Eric left me a message on Glass (a bookmarking/conversational app you should really check out) letting me know that James M. Ward’s legendary science fiction roleplaying game Metamorphosis Alpha is back in print via Lulu.

In the game, which was the first SF RPG and the foundation for Gamma World, you play the inhabitant of a starship where things went Horribly Wrong at some point in the past, resulting in weird mutations and a breakdown of civilization. When I was 13 this concept baffled me when I read about it  (I wondered how much mileage you could get out of exploring a limited setting like a ship?) but I never saw a copy of the game. I’m looking forward to finally getting my hands on it.

I already have copies of 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but no matter! I’m going to buy them again, because Wizards of the Coast announced that they’re bringing the three core rulebooks of AD&D 1st edition back into print in April with new cover art. A portion of the profits will go toward the Gygax Memorial Fund. Here’s the press release (PDF.) This is delightful news although the “new cover art” bit makes me apprehensive. The original cover of the 1st edition Players Handbook is one of the most iconic images in hobby gaming, after all.

I think WotC’s announcement is a nice example of the company walking the talk. Nearly everything you read about the next edition of Dungeons & Dragons frames it as a version of the game that will unify fans of every edition, and which will incorporate the best elements from each. Making a beloved early edition available again is a good step toward showing D&D’s fans that they really mean it. As Jeff said, “I know an olive branch when I see one”

We had lunch at an Asian restaurant called Spicy Talk, and I was sorely tempted to call the blog post “Spicy Talk with Erik Mona”. It might have attracted a lot of hits, but would otherwise be mystifying. Alas.

In this new feature at Rockett Science, my evil twin from a mirror universe provides readers with terrible, terrible advice.

Eric F. asks: Dear Evil Wade, I’m thinking about just phoning it in on my blog this week. Any tips for Not Getting Caught while doing so?

Evil Wade says: A wise move, Eric F. Putting thought, time and effort into your blog is ridiculous, when it’s obvious that you can become just as successful by merely phoning it in — perhaps even more so.

Here’s a replicable, scalable, best-practices method for Phoning It In:

1. Become soulless. This is a baseline recommendation for most of my advice. If you don’t take care of this essential step, you may later find yourself feeling like you’re letting your readers down. Hogwash! Your readership is a resource for you to exploit, and your blog is the machine that processes it. People go in one end, and blog stats come out the other. You want clicks! Eyeballs! Monetization! Comment counts! You just need to find a way to exploit this resource as quickly, ruthlessly and efficiently as possible, yet not so blatantly that they abandon your blog in disgust.
2. Identify a “hot” topic to write about. Ideally you want something that a lot of people are talking about, but which is still so fresh that you could conceivably be an “expert” on. Depending on your audience, you might check:
• Twitter’s Trending Topics
• What’s Hot on Google+
• The Facebook Wall of your friend who always posts angry rants about news stories he clearly hasn’t read all the way through
• Techmeme
• Message forums for nearly any industry or hobby (look for all caps and/or exclamation marks)
3. Do 10 minutes of research on that topic, tops. You don’t want to gain an understanding of the topic — you have other things to think about, like which model of gold-plated helicopter you’re going to buy with all that blog money. You just want to collect three to five links to news stories, forum posts or blog posts about it.
4. Write away! Here’s your format:
• Catchy headline – absolutely the most important part, because this is how you’ll get those sweet, sweet clicks and eyeballs. I suggest either something misleading and incendiary (to get people like your angry friend to share it on their social channels), or a genuinely provocative question which you will not answer.
•  Introduction – briefly state what the topic is.
• Body – a few sentences linking to stories about that thing.
• Conclusion – a question that restates your headline followed by something vague like, “Only time will tell.”

The headline is also key because phoning it in is all about managing expectations. Linking to something you find interesting isn’t phoning it in; promising your readers a full meal but getting away with handing them a bowl of cheese crunchies takes it to a different level.

For example, there have been some noteworthy developments in the world of tabletop role playing games. Wizards of the Coast announced that 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons designer Monte Cook has returned to the company, fueling buzz that a 5th edition of the game might be underway; and Paizo announced that a Pathfinder MMO is in development.

