I have a little project going on, and it would be nice to make a formal introduction to the NIGHT SHIFT: VETERANS OF THE SUPERNATURAL WARS Role-Playing Game .  What is NIGHT SHIFT: VSW? NIGHT SHIFT: VSW is a modern urban fantasy role-playing game with horror roots but with multi-genre elements as well. It is designed to be played the way you want, from light and fast to gritty and complex. It also features of examples of play thanks to our various Night Worlds. So you can be a student in Chicago's only school for Magical Youths and partake in various magic-fueled hijinks, all the way to a post-apocalyptic Earth where the forces of Good and Evil battle it out in the skies above and the streets below. Or to play a supernatural creature that just wants to live and get by in a world full of humans trying to hunt them down. Play it silly, straight, dangerous or just fun, NIGHT SHIFT: VSW can do it. Wait. What is a Role-Playing Game? Role-playing games have a LONG history. But the ...

  One of the things I've missed the most after being diagnosed with the 'beetus is a good old-fashioned Orange Julius! I used to love these things - Orange Julius, Strawberry Julius, of course with a banana in it. For years I've wondered how I could get one without spiking my blood sugar, and that, of course, led me to develop a sugar-free recipe. I'm 99% sure this is accurate in terms of flavor and texture.  Note that this recipe contains a raw egg. If you are concerned about consuming raw eggs, you can substitute  pasteurized egg whites or egg beaters  instead. Also, it does contain milk so it's not completely sugar-free (a cup of 2% milk has about 12g of sugar from the lactose).  I expect substituting 2 packets of  strawberry drink mix  would work to create a functional strawberry Julius, but it might taste more "artificial" than actual strawberry puree would. Likewise, you can add a half banana to it if you like but that will certainly up the carb ...

  Well, here we are, folks, on the brink of what some has called a nuclear bomb to be dropped on the gaming industry. I felt it important to reach out to our fanbase, let you all know where we stand, and what lies on the future of Elf Lair Games in the face of Wizards of the Coast's upcomping assault on small publishers in the gaming industry.  The Open Game License 1.1 So all the news these days is surrounding the imminent OGL 1.1. There is a lot of misinformation out there, and in truth, even attorneys are split on the eventual legal fallout. I am not an attorney myself, and all I can do is go with what my attorney advises, so I'm not going to lay out my full opinions, save to say that ELG feels that this is an underhanded, low, dishonest, and unfair attempt by Wizards to undermine and destroy publishers across the industry. Whether it's legal or not remains to be seen.  The road ahead for Elf Lair Games, however, is quite clear: we will not be reporting every publicati...

 It's no secret that Universal Studios made critical errors with their efforts to do a "Dark Universe" with their stable of classic monsters, a la the Monsterverse, MCU, or DCEU. They have screwed the pooch by going too big too soon, by trying to blow up their monsters and find some sort of bizarre, "fresh," "new" approach to these monsters, and in the process, losing everything that made them beloved in the first place.  Now, to be fair, beginning with Dracula Untold was not a horrible idea. It's not a bad "origin story" for Dracula as a vampire, but here's the problem with that: we don't need an origin story for Dracula. He was Vlad the Impaler. He did horrible things in defense of his country. For whatever reason, be it his sins or a deal with dark powers, he became a vampire after death. It didn't need to be shown on screen and showing it wasn't clever. It was pointless.  Tom Cruise's Mummy ...what can we say abou...

 And here...we...go!  Twilight Queen, the official mead of Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars I am pleased to announce the release party for the official Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars mead: Twilight Queen on October 8! This release makes us the first ever tabletop role  playing game company to have our own official mead! Even better, the mead connects with the game, as the favorite drink of Maeve Antinea, the woman who  calls the shots, and the Twilight Queen herself , served in Club Khalsa, the most popular nightclub / watering hole in the City. This mead, a collaboration with Apis Mead & Winery in Carnegie, PA, is a buckwheat mead with black cherries, vanilla, allspice and cinnamon. The release party will be at Apis on Saturday, October 8, from 2:00 PM until whenever. We will have gaming events and giveaways, and both the mead and the game will be on sale! Our friends from Drawbridge Games will be on site as well! I should also men...

 Combat, as we all know, is part and parcel of a role playing game. Almost every game out there devotes more rules space to combat than to any other aspect of the game (arguably, except for spell descriptions). While combat is generally the most dynamic (and often the most fun) part of the game, it can also drag on and get boring after awhile. This is also the case when you have skirmish-level battles going on with a lot of enemies.  When it comes down to these situations, skirmish or mook rules come in very handy. With that in mind I've been thinking about some streamlined combat rules for the O.G.R.E.S. system that will greatly speed up battles and tap into some classic concepts from early "man to man" wargames.  219215496 © United States Department Of Defense Visual Information Directorate | Dreamstime.com The Basics These rules assume, but do not require, that you are using miniatures. Please see our last blog on using minis with O.G.R.E.S. to familiarize yourself wi...

 O.G.R.E.S. games, though built from a more "old school" sensibility, tend to eschew miniatures in favor of a "theatre of the mind" approach. This is, admittedly, a factor of my own preferences as a gamer, GM, and designer. While I understand the utility of miniatures as a visual reference, I feel that they devolve the game from an exercise in shared storytelling to a board game, moving pieces around and losing the drama. Folks can agree or disagree on that to whatever degree they like; in the end, it all comes down to preference.  None of this, however, means that you can't do miniatures-based combat with Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars  or other O.G.R.E.S. games. Everything you need to do so is already inherent in the rules. Let's take a look and see how it breaks down, as well as some rules to simplify movement and tactics in combat.  909058 © Ivan Josifovic | Dreamstime.com The Basics The basics of using miniatures in O.G.R.E.S. are alread...