A Role Playing Games Blog
News & Reviews
AncientScroll.pl goes English
2October 20, 2011
Fellow RPGBA member AncientScroll.pl is currently running a IndieGoGo fundraising campaign in order to get the funds to make the switch to English.
The Polish-language site releases free to use RPG adventure ideas on a regular basis. At this moment about 100 adventures are freely available for RPG fans to download and use for their games.
They now decided to make the switch to English in order to provide their material to a much broader audience. But in order to do so they need to raise enough money to pay for professional translators to keep up the quality.
Supporters will not only get satisfaction that they supported the RPG fan community but also all ebooks currently published by the Ancient Scroll for free! Don’t worry, these are already in English. In addition to that you’ll get your name and link in their partners section.
If you want to learn more about this, please check out the official campaign page.
First Look: Anima Prime
1October 20, 2011
Yesterday night I was browsing RPGNow in hopes of finding an interesting RPG I haven’t heard about yet. With thousands of titles on the site, it’s actually pretty easy to find stuff I haven’t seen before. What finally caught my interest was a game by the name of “Anima Prime – Steambots and Mega Swords”. Obviously the author of the book, Christian Griffen, set out to write a pen & paper game inspired by the Final Fantasy series of video games as well as Avatar: The Last Airbender and similar anime shows. It was just $10 and looked like I could like it, so I bought it.
While flipping through it I noticed that the game has been licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 US License. That means you can take the rules and design your own game around it and even sell it as long as you share it under a similar license and give the author of Anima Prime proper credit. You can also share material you wrote for Anima Prime under the same conditions. That’s always nice, especially because CC is much less complicated to work with than the OGL. There’s also a free edition available at the official site that comes in a simpler layout and without the artwork, but aside from that it should contain the same content as the paid version.
From what I’ve seen so far, the rules are not too complicated and the dice pool system it uses seems to work fine. Combat is a bit more elaborate and allows the characters to perform fancy moves, summon “eidolons” and there are “soulbound weapons” at the characters’ disposal.
The artwork and layout are pretty nice, especially if you are in the manga style. The 196-paged PDF also comes with a setting for you to play in, but the rules also contain quite a few tips on how to create your own setting.
All in all Anima Prime looks like a fun game. I’ve always wanted to run a game in a Final Fantasy-inspired world and it seems as if Anima Prime could handle this perfectly. If you are even remotely interested in the genre, you should at least check the free version out.
Two new WYRED releases
0October 19, 2011
I think I have talked about WYRED before. It’s a cyberpunk roleplaying game written by R.E. Davis aka Rev.Lazaro and powered by the Wyrm System. Today he released two new versions of it:
Rough Draft 5 is the final iteration of the normal d6-based rules. But he didn’t stop there. Rough Draft 6 uses a new d12 mechanic, which is something I actually planned for the SF variant of Wyrm. From what I’ve seen WYRED has a lot of promise and if you are into the genre you definitely should check it out!
You can get the details on both releases here.
Warrior, Rogue & Mage en Español
1October 17, 2011
A while back a gentleman by the name of Jose Muñoz contacted me on behalf of a Spanish group of roleplayers called Arcano XIII that was interested in translating Warrior, Rogue & Mage into Spanish. Since I released WR&M under a Creative Commons license they of course didn’t need my permission, but I think it was a nice gesture and they even keep me up-to-date about the translation process.
A couple of days ago they sent me a layout example and I have to admit it looks very nice. Check it out:
The final PDF version is not done yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as it’s out. I feel honored that people actually find my little game interesting enough to do the hard work of translating it into another language. By the way, the Spanish version is not the only translation of WR&M currently in the works. As far as I know there are currently people working on a German and a Hebrew translation of WR&M. I can’t wait to see them released as well!
Lazy Friday Video post: “Game Geeks #178 RunePunk and Iron Dynasty”
0October 14, 2011
As a follow-up to yesterday’s interview with Sean Preston I want to present to you Kurt Wiegel’s video reviews of Reality Blurs’ games RunePunk and Iron Dynasty.
By the way, Sean, what did you do to Kurt that made him be afraid of you?
Interview: Sean Preston
3October 13, 2011
I first met Sean Preston at Gen Con 2010. I think I had exchanged a few emails with him before that, but it would be exaggerated if I said I knew him. I was actually waiting to speak with the guys from Crafty Games when I noticed that Reality Blurs occupied the neighboring booth. So I approached Sean, introduced myself and asked him to tell me about his latest product which was Iron Dynasty at the time. I don’t remember how long we actually talked but I quickly learned that Sean is not only a creative writer and game designer but also a great guy. He’s definitely among the people that impressed me the most back then. Until this day we keep contact, some of you might actually have been involved in our extensive Twitter conversations. The rest is – as they say – history. 
Sean’s latest project is “Agents of Oblivion”, a roleplaying game setting for use with Savage Worlds that combines the modern espionage genre with horror elements. But I think Sean can explain this better than I can, so I asked him to answer a couple of questions for us.Stargazer: Thanks again for taking your time to answer a couple of questions about Reality Blurs in general and Agents of Oblivion in particular. It’s an honor to have you. So, let’s start with AoO. What exactly is it about?
Sean: Agents of Oblivion is what we like to call “the perfect cocktail of horror and espionage”. Heck, we believe this so much we put it on the cover as the tagline. Now, before anyone thinks we’re being cocky or anything, we know everyone’s definition of the perfect cocktail may differ, so we cheated a bit by providing you with all the ingredients to mix your own, suitable to your own refined palate. For those who’ve followed us for a number of years, you know we are all about providing sandboxes and allowing you the freedom to customize the game and still have all the pieces work together without any hassle. At its core, Agents of Oblivion is a spy game with conspiracies and aliens and rival organizations and magic and things that go bump in the night. Well, that’s how I play it. We provide seven different campaign styles—cocktail recipes to extend the metaphor—you can tailor to your own sensibilities.
Agents of Oblivion is now available!
2October 10, 2011
Let me start with a quote from John Rogers, the creator and executive producer of Leverage:
“You have in your hands a rules set that lets you play anything from “Spellslinging Spy vs. Alien Brain Eater” to “Harry Palmer vs. That Unpleasant Fellow from Bulgaria.” They haven’t glossed over any of the little nuts and bolts you need to play a realistic spy game, if that’s your desire – they’ve just streamlined it to be Fast, Furious, and Fun. That I can use one setting to play both those extremes is impressive as hell.”
These are the words he wrote for the introduction of Sean Preston’s Agents of Oblivion, the latest Savage Worlds campaign from Reality Blurs. The 218-paged book contains everything you need to horror-fueled espionage action using the Savage World rules (you need a copy of the Savage Worlds rules). I am sure many of you have been waiting for this fine book to be released and if you haven’t you don’t know what you’re missing! Trust me, Sean outdid himself with AoO!
By the way, there are a couple of pretty cool bundles available at the Reality Blurs shop right now:
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The New Recruit (Agents of Oblivion PDF) for $10
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The Elite Agent (Agents of Oblivion Print + PDF) for $25
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The Sigil Operative (Agents of Oblivion PDF + Realms of Cthulhu PDF) for $20
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The Director (Agents of Oblivion Print + PDF and Realms of Cthulhu Print + PDF) for $50
If you don’t own a copy of Realms of Cthulhu yet, I recommend you consider the Sigil Operative or The Director Bundle. An espionage campaign with Mythos elements sounds just to awesome not to try! ^_^
Update: AoO is now available from RPGNow, too!
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