A Role Playing Games Blog
Archive for May, 2009
Chat with ICE on RPGBomb (get HARP for free until 9pm EST today)
0May 20, 2009
The social network for RPG fans, RPGBomb, hosted a chat with the guys from Iron Crown Enterprises a couple of hours ago. Alas I got the email with the announcement while I was already asleep (damn those timezones!) but the guys from RPGBomb were nice enough to post a chat transcript at their forums. So, if you are interested in what’s new with ICE, you should think about signing up at RPGBomb and check it out. If you haven’t heard about RPGBomb before, you might check out my post about them, too.
During the chat they also gave away a coupon that can be used to get a copy of HARP PDF for free. The coupon is good for 24 hours, so I think you’ll have to get your free copy before tonight 9pm EST. I won’t reveail the super secret coupon password here, so you’ll have to sign up at RPGBomb to get hold of it. And while you are at it, why not stop by at my profile and add me to your friends list!
Ok, I am now off to the ICE shop to redeem my code! See ya!
Bill Coffin’s Septimus will be WEG’s first big release under the OpenD6 banner!
0May 19, 2009
West End Games and Bill Coffin’s Septimus are not dead after all!
Recently Eric Gibson, current owner of West End Games, announced that the secret project, he’s been working on for quite some time now, is in fact Bill Coffin‘s Septimus and that it will be the first WEG product under the OpenD6 banner! Perhaps you remember that the first attempt to release the game as a setting for D6 Space failed last year and WEG had to refund all preorders.
But things are looking good and the Septimus game will finally see the light of day this year at GenCon! According to Eric the only major difference between the original planned release and the new one will be the b/w interiors.
So, what is Septimus about? Until today I didn’t know myself, so I downloaded a copy of the Septimus Quick Start rules (PDF), that are still available at the WEG Fan Forums. SEPTIMUS is a science fiction role-playing game set in the far future and in a distant corner of our galaxy. The focus of the game is SEPTIMUS, a Dyson sphere, that has been found in a fringe region of the galaxy. Within this massive artifact trillions of people have found a new home. SEPTIMUS is both a utopia and your worst nightmare regarding to who you might ask. I think it would be beyond the scope of this mere blog post to describe SEPTIMUS in all detail, so I recommend you have a look at the Quick Start rules to read a primer on the setting. You should also check out ODDS Issue 2 which features an interview with Bill Coffin.
I hope this is only the first of many good news from WEG! It’s good to hear they are back on track!
Review: Questers of the Middle Realms
2May 18, 2009
Questers of the Middle Realms is a tongue-in-cheek fantasy roleplaying game by Silver Branch Games. Questers uses the PDQ rules by Chad Underkoffler’s Atomic Sock Monkey and I have to admit that was the selling point for me. I was wondering how this rule system would handle the fantasy genre and I was surprised how good Questers managed to pull this off. Alas the setting, the “Middle Realms” is a very generic and not very interesting setting. But first things first …
QotMRs is available either as PDF or as softcover book. The first is available at RPGNow and costs $8.95, the printed version, that you’ll get at Silver Branch’s Lulu storefront, will set you back $16.50. For your hard-earned money you get a 72-page book with a nice full-color cover. The rest of the book is b/w but features some great artwork and the standard two-column layout. All in all it’s a pretty good looking book considering the low price.
Silver Branch advertises Questers as “The lighter side of traditional fantasy gaming. In less than 80 pages.” And if you expect a rules-light fantasy games you’ll be pretty happy with your purchase. But if you expect it to actually be funny, you’re out of your luck. Don’t get me wrong, Questers is not a bad game, especially when you look for a good example on how you could use the PDQ rules in a fantasy setting. But neither the writing nor setting of Questers is more than mildly funny or even original.
The strong point of the book are definitely its rules. The designers of Questers took the core PDQ rules and added a lot of additional rules to allow an almost D&D-like gaming experience. Each character in Questers can choose between one of the five basic races (Humans, elves, dwarves, orcs and hoblings) and even has a level (something unheard of in core PDQ). Each non-human race gets a Racial Quality that works like a cluster of normal qualities even including weaknesses.
Although the addition of racial qualities makes the rules a bit more crunchy than core PDQ, it’s an interesting concept that works well within the fantasy genre. Halfbreeds like Half-Orcs, Half-Elves, etc. can choose which Strengths and Weaknesses they inherit from their parents. So not every halfbreed character is exactly the same.
