Offworld Report - RPGs and Games: November 2003

A look at The 1920s Investigator's Companion, Werewolf: the Dark Ages, Viking Age, and Stargate SG-1 the role-playing game, plus the question is posed: is live roleplaying on its last legs? Perish the thought.

November's news and content roundup of all that is worthy and good in the world of RPGs, roleplaying and gaming, found living offworld the 'Nest.

Game Design 101
An interview witth Jesse Schell, the lecturer of the Game Design course at Carnegie Mellon University.

LARP RIP?
Is live action roleplaying now just a corpse waiting to be buried?

The 1920s Investigator's Companion
Chaosium Inc's latest product comes under the spotlight, and the reviewer finds a good sourcebook gone wrong.

Tell me that Tale again Dad
Look at the importance of story arcs in decent game design.

Stepping on the Ant
RPG firm Dead Ant Games - creators of the cool RPG 'Summer Camp' - get interviewed.

Testament
An interesting look at roleplaying in the Biblical era.

Down and Dusty
Review of Dust Devils, the fantasy RPG set in the Wild West.

Day of the Dinosaurs
The Dinotopia series lands on the X-Box gaming station.

Risus: The Anything RPG
A look at Cumberland Game's new RPG.

Call of Cthulhu
The Lovecraftian rulebook gets a review.

Tri-Stat dX
Guardians of Order's new gaming system that might have profited from a little more hard graft before launch.

Summer of (RPG) Love
Convention reports from Origins and Gen Con 2003.

AquaNox 2: Revelation
An underwater computer-based RPG set in a dark post-apocalyptic future.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten
What a damn scary new rulebook.

Werewolf: the Dark Ages
White Wolf Game Studios's guidebook for the Garou of the Dark Ages. Hear those werewolves howl, baby.

Hopping the Gate
Are you ready for 'Stargate SG-1: The Roleplaying Game'? Lock and load, and get ready to pop some Egyptian-looking MFOs.

Viking Age
Another d20 Sourcebook, this time with a focus on those beer-swilling bad boys from the frozen Norse.

Monstrously Bad Monsters
What not to do when creating monsters for RPGs.

Singing of Ice
George R.R. Martin's 'A Song of Ice & Fire' novels hit the market repackaged as a boardgame.

Going Medieval On Your Ass
Looks at medieval society in Western Europe for fantasy RPGs.

You Stole my Spell!
Why real muggers are now stealing online gamers' virtual valuables.

Don't Pay the Reaper Man
Miniatures including the 'Mantis CAV' from figures firm Reaper.

Child-Friendly Gaming
Forget car-jacking and alien-fragging, Microsoft wants to portray the X-box as a family-friendly tool of education and goodness. Crikes, my trigger finger is twitching already.

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OTHER CONTENT - November 2003

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Chris Moriarty: All in a Spin The science fiction author behind the amazing novel Spin State braves our interviewer's chair. (AUTHOR INTERVIEWS) Offworld Report - SF: November 2003 Interviews with author Wil McCarthy, the cast of Alias, and the Director of Underworld. Plus criticism of this year's Worldcon in Toronto, the return of Dr Who, and a short science fiction history of the Middle East. (NEWS) Offworld Report - Weird Science: November 2003 Martial arts robots hit Asia, the day a meteorite crashed through my roof, China sparks a new space race, and life across the stars: they're now betting on the system 37 Gem . (NEWS) Offworld Report - Comics & Anime: November 2003 X-Men scribe Mark Millar interviewed, the return of the Micronauts, more flipping anthropomorphic animals, plus new G-Saviour, Cowboy Bebop and Melty Lancer. Don't you just love those odd anime titles? (NEWS) Offworld Report - RPGs and Games: November 2003 A look at The 1920s Investigator's Companion, Werewolf: the Dark Ages, Viking Age, and Stargate SG-1 the role-playing game, plus the question is posed: is live roleplaying on its last legs? Perish the thought. (NEWS) Cold Creek Manor The creepy contrivance that takes the form of director Mike Figgis's haunted house hokum Cold Creek Manor definitely wants to develop the goose bump response for its anticipating audience. Unfortunately, this stillborn by-the-numbers movie of terror is reductive and just plods along. (FILM REVIEWS) Kill Bill (Volume One) In the intentionally overwrought and gloriously violent-drenched B-movie actioner Kill Bill Tarantino pours it on thick as he chaotically pays homage to the movie genres that he reveres so deeply - creating a concoction of ubiquitous escapist Asian kung-fu flicks along with a dash of redemptive foreign spaghetti westerns. (FILM REVIEWS) Underworld If a vampire loves a werewolf, where can they set up housekeeping together? Nowhere. At least not in a world where werewolves and vampires have fought for a thousand years. Mark discovers a film of non-stop action and non-start intelligence, with lots of gunplay and the look of The Matrix. (FILM REVIEWS) The Torrid Movies of Torcon Mark brings you his impressions of some interesting upcoming movies based on attending the various trailer shows at Torcon 3, aka 2003's World Science Fiction Convention. (FILM REVIEWS) Does Science Fiction Have to be About the Present? SF author Ken MacLeod has a theory that SF can be more illuminating about the time of its writing than about that of its imagined future. (ARTICLES) Star Trek Enterprise: Anomaly Seeing the episode title "Anomaly" set off a few dozen alarms for our Evan. The title is reminiscent of the lowest form of storytelling we all saw so commonly on Voyager. Did it disappoint? Read on ... (TV REVIEWS) Star Trek Enterprise: Exile This is the first episode of the season that is utterly devoid of any Trip/T'Pol scenes, at least in the romantic sense. Maybe that's one of the reasons our Evan loved it so much. What, no sensual T'Pol scenes? Forgetaboutit. (TV REVIEWS) Star Trek Enterprise: Extinction In "Extinction," a sterile alien race, which is now extinct, creates a metagenic virus that has the effect of changing all other humanoid lifeforms into their own species. As far as originality goes, Evan reckons this episode gets a fairly average grade. (TV REVIEWS) Star Trek Enterprise: Impulse Evan ponders whether this episode indicates that the show's reached a point where a continuing storyline can only go so far before involving the main characters in interesting and personal ways. Why? Well, poor old T'Pol is carted into sickbay, and she's obviously pushed way past the edge of sanity and into the realm of the truly psychotic. (TV REVIEWS) Star Trek Enterprise: Rajiin This ep's premise appeared to be that the Enterprise was to take on a beautiful woman, who would use erotic and hypnotic powers to entice the crew. Evan thought we were in for another variation on "Precious Cargo," but he was pleasantly surprised. (TV REVIEWS)

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