While communities across the United States mourn the state of education, the non-profit Seekers Unlimited is changing the very nature of education for the better with Live Action Role Playing games or LARPs. Seekers Unlimited has been testing its educational LARPs in classrooms in Los Angeles for over a year. Now Seekers wants to bring six of its “edu-LARPs” to the nation through a game changing Kickstarter campaign. People who believe that kids should love learning and succeed in school are helping Seekers to reach its goal of raising $8,000 by August 30, 2013.

Tears of a Machine is a tabletop story game (or RPG) of giant robots and teenage pilots inspired by the mecha anime shows that I love: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Fafner: Dead Aggressor, Gunparade March and others. Playing the character of a young pilot, you’ll be connected to the brain of a SAInt, a robot crusader with a dangerous will of its own, and sent to fight the alien raiders and their monstrous war machines.

A game of Tears of a Machine is about the characters first. The rules and situations of the game are tuned to create stories about the pilot’s hopes, dreams, and fears. A pilot’s ego can turn failure into success or mire a pilot in depression. What happens in the classroom or at the diner is just as important for a pilot as what happens on the battlefield.

After Margaret Weis Productions announced they had acquired the Firefly RPG license at the end of February, we looked at the calendar. GenCon. Wow, what a show. Could we do it? Could we develop the system, launch a digital line of adventures, and put together a full corebook in time for the show? Our answer was: “No, there isn’t enough time.”

Personally, I think Plan B — even though it’s been a little crazy for all of us — has turned out pretty damn good. As I sit here typing this, I’m waiting for page proofs for Gaming In The ‘Verse: GenCon 2013 Exclusive, our first limited edition release.

The Exclusive announcement was met first with trepidation. What is this crazy thing? A beta? (No, it’s not.) Then, as we revealed more and more information about this 272 page game book — the more excited folks have been getting.

Pulse-pounding action meets cosmic horror in this exciting collection from the rising stars of the New Cthulhuiana.

Steel your nerves, reach into your weapons locker, and tie tight your running shoes as humanity takes up arms against the monsters and gods of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Grab your pistols, your knives, your gearpunk grenades. Confront deep ones, mi-go, and flying polyps. Fight in the past, present and future, from the birth of the shotgun to the end of the world. Escape by car, carriage, and hot air balloon. Above all, remember to count your bullets…you may need the last one for yourself.

Shotgun v. Cthulhu is now available in multiple eBook formats at DriveThruFiction.com!

The werewolves are not the only changing creatures to stalk the world.

The Changing Breeds hunt places where wolves do not tread, from the storm-tossed skies and sun-lost seas, to the jungle depths and broad deserts. Spiders spin their webs, each silken strand reflecting how the world should be.Bloody-handed serpents kill swiftly and vanish into shadow and myth. Hyenas choose the slain and call down the rain as they fight a desperate war for their homeland.

The Changing Breeds will take their rightful place in the world, and woe betide anyone who stands in their way.

THERE HAVE BEEN EIGHT PREVIOUS WORLDS.

Each world stretched across vast millennia of time. Each played host to a race whose civilizations rose to supremacy but eventually died or scattered, disappeared or transcended. During the time that each world flourished, those that ruled it spoke to the stars, reengineered their physical bodies, and mastered form and essence, all in their own unique ways.

Each left behind remnants.

The people of the new world—the Ninth World—sometimes call these remnants magic, and who are we to say they’re wrong? But most give a unique name to the legacies of the nigh-unimaginable past. They call them…

Tales from the Ninth World is available now in multiple eBook formats at DriveThruFiction.com!

In this series, Kenneth Hite looks at the creatures, species, and monsters of the Cthulhu Mythos from every non-Euclidean angle. Alternate versions and new explanations provide the same jolt of mythic bisociation that the gods and titans receive in the TRAIL OF CTHULHU corebook. Hite traces these foul things through their legendary history, and provides further clues for any Investigator to follow. Horrific scenario seeds burst and bloom, story spines protrude and deform, in a blasphemous garden any Keeper can harvest.

Hounds of Tindalos is the third installment of the Ken Writes About Stuff subscription, or it’s available as a stand-alone product.

Hideous Creatures: Hounds of Tindalos is available now at DriveThruRPG.com!

Twenty years ago, White Wolf unveiled Mind’s Eye Theatre. It ushered in an entirely new era of immersive and interactive entertainment, and added a vibrant new dimension to roleplaying games. Even though it has been years since a new MET book has been published, legions of dedicated Mind’s Eye Theatre fans around the world are still playing. They have been waiting patiently for an updated version of their favorite Live Action Roleplaying game – and with your help, now they’ll get it!

