say about the art I did choose?
Let's just say that A Song of Night is shaping up to look great.
3/14 - Corey
Warrior Knights
I wrote a fascinating design article that is scheduled to be put on our Warrior Knights website tomorrow. Those of you with time machines should feel free to check that out now.
A Storm of Swords
Reins of Power
Let me give you a quick scenario of some events that could happen in a game of Reins of Power. Each turn many crises can affect the neutral countries of the world. These countries could be struck by Famine, seized by a Vicious Dictator, or be secretly developing Nuclear Weapons. Being in charge of a global superpower, it is important for you to keep these events in check. For instance, let us say that a country developed Nuclear Weapons and THEN was seized by a Vicious Dictator. Well, in this case you had better hope that you are on good terms with this country.
Until Next time, buenos nachos (good nachos).
3/13 - Greg
The Mutant Chronicles Collectible Miniatures Game
As this is our first miniatures game, we aren’t holding anything back. The figures will be in 36mm scale, with the most detailed sculpts and painting we can give them. The game system itself will be refreshing and innovative, as we’ve taken a lot of the tedium and bookkeeping out of both army building and game play. The game is fast and fun, with all of the strategic depth and thematic immersion you’ve come to expect from FFG games. Expect the initial release, featuring a deluxe two-player starter set and standard booster boxes, in October of this year. We also hope to have lots of cool stuff to preview at GenCon later this year.
Board and Card Games
Starcraft: The Board Game
Reins of Power
Tide of Iron
Warrior Knights
Marvel Heroes: The Board Game
Drakon and Cave Troll
Mag*Blast
Penguin
Board and Card Game Expansions
A Storm of Swords
War of the Ring: Battles of the Third Age
Runebound
Runebound is also getting a new series of six 30-card decks in August, with more items and artifacts, new challenges, and new adventures. Finally, in November, look for the Sands of Al-Kalim expansion, with a new game board that allows heroes to brave the dangers and uncover the mysteries of a vast and ancient land.
Arkham Horror: Curse of the Dark Pharaoh
Arkham Horror: Dunwich Horror Expansion
Wings of War: Top Fighter and Recon Patrol
Wings of War: Dawn of War
This companion game brings World War II aircraft to the Wings of War game. This first installment focuses on planes from the early years of the war, and yes, you'll be able to pit them agains the WWI-era biplanes and triplanes from the original Wings of War games. Eat lead, Red Baron!
Descent: Journeys in the Dark
Twilight Imperium
World of Warcraft: The Board Game
Lord of the Rings: Battlefields
Roleplaying
Midnight
Grimm
Collectible Card Games
Art Books and Calendars
Jarvis: Sorcerer's Apprentice
3/9 - Jim
So why is sorting dozens upon hundreds of cards into their separate piles my favorite part of this job? It's a zen thing.
3/8 - Brian
Thank you to everyone who entered the World of Warcraft Board Game character contest. A “Congratulations!” goes out to our winner James Stubbs who entered his Human Priest, Ochindra! Ochindra wa chosen randomly from the pile of entries and turned into a WoW Board Game character sheet. Players can print Ochindra out for their own adventures by clicking this link here.
Ochindra’s character sheet is a JPEG file. The image is the same size as the original WoW character sheets (8-1/2” x 11”) which means if you are printing to a standard desktop printer with letter size paper, you should shrink the image 5% so the edges don’t get clipped off. If possible, I recommend printing to legal or tabloid size paper so you can get the entire sheet without shrinking the image or having the edges clipped off.
In other news, I spend most of my time preparing graphics for Fantasy Flight’s booth at the upcoming GAMA trade show in Las Vegas. So everything I am working on is top secret or double-top secret! That means you have to wait to see what Fantasy Flight will unveil at the show before I can breathe a word about it.
3/7 - Scott W.
That said, I don’t have much to share from the sales department directly, but I can share that I have tried to enlist several fellow co-workers in my crazy plan to play all the possible matchups for Blue Moon. For those unfamiliar with the game, Blue Moon is a two-player card game where each side attempts to capture the favor of the dragons to win. It has elements of a CCG but is not collectible (ok, not entirely true, there is a base game and 8 different decks are available, but the decks are not random so collecting the cards is not necessary). It is possible to then use an entire set to build different decks, but for the purposes of my grand experiment only the 8 different “peoples” decks will be used in their original composition. Of course, more information about the game of Blue Moon can be found here.
