For those of you following this blog with RSS… the King of RPGs launch party at Endgame Oakland has moved to the next day, Saturday January 23rd from 5:00-7:00 pm. Please come by for food, drinks, and a thrilling mini-LARP in that most brutal and dangerous of settings, a game store!

After years of playtesting, King of RPGs volume 1 is about to hit stores! Put on your Boots of Elvenkind and run, don’t walk, to Endgame Oakland for the King of RPGs Launch Party on January 23 from 5:00-7:00 PM!

Endgame is at 921 Washington Street, Oakland, CA, just a few blocks from the 12th Street Oakland BART station. Enjoy delicious food and drinks and check out the book as you schmooze with Jason Thompson (author), Victor Hao (artist), and other gaming/manga luminaries! But this is not just any launch party! You will also have a chance to test your wits and acting ability in the King of RPGs Launch Party Live-Action Roleplaying Game for a chance to win a free copy of the book! Come one, come all! No previous gaming experience required!

Featuring special guest… THE STREET MASTER!

Sign up for the event on facebook! Check out the palatial interior of Endgame Oakland and visit their photos page!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted photos of a live D&D game on the streets of downtown San Francisco. Now, the video footage of that event has finally been recovered from police vaults.

The event couldn’t have happened without a ton of people: camerapeople Matt Lopez and Alistair Hamilton, video editor John Dilley, and support and borrowed equipment from Nathan Parker, Jason Shiga, Wes Moots, Jonathan Marinaro and the Cartoon Art Museum. A special thanks to John Dilley for putting together the film in a way I couldn’t have imagined. The soundtrack is “Bees” by Caribou.

It was tons of fun, and I doubt this is the last time we’ll see the Street Master. Check out the new Street Master page specifically for information about the Street Master’s appearances! Remember the fundamentals of gaming!

Since I uploaded the announcement of the Tell Me About Your Character! contest, I’ve gotten some emails asking what prizes I’m giving away. Particularly, what kind of manga, since not everybody knows Japanese graphic novel categories such as shonen (boys’), seinen (men’s), shojo (girls’) and yaoi (if you don’t know, you’ll find out eventually). Just what manga can you win for sending me your role-playing game character? Is it all awful stuff, like (forgive me) some old canceled ADV Manga Mag Garden licenses? No! Let’s take a look at these high-level, Monty Haul manga offerings!

TREASURE TYPE “G” (seinen science fiction & action)
Excel Saga
Tenjho Tenge
Gunsmith Cats
Battle Angel Alita & Battle Angel Alita: Last Order
Shadow Star (from the creator of VIZ’s Bokurano!)
Ghost in the Shell & Ghost in the Shell: Man-Machine Interface
Blue Spring
Battle Royale
Blame!
Seraphic Feather

TREASURE TYPE “G-2″ (seinen comedies)
Cromartie High School
Oh My Goddess!
Chibi Vampire
Densha Otoko
Shadow Lady
No Need for Tenchi!
What’s Michael?

TREASURE TYPE “S” (shojo manga)
Descendants of Darkness
Hana-Kimi
Banana Fish
Swan
Palette of 12 Secret Colors (I hate to part with this manga)
A Perfect Day for Love Letters
Alice 19th
Omukae Desu
Penguin Revolution
Oyayubihime Infinity
Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle

TREASURE TYPE “B” (shonen manga)
Air Gear
Dragon Ball & Dragon Ball Z
Yu-Gi-Oh!
Kekkaishi
Knights of the Zodiac
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
Dr. Slump
Cyborg 009
Hoshin Engi

TREASURE TYPE “H-801″ (yaoi manga)
I’m not going to list these titles individually, but just let me tell you: I have a ton of yaoi manga. It’s like drywall in my house. (Did I mention it is AWESOME drywall and I love reading it? It’s true!)

Hopefully that will give people an idea of what I’m giving away. I don’t have every volume of every series, but I have a lot. Each winner will get 30 manga (plus 5 RPG books and a set of dice!), so you may not get everything shown here — we can discuss it by email when you win. Basically, the winners of the contest will get first crack at getting this manga, before anyone on “365 Days of Manga” gets a chance to win it randomly. I wish I could add some gems, jewelry and magic items, but I hope this manga helps you think up RPG characters in the meantime. Feel free to write me or comment if you have questions about specific titles or about the contest as a whole!

Last Friday, Victor manned the King of RPGs booth at Webcomics-Con 2009 at San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum! This one-day event drew a bunch of webcomic artists to the Cartoon Art Museum, and although King of RPGs is a print comic, we somehow managed to set up shop too. The rainy weather made it a less than appealing day to trek through the mud to go see webcomics, and a camera was left at home forcing us to rely on this grainy long-distance picture taken by the Cartoon Art Museum security camera, but we were there!