Modern Design, Classic Feel

Mind’s Eye Theatre: Vampire The Masquerade draws on more than two decades’ worth of material from the iconic World of Darkness game setting. The rules are designed and adapted specifically for the Live Action Roleplay environment, while maintaining the fidelity of the original game. Modern design methods meet classic feel in our new expression of the game!

Old School Rules, New Age Technology!

Return to the classic days of fantasy RPGs! DriveThruRPG has collected 12 of their top selling OSR gaming PDFs as part of a special spotlight promotion for the OSR movement in the RPG community! This special collection features titles like Wizards of the Coast’s D&D Basic Set Rulebook, the Swords & Wizardry Complete Rulebook from Frog God Games, Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, and several more fan favorites.

You can check out the special collection of OSR titles today at DriveThruRPG.com!

Scarlet Huntress battles werewolves and fights for revenge in a new exciting comic with 3 stories and tons of new art by Sean Forney!

Scarlet Huntress has been a passion and a long journey for us. We have worked hard to develop the characters, back stories, and story arcs to keep readers interested. The original book, Scarlet Huntress #1, came out in 2006 but Scarlet first appeared in two other anthology books called Portal. After seeing great reviews and success with #1 we took our time developing the next phase of the story and published Scarlet Huntress #2 in 2011. Soon after came the ancillary books Scarlet’s Guide to Cryptids and a children’s book version Little Red Riding Hood: Origins of a Huntress. People have been asking for more stories and more books so we’ve come up with this kickstarter to help fund our and everyone else’s dreams of seeing more Scarlet Huntress hitting the shelves.

“Here’s the question:Do you really want to know? Because it’s not like it’s a secret. It’s just like your car it doesn’t run by magic but it might as well, for all you know when you look under the hood.”

– Wesley Cote, AKA The Key

What Has Risen May Fall

What is the God-Machine? That question doesn’t have a single, easy answer, but that doesn’t stop people from asking. The World of Darkness is layer upon layer of mystery, but what is the mechanism that keeps it all moving? Is there a design in play? And what happens to those who think to use the Machine for their own ends?

What Has Fallen May Rise Again

World of Darkness: The God Machine Chronicle is available now in PDF and Hardcover editions at DriveThruRPG.com!

Out of Space contains five adventures that will take Investigators from the mountains of northern Mexico to the skies above Germany, to the smog and disease of gaslight London and the raging tides of the Atlantic Ocean. It will even take you to a world that could only exist in your worst nightmares.

Created by GUMSHOE designer and gaming luminary, Robin D. Laws, Trail of Cthulhu veteran Adam Gauntlett, and Jason Morningstar, award-winning creator of Fiasco and the Shab-al-Hiri Roach.

Out of Space also features extensive handouts, pregenerated characters and exclusive new essays from the authors.

Trail of Cthulhu: Out of Space is available now in PDF format at DriveThruRPG.com!

The Progenitors hid far more depth than anyone, Tradition or Technocrat, realized. Too long considered by others — and even themselves — as lab monkeys and cloistered researchers, their protective cocoon of isolation was ripped away by the Dimensional Anomaly. Forced by cataclysmic events, the Progenitors are injecting themselves back into a sick world.

The Union’s surgeons and chemists have made their diagnosis, and it scares them: the Technocracy’s diseased and about to tear itself apart. Traditions keep peddling snake oil treatments to a populace yearning for an easy fix. And there are worse things out there, cancers on the world. So the Progenitors must take the only sensible action: arm up and prep the OR.

Convention Book: Progenitors is available now in PDF and Print editions at DriveThruRPG.com!

Ex-adventurer Max Gibson just made the biggest mistake of his life, and all of Dragon City is going to pay for it. Because of him, there’s nothing to stop the Ruler of the Dead from renewing her centuries-old war on the city Max and thousands of other souls call home. He would volunteer to be at the vanguard of those brave soldiers standing strong against her horde — if he hadn’t been tossed into the Garrett, the most impregnable prison on the planet, instead.

The Imperial Guard would have executed him for his crimes on the spot if the heir to empire — a young dragonet still wet behind his wings — hadn’t imprinted himself on Max at the moment he hatched. Separated from his scaly ward and anyone who might call him friend, there’s little Max can do but watch the city’s defenses crumble before the Ruler of the Dead’s relentless zombie army.