That said, beginning this week I will start the challenges and in a couple of weeks I will report back my progress.
3/6 - Rob
Which is good for FFG fans, right? That's what I keep telling myself when I look at my to-do list. I may not be feeding starving children, saving the environment, or curing cancer, but somewhere out there, I'm making gamers happy
Meanwhile, James has inscribed my Legends of Shadow rough with a bunch of red ink, so it's time to make his suggested corrections and put that one to bed. It was pretty good before it got to him, but he's really stepping up the demands in terms of flow, clarity, and other nuances of writing style, so I think this will be the smoothest-reading Midnight supplement we've ever had.
It will also be a butt-kicking cover . . . as you can see right here! We wanted to make sure that there was plenty of detail devoted to the Night Kings, even though they're in a scrying pool/crystal ball apparatus, so the artist was cool enough to paint them as two separate pieces! The piece is by John Gravato, who also gave us the hero illustrations for Runebound: Midnight and the covers of Heart of Shadow and Hammer and Shadow.
3/1 - James
The next big project I’ve been working on is the Well of Darkness expansion for Descent. Kevin hasn’t ranted about this yet and I don’t want to spoil any surprises, but I will say that the expansion will include several new quests, and editing the area descriptions for them has been a lot of fun. (Indeed it is one of the funnest rulebooks I’ve worked on. Heh heh heh.)
Finally, in between those two expansions I’ve been proofreading Midnight: Legends of Shadow for Rob. The poor book has taken a back seat to A Storm of Swords for over a week now, but I’m going to find the time to finish up with it this week. I’ve already proofread the Ardherin and Jahzir chapters, am most of the way through Sunulael (that dude is creepy), and still have Zardrix and Aradil to go.
I’ve also been proofreading ads, sell sheets, FAQs, web announcements, box text, and so forth. I do a lot of proofreading. And now Eric tells me that we’ll be playing his new game today, which I’ll be writing the rulebook for. But I can’t talk about that yet. Hmm, I think I’ll stop the rant here and get back to work.
2/28 - Eric
For new readers, I'm Eric Lang, game designer from the old days (not as old as Greg or Darrell, mind you! But getting there). I design card games, board games, wacky new games that defy categorization, but largely collectible games for FFG. I did the A Game of Thrones and Call of Cthulhu CCG's, and have done design or development duty on a bunch of others.
As we speak, I'm working on a big (and I mean BIG), brand new game that will be announced at the GAMA Trade Show in March. Like the incorrigible tease I am, I cannot tell you anything about it, except for this: I finished the basic mechanics weeks ago, and am now working on the component design foundation. We'll be playtesting at the office later this week, so keep an eye out for cryptic comments from other ranters until March.
In the meantime, I've got to say that I'm really enjoying working with our new collectible game developer in the form of Nate French. He replaces Casey, who left us last year (but will be in town next week for some dev consulting ... and some good ol' fashioned Hold 'em. Right Casey?). The two of us are currently developing the latest expansion set for A Game of Thrones CCG, entitled "A Song of Night." It's the third expansion in the Winter block, and as with all third sets, I went a wee bit crazy with the design. In a few weeks, all will be right with the world, and this will shape up to be one of our finest sets in a long time.
The collectible game department is expanding again this year, with a support/organized play associate. This means that all those big plans that have been gestating here lately will come to fruition in the foreseeable future. It's a pretty exciting time to be making these games; 2006 is going to be quite the amazing year.
Ha! I'll bet this must have used up much of Nate's rant material for the next several weeks. Good thing it's my job to keep him challenged :)
2/27 - John Goodenough
So finally, here are some of the exciting features in the new and improved Drakon 3rd Edition.
The main difference with the new version compared with previous editions is that everything is BIG! The actual size of the chamber tiles are bigger, there are more tiles in the game (72 tiles instead of 64), there is a larger variety of chamber actions, and even the figures themselves are cool plastic sculptures instead of cardboard stands.
Everything in the game received a full makeover, from the chamber tiles and icons to the box cover and reference sheets. Even with all of the new art, the chamber icons and abilities will still be easily recognizable to veteran players.
I truly believe that this is the best Drakon edition ever. We used the best chambers from both Drakon 2nd edition and its expansion to create the most interesting and dynamic chamber combinations possible.
One of my favorites is the "Drakon Moves” chamber. Now you can hunt down your rival adventurers with an awesome new Drakon miniature!
