John Nephew

@fuzzface Amazing

Great to see On The Edge turning up in this “Best Of” list! Congrats to @Johnnephew and everyone at Atlas/Trident!!! https://mastodon.social/@polygon/113640696259017623

Enigma Puzzle Gamebooks A new Gloom solo adventure and more!

Our Enigma solo/puzzle game books arrived today! We're working like fiends to get all the EU backer rewards shipped tomorrow, so they can arrive before the GPSR apocalypse.
www.kickstarter.com/projects/atl...

I am still seeing tons of articles in the mainstream media about how Democrats need to win back disaffected Trump voters. This is despite the data which clearly shows that Trump's vote did not increate significantly over 2020, but rather that Democratic voters voted in substantially smaller […]

Ack, I discovered I had not set the coupon right on Munchkin Gloom. So if you were wanting that, it's now actually showing up at $10 in carts the way it is supposed to! ($19.95 off MSRP!) #blackfriday #tabletop #gloom

Grand Tribunal A board game of magical invention

Did you miss the $5 deal on Grand Tribunal, the Ars Magica board game, that ran during the Definitive Edition campaign? It's back...only until midnight tonight, central US time! www.atlas-games.com/grandtribunal

Black Friday Doorbusters and Thanksgiving Weekend Deals on Atlas Games card and board games! There are some outrageous bargains here... Please shop and share! https://atlas-games.com/news/post?s=2024-11-25-black-friday-doorbusters-5

OCR can't handle my crappy handwriting. It talks about making King Lothar's Gold into an Ars Magica tournament adventure.

In the TSR envelope with the marked up dot matrix manuscript and Barbara's notes is this page of my ideas for turning it into Ars Magica, including the note on the bottom "Publish by myself?" -- so this must have been before I even thought to launch Atlas Games.

Ack, failed to thread this with the ealier stuff.

Overdoing the cultural and historical bits is absolutely my brand.

(A letter from Barbara Young, editor of Dungeon magazine) December 20, 1988 John Nephew 317 Winona St. Northfield MN 55057 Dear John: Thanks for sending "King Lotharr 's Gold" and the proposal for "Four Little Wanderers." Let's see the completed "Wanderers" module. I like the cultural and historical bits, but don't overdo them. As you requested, we made lets of notes all over "Lothar." Other than what's written there, I can: only say that it seems a bit disjointed, as if the parts are more important than the whole. Let's see it again after some work (by the way, the lighter red and the worse handwriting is mine). Have a wonderful Christmas and a happy (and prosperous) New Year. Sincerely, Barbara G. Young Editor P.O. BOX 110 LAKE GENEVA WI 53147 (414) 248-3625

Holy crap, I had forgotten that I originally wrote "King Lothar's Gold" as a (Basic) D&D adventure and submitted it to Dungeon Magazine in 1988.

Gender Issues First off, masculine pronouns in this adventure are, for convenience, meant ambiguously. In other words, just because we use "he" in a sentence, we don't mean that it doesn't apply to females. This is just to make the text more readable, to avoid the clumsiness of using phrases like "he or she" or "his or her" so frequently. Tho issues of gender and sexism appear more directly in this adventure, however, and are part of the story's theme. The player characters prepared for this adventure are all males. The was dictated by the setting - simply put, women are not given a fair chance in this time and place. There are of course those who defy the implicit rules of society (such as Fredegund, the powerful and defiant queen; or Clotild, who led a nunnery in revolt), and make their visible mark on history. One such person who appears in this adventure is the sorceress, Lucretia. She is marked as both independent-minded, and a practitioner of magic. In time magic and the Order of Hermes will provide an opportunity for women to realize their potential as equals, even before the rest of society permits it, but in this place Lucretia faces a difficult struggle. Players in this adventure should be subtly made aware of the sexism that pervades their characters' society (and even their own today). When they meet the sorceress, they will run head-on into a woman who refuses to accept "her place"

20-year-old me was very concerned about how to deal with gender and pronouns in writing, and had net yet been liberated by understanding of the singular "they."

