About Roberto M

https://www.facebook.com/groups/puertoricoroleplayers/

Welcome reader, thanks for taking the time to find out just who I am! My name is Roberto, although in the Internet I usually go by the name of Sunglar. Long time pen & paper RPG player, mostly a GM for the better part of that time; some will say that’s because of my love of telling a good story, others because I’m a control freak, but that’s debatable… I was born, raised and still live in Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean, with a small but active gaming community. I’ve played RPGs for 25 years, and for most of that time I played D&D in all its various permutations. Currently we play the Pathfinder RPG, Mutants & Masterminds and Savage Worlds, but I have played many other games and plan to play many more. I am a compulsive homebrewer, I rarely play a campaign I have not created myself. You can follow me on Twitter as @Sunglar, in Google+ as Sunglar as well and I’m also in Facebook where you can find me posting regularly in the Puerto Rico Role Players group, looking forward to hearing from you…

Posts by Roberto M:

Jul 6 2010

Other sources of inspiration for RPGs: Comics

It’s easy to list off the inspiration and influences from literature and movies on role playing games. Historically there are lists and appendixes dedicated just to this. The newly released (and excellent by the way) Pathfinder Game Mastery Guide has an updated version of a similar Appendix in the AD&D 1st Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide. While I can certainly find my influences on this and other lists, there is another influence that is often ignored and that personally had a huge impact of me and my style of game mastering and storytelling, comic books!

For the longest time comic books were my parallel passion alongside RPGs. I actually began reading comics long before I even picked up dice and they were a big influence in my life. Not until recently did I (mostly) give up comic books. I still purchase some trade paperbacks and the only comic I still buy regularly is a game related one, Knights of the Dinner Table.

Through the years the episodic nature of comic book storytelling, the bigger than life characters, the big events, all have colored my style of gaming. The easiest connection to draw is to superhero games, because that genre dominates the comic book industry, but there are others, maybe less known series that have impacted me. Let me share those with you…

More

By • Feature, Fluff/Inspiration, Just my two cents, Other Systems, Random musings, RPG • 3

Jul 2 2010

My Orcus & Me!

Today I got my Orcus, Prince of Undeath Gargantuan Figure. I was so excited to get the news that my FLGS had received it that I spent all day daydreaming about it. To the points where I remembered an old toy commercial from the late 80s for a doll for boys, My Buddy, and spent the whole day singing my version of it on my head. My Orcus!

You say you haven’t seen that commercial? Let me illustrate…

Just imagine me as an adult running around with a gargantuan sized (in D&D terms) figure and having all sorts of fun, ridding the tricycle, playing fireman. Well not exactly that, more likely thrashing Bloodstone Pass, but you get the idea.

More

By • D&D4e, Feature, Humor, Legacy D&D, News & Reviews, Other Systems, Pathfinder, Random musings, Reviews & First Looks, RPG, RPG tools • 11

Jun 29 2010

Your daily dose of ICONS!

Some time ago, when I was just getting on this superhero bandwagon I wrote a post about supers, including a tool to illustrate characters called Hero Factory (Fábrica de Heroís). On that post I included some samples of characters I had illustrated using that program.

Shortly after doing that I purchased the ICONS rpg and had the idea to write up these characters using the ICONS rules. On previous posts I have rolled up a character using the random character generation method and tried my hand at creating a worthy villain for the hero.

This time around I’m doing something else. I’ve stated up two characters from a supers campaign I’ve been working on. First is Avatar, a superhero that’s been active since the late 1930s, specifically his incarnation during the 1980s. Also on this post is one of the world’s foremost villains, the wicked reptilian Dr. Rex!

On both cases I created them according to how I had conceived the characters and they may break some of the character creation rules. If you decide to use them for your game Avatar could be an ally to your heroes, a famous paragon of all that is good, or might be an evil version of the character from an alternate reality. Dr. Rex is an evil mastermind that I think may challenge some heroes, depending to whom he is allied or what minions he has recruited for his nefarious plans.

