We're experiencing some power outages here in MN, which needless to say, made the rpgobjects.com and Tiamat servers inaccessibly for a time today and last night. It's all back up now, lets hope for good.

I just sent a coupon to the RPG Coupon google group for Post-Apocalypse^20 for $3. You can still get the coupon by Joining the group.

Gencon 2010 has come and gone. The Monday after is always a hard day. It's like a bad hangover. I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation. :)

I intended to run 4 events. Unfortunately only 2 went off as planned. The Thursday event of Abandon All Hope event didn't have enough players, which isn't uncommon on Thursday when people are still scrambling to get into the convention. On Friday my Darwin's World event had an overflow of people. The 6 players graciously allowed 2 extra players (total 8) to join and fun was had by all. On Saturday I was set to run both events again. Happily the Abandon All Hope had enough players. I was worried because of Thursday. It went well and I had great players. However, the afternoon Darwin's World event didn't run again due to lack of players. I was a little shocked and dismayed by this. The Saturday afternoon event is normally the first to sell out and I always have extra players waiting to take the spots of no shows. I don't know what to think about that. It did make me question running future events.

From a consumer perspective, I purchased 2 expansions for Neuroshima Hex, a board game I picked up last gencon that I have really enjoyed. I also picked up Cyclades, a very fun boardgame about Greek gods and creatures. It's got a lot of great plastic miniatures, clever rules, and it's not too long.

There were other things that caught my eye that I didn't buy. Two Games Workshops licensed boardgames from Fantasy Flight: Horus Hersey and Chaos in the Old World. Not to mention Death Watch RPG from same company. The DC RPG from Green Ronin book was also pretty, but I'll probably grab the electronic version.

I didn't think it was possible, but the WOTC booth seemed to get even smaller. Maybe it was the same size, but I didn't even noticed it my first time though the hall.

Overall it was a great time as usual.

I'm off to Gencon 2010.

I've uploaded the Pregenerated characters for the 2010 gencon adventure, Return to the Feeding Grounds.

I'm very excited to announce a totally new RPG in the works from RPGObjects, Abandon All Hope. Abandon All Hope is a sci-fi horror role-playing game that takes place on a megalithic prison starship. It was created by Dominic Covey, the creator of our beloved Darwin's World setting.

Play Abandon All Hope @Gencon
There no ETA yet on the release date, but if you're attending GenCon, I'll be running some play testing sessions of the introductory adventure, Seeds of Rage.

Game ID	Title	Game System	Start Time	Duration
RPG1011134	Seeds of Rage	Abandon All Hope	08/05/2010 01:00:00 PM	4
RPG1011135	Seeds of Rage	Abandon All Hope	08/07/2010 10:00:00 AM	4

I updated Tiamat today. The changes are relatively small for the UI, but I had a few backend issues to address as well. I added auto save and a "select tile after placement" options. Both are managed through a settings windows.

The "select tile after placement" option is straightforward. The auto save feature will save your currently opened map periodically to a map called AUTO SAVE.

I wanted to make an adjustable tile palette size, but it proved to problematic for a number of reasons. So I moving on to other items and will revisit it later (i.e. multi tile selection).

AGA X-2 Particle Beam rifle

Produced by Act of God Armaments, the AGA X-2 particle beam rifle is a directed energy weapon which fires electrons at near-light speeds to impact on targets with nearly 1 gigajoule of kinetic energy. The speed at which this weapon fires and the resultant force renders modern ballistic armor nearly useless. While a potentially devastating weapon, the AGA X-2 has its share of problems.

The weapon has to recharge after it is fired, a process that takes 2 rounds.  Additionally, some models are prone to overcharging which can result in  atomic explosions. Any time snake eyes is rolled on a Shooting attack the weapon's energy cartridge has reached critical mass and will explode within 1d4 rounds, doing  3d10 damage to everything in a large burst template. The cartridge can be ejected and thrown, providing the character has time to do so.

·         Range: 10/20/40

·         ROF: 1

·         Hydrogen cells provide 10 shots before needing to be replaced.*

·         Takes 2 rounds to recharge before it can be fired again.

·         2d10 damage

·         AR 4

·         Military weapon. Not available on the open market.

I pushed a fairly big update to Tiamat today. 95% of what I want done for Beta is complete. If you login to Tiamat, many of the changes won't be initially apparent or accessible. Many features are disabled (basically anything that would cost money). Those elements will be enabled when I officially go into Beta with the next update (which should come soon).

But don't fret, there are still some new things to do. Other than bug fixes and UI tweaks, you can now export a Thumbnail Map. A Thumbnail map is a small map (10 dps) at a low resolution (72 dpi) for use on websites. These types of maps can be exported for FREE. Paid maps (adventure or miniature scale) will be exported in the same way.

So play with the new update and let me know what you think. Beta coming as soon as I finish up a few technical and non technical issues.