For the past year or so now, I've been running a role playing game for my son, my nephew, and other boys. We play using the wonderfully customizable Fate Core System rules from Evil Hat. And we play in the world of my Thrones & Bones novels. All the boys have read the books and are well verses in the universe (as, one hopes, is the GM).

We've been playing using the mostly unmodified rules in Fate up until this point, but after we finished our last campaign in November, I've spent my time customizing the rules using some options in the Fate System Toolkit, and the result is something a bit removed from the no-alterations Fate rules. We tried it out last Saturday for the first time. (The differences are mostly in character creation and the use of magic).

Also, for the first time, we played with miniatures and terrain. Fate doesn't require this at all, but I wanted to do something special to fire everyone's imaginations. Initially, I'd planned to use Rainn Studio's utterly magnificent TerraTiles (I have both the Misty Moorlands and the Coast & Rivers sets). And we will use them. But the way this campaign started, the team was supposed to get their marching orders in the elven city of Fair Shadow, a location that is mentioned but not visited in my novel Nightborn . Since I was going to have an amazing terrain set up after they left the city and started their quest, I wanted something to show them when they arrived. I hunted around and I found the incredible Faewood Loft and its expansion set from Heroic Maps . Well, I got a little carried away and ended up printing all the tiles out and gluing them to foam boards. The result was a large battle map of a city in the trees. And having such a large map, I couldn't just use it for five minutes while the characters were given their quest and sent on their merry way. Something obviously had to go down there to justify all this time and effort, right?

So next up, using a female wood elf drawn for me by the incredible Andrew Bosley, and supplementing with some found art, I made my own pawns and populated the city. We added a small number of Paizo's Pathfinder Pawns from the Beginner Box, and we used a ton of Pathfinder Pawn Bases. I picked up some pickle barrels from a craft store (and stained them with paint pens) to add some obstacles to the environment. And, because I saw one and it got me thinking, I picked up a Bunch-o-Butterfies too, because if there's one thing that's better than a crowded market high in the trees in an elven city, it's a crowded market high in the trees in an elven city during the festival surrounding the biannual giant butterfly migration!

The game went incredibly well, with highlights being when Thurso Greenback, a wulver, ran across a giant butterfly's back to get from one wooden platform to the next, and Blitz Ironfist, a dwarven artificer, blasted across the market using his single-use jetpack. Also, Isha the cat person did some crazy parkour.

Ironically, we never made it out of the city in this first session, so I still haven't used the gorgeous TerraTiles from Rainn Studios that inspired me to add terrain and miniatures in the first place. They'll have to wait till our next game. Meanwhile, they were represented at the table by the use of their foam risers, which gave some parts of the city more elevation than others. (Q-workshop's awesome dice tower and Paizo's Pathfinder Combat Pad also aided in play).

But we all had a magnificent time. And that's the point, isn't it?

The 4th and final part of our Atomic Robo actual-play is up at the RPG Gamer Dad Podcast.
This is my final outing as the title character in the fabulous game based on the incredible comic series--one of my all time favorite comics--from Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener. Mike Olson, the creator of Atomic Robo RPG, is the actual GM. Shanna Germain of the fabulous Monte Cook Games is Helen ‘Nightingale’ McAllister. Devon Kelley of the Sharkbone Podcast is Donovan ‘Jack Tarot’ McAllister. And RPG Gamer Dad is Professor Pierson.

Here are links to Part One, Part Two, and Part Three. Check it out!

The RPG Gamer Dad Podcast presents part three of our session of the Atomic Robo: The Roleplaying Game from Evil Hat Productions. I'm playing the title character in the fabulous game based on the incredible comic series--one of my all time favorite comics--from Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener. Mike Olson, the creator of Atomic Robo RPG, is the actual GM. Shanna Germain of the fabulous Monte Cook Games is Helen ‘Nightingale’ McAllister. Devon Kelley of the Sharkbone Podcast is Donovan ‘Jack Tarot’ McAllister. And RPG Gamer Dad is Professor Pierson.

Something unbelievably cool is going on.

RPG Gamer Dad hosts an incredible podcast aimed at playing Role Playing Games with your children. It's become one of my favorite podcasts and required listening every week. He and I are also both becoming great fans of the Fate role playing games from Evil Hat Productions. There are actually two versions of Fate, a quick and easy version called the Fate Accelerated Edition (FAE) and an expanded game known as the Fate Core System. I've played FAE with my family, play testing the forthcoming Young Centurions game that Evil Hat is developing, but I'm looking at the Core System for a possible game set in the world of my Thrones & Bones novels of middle reader fantasy adventure.

Now, RPG Gamer Dad has taken the two main characters from my novel, Frostborn,Karn Korlundsson and Thianna the half-giant, and statted them out according to the Fate Accelerated rules. He and RPG Gamer Boy are going to play a session of FAE for their podcast, using my characters in a new "dream sequence" adventure inspired by my novel Frostborn.