Another new improvement is hidden gold coins. Each coin has a side which indicates how much it is worth (between 1 to 3 gold). This side is kept hidden throughout the game so that your opponents do not know exactly how much gold you have. Now the first player with a total value of at least 10 gold wins the game. This helps to eliminate the "bash the leader" syndrome since a player with less coins may still have a higher gold total. This also creates more interesting player interaction. If someone just stole your coin worth only 1 gold, do you really want revenge badly enough to steal it back? Perhaps the other player has a coin that's worth 3 gold!
Of course, if you prefer to play with the old rules, simply ignore the gold values and just collect 5 coins.
2/24 - Kevin
Wait, no, that’s a lie. I promised you info on one of the new Ancient Ones that will be in Dunwich Horror. So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you: GENE SIMMONS! Er, I mean: TSATHOGGUA!
I like to call him “The Nap That Came to Arkham” because he makes the people of Arkham sleepy and uncooperative with his “Malaise” ability. You’ll find that Tsathoggua forces you to drastically change your usual tactics, since the most reliable sources of clues and money are shut down, not to mention the fact that he prevents anyone from becoming the Deputy or getting blessed at the South Church. Should he actually wake up, there’s big trouble. He rapidly drains the investigators’ resources away and then devours them one by one (well, sometimes two or three at a gulp).
Tsathoggua is one of four new Ancient Ones in Dunwich. You’ll also find Abhoth, and two others who shall remain nameless. These four Ancient Ones are part of the new, crueler Arkham that you’ll all be experiencing when Dunwich hits the stores.
Next time, we’ll explore more of this new cruelty with a little mechanic we like to call “Injuries and Madness”. You boardgamegeekers already have a decent idea of what I’m talking about.
2/23 - Dan
... so I'll steal from my unofficial capacity as A Song of Ice and Fire consultant and jump all over Corey's territory to tell you about something interesting that I'm only tangentially associated with! Aren't I cunning?
Almost everyone here in the office has read A Game of Thrones and its follow-ups at least once, some multiple times ... but I think that it is probably true that I have read them more than anyone else here. Not to come off fanboy-ish, but I love those novels, and I also have a somewhat uncanny ability to retain obscure trivia of what I read. Yes, I can hold my own on the Spoiler Space discussion board (don't click it unless you've read all four books or don't mind spoilers - you've been warned). As a consequence, I am often consulted, informally and unofficially, on matters of flavor and theme in our various A Game of Thrones games. ((Dan is trying to be humble here. The fact is that he is FFG’s A Song of Ice and Fire resident guru, and we consult him all the time. –James, acting as the web ed.’s ed.)
So let's talk about flavor and theme. Let's say you have a wargame called, oh, I don't know, A Storm of Swords. You have certain mechanics and victory conditions in mind, certain elements that interact in certain ways. The game might be made in perfect symmetry - a diamond-shaped battlefield where all strongholds are perfectly equidistant from all others and resources are distributed according to a repeating pattern and mathematical formula. In this hypothetical game, each of the four sides is exactly identical and only the choices made by the players differentiate them. That's all fine and balanced, but it's not exactly A Song of Ice and Fire, now, is it? Couldn't it be argued that it is more fun to have four different factions with different strengths and weaknesses, different objectives, and very different gameplay experiences? Isn't there a place for Ned Stark in all of this?
What's good for the CCG is good for the board game, and we want to make sure that all our A Game of Thrones products are true to the spirit of these novels. They must pass the "Ned test." That means, no perfect diamond map - a map of Westeros, gently massaged to make for the best possible gameplay! No symmetrical starting position with no relevance to the novels - Stark has marched south and cemented an alliance with House Frey! Lannister armies are in the field near Harrenhal! Greyjoy and Baratheon sit in their unassailable island strongholds and probe for weakness!
And Ned? Well, poor Ned begins the game in a Lannister jail cell - gosh I hope those Freys prove loyal ...
2/21 - Nate
Most of you are probably scratching your heads wondering, “Who’s this Nate guy and what’s he doing on the rant page?” Well, I’m kind of feeling the same way myself! I guess it’s not enough that I’m trying to find my way around a new job, a new office, and a new city (at least hotels are the same wherever you go), now I’ve got to find my way into this new art form, the FFG rant…
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Well the boss is away so I am gonna spill some cool visuals on Mutant Chronicles. You see I have been working on the layouts for the new cards and want to share one of those images with you. I will tell you a little about the project first. I came to this with no knowledge of the Mutant Chronicles universe which is good because we are trying to instill a fresh new look into the old standby. I think I have captured the feel of the factions without alienating the old look. If that made any sense, then on to the image. May the wild speculation begin as to what the different areas of the unit card will contain.
