[PR] Bad Axe Games

[Wulf Ratbane]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Benjamin Durbin
Bad Axe Games
support@badaxegames.com

Bad Axe Games Enters d20 Publishing
Company Promises “Games With Grit”

(Lombard, IL) -- The publishing community has a new colleague with the entry of Bad Axe Games, LLC. The company focuses on high-quality, professionally written and produced materials for players of the world’s most popular fantasy roleplaying game.

Drawing on the talents of professionals from within and without the industry, Bad Axe Games has a twofold approach: Provide great game materials from a genuine players’ perspective, and maintain the most professional standards in writing, design, illustration, and production.

“There are a limited number of top-notch d20 publishers out there who are able to keep their gamer roots and still maintain the level of professionalism that customers demand. Bad Axe Games is one of those companies,” says founder Benjamin Durbin. “It’s important to love gaming, and to find the time to play as often as possible, to really understand the rules and the players’ needs.

“You don’t have to sacrifice your gamer’s soul or your professionalism-- they can co-exist. They have to, if you’re going to connect with your customers and deliver product that is both creative and rules compliant.”

The staff is equally committed to their motto, Games With Grit. “We set the mood that the world is a dark and dangerous place-- then provide the rules to make it so. We keep things dark, stark, and focused on the character and the action-- two-fisted, kick-in-the-door gaming. That means delivering products with plenty of ‘crunchy bits’ for the players, and avoiding as much as possible the kind of syrupy ‘high fantasy’ prose that permeates some products. We believe the characters should define the world, not the other way around.”

The Partners

Bad Axe Games was founded by a staff of dedicated gamers, which by happy circumstance also includes professional writers, illustrators, lawyers, web designers, business managers, editors, graphic designers, and more. Bad Axe Games draws on this pool of creative and technical talent to bring their products to market.

Benjamin Durbin has nibbled around the edges of the RPG industry for many years, having done design work on collectible card games, video games, and toys, all the while enviously watching his friends in the industry from the sidelines. He’s ready to take a bite of the whole pie.

Andrew Hale is an artist that has been working in and out of the gaming industry since graduating from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1995. He resides in Kansas with his wife Sarah and daughter Mary Kathryn.


For more information, please visit http://www.badaxegames.com

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well, it's good to see another D20 company but here are some thoughts, take with a big grain of salt.

BadAxe Games? With all the creative talent there couldn't there be a better name? (Grain of salt!)

Art of the dwarven battlerager is okay. (Grain of salt!)

Name of battlerager seems to be treading on PI of WoTC since that is a creation from the Dwarves Handbook for dwarves right?

The battlerager example, http://www.osseum.com/images/battlerager.pdf , presents some interesting concepts. On one hand, suggestions on how to acheive the class by multi-classing are welcome. The role playing issues of having a dwarf be a barbarian however, need to be covered a little more as dwarves generally are not barbarians by nature, and when they are, they don't oftne have access to the weapons and armor that are traditional among dwarves.

Improved Charge is mentioned on page 2, but that is not a standard feat. Will it reference the feat or reprint it?

Mention of Slayer is also made. Is this meant to imply something similiar to the Troll Slayers from Warhammer?

Sorry if these questions seem to get off to a bad start of imply that I"m not interested in the products but I agree that we need top quality materials and redoing an old kit from 2nd edition doesn't seem to prove the point. This is more true when one considers the Frenzy based barbarian class already in Masters of the Wild.

The price for the page count is great, $9.95 for 64 pages and I for one am interested to hear more about the plans and original material for the line up.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Thanks for the reply, Joe. I'll take that grain of salt and leave you to your opinions. However I will try to answer some of your questions below!

First, allow me to explain the focus of the book in a little more detail. The Heroes of High Favor series is designed to encourage multiclassing and roleplaying for each race's favored class. Dwarves presents skills, feats, and multiclass/prestige class options for dwarven fighters of all kinds. This is a very targeted focus, one that we think sets us apart from similar offerings.

