A theory journal?

[matthijs]

This is one of those "wouldn't it be cool if..." posts.

Over in Diaspora: How I learned 2 stop worrying & love the Forge, Chris Lehrich mentioned journals.

Does anyone else here remember Interactive Fantasy, the out-of-print journal from 10 years back? (Some articles can be found here and here and here).

I would love to see something like that again. Something about gaming theory, but on paper, with a clear focus and an editor. (The Forge has no paper, and I can't think of any existing gaming magazine or fanzine with a clear focus on theory). Where you would be forced to take the time to actually think for a while before replying to something, and where you'd know that whoever bought it would want to read it all, even the long articles without the catchy names.

Wouldn't that be cool?

(I wasn't sure whether to post this here or in Publishing, hope this is OK).

[Jonathan Walton]

Dude, it's happening.  Coming in late March/early April.  Keep an eye out.

PUSH Vol 1.

Featuring (some tenative) Eero Tuovinen, Emily Care, Ben Lehman, Jonathan Walton, Shreyas Sampat, Thomas Robertson, Clinton R. Nixon, Chris Lehrich, John Kim, Rich Forest, Gary Pratt, Neel Krishnaswami, Piers Brown, and cover art by Clio Chiang.

Once the first one is out, we'll start recruiting people for Vol 2.  Viva la future!

[This is, of course, not to say that other people shouldn't start similar projects, or to downplay the trailblazing efforts of Matt Snyder's Daedalus...  More roleplaying theory for everyone!]

[matthijs]

Wubba wubba hey! That's great! I was somehow under the impression that PUSH would be only in electronic format, but am happy to see that I was wrong.

Oh man. I'm definitely looking forward to this.

[Jonathan Walton]

Well, the initial release is going to be PDF, but I'm printing off a bunch of contributor and review copies and there was talk at one point of paying some/most contributors in review copies that they could then sell/give away.  Additionally, some of the review copies are going to get sent off to people who might be interested in distributing the journal nationally.  If the initial release goes well, I definitely see an additional small print run or an additional printed volume that collects several issues together or does a "Best of PUSH" thing.

But first we have to get the thing finished first!

[Brendan]

This is the first I've heard of PUSH, but it sounds excellent.  Will there be a website or some other way to subscribe?

[Jonathan Walton]

Yup.  Gimmee another month or so.  I'm not McDonalds, with the instant service-with-a-smile thing going on.