I’d love to get some feedback from those of you who have some experience with the game. How do you see the characters? Is Dr. Rex and appropriate challenge? Even if you don’t play ICONS, what do you think?

I’ve reproduced the text for both characters here in the post as well as including PDF copies of both Dr. Rex’s and Avatar’s character sheets. Enjoy!

More

By • Fluff/Inspiration, Other Systems, RPG • 3

Jun 25 2010

Does the GM Screen deserve to go the way of the Dodo?

I always tell myself I’m not going to buy it. But I always do and I’m consistently underwhelmed or outright disappointed!

There was a time when I had a use for Game Master Screens. They offered cardboard-based defense technology from the prying eyes of my players as well as tactical displays of essential information. When I played AD&D and AD&D 2nd edition the DM Screen was a boon. It had all the necessary tables and I could pretty much run the game without opening a book unless I was referencing a spell. One of my players even prepared a special extra large DM screen he put together containing all the 2nd edition rules and tables I could EVER use, constructed with cardboard and tape.

As time went by I discovered the joys of game mastering without a screen, more direct contact with my players, easier to play in different configurations, no longer was I bound to one corner of the table, I could move around the room, act out NPCs while walking to and fro.

Back when I was playing D&D 3.5 we had a big group and a sweet gaming set up with a large table so I hesitantly went back to the screen. The four panel D&D 3.5 landscape screen was probably the last one I was actually impressed with, it came bundled with issue #310 of Dragon magazine, and I personalized it by attaching laminated maps to the outside (player’s side) and campaign specific notes to the inside (DM’s side).

These days I run most of my games from my laptop. I have the books for reference, but I use a combination of the Pathfinder RPG PDFs, the SRD and my notes (in Word and Excel mostly) and rarely open the books.

Today I went to the Paizo website to buy the electronic version of the Pathfinder Game Mastery Guide (more on this one another post) and on impulse brought the Pathfinder GM’s Screen PDF. I figured that I could either use it on the customizable screens I purchased, like this one for Savage Worlds (I own both a regular and a landscape version), or print it out as a reference for me and my players.

I cannot say I was disappointed by my purchase. The information in the screen is well laid out, and useful, but nothing I could not have put together myself. The player’s side was just art, pretty art at that, but nothing useful since I don’t plan on using the screen in a traditional way. I guess you could say I paid $4.99 to not pass the trouble of compiling this information myself. Not a bad deal, but nothing to write home about.

This brought about my pondering… Do I really need a Game Master Screen? I think that for me, the answer is no, not the way I run my games anyway. Your experience may be different. What do you think?

By • Humor, Just my two cents, Other Systems, Pathfinder, Random musings, Reviews & First Looks • 12

Jun 23 2010

Let’s got to the frontier… The Star Frontier that is!

Dane of War’s excellent post, 10 RPGs every gamer should play before they fail their saving throw vs. death got me thinking of my favorite sci-fi game, Star Frontiers. This old school sci-fi game published by TSR in 1982 was my first game of that genre and the system under which I ran my second longest campaign, all the way from high school to college.

If you have never taken a look at the game it’s well worth it. Many of the races were later converted to Spelljammer, Alternity and D20 Future. So give yourself a chance and visit the Star Frontiersman website, they have a section containing what they call “digitally remastered” files of the original books that you can download.

Enjoy!

By • Freebies, Other Systems, Random musings, RPG • 5

Jun 22 2010

Deconstructing Metaplots

I have a confession to make (another one you say)! As a Game Master I really don’t like pre-published adventures. Don’t get me wrong I know WHY they exist, and I’ve read my share and enjoyed them, but I rarely play them. The reason? Because I enjoy creating the story as much as I do playing it.

The same applies to published campaigns as I’ve said on other posts. These days, with very few exceptions, I play only campaigns I have created. But this wasn’t always so. Before 1993 when I took the conscious decision to do this I tried countless games and started innumerable campaigns.