Improved Charge is mentioned on page 2, but that is not a standard feat. Will it reference the feat or reprint it?

Improved Charge can be found in an earlier chapter of the book.

Mention of Slayer is also made. Is this meant to imply something similiar to the Troll Slayers from Warhammer?

The slayer is the fighter-ranger offering, combining the best of both the favored enemy abilities of the ranger and the bonus feats of the fighter.

Sorry if these questions seem to get off to a bad start of imply that I"m not interested in the products but I agree that we need top quality materials and redoing an old kit from 2nd edition doesn't seem to prove the point.

Let me reassure you that the battlerager preview was chosen specifically because of its widespread appeal and accessibility.

As a player, I would not be happy with book about dwarves that did not present some kind of "beserker" prestige class. The beserk dwarf is an iconic character-- the archetype appears in countless incarnations in fiction and, as one might suspect, has been given its due in many 3e permutations as well. Any dwarf book without such an offering would be an omission.

You will find much of the iconic in the Heroes of High Favor series. Frankly, we don't feel that a book full of prestige classes that no player would be interested in-- no matter how unique or bizarre-- serves the interests of gamers. For every gamer you find who wants to play a living pile of ooze, I will find you a hundred who want to play a bloodthirsty dwarf.

This is more true when one considers the Frenzy based barbarian class already in Masters of the Wild.

As you have access to both the Frenzied Beserker from MotW and our dwarven Battlerager, I encourage you to compare them side by side and choose the one that suits you. They share the same 'iconic' focus and roleplaying concept, but in execution-- aside from their roots in the rage ability-- they are quite different.

The price for the page count is great, $9.95 for 64 pages and I for one am interested to hear more about the plans and original material for the line up.

Joe, although I think the price is great as well, I want to make sure to point out that the trim size of this book is 6x9. If you are keeping track of price-per-page, it is worth considering this on the same playing field as a 32-page standard sized book.

However, our focus was on the text density (9-pt type with reasonable half-inch margins), the price-per-word, and most especially on the content. We're not padding the margins with artwork, and we're certainly not padding the content with useless fluff. (We feel the equipment chart in the Player's Handbook is quite enough, thank you.)

It will not be long before widespread reviews are available, but I will be happy to answer any further questions you have.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Strange Size?

To be honest, I had missed the size. Why the difference? Especially in comparision to a standard 32 page module. Stand out in the crowd? I don't think this formula has worked too well for Hammerdog Games or the other companies that have went this route. I could be wrong of course but I don't recall anyone pointing out Blackwater or other mini-sized books as massive hits.

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

[Horacio]

Wulf, I mean Benjamin, I'm impressed.
Truely.

The suggestion on how to acheive the class by multi-classing are really an innovative concept, and a welcomed one. The art is great. And the class is very playable but yet balanced, at least at first sight.

When I saw you were the authour I knew the book would be worth his price. Who better than you for a book about Dwarves?
I hope the book will be a great success.

 

[CrazyMage]

Why, "Bad Axe" is my favorite town name in Michigan! (It's in the thumb)

More on topic, this looks like some cool stuff.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Re: Strange Size?

To be honest, I had missed the size. Why the difference? I could be wrong of course but I don't recall . . . other mini-sized books as massive hits.

Barring the addition of extraneous material, large typeface, and wide margins to pad out the work (which we will not do), we chose to go with more pages at a smaller trim size so that the book could be perfect bound, which we felt was vastly preferable to a staple-bound book. In the end we think that the smaller size and the tight focus of the content go hand in hand.

As to the success of smaller sized books and other companies, I'm not in a position to speculate, except to suggest that production value and content are more reliable predictors of success.

For those of you who would like to see more of Andy's artwork, we have added some additional sketches to our website and put them into a random rotation on the front page.

http://www.badaxegames.com

 

[2WS-Steve]

Just a tiny note,

I could see the 6x9 size being good for a character portfolio; might be easier to lay in your lap while playing a game and I could slip it into my textbook so I could pretend to be studious in class while actually doing something fun.