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While at the GAMA Trade Show, Don had a chance to sit down with Phil Lacefield Jr. about several aspects of the industry. Apart from trying to make a couple of predictions, we mostly talked about the Origins Awards. You will be able to vote on the Origins Awards at Origins in Columbus, Ohio. Phil Lacefield Jr. has been an active sales manager, marketing guru, writer, line editor, designer and layout guy for game companies such as Agents of Gaming, US Playing Card Co., Journeyman Press, Score Entertainment, Reaper Miniatures and many more. In 2001 (against the advice of his therapist) he founded Sacred Cheese Productions in order to consult on issues of sales and marketing to game companies big and small. SCP also runs the legendary Origins-To-GenCon caravan every year. In February of 2006, Phil took the plunge and moved to Seattle to take up the mantle of Sales Manager for Paizo Publishing. Now safely ensconced in his mountain hideaway, Phil continues to obsess over his precious Saab collection, dote on his precious tropical fish tanks and insists on wearing a full kilt on random occasions.

Derek had the long awaited opportunity to talk to Aaron Williams at the GAMA Trade show. We have all been fans of Aaron s work for a long time. You have probably seen it on a variety of products but most directly from Nodwick, Full Frontal Nerdity, and Ps228. As always, it was a great visit. Aaron is someone we will always look forward to seeing again. Find more about Aaron at nodwick.com Aaron Williams first cartoon was published in Dragon magazine in 1989. He was 19 years old, and it was drawn on typing paper with a flair-tipped pen. He's come a long way since then. His work has been published in Dragon Magazine, Dungeon Magazine, and Amazing Stories. While starting his career in cartooning, he worked as an artist for Southwestern Bell Yellow Pages. In 2000 he took a leap and decided to take the Nodwick cartoon strip he'd created and turn it into a comic book. It's the story of a henchman used and abused by his companions on their many quests to save the world, find treasure, and right the wrongs done by evil. His latest efforts are to be found both in print and all over the internet. Ps238 is a comic book that also publishes pages on the web at ps238.com. It's an all-ages look at the first public school for the children of superheroes. Full Frontal Nerdity is a webcomic about four guys (one represented by a webcam) who delve into all things geeky, including role-playing games, movies, TV, and whatever else the elite classes of fandom are into these days. Crispygamer.com hosts his strip, Backward Compatible. Primarily centering on video games, the cast includes the CrispyGamer staff, their writers, and anyone who has an impact on what happens when you press a start button. When not cartooning or surfing the web blog-fodder, Aaron is often dragged out into the sunlight by his loving wife to both broaden his horizons and prevent his transformation into a Morlock.

We welcome Anthony Gallela to todays show and get involved in a lot of conversation about the benefits of the Game Manufacturer s Association. We had a great time at the GAMA Trade show. You can expect to see the seminars posted very soon. Anthony has been involved in gaming in one way or another for some 30 years. He started by playing D D, Avalon Hill, and SPI games in elementary school. In high school, Anthony played just about every game he could find; and began running gaming events at Sci-Fi cons. In his late teens, Anthony moved on to running whole game programs at Sci-Fi conventions, and was playtesting games as well. In 1993, Anthony published the Theatrix diceless role-playing game with some pals under the banner of Backstage Press, and in 1994, he started running the ManaFest game convention in the San Francisco Bay Area with Japji Khalsa. He also helped to open an manage a retail store in the Bay Area in the mid-90s. Since then he has been running conventions, writing articles for gaming publications, consulting on game design, brokering games, and designing board games. Anthony has worked for GAMA since 2001, and as the Executive Director for GAMA, he oversees the running Origins Game Expo, GAMA Trade Show, and several industry programs. He still runs ManaFest, now called KublaCon, and he is the co-designer of Dwarven Dig!, with Japji Khalsa, from Kenzer and Co.