Whether consciously or not I always rebelled against the game or setting’s metaplot, and I ended up doing just what I say on this post’s title, deconstructing metaplots.

I would like to share with you two instances where I did this and just what I did, or intended to do anyway. This was the time when campaigns were begun and dropped fairly quickly and in both cases the games never played out all the way to the end, but I will tell you what happened in the game and how I had planned it to play out if it had. Hope you enjoy it…

More

By • Feature, Fluff/Inspiration, Just my two cents, Other Systems, Random musings, RPG • 3

Jun 21 2010

Every Icon(ic) superhero needs a super villain!

Let it never be said that I am a fickle fan! The superhero fever steamroller plows on unabated…

Recently I tried out the ICONS RPG random generation method and wrote a post about it. Te result was Mind Shadow, a super heroine I’ve become rather fond off. When I wrote up the character based on the random generation results I also created an enemy for Mind Shadow, Mindstrom!

This was my first attempt and creating a villain for ICONS. I didn’t want to create an overly powerful villain, but tough enough to present a challenge to Mind Shadow and her (possible) allies. Here is the write up for the Mindstrom:

MINDSTORM

PROWESS 6
COORDINATION 6
STRENGTH 5
INTELLECT 8
AWARENESS 5
WILLPOWER 9
   
STAMINA 14

SPECIALTIES

Medicine

Science – Biology

POWERS

Illusion 6

Mind Blast 8

Mind Control 8

Mind Shield 4

Telepathy 6

QUALITIES

  • Catchphrase – “Your mind is my plaything…”
  • Epithet – The Ravager of Minds!
  • Driven to become more powerful

CHALLENGES

  • Delusional
  • Split Personality
  • Enemy – Mind Shadow

Professor Aldo Walden was a renowned biophysicist working for a secret government project attempting to enhance the mental capabilities of soldiers. When a government investigation revealed mismanagement of funds and illegal trials on humans Professor Walden panicked and used the procedures he had developed on himself. When the men sent to arrest him arrived at the lab they found him comatose. Taken to a military hospital and placed under surveillance Aldo Walden remained in a coma for over a year.

Unbeknownst to his captors his mind had splintered into a thousand personalities now fighting for control of the powerful mind created by the experiment. One personality slowly emerged as the dominant one, a sadistic brutal aspect of Walden’s personality, by the name of Mindstorm. When Mindstorm awoke he used his powers to enact revenge upon his captors and escape.

Using a variation of the suit developed as part of the original project, he embarked on a crime wave that made little sense to the authorities. All his crimes had the ultimate goal of allowing him to perform more experiments to enhance his mental powers and make him unstoppable.

While Mindstorm is in control of the splintered mind of Professor Walden, other personalities occasionally come to the fore and attempt to stop him. Containing the different aspects fighting inside his mind causes delusions, often Mindstorm looses touch with reality and fails to recognize when a plan has failed, fighting until captured.

During one of his incarcerations Mindstorm was responsible for giving his nemesis Mind Shadow her powers when he took over the hospital for the criminally insane and used the place to experiment with power enhancing drugs. Since all others who were given the drug died and she survived, Mindstorm has become obsessed with defeating the heroine and dissecting her to learn more about the effect his drugs had on her.

Well there he is! Creating a villain for ICONS is more of an art than an exact science. I’ve read the book but have not actually played yet. I think that is my biggest concern. I’m putting together a campaign to run when I take a break from my regular weekly Pathfinder RPG campaign, but I’ll play a test run of the system soon to get a better feel for it. I’d love feedback from those of you out there who have actually played the game.

You can grab a PDF copy of Mindstorm here and one for Mind Shadow here.

Your thoughts and opinions are welcome.

By • Fluff/Inspiration, Just my two cents, Other Systems, RPG • 2

« 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 »
%d bloggers like this: