Archive for October, 2009

GURPS anyone?

20
October 5, 2009
by Stargazer in , , ,

GURPS Basic Set When you browse through the RPGBN member blogs you read a lot about D&D 4th Edition, D&D 3rd Edition, old-school D&D (and all those retro-clones), Savage Worlds, White Wolf’s World of Darkness games and sometimes even about some obscure indie game. But curiously GURPS seems to be absent from the network.

From what I gather Steve Jackson Games is still one of the major RPG publishers and since they release new GURPS books regularly, I am pretty sure someone is buying their books, but it obviously plays only a minor role in the RPG blogosphere.

Did I just miss the GURPS-related posts or is GURPS on the decline?

Ask The Readers: Web comics for gamers?

15
October 5, 2009
by Stargazer in , , ,

I’ve been a fan of “Penny Arcade” pretty much from day one, and I was overjoyed when my favorite comics from the Dragon magazine “Nodwick” and “What’s New With Phil And Dixie” made the jump to the world-wide web.

Chgowiz Another great webcomic and (hopefully) soon a RPG setting for GURPS is Phil & Kaja Foglio’s Girl Genius. And last but not least I always enjoy reading the latest “Full Frontal Nerdity”. In many ways it reminds me of a modern version of “Knights of the Dinner Table”. And by the way, don’t you think that the bald guy looks a lot like our fellow RPG blogger Chgowiz?

(c) Aaron Williams

What are your favorite gaming-related web comics? Are there any true gems out there that I missed? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Lazy Friday Video Post: The Whisperer in Darkness

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October 2, 2009
by Stargazer in , , , ,

Recently I learned about the upcoming “The Whisperer in Darkness” movie. It’s the second adaption of a H.P. Lovecraft story by the people who brought us the awesome “Call of Cthulhu” silent movie. If you want to start a roleplaying campaign based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos with people unfamiliar with his works, you should start by showing them “Call of Cthulhu”. It’s a great way to introduce new people to the genre. Here’s the teaser trailer of the upcoming movie:

Or do you think that showing “Call of Cthulhu” before starting a campaign is too revealing? Have you ever used movies to introduce your players to a new campaign? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

The Shiniest Stories on Stargazer’s World Last Month

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October 1, 2009
by Stargazer in , ,

September was a pretty good month for my blog. Let’s have a look back on your favorite posts from September 2009:

  • My stance on D&D 4th Edition
    Some of you may remember that I was part of the D&D 4th Edition crowd when it was released but slowly I got more and more skeptical of the latest edition of D&D. In this post I tried to (and obviously succeeded) in describing my thoughts on D&D 4th Edition without starting another edition war. That’s something I am quite proud of.
  • Why play old-school D&D?
    Why should someone play the very first editions of D&D when there are hundreds of modern games available? This post gives a few reasons why it is fun to play like it’s 1974.
  • Fantasy Craft
    In early September I learned about Fantasy Craft, a shiny new fantasy roleplaying game based on the d20 System. While it seems pretty familiar on the first glance, it’s refreshingly different than D&D 3.5 or Paizo’s Pathfinder RPG. That reminds me, I haven’t written a proper review yet.
  • Follow-up: D&D 4th Edition Firearms
    In mid-September I had another look at one of my most successful posts “D&D 4th Edition Firearms”. One of my readers by the name of Perfidius came up with the idea of turning firearms into powers. Although I don’t play D&D 4E right now, I wanted to share that idea with a wider audience.
  • Robin D. Laws interview
    Robin Laws has been a freelance writer in the RPG industry since the early 90s and in this time he has written numerous games and supplements including the GUMSHOE system. And he was kind enough to answer a few questions for me. If you are a fan of his works, you just have to check the interview out!
  • Home-made GM screens @ System matters
    I have to admit I was pretty surprised that this post was one of the most popular articles on my blog in all September. Obviously there’s a lot of interest in home-made GM screens.
  • Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, man!
    On September 9th 2009 Berin Kinsman aka UncleBear posted his ROLPUNK manifesto, and I am one of the people jumping onto the bandwagon! If you want to learn more about ROLPUNK, you should have a look at the manifesto.

I also want to mention my review of Monte Cook’s latest book “The Skeptic’s Guide to Conspiracies” that hasn’t had that many readers yet, probably because I chose confusing title. But if you are a fan of Monte’s work, you should have a look at my review: “THEY are out there!”.

Is there still hope for Open D6?

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October 1, 2009
by Stargazer in , , , , ,

Open D6 logo A long time ago Eric Gibson, current owner of West End Games, announced that he plans to turn the D6 System into an open system. I believe he made that statement in his first video update on the official site (which he posted in December 2008). While a lot has happened in the background this is still the latest news on the WEG site.

On GenCon this year, Bill Coffin’s Septimus made its debut as the first OpenD6 game and although this book is not listed on the WEG site, you can buy it through RPGNow and probably at other places as well. From what I’ve seen so far, Septimus seems to be a nice game, but I am pretty sure that most gamers are totally oblivious of its existence.

In the meantime a fan helped Eric to add the OGL to a couple of d6 System books that are now freely available:

But if you don’t follow the discussions on the WEG Fan Forums you might get the impression that WEG and the OpenD6 project are dead. Several people including me tried to convice Eric Gibson to at least update the WEG site or setup a temporary site for Opend6.com, but alas to no avail.

Around GenCon, the OpenD6 web developer announced that the beta test should start any minute now. But as far as I know this beta test hasn’t started yet. The project still seems to be in limbo. The last thing I heard was that they still have trouble getting the servers up and running…

And if you ask me the whole project is much to ambitious for a one-man show like WEG. If Eric Gibson just released a D6 System SRD and a proper OpenD6 trademark license on a simple website, a lot of people would’ve already jumped on the bandwagon. Now only the few hardcore fans are still waiting for something that may or may not materialize. The rest probably already forgot about West End Games… which is sad.

What do you think? Is there still hope? Do you understand why Eric Gibson avoids making updates to the WEG site? As always I am very interested in your thoughts.

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