We were very excited to have arranged a meeting with Skip Williams. He had an impact on many years of our lives. Skip is a co-owner in Crystal Unicorn Enterprises where you can find his forums. A bunch of his and Penny s work can be found in the Vicious Venues Archive. He also mentions some fiction in Time Twisters. Apart from today s show, you can learn more about Skip Williams in an entertaining interview with Monte Cook. Skip Williams professes a love of old things, such as classic Hollywood movies, musty old books, vintage airplanes, his wife, Penny, and the century-old farmhouse he shares with her-though not necessarily in that order. Skip has numerous role-playing game credits, and has dabbled in many other things. Skip pens the Ask the Kobold feature in Kobold Quarterly and has recently completed a work for Dungeon Magazine. When not contriving dire plots to bedevil role-players, Skip putters in his vegetable garden and orchard (which keep many deer and rabbits fed), and works to reclaim the fields around the farmhouse from the obstinate weeds that blanket them. He also paints toy soldiers. The Williams house is the site of an annual Christmas cookie bake that draws friends from both sides of the Atlantic; it s also the permanent home to a growing pride of unruly housecats.

Martin Wallace has been designing some outstanding game titles since the mid 90s. Some you will recognize include La Strada, Runebound, Age of Steam, and Struggle of Empires. His work can be seen on the shelves from several different publishers, including his own company, Warfrog Games. He loves to work with historical themes and has an educational background which inspires some great conversation in today s show. The game that got the most attention today was Toledo. It is scheduled for release in June of 2008. In keeping with Martin s love of historical themes, we work in 17th century Toledo, Spain to gather the right resources and have the finest and most beautiful swords crafted to present to the emperor. Toledo sounds like a dangerous place where protecting your honor may require some swordplay. We will be looking closer at Toledo very soon.

We have been looking forward to talking to Guido Teuber and Gavin Allister of Catan, LLC. We have been enjoying a variety of games at PlayCatan for a while now and now have the chance to let Guido and Gavin share them with you. We even have some links to share with you to download the Catan Online beta clients so you can start playing today. Guido Teuber grew up in the world of Catan as a subject of playtesting for his father, Klaus Teuber, and later to take on roles inside the company of this successful line of games. He is now a managing director for Catan, LLC, the United States wing of the Catan World. Gavin got his start in the Catan world by translating German for us English speaking folk and now serves as the community manager for the online world. Apart from Catan Online that you play in, we also talked about several web games. The popular one is Catan Dice Game, which is also about to be released as a physical product. You can also play Oceania, Starship Catan Light and Multicatan. They ll give you a challenge and a brief break, and a chance to sample the games before buying their physical counterparts. Make sure to join us for the Catan Online world with these clients below. Remember, this is a beta version. It is playable and an absolute blast, but you may find a few lingering translation errors. Enjoy, and we will see you inside the world of Catan. for Windows (Windows 2000 / XP / Vista) - includes the Card Game for Mac OS X (for PPC / Intel // 10.4 Tiger / 10.5 Leopard) - does not yet include the Card Game for Linux / UNIX (requires J2SE 5, J2SE 6 recommended) - does not yet include the Card Game

Today we have the honor if sitting down with Wolfgang Baur. Wolfgang is responsible for the Open Design project and Kobold Quarterly. If you are missing the fun and adventure adventure of Dungeon and Dragon magazine, subscribe to Kobold Quartery. Wolfgang also mentions his Open Design blog as a good place to visit for more information. Wolfgang Baur has been kicking around the tabletop RPG field for 15 years, and he joined TSR as a magazine editor back in the early 90s. He edited both Dragon and Dungeon for a while, and worked at Wizards of the Coast for several years before going freelance. Wolfgang has written settings like Dark*Matter and contributed to Planescape, but he s best known for his many adventures from Al-Qadim to Pathfinder to Kingdom of the Ghouls and a recent ENnie-nominee. Now he s setting his sights on changing how D D adventures are written and published. Let s call him a mild-mannered revolutionary with his sights set on giving gamers direct access to the tools of design. During the course of today s show, we also mention The Cannon Puncture Show and The Tome. Each have recently talked to Wolfgang. We also found him on Gamer Radio Zero. Be sure to visit them for more of the Kobold Cheif.

We are joined today by Joseph Goodman. We dove into some new business with 4th edition Dungeons Dragons and quite a bit about coming releases such as GM Gems, Eldritch, and Haiiii Ya! Post show discussion continues on an explain it to your mom discussion where Jeremiah credits Fear the Boot for some great explanations of role-playing games. Joseph Goodman founded Goodman Games in 2001. He is the creator of the Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure modules, author of DragonMech, and publisher of too many products to keep track of. He lives in Chicago, IL with his wife and dog, where he spends his spare time reading, writing, and fighting. His amateur boxing record is 2-0.