The End Times have come to Dragon City, and if Max doesn’t find a way out of his cell soon, he’s going to be the last person alive to see it.

End Times in Dragon City is available now in eBook and Print formats at DriveThruFiction.com!

Night’s Black Agents brings the GUMSHOE engine to the spy thriller genre, combining the propulsive paranoia of movies like Ronin and The Bourne Identity with supernatural horror straight out of Bram Stoker. Investigation is crucial, but it never slows down the action, which explodes with expanded options for bone-crunching combat, high-tech tradecraft, and adrenaline-fueled chases.

For a limited time Pelgrane Press is offering Night’s Black Agents and The Zalozhniy Quartet, a thriller story arc of missions for 20% OFF at DriveThruRPG.com!

Get them before they get you!

New York Times bestselling author of World War Z develops original comic book series with Avatar Press

The bestselling zombie writer in history unleashes an all-new epic story in the biggest comic event of the summer! Max Brooks is known worldwide as one of the founders of the zombie renaissance, with his novels being considered essential reading for horror enthusiasts. World War Z has been adapted by Brad Pitt into a summer blockbuster premiering on June 20th and his first book, The Zombie Survival Guide, is cited as launching the zombie survival sub-genre. Now Emmy Award winning author, Max Brooks, has developed a brand new sub-genre of Vampires vs Zombies and is unleashing Extinction Parade, an epic horror comic series through Avatar Press.

The Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design is pleased to announce the 2013 Origins Awards Nominees.

The awards are presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design to companies for outstanding games in the industry. For the 39th annual award cycle, the Awards had fifteen categories: Best Roleplaying Game, Best Roleplaying Supplement, Best Board Game, Best Traditional Card Game, Best Family, Party or Children’s Game, Best Gaming Accessory, Best Miniatures Rules, Best Miniature Figure, Best Historical Board Game, Best Historical Miniature Figure, Best Historical Miniature Game Supplement, Best Historical Miniature Rules, and Best Game-Related Publication, and Best Collectible Card Game.

The winner of each category will be voted on by attendees at the Origins Game Fair. The winners will be announced and presented at the Origins Awards Ceremony on Saturday June 15th of the event.

Additional information concerning the Origins Awards can be found at OriginsGameFair.com under the Origins Awards link.

While it is well-known that not every God is as potent as Zeus (and not every Goddess as brave as Isis), even the Gods themselves tend to“forget” their long-lost cousins and great-aunts twice-removed on the other side of the family. Among the immortals, the uber-powerful feel there are some deities best left off Junior’s wedding invitation, ignored at holidays, or obscured deep in a poorly updated Wikipedia page.

In Extras: (Supplemental Yet Can Be Useful On Occasion Scions), a select number of these rare Gods, Goddesses, and their Scions have been thrown under the spotlight. From the oft-overlooked Queen of the Porcelain Throne to a brave-but-curious Scion who loves the outdoors, discover how the pantheons feel about these add-ons and their place in the War against the Titans.

Imagine being both dead and deathless at the same time. Imagine being cradled in the arms of death for years, sometimes decades on end, but all the while knowing that you will eventually not only arise again, but awaken to an unfamiliar world that mostly fears and hates you. Now imagine that your purpose, your entire existence, is bound within this cycle — that you are chained to it for all eternity. You sleep, you wake, your serve your Judge’s will in the lands of the living, and you return to the death-sleep once more. The ancient culture that empowered you is gone, lost to the sands of time… yet you endure.

In Mummy: The Curse, a Storytelling game set in the World of Darkness, you play one of these beings. Those who know they exist, from the cultists who serve them to the dark forces arrayed against them, call them the Deathless.

It’s too late! The living dead have already taken over the world. Your brains have been devoured. Nothing is left but spasms of ravenous need—an obscene hunger for even more zombie fiction. Forget the metaphors and the mildly scary. You want shock, you want grue, you want disturbing, gut-wrenching, skull-crunching zombie stories that take you over the edge and go splat. You want the bloody best of the ultimate undead. You have no choice. . . you. . . must. . . have. . . Extreme Zombies!

Extreme Zombies is edited by Paula Guran and published by Prime Books. To celebrate this release, FlamesRising.com is hosting a give-a-way for two signed copies in the U.S. from one of the authors, Monica Valentinelli!

Comment in this post! Say something witty about zombies for your chance to win a physical copy of this collection! This contest will end in a week, so hurry up and zombify us already!