Polgarus Games News, February 2007

Polgarus Games News, February 2007

Volume 1, Number 01
February 17, 2007

Hello and welcome to the first newsletter from Polgarus Games. I hope you enjoy the debut issue, and I would love to receive any feedback you may have (just use the “contact us” link to the left).

I’m still playing around with the format and layout of the newsletter (it’s going to take a few issues to get exactly right), so expect the newsletter to slowly change over time. I also need to come up with an interesting name for the newsletter – if you think of one, by all means feel free to suggest it

But enough of my rambling – on with the show!

Jason Anderson
http://www.polgarusgames.com

Contents…

1. New Releases
2. Upcoming Releases
3. GMing Tips – Get Your Players to Tell You What They Want
4. Discount Coupons
5. Useful Links

1. New Releases

It’s been a pretty busy new year for Polgarus Games, with several new products being released.

Our latest release is 43 Space Opera Adventure Seeds. This new supplement gives the busy gamemaster forty-three different ideas for adventures in a space opera setting, from the straight-forward to the complex and unusual.

(NOTE: 43 Space Opera Adventure Seeds is on special at 29% off it’s usual price in our store and at YourGamesNow during it’s first week – if you’re interested in it, grab a copy before the price returns to normal!)

In addition to 43 Space Opera Adventure Seeds Polgarus Games also released two free products in the past month. The first product was 101 Starship Names, while the second product (released earlier this week) was 101 City & Place Names. Both these products are intended to help the busy gamemaster in the times they need a name quickly.

2. Upcoming Releases

At the moment Polgarus Games has three products in the pipline, all of them for our Space Opera Support line.

Coming up next is “15 Space Aliens”, a collection of various sentient aliens for the characters to meet and interact with. Each of the aliens included in the book has information on their society, a description, a picture so you can easily see how what they look like yourself, and several suggested adventure hooks. We’re hoping that “15 Space Aliens” will be out within the month, but we’ll see!

The other two products in the works are definitely more than a month away. They are our first planet book (Planet Hexos), and our first adventure (Roanoke Colony).

Planet Hexos is intended to be a planet you can drop into most settings. It’s a planet where tensions are running high between the mining corporations controlling the bulk of the planet, many of the workers who provide the workforce for the corporations, and the independent citizens on the planets. This supplement will give a brief history of the planet, information on the cities and starports on the planet, details on important NPCs, adventure hooks, etc.

Roanoke Colony deals with the unexpected disappearance of every single person on a remote colony. How and why did they disappear, and is there more to the colony than meets the eyes? Roanoke Colony will be written for EABA, although it should be possible to convert it to other systems without too much trouble. We may look into releasing a d20 version after the EABA version is released, but that is up in the air at the moment.

There are a couple more products that may make their way onto the drawing board in the upcoming months, but at the moment they’re still too nebulous to talk about

3. GMing Tips – Get Your Players to Tell You What They Want

This idea certainly won’t be every GMs cup of tea – it allows the players some degree of input and control on the game world, and with the wrong players could easily derail the entire campaign. But with the right players, it works very well.

My players are very big on character development, but in the past I’ve run into problems trying to figure out how they want to develop their characters. In other words, what sort of things they’d like their characters to do, experience or be involved in. And usually when I do think of things, they are just “bad” things to happen to the character. I was rarely coming up with “good” things to have happen (and good things can be just as interesting as bad things).

The solution was simple and obvious – get my players to tell me! But I decided to make it a somewhat formal process, and I think this has helped it tremendously.

I gave each of my players three small index cards, and told them to write down something they wanted to have happen to their character (one on each card). The contents of the card were to be kept secret – only the player and myself would know what was on the card. The event could be good or bad, major (ie: plot altering) or minor. I did reserve the right of veto if the idea was totally unsuitable (but just between you and me I have no intention of using it – I trust my players).

The use of the cards is simple. Every session I use the idea on at least one of the cards (ie: one card from the entire pool of cards, not one card per player). I always try to keep a rough balance of cards used between all the players, so that I’m not just using the cards from one person all the time. If I use a card during the session, the player writes a new one to add to the pool for the next session.

So far it has worked great. My players all gave me ideas that I wouldn’t have thought of, and while there are a few silly ones in there they are all suggestions I can work with. Better yet, many of the suggestions are pretty good plot twists that I can work into the ongoing story, linking the characters more directly to what is happening but in ways I didn’t initially think of myself.

It’s a simple idea, but it works great. Give it a try!

4. Discount Coupons

There are two coupons this month. These coupons are valid until the end of February at our online store.

The first coupon is for 15 Space Opera Passengers. This supplement has fifteen people (and groups of people) who want to travel on the PCs’ ship, each with a reason to travel and each with 5 different possible stories that can be run as entire adventures, or as small side-events. The coupon allows you to save 75c on the purchase price. Coupon code “1a894735c8″ (no quotes).

The second coupon is for our fun and somewhat unusual product, The Veggie Patch. A complete game, players take on the role of sentient vegetables as they try to protect their home from weeds and the evil Brassica! The coupon will save you $2 on the normal price. Coupon code “89a7314fa4″ (no quotes).

To use these coupons, just enter them on the order confirmation screen in the provided box. You can only use one coupon at a time (I believe), so if you wish to use both coupons you will need to do two separate orders.

5. Useful Links

These are links to various roleplay sites that we’ve found useful in our own games. If you have any sites you wish to suggest, please feel free to send them in!

Treasure Tables
A fantastic resource of gamemasters, with articles on almost any topic you can imagine related to gamemastering. In addition to the article, visitors can leave comments – often these comments can be just as useful as the article itself!

Roleplaying Tips
This is a site and weekly email newsletter, with hints and tips for gamemasters. It takes a different slant to Treasure Tables – the former is more “chatty”, while Roleplaying Tips is slightly more formal. A fantastic resource.

The Fantasy Oracle
A fun little adventure idea generator. It’s designed for a fantasy setting, but it’s still useful no matter what setting you’re running. Some of the things it comes up with are totally ridiculous, but that’s the fun of it!

That’s it – you’ve reached the end. There’s no more to see!

Publisher:
Polgarus Games
PO Box 812
Sandy Bay, TAS 7006
AUSTRALIA