A native of the kudzu-covered hills of north Georgia, Jamie Chambers began playing role-playing games at the age of seven - cutting his teeth on the red box set of Dungeons Dragons. A few years later (and an upgrade to Advanced ), he ran his very first campaign for fellow sixth-graders: the original Dragonlance modules. A few years later he began playing science-fiction, using a homebrew modification of Traveller called the Space Dungeon. Jamie played a young mechanic on a beat-up old spaceship making cargo and smuggling runs, the crew managing to get into trouble wherever they went. Years later, Jamie is still involved with both fantasy and science-fiction gaming. He now works as the Vice President of Margaret Weis Productions (overseeing the Dragonlance role playing line, the Serenity Role Playing Game, and the upcoming Battlestar Galactica Role Playing Game). He also has authored game products for Wizards of the Coast, Elmore Productions, and Fast Forward Entertainment, and wrote articles for Dragon Magazine, Games Unplugged, and Campaign Magazine. Jamie contributed to Search for Power and Dragons in the Archives, two fiction anthologies published by Wizards of the Coast, and also wrote the appendices to the books in the Dark Disciple Trilogy by Margaret Weis. Jamie is currently hard at work overseeing two companies and their respective game lines, developing new projects both in games and fiction. He lives in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin (the birthplace of hobby roleplaying games) with his wife, Renae, and three children: Melanie, Elizabeth, and Alexander.

Dave Arneson joins us and has some great stories to tell. With Dave being the co-founder of Dungeons Dragons, you might expect that we would inquire about the origins and role-playing. You would be correct, but we are even more interested in what Dave is doing now. He teaches game design (one of our favorite subjects) at a school in Florida called Full Sail. He frequently makes it home for the holidays in Jeremiah s neck of the woods where they might run into each other at a popular game store called The Source. Dave proudly runs the longest role-playing campaign in the world. It helps that he is the father of the hobby. You can participate in the massively mutliplayer version and get the core books through his company, Zeitgeist Games. Apart from Blackmoor, zeitgeist specializes in computer game design.

We are joined today by Jess Hartley as we partake in the activities of a regular game day at the Espresso Art Cafe in Tucson, Arizona. Our visit was absolutely spectacular. We talked about everything from her freelance work with white wolf to her new life in a beautiful southern Arizona town called Bisbee. She is the creator of Forsoothly Spoken, a regular feature with Renaissance Magazine, which also publishes many of her articles and book reviews. Her first novel, In Northern Twilight, was a Runner-Up for Pen Paper s 2004 Fan Awards in the category of Best RPG-Related Novel/Anthology. Jess has co-authored a number of roleplaying games and rpg supplements for White Wolf Game Studio, including Changeling: The Lost, and several projects for the World of Darkness, Mage: The Awakening, Werewolf: The Forsaken, Promethean: The Created, Exalted and Scion game lines. She has edited several roleplaying games, including The Lemurian Candidate written by Andrew Kenrick of SteamPower Publishing, which was nominated for an ENnie in the category of Best Adventure in 2006. She was the developer of World of Darkness: Reliquary and is currently editing Rogue Game s Thousand Suns. A life-long native of the Pacific Northwest, she spent the last few years in New England, and now has been transplanted to Southeastern Arizona, where she dwells with her husband and youngest daughter and a menagerie of other interesting creatures.

