Streets of Bedlam is a pen-and-paper roleplaying game in which you play characters with histories, who’ve done bad things, who may do a few more, but who have a code they stick to, fuzzy though it may be, that guides them through life and allows them to make a difference. Everybody in this town wants something but your characters are aiming higher than most and maybe, just maybe, they’ll do some good. At the very least, maybe they’ll stop some bad from happening.

Written and designed by critically-acclaimed game writer Jason L Blair, the man behind Little Fears, Streets of Bedlam will be built around the award-winning Savage Worlds ruleset published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group.

In this interview I ask Jason for details about the inspirations he drew from and the characters that you play in Streets of Bedlam.

Top Cow Productions and Image Comics announced today a premiere launch event at Meltdown in Los Angeles for the Pilot Season 2011 voting period. The Pilot Season “Take Control” party invites Los Angeles fans to meet the various creative teams involved in 2011’s Pilot Season competition, get their books signed, and get the details on how they can determine the winning series this year. The event is co-sponsored by Chipotle Mexican Grill, through arrangement with marketing firm Bonfire Agency.

Since 2007, Pilot Season has become the leading fan-driven comic event, allowing creators to compete with brand-new original properties for fan votes. This year, Top Cow released eight unique pilot issues by eight creative teams ranging from established industry pros to up-and-coming talent to screenwriters and even one NFL All Star. With all eight books in stores, voting will begin on Monday, December 5th at topcow.com, where fans can also find additional information on each title.

The Vampire Retrospective Project continues today with an essay from Tyler Ray. Tyler tells us about discovering Vampire at a convention in Las Vegas and the artwork and mood of Vampire have changed how he plays RPGs even today.

Vampire The Masquerade brings up so many thoughts and images since it was brought to my attentions at convention in Vegas. The first soft cover green book showed that 16 year old the first time it was more about the character than the action. Those pages bound inside the book talking about the fight between man and the beast, are you really in control of your fate, and can you live in the structure of society or rebel against it.

One of the tasks I have as Publisher Relations Manager at DriveThruRPG.com is working with publishers to get their books into the Now in Print program.

One publisher that has embraced this program as part of their new publishing model is White Wolf. Not only are they releasing all of their new titles in both PDF and Print, they are working with us to add all of the out-of-print World of Darkness and Exalted titles back in print and available again. The process has certainly had some challenges and taken much longer to get rolling than everyone involved had hoped, but the books are great and the fans have (mostly) been excited about these developments.

Some of the challenges with a project of this size include formatting issues. Some of the books are rather old and access to the original production files is hit-or-miss, meaning some of the books will be built from high-quality scans rather than digital production.

“From acclaimed writer and artist team Robert Tinnell and Neil Vokes (THE BLACK FOREST, THE WICKED WEST) comes a sensuous horror epic in the spirit of European horror cinema of the 1960s and ’70s. The death of Carmilla, the seductive vampire, sets in motion events that lead to a monumental struggle between the forces of darkness and a brave band of mortals. Its members include a reluctant young Abraham Van Helsing and a mysterious monster hunter struggling to keep his own inner monster at bay. When Baron Frankenstein is recruited to add his scientific genius to the group’s arsenal, Dracula and his undead kingdom face the possibility of total annihilation.”

Archaia Entertainment announced today the initial run of the MOUSE GUARD ROLEPLAYING GAME BOX SET has sold out at the distributor level (copies may still be available at the retail level), so the company has rushed a second run into circulation to meet the demand for the holidays. In addition, by popular demand, limited sets of the Mouse Guard RPG dice and pawns—which until now had only been a part of the box set—are available for separate purchase exclusively through the Archaia Webstore, said Archaia Publisher Mike Kennedy.

The Mouse Guard Roleplaying Game Box Set is a deluxe version of the original Mouse Guard Roleplaying Game hardcover book, an award-winning, pen-and-paper RPG that uses Luke Crane’s Burning Wheel system and is lavishly illustrated by Mouse Guard creator David Petersen.

The Vampire Retrospective Project continues today with an essay from Kelley Barnes, who has been onvolved with Vampire a number of different ways over the years ranging from Camarilla Club Director to White Wolf’s Marketing Director and contributing author on Paths of Storytelling: Vampire and so much more. Kelley tells us about her experiences with LARP, the Gehenna announcement and the 20th Anniversary Edition of Vampire.