Archive for September, 2009

Follow-up: D&D 4th Edition Firearms

8
September 14, 2009
by Stargazer in , ,

In last October I created some rules for simple firearms for D&D 4th Edition that are still very popular. Some days ago the reader Perfidius posted an interesting comment that I think is worth another look. Most people aren’t probably following the comments in an one-year-old post, so I thought it’s probably the best that it here:

IMO the best take on firearms should be making them Encounters powers, especially if you want to grasp a swashbuckling feel over a realistic one.
In this way, you could make them a bit more powerful, as for instance:

Pistol
Dex vs Ref
1d10+Dex (lv11 2d10, lv21 3d10)
daze (save ends)

depending on the setting, you could add this encounter power to a character class, give it for free or costing a feat, as prefered.

What do you think ?

Perfidius,
Frenchman Extraordinaire

I think the idea is compelling, but I have not enough experience with D&D 4th Edition to tell if this could really work. What do you guys think?

This is IMHO how the power could look like in a more refined format:

Using firearms like encounter powers would definitely fit the swashbuckling theme. In those days the pistols were usually fired once at the beginning of a fight and then the pistol was discarded in favor of a melee weapon. I like Perfidius’ take on firearms in D&D 4th Edition, but I have no idea if this makes sense in the game. Perhaps some 4E experts can comment on this. Any advice is welcome!

Being Berin Kinsman

0
September 11, 2009
by Stargazer in , , ,

Yesterday I decided to have a look at Berin Kinsman’s autobiographic roleplaying game “Being Berin Kinsman”. The 45th anniversary edition is available at Lulu as Paperback and PDF. On 26 pages you not only get the rules for a rules-light roleplaying game but also the story of Berin Kinsman from birth to the present day.

Expect drama, adventure and a lot of Berin’s humor. Learn about his crazy grandma, read about his time as a mercenary, or join him as he travels to East Berlin during the Cold War! And the best thing is that it’s all true. Ok, 97% of what’s written is the blunt truth. But you never know if this statement is part of the 3%. And Berin won’t tell. Not even under the threat of torture. And believe me, I’ve tried!

However, if you want to learn more about the father figure of RPG bloggers, you really should buy this book. You won’t regret it!

Don’t take yourself too seriously!

4
September 10, 2009
by Stargazer in , , , ,

The ROLPUNK manifesto has – at least in my humble opinion – an underlying message: don’t take yourself to seriously, and remember it’s just a game! Since I have started following RPG blogs many years ago I’ve noticed that some people treat roleplaying games and discussions about them like politics or religion.

Almost every discussion about whether old school or new school is better or if D&D 4th Edition is the best thing sinced sliced bread or not turns into a flame war of epic proportions. I have to admit I am not innocent when it comes to this, but I think having realized that something is wrong is the first step. ;)

Berin Kinsman’s ROLPUNK movement is some kind of wake-up call. We should stop fighting and enjoy our games. There’s no wrong way to play as long as we are having fun! That doesn’t mean that it’s not allowed to rant once in a while. Heck, we are just human! And now get your dice off my lawn … :D

House rules for Swords & Wizardry

2
September 10, 2009
by Stargazer in , , , ,

One reasons why I picked up S&W was that it’s very easy to modify. In most modern games, making a small change on one end can lead to catastrophic results. Not so with a rules-light game like S&W. Houseruling an old-school game is not only fun but also part of the “old-school” way.

While looking for some inspirations on how to run my S&W solo game with my girlfriend, I stumbled upon the Akratic Wizard blog by fellow RPG Bloggers Network member Akrasia and his house-rules. He has created a lot of minor house rules and even two full classes! If you are looking into changing some aspects of your S&W game, why not check out his stuff first?

I have to admit I am amazed how much creativity you can find in the old-school movement. I always thought things were more rigid back in the day. Oh boy, I was so wrong!

Thrilling Noir Stories needs some more love

0
September 9, 2009
by Stargazer in , , ,

Some weeks ago I posted about “Thrilling Noir Stories”, my roleplaying game inspired by the film noir genre. The latest playtest version codenamed “Bogart” is already pretty good, but still needs more testing.

Thrilling Noir Stories

So, if you are interested, download the free PDF here and post your thoughts on the Quick & Dirty Games forums. Any help is highly appreciated!

Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, man!

9
September 9, 2009
by Stargazer in , ,

UncleBear, father figure of RPG Bloggers has started a new movement: ROLPUNK!
So, what’s this all about? Let the man speak for himself:

Rolpunk (one L, no E) is about pure, stripped down, no BS tabletop gaming. It’s about taking your game back to its bare bones roots: play a character, chuck some dice, period. It’s about not letting other people tell you how to play your games. It’s not about telling other people how to play their games, either; don’t be that fascist. Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, man, not other peoples’ and especially not your own. It’s about having fun, because if you’re not having fun you’ve discovered the only way possible to do it wrong. It’s about embracing the do-it-yourself ethic of the hobby and sharing your stuff, even if it’s just with your own game group. But it’s not about rejecting stuff, dismissing stuff out of hand because of whatever pretentious filters other people have set up to dictate what’s cool and what’s not cool. Screw them. Reject attitudes, not games. It’s about accepting the potential of everything, salvaging what works for you and ignoring the rest. It’s about shaping your own identity as a gamer, about letting your group and your campaign and the rules at your table take their own form based on your creative needs. Don’t be a game sheep.

He also has written an uncensored manifesto, which is in my humble opinion pure gold! If you don’t mind a few swear words, you really should check it out! Ah, and before I forget it: The manifesto and the logos are © Berin Kinsman and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. So, join the movement, share the word and have fun!

Stargazer’s World is happily jumping onto the bandwagon! :)

What’s on the horizon?

0
September 9, 2009
by Stargazer in , , , , , , ,

Earth's horizon as seen from the space shuttle Today I want to give you an update on what’s brewing at Stargazer’s World right now.  Just today I finished the first draft of a rather long post (1771 words so far) that will go live as a guest post on Philippe Ménard’s blog in a few days. We decided that the topic would make a great post for his blog and perhaps it helps to convince some of his readers to check out my blog too. ;) Actually I am a bit excited since it’s the first guest post I have written for another blog. And ChattyDM is one of the people who helped me a lot since I joined the RPG Bloggers Network last year. His posts and good advice over Twitter or IM always helped me to get over the deepest of slumps.

In the meantime I am reading several RPG books I purchased recently. Alas some of my offline activities are getting into the way. It doesn’t help that I am now actually an elected local politician. I have been in politics for over ten years but it’s the first time I got a parliamentary seat in our town parliament! Yay!

But back to the RPG books I mentioned. I still have to read Eclipse Phase, the new game from Catalyst Game Labs. I got the PDF as soon as it was on RPGNow and printed it out. Alas I haven’t had that much time to read it, yet, probably because I then picked up a copy of Fantasy Craft soon thereafter . Fantasy Craft is a pretty cool d20 fantasy game that was created by the guys behind Spy Craft. If you want to read more about this cool game, you should check out "Life and Times of a Philipine Gamer". But rest assured that I will write reviews of both games when I have finished reading them.

I also got both the hardcover version of Vampire: The Dark Ages and Hunter: The Reckoning from a German blogger’s "Garage Sale" for just a few Euros, so expect some first looks of those games, too. Both books are probably out of print and at least Hunter has a successor called Hunter: The Vigil that sounds pretty interesting. And even if you don’t want to run games using the old World of Darkness rules, you still can use both books as inspiration for campaigns using the new WoD line for example. Hunter (the old or the new version) also sounds like the perfect world for the horror solo game I wanted to run for some time now…

I also started working on a translation of my Dungeonslayers supplement "Fireworks" to English. The booklet contains not only rules for firearms, cannons and explosives for Dungeonslayers but also introduces a completely new class. I don’t know when the translation will be done (this usually takes a lot longer than you think) but expect some previews as soon as I have something to show off.

I am also working on a secret layout project that is way past the initial deadline. Hmm, perhaps I should make this project top priority then…

Aside from all that I also would like to work on a Swords & Wizardry campaign based on the later titles of the Ultima series. But since I am already having too many unfinished projects I will probably put this on the back burner for now.

Phew! This post got much longer than I expected. But you now should have a pretty good overview about my current plans for this blog, so stay tuned. And if you have any comments, questions or advice please let me know! Any comment is highly appreciated!

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