Another intersting addition to core PDQ are Questers’ magic rules. Characters can choose Spells from three different camps: miracles, thaumaturgy and mysticism. Each spell is its own arcane quality. Players are basically free to create their own spells but player and GM should make sure that the spells are a) not too broad nor too narrow and b) do have a proper application in the campaign to be played. At the core of the magic system is the Magic Effects Table which helps the GM to decide which target number is appropriate for any given action.
Another nice touch is the addition of a small bestiary complete with a list of monster qualities. It should be pretty easy to create hundreds of monsters using the examples in the book.
The setting of Questers is the weak part of the book. The world of Median is a generic high-fantasy setting with a standard pantheon of Greater Gods like Elal, god of sky, weather, strength and rulership, and an endless army of Lesser Gods that can be actually created by players on a whim. This is an interesting idea, although I fear that this could actually become problematic for the GM if the players go mad doing this.
The main continent of Median is Ludor, a place that is home for your standard fantasy realms like the north-african-inspired Ar-Karap, the League of Groth, where obviously all the goths of Ludor live and asian-inspired Tek Wei. All in all you get a continent that contains all the usual fantasy tropes. If you want to play a horned-helmeted viking, you probably hail from Valharia, and most elves call Yrsiriel Forest their home.
The book is concluded by some sample characters, the aforementioned bestiary, a short game masters section with some tips on how to run Questers and a sample adventure.
When I have to judge Questers I am a bit torn. I love the idea of a PDQ-based fantasy RPG and I think Questers shines in some areas especially in how the rules have been implemented but it also falls short in a lot of other things. Especially the setting is a bit bland and the tone of the game is not as funny as it could have been. As a tongue-in-cheek fantasy RPG it fails but it’s a great fantasy RPG toolbox and with a very low price to boot!
CSI: Sharn
3May 16, 2009
On the German RPG blog “Limited Edition – Gedanken zum Rollenspiel” I discovered a very intersting post called “CSI: Sharn“.
Sharn is one of the most iconic cities in Eberron and a great place for urban adventures. In his last Eberron campaign fellow blogger and roleplayer callme_ishmael had created a necromancer NPC that worked as coroner for the Sharn city guard. She used her spells to question dead crime victims in order to help the city guard with their investigation. And this NPC lead callme_ishmael to the idea of an urban campaign modelled after the popular TV series CSI.
The basic premise of a CSI: Sharn campaign would be that the players are members of a special group sponsored by the King of Breland himself to help the city guard solve crimes. Although some meta plot could be easily introduced into such a campaign, most adventures should be closed episodes which usually start with a dead body where the circumstances of death are unclear or even outright mysterious. Callme_ishmael even provided us with a few story hooks:
- A man has been found dead, obviously he died by falling from a great height. The problem is that shouldn’t be possible because of the feather fall enchantments that are in effect.
- A serial killer is stalking the warforged of Sharn, causing them to stop working in the local foundries, which will lead to an economical crisis in the near future.
- A countess has been killed by an unknown aberration that obviously used the plumbings to escape.
- In a gang fight several gang members from both sides are killed. When the guard rounds up the surviving combatants they deny being responsible for the deaths of their fellow gang members.
Since the members of the CSI team are working for the king the player characters get a steady income and their equipment is provided when needed. Ideally the group should be assembled from a lot of different races living in Sharn, perhaps even goblins and orcs. Sharn is a cosmopolitan city after all.
This is a really interesting idea on how you could do an urban campaign in Eberron. The next time I run an Eberron campaign I will surely give it a try.
Ad Astra: Starships using PDQ rules
3May 15, 2009
When you have a look at the PDQ core rules you’ll notice that there is no section about how vehicles, space ships, etc. could be added to the system. In my opinion the easiest way is to handle vehicles just like characters. They get a name, a description, a few qualities and perhaps even a weakness.
