A Role Playing Games Blog
Advice
Time to Speak Out with my Geek Out… Role-Playing Games in my case!
2September 12, 2011
Well that should come as no surprise… Past post and the theme of the blog should be a dead giveaway. But this is supposed to be a post about why I love my geeky hobby and possibly an introduction to someone who wants to know what role-playing games are and may want to try their hand at it. So here is my post…
When I first read about the Speak Out with your Geek Out I was intrigued. As I wrote recently I am a big proponent of sharing my love of the role-playing hobby, showing other people how to play, and supporting gaming groups locally. For these reasons we have a local group called Puerto Rico Role Players and through posting in this blog I feel ever closer to the greater gaming community.
So to the question at hand, why do I love role-playing games?
Victorian & Steampunk Name Generator
2I am terrible when it comes to coming up names for my characters. So whenever possible I make use of random name generators. As I mentioned several times before I am currently waiting for my copy of Airship Pirates to arrive. Alas I don’t know above the setting yet to make plans for a campaign, I already started looking for a tool to help me to create names for NPCs. Luckily I stumbled upon Spencer Rhodes’ Victorian & Steampunk Name Generator.
The web-based generator allows you to generate up to 15 randomly generated male or female names suited for a game set into the Victorian Age (or a Steampunk equivalent). You can choose between the various social classes. I am sure this random name generator will be invaluable for me in the future!
Review: City Builder Generator Pack
5September 5, 2011
I love random generators of all kinds. Especially when it comes to coming up with names for NPCs or creating all the small details needed to flesh out one of the less important places in one of my campaign worlds, I am glad that random generators for this kind of stuff exist. My favorite series of random generator packs is created by Hannah Lipsky of Chaotic Shiny Productions. In the past I’ve reviewed both the Kingdom Builder Generator Pack and its sequel. Today I want to have a look at the City Builder Generator Pack.
Review: The World’s Greatest Screen
9August 31, 2011
Recently I was looking for another customizable GM screen. While I was quite happy with the “Savage Worlds Customizable GM Screen” for a while, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to look if there was a slightly larger one out there. One of the problems I had with the screen I already owned was that I had to create the insert myself. Because of the landscape format I couldn’t just use pages copied from the rulebook. And there have been cases when I wished the GM screen was a bit higher.
The World’s Greatest Screen actually solves these issues. Like the SW Customizable GM Screen it’s created from cardboard and vinyl. It has a total of 8 sleeves sized 8.5” x 11” so even A4 paper fits if slightly trimmed. Please not that I picked the portrait variant, but if you prefer landscape, you can get it, too. There’s also a mini version with 4” x 6” sleeves.
Quality-wise the World’s Greatest Screen is on par with the Savage Worlds Customizable GM Screen. It looks sturdy enough to survive years of adventuring. With a price of $29.95 it should be affordable for every gamemaster.
According to the product description you can write on the screen itself using wet erase markers. I haven’t tried that yet, but I think this could come in quite handy. If you are looking for a sturdy, affordable and customizable GM screen, you should consider getting “The World’s Greatest Screen” by Hammerdog Games.
Every RPG should have its own soundtrack!
3August 30, 2011
On the weekend I started playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which is actually a prequel to the original Deus Ex that was released over a decade ago. I like the game a lot so far, especially the soundtrack. I am sure the game wouldn’t be as fun if it didn’t have the great soundtrack by Michael McCann. In movies and computer/console games the soundtrack plays a vital role. Music can affect our emotions much more than visuals or words.
That’s the reason why a lot of game masters use background music when running roleplaying games. Alas it’s often not so easy to find fitting music for your game. Often you have to rely on movie and game soundtracks, but they are not as perfectly suited as one might hope. What some GMs end up doing is creating elaborate playlists for their games with background music, music for combat scenes, music for chase scenes etc.
From Weird West to Barbarians of the Future
3August 17, 2011
Today I want to share a couple of things I stumbled upon during the last days.
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Tomb of the Overfiend
Weird West is definitely one of coolest old-school games ever conceived. It’s extremely rules-light, but contains a lot of weird west goodness. Recently Stuart Robertson, creator of that fine game, released a free one-page adventure based on an excellent map by Matt Jackson. And even if you’re not into Weird West you can easily use it for other old-school games as well. - Ashen Stars Theme Music
James Semple who has done several soundtracks for Gumshoe games in the past, has composed a theme music for Robin D. Laws latest game, Ashen Stars. I really hope this is the first sign of a full Ashen Stars soundtrack to come. You can listen to the rather short theme tune here. -
Barbarians of the Future
You probably might already have heard about Barbarians of Lemuria, Simon Washbourne’s Sword & Sorcery RPG. While I haven’t tried the game yet, it’s among the games I have to give a try at least once. Some people actually call it one of the best RPGs of the genre. Obviously the system used in BoL can also be easily be used in other genres. There’s Jabberwocky Productions’ post-apocalyptic setting-expansion Barbarians of the Aftermath for example.
A while back rpg.net forum member Maxwell Luther created a free PDF supplement for BoA that allows players and the GM to experience adventures in the grim-dark future of the Warhammer 40,000 universe (with the serial numbers filed off). If you are interested in both BoA and the WH40K universe, you should definitely give it a look. You can download the 42-paged PDF here. -
Expedition RPG
Fellow RPG blogger Dennis N. Santana has recently released an early playtest edition of his Expedition RPG. I haven’t had time to give it a closer look, but according to Shaun Welch’s playtest reports (part one & part two), he and his players not only had fun with the fast character creation system that allows truly unique character concepts, but also very much enjoyed the combat rules. From what I’ve seen Expedition contains a lot of interesting ideas that set the game apart from the majority of fantasy games. If you’re looking for something new, why don’t you give it a try. It’s free and obviously pretty polished for a game still in its alpha stage.
Converting the Spouse: An Ongoing Quest – Part 3
2August 15, 2011
When last we left our valiant adventurers, they had climbed Mt. Doom and were about to toss the Ring into the giant Volcano… wait… think that is a different story. Ah yes! Now I remember, last time, in the Quest to Turn My Wife into a Roleplayer we had finished character creation and I pondered what kind of game we were actually going to be playing. I decided that I wanted to start up the game before my wife forgot what kind of character she was actually playing (in case you may have forgotten, she is a Hare Clan Smith trained by the Oriole Clan; interest include money, sweets, men, and she is afraid of bugs).
I only did some very light prep for the session, most of which actually entailed me writing out her character sheet in very big color-coded numbers so that she would be able to quickly remember where the numbers she needed were. I didn’t include stuff like Wounds on the sheet, since that probably wasn’t really going to be an issue. In fact, the sheet really became a very boiled down version of the game, primarily limited to just Rings, Traits, and Skills accompanied by Advantages, Disadvantages, and School related benefits. I also just jotted down for her the damage on her Katana and her armor (just in case I decided to endanger her life).
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