We get into a lot of great topics today with Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games, to include some coming new releases of the popular Munchkin series. We had a great time and received a wealth of things to check out over the web. Be sure to visit these links: Sign up to play UltraCorps. You start with one planet to explore and expand to hundreds more. Your opponents will be fighting against you to do the same. Steve Jackson publishes the online ezine, Pyramid. You will also want to listen Fnordcast, for more gaming goodies. The crew at Steve Jackson Games plays Puzzle Pirates. Steve does not hesitate to invite us to play. Make sure to check out the new releases! Steve Jackson, founder and editor-in-chief of Steve Jackson Games, has been playing games for over 30 years, and professionally designing since 1976. Born in Tulsa, he went to high school, and then to Rice University, in Houston. His classroom work was mediocre; he gave most of his attention to the school paper (he was editor for two years) and to late-night wargame sessions - both of which proved far more valuable than the schoolwork! He has survived involvements with the Republican Party (alternate delegate to the 1972 convention), the SCA (former landed baron and co- editor of the first Known World Handboke) and law school (escaping before the bar exam). Steve s first professional design work was for Metagaming, which published his Ogre, G.E.V., Melee, Wizard, and several other games. In 1980, Steve bought The Space Gamer magazine from Metagaming and started his own company. Success was immediate, with his Raid on Iran game. The next year, Steve Jackson Games released Car Wars . . . followed shortly by Illuminati, and later by GURPS, the Generic Universal Roleplaying System. In 1983, he was elected to the Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame - the youngest person ever so honored. He has personally won eleven Origins Awards, and several more have gone to the company at large. In 1990 and 1991, Steve got international press due to the Secret Service s unconstitutional invasion of his office and confiscation of equipments and manuscripts. SJ Games filed suit against the Secret Service and the U.S. government, and won more than $50,000 in damages. Steve remains intermittently active with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in hopes of preventing further intrusions against other computer users. He now spends a good deal of his time helping to manage Steve Jackson Games Incorporated, which at the moment employs 25 people. But he continues to write, as well. His current big hit is Munchkin, a very silly card game about killing monsters and taking their stuff. His current projects include a lot of Munchkin follow-ups, the online game UltraCorps, and the continuing quest to get his games translated into digital form. He likes pirates, Lego, Lego pirates, Kahlua, sushi, and playing games. Steve is a longtime SF fan, and gets away to cons when he can. He writes filksongs (adequately) and sings (very badly). He is a confirmed Internet addict. His other hobbies include gardening, dinosaurs, Lego and tropical fish. In his copious free time, he reads, eats and sleeps.

Today we kick back with Bobby Stickel of Sabertooth Games and have a great time. We talk mostly about Sabertooth s Universal Fighting System. It is a fighting card game where you can pit fighters against each other from popular video games. This system has the coolest prize in gaming. If you win a big event, you can have a tournament legal character card with your likeness on it. It doesn t get much cooler than that. Make sure to get your free demo deck and give it a try for yourself. Bobby is the Head of Marketing Customer Service for Sabertooth Games. He has a hand in promotions, publicity, advertising, organized play, graphic design, sales, and customer service for the Universal Fighting System. His base of operations is down in Memphis, TN where there are lots of games and lots of barbeque, but no games about barbeque!Sabertooth games exclusively serves the core hobby market. The support for their game is outstanding. You can even request a free demo from them. Retailer packages are also available.

Today we kick back with Mike Selinker and have an obvious good time. Some topics include the Guardian 6 events at Gen Con, Cowpoker, drinking, geocaching, curling, Mendel's law, and the suspicious performance by James Earnest. Also, for our fellow Stongehenge fans, we mention the Stonehenge Library. Be sure and pay it a visit to download more games for Stonehenge. Oh, and don t forget the Nocturne Expansion. Mike Selinker is the president of Lone Shark Games, Inc., the design studio behind games like Pirates of the Spanish Main, Stonehenge, and Gloria Mundi. He is the former creative director at Wizards of the Coast, where he helped revitalize Axis Allies, Dungeons Dragons, and the occasional game without an ampersand. His happy crew of mercenaries includes James Ernest, Teeuwynn Woodruff, and many other game creators and hedgehogs. You can check out more at www.lonesharkgames.com. Another of the games in today s discussion was Key Largo. It is 1899 and you have limited time before the hurricane hits to explore as many shipwrecks as you can and sell the found treasure to the locals. It was created Paul Randles and developed by Mike Selinker and Bruno Faidutti. Titanic Games will be releasing the English version in November of 2007. Mike also shares a peek at his and several other contributions to the coming book, Hobby Games: The 100 Best. The top names in the industry choose and share their favorite games and what makes them special. Green Ronin releases the book in August 2007.

