A Role Playing Games Blog
Archive for May, 2009
Grognardia reviews Dungeonslayers
1May 14, 2009
Yesterday James Maliszewski of Grognardia has posted a review of Dungeonslayers. He has written a pretty detailed review and gave Dungeonslayers some praise, although he had some problems with the translation. Especially that part of the review hurts me just a little bit, perhaps because I did the bulk of the translation. But of course I am no native speaker and it seems we missed a few odd phrasings. Here’s an excerpt from his review:
I mention the translation at all, because, for its length,Dungeonslayers is in fact a very good game — simple without being simplistic, focused without being narrow, and very much in keeping with the spirit of old school gaming, even if its mechanics owe more to 3e than to OD&D. In this respect, Dungeonslayers reminded me a bit of Microlite20, another excellent minimalist RPG that pares down the bloat of the D20 rules to a more manageable level (and that serves as the basis for the terrific Microlite74 rules). That said, Dungeonslayers is most emphatically a modern game; it’s rules are not old school so much as designed to emulate the freewheeling style of old school games. For that reason, I suspect it’s probably more of interest to gamers who either aren’t interested in going “back to the source” or who never played such games in the first place.
And while you’re at it, check out these Dungeonslayers reviews:
By the way, if you know of other Dungeonslayers reviews please let me know!
Ad Astra PDQ character creation
1May 14, 2009
Last weekend my group of players and I decided to give the PDQ system a try. We’ll be using it to run my “Ad Astra” campaign. At first I thought about using the PDQ# rules, that are used for “Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies“, but then I decided to stick to the PDQ core rules. This has a couple of reasons: PDQ# was created with swashbuckling in mind. Especially the whole style dice mechanic revolves around that concept. But for my Ad Astra game I prefer a more subdued tone. It will have action, but it will be grittier and you won’t see any fencing duels, that’s for sure.
Both the free PDQ core rules PDF and the PDQ# PDF don’t come with any magic or psionics rules, but I own both Quester of the Middle Realms and S7S, that come with some additional PDQ rules like magic, vehicular combat (in the case of S/S) and more. But again I won’t just copy the rules from those books. But there is a nice table of modifiers for magic effects that I can use for psionic effects, too.
So, let’s talk about character creation for Ad Astra works. Every character consists of a name, a description (including such things like looks, biography, etc.), a weakness and a couple of qualities. Each character also starts with a fate point and 0 experience points. Currently I plan to use fate points mainly to allow players to save their characters in situations they usually would have died (like when they botched a climbing wall, hundreds of meters above ground for example), but perhaps I will allow more uses when I get more comfortable with the system.
Every character starts with a Past, Motivation and Nationality quality. That’s something I took from PDQ# and it helps fleshing out the character tremendously. My players where quite creative when they came up with their pasts and motivations, so this will surely be a very exciting campaign. All those qualities start on Good [+2].
The eligible Nationalities are Gaian Republic, Tovenaar Empire, Akkathon Federation, Venshran Principality and SpaceCorp Corporate State. The Nationality quality gives the character a bit more background and allows him access to a wide range of knowledge about their home planet, home region, local politics, et cetera. Nationality starts on Good [+2], too.
Aside from Past, Motivation and Nationality, my players were allowed to choose four additional qualities at Good [+2]. A special quality is Esper, since it gives access to psionic abilities. Esper starts a Average [+0], thus making esper characters a bit weaker than their mundane counterparts. But since the psionic talent is very versatile, I think it’s fair. Esper can be used to use such powers as telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, psychometry, far seeing and many more.
In order to start with a quality higher than Good [+2] you have to forfeit one of the other qualities. For example: You want to start with Good [+2] Esper, so you have only two additional qualities left to choose (in addition to your Past, Motivation and Nationality) of course).
Another important character aspect is his weakness. Every character has one weakness quality and it starts at Poor [-2]. The weakness is a constant story hook and usually leads to downshifts when a characters weakness hampers his actions. But there may be cases when the weakness could also be a strength of a character. For example a curious character may overhear a conversation someone else would have missed.
