We had the opportunity to play several games at the GAMA Trade Show. We would like to thank Rich Waldbiess from Six Feet Under Games, New Holland, PA for providing a picture of Don playing Lifeboat. We also played Monster Mayhem, Toledo, Portobello Market, Cash ‘n Guns, Yetisburg, and of course, Poker. We also talk about Hunter The Vigil, Catan Dice (also playable online), the Catan Expansion, Traders and Barbarians, and a few from the Indie Press Revolution.

We are now gearing up for Phoenix Con Games, Arizona’s largest gaming convention. Held at the Mesa Convention Center in Mesa, Arizona. They offer just about every type of gaming, as well as parties, contests, anime/cosplay activities and other fun events. We will be running a few games there right out of our booth in the exhibit hall, some come by and play with us!

We talked about several folks that share the podosphere with us. Specifically, we a talked about an interview with Pete Fenlon on On Board Games. Ron’s and Veronica’s recent appearance on the show led us to mention The Games the Thing. We were extremely excited to meet with several podcasters at the GAMA Trade Show. These included Dan Repperger from Fear the Boot, Daniel Perez from The Digital Front and The Gamer Traveler, Alan Sugarbaker from OgreCave Audio Report, and Collin from Obsessed with Gaming.

Don is criticized for his British ignorance in our discussion of Accent Your Character, our casual dialect training. CDs and digital downloads are available at paizo.com and lovecraftiana.com.

We had some great feedback today from friends from several companies and game stores. Some of these include Myriad Games in Salem, NH, The Kid in Me in Milford, DE, and Blitz Games.

We will, no doubt miss Boyan’s steady contribution to Out of Character, but duty calls him to join PSI in Georgia. We hope to have him on from time to time, but you will best keep up with him from his podcast and his blog at Shifting Skies Games.

Anthony has been involved in games and gaming in one way or another for some 30 years. He started as a consumer, playing D&D and Avalon Hill and SPI games in elementary school. In high school, Anthony played just about every game he could find. He also began running gaming events at Sci-Fi conventions.

In his late teens, Anthony moved on to running whole game programs at Sci-Fi conventions, and was play-testing games as well. He began learning the ins and outs of event management through this work and also through running teen events and mall fashion shows. In 1993, Anthony published the Theatrix dice-less role-playing game with some friends under the banner of Backstage Press, and in 1994, he started running the ManaFest game convention in the San Francisco Bay Area with Japji Khalsa. He also helped to open an manage a retail game store in the Bay Area in the mid-90s. Between all of these projects, Anthony worked in most other areas of entertainment–film, T.V., stage, music, newspapers, and magazines. He also did a great deal of marketing and business consulting–somewhere in there earning a degree in Journalism and several management training and teaching certificates.

He also spent the 90s writing articles for gaming publications, consulting on game design, brokering games, designing board games(he is the co-designer, with Japji Khalsa, of the Origins Award-nominated Dwarven Dig! from Kenzer and Co.) and running conventions–the most notable being KublaCon, (formally ManaFest), his share of which he eventually sold to his partner.

Anthony has worked for GAMA since 2001, starting as the Event Coordinator and moving up to land in the Executive Director spot in 2004. As the Executive Director for GAMA, Anthony oversees the running Origins Game Expo, GAMA Trade show, and several industry programs. He still does some consulting and designing (look for Tales of the Arabian Nights, 3rd Edition, from Z-Man Games), and he has a few other interests as well.

We bring up a few games in todays show. In particular, we want to direct you to Frederic Moyersoen’s blog to learn more about Bacchus’ Banquet. More information is also available for Alpha Omega, to include a starting scenario and pregenerated characters.

The dialect training series, Accent Your Character is now available at Lovecraftiana in digital format. You can learn more about it at Yog-Sothoth.com, award winning Call of Cthulhu web site and host of the famous Yog Radio.

We also heard from Dan from The Gamer Traveler. It sparks a discussion about one of his episodes on gamer cruises.

Skip Williams professes a love of old things, such as classic Hollywood movies, musty old books, vintage airplanes, his wife, Penny, and the century-old farmhouse he shares with her-though not necessarily in that order.

Skip has numerous role-playing game credits, and has dabbled in many other things. Skip pens the Ask the Kobold feature in Kobold Quarterly and has recently completed a work for Dungeon Magazine.

When not contriving dire plots to bedevil role-players, Skip putters in his vegetable garden and orchard (which keep many deer and rabbits fed), and works to reclaim the fields around the farmhouse from the obstinate weeds that blanket them. He also paints toy soldiers.

The Williams house is the site of an annual Christmas cookie bake that draws friends from both sides of the Atlantic; it’s also the permanent home to a growing pride of unruly housecats.

There are several ways to participate at PlayCatan.com. There are a handful of web games that only require the free account to play. Just by signing up you can also participate in Settlers of Catan games in the Catan Online World. With a premium account, several more Klaus Teuber titles are available to you as well as the meta game, where you as a play can collect resources and contribute to the Catan world. Join us in the forums to visit with our moderators and schedule a game today!

