Sword and Board

Just wondering if anyone has played Fantasy Age from Green Ronin. It looks pretty interesting. I know it was based on the older Dragon Age game. I've read a couple reviews, but I'm not sure how well the game would work in regular play.

Chaosium has published a reformatted version of Runequest 2e, that also includes all errata in it's correct locations. I've heard of this game for years, and it's always been very expensive on eBay, so I finally got myself a copy.

I like it, though I don't know that it would be my preferred version for d100 gaming (Openquest is the best version I've tried). I was also surprised that no Sorcery rules were included. I guess they got introduced in 3e by Avalon Hill.

I was also surprised that the rules really aren't that Glorantha specific. Yeah, the cults included and some of the monsters are definitely Gloranthan, but the way lots of old gamers talked, I thought this book would be stuffed with it. I think the RQ Deluxe Set from AH had more Glorantha info in it. Just a weird thing I noticed from what forum-goers say vs. what is actually in the product.

Haven't played in a tabletop rpg session in months. I kind of miss it, but honestly, I've spent much of that time online gaming or watching anime. It's hard to believe, but I might actually have outgrown my main hobby since I was 13.

I don't really even get excited about rpg's anymore, and I certainly don't know what any of the new releases are. I haven't even picked up D&D 5e yet, and that's damn near unheard-of for me. I even had the 4e PHB.

Just random shower thoughts, since I realized I haven't even updated this blog in two months.

Cthulhutech is about mecha vs. Cthulhu monsters. The first edition had some gameplay issues, and they are now making a 2nd edition. You can get a pdf of the current beta for free right here: http://www.rpgnow.com/product/156677/CthulhuTech-V2-The-Shadow-War-Open-Beta?src=newest_free_titles.

Haven't really done anything with roleplaying games in months. I guess I really needed a break, as I haven't even read an rpg book since last year. Certainly don't have a gaming group anymore (curse that stupid woman my GM married). Anyways, hopefully that will turn around sometime. I will say I've gotten a lot more stuff done around the house since I'm not gaming for hours every week. ;)

After finally finishing and releasing Bushi d6, I seriously haven't touched gaming in the last couple weeks. I've been watching anime and reading books. Minor burnout, I guess. I wonder if anyone else involved with working on an rpg product does the same thing?

Zak has come up with a really cool variant for a Barbarian class. Basically, every time you level, you roll on a random table to see what you get. No just getting a +1 to hit every level (unless you keep rolling that). I think it's a really neat idea.

I would love it if someone actually made tables like these for every class, and published them. I'd buy it. It's actually the kind of thing I think would warrant a new OSR game. If every single class in the game has a random table needed to level (and maybe even at character generation), it would be a really cool twist to basic D&D.

Just my take on a "What is Roleplaying?" section.

What is Roleplaying?

For me, roleplaying is sitting around a table with friends, drinking soda or beer, and eating nachos and pizza. We're playing a game with no board, kind of telling stories, but with rules. Dice are used to provide an element of chance.

The Gamemaster (GM)  sets the scene, and acts out the parts of all the monsters and non-player characters (NPCs). He describes the world and introduces conflicts for the other players to overcome. The other players each control one character, that they use to explore the world, fight monsters, and maybe win a kingdom.

The main objective for the players is to survive and increase in power. The GM is there to provide the challenges they face. The GM is not the players adversary. His main objective is to make sure that everyone, including himself, has fun.

Just something I was thinking about.

When I was 12 and 13, I used to make all my characters 16 to 18 years old. I thought they were then old and tough. Of course, I now think that's young and inexperienced ;).


Lately, I make my fighters in their late teens or early 20's, because honestly, that is a great starting age for a beginning warrior. I make my cleric and mage characters either late 20's all the way through early 40's. It just makes more sense to me, as I think most people wouldn't either have the education (or at least access to magical tomes and scrolls) or religious insight until their 30's sometime to really justify these career paths. I know that's a bit silly, but it's how I view the world now.

I really, really like the Afro Samurai anime movies. In each, an unarmored warrior using a katana takes on guys with chains, swords, bows, rocket launchers, and even mini-guns. And he wins. His toughest opponents are also sword-fighters, of course.

