About This Blog

My name is Steve Johnson, and I’ve been a gamer for most of my life. Over the years, I’ve played, GMed, and rules hacked a lot of published games and designed numerous game worlds of my own. In 1998, I co-founded a company called Hex Games. We publish a moderately successful game system called QAGS and lots of supplements for it, including the ENnie-Award winning Hobomancer.

Since I’ve already got a game system that I like (after all, I designed it), I rarely play games "off the shelf" and tend to actively avoid RPG books that are similar to a product that I'm working on for Hex. I know that GURPS sourcebooks are incredible and all, but there's no point in publishing a book if it just retreads the same ground Steve Jackson Games has already covered. That means I spend a lot of time looking for source material for my games and writing projects, and over the years I've accumulated a LOT of books (just ask anyone who's helped me move). Some of these books are useful for specific settings or genres, but there are others that I find myself referring to again and again.

When I originally set up this blog*, the plan was to stick specifically to books, but since that time the way we consume media, not to mention my tastes and approach to gaming, have changed quite a bit. Therefore, I’m expanding the premise to include pretty much anything that might be useful to people who are running, designing, or even playing in a game. There will still be a lot of books, but there may also be movies, software, music, web sites, and other things.

*Back in 2008. Life intervened and it never got past the introductory post. Hopefully life will be more accommodating this time around.