... a newsy post...

Getting a lot of visitors off my Ebay page, so if you're coming from there... Howdy! Thanks for dropping by, and I hope you click the Follow button way down at the bottom of the page, and friend us on Facebook!

Since the blog is new for Yellow Dragon Studios, I have sort of a general and vague idea for the schedule of the blog. Since I am a notorious slacker, I don't do well with regular schedules, so I will tell you what sorts of posts you will be seeing.

Monster Monday - A new monster every week! More often than not, these will be Dungeons and Dragons monsters from my various table top RPGs. Other times I plan to explore themes in a broader, non-stat sense. This will be the only scheduled blog post.

Ebay Reviews - These are reviews of items, or groups of items that I have up on Ebay currently. Like my post on the Zombie Survival Guide, or Rage, I will talk about the item itself, its history, and my personal history with the thing as well! 25 years of gaming gives you a lot of experiences to talk about!

News - News posts like this will be very uncommon, I hope. I want to give you content, and interesting looks at things, not me blabbering on. I will also have nerd news from around the internets.

Movie Reviews - These have been a staple for me for years. In 1999 and 2000, I owned a movie review website, FlickReviewdotcom, which reviewed nearly 1000 movies! I have also reviewed movies on my various blogs, and journals over the years. I hope to bring a unique voice to movie reviews from a nerdy perspective!

If you have any ideas, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to post in the comments, to the Facebook group, or email me!

Rage Collectible Card Game

Rage is a collectible card game, or CCG, created by White Wolf Studios in 1995 and based around Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Thanks to the explosion of Magic: the Gathering in late 1993, and 1994, dozens of games were produced during this time, and has been called the "CCG Glut". Including Rage, White Wolf also was working on Jyhad, what would later become Vampire: The Eternal Struggle. Other companies, such as powerhouse TSR (later bought by Wizards of the Coast) had Spellfire, Steve Jackson Games produced a CCG version of Illuminati, and many others came out at the time. Many games, such as Spellfire, were poorly designed, others like Galactic Empires had rushed, shoddy artwork.

Rage, however, was not one of these games. A streamlined, yet robust rules system allowed for many different paths to victory. However, the most gratifying was the ability to claw, disembowel, and generally crush your opponents to death! The art design is really good for the era. White Wolf was known for good art in their books, and it really shows up with Rage.

Rage did have problems. There were power issues with the early cards, some which could win on turn one, this was shared with Magic as well. Also, the first three sets Rage Limited, The Umbra and The Wyrm were overproduced to the point where it was easy to find cards for super cheap prices. Even today, its not unheard of to find boxes for $10-20 on Ebay and other online sellers. The problems were reversed with the following sets, War of the Amazon, and Legacy of the Tribes. These sets were limited to a single print run, based on pre-orders only. Once these boxes were gone, none were ever printed again, making these sets very hard to find.

Later, the license was sold to Five Rings Publishing Group (FRPG). FRPG created a brand new game, using the same card backs. The fans were furious, as they were told that they would be able to use the same cards for the new game. This was not true at all, and Rage lost a huge fan base. FRPG crated seven sets for the new version of Rage, known as Phase 1-6 and Equinox. FRPG was later bought out by Wizards of the Coast, and later again by Hasbro. Hasbro discontinued dozens of games during this time, including Rage, and the license went back to White Wolf.

Rage still lives on in both real world, and online formats. Rules revisions have taken place a few times over the last few years, and a number of fan sets have been created, and played through LackeyCCG and CCG Workshop.

If you play Rage in the real world, perhaps you would like some cards? You can check out my current auction for Rage CCG on Ebay!

The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks

Zombie fiction has been around for many years, and have covered such a wide variety of types and styles that it has now become its own genre. Even my own Apocalypse Zombie from yesterday is a good example of taking a variety of styles of cinematic zombie and combining them into one bite-y zombie.

In the last few years, zombies have become sort of a cultural phenomenon. Escaping out of the closed confines of film, and coming into TV, RPGs, and even books. The Zombie Survival Guide, by Max Brooks, was the prequel of sorts to World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. Taking its queues from various survival guides, both serious and fictional. The book will teach you everything you need to know how to survive the zombie apocalypse, from finding a correct structure, fortifying it, and protecting it from the horde. From one end to the other you will find humor, and mock seriousness that loses its "mock-ness", and becomes serious... when you realize it, you will laugh...

But you will wonder. Never before have I read a book where I have thought about the premise, or discussed it with friends and family. I have an entire plan, ready, in case the dead begin to rise! And my wife agrees! Ahh... nerd life.

If you are interested in owning a copy of The Zombie Survival Guide, by Max Brooks, you can check out my auction on Ebay! Click here!