It is with great pleasure that we were able to talk to Jeremy Stomberg. With Jeremy s love for games, he is a natural fit for marketing at Fantasy Flight Games. We were able to spend some time with him during the last day of Gen Con to talk about Fantasy Flight and some of their treasures. Tannhouser was talked about at good length. It is an alternate history of 1949 where World War 1 has not ended. Jeremy compares and contrasts it to the coming release of Dust, where World War II hasn t ended and Nazi expeditions are uncovering some remarkable technology making the world a much different and very violent place. From one game to another, the Mutant Chronicles live on. This time, as a collectible miniatures game from Fantasy Flight Games. Its set in a dark and brutal future. Megacorporations war across the terraformed planets of the solar system for resources. This game has caught a lot of attention and is expecting to be on shelves very soon. The big games that had people lining up from around the corner at Gen Con were Tide of Iron and StarCraft. Like all of the big games by Fantasy Flight, these are an impressive armful of quality components. We also had the honor during today s show of announcing our acceptance of the Parsec Award for Best Gaming Podcast. We wish to thank the everyone involved with the Parsec Awards for the recognition, a fabulous ceremony, and their contribution to the podcasting community.

Peter made a special appearance during our podcasting track at Gen Con to subject himself to interview by Jeremiah Lynch and the live audience. We all learned quite a lot, both from and about Peter. He is a jovial and open personality, a successful business man, and a gamer like the rest of us. Peter Adkison has been an avid gamer all his life. He started off playing family games as a child and has never lost his love of games since that time. In 1978, Peter discovered Dungeons Dragons and has been a dedicated player of roleplaying games ever since. His favorite games are Dungeons Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and Formula D. Peter s early educational background was as a graduate of Walla Walla College in 1985 with a BS in Computer Science. After college, he worked for Boeing for six years as a systems analyst. About half way through his Boeing stint, he and some friends founded Wizards of the Coast. After Magic: The Gathering was released in 1993, Wizards had enough money to hire Peter full time and move out of his basement into a real office. Peter continued on as CEO, growing the company exponentially until January 2001 when he sold it to Hasbro. During his tenure at Wizards, Peter earned a few design credits, including authoring of The Primal Order, some work on Magic: The Gathering in the early days, and, his proudest accomplishment, setting the overall direction and design for 3rd Edition Dungeons Dragons. During this time Peter also returned to school to earn his MBA. Since retiring in 2001, Peter made his debut back into the gaming industry by purchasing an entity he always favored-Gen Con a game fair from his old company, Wizards of the Coast. Gen Con, LLC produces the largest consumer fantasy, sci-fi and adventure game convention in North America. Its' operations include: Gen Con Indy, Star Wars Celebration IV, and licensees for European and Asia Pacific Gen Con shows. In addition, Peter is CEO of Hidden City Games the creator, manufacturer and marketer for the gaming industries first throwing game-Clout and an innovative new card game for girls with an electronic component called Bella Sara. When not gaming, Peter enjoys rock climbing, dancing, snowboarding, travel, and spending time with friends and family. Peter is married to Melissa Reis Adkison and lives in Seattle.

Today we step back again to Origins to talk to Daniel Rowen. Dan has spent the last few years building up Playroom Entertainment to the success it is today. We had a great time visiting about how he and his company has grown, and what the industry can do to continue to grow the market. Playroom Entertainment has a variety of games for all ages. Some of the values that came out while talking to Dan include the quality family time their games contribute to, and the importance of embedding learning opportunities into fun activities like games. One of the new releases for this month is the Onyx Booster Deck for Killer Bunnies. This has been one of the wild successes of playroom entertainment. Keep as many of your bunnies alive as you can while arming your bunnies to assault your rivals. Another game we are looking forward to taking a closer look at is Portobello Market. Dan tells us it has the strategic intensity of a train game, but still plays very differently. You are competing to build market stalls in the best locations you can in London s Portobello Market. Another title that was just released is Unspeakable Words. It has a familiar element of score counting for building words, but introduces the insanity we know and love from everything Cthulhu. The trick is to win this game before going completely mad!

Today we visit with Michael Gray. Mike is a senior director of new product acquisition for Hasbro. He gives us a peak at the things Hasbro is looking for in a game, and what he is looking for in his personal collection. Mike had also spent some time working for TSR and has designed several of his own titles.

