IPG Blog

The end of this week will see IPG taking part in the very fun local game convention: Con of the North!

We will have a booth in the vendor area and we’ll be running a bunch of “Kingdoms of Legend” events in our special “Theme Room” (all KoL, all the time!).

I am sure I will also try to sneak in some playtesting of the new card games while I man the booth. I am thinking mostly about flying around shooting people down. With my track record thus far in “Dogfight”, I will likely be the one going down in flames. Stop by and see us!

Here’s a link to the Con of the North website.

The playtesting phase has begun for IPG’s third and fourth card game products. You can join in by checking out the games’ respective pages to download a free copy of the PDF playtest documents: Dogfight and The PFL. Once your up and playing, drop by the IPG forum to post your feedback and suggestions.

Two card games are heading out into the field for playtesting, starting Feb 1, 2012.

One is the first expansion to “Third and Long”, called “The PFL” (for Professional Football League). The main goal for this expansion is to introduce the rest of the league, adding 24 new players and filling out the other 5 teams. You’ll need the base game in order to make sense of the prototype playtest expansion.

The other is a new World War I aerial combat set collection card game called “Dogfight”. This is an entirely new prototype game, rolling down the aerodrome’s grassy take-off field for the first time. You can be one of the test pilots, brave enough to climb into the early morning skies aboard a new machine.

The first installment of the new Kingdoms of Legend: Adventures line, a work entitled Ninja Attack!, is ready to go to the editor. Six pre-made 10th level PCs and a four hour adventure suitable for an evening’s entertainment.

As I type this post I have been putting the finishing touches on the Cold North manuscript and we’re getting very close with the Sands of Destiny text. I have been writing the “Timekeeping PDF”, the first in a series of PDFs for 2012 detailing the gods and goddesses of the campaign setting.

Amid all of this I am also very close to releasing two card game products into the wilds of playtesting. One of them is the first expansion to “Third and Long”, called “The PFL”. It introduces the rest of the 8 teams in the fictitious Professional Football League as well as some new offensive and defensive play calls. The next is a brand new World War I aerial combat game called “Dogfight”. I am excited about both and will be looking to make them into Kickstarter projects after the playtesting phase. Hopefully I will have these two ready by the weekend. We’ll see how it goes.

In convention related news, we are trying to wrap up some of the many details for the events we want to run at Gen Con Indy 2012 (August seems so far away, but we need to submit these things ASAP). More on that as we get things lined up.

Look for the next installment of the Radio IPG podcast in the next week or two as well, and hopefully we’ll get another “This Week In Campaign History” piece to read soon too.

In addition to the work I’m doing to finish up a number of Kingdoms of Legend projects, I have been working out the details for the first expansion to Third and Long, called The PFL. This expansion includes enough players to fill out the entire league of 8 PFL teams and also has a number of new offensive and defensive play calls, including blitzes. I have just finished the initial design work and mathematical analysis for this new mechanic, and the next step is to get playing a few games. After that, a full play test is in order.

I have also been tweaking the prototype rules for a card game tentatively called Dogfight, a World War I aerial combat game. I need some more flight hours under my belt before I send this one out for playtest, but it is getting close.

I am excited about both, to be sure. After the playtesting phase, I will be looking to start Kickstarter projects for both of these projects and we’ll what happens then. More later!

I am working on a new free PDF for the Kingdoms of Legend campaign setting which introduces our calendar and time keeping system. We have opted for a somewhat simplified version of real world days, weeks, and months. I am also working on a crop of historically flavored holy days to sprinkle throughout the year. This development work will be very useful for when we start making our detailed write-ups of the gods of the Kingdoms of Legend campaign setting.

In other news, I am very close to having a playable demo of my latest card game, a World War I aerial combat game tentatively called “Dogfight!”. Once it seems ready to go I will be looking for playtesters! Stay tuned…

We have two new voices who will be showing up soon here on the IPG website: one is the blogging of Nate Christen, a writer and resident GM, who will be sharing with us stories from his weekly Kingdoms of Legend campaign. We will also be hearing from (literally) Allen Drees, Jr, a writer and editor who is going to set sail with IPG’s podcast. Both should add some interesting contributions to the pile of information we have growing here. Speaking of that, check out the IPG Wiki for some more “behind the scenes” info about the games we make and the Kingdoms of Legend campaign setting. Our goal is to make this a nice resource for GMs and players.

The first of a new line of PDF-only Kingdoms of Legend products has been released into the wild! The line is called Kingdoms of Legend: Encounters, and this first installment is called Nest of Dragons. Here is the idea (taken from the official release write-up):

The Kingdoms of Legend: Encounters line of PDFs present a single well-built encounter for a GM to drop into any campaign. Each installment uses a specific location and offers three encounters at that site at three different challenge ratings.

We do all of the detail work behind the scenes to generate the stats, calculate the CR, choose the treasure, etc: all of the stuff that can seem like the ‘doing your taxes’ side of GM-ing. All you have to do is roll some dice and have some fun!

In this episode, a group of green dragons has taken over the site of an old copper mine and stone quarry. Livestock, woodcutters, and miners have all gone missing recently and much of the forest wildlife has fled the area. The village needs brave heroes to deal with this dire threat soon, before it’s too late!

Check it out on RPGNow, Paizo.com, or e23.

I have been working on a number of projects here, as we approach the last month of 2011. We have two full length Kingdoms of Legend world books that are nearing completion, “The Cold North” and “Sands of Destiny”. Both have been through multiple editing passes and are in the home stretch. I am still polishing the first of the Kingdoms of Legend: Encounters, “Nest of Dragons”. I am also working on the first of the Kingdoms of Legend: Adventures line of 4-hour game convention-like modules. This one is called “Ninja Attack!”. In addition, I am messing around with the new website, working on an almost-playable demo of a WWI aerial combat game, and trying to forge ahead on the first expansion to the award-winning game “Third and Long”.

I am happy to show off the re-launched IPG website! I will be working over the next few days to make sure all of the good information from the old website makes it over here in some form. If you have any suggestions for the website, please let me know in the forum (see the Community menu item at the top of the page) or through the Contact Us link at the bottom of the page.

Still working on the new website. I am getting a good feel for messing around with WordPress and so far I like the results. I will be transferring over some of the more interesting stuff from the Joomla! site over the next couple of days, then making the old switcheroo.

One of the IPG resident authors/developers/GMs, Nate Christen, has agreed to write a weekly-or-so blog for the new website, tentatively entitled “This Week in Campaign History”. Nate is known as a very good note-taker, among other things, and any campaign he is affiliated with can be sure to have a rich historical record. The name of the blog is a play on this fact; once a campaign has been going for awhile, Nate can break out his notes and declare (with flourish): “One year ago in campaign history…” This sort of opening line is usually followed by something awesome my character did. At least that’s how I remember it! Looking forward to seeing what Nate will cook up for this new endeavor.