A full page of text, which begins: KING LOTHAR'S GOLD An Ars Magica Jump-Start Kit™ by John Nephew Introduction Ars Magica™ is a fantasy role-playing game with a special focus on "authentic" wizards-that is, wizards as they are portrayed in the lore and legend of our world. Uninhibited by such modern constructs as "balance" or "equality" among characters, magi, as the wizards are known, are free to aspire to the greatness of legendary sorcerers. The game also appeals to many people because of the careful attention it pays to the medieval European setting. With the wealth of information to be found in any library, this is a setting that features far more resource material than any other fantasy world on the market. • This product is a Jump-Start Kit™. It is designed especially to introduce people to the game of Ars Magica, to give them hands-on exposure to the setting, and a start on the game's mechanics and peculiarities. By using pregenerated characters and passing around briefing sheets to explain the rules, setting, and adventure background, you should be able to start people playing the game in as little as fifteen or twenty minutes. King Lothar's Gold is a particularly good adventure for beginning storyguides. It is perhaps best for storyguides who have experience with other games, but want to get the "feel" of Ars Magica; or experienced Ars Magica storyguides who want to introduce new people to the game with a minimum of preparation.

File cabinet archaeology: A Jump-Start Kit for #ArsMagica 2E that I was working on in 1990, but never finished

Opinion | The blurred line between X and the Trump administration Forget the ridiculous "Twitter Files." This is what it actually looks like when a social media company works in concert with the government.

Hey, I've written something for MSNBC (first time I've written for them). www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

How do I know that #ArsMagica is a very international game?

Well, for the just-finished #crowdfunding campaign, it appears that more than 46% of our backers are outside the United States. I think for a US-based #TTRPG #kickstarter or the like, that's a pretty incredible number.

I'm really not sure that we deserve #TheOnion, but by the gods, I love them.
https://apnews.com/article/onion-buys-infowars-alex-jones-6496f198d141c991087dcd937b3588e9

#AlexJones #Infowars

Summary: Our original plan and normal procedure is to print enough at once for both a crowdfunding campaign's fulfillment and a year or two of sales into distribution. If tariffs are imposed, I am confident we can still full the #ArsMagica Definitive campaign, but we may cancel retail release after.

I've been getting questions about the threat of 60%-100% tariffs, since our current plan is to print Ars Magica Definitive Edition in China.

At this point, I expect that it will not stop us from fulfilling this campaign as planned. We are aware of alternatives that we have explored in the past.

Our #ArsMagica Definitive Edition backers have unlocked an amazing deal for the whole world: $5 per copy (plus shipping and often tax) for Grand Tribunal, the Ars-inspired board game. https://shop.atlas-games.com/products/grand-tribunal

Four days to go on the #ArsMagica Definitive Edition BackerKit campaign! Only $1755 to unlock the cloth Mythic Europe map add-on! And more! Tell your friends! Tell your rivals! Tell your pets!

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/atlas-games/ars-magica-5th-edition-definitive

A screen of the Julia Roberts-narrated ad about votes being secret, overlaid with the text: "When you remember that the Code of Hermes forbids scrying in the ballot booth"

I made a meme

After you vote, don't forget to back Ars Magica Definitive Edition!

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/atlas-games/ars-magica-5th-edition-definitive

It's election day! So American magi, don't forget to cast your sigil. And regardless of what House Tremere tells you, you don't need to report who you voted for to your parens. Scrying on the ballot booth violates the Code of Hermes! #ArsMagica

Good call, it seems.

Total sales of the game in 2023: 4 copies
Total sales in 2024 through Sept. 30th: 3 copies

Total copies in this quarter, since unlocking the stretch goal special: 170 copies

This game was published way back in 2006, and is largely forgotten by the market at large. I don't think any distributors carry it, and would only expect it to find on the shelves of a retailer like Noble Knight that specializes in the rare and out of print.

However, we have a bunch in our […]

Our #ArsMagica Definitive Edition backers have unlocked an amazing deal for the whole world: $5 per copy (plus shipping and often tax) for Grand Tribunal, the Ars-inspired board game. https://shop.atlas-games.com/products/grand-tribunal

Backers of #ArsMagica! We need your answer on a poll about a potential "Saga Journal" product https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/atlas-games/ars-magica-5th-edition-definitive/polls/2531?ref=bk-social-poll-button

Part of me wants to go melt some metal and make more Ars Magica medallions. But another equally insistent part of me just doesn't want to stand out in wet falling snow.

The snow is really coming down now, so it must be Halloween for real! #minnesota #halloweenblizzard