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New Treasures: Fraser Ronald’s Sword Noir

New Treasures: Fraser Ronald’s Sword Noir

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forsimplecoinFraser Ronald is an author who will be familiar to readers of Black Gate 15. His story “A Pound of Dead Flesh” is a terrific sword-and-sorcery action piece, featuring two legionnaires who become involved in a plot to cheat a necromancer — a plot that very quickly goes very wrong.

Two of the hallmarks of Fraser’s writing are his gift for worldbuilding, and his clear love of sophisticated action tales in the noir genre. Both of these have served him well in his next projects: For Simple Coin, a collection of four tales of “Sword Noir,” and a compact, complete role-playing game called simply Sword Noir:

Hardboiled sword & sorcery – it’s Conan seeking for the Maltese Falcon, it’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in The Big Sleep, set in Lankhmar, it’s hardboiled crime fiction in the worlds of sword & sorcery.

Inspired by mashing up the novels and stories of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Robert E Howard, and Fritz Leiber, Sword Noir: A Role-Playing Game of Hardboiled Sword & Sorcery is a new RPG from Sword’s Edge Publishing. In it, characters’ morals are shifting at best and absent at worst. The atmosphere is dark and hope is frail or completely absent. Violence is deadly and fast. Trust is the most valued of commodities – life is the cheapest. Grim leaders weave labyrinthine plots which entangle innocents. Magic exists and can be powerful, but it takes extreme dedication to learn, extorts a horrible price, and is slow to conjure.

Now is the time for your characters to walk down mean streets, drenched in rain, hidden in fog, and unravel mysteries, murders, and villainy.

sword-noirSword Noir is available today from Sword’s Edge Publishing or RPGNow in PDF format for just $4.99, and in print for $10.73. It is a 6″ x 9″ softcover book with black & white interiors — including maps — running 104 pages.

For Simple Coin is 90 pages, and collects three short stories which originally appeared in AtFantasy, Forgotten Worlds, and On Spec, as well as one story original to this collection.  These tales perfectly illustrate the appealing mix of dark fantasy and noir detective fiction that Fraser has perfected.

If you’re a fan of the hard-boiled fantasy of Alex’s Bledsoe’s Eddie LaCrosse novels or Glen Cook’s Garrett, P.I., you’ll want to check these out.

For Simple Coin is $1.99 in PDF, or $6.99 for the print version.  It is available through RPGNow. Cover art is by Paul Slinger.

Free RPG Day 2011

Free RPG Day 2011

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This Saturday is Free RPG Day, and as a lifelong gamer I wanted to encourage all of you current, former, and interested potential gamers to drop by your local gaming store to see what free role-playing game products are being offered for your enjoyment.

I’m especially interested in the new Dungeon Crawl Classics role-playing game Adventure Starter. Any readers of the Black Gate game review section know what a fan I am of Dungeon Crawl Classics, so I’m expecting good things. The Adventure Starter includes an atmospheric scenario for beginning characters, as well as one for higher level characters, and I’m looking forward to running my group through them this evening.

The Adventure Starter is just half the tale, though, for the beta version of the Dungeon Crawl Classics game is available online here. It looks to be a back-to-the-basics style heroic fantasy game, with no feats, prestige classes, attacks of opportunity, etc.  Some days I like the fussy bits and customization of modern fantasy adventure games as much as the next guy, but sometimes I want to throw those books across the room and run something without so many rules, exceptions, and charts. The DCC Beta looks promising: I’ll find out this evening how it plays out, and report back.

Art of the Genre: Art Road Trip

Art of the Genre: Art Road Trip

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John O'Neill, Jeff Easley, and me before the waitress kicked us out.
John O'Neill, Jeff Easley, and me before the waitress kicked us out.

Ok, so here’s the deal, I like art. Yeah, I know, that’s hard to believe and all, but it’s true. This passion of all things visually marketed in oil, acrylic, water-color, and the like brought me to Art Evolution, and from that platform I’ve fostered many great relationships with artists.