In any case, I haven't been able to figure out the "perfect" game for running this. It would have to have fast combat, and while people die quick, the heroes generally get beat up but win. And quite possibly are completely healthy only one day after getting shot to hell (though they usually are wounded and staggering, but still able to defeat any challenger).

Hero would work, but it's way too cumbersome. I suspect just about any supers game would work, in all reality, but none really jump out at me. Gurps might work, if the damage and combat systems were tweaked for cinematic results. BESM and OVA would work, though neither really is a perfect fit. I'm guessing there exists some game that would require very little work to get this right, but I'm not sure what it would be.

News story here

I played City of Heroes for several years. I finally stopped a few months back, mainly due to playing the new Star Wars (which is really good). In any case, I figured Paragon was working on CoH2, and would release it in a year or so. Guess I was wrong. NCSoft fired a good chunk of the employees, and will be shutting down the CoH servers before the end of the year.

Let this be a reminder to everyone: You do not buy an MMO game (or even something like Skyrim or Diablo 3, that requires an internet connection). You are merely renting it. At any given time, the servers can be closed and all of those hours you spent creating your perfect characters are gone. Just like that. So take time to go outside and meet some real people and become friends. (I can only imagine the nerd explosion if the WoW servers got shut down with only a few months notice).

It's called Numenera. Looks pretty cool, so far. It's on a future world, with satellites and nanotech still floating around. However, the current civilization is going to be more of a fantasy game. Nano stuff will be seen as magic, and I'm hoping there will be some kind of power armor for fighters.

The game uses the d20, but it certainly doesn't sound like it will be based off of D&D. Your character will have certain abilities that lower target numbers. So far, it sounds like a rules-lite game, which is a big plus in my book.

The art will all be done by one guy, and the sample pieces all look fantastic. I'm betting this game is going to be one gorgeous book. I really hope it's set up and cross-referenced the way Ptolus was. In any case, I'm pretty optimistic. At least he's forging sorta-new ground, instead of pumping out yet another clone.

I started playing rpg's back in 1983. The very first games I played were Marvel Superheroes, Star Frontiers,  and Moldvay's Basic/Expert games. I mainly played D&D, but the other two games definitely saw time at the table. I kind of miss those days. I had lots of free time, and basically memorized the books, I read them so many times.

I remember using The Isle of Dread and the Known World a lot, based purely upon what was in that module. I look at the giant hardcovers for gaming worlds that I read now, and it's kind of funny how much I just made up based upon a map and a couple pages of descriptions.

I also did a lot of stuff with Star Frontiers, especially making up stuff like bug aliens and playing a military game fighting them. It was a heck of a lot of fun.

I kind of moved on from Marvel Superheroes pretty quickly, as I found that at the time, I didn't really like playing superheroes.

The next big game I got was Middle Earth Roleplaying, from ICE. Gods, I had a lot of fun with that game. I only had a few of the adventures (Tharbad sticks out in my mind), but I loved that game. My friends and I played several awesome campaigns using that book.

I guess it's part of getting older, but I don't get that thrill from modern games any more. Maybe I've just seen too many variants of rpg's, but while I find them interesting, I don't find new stuff exciting. More of a "That's kind of neat." reaction than a "Wow! This is so cool!" reaction.

Both are good games, and the core rules are fairly simple (3d6 roll low). However, they both offer tons and tons of options. This is kind of like having a $10,000 mechanics tool chest with all the doodads, when all you really need is a ratchet set. While everything you can possibly want is in there somewhere, you have to basically know ALL of the rules in order to find the things you want, and to know how the various skills or powers you are not allowing will affect a game.

While you can maybe get away with a general knowledge of stuff to make your decisions, you still have to read everything. I think many people who make the argument that the "base rules are really simple" just completely miss that fact.

What also has really hurt both games, IMO, is that they are now split up into two separate books. Instead of having everything organized in just one rulebook, you now have to have both books open if your running combats (unless you're one of those people who has actually memorized everything). This is clumsy to handle at the table, and also makes looking up rules during play a major hassle. Especially if you think a rule is in book two, but is actually tucked away in a powers description in book one.

This is one of the areas that D&D has improved. By moving characters and combat into the same book (and lately even treasure), players and the DM can find everything much more quickly, if there's a question during play. Hero and Gurps are moving in the opposite direction, and I believe that's a big mistake.