A Role Playing Games Blog
Humor
They don’t sparkle, period!
2January 27, 2012
I know I am late to the party, the Vampire the Masquerade 20th anniversary celebration was last year. But I did not catch the anniversary bug until this year. My relation with Vampire is a complicated one. I was in college and gaming actively during the heyday of the World of Darkness. I played 1st edition, but never got the books, When 2nd edition came out I got them and played sporadically. These were also the heydays of Magic the Gathering and our sessions would always start late because someone wanted to play a hand of Magic.
Despite being primarily a Game Master during my years gaming, I was never a Storyteller for a Vampire game. One of the things I enjoy the most is playing my homebrewed world, and at this time we were playing AD&D 2nd edition. If this was the golden age for Vampire and the World of Darnkess, it was not for AD&D. I worked at a FLGS and whenever I talked about my AD&D game with some RPG fans I got this weird condescending look, as if I was still playing child’s games instead of engaging in immersive storytelling. I felt disdain for the game I played. I don’t know what your experience was but I felt a lot of World of Darkness gamers were snobs, their game was better than anyone else’s.
What about the Kobold of Winter, aka #20? A review…
0January 20, 2012
“The Winter Kobold is coming!” If those were the words of House Stark, Eddard would have faced a different fate! Because the know Kobolds are powerful, dangerous creatures. Well at least that’s what Wolfgang Baur, the folk of Open Game Design and all the authors and contributors make me think issue after issue. I am a fan of the magazine and they keep pushing the envelope and producing quality content consistently. But let’s leave strange references to A Song of Ice and Fire behind and dive in into the issue at hand!
The theme this issue is archers and its well served. Let’s see, it opens with the Elven Archer, a race specific class for the Pathfinder RPG. It’s an interesting mix of the ranger and the rogue that fits a traditional fantasy niche. The article has some typos (and you all know I’ve got plenty of those, so I shouldn’t be nitpicking), but I found it interesting and it’s a perfect fit for my long running campaign. The notes on adapting the class for other races, cultures, or even weapons make it useful in other contexts. There is also an article on magic arrows, which again provides what in my mind are some archetypical magic arrows. These two articles seem plucked from my adolescent love for RPGs updated for Pathfinder.
What else is there? Read on to find out…
Dinner with Gamers
1January 16, 2012
Recently I sat down for dinner with friends at the Golden Place Buffet in Guaynabo. They happen to be gamers, most of them being the regular players in my campaign. There were a couple of other friends, the girlfriend of one of my player, another gamer friend, and the non-gamer looking flabbergasted at all this, my girlfriend.
See, I’ve had a couple of rough weeks and we had to cancel our weekly game twice (sacrilege I know!), so we planned this as a way to catch up, see each other and spend some quality time together. Needless to say at dinner with gamers I had to bring up the topic everyone’s been talking about in recent days D&D Next/5th edition…
I wanted to get their take on the news of the development of a fresh version of Dungeons & Dragons. Here in the blog we recently posted our thoughts, but we are bloggers, keep abreast of news and interact with a different community of gamers than some of the gamers I was sitting with. The reaction was interesting, mostly predictable if you know the group, but telling considering this quote from Monte Cook:
“I’m the lead designer of a project that will likely evolve into a new iteration of the Dungeons & Dragons ruleset. It’s meant to be a set of rules that unites all the previous editions, and the players of those editions. It’s a big project, and we plan on involving all comers to playtest and voice their opinions, because really, what’s the point of designing a game no one wants to play? And who knows better what D&D players want than, well, D&D players.”
(Thanks to EN World for collecting this and other quotes and information on the development in their D&D 5th edition info page!)
What did they say? Read on…
It’s beginning to look a look like Geekmas!
0December 20, 2011
If you follow me on Twitter, are my friend in Facebook or have me in your circles in Google+ you probably know Puerto Rico Role Players had a Geekmas party this past weekend. I know I bombarded you about it, for that I apologize… But I was really excited about it!
Even though we have held lots of activities we rarely do purely social activities. With the exception of a movie night all other group activities have centered on gaming. You’d figure since the group centers around role-playing games that’s a given, BUT I really appreciate the friendships I’ve made through the group and I want to spend some time with them away from the game… Is that an oxymoron?
Ask the Stargazer: WTF Edition
2December 20, 2011
Over the last few weeks I got a few really tricky questions that will force me to do some serious research in order to answer them. And I got one particular question that made me think WTF was going on here. But see for yourself (I changed the name of the sender):
Hello,
I’m Mr. Joe Sixpack And Would like to know if you sell Game Table and
what types of the Game Table do you offer for sale..Also what types
of payment do you accept?Thank you and reply ASAP.
Best regards,
Joe Sixpack
Is this some weird kind of spam? Or is someone confusing the Open Game Table which I contributed to with an actual physical table? I actually answered that question and told Mr. Sixpack that I don’t sell anything. I haven’t heard from him since…
By the way, if you have any serious questions for the Stargazer and his crew, feel free to email us via askthestargazer@stargazersworld.com!
Food at the table (or other designated gaming area) what to do… Ask the readers!
11December 7, 2011
I am a portly fellow, I’ll admit it. Or you may say pleasantly plumpy. Ok I am overweight. I guess it is something that affects some in the gaming community. I know there are people out there who also face this conundrum. There are groups out there, like Fit for Gen Con who are doing something about it…
I have talked about food in games before, but this is a different situation, the master of the Gordopletas© needs to loose weight. And I am not remotely thinking that the junk food I eat once night a week is responsible for my unhealthy eating habits. I need to exercise more, eat more responsibly. But in past experiences, and lets face it many of us have been there, I can pinpoint that I keep my diet for most of the week and then come game night I drink too much soda, eat too much chips and candy.
So I come to you dead reader, how do you do it? What tricks have worked for you? I plan on getting back on the healthy eating wagon and I’d sure like to plan ahead.
Unfinished business
0December 2, 2011
I think as a whole we human beings are completists. We want to complete what we began; we want the whole story. We crave to know the conclusion, and when we don’t get closure we often resent it. From famous court cases to cancelled TV series, we just don’t like it when we don’t know the end of the story.
No wonder hardcore fan-folk (and I use the term meaning no disrespect) often take this to the next level when it comes to the things they are passionate about. Be it the TV series they were really invested in and the networked axed, or the endless novel series whose author passed away before completing it. There can be righteous indignation in such occasions.
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