How unbelievably cool is that?

RPG Gamer Dad writes about the experience of crafting characters based on my book on the Mad Adventurers Society today, with much love for both Evil Hat and Thrones & Bones. Check out his informative post.

Meanwhile, for your potential role playing pleasure, I've pulled out his stats for Karn and Thianna and posted them here, along with a troll boss of their own invention named Grunt'k. Happy Gaming!

Today I am participating in a Mind Meld over at SF Signal on the subject of "The Intersection of SF/F Games and Genre Fiction ." A group of science fiction and fantasy authors, including Matt Forbeck, Elizabeth Bear, Myke Cole, and others, discussing the back and forth between gaming and genre fiction writing. Lots of good stuff in the discussion. Please everyone check out the post. You won't be surprised to see that my own response leads off talking about Skyrim.

I am such a great test case for marketers. You see, it never fails that when someone gives me something cool for free, that I then turn around and buy more product. I was geeking out here last week over the Pathfinder Beginner Box, and this week I'm back to geek over my just-purchased Pathfinder Campaign Settin: The Inner Sea World Guide. This is a 320 page, full-color, drop dead gorgeous hardcover detailing the 40+ nations that comprise the world of Golarion's Inner Sea region, along with details on their history, religion, culture, key races, locations, etc... etc... I love maps, I love world-building, I love art, I love big hardcover books full of all of the above.

Here's the official list of the contents:

• Detailed summaries of the player character races native to Golarion, including more than a dozen distinct human ethnicities
• Elaborate gazetteers of more than 40 crumbling empires, expansionist kingdoms, independent city-states, and monster-haunted wildlands of Golarion’s adventure-filled Inner Sea region, with locations perfect for nearly any type of fantasy campaign
• Cultural information and Pathfinder RPG rules covering the 20 core deities of the Inner Sea, plus entries on other gods, demigods, forgotten deities, weird cults, strange philosophies, and more!
• An overview of the Inner Sea’s history, a look at time and space, a discussion of magical artifacts and technological wonders, discussions of important factions and organizations, and hundreds of locations ripe for adventure!
• Tons of new options for player characters, including Inner Sea-themed prestige classes, feats, spells, adventuring gear, and magic items!
• Nine new monsters, including exotic humanoids of the skies and seas, undead and dragons, and an angry demon lord in exile!
• A giant 21.75"x33" poster map that reveals the sweeping landscape of the Inner Sea in all its treacherous glory!

Pretty cool, no?

Oh, I love getting surprises in the mail, particularly when they are as cool as the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beginner Box. My friends at Paizo Publishing sent one over, and boy is it gorgeous.

For those who don't know Pathfinder, it's a Role Playing Game spawned out of the Open Game License (OGL) a few years back. Short history: a certain very popular RPG made their rules open license, many companies grew up providing supporting materials for those rules, Paizo in particular created a very, very complicated campaign setting - the world of Golarion and hundreds, or maybe thousands of adventure modules and supporting materials, and then a certain very popular RPG ditched support for their rules and made a (some would say much needed, long overdue) revamping of its rules. But this left a lot of companies without a core rule system. Paizo came out with the Pathfinder RPG, and voila! their bazillion ancillary products now had a fantastic spine. What's more, they subsequently captured a huge share of the RPG market (3.5 yay!) and have become an even more major player in the RPG industry.

I've got the Core Rulebook and Bestiary, and I bought a PDF of the Campaign Guide and several adventure modules. They are coming out with an Asian-themed campaign setting later this month, and I'll be picking that up as well. Confession: I haven't gamed in a long while, but I love reading rule books and campaign setting books, and I'm thinking that when my son gets just a little older, classic Pen & Paper style RPGs might be a nice imagination-fueling counterbalance to the comparably more passive experience of video-gaming. I'm also very interested in the way that RPGs have been an outlet for the swords & sorcery brand of fantasy in those decades in which the epic dominated literary fantasy, and the way in which RPG and literary fiction exchange energies now that epic fantasy is "grittying up."And I just love their setting. So the Beginner Box is a great way for this overworked, freetime-less editor to jump in quick and run his son through his first RPG.

ThePathfinder Roleplaying Game Beginner Box includes:
• 64-page Hero’s Handbook, detailing character creation, spells, equipment, and general rules for playing the game
• 96-page Game Master’s Guide packed with adventures, monsters, magical treasures, and advice on how to narrate the game and control the challenges faced by the heroes
• A complete set of 7 high-impact polyhedral dice
• More than 80 full-color pawns depicting tons of heroes, monsters, and even a fearsome black dragon
• Four pregenerated character sheets to throw you right into the action
• Four blank character sheets to record the statistics and deeds of your custom-made hero
• A durable, reusable, double-sided Flip-Mat play surface that works with any kind of marker

Cool, no?

Update: Getting free stuff always makes me buy stuff. I just ordered this: Pathfinder Campaign Setting World Guide: The Inner Sea (Revised Edition)