Blue Shiva's blog

I first heard about this late last week, but I was hoping to get more details about "who" the buyer might be. Please note that many of the rumors circulating online have been squashed and dispelled. At this time, no one knows who the buyer is -- not even those of us who work in the industry.

From this news article - http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/13803.html:- Read more...

Ever get stuck trying to name your dwarven cleric? Sometimes, simple names just won't do. Harry the dwarf may not give you that fantasy feel, but what about Ronir?

In this new dwarf name generator database, there are countless possibilities. Over 50,000 first names and 10,000 surnames are available for dwarves in the world of Audalis and beyond.

From the dwarven name generator website:- Read more...

The big news this week was that WizKids has ceased operations and closed up shop.

Scott Silverstein, CEO of Topps, said “This was an extremely difficult decision. While the company will still actively pursue gaming initiatives, we feel it is necessary to align our efforts more closely with Topps current sports and entertainment offerings which are being developed within our New York office.”- Read more...

The average RPG is roughly between 50,000 to 150,000 plus words. A chapter in an RPG can range somewhere from 5,000 to 20,000. The writers that typically work off of an outline can be committed to write as little as 2,000 words to 20,000 or more.To give you some scale, if you typed your work in 12 pt font, Times New Roman, the average page in your word processing software would be about 500 words. So, if you're committed to write 20,000 -- that's approximately 40 pages.- Read more...

I hope you're getting ready to enjoy a spooky Halloween as much as I am. In the spirit of this holiday I thought I'd share with you some of the RPG sales going on today. There's also a few freebies in the mix, too. Talk about sweet!

ARKHAM HORROR - Those Cthulhu-worshipping folk converted the characters from Penny Arcade into playable characters that you can use in ARKHAM HORROR.- Read more...

Just in time for Halloween, the folks over at Flames Rising are running a contest over the next, few days. Simply, you read the post, and try to guess from the clues and the images what the new RPG is all about. Apparently you get extra points for guessing the system and the publisher. I think that there are some definite clues hidden in these paragraphs.- Read more...

What's in a character name and how important is it? Well, a character name can indicate gender, ethnic background, location and sometimes even what period of history that character might be living in. Sometimes, picking a character name can be rather daunting because your mind just draws a complete blank.

Here are some links that can help give you some ideas for naming your character.- Read more...

In an earlier post, I had mentioned that reviewers were essential to gaming. In it, I said:

Reviewers are a vital part of gaming because they are the ones that take the time, the energy and the effort to play, read and review games that you want to play. A good reviewer will cover products in detail--regardless of what's important to them as a gamer--because they understand that gamers have different wants and needs.- Read more...