Please comment on the COW Radio topic in the Catan Online World forums.

Some of the games that get a high degree of mention in the show include Savage Worlds, Alpha Omega, and Aces & Eights. Savage Worlds is one of Ron and Veronica’s main topics on their podcast, so you can imaging they play a lot. As excited as we are to get into the others, we haven’t quite yet made that leap. We talk about why in the show. On the board game side, we are excited to soon dig into Mutant Chronicles.

We have come across another great discussion on Accent Your Character. These are our dialect training series (which, by the way, are available now from Lovecraftiana). Fear the Boot has a nice introduction and then goes on in a later episode to have a great discussion on dialog and character. Fear the Boot is a great show and we encourage you to listen.

A lot of podcasts get some mention in todays show. These are obviously The Games the Thing and Fear the Boot, but we also mention our old friend, Paul of Cthulhu and Yog Radio, and welcome Ed to the world of podcasting with Dark Whispers.

Everyone, join us for our Catan Online party on Sunday, March 30th after 5 PM PST. You will need to download the client software and perhaps allowing it to update when logging on for the first time. When you get into the world, click on your backpack and move to the World Village, the English speaking community. Remember, the software is still in beta, so some translation bugs are still being worked out. For more information and discussion, join is in the forums.

For those of you holding on to an older version of Catan, Mayfair now has the Adapter Kit. This provides an outer frame to enclose the hexes that make up the island of Catan, stabilizing them on the table.

Several bits of community and convention news have come up during the show. We learn that Bo is headed to Game Storm, an adventure the rest of us are envious of. The Southern Arizona Gamers Association announces RinCon in Tucson, Arizona. This will be a don’t-miss event. We are introduced to the Collegiate Association of Table Top Gamers. The troops are starting to be rallied for something called MideastCon.

Its always fun to reach out to other folks with media to share. Of course, we are especially delighted to call your attention also to Accent Your Character. This dialect training series for role-players and other casual pretenders is reviewed in great detail by the Wandering Geek on his Game Bag Review Show. You can purchase them on CD or digital download from paizo.com. We also mention today about the new video from Ghoulash.

My Hot Picks for Second Quarter 2008 are:

Munchkin Quest

Supernatural RPG

Exalted: Legacy of the Unconquered Sun

WoD: Innocents

White Wolf has a very interesting promotion going on for Exalted where you can get a free copy of the game. You “graduate” from D&D by sacrificing your players handbook. Your then off and running with a new game. We learn some about the game but not near enough for my tastes. I look forward to my first opportunity to play.

We found a great conversation by the Fist Full of Comics crew about our dialect training series for roleplayers, Accent Your Character. It is a fun listen and an objective 3rd party conversation about the CDs. They are also available as digital downloads from Paizo.com.

Not too long ago, Bo introduced us to a game that doesn’t leave his car except to break it out and play. It is a Catan title called Domaine; a great area domination game. We have also been playing with the beta version of Domaine in Catan Online. We also learned the World Villiage has been created. Sign in, click on your backpack, and move to the World Villiage.

Polymancer says their goodbyes. Appropriately, their last installment talks about wrapping up a campaign. Polymancer magazine is a multi-genre magazine about roleplaying games (RPGs), miniature wargames, LARPs, and more. Articles are written so that they can be useful to gamers of all kinds, no matter which rules they prefer to use. This is done by making the articles “system-independent.” There is a complete adventure scenario in every issue. This is not an e-zine, but the real thing: an honest to goodness, printed magazine for gamers. Find out more at www.polymancerstudios.com.

Guido Teuber grew up in the world of Catan as a subject of playtesting for his father, Klaus Teuber, and later to take on roles inside the company of this successful line of games. He is now a managing director for Catan, LLC, the United States wing of the Catan World. Gavin got his start in the Catan world by translating German for us English speaking folk and now serves as the community manager for the online world.

Apart from Catan Online that you play in, we also talked about several web games that don’t require a client download. The popular one is Catan Dice Game, which is also about to be released as a physical product. You can also play Oceania, Starship Catan Light and Multicatan. They’ll give you a challenge and a brief break, and a chance to sample the games before buying their physical counterparts.

Make sure to join us for the Catan Online world with the client software. Remember this is not an official version but still in beta testing. It is playable and an absolute blast, but you may find a few lingering translation errors. Enjoy, and we will see you inside the world of Catan.

Community building is again a big topic. We talk not only about things going on in Southern Arizona, like our special Ides events, but a way to get in touch with other gamers all the way to the Netherlands. Uncle Bear also invites us to check out the Dire Cafe.

We are really excited about the English version of PlayCatan. You will hear more very soon. Until then there are several web games to play. Catan Dice Game is also going to be available soon as a real physical product.

YouTube has caught our attention. If your looking for some hot nerdy action, check out 1 900 Nerd Girl and Nerd Porn (language warning).