TALENTS
Since all challenge cards in your class deck are dragons, it should be fairly easy to play Temple of the Dragonlords. Be sure to place the undefeated challenge counter on a red adventure jewel space. Next turn, use your Shadow Walker talent to move to the undefeated challenge counter and defeat the dragon. Note that defeating Dragonlord Khorgard and Dragonlord Tzeitz brings you one step closer to winning the game if you are playing the “Rise of the Dragonlords” adventure. Since you’re already sitting on a red adventure jewel, just spend your next movement phase by resting and then attempt the red adventure jewel.
I mention all this because I’m going to make an effort to rant about our euro-ish games more. Often we publish these games in partnership with European companies, such as Nexus or Kosmos, and often those companies do the development and most of the graphic design. This means that fewer folks at FFG work on them, which means that they are less likely to become the subject of rants.
In more seriousness, Kevin's got design for Starcraft humming along, and it's shaping up to be beyond cool. Anyone who's ever wanted to zergling rush three planets at once should be plenty pleased with this rendition of the Starcraft universe. Anyone who's ever wanted to actually SEE the look on their opponent's face when the red dot of a nuke targeting laser appears in the middle of their base should be even happier.
In the attempt to find a co-worker to play all the match-ups for Blue Moon, all I had to do was ask nicely, er, um, that is to ask Nicely – Scott Nicely. (Ouch. -ed.) It turns out that Mr. Nicely was interested in learning to play because he’s wanted to teach his wife to play.
However, I will recap the matches that Scott and I have already played. I am not going to provide any in-depth analysis or play-by-play of the games, but rather a general overview of my impressions of how the games played out.
Heyhey, true believers! At the request of Dan the Man, here is another tidbit from the depths of R&D.
Nice, huh? This one is called Dragonglass Dagger and it is by Cris Griffin. There are many, many things I like about this piece. First of all, it fits point 2 very nicely indeed. This is, in fact, a dragonglass dagger of the sort discovered by Jon Snow and used by Sam the Slayer to earn his name. Not only is it recognizably dragonglass, it also looks plain cool! I'm a big fan of the mist and blowing snow in the background, as well as the dark blade on the light canvas - these are both very Winter Edition things (and A Song of Night things). It even looks pretty good blown up. Unfortunately, there's no character to identify with in this image, so out it goes.
Next up is Ser Waymar Royce, who readers may remember from the prologue of A Game of Thrones. This piece is by the obviously-very-talented Scott Altmann, and frankly I like it. Ser Waymar manages to be creepy, dead, and elegant all at the same time, just as I remember him from the prologue. Also, with Winter's fixation on the North, the Others, and Wights, Ser Waymar is thematically a perfect fit. Just look at his spooky blue eyes. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that a character who dies at the beginning of the first book of a now-four-book series is the most iconic and recognizable one I could have chosen. Also, Altmann uses some dynamic and bold brushwork that loses detail when we expand the image to t-shirt size. At card size, this is fantastic. At full-size, it's still fantastic, but more appropriate hanging on my wall than decorating my shirt. (I should note that I have no idea if Altmann did this digitally or with oil on canvas, so when I say "brushstroke," I am using the lossest possible sense of the word).
Finally, we have Hodor, by John Matson. I snuck a peek at the art description Matson was given for this piece, and it reads in its entirety: "Hodor!" Clearly, John Matson is an artist who knows his A Game of Thrones characters, because this is Hodor. I'm sure I had some image in my mind of Hodor before seeing this piece, but it's gone. This is now, and forever, Hodor for me. The fact that Bran is on his back is a plus in the recognizablity department. The fact that it is clearly a very, very nice piece of art is also good. Sadly, as much as I like Hodor and his simple, friendly nature, he is not very exciting. We want our signature piece for the Regional Championships T-Shirts to be active, dynamic, heroic, adventurous, exciting, mysterious, or some combination of those things. This is a very nice piece of Hodor walking through the snow with Bran on his back, which is about as much excitement as Hodor wants to get himself into. I think you can see why I had to, reluctantly, remove this one from the running along with the others.