In November I posted the Art Evolution piece on artist Jeff Easley, and when I asked him if he enjoyed it he responded, ‘Yeah, if I ever do an art book, you can do the intro.’

Ok, I’m going to give you a second to let that sink in…

As absolutely insane as it sounds, Jeff Easley, icon of TSR and modern fantasy art has never, ever, done an art book. Well, if you know me at all you know my response, which went something like this, ‘Uh… Do the intro? Heck, I’ll do the whole book!’

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Board Games Don’t Have to be Boring

Board Games Don’t Have to be Boring

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dominant-speciesWhile my last few columns have focused on solitaire games, I thought I’d take a look at some relatively new boardgames with surprising themes and game play.

In the first, Defenders of the Realm, you and your fellow players cooperatively work to defeat evils invading your kingdom.

The second, Dominant Species, is set in the moments before the ice age and enables you and your fellow players to jockey for position to see who will best weather the coming climate change.

Though you may not find either game in your local Target or Walmart, they are beautiful, professional products. Neither’s as straightforward as, say, Monopoly or Scrabble, where you can get a feel for what to do after a brief tutorial, but for the family or game group willing to invest a little bit of time, they’re sure to provide years of entertaining play.

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Art of the Genre: The Art of Gor

Art of the Genre: The Art of Gor

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Vallejo does Tarnsman of Gor in 1966, and the 'legend' begins...
Vallejo does Tarnsman of Gor in 1966, and the 'legend' begins...

Why the Art of Gor? Well, why not. I mean, I could title this piece ‘The Art of Boris Vallejo’, but that just isn’t as much fun. You could also go with ‘The Art of BDSM’ but I’m afraid of where Google would link me.

Anyway, The Art of Gor is apt because I’ve never read a book by John Norman, but as an avid reader and hardcore gamer, I can hum a few bars of what Gor is about, as anyone could if you’d ever seen one of these book’s covers.

The more famed covers of the first seven novels [in the original DelRey/Ballantine editions] were done by Boris Vallejo. Vallejo, in most circles considered the greatest of the Frazetta clones, hammered out resounding images of male dominance in a bleak world. These images rise out of the late 60s, and I see them as showing what I would consider the pinnacle of Vallejo’s raw talent before the artist’s mastery turns into something with less anima.

Each cover is so powerful, so primal, that as I look over them I’m moved to the world in which they take place. I feel the dread, the strength, and the dry heat of it all. That, for those of you scoring at home equates to Vallejo/FTW.

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Solitaire Adventure with Victory Point Games

Solitaire Adventure with Victory Point Games

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astra1This February I sat down with a copy of the excellent solitaire game Astra Titanus and shared the review with Black Gate web site readers.

Astra Titanus wasn’t the only great looking game in the Victory Points Games stable, but it’s taken me a while to clear my schedule so that I could try out some more of their products.

Today I’m going to introduce you to two more, one which puts you in command of what is arguably the most famous submarine in history, Captain Nemo’s Nautilus, and the other which pits you against a horde of fantastic creatures assaulting your castle.

Be warned! You may not return alive!

Well, okay, YOU will, but you might lose the game.

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Art of the Genre: Maps and World-Building

Art of the Genre: Maps and World-Building

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MERP made a map that started it all for me, and Tolkien only explored about a quarter of it!
MERP made a map that started it all for me, and Tolkien only explored about a quarter of it!

Way back in the day, I remember collecting I.C.E.’s Middle-Earth Role-Playing Game. If anyone ever bought those initial MERP supplements, they know that I.C.E. put a photo collection of what products were available on the back [much like TSR listed their products series on the backs of their early modules]. I was young, probably thirteen of fourteen at the time, and didn’t have much money, but I went out and collected everything represented on the back except three things, two of which were the campaign modules, Umbar Haven of the Corsairs and The Court of Ardor in Southern Middle Earth. Both were VERY early in the production line, probably out of print before I even started collecting, and the final piece was the MERP map set. Years later, I managed to purchase both Umbar and Ardor [actually my wife bought me Ardor after my first professional sale], but even though I’ve studied the image on that back cover a hundred times, and longed for the map beneath, I’ve never laid hands on a copy. The concept of that map laid the groundwork for my love of cartography and maps in general.

