Barry’s latest thriller stars Ben Treven, who manages to get himself embroiled in a tangled web of intrigue concerning 92 missing torture tapes and an effort to blackmail the U.S. government. But, if you’ve been paying attention, you might recall some strong hints from Barry that a certain half-American, half-Japanese assassin, who specializes in death by natural causes, will be making some sort of cameo in the book. What’s more, there is a chance Treven and Rain could end up crossing paths more explicitly in Barry’s next book.

Apropos of Tokyo Rain, that gives me a good target date to release the game, which I always intended to release in conjunction with the next Rain novel. So you can expect Tokyo Rain to drop somewhere around then too. I’ll give a formal publication date as things get firmed up on my side.

But the coolest part for me was the color. They ran two sessions. One was an Asian-themed standoff between an operator and his onetime best friend and training partner. The other: Deadpool vs. Black Tom Cassidy. I’ve always thought the system would translate very well to some other genres, and I’m happy to see that in practice. But mostly … Dude! It’s Deadpool vs. Black Tom Cassidy!

I’ve done a lot of public speaking myself (between competitive debate and my legal career), and I can tell you that there is a lot of gold in there. But more than just some advice on public speaking, there are some nuggets that apply equally well to smaller settings … say … role-playing games. In fact, Barry is rather overt about it: “Your talk is a story.”

So go have a read.

If you are interested in playtesting, please read my playtesting page for info.

Bonus for Barry, the blogosphere has caught on to the book, which can only be good for exposure and sales.

Finally, for the Rainophiles, there are a couple of subtle “cameos” by everyone’s favorite assassin. Not to give anything away, but one of Rain’s prior “assignments” gets a nifty mention.

Playtesting continues apace. V2.0 should be out to playtesters by next week.

On a Tokyo Rain related note, this is my commitment–assuming it is both technically viable and permitted under my licensing agreement–to release an e-reader friendly version of the final text.

So, are there any e-book afficionados out there? What are your e-book experiences?

The Digital d6 from Q-Workshop

As of right now, I recommend 20-30 dice total for a game of Tokyo Rain. At 3.5 euros per die, that comes to … 70-105 euros. Ack! Hmmm … maybe just one or two for Friction rolls.

Q-Workshop make some great dice. I’m particularly fond of the Call of Cthulhu dice that I use for my warlock in my D&D game. So what are your favorite dice?

Rain Fall Movie Trailer

(The site’s in Japanese, but the trailer loads automatically when you go to the web page.)

Most people don’t know this, but Finland has an amazingly robust role-playing game scene. In fact, you can get a national grant to design role-playing games. So it will come as no surprise that the Finnish group of Petri Leinonen, Mikko Merilainen, and Petteri Autero just dropped some amazing playtest notes on me.

Much of what they had to say will find its way in the next version of the Playtest Doc (which should be available right after the holidays). They also had this reassuring comment: “The game was great fun to play and ponder about. It was different from typical games in so many ways that it was really refreshing.”

As anyone who has read the Rain novels knows, one of the titular character’s prime abilities is to find or buy a mundane item or series of mundane items and turn it/them into a lethal weapon. In one of the books, traveling through a street market, he picks up a pair of socks and some batteries and makes a handy little blackjack. I’m also reminded of that scene in Bourne Supremacy, where the titular character does some serious damage with a rolled up magazine. These are “weapons of convenience”, and they will play an important role in the game.

As I work on Tokyo Rain and travel through my daily life, I find myself constantly eyeing the props of my mundane existence in a new light. I’m sitting at my office desk and thinking that my Sigg water bottle, filled with water, would make a nasty club. And that Winged Victory on top of my game design trophy (see how I slipped in that I won a game design contest?) would make an effective knife. Or that plastic grocery bag filled with a few of the marble chess pieces on my desk. Or, yes, even my keyboard, lashed to my arm with the power cord….

So what can you make? Right now. Give me your nastiest weapon of convenience.