Alas I forgot to copy my player’s characters, so I will have to post their stats after our next session. So stay tuned for that!
Help Zach to take his dad to the races!
0May 13, 2009
Zachary, one of our fellow bloggers, needs your help. I have to admit that I am not good at things like that, so I just ask you to go over to Zach’s blog RPG Blog II and read his latest post!
The future of roleplaying #2
1May 12, 2009
Just when I published my lastest post, it struck me that I obviously missed a couple of things I wanted to say. But instead of editing the original post, I decided to write a second post about the future of our beloved hobby.
When talking about the companies that could land a hit in the near future, I definitely should have mentioned West End Games and Green Ronin Publishing. Yes, West End Games of Star Wars (the d6 variant) fame still is alive and kicking although a mere shadow of its former self. Eric Gibson, the current owner of WEG, is fighting to keep WEG alive and he’s come up with a great idea: Open D6. One of the greatest assets WEG has is its D6 system that was used in a couple of games like the aforementioned Star Wars game. D6 is an easy to learn and fast to play game that can be used in every genre. A few years back, WEG release three core rule books called D6 Space, D6 Adventure and D6 Fantasy that are now the basis for the upcoming Open D6. Open D6 will be released under the OGL and will come with a site, where you can download your personalized Open D6 rulebook. When you want to use the Open D6 trademarks, you’ll have to upload any rules you created using the Open D6 SRD to this site, so it is available to the community. And I believe that Open D6 will definitely something that could be considered “the next big thing”! In the past the D6 system has always been overlooked but backed with a great community site and licensed under the OGL, it could become one of the big players again.
Another thing that I remember just a few minutes late, is Green Ronin and its “Dragon Age” deal. Dragon Age is an upcoming computer roleplaying game by Bioware, the company that created Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Mass Effect, just to name a few. Bioware has obviously joined forces with Green Ronin to release a pen & paper game based on their franchise. And since Green Ronin has created a couple of pretty impressive games like True20, Mutants & Masterminds and the A Song of Ice and Fire RPG, I am pretty sure they won’t just make a half-hearted attempt at converting Dragon Age to the gaming table. I am pretty sure we could see another decent fantasy RPG line from Green Ronin based on the Bioware game in the near future. And even if this doesn’t work out, I believe Green Ronin is a company we should keep an eye on.
Ok, I think this concludes part two of my blog carnival contribution. As always I am interested in your comments. So please let your voices be heard in the comment section!
The Future of Roleplaying
2May 12, 2009
This month’s blog carnival hosted by RoleplayingPro is about “The Future of Roleplaying”. He was kind enough to give us a couple of questions as inspiration for our posts and I will take up his offer and answer them in a Q&A format.
What games do you see emerging as the big players in the near future?
Hmm, I don’t think there will be big changes to the status quo. Wizard of the Coast‘s D&D will be the 800lbs. gorilla for years to come. But there are quite a few games that are rising in popularity. Paizo‘s Pathfinder RPG will surely be one of the big players since the game builds on the D&D 3.5 legacy. Not everyone is happy with the direction D&D 4th Edition has taken, so I think the D&D playerbase will be split between D&D 4th Edition players, Pathfinder players and old-school (and retro-clone) advocates. But if you put all editions of D&D in one big basket, you’ll notice that even in a couple of years no game will be even close to D&D. I don’t think we are going to see any changes in that regard.
What companies should we be watching out for to release the next big product?
Uh. That’s a tough one. I am usually very bad at guessing what game will be successful or not. But there are quite a few games in the making that could be considered “the next big product”. I already mentioned Paizo and Pathfinder. As far as I know it’s D&D 3.5 on steroids and that’s a good thing. I am not sure if I will pick it up myself, since I am currently more interested in trying out more indie stuff, but I think the Pathfinder RPG could be considered a big thing.
