It is with great pleasure that I announce the official launch of Gamer’s Tavern. This website is the central point for what will hopefully be many projects about tabletop gaming. Many of you are probably here from my column on Ain’t It Cool News, and I welcome you to what will be a more in-depth experience of gaming. The Ain’t It Cool News Tabletop column isn’t going anywhere and you’ll still be able to get your weekly(ish) dose of news, reviews, and interviews on gaming. This site, however, is a slightly different beast. On my blog here, however, I write more editorial-based content – articles on my opinions on the gaming industry, commentary on how to run and play games, and other content I just don’t have room for on Ain’t It Cool News Tabletop.
Oh, but my ramblings on gaming are not the only thing Gamer’s Tavern has to offer. We’re also launching a new podcast called You All Meet in a Tavern, a casual roundtable discussion with my fellow host Ross Watson, a game designer with a hell of a pedigree in the industry (check out our About page for more information about him). We’ll be discussing various topics involving the game industry, game design, gaming culture, and just nerding out over tabletop games. No agendas, no politics, no interviews.
New episodes will come out every Thursday, and you’ll be able to catch them here or through our RSS feed. We’ve got an insane line up of guests so far including our first episode. John Kovalic is best known as the artist for games like Munchkin and Apples to Apples, his own long-running comic strip Dork Tower, and his recently released party game, ROFL! Bruce Cordell’s long history in game design has netted him several awards including legendary modules like The Sunless Citadel and Return to the Tomb of Horrors, and he is currently lead designer for Numenera. Torah Cottrill is a former editor for Wizards of the Coast working on many 4e products as well as Gamma World. Our first episode will be out October 3rd!
We’ve got even more incredible guests lined up for future episodes, including:
- Jim Butcher, New York Times bestselling author of the Dresden Files series amongst others
- Robert J. Schwalb, game designer for Wizards of the Coast for Dungeons & Dragons
- Elizabeth Bear, gamer and multiple Hugo Award winning sci-fi author
- Andy Hopp, game designer and artist of Low Life
- Brian Patterson, artist of the D20 Monkey webcomic
- Ari Marmell, fantasy author and game designer for Vampire: The Masquerade and Dungeons & Dragons
- Noah Antwiler aka Spoony, webseries creator of Counter Monkey, Black Hole of Board Games, and The Spoony Experiment
- Enrique Bertran, blogger, creator of rpgKids, and designer working on Red Aegis
- Joanna Gaskell and Rob Hunt, writer/star and director of the Standard Action webseries
- Dan Davenport, founder of the current incarnation of the #RPGnet IRC chatroom
And just to wet your whistle, we’re also posting Episode Zero of the podcast right away! In this episode, Ross and I introduce ourselves and talk about how we got into gaming including the twists and turns that led me to write for Ain’t It Cool News and Ross to work for Games Workshop and Fantasy Flight Games before launching his own game, Accursed (which has a Kickstarter going until October 13).
So welcome to the Gamer’s Tavern. Please note that we have a strict policy on minors drinking, the barkeep is a bit of a dick, and last call is whenever I damn well please!
One thought on “Welcome to the Gamer’s Tavern”