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Vincent N. Darlage Reviews Blackdirge’s Dungeon Denizens

Vincent N. Darlage Reviews Blackdirge’s Dungeon Denizens

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blackdirge1I’ve had the privilege of reviewing several excellent supplements from Goodman Games over the years, but this particular one somehow slipped by me. Fortunately, Vincent N. Darlage provided a wonderful review of it in Black Gate #14, making the case that this supplement is superior to the official D&D 4th edition Monster Manual:

Blackdirge’s Dungeon Denizens

Aeryn Rudel
Goodman Games (144 pages, hardcover, $24.99)
Reviewed by Vincent N. Darlage

Laid out in easy to read black and white, this book was reminiscent of old school 1st edition AD&D. The artwork was evocative and not overblown like so much modern role-playing art. Dungeon Denizens is well- organized and easier to use than the 4th edition core monster book. The fonts are easier to read, the artwork more interesting, and the monsters are easier to find and understand. In the front, a list of different ways to look up the monsters is offered, giving lists of monsters by origin, type, and by keyword.

The book’s full of good stuff. The monsters are interesting and come with more background and information than the core monster book offers. One of my biggest complaints about the core book is the lack of information – this book has information in spades and is a real top notch effort. I could see these monsters in games I might run.

Aside from not knowing (or really caring) who or what Blackdirge is, I found this a superior monster volume. If I were to stick with 4th Edition, I would probably use this book more often than the core book. It has my unqualified recommendation.

Art of the Genre: The DM Screen

Art of the Genre: The DM Screen

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When it comes to RPG art, there’re certainly a good number of pieces that will stick out in player’s minds for any number of reasons. Some of us remember images we based characters off of, some fell in love with representations of beautiful women, and others used specific books so much that the cover images turned into old friends.

The beginning of everything great in a gamer's life
The beginning of everything great in a gamer's life

Still, I believe that there is one particular set of RPG images that wedge themselves heavily in the mind of ALL gamers, and those are found on the reverse side of DM Screens. I don’t care what generation or edition of the game you’ve played, as a player you’ve spent countless hours staring at the art on those screens.

Truly, even if you’re not an ‘art guy,’ you’ve managed to study details in the images on those screens you’d never have noticed otherwise. The characters depicted are memories burned into your subconscious like a kind of Pavlovian conditioning, even a glance at those images giving rise to the urge to game no matter how many years you’ve been away from the table.

I started playing D&D Basic, which of course had no screens, but when I met my oldest gaming friend, Mark, I was introduced to a DM’s screen for the first time and the rest is history.

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Vincent N. Darlage reviews Age of Cthulhu: Death in Luxor

Vincent N. Darlage reviews Age of Cthulhu: Death in Luxor

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gmg7001coverlargeIf you’re in the mood for some good horror encounters with the dark forces of the Great Old Ones, then the new Age of Cthulhu line from Goodman Games may be of interest.  Vincent Darlage reviewed the first installment in this set of game modules. (Links to other Cthulhu resources at the bottom of this post.)

Age of Cthulhu: Death in Luxor

by Harley Stroh
Goodman Games (48 pp. Softcover, $12.99)
Reviewed by Vincent N. Darlage

This time, intrepid investigators are on the hunt for things man was not meant to know in Egypt, rather than Arkham or Dunwich – a nice change, so far as I’m concerned. A Lovecraftian horror is locked beneath Luxor in Egypt, and is unleashed, bringing with it a new era of darkness that will blast all of mankind, unless the intrepid player characters can stop it. The adventure is heavily focused on investigation, not on combat, which was nice to see.

The finding of the clues and the free-form nature worked well for me; Luxor doesn’t seem to railroad the players much, if at all. I especially liked the investigation summary on page four. The summary goes through each scene and lays out in a few sentences what is revealed and where it leads. For a free-form adventure, this is essential as it details which scenes have which clues. More adventures need to do things like this. …

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