You also should have a close watch on indie publishers like Evil Hat Productions. They are currently working on the Dresden Files RPG, based on the novel series by Jim Butcher. Their last game, Spirit of the Century, was praised by critics and gamers alike and I think the future is bright for FATE-based games. I also hope they will continue to work with Chad Underkoffler, who created a couple of awesome RPGs including Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies!
How will technology become more integrated into roleplaying games?
Technology already plays a big role in RPGs. I know there are quite a few people using notebooks at the gaming table and those new e-book readers like Amazon’s Kindle will make it even easier to carry around all your gaming materials without having to hire a couple of henchmen to carry all that dead tree stuff around.
And if you ask me, there will be a lot more online gaming. I am not talking about MMOs but about traditional RPGs being played over the internet using fancy software like Fantasy Grounds II (or some other virtual gametable) or just Play-by-Post or perhaps even using Twitter. But I don’t think that technology will change much of the gameplay we are used to. There will be technology to make things easier, enhance the atmosphere and allows us to game over a distance, but I don’t think we’ll replace traditional roleplaying with something more digital.
What industry writer do we need to be on the look out for?
Hmm, I am not sure, what is understood by “industry writer”. Does the industry include indie companies and self-publishers? I don’t think I can give you any names, but I think there are a lot of talented people out there. There are even a few members of our RPG blogging community who will probably play a bigger role in the industry in the future. Or at least I would like to see some of them to do so. But the talent is there.
What blogs do you see exploding into becoming the next big thing?
I believe it’s pretty hard for a single blog to explode into “the next big thing”. But it’s my firm believe that our own RPG Bloggers Network is already the “next big thing”. And Jonathan Jacob’s Open Game Table has shown that we as a community can even publish books on our own. Another step in that direction is the RPG Bloggers Campaign Setting is another step in that direction.
Blogs and especially blog networks are the future of gaming. If you ask me, the strength lies in the community not in a few exceptional blogs, although they can help lead by example. Hehe, of course, I wouldn’t object if my blog would be one of those few exceptional ones, but at this moment I don’t believe that will happen. I am much too lazy to create a shining beacon in the blogosphere. *chuckles*
What do you see for the future of the industry?
That’s a tough question. We are in the middle of a global financial and economic crisis and some people believe we haven’t even seen the worst. And roleplaying is something you can consider “luxury”, so the sales of RPG products will probably take a hit. It’s almost inevitable that we’ll see layoffs, bankruptcies, closures, the whole she-bang. But in the end, the industry will survive, gaming will survive. I sincerly hope it won’t be that bad and I hope a lot of indie publishers will make it through those dire times, because I think the future of the industry lies with indie game publishers. But perhaps that’s just my dislike of major corporations speaking. 
One-page dungeon contest reminder
0May 11, 2009
I am pretty sure most of you have already heard about the one-page dungeon contest held by our fellow bloggers Chgowiz and ChattyDM. But I think it’s in order to remind you that you really should hurry up, if you still haven’t submitted your entries. The contest ends in a few days (May 14th 2009 at Midnight Eastern (US) Time to be exact), so if you want to participate, you should start writing now.
Dungeonslayers review @ “Here Be Gamers”
0May 11, 2009
The roleplaying podcast “Here Be Gamers” has been reviewing Dungeonslayers, the game I helped translating from German to English some weeks ago. If you like listening to RPG podcasts and are still undecided, you should check out episode #5 of “Here Be Gamers”:
Episode 5 – A sailor’s life for me!
A very full episode with heaps of news and general discussion. This episode we talk about a bunch of board games and review The Uncharted Seas by Spartan Games and the free RPG DungeonSlayers.
We also want to make people aware of the very fine www.Drawtism.com.au which is raising awareness of Autism Spectrum Disorders by getting people to play games of Pictionary. Check out this great cause.
I have to admit I’ve never heard of the “Here Be Gamers” podcast before, but it seems fun to listen to. Check it out.
You have a question about an existing or upcoming Stargazer Games product? Ask away! You want to know what we think about a recent development in the RPG industry? Send in your questions. You always wanted to know what we think about game X? Send us an email.
