Poison and Remedy

If you know anything about Magic: the Gathering (MtG) then you know there are several ways to win the game.

Over the game’s 15 year history, more and more cards have been printed that say something like, “If you control 1, 2 and 3 and an X, Y and a Z you win the game.” As a result, there are now all sorts of conditional winning effects.  Wizards of the Coast (WotC) even expanded the rules to use conditional effects for not losing the game.  Platinum Angel is a prime example, the card text of which says, “You can’t lose the game and your opponents can’t win the game.” To avoid the obvious confusion when effects interact or contradict with one another and occur simultaneously, there’s a primary rule in the game which states that: “102.3e If a player would both win and lose simultaneously, he or she loses.”  That such a rule is necessary is a sign of how crazy things became.

Online “Table Top” RPG the next big thing?

According to Wizards, the next big thing in Table Top gaming is going ot be online… (Clues have been there since 4th Ed was first mentioned for those of us listening…)

D&DI (D&D Insider) is going to (eventually) present an online “Table Top” where you can use maps and images of your character that you’ll be able to create (also online – also eventually) to play with full character interaction and voice in a 3D environment. Alternatively you’ll be able to print them out and use them in your real pencil and paper table top game if you know any real people to play with…

Going on WotC past performances in the online arena the weasel will remain more than a little skeptical until it can get its paws on the Beta…

Still, the prices look pretty reasonable, forgetting all the cool digital stuff, you get dragon and dungeon magazines thrown in… I like that!

Thanks to Greywulf for the link above…

[Edit: 08/08/08 08:08:08 (ish) For alternative online table tops (some of which may be working already) try here. Thanks to Geek Related for this link...]

Wizards of the Coast kick off a new row over game licencing!

After this announcement about WotC’s new GSL (Game System Licence) there was a bit of furore on various discussion boards. Some things got said by Linae Foster on this particular thread that are pretty worrying regarding the future of OGL products and in fact any other product that small publishers may want to release a D&D 4th Ed version of. There has been a bit of scaremongering and the usual sensationalism over the whole thing (this article on BoingBoing floated through reader at me this morning).

One person has kept a fairly level head about this and hopefully he is right – it is all speculation and rumour and misunderstanding. I can’t see any court upholding claims that publishing the same work under another system violates the GSL; if the original work is the IP (Intellectual Property) of the publisher then they should be free to publish it in any system they please (you can’t copyright a number system / rules system AFAIK). We shall just have to see how it all pans out…

Thanks to glimeral for his post which sifted out all the relevant comments, from Linae Foster and Scott Rouse, in the thread that kicked off most of the fuss…