A Role Playing Games Blog
Posts by Stargazer
Ask The Readers: Share your favorite roleplaying quotes with us!
9March 8, 2012
Back in the day, when we still played in the basement of a friend’s house we kept a list of memorable quotes. One of my favorites is the following dialogue during a Vampire – The Masquerade game. The players actually were pretty amateurish vampire hunters that just had overpowered their first vampire.
Storyteller: You have successfully overpowered the vampire. What do you do now?
Player: I douse him with holy water!
Other player: What happens?
Storyteller: He gets wet.
In another case I actually made the mistake to say: “The GM would never do this to us!” which definitely makes #1 in my list of famous last words.
So what are your favorite quotes, funny anecdotes and famous last words from your campaigns?
Do we need those “What is a roleplaying game” sections?
13March 7, 2012
I don’t remember ever seeing a boardgame, videogame, book, movie DVD or any other entertainment product to first explain me what it is. But in the case of roleplaying games there almost always a small section that explains what the author thinks pen & paper RPGs are.
Recently I started thinking whether this was actually needed. There are actually only two kinds of people out there who might pick up a roleplaying game: the ones who have played RPGs before and the ones who haven’t. Explaining the first group what a roleplaying game is, that’s just silly. And what about the second group? How likely is it that someone picks up a game that he knows nothing about?
In my WR&M game I told people to ask their geek friends or look it up on Wikipedia if they don’t know what a roleplaying game is. But again, is this really needed? Of course there are people out there who buy a PC game and are surprised it doesn’t run on their DVD player. Or there are parents and grandparents who buy stuff for their kids and grandkids without doing any research before they shell out the bucks. But is this really the majority? And do you really believe these people actually read the book?
Things are actually made worse by the fact that everyone tries to come up with his or her own definition of what a roleplaying game is. A lot of effort is wasted on these definitions (and more often than not even gamers argue about what RPGs actually are) instead of really informing the public about our hobby.
I think instead of sticking to these “What is a roleplaying game” sections we really should make an effort to share our hobby with a larger audience. And with the high popularity of MMORPGs it shouldn’t be so hard to explain today’s youth what the roots of their hobby are, don’t you think?
Why D&D Next is important to all of us
11March 6, 2012
I don’t play any recent edition of D&D right now and I am pretty skeptical about the upcoming next edition. You could come to believe I couldn’t care less about what Wizards of the Coast is doing. But even if we are not caring one bit about the current or future edition of D&D, we can not ignore it.
Dungeons & Dragons is probably one of the few if not the only pen & paper roleplaying game that’s known to non-gamers. It also is the game that a majority of gamers will have played at least once during their “career” and it’s probably the game most people will pick up when they want to give roleplaying games a try.
Ask The Readers: Do RPGs necessarily need a unified core mechanic?
28March 2, 2012
Back in the early days of roleplaying games there were often different roll mechanics for the various aspects of the game. In some games you had to roll with a d20 and get high results to hit but roll low with percentile dice to succeed in your skills. Often one game used various ways to resolve tasks. Each “mini game” had its own mechanics.
Nowadays roleplaying games often have a unified core mechanic. Think of the core mechanic of the d20 System for example:
Whenever you attempt an action that has some chance of failure, you roll a twenty-sided die (d20). To determine if your character succeeds at a task you do this:
If the result equals or exceeds the target number, your character succeeds. If the result is lower than the target number, you fail.
While it’s pretty elegant to use the same core mechanic for all of a game’s subsystems, is it really necessary? Or wouldn’t it sometimes more fun to replace the one core mechanic by a whole toolkit full of different mechanics, each designed with a game’s subsystem in mind? What do you guys think about this subject? As always every comment is highly appreciated!
GM’s Day Sale at DriveThruRPG
0March 1, 2012
From now until March 7th, you can get 25% off thousands of titles at DriveThruRPG. If you wanted to spend a couple of dollars on RPG stuff, this might be the right time to do so!
Review: The One Ring – Adventures over the Edge of the Wild
3March 1, 2012
J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic “The Lord of the Rings” is undoubtedly one of the most influential novels of the 20th century. It was one of the major inspirations for a lot of the fantasy novels, comics, movies and games that followed, including 1974’s Dungeons & Dragons.
Alas most attempts to bring Tolkien’s saga to the tabletop were not that successful. Both ICE’s Middle Earth Roleplaying Game and the more recent game by Decipher didn’t really capture the mood of the books. So, when Cubicle 7 and Sophisticated Games announced that they were working on a new game using the Lord of the Ring license I was highly skeptical. The fact that they wanted to limit the scope of the first game to the Wilderlands didn’t actually help to get my hopes up either. Basically I actually expected the game to fail.
But boy, was I wrong! Before I go into detail of what the game’s about, let’s have a look at what you get when you buy The One Ring. Instead of one of the currently popular boxed set, you get a sturdy slip case containing two softcover rulebook (one for the GM, one for the players), two 22” x 17” maps and a set of customized The One Ring Dice. Yes, even the dice are included! Even though the rulebooks are softcover only, they are of pretty high quality and in full color. The maps feel pretty sturdy and look just brilliant. The production value of this game is exceptionally high and I am sure even die hard collectors will be more than pleased.
We submitted our blog to the 2012 SOTY award and so should you!
0March 1, 2012
Stuffer Shack is running it’s annually RPG Site of the Year Award contest again. Until end of march you can submit your blog (as long as it is a independent, non-corporate, fan-based, table-top gaming blog). In the middle of April the readers of Stuffer Shack elect their five favorite blogs. The contest ends by a group of judges picking the winner.
And there are prices, too! Several sponsors have already donated prizes, so the winners will not only be able to put a nifty SOTY Shield onto their blog, they’ll also get great prices. Check out the official SOTY Award page to learn more about the rules of the contest.
So, what are you waiting for? Submit you blog now! And if you don’t have a blog I won’t mind if you keep crossing fingers for us! 
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