Take a space ship for example. In one of my early posts about the Ad Astra setting I posted the D6 Space stats for the Theseus Starfighter. Let’s now have a look at how we could rebuild this starfighter using PDQ rules:
Let’s first start with the vehicle type. Every vehicle should have at least one quality that designates the basic type of the ship. This quality should start at Average [0]. The GM can of course choose to improve this quality if the vehicle is exceptional for its class. So we write down Average Starfighter [+0]. I imagine the Theseus fighter as an old workhorse model that has been in use for quite some time now. So I assign Good Workhorse [+2]. The fighter should neither be very fast or have superior armor, but I think Average Armor [+0] is in order. We shouldn’t forget that we need some qualities written down, so that the fighter can take a beating. Finally I add the weapons as Average Medium Lasers [+0] and Good “Artemis” Missile Launcher [+2]. Finally lets add a weakness to make the design a bit more interesting. Since it’s an outdated model it’s not up to par with some of the more fancy designs. So, we add Poor Outdated Model [-2] as last quality. Ok, let’s review our design:
Theseus Starfighter
Average Starfighter [+0]
Good Workhorse [+2]
Average Armor [+0]
Average Medium Lasers [+0]
Good “Artemis” Missile Launcher [+2]
Poor Outdated Model [-2]
In order to totally disable the ship you’ll need 16 hits, which is pretty decent for a starfighter. The pilot can also decide to reduce the Armor or Workhorse qualities by one level in order to “take it on the chin” and ignore all damage from a single attack.
So, how does starship combat work? It works just like normal combat. But pilots may use both their own and their ship’s qualities. For example a pilot with the Good Starfighter Pilot [+2] quality wants to fire a volley of missiles at an enemy craft. He can add not only the bonus from his piloting quality but also the bonus from the weapon he used. In this particular case he rolls 2d6+4. In most cases player and GM should be able to decide which qualities and weaknesses are relevant for any given action.
Another sale at RPGNow
2May 14, 2009
I regularly check RPGNow for interesting new freebies and/or sales. Today I noticed that White Wolf is celebrating Alexandertide, honoring their writer Alan Alexander by selling books he has worked on for 25% off the normal price!
Designer Days: It’s Alexandertide!
Alan Alexander has been a writer for White Wolf since 2005 and has contributed material for most of the books in the Exalted line, as well as numerous World of Darkness and Scion books. He takes particular pride in the Skullstone Archipelago, the Convention on Oversight, the five factions of the Silver Pact, sunken Luthe, and, most recently, Infernal Urges and Acts of Villainy.
When not writing for White Wolf or playing in one of his three ongoing chronicles, he practices law in Oxford, Mississippi, where he specializes in bankruptcy and employment discrimination. Proud of his burly Dionysian physique, Alan is also an excellent chef, specializing in both Italian and traditional Southern cuisine.
Click here to check ou the sales!
The Horror of Leatherbury House
17
Following into the footsteps of Robertson Games I decided to share my submission to the One-Page Dungeon Contest with you.
At first I didn’t want to participate. I haven’t created any adventure before that was meant to be published. And I can’t remember when I actually ran a dungeon adventure of my own design. But then ChattyDM aka Philippe-Antonie Menard contacted me and asked me if I wanted to participate in the contest. I told him that I am not good at creating dungeons but he encouraged me to give it a try. So I sat down and started to think.
From the beginning I was sure I didn’t want to create a classic dungeon. My favorite genre is horror, so I thought about creating some kind of horror adventure. In the end I settled for a haunted house. A haunted house is some kind of dungeon (at least how I understand it) and in my opinion it provides a lot of opportunity for roleplaying.
With the help of my girlfriend (thanks again for the help! I couldn’t have done it without you!) I came up with a simple story. I would have loved to create a much more elaborate background but given the size constraints I decided to keep it simple. In my opinion the GM should be easily able to flesh out everything I had to leave out.
When I had the basic story I searched for blueprints of victorian houses and when I found one, I used it as a basis for my map. Using the map-making tutorial I found at the Cartographer’s Guild, I created the map in GIMP. Creating the map was actually easier than I first thought and if you ask me, the result looks quite professional.
When the map was done I started working on the layout in Adobe InDesign. I used free textures from bittbox.com to give it the look I wanted and when the basic layout was done, I started writing the room descriptions. You might find it strange that I created the layout first and then added the text, but since I had to work with limited space I found this much easier than cutting the text afterwards.
Initially I wanted to add a sidebar with GM tips and ideas how you could use the adventure in different settings, but I just couldn’t fit it all on that one page. The adventure as it is, was mainly created with Call of Cthulhu or a similar horror game in mind, but I think you could easily transfer it to your favorite fantasy setting. When I have the time, I will definitely turn it into an adventure for Dungeonslayers.
By the way, you can download the complete one-page dungeon “The Horror of Leatherbury House” as PDF. Enjoy!
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