Robot Viking

Good day everyone.  As a publisher the one thing I hear over and over again that customers want is print book, yet more and more PDF books come to market and never become a print book. If you’ve ever wondered why that is, this post is going to attempt to answer that for you.

This morning I received just about the coolest press release ever. It was a statement from the forces of Phyrexia themselves explaining their utter domination of the Mirrans in the Mirrodin Pure/New Phyrexia war.

Wizards releases the latest set in the Duel Decks series this week, with the white (and slightly green) Knights taking on the extremely red dragons in a classic fantasy showdown.

This week’s Miniature of the Week comes courtesy of Alex Smith, purveyor of the Sketchy McMinipaints mini painting blog. Alex does a great job working vivid colors into his paint schemes and has a very distinctive style.

As a publisher, I don’t have a lot of time. Much of my available time is taken up with writing new material. But I always make sure to take the time to read other material.

In the amateur division, we have a gallery of minis painted by Michael Mallen to represent the PCs in his 4E D&D campaign. These minis not only look great, they show how you can improve the look of your paint jobs by learning a few simple techniques.

This week’s entry in the professional division comes courtesy of On the Lamb Games’ Brushfire, a tactical war game featuring anthropomorphized animal warriors.

Long time Robot Viking readers may recall a feature we had in the early days of the site called Miniature of the Week. Where did it go, and why is it back? And is it, in fact, all new and better than ever?

Today, an article by Uri Kurlianchik was posted to the official D&D Tutorials Archive. Titled “D&D Kids: Punishment,” the article has ignited a fierce controversy among D&D players and parents for suggesting that in-game punishments are necessary for dealing with unruly children.

Five years ago, gaming industry veteran Wolfgang Baur decided to create an independent game company with an interesting business model. He called the company Open Design. Using the patronage model, in which customers pay into a fund to support projects they want to see go to print, Open Design has enjoyed five years of success. [...]

Greetings! This week, the GAMA Trade Show is going on in Las Vegas, Nevada so let’s start with a look at what a gaming trade show is like.

I’m happy to introduce a brand new regular column here at Robot Viking, the Brazer Bulletin by Jon Brazer Enterprises publisher Dale McCoy. He’ll be giving you an interesting look at life as an independent game publisher.

Wizards of the Coast recently announced the fall 2011 set, which will be called Innistrad. Why have they announced it already when they haven’t even told us the name of the third Scars of Mirrodin set, which will be coming out in May? And why am I so excited about Innistrad?

Even though Dungeons and Dragons evolved from tabletop wargaming, it has never really been easy to implement large scale combats in a D&D game. Likewise lower level ‘monsters’ like city guardsmen eventually become so weak that they are little more than speed bumps for high level adventurers. This has never sat well with me so [...]