In the first case, a great phoning-it-in headline would be, “WoTC Announces 4th Edition D&D Is Dead”. In the post, say that Monte Cook has rejoined the company, post links to various “perspectives” on the announcement, and end with, “Is this the death of 4th edition D&D? Only time will tell.”

And you could do exactly the same thing for the Paizo announcement. Give it the headline “Is Pathfinder Dead?”, pop in some links to stories about the upcoming MMO, and at the end ask, “So is the tabletop RPG version of Pathfinder dead? We’ll have to wait and see.”

You can do this over and over and over again. Eric F., I’m beginning to think you could get away with phoning it in for a lot longer than a week. Why not a month? A year? Why not forever??

If you have a question for Evil Wade to answer, leave it as a comment on this post. Evil Wade may use your question, or write one of his own and add your name to it. It’s just how he rolls.

Occupy Gaming – Another World Is Possible T-shirt on Zazzle

The Occupy logo by OccupyDesign, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. The d10 clip art from openclipart.org. The whole thing was inspired by roleplaying game designer Chris Pramas’ participation in Occupy Seattle.

The slogan “Another world is possible” was one of many projected onto the side of a building on November 17, 2011 during the Occupy Wall St. march that night. I found their message of optimism deeply moving, and predict that history will place the following simple words alongside documents such as the Port Huron Statement as one of the defining political statements of this era.

99%

MIC CHECK!

LOOK AROUND

YOU ARE A PART

OF A GLOBAL UPRISING

WE ARE A CRY

FROM THE HEART

OF THE WORLD

WE ARE UNSTOPPABLE

ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

#OCCUPY MOVEMENT

OCCUPY WALL STREET

OCCUPY EARTH

WE ARE WINNING

IT IS THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING

DO NOT BE AFRAID

LOVE.

Atlas Productions LLC recently released Atlas Shrugged Part 1 on DVD and Blu-Ray. The movie is a scrappy adaptation of Ayn Rand’s massive novel, which argues passionately against altruism and for self-interest. (I confess that I haven’t read Atlas Shrugged. I’m told it is similar to the The Fountainhead, which I did read, only Atlas is a shit-ton longer.)

When the DVD was released, incredulous emails started pouring in from fans. Somewhere along the line this sentence found its way into the description on the product’s box:

“AYN RAND’s timeless novel of courage and self-sacrifice comes to life…”

Well, sure, it’s a novel of self-sacrifice. Specifically, how wrong and terrible Ayn Rand thinks it is.

On Friday the company announced that it would be replacing more than 100,000 title sheets appearing on the DVD and Blu-ray versions sold through major retail outlets. It also set up a website for consumers to order replacement title sheets for their copies. The new text replaces “courage and self-sacrifice” with “rational self-interest.”

To its credit, Atlas Productions’ announcement struck exactly the right tone. First, it took customers’ complaints very seriously, demonstrating that they understood why “self-sacrifice” was wildly inappropriate, and showing how they would make things right. But they also recognized the humor in the situation, leading with the self-deprecating headline “ATLAS SHRUGGED Inadvertently Releases Collector’s Item.”

How did “self-sacrifice” get into a description of an Ayn Rand story? I suspect that everyone involved in Atlas Shrugged Part 1 was overextended and working very hard to get the product shipped in time. Under this pressure, the copywriter fell back on a stock phrase that in most cases applies perfectly well to a given movie. Courage, self-sacrifice, sure. Done. When others reviewed it, their brains — occupied with other vital details of the launch — accepted a phrase they’d seen many times before.

In addition to slowing down and choosing your words carefully, you can avoid this by nudging your editors and subject matter experts when you know things are especially crazy, to make sure they’re giving your draft a thorough reality check. Leave comments in the draft asking questions and calling attention to certain sections. Follow up with them afterward asking for confirmation if you’re feeling especially paranoid (but don’t be a pest.) There might be a million other things clamoring for their urgent attention, but a single overlooked word can make a huge difference.

(Via Badass Digest)

Visit Stacy’s Etsy shop at Paper Tiger Cards & Gifts for wonderful, geeky notepads, greeting cards and more.

When you’re staging a long-term protest — an occupation, if you will — you’re looking at sporadic fits of action amid long stretches of just standing or sitting around. So why not play a game?

