Moe Lane

It’s all that I dreamed of, and more.

(more…)

It’s supposed to come today; and I have to say, I’m not happy with FedEx’s customer service on this. I don’t like being blithely told that something that belongs to me cannot be delivered the way that I want it to be delivered (I’m not a business; I want them to deliver the product without a signature if necessary so that I can pick up my kids from school and/or go food shopping and/or do any other household chores that involve leaving the house). And I really don’t like their refusal to give me any sort of time estimate for a delivery – or even a head’s up as to the likely delivery window.

They haven’t screwed up this order yet, but I am not confident that FedEx is going to avoid doing so, today.  And it won’t be the first time, either.

Steve Jackson reported that he’s not in need of a relief fund – but I don’t think that he’ll object if folks help out his less fortunate neighbors. Here are a couple of links:

• American Red Cross.
• Central TX Floods Relief Fund (part of the Austin Disaster Relief Network).

I tossed in some cash because, hey, I’m just going to spend it on role-playing games otherwise.

I just wanted to share this.  Background: I ordered a rather large and elaborate game called OGRE from Steve Jackson Games as part of a crowdfunding program known as Kickstarter.  This particular Kickstarter was very popular: too popular, in fact.  It was so popular that getting the game to print took an extra year.  But now it’s being shipped! Almost smoothly:

Many people have asked, in many different ways, when we will finish shipping. I can’t answer that until the shipping process is debugged. If we have to throw more bodies at it, we will, but right now it looks like we just need to throw more brains. There will be regular updates.

Apparently there were a couple of minor bugs in the initial rollout, but Steve Jackson Games is on top of them, retains a healthy awareness of what the actual problems are, has its top management fully involved in the process, is maintain full communications links among all levels of the company, takes responsibility for errors, and will maintain full transparency about the situation.  Because that’s how you stop small problems from becoming large ones.

Ah, the private sector.

Moe Lane

…because when I saw this:

I just wrote an Illuminator that will probably annoy some people. I’ll get over it somehow. Should post tomorrow, I think.-SJ

— Steve Jackson Games (@SJGames) May 10, 2013

…I immediately assumed that it was going to be political.  Turns out Steve Jackson simply wanted to make a professional point about the benefits of disclosing the state of one’s business, both the good and the bad: (more…)

Dear God, I’ve been impressing people by telling them that it was going to be twelve.

The result is a board game that is almost stupidly ambitious, being sold at well below market value. The numbers are hard to wrap your head around.

“The final box will be 24” × 20” × 5.75” and will weigh 24 pounds. It will have five huge maps and more than 1,000 counters, many of them 3-D constructible Ogres and buildings. It will probably never be equaled in sheer size and awesomeness,” Jackson said.

Each box will be shipped in its own carton, Jackson told [PA Report's Ben Kuchera] almost a year ago. Retailers were worried about it fitting on their shelves at all, so they had to trim it down somewhat. Think about that for a bit; the dimensions listed above are for a smaller box than they had planned.

Go ahead and read the whole thing (it’s got some good thoughts about the problems with insanely-successful Kickstarters): I’m just going to be basking in the thought that I – thanks to reader generosity, mind you – get to actually have one of these things.  From the start.  For once.

Moe Lane

My post about Barack Obama as a power gamer was referenced in National Review Online, with my use of the term ‘munchkin’ quoted (as well as the meme of The Gun Is My Skill List).  By the way, both terms originate[*] in the seminal and influential work Munchkins Guide to Power Gaming…  wait a second: sixty-three bucks new?  Steve Jackson Games should do a reprint.

Anyway, this is a moment of quiet pride for me.  It’s like I’m rust!

Moe Lane

*For the sake of accuracy, this point from @sjgames is well-taken:

@moelane Minor correction: “munchkin” as a gaming term predates the Munchkin’s Guide by at least a decade. -AH

— Steve Jackson Games (@SJGames) February 27, 2013

…although as I noted in my response, the Guide really is what at least popularized the term.

OGRE War Room is Steve Jackson Games’ released app for, well, Ogre: and the youngest approves of it.

Hey, you gotta start ‘em early, you know.

…Somebody did an interview with Phil Reed of SJG about the status of the game.  Take a look:

…apparently, the box is even larger at this point.

Can’t wait.  Heck, I might even have the minis painted by then.

Moe Lane

PS: Also: I need to hit a gamer convention.  I haven’t done one of those in a WHILE.

As all men know, thanks to the benevolent consideration shown me by my most excellent readers I was able to participate in Steve Jackson Games‘ OGRE Kickstarter to the point where I scored the game and a bunch of stuff besides.  But with great wargames come great responsibility: since I asked for the game, and I was given it, I had darn well better play it.  Properly.  With all the respect that the allocation of large sums of money for a wargame deserves.

In this case: that means minis.  Both the acquisition, and the proper assembly thereof. (more…)

This is how it goes, people: they get to $700K on the OGRE Kickstarter, then SJG will start a Car Wars Kickstarter.

This I want, for two reasons:

1. I’ve been buying Car Wars since it came in little plastic boxes.
2. If they Kickstart Car Wars, maybe they’ll Kickstart… In Nomine.  Which was and is my single favorite roleplaying game setting of all time.  More than Castle Falkenstein, more than Unknown Armies, more than Feng Shui, more than Paranoia, and yes, more even than Delta Green. And it may take a Kickstarter to get a Second Edition.

So… well, three days to go on that, huh? I’m already in at the $100 level (not quite able to hit $150, but that’s just swank at this point), myself.

Dear GOD.

Dear, dear GOD. THAT IS FOURTEEN POUNDS OF OGRE.  FOUR. TEEN.

Two weeks to go on that Kickstarter, and it’s funded to a fare-thee-well, so all I have to do is figure out how to:

• Buy it ($100 is a lot of money, BUT LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT BOX);
• Find people to play it with.