Instruct your manservants to mark the day and set aside your nights for jubilation, dear friends. For my very game, The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, (myself being the titular Munchausen, of course) shall become available at all fine purveyors of books and games upon the fifteenth day of December, and I have it upon the highest authority that said date shall be recognized as a national holiday in perpetuity in no fewer than sixteen different countries and the Moon!

If you are noble born or strangely well-informed for a commoner, you may already be following these “pre-views,” which I have been dutifully inscribing upon the enormous spider’s web that I am told now circumnavigates and ensnares the entire world. Though I offered to rid Earth of such pestilence, I am assured that there is some manner of symbiotic relationship with this “world wide web.” In any circumstance, you may view my previous discourses upon the core of my game and my adventures in Araby, before continuing below, wherein I spend these last hours before the release of my game discoursing upon the Variants included within!

Part the First: In Which the Variants Are Numbered

Keen-eyed readers, possessed of the prodigious memories so common in mine own family, will no doubt recall that I have already disclosed the details of two variants for my game—one devised by my friend and fellow adventurer, Es-Sindibad of the Sea, and the other (entitled My Uncle The Baron) designed by my hand for the enjoyment of children, the inbred, and the very drunk. 

You will be delighted to discover, however, as I discovered when I encountered the ocean at the center of the earth, that these sudden changes are not the end, but the beginning of a fantastical voyage—for in the third volume of my book (newly added for this edition, I shall add), you will find no fewer than an even dozen unique variants for my game.

Part the Second: In Which the Variants Are Named

I can see the wonder glinting in your eyes even now, much as fear glinted in the eyes of the Bulgarians when I arrived in their country riding upon the Assyrian Ankylosaur. “A dozen variants?” you may exclaim. “In G—d’s name, Baron, what could move you to such generosity, to such magnanimity, to such lavish and liberal free-handedness?” In answer, I can only refer you, as before, to the two people most instrumental in the creation of this book, viz. myself and the Empress of Russia. 

But let us tarry no longer: you must still be wondering the nature of these variants—each with unique and most amusing rules for the entertainment of yourself and your bosom companions. (Ensure also that you keep this book out of the servants’ hands. Too much laughter is most undignified and unfitting in the help.)

The variants I refer to are as follows:

• First: The People’s Glorious Storytelling Game for the Collectivization of Moral Lessons and Potato Harvesting
• Second: The Baron’s Game for Those Who Have Read Too Many Novels
• Third: The Baron’s Game of Improving the World through Invention and Novelty
• Fourth: The Baron’s Game for Metaphysical and Metamental Beings
• Fifth: The Baron’s Game of Possibly Inaccurate Historical Recollections
• Sixth: The Baron’s Game for the Early Settlers of the Stone Age, Being the People of Caves
• Seventh: The Baron’s Variant of International Supervillainy
• Eighth: The Baron’s Game in the Eldritch Realms of That Lovecraft Fellow
• Ninth: The Baron’s Game of Storytelling upon the Public Transport System of London
• Tenth: The Baron’s Extraordinary Stories Concerning a War among the Stars
• Eleventh: The Baron’s Game of Catting About
• Twelfth: The Baron’s Game of the Nature and Discussion of Life Without End
• With an Appendix detailing rules for playing on the line, via the medium of electric mail, in forums, with carrier pigeons, in the twittering language of birds, within the pages of the books of faces, or using systems of simultaneous chatter.

Part the Third: In Which a Conclusion Is Attempted and the Inhabitants of Several Countries Are Insulted

What more can there be to say, my readers? Unless you are one of the dreadful bores who call themselves the Germans, your excitement has undeniably been titillated by the titles that you read above. And yet, to delve more deeply into the contents of these variants would be to rob them of the very mystique which imbibes them with the bubbly vigor of life. You are not Italian, are you? I have always noted the Italians are far too eager to draw back the curtain from true mysteries, and in so doing, trample them relentlessly underfoot, much like the great golems of Anatolia crush the mountain sheep which they feed upon.

In fact, this reminds me of one of my own exploits, when I was in the d—nably diminutive and noncommittal country of Switzerland. I was undertaking a bet, in which I had pledged to traverse the breadth of the country in under one minute, and at the moment, I was traveling at the heart-stopping speed of thirty miles-per-hour, under power of a contraption I had crafted with a precision watch, a bank safe, and a pair of ridiculous Turkish pants, which I was now using as brakes. I had nearly reached the midpoint of the country (in no more than twenty seconds, I might add), when…

But wait now. I feel that I was essaying to conclude this pre-view—at least that is what my Writer in the Market is insisting. Such an unbearable boy is irrefutably Dutch in his ancestry, so let us rid ourselves of him and dispense with this article, post-haste.

Part the Fourth: In Which a Conclusion and a Toast Are Both Carried Through to Completion

The fifteenth day of December and the simultaneous release of my game are nigh, drawing nearer to us at a steady speed, and as G—d’s truth, though I have had countless adventures upon, above, and beneath the surface of the Earth, I can scarcely remember a time that I felt more thrilled in my soul and invigorated in my spirit. And what better way to conclude our time than with a toast? Raise your glasses—to the stories shared between friends and to the truth that lies in every story.

Until our paths cross again,
Baron Munchausen