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Name:
Location: Ohio, United States

Steven A. Tinner is your average "too many ideas/too little money" gaming geek who finally decided to put his ideas out there and try to make a living at his hobby. He lives with a VERY understanding wife, one ginormous cat, and one squinchy cat.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

What's cooking?

Whew! GM's Day is finally over. Hope you had a chance to take advantage of all the great sales.
I picked up XRP's complete Monster Geographica line myself, because you can never have too many monsters.

Speaking of monsters, I promised some "sneak peeks" at some upcoming products in this blog didn't I?
Guess I better come across with the goods.
One of the biggest products I'm working on is a little something I'm tentatively calling "The American Academy of the Arcane."

You see, I love the Harry Potter stories. Totally dig them.
And I really enjoyed Human Head's "Redhurst Academy of Magic."
Great stuff all around. They both make great settings for "young wizards at school" games.

The problem is though, these settings bear absolutely no resemblance to anything I would consider "normal school."
I'm an American. We don't have Prefects and Head Boys. While soccer is reportedly a very popular sport in Great Britan, it's not quite the rage here in the States. So a game about soccer/rugby played on the back of a flying broom is cool and all, but I can't relate to it the way I could somthing based off, say ... American football.

An American wizards' school is going to be a VERY different animal from a British school, or a purely fantasy school.
That the driving design sensibility behind "The American Academy of the Arcane."
I'm trying to take an American high school experience and twist it through a "Rowlings-esque" lens to capture something new and exciting.

An American wizard's school isn't likely to be found in some spooky old castle. It's more likely in a stately mansion, or a modern high tech campus. The American Academy of the Arcane's school grounds looks a lot more like Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters than Hogwarts Academy.

American students and more importantly their parents aren't going to want their children hidden from the world for months at a time. Most American kids come home from school on a daily basis.

The differences go on and on, everything from driving, to dating even down to the very spells the students are likely to learn and the classrooms they learn in would be dramatically different in an American magic school.

That's the spin on "The American Academy of the Arcane."
It's still in the design phase, but we're planning on using the modern d20 rules set, and playing up the idea that this is a modern, uniquely American approach to training wizards.
More "Sky High" and less stodgy boarding school.
More "Teen Titans" and less "Time of the Twins."

I'm sure I could even sneak in a joke or two here about how this is a "revolutionary" product. But that just wouldn't be cricket.
And that's not my cup of tea.

Ooo ... sorry. Those just slipped out.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Steven: This project sounds very, very cool. I know this is kind of out-of-the-blue and you probably already have it covered, but if you are looking for an editor/collaborator for this I am interested.

I've edited a couple of small published works (Campaign Options: Commoners from Emerald Press and Door to Simit Al from GMC) but haven't yet written anything that's been published. Let me know what you think. You can contact me at
jim DOT ade AT gmail DOT com. Thanks for your time.

2:26 PM  

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