Stay tuned here for more news about upcoming King of RPGs events, including our launch party!

As recently revealed on suvudu, I am proud to announce a new King of RPGs contest for the holidays: the KING OF RPGS “Tell Me About your Character” Contest!!!

If you read “365 Days of Manga” on suvudu, you know I’ve recently given away 500 graphic novels (with about another 2000 to go), but now I’ve decided that manga giveaways are too important to be left to random chance. To celebrate the upcoming launch of King of RPGs, I want to give a WHOLE BUNCH of manga at once to people who exhibit the most important trait of a manga creator: creativity. And what better way to show your creativity than by telling me about a character you created for a role-playing game — a MMORPG, messageboard RPG, tabletop RPG or any other imaginary avatar created by YOU!

To win this contest, you must prove to me that you, like the characters in King of RPGs, are worthy of the title… THE WORLD’S GREATEST ROLEPLAYERS. Send me a description of a character you have created for a roleplaying game! It can be a character from a MMO (like World of Warcraft), a messageboard/forum RP, a tabletop RPG (like Dungeons & Dragons), a live-action RPG, or anything you can think of, as long as (1) you play that character and (2) you made them up. (Of course, I have no way of knowing whether you have actually ever played the character in a RPG, but I trust that the best characters will be the ones that have the most personality invested in them.)

The full contest rules are available on suvudu, but here are the basics:

THE RULES
(1) Email me and tell me about the character you play!
(2) Your character must have a name (even if it’s something like “The Nameless One”)
(3) You must include your mailing address in your email
(4) You must tell me what kind of manga you want (shojo (girls’), shonen (boys’), seinen (men’s), yaoi or a mix)
(5) You must tell me your age (no seinen or yaoi manga will be given as prizes to people under 18)
(6) Your entry must be between 100 and 1000 words long.
(7) Plagiarism is grounds for immediate disqualification. Don’t do characters based on anyone from novels, movies, TV shows or video games, unless you disguise ‘em so well that we can’t tell who they’re based on.
(8) You can only submit one character per email address.
(9) On January 11, 2010 I will choose the four most original and interesting characters and announce them on suvudu.com and kingofrpgs.com. Each of the 4 winners will receive the grand prize! “What is the prize?” you ask?

THE GRAND PRIZE:
* 30 graphic novels from my personal collection (you choose what kind: shojo, shonen, seinen or yaoi!)
* 5 role-playing game books (also from my collection, including Dungeons & Dragons, Vampire, etc.)
*AND a set of role-playing game dice! (20-sided, 12-sided, 10-sided, 8-sided, 6-sided, 4-sided)

So, when you’re ready, tell me about your character for a chance to win 30 manga and a ton of RPG stuff!

TIPS FOR MAKING CHARACTERS:
* Imagine that you are a novelist, an artist, a filmmaker, and show me that you can create a fascinating and unforgettable character.
* We’re looking for interesting and original characters, not necessarily powerful characters. A beggar or a cabbage farmer can be just as interesting as a guy with a big sword, even if they don’t do as much DPS.
* If you’re looking for ideas, start with: what does your character look like? What are their skills, their abilities? What struggles and challenges have they faced? Who are their enemies and friends? What is their family like? What is their goal? What is their most prized possession? What do they fear?
* What kind of world does your character live in? Does your character exist in a fantasy world, a science fiction universe, a world like our own, or somewhere else entirely?
* If you’ve played games with your character, feel free to tell me about some of their in-game adventures!
* It’s OK to submit a description of a dead character, particularly if they died in a tragic and interesting way.
* If your character is personal to you, feel free to tell me why they’re personal! Your passion is important!
* Please, no more than 1000 words long! You don’t need to tell me about where your character buys their shoes, etc.
* If your character comes from a computer game, MMO or tabletop RPG, feel free to include their ability scores and other game information! I might give points for clever rules-bending!

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at jason@kingofrpgs.com. I’m looking forward to reading your entries!

– Jason Thompson, author, King of RPGs

Anime World Order Podcast, starring the amazing Daryl Surat and other party members, recently hosted me (Jason) as a guest on their latest podcast! In addition to talking about King of RPGs, we also discussed the sinewy pleasures of such ultraviolent battle manga as Crying Freeman and Riki-Oh.

Shocking news! The epic saga of the World’s Greatest Gamers is coming to Texas, the state whose motto is “friendship”, most appropriate for manga! (Plus there’s also been lots of battles there — even more appropriate!) Victor and I will be guests at Project A-Kon in Dallas, Texas on June 4-6, 2010! The exact programming is TBD, but we’ll have a table with King of RPGs graphic novels and swag, and we’ll both be talking about manga, art, role-playing games and all the other things we like. Stay tuned to kingofrpgs.com or our facebook page for more information!