Final word on 'Gamergate: The Card Game' and Onebookshelf

Last week, I expressed concern about the news that Onebookshelf.com (the exclusive distributor of titles from NUELOW Games) appeared to have dropped a product from Postmortem Studios in response to pressure from another publisher. The product was Gamergate: The Card Game, which I talk a little about in this post.

Today, Onebookshelf's Steve Weick sent out an email (which was also posted to Facebook, so you can read it here) about the situation. For me, the most important statements in it were:

"Some publishers also complained about this title, and a few publishers let us know they would not be interested in continuing to work with us if we carried it on our store. We will not allow any publisher to dictate content policy onto any other publisher, explicitly or implicitly. If any publisher ever decides to discontinue business with us because our content policy errs to the side of being too open, rather than restrictive, then we will respect their decision to leave our marketplaces and wish them well. To be clear, no publishers’ comments had any bearing on our decision to discontinue.selling this title."

Good for Steve Weick and Onebookshelf.

A distributor has the right to carry whatever they please, for whatever reasons they please. And no publisher should try to use their business relationship with said distributor as a club to force them to drop products from other publishers.

I can't say I'm completely happy with the end result. My sympathies are with designer James Desborough, but I can't fault Onebookshelf for the decision or their reasons for taking the steps they took. I do fault ANY publisher who approached Onebookshelf in an official capacity and said "pull that, or we pull our products."

I am occasionally troubled by our all-ages comics appearing next to porn comics on the DriveThruComics homepage. But I would NEVER (even if I felt I had the clout) be the kind of jackass who writes to Onebookshelf with threats.

It makes me a little sad that in the industry I love, there are people who are the sort of thugs that do.

Are PDFs considered collectibles?

If so, there are some lucky people out there who own the soon-to-be super-rare The Three Lives of Fantomah: Book One and The Three Lives of Fantomah: Book Two.

An executive decision (inspired by artist Bradley K. McDevitt) was made to drop the Book X titling scheme and instead give the books proper subtitles. We're making the change in anticipation of the upcoming release of the book that would have been The Three Lives of Fantomah: Book Three but which is now going to be titled The Three Lives of Fantomah, Daughter of the Pharaohs instead. Here are the revised covers for the first two, followed by the sketch for the third book. (If you haven't checked out our Fantomah series and the cool OGL d20 variant magic rules within them, now would be a great tme.)

Cover art by Richard Case & Fletcher Hanks

Cover art by Richard Case & Fletcher Hanks

Sketch by Bradley K. McDevitt

And if you already own the Fantomah books? Save those original versions somewhere safe. You nnever know... PDFs may just be collectible. Stranger things have happened.

Imagine...

... John Lennon, John Bonham, and Johnny Cash forming a band. Then throw in John Denver and John Philip Sousa. It would be the greatest assembly of musical Johns in this world or the next (well, except maybe They Might Be Giants).

Imagine all those Johns. It isn't hard if you know about NUELOW's re-issue/revision of Houseboat on the River Styx from yet another John -- John Kendrick Bangs. In fact, it would almost be expected, given that Bangs teamed Shakespeare and Sherlock Holmes, and we've previously published supplements that saw Abraham Lincoln join forces with John F. Kennedy to fight Adolf Hitler and Kim Jong Il.

ROLF!: Fugue for Johns in D Minor is a return to the misty land of Hades with another crazy mix of characters, in the land where deceased celebrities and historical figures have adventures with fictional characters. Click here for more information, to see previews of the product, and to get your very own copy.

Get some Stickers by Stan!

Talented cartoonist, game designer, writer, and all-around-great-guy Stan! is running a Kickstarter that is in its final hours -- it ends the evening of Tuesday, December 9. His goal is to make some of his fun art available as stickers and clip art.

Some of the Stickers by Stan!

One of the treats you can get for contributing a measly $3 is a selection of Stan! clip art cartoons! What's more, if you contribute $10, you get the clip art, a coloring book, and three sheets of stickers! So much Stan! goodness!

Christmas Stickers/Clip Art by Stan!

Click here for more information about the Kickstarter campaign and Stickers by Stan! We don't often plug Kickstarters, but everyone at NUELOW Games (all two of us!) are Stan! Fans, and if you aren't already, we're sure you will become one. (This Kickstarter should be of especially high interest to anyone who wants some fun illustrations for their website or e-Christmas letters this year... and for those with kids who at that age where everything needs to be adorned with stickers. Or if you're someone who never outgrew that phase...)

More Gamergate Nonsense

Game designer and blogger James Desborough has published #Gamergate: The Card Game through PostMortem Studios. The sell-copy for the game describes it as "by taking the piss out of all sides," something which we delight in here at NUELOW Games. So, that's a plus in James's favor in our book.

Cover art for #Gamergate: The Card Game

A minus against him is the fact it's a game making fun of #Gamergate. I have been disgusted by the various factions in that particular fight for a long time, and Hundal has been bored by them. The only thing #Gamergate confirmed for me is that I am not a gamer (even though I minstakenly identified myself as one for over two decades) and it confirmed for Hundal that she was right to never attend a game convention. The game would have gone completely unnoticed by me and most other people if one of the crusading anti-Gamergate Factions hadn't decided to convince distributor Onebookshelf to drop the game, and other crusaders hadn't decided to beat their chests about how they "stand behind the decision."

