This week the MMOG Nation Broadcast tackles a subject near and dear to my heart: Shadowrun. While there are no public plans at the moment to develop an MMO based on the Shadowrun IP, I think it’s something that would enrich the spirit of gamers everywhere. The IP, the setting, even the rules all seem custom-fit to what I see as a modern imperative: online massive gaming. Join myself and Mr. Brent Lassi as we talk about what we’d want to see in an SR MMO. We talk design, content, and the likelihood of this game ever reaching market. Check you later, omae.

References:
Official Shadowrun Website
Shadowrun Wikipedia Entry
Why the Shadowrun FPS Sucked
Shadowrun Game Journal

Music:
- Rise, Origa Ft Shanti Snyder, Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig.
- Theme from Wide Angle, Hybrid, Wide Angle.
- Science Friction, Orbital, Snivilisation.
- Antique Toy, Future Sound of London, Dead Cities.
- To Tell the Truth, Yoko Kanno, Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig.
- Gonna Rice, Yoko Kanno, Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig.
- Mirrorshades, Information Society, Hack.
Used without permission.

I’ve been keeping this one under my hat for a while, because I didn’t want to tick off the people at Catalyst Games or my game designer buddy Aaron Pavao. Aaron (a friend for many years) has of late been getting his name into Shadowrun sourcebooks, mostly for playtesting and editing. The upcoming title Unwired, though, bears a big chunk of text written by his meaty hands. All the great content in there about ‘trix Security and a good hunk of the ‘life in the Matrix’ section? That was him. I have a ton of respect for the effort he put in to get there, and my hat is off to him.

I have to give him the respect, too, because (whether my name ends up in the credits or not) I’ve got some words in that book as well. I know it’s not something that shows up much of anywhere, but I’ve actually done a lot of fiction writing over the years. Most of it is on my hard drive or locked away in college projects. In one case I can reference it via an embarrassing high school literary magazine. If you get a copy of the Unwired book, you should know that the quick jots of fiction at the start of the security section and the ‘life in the Matrix’ were written by yours truly.

As if that wasn’t a treat enough, apparently my stuff was enjoyed by other people working on the project. The scene of the security hacker defending her garden from an interloper was re-interpreted from the other side for a section about illegal hacking. The image to the right (the full version of which is a click away) is an artistic vision of the other piece of fiction I wrote, about a young woman seeking escape from a sheltered corporate existence.

It can’t be more than 1000 words in an enormous book, and I didn’t get paid for it. That said, it’s some simple writing I’m smiling about seeing in print.

Been a bit of an unproductive week, for some reasons I’m not going to go into here but did go into on my personal site. Still, I did get two pieces out that you might appreciate.

The Z-Axis: ‘Extending Pure Moments With G&T’ -

So the World of Warcraft thing was interesting but ultimately didn’t offer the kind of traction that Simon was looking for – completely understandable. Instead, I’m going to jump into a weekly/bi-weekly offering about the passtime of gaming in general. This first offering talks about the extension of ‘pure moments’ that games tend towards nowadays. I use the recent Penny Arcade game as an example, because … well, because it’s so good.

This is How I Roll (my d20) -

It’s always fun to talk about pen and paper gaming in a public place. The GWJ guys were nice enough to offer me a place to nestle some words, and so I did. Rabbit seemed to particularly enjoy this: “Running a game isn’t a task I take lightly. Coordinating these strange blends of murder simulator, poker night, and drama club can get hectic.”

So guess what popped into stores today?

That’s right, D&D Fourth Edition is here for realz. I’m incredibly happy for WotC, and tabletop gaming in general. My little nerd-ghetto sport has had a rough time of it the last few years, and this is going to be a great big shot in the arm.

I was lucky enough to write two articles about it for Wired, and it turns out they’ve used them today for launch. I wrote them initially eons ago, but time and fortune delayed their appearance until today:

• New D&D Rolls a 20 for Playability – Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition is a fitting tribute to Gygax and Dave Arneson’s original vision of a game built around a story with few mechanical supports. D&D, when it was first released, was little more than a few dozen pieces of paper stapled together. They were the barest bones of a game system, requiring players and DMs to fill in the blanks to create fun experiences. D&D 4th Edition returns to those early roots by freeing the participants from boring mechanics and petty arguments about rules, by allowing them to focus on what’s truly important. Good story, good friends, rolling dice, having fun. What else could be more important, in the real world or the one of Dungeons & Dragons?
• The Miscast Spell: D&D Insider’s Missed Opportunity – If Wizards of the Coast were serious about breaking open the online tabletop market, it would offer players the opportunity to buy hours at varying rates. For folks who only want to play once a week, a handful of hours would buy them all the time they needed. That’s the typical user, and Wizards would still get a decent amount of money from that transaction. The key is that this type of model includes the other two extremes much better.

Weak sauce this week, and I apologize for that, but whatchagonnado? I played plenty this week but have no video evidence to back it up. Instead, I’m going to offer you the usual sextet of screenshots along with a unique live-action video.

Enclosed, Scary Door-style, is a short clip from a session of the Shadowrun tabletop game … probably circa 2004? This slice of gaming bliss is one of the things I just freaking love – me and a bunch of my friends around a table with some dice. To give you a sense of who is who, when the camera settles down we have the following: directly in front of the camera to the right (the elbow) is Kathleen, further along the table is her husband Brian, at the far end is Ben, out of sight to the left is Alan, directly left of Alan is my wife Katie, and I’m behind the camera.

To set the scene a bit, they’ve just come back from an extended period away from Seattle to find that things have gone badly. Their apartments and vehicles are bugged, people have been ‘checking in’ with acquaintances, and Katie’s character’s mother has gone missing under strange circumstances. That’s about all you need to know; they’ll sort of work through some interesting ideas over the course of the video.

Let me know what you think of this randomness; Hope you’re looking forward to a good weekend.

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Gary Gygax has passed away. The old man didn’t have a lot to do with D&D or tabletop gaming nowadays, but it’s hard to argue with his contribution to that medium or the huge impact Dungeons and Dragons had on videogames.

/salute

Additional: Fitting memorial tributes from all over.

I’m (still) really excited about Dungeons and Dragons Fourth Edition, and so it was a lot of fun getting to arrange an interview with the designers over at Slashdot. If you have any questions you want passed on, go toss em up in a comment!