During the course of Origins, Don had a chance to talk to Rick Loomis. Rick is the president of the Game Manufacturer s Association (GAMA) and his own company, Flying Buffalo. Flying Buffalo is responsible for Tunnels and Trolls, Lost Worlds, Nuclear War, and those board game box bands that come in so handy. Among other things, GAMA is responsible for Origins and the good time we had there. A sizable focus of today s interview was about play by mail games (PBM) of which flying buffalo has a few. In fact, the origins award for the best play by mail/email game of the year went to Starweb. Victory conditions vary based on the motives your character is given at the beginning of the game, but as you may guess it is based in space. This is one you can try for free for a while.

We are delighted to have the head(s) of Mayfair Games join us and give us some insight to their company and their lives. After Will Niebling s recent retirement, Pete Fenlon will step into the role of CEO. Larry Roznai will continue as president, and Bob Carty will take on more responsibility but remain in his role of Sales Marketing Director. The three of them share some about their coming initiatives and expose their sense of humor to us in today s show. One of the titles that was brought up that has not yet been mentioned on any of our shows is Silverton. It is one of the games that get some favoritism by most of the Mayfair guys and looks like something we would like to check out ourselves. Its a rail and mining game set in historic Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. Several web sites were brought up to include mayfairgames.com, universityofcatan.com, klausteuber.com, and catanonline.com.

We continue our discussion with Mike Stackpole, touching a lot more on gaming this time. We start with the industry watch committee and learn about how games have been defended against the misunderstandings that have occurred over the years. Some additional links include: We refer to The Pulling Report, written in 1990 to address the public attacks Patricia Pulling made against Dungeons Dragons. Make certain to listen to Fortress Draconis. The music for Fortress Draconis was written by Nuada. Mike also hosts The Secrets Podcast and co-hosts on Cover to Cover. Some hosting friends of Mike include the folks at KatAlley.com. He also credits the sound engineer for his podcast, Jamie Jordan.

This week Don is invited into the home of Michael A. Stackpole to discuss a range of topics from podcasting and gaming to Mike s writing career. Mike has been a huge help and inspiration for many of us and it is with great pleasure we are able to share him with you today. Mike will be helping us again by organizing a podcasting booth at Origins (booth 123), so be sure to stop by and visit us there! Mike has written a number of best sellers and won a variety of awards. A lot of these are listed on his web site where you will also find novels in the universes of BattleTech and Star Wars, and others that are mentioned during the show. He has just finished The New World: Book Three in The Age of Discovery . Mike hosts The Secretes Podcast on how to write and just started co-hosting the Dragon Page s Cover to Cover with news and reviews in sci-fi literature. One of Mike s most recent works include the podcasting of his novel, Fortress Draconis (The DragonCrown War Cycle, Book 1). We are enjoying this novel and invite you to listen along with us. The wild lands are quite a challenge for a young thief that has never been outside of the city. The theme and bridge music was written by Nuada.

Today, Don heads heads off to the offices of Alderac Entertainment Group in Ontario, California to talk to AEG s president, John Zinzer. After the interview he sits down to join the group in a round of playtesting to look at some new products that have never been seen before outside of the offices of AEG. John Zinzer started in the industry by joining up with Jolly Blackburn to step Shadis magazine up into the professional arena. They later pursued their own paths, each very successful. John kept with AEG to make Legend of the Five Rings a huge success. They continue to support great games, a passionate fan base, and their retail partners with great care and programs that set AEG above other publishers. After being in the industry for several years, John felt compelled to design a game from start to finish and is succeeding quite marvelously. We were honored to play it with everyone at AEG and make the first public announcement. Tomb is a card playing adventure game with countless encounter combinations and a race for treasure and edgy risk management. You can always pull more help from eager adventurers in the tavern if you don t think you have enough to take on the crypts yourself. It was entertaining for everyone at the table and will certainly be joining us on our game nights when it hits the shelves.

We spent some time with Kenzer Company at GTS, specifically Jolly Blackburn and Mark Plemmons. In today s interview we spend our time focused on a role-playing game that we cannot wait to get our hand on. Aces Eights is a western frontier role-playing game we have been waiting several years for. It has a unique gunfighting system using silhouettes and a target overly to track shot location and near misses. We also learn how to make a long lasting campaign in such a deadly environment. This one is certainly going to make it to our game table.

