For the next six months or so, the well-known industry mag 'Knights of the Dinner Table' is going to be running a regular column of reviews aimed specifically at the Indie scene. I know this 'cause I'm writing them. I'm really quite flattered to be honest, but more importantly I'm very pleased that the magazine is acknowledging the value of the Indie scene within the industry and doing something to support it. Naturally my first thought was of you guys.
Now, as I'm sure you'll appreciate, I can't make every column a Collective Endeavour special, I've got to share it out as fairly as possible over the spectrum of the industry. Also I can't show favouritism, every review must by necessity be as objective and enlightening as possible. I am a strict but fair reviewer (samples if you want to see them, and the first column has already been written and will appear in the December issue). With those statements out of the way, I'd be very pleased to see the occasional CE review getting onto the pages of KotDT.
With this in mind, I'm open to any suggestions people might have! What does everyone here think deserves mention?
Ash
Contenders
Submitted by Graham W on Wed, 07/11/2007 - 23:35.
If I had to choose one. It's rather iconic.
If I had to choose two, I'd add Best Friends in there.
(With apologies to everyone else's games, of course).
Graham
No, Graham's right.
Submitted by Andrew Kenrick on Thu, 08/11/2007 - 10:00.
No, Graham's right. Contenders and Best Friends are the way to go.
What else you got on your list Ash?
Hey Ash
Submitted by Matt on Thu, 08/11/2007 - 10:16.
One query, and it's a key one for me. Are these playtest reviews or book reviews?
-Matt
Realms Publishing
Best Friends & Contenders
Submitted by Destriarch on Thu, 08/11/2007 - 16:52.
These are ostensibly book reviews, but depending on the length of the material, how divergent it is from the normal RPG mould, how much space I have left to talk about other matters once the important stuff has been noted and if I can get a group together in the time (I'm on deadline and it's not always easy to find players) I may occasionally run some playtests.
I had actually thought of Best Friends, since I believe it won an award recently and that kind of thing always makes good news. You've got a ready made angle right there. Contenders I hadn't thought of, but I've heard good things about it so it's certainly a possibility.
I've got a spot earmarked for Solipsist as and when that's ready for general release, and outside of the CE canon I'm looking at possibly CthulhuTec. The first review was of 'Shadow of Yesterday' - a bit of an oldie, but definately a brilliant game nonetheless and one of my favourite Indie titles of all time. That'll keep me going for a while at least, then I'll start looking around in earnest for more, but it never hurts to have them queued up a few months in advance. I'm trying to steer away from the massive glut of D20 third party material, but I may at some point approach the editor with the idea of covering one of the better-known series of D20 products in-depth rather than concentrating on a single product. With 4th Ed on the horizon it might make an interesting feature, but then again it might be better saved until 4th Ed actually emerges. We'll see.
Ash