NUELOW Games is exclusively distributed by Onebookshelf via their RPGNow, DriveThruComics, DriveThruFiction, DriveThruRPG, and WarGameVault sites. If we ever add a card game to our line-up, we will undoubtedly sell it at DriveThruCards. I have nothing but nice things to say about Onebookshelf, despite the fact that there's no specific category for ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game on their sites. I also believe that they, as a distributor, have the right to carry or not carry whatever products they like. However, NUELOW Games has published (and continues to publish) products that rely on satire, sarcasm, and commentary on current events in politics and popular culture. It is concerning to me that zealots of any stripe can convince a distributor to drop a satirical product because they demand it to be so. If the sell-copy for Desborough's game is accurate, it doesn't sound that different than NUELOW's "Bill Clinton and the Secret City of Women," "The Pimp, the Protester, and the Po-Po" or "Mr. Freedom vs. Blowhard."

There but for the grace of God goes ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game?

I know nothing about Gamergate: The Card Game beyond the cover art and the sell-copy. I am not likely to learn anything more about it, because Gamergate draws fucktards like a corpse draws flies and I want nothing to do with it. But if you're interested in checking out James' game, you can buy it through this website. (You can also read more about it there.)

For even more information, visit his blog here. 

Possibly the greatest song ever written! (And some RPG rules)

The band is Alestorm. The song is "Drink."


We live each day like there's nothing to lose,
But a man has needs and that need is booze.
They say all the best things in life are free.
So give all your beer and your rum to me!

We are here to drink your beer 
And steal your rum at a point of a gun 
Your alcohol to us will fall
'Cause we are here to drink your beer!


d20 OGL BOOZING RULES
Here's are some quick and dirty rules for using alcohol in your d20 OGL Modern games. Like everything in RPGs, this is an effort to model fantasy, not reality. You should always drink responsibly, alcohol is addictive and shouldn't be treated lightly... and so on, and so forth, blah-blah-blah.
  All text in this post from this point forward is presented under the Open Game License.

Drinking and Getting Drunk
During one hour, a character may consume a number of alcoholic beverages equal to 1/3rd his or her Constitution score. For each drink after that requires a requires a Constitution check (DC 12 + 2 per additional drink) with any racial  or other bonus against poison modifying the roll. Each failed check means 1 temporary damage to your Dexterity and Wisdom scores, and a -1 penalty to your Constitution for the purpose of resisting the effects of further drinks. If your Wisdom or Constitution scores are reduced to 0, you pass out.
   For each failed check, you also suffer a -1 penalty to all melee attack rolls.
   Once the character fails his or her first Constitution check, he or she is considered to be "under the influence." This state persists until all damage to ability scores has been regained. (Note that alcohol is a poison, so spells that neutralize poison can end the effects of alcohol early and restore lost attribute points more quickly.)
   Damage to ability scores from alcohol is recovered at the rate of 2 per hour during which the character doesn't drink any alcoholic beverages, or after "sleeping it off." The penalty to attack rolls is reduced at a rate of +2 each hour..
   Upon waking up after getting drunk enough to have his or her attribute scores drop below their full values, the character make a successful Fort save (DC18) modified by any racial or other bonus against poison). If the saving throw fails, the character suffers a -2 penalty to all attack rolls and skill checks for 1d3+1 hours.


BOOZEHOUND TALENT TREE
This talent tree is for hard-drinking characters of any class.
   Drink Like a Fish: For each drink after the prescribed maximum (see Drinking and Getting Drunk), the character rolls a Fort save (DC12 +1 per additional drink) instead of the Constitution check.
  Hold Your Liquor: You can consume a number of alcoholic beverages equal to 1/2 your Constitution score before you need to start rolling checks (instead of the usual amount equal to 1/3rd of your Constitution score).
   Mean Drunk: When under the influence (See Drinking and Getting Drunk), you hit even harder than you do when you’re sober. You gain +1d6 bonus to damage inflicted with melee and thrown weapons.
   You may select this talent more than once. Each time it is chosen the damage bonus is increased by 1d6, to a maximum of +5d6.
   Prerequisite: Any one Boozehound Talent
   Drunken Master: Instead of  suffering a -1 penalty for each failed attribute check or saving throw to resist the influence of alcohol, you gain a +1 bonus to melee attack rolls.
      Prerequisite: Any one Boozehound Talent

Alestorm: Heavy Metal Pirates & Boozehounds

Two magic items for any roleplaying game

'Tis the season for leftovers. Here's a magic item inspired by a stray comment following a wonderful holiday dinner with friends.


BAG OF MEAT
 This small leather bag cinches shut with a narrow strip of rawhide. When opened, the user can pull out enough roasted meat to feed one person three times per day, or four people once per day. The type of meat is determined randomly by rolling a d6,

Die Roll        Type of Meat
1.                   Beef
2.                   Chicken
3.                   Turkey
4.                   Pork
5.                   Salmon
 6.                  Shark


DELUXE BAG OF MEAT
This item functions as a Bag of Meat, except it has a broader selection. Roll 2d6 to determine the kind of meat supplied.

Dice Roll        Type of Meat
2.                    Partridge
3.                    Venison
4.                    Spam
5.                    Beef
6.                    Pork
7.                    Chicken
8.                   Turkey
9.                   Sausage
10.                 Salmon
11.                 Shark
12.                 Cod

A selection from a Bag of Meat