While at the GAMA trade show we spent some more time with the folks at Paizo Publishing. In this episode Derek interviews Erik Mona. It looks like Paizo will remain strong in the game with a list of impressive innovations. Erik has been the Editor in Chief of Dragon Magazine for some time now and will now be moving on to to other projects. He is excited about Paizo s future, and rightfully so. Listen for a long list of products that will be coming very soon. The most attention during the discussion was given to of Pathfinder. This is a new monthly 96-page, perfect-bound, OGL-compatible full-color softcover Adventure Path book printed on high-quality paper for use with the world s most popular roleplaying game. The Critical Hit Deck was just released and was being shown off at the show. It is certainly a very fun and useful tool. If you are fortunate to have a local game store to support be sure to ask for it there, otherwise you can get it directly from Paizo.

While at the GAMA Trade Show, Derek ran into Aldo Ghiozzi, the owner of Impressions Advertising and Marketing. Impressions is responsible for GameBuyer Magazine, a resource for Retail Stores. They have now just launched Free RPG Day. We are really excited and can t wait to visit our local retailer to get our hands on these goodies! Free RPG Day is based off of the Free Comic Book Day model. Publishers provide product to you for free through participating retail stores. This has taken off to a huge start and will undoubtedly be much bigger next year. Listen to hear what publishers are participating.

A lot of excitement is going on now at Paizo Publishing. We have learned about the cease of publication of Dungeon and Dragon magazines and their many new products to hit the shelves in the next few months. We will continue to hear more about these new products in coming episodes, but today we start with Stonehenge: An Anthology Board Game. Stonehenge is in one box with one set of pieces but with five unique set of rules designed by five game designers. These include an Arthurian showdown by Richard Borg, a monumental fire sale by James Ernest, a druidic election by Bruno Faidutti, a magical convocation by Richard Garfield, and an alien chariot race by Mike Selinker. We all mourn the loss of Dungeon and Dragon magazines, but Paizo will carry on with the same class they always have with the GameMastery products, the Titanic Games line, as well as the new pathfinder that we will hear more about soon.

Today we are treated to the company of Marcelo Figueroa. He gives us some insight to a few games and the unique experiences they offer. Aside from the games, Marcelo also gives us a glance at the business and what it takes to take the games to market. Marcelo found his way into the game industry by volunteering for demo teams. He wrote reviews for a while giving us reason to ask for his advise on the subject. Now, he is the Marketing Director for Alderac Entertainment Group. AEG has a wide selection of games but today s discussion leads us more toward Legend of the Five Rings and Warlord.

Don s trip to Games Expo in Las Vegas rewarded him to a visit with Klaus and Guido Teuber. After the exhibition hall closed down on Monday we sat in the Mayfair Games booth and talked about their game designing experience and and their quality visit in the U.S.. The strength in their family really shines through in the interview as well as the great games they have developed together. Catan has had a significant impact on board games, rivaling the old classics and making its way into homes across the world. It is stretching now into various electronic mediums such as the one mentioned in this show. If you haven t made your way to playing this game the time is right to catch up with us.

Don is walking the floor now at Games Expo 2007 gathering more information you will be hearing over the next few weeks. In today’s presentation we will visit with a number of influential members of our industry. We fist talked to Mark Simmons. Mark announced this show 18 months ago and been working hard since, not for just this moment but for the investment into the industry. A central purpose of the show was to bring all types of socially interactive games under one roof. Dr. Toy is a leading expert in the healthy applications of children’s toys and games and author of the book Smart Play Smart Toys: How to Raise a Child with a High PQ. She was very supportive of the initiatives here at the show with her participation and comments. Klaus Teuber and Guido Teuber spent much of the show in the Mayfair Games booth and were an absolute joy to visit with. We were able to get their impressions and hear their experiences at the show and in Las Vegas. Peter Adkison shared his thoughts on the show and has given us some special news about this year’s Gen Con you will want to hear. In addition he shared with us a game for our daughters called Bella Sara. It has a fantasy horse theme and will certainly be a hit among the girls. We want to give a special thanks to Mark and everyone that took the time to visit with us. Every interview was a reminder to why we do our podcasts and are so committed to spreading the good word of gaming.