In 2006, FFG will release its first miniatures game, a CMG based on the classic Mutant Chronicles universe. For those who aren’t familiar with it, Mutant Chronicles was created in the early 90s and eventually gave birth to a miniatures game, roleplaying game, and two different CCGs. Now, a film project is in the works and FFG is helping to relaunch this great property with the release of a collectible miniatures game. Mutant Chronicles is set in the far future of our own solar system, where Megacorporations battle each other as well as a dark invader. Power-armored doom troopers, magic, and monsters mix in this exciting dark future space-fantasy setting.
Yes, it’s true -- after many years of delays and cancellations, this long-awaited game is finally in full-scale development and set to appear on shelves this fall. Reins of Power is a huge board game of contemporary or near-future geopolitics, superpower diplomacy, and global conflict. Each player takes on the role of the head-of-state of a world power, from the US to the European Union, and attempts to steer this power to global supremacy. Each player also takes on the role of another player’s domestic political opposition and attempts to thwart that player’s every move. Execute regime change in Third World countries, combat terrorism, and project your power with carrier battle-groups. Expect lots of plastic figures, including carriers, submarines, tanks, and mushroom clouds, lots of cards, dice, markers, and other great components. Reins of Power is scheduled for release in September.
Our third and final big box board game scheduled for release in 2006, Tide of Iron is a game of World War II-era squad-based tactical combat. It will feature loads of plastic figures, including soldiers, equipment, heavy weapons, and combat vehicles, cards, dice, cardboard markers, and modular game boards that will represent the customizable terrain of this scenario-based wargame. Tide of Iron is scheduled for release in December 2006.
FFG’s redesign of this classic board game from Games Workshop should be on store shelves in just a few weeks. In Warrior Knights, players take on the roles of medieval barons competing for domination of the land and control of its cities. Each baron has four knights under his command, and recruits troops and drafts mercenaries so that each warrior knight fields an army capable of seizing and holding one or more cities. Military power alone is not enough, however, as players must also compete economically and politically for valuable titles, concessions, and the favor of the Church. Warrior Knights is scheduled for release in May.
FFG is proud to announce that it will publish Blue Moon City, a board game based on the uniquely fantastic setting of Reiner Knizia’s Blue Moon card game. In the board game, Blue Moon City is in ruins and the players must attempt to rebuild it. Players vie to impress the dragons, collect crystals, and ultimately gain leadership of Blue Moon City. The game's modular board is formed from 21 large building tiles, which show building plans on one side and reconstructed buildings on the other. The game also features wooden player figures, 80 cards, and three large plastic dragons.
These two very popular board games from designer Tom Jolly will be returning this year with new and improved editions. Both games will be released in the “deluxe” Silver Line format familiar to those who have seen the latest edition of our classic Through the Desert board game. Both games will receive a visual update, with all new art, graphics, and upgraded component quality. Drakon will feature much larger game tiles and plastic figures representing both the heroes and the Dragon. Cave Troll will receive a true, folding game board, plastic figures, and other component upgrades as well. Both games will feature gameplay and design improvements and completely updated rules.
One of FFG’s original classics is scheduled for a return in 2006, the fast, fun, and explosive sci-fi card game, Mag*Blast. This game is getting a completely new visual look, with art and illustration by the renowned cartoonist, John Kovalic. It will also be significantly redesigned and redeveloped, with smoother gameplay, better balance between races, and even more fast and furious fun.
Great Wall of China
Another terrific card game from the prolific mind of Reiner Knizia, Penguin will be released at GenCon. This game is so simple and so fun, you’ll feel like you’ve played it for years within minutes of learning the rules. The players take turns playing cards from their hands in a pyramid formation on the table. Each player tries to construct the pyramid in such a way that only he will be able to play the last penguin card, the one at the very top of the pyramid.
The upcoming Runebound character decks allow you to completely customize your Runebound hero. New skill cards allow you to plan the advancement of your hero, giving you more control over the progression of your special abilities. But beware: The more cool abilities you give your hero, the more ammunition you give your opponents to play cards from their decks against you. The Runebound character decks should be on shelves in April!
This card expansion for the Arkham Horror board game introduces a few new card types, including 22 Exhibit items (ancient relics from the strange and somewhat disturbing visiting museum exhibit), 18 "Barred from Neighborhood" cards, four Benefit cards, and four Detriment cards. The expansion also includes 45 new Arkham Location cards, 27 new Gate cards, 18 new Mythos cards, 21 new Spells, and 7 Allies -- 166 new cards in all! Curse of the Dark Pharaoh should be available in May.