Here are some games the protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement might use to pass the time during those slow periods:

1. Fiasco: Players take the roles of people with powerful ambition and poor impulse control, whose get-rich-quick schemes go horribly wrong. Hilarity ensues.

2. The Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow: In this game for 8 to 18 players, the majority of ordinary citizens are food for a handful of elusive predators who live among them. Every day the players argue about who should be brought to account, but usually end up burning other innocent townspeople at the stake. This fantasy scenario has no parallel in our world, and thus provides a great source of escapist fun.

3. Polaris: A gloomy role-playing game in which those charged with defending their society grow increasingly disillusioned with its widespread corruption, and self-destruct. Conflict resolution takes the form of highly ritualized verbal exchanges that draw from a list of stock phrases. Any similarity to cable news punditry is purely coincidental.

4. Pandemic: A cooperative board game in which players work together to contain and resolve a rapidly-spreading global crisis. The game is a reminder of the importance of having your shit together as a group.

5. Grey Ranks: Hey, it could always be worse.

Brian Patterson of d20monkey has found a way to cash in on both sides of the inevitable debate with this t-shirt:

Well played, sir!

I am beaten to death by derby girls for the "Life Is Crime" photohunt.

Cross-posted to the Weber Shandwick Seattle blog.

I may not have been there at the beginning, but I’m pretty close: my first PAX was in 2006 at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, where a few thousand people lined up to play console and PC games, attend a handful of panels, sample Bawls energy drink, and get their CDs signed by nerdcore rapper MC Frontalot.

The sense of goodwill and community was like nothing I’d seen before. At one point nearly everyone at the show was crammed uncomfortably together in the center’s main space, waiting to get into an event. Instead of complaining, the PAX crowd found a way to turn the crowded conditions into an opportunity for mass play by seeing how high we could bounce an inflatable blue ball. I’ll never forget seeing it rise almost to the top of the atrium while the crowd chanted, “All hail Ball!” Penny Arcade even made a t-shirt to commemorate the moment.

Five years later, PAX Prime — so called to distinguish the Seattle event from the second PAX they’re now running in Boston — draws more than 60,000 people, sells out months in advance, and is gradually taking over every available event space in downtown Seattle.  It’s harder to get in to the events and panels you want to attend. The exhibit floor is packed with people, and the small booths have been replaced by displays that rival those at CES for size and effect. And yet, amazingly, it still feels like PAX: a happy celebration of all things gaming.

This year’s PAX was dominated by a company that few attendees even knew was there. Seattle’s Lone Shark Games organized and ran the tabletop game track at PAXDev, demos at the Bethesda and Bioware booths, an event at the NCSoft booth, a puzzlehunt for Magic:The Gathering and a photohunt for Life Is Crime. Lone Shark also worked the GameSpot booth, and built the set for the annual celebrity “Acquisitions Inc.” Dungeons & Dragons game which filled the Paramount Theater to capacity.

(That’s right, the entire Paramount Theater was packed with people watching three Web cartoonists and actor Wil Wheaton play D&D. That’s how they roll at PAX.)

I spent a lot of time this year at industry panels, including one on audience segmentation featuring Bethesda Softworks vice president of marketing and PR Pete Hines. Although Hines summarized his approach to segmentation as, “People who like games are people who like games,” the difference between the PAX audience of core gamers and a broader audience was clear when he talked about one of Bethesda’s most successful game trailers. The ad, which aired on ESPN, showed basketball player Blake Griffin lobbying Bethesda to be added to the video game Rage. A show of hands revealed that no one in the room knew who Blake Griffin was.

The panel also made it clear that PAX is a special occasion for marketers, too. Bethesda’s classic Fallout 3 promotion, which arguably set the bar for all future PAX marketing efforts, was designed with this community’s sensibilities in mind. Everything about it, from half-destroyed 1950s Airstream trailer to the Vault Boy hand puppets, was imbued with a sense of creative freedom and a particular kind of dark humor.

Recently another long-time PAX attendee and I were trying to figure out how to describe PAX to an audience that was unfamiliar with the event. We decided that it was largely an impossible task: I could tell you the history of PAX, and some of the things that happen there, but I can’t tell you what it’s really like. You just have to experience it.

So if you haven’t been, I encourage you to start keeping an eye on www.paxsite.com early in 2012, and get your passes for next year. I hope to see you there.