Jordan Weisman at GenCon 2015!

The Vorpal Chainsword correspondents at GenCon this year were lucky enough to catch up with the one and only JORDAN WEISMAN, CEO of Harebrained Schemes.

Starting with founding FASA Corporation back in the early 80s, Jordan has been a never-ending font of game design awesomeness over the decades. He's responsible for some the coolest rpgs, both pen-n-paper as well as video games, that you've ever played (and I'm very much looking forward to digging into Shadowrun: Hong Kong in the near future).

Here are just a few favorite game worlds he's created:

Shadowrun

Mechwarrior

Battletech

Golem Arcana

Earthdawn

MageKnight

Crimson Skies

Jordan Weisman discusses what GenCon means to him...

Jen Page at GenCon2015!

This year at GenCon we at the Vorpal Chainsword were fortunate enough to have a number of Vorpal Chainsword Correspondents(tm) roaming around the 'Con, talking to interesting people, and getting loads of footage of all the glory that is the Best Four Days in Gaming! The submissions have been coming in all week and we're having a blast sorting through the media covering all angles of GenCon.

Here's a quick interview from the dealer hall, where a couple of our correspondents* caught up with one of our favorite special guests at GenCon...

*Bigscaryprawn and e3betht, also known as TrapJaw and Evil-Lyn.

The Marmoreal Tomb Kickstarter is Here!

So maybe you're at GenCon right now, knee-deep in orcs, reaving your way through a bloody slaughter of Red Bull-fueled carnage and glory. Well, once the corpses stop twitching and you have an opportunity to recover your arrows, drink a healing potion, and take a short rest; I ask that you set your Battleaxe aside for a moment and consider the parchment fragment you found amongst the Chieftain's horde, and realize...

THE LOST DUNGEON OF GYGAX HAS BEEN FOUND!

Lost for decades, this temple complex of the Great Ones was relegated access only to the Wise Few. Those fortunate Masters of the Realm who personally knew Lord Ernie of the Genevans, the Elder Son of Gygax. But those secret treasures hidden deep within the famous Hobby Shop Dungeon can now be sought by brave adventurers of the Current Age. That's right! Today Ernie Gygax and Benoist Poire of GP ADVENTURES have revealed that the hidden location of the entrance to the lost Marmoreal Tomb of Garn Pat'uul (amongst other Wonders of Adventure!), is only a short distance away...



So I ask thee, Good and Noble Warriors of the Realm. Donate a bit of your hard-earned gold to this Kickstarter, and once again let the Songs of Glory ring throughout the land! I have personally interviewed Benoist about this project, and both spoken and gamed extensively in the upper levels with Ernie, and I can promise you from deep in my soul that these are Wizards of Truest Integrity and Grace. These Noble Maesters are dedicated wholly to bringing us forth to the Dungeons upon which our forefathers tread, and allowing Glory and Honor to once again be the hallmarks of Our Great Hobby! Your gold will be well spent, the Kickstarter Completed, and the Spoils from this Adventure will be Beyond Limit!

Game On and Kick Butt! Huzzah!

Between the 'Cons

Holy crap have things been busy. I think the end of June (Nexus Game Fair / SD Comic-Con) through early-August (GenCon) is always the busiest time for any productive Gamer. Too many Cons, too little time. Running games, prepping games, practicing games before the Con... it never ends! Its a non-stop thrill-ride of adventure (and exhaustion)!

So this is my post to say that "Yes, I'm still alive and gaming!" And yes, I will finish those things I've talked about, like that painting guide, the He-Man campaign guide, the deck-building games tutorial, the famous nerd podcasts, and more bad netflix movie reviews I've been working on, but its going to still be slow around here on the blog itself until after GenCon. So please don't lose heart in the VC Blog quite yet! Just check back here in a couple weeks. We have a number of monsters we need to slay before we can write about it.

Game on!

Podcasting: Questions for Ask the Bastard!

The Vorpal Chainsword will soon be launching a new gaming-related Podcast, which we are currently in the process of generating and editing content for. But as fate would have it, we've just landed an interview for mid-next week with the Dungeon Bastard himself, Mr. Bill Cavalier!



While I will be doing the interview in just a few short days, and I want to ask him a thousand questions of my own, I've decided to spread the love and find out if any fans of the Bastard have any questions they'd like me to ask for them. Since he specializes in answering important D&D-related quandaries, this is a good opportunity to finally get a certified Dungeon Bastard answer to controversial topics, such as which polearm is best for tackling a horde of Vampire-Gibberlings, or whether Blink Dogs should be a standard playable race in D&D. Also: Anything related to Flumphs.

So let's hear 'em! Who's got a question for the Dungeon Bastard?

GenCon 2011 is right around the corner!

So here's a couple of resources to help prep yourself for some gaming madness:

1 - First, MadBrew Labs has put together an interactive map of the dealer hall, so you can check the websites of the folks who want to sell you their stuff, to see what stuff they want to sell you.  (Just zoom out with the mouse wheel and hover over the booths to see what's going to be there).
And don't worry Travis, they're back as booth 1257.  Much closer to the central main-thoroughfare than I would have expected.

GenCon 2010 Breakdown!

Well, I just regained consciousness from my GenCon recovery phase, and yes I've been going to work this week, and I thought I'd update the ol' vorpalchainsword with how the Con was.

To sum up: It was awesome.

GenCon re-discovery!

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So in anticipation of heading out to GenCon2010 for five straight days of gaming exuberance, I was pulling out last year's badge holder and stuff and came across a couple of character sheets from last year's GenCon epic adventures.

The particularly interesting thing about these two character sheets is that both of these games were DM'd by our very own Brando, who's posting his current Dark Heresy campaign on the Vorpal Chainsword!