Descent gets two full-sized expansions this year: Well of Darkness in June and another coming in December. The Well of Darkness expansion includes more than 30 new plastic miniatures, featuring six new heroes, tricky kobolds, bloodsucking ferrox, and unstoppable golems. The heroes get more skills and treasures, including six new relics and a new type of potion. They'll need them, though, because the Overlord gains the ability to customize his deck before every game. He gets new spawn cards, nasty new events and powers, and even deadlier traps such as rolling boulders, poison darts, and scything blades. The expansion also features rules for lava and mud, two new lingering effects (bleeding and dazed), and nine new quests. I'm told the second expansion for Descent: Journeys in the Dark will include the much-anticipated campaign rules...
The first expansion for Twilight Imperium Third Edition features four completely new races (never before seen in any of the game's editions), each with its own schemes and talents. Variant sets of Strategy and Objective cards provide an exciting new game experience while introducing new galactic agendas. The expansion will also include two additional colors of plastic units, rules, and enough additional systems for an eight player game using a four ring around Mecatol Rex. This expansion is scheduled to hit stores in November.
quest deck puts a bounty on independent creatures, rewarding characters who defeat them. Each class deck also receives 10 new powers and 10 new talents, further developing each character's arsenal of unique abilities and customizability. Each Overlord also receives special cards that are shuffled into the event deck, and these cards make them even more dangerous throughout the game. In November, World of Warcraft: The Board Game gets its first full-sized expansion, with new Overlords, new characters, events, and quests -- including dungeon quests which characters must battle through several cards to complete.
In August, Reiner Knizia gives us a new expansion for the classic Lord of the Rings board game. Each of the boards from the main game has a corresponding battlefield, and players maneuver heroes and villains on these battlefields to improve their position in the fully integrated main game. We'll have more information from Reiner on this expansion at the end of this month, so stay tuned!
First up for Midnight is Legends of Shadow, due in April. You're getting complete game stats, background information, adventure hooks, and more for the four Night Kings, as well as the Witch Queen of Erethor. You still can't kill them, though. Probably. And even if you could, you wouldn't want to, because Hand of Shadow will be coming along in June. This sourcebook will give you everything you need to play a campaign from "the other side," taking on the role of an ambitious legate, a goblin slaver, a mercenary bounty hunter that stalks elves for pay -- or maybe even a doomed Fell just trying to find his next meal. Finally, coming in December, Destiny of Shadow will give you everything you need to know about Erenland and its unique, fated people who might just be the only hope for the future of Eredane.
I've just begun speaking with a certain mystery cartoonist that I get to work with this summer on one of our games, which should be tons of fun. The next set of Runebound expansion packs are underway (just to clarify, there are three types of expansions out there or soon-to-be-out-there: board expansions, like Island of Dread and Runebound: Midnight; card expansions, like Shadows of Margath, Artifacts & Allies, and the like; and finally class decks, which if you ask me are the missing soul of Runebound that we didn't know was gone . . . once you play with the class decks, I don't think you'll be going back!). We're going to stick with a similar "spread" of card expansions as the last batch of six: 2 Market decks, 2 Challenge decks (each with its own theme), and 2 variant Adventure decks (some new rules, and new win conditions).
Around the office we talk about "Nedliness," and "Nedly" players of our games. This dates back to an article that Eric Lang wrote many moons ago in which he sketched out some player archetypes for our A Game of Thrones CCG. The Ned player is the one who is invested in the story and interested in re-telling it through his gameplay - not just in the sense of recreating the events of the book, but in exploring "what if?" scenarios and making the story come out HIS way. (I say "his" because Ned Stark is male, but that is not to suggest that Nedly players must be!)
To make a long story short, I’m the new CCG developer. Casey beat me in the first Game of Thrones CCG world championships, but I got the better of him in two Regional Championships, so now that he’s gone I’ve been plucked out of the game’s community and appointed hand of the king. Moving into the tower of the hand, I get the feeling it’s a pretty dangerous post: if Brian Wood was Jon Arryn and Casey Galvan was Eddard Stark, I’d be walking in the shoes of Tyrion Lannister right now. I suppose I should take that as a mixed blessing, as Tyrion is one of my favorite characters i