Sorry for posting another Game Geeks video, but I had good reasons for doing so: a) the video is a review of the awesome d20 based Fantasy Craft game and b) the video comes with a 20% discount code for anyone who orders the Fantasy Craft PDF on DriveThruRPG!
Category : Fantasy Craft, News, Reviews & Culture, RPG, Video
Category : Fantasy Craft, News, Reviews & Culture, Other Systems, Podcasts, RPG
That’s what almost happened to me. When someone recently mentioned the latest RPG Circus (iTunes Store Link) episode, I was surprised that I haven’t listened to it. Usually I check it out on the day it gets released. And this time my blog and I actually got mentioned by Jeff during the interview! Alas he still doesn’t know the name of my blog. 
So, why should you listen to episode 11 (or any episode) of RPG Circus? For one RPG Circus is actually the greatest show in gaming! I am not kidding you. I have listened to several podcasts and RPG Circus is definitely my favorite show. Another reason is probably that the hosts are all members of our RPG Bloggers Network, so they often talk about topics that were raised in the community. The latest episode is actually something special because it features a long interview with the guys from Crafty Games. Especially if you are interested in Spycraft or Fantasy Craft, you shouldn’t miss RPG Circus episode #11!
Disclaimer: I don’t get paid to regularly praise RPG Circus! I just enjoy the show and I feel the need to share my love for that show with you guys!
Category : Dungeonslayers, Fantasy Craft, Other Systems, RPG, Random musings, Site News, Storyteller, Swords & Wizardry
Today I want to give you an update on what’s brewing at Stargazer’s World right now. Just today I finished the first draft of a rather long post (1771 words so far) that will go live as a guest post on Philippe Ménard’s blog in a few days. We decided that the topic would make a great post for his blog and perhaps it helps to convince some of his readers to check out my blog too. Actually I am a bit excited since it’s the first guest post I have written for another blog. And ChattyDM is one of the people who helped me a lot since I joined the RPG Bloggers Network last year. His posts and good advice over Twitter or IM always helped me to get over the deepest of slumps.
In the meantime I am reading several RPG books I purchased recently. Alas some of my offline activities are getting into the way. It doesn’t help that I am now actually an elected local politician. I have been in politics for over ten years but it’s the first time I got a parliamentary seat in our town parliament! Yay!
But back to the RPG books I mentioned. I still have to read Eclipse Phase, the new game from Catalyst Game Labs. I got the PDF as soon as it was on RPGNow and printed it out. Alas I haven’t had that much time to read it, yet, probably because I then picked up a copy of Fantasy Craft soon thereafter . Fantasy Craft is a pretty cool d20 fantasy game that was created by the guys behind Spy Craft. If you want to read more about this cool game, you should check out "Life and Times of a Philipine Gamer". But rest assured that I will write reviews of both games when I have finished reading them.
I also got both the hardcover version of Vampire: The Dark Ages and Hunter: The Reckoning from a German blogger’s "Garage Sale" for just a few Euros, so expect some first looks of those games, too. Both books are probably out of print and at least Hunter has a successor called Hunter: The Vigil that sounds pretty interesting. And even if you don’t want to run games using the old World of Darkness rules, you still can use both books as inspiration for campaigns using the new WoD line for example. Hunter (the old or the new version) also sounds like the perfect world for the horror solo game I wanted to run for some time now…
I also started working on a translation of my Dungeonslayers supplement "Fireworks" to English. The booklet contains not only rules for firearms, cannons and explosives for Dungeonslayers but also introduces a completely new class. I don’t know when the translation will be done (this usually takes a lot longer than you think) but expect some previews as soon as I have something to show off.
I am also working on a secret layout project that is way past the initial deadline. Hmm, perhaps I should make this project top priority then…
Aside from all that I also would like to work on a Swords & Wizardry campaign based on the later titles of the Ultima series. But since I am already having too many unfinished projects I will probably put this on the back burner for now.
Phew! This post got much longer than I expected. But you now should have a pretty good overview about my current plans for this blog, so stay tuned. And if you have any comments, questions or advice please let me know! Any comment is highly appreciated!
It all started with the Fantasy Craft preview PDF. While I was paging through it, my girlfriend was sitting next to me, and when we reached the section about Drakes, she exclaimed: “We HAVE to play this!” To understand this, you have to know that she absolutely loves dragons and everything somewhat resembling dragons. When we tried out D&D 4th Edition, she of course played a Dragonkin character. Who would have guessed.
Then I started reading a few previews and messages on Twitter praising the game, so I finally gave in, put down some hard earned cash and got a copy of Fantasy Craft. Almost $30 is quite hefty for a PDF, but it looked like it might be worth it. While I was leafing through it, I was stunned. Wow, it’s perhaps not as good looking as some other books out there, although the cover art is mega cool, but I very much like what I’ve seen so far.
So, what is Fantasy Craft anyway? It’s Crafty Games’ take on fantasy role playing using the d20 system. Instead of creating a game that is more or less compatible to D&D 3.5 (like Pathfinder), they created an almost completely different game. Combat has been streamlined (Attacks of Opportunity are gone for example), there are a lot of cool new character classes and races, they came up with a new way to create NPCs and monsters, they totally overhauled feats and the magic system relies on magic points and skills. Wow! Of course I haven’t been able to read all 400 pages of rules, yet, but I am officially impressed. More than once I thought: “That’s how D&D 4th Edition should have looked like”.
Currently the easiest way to get your hands on a copy of Fantasy Craft is to buy it from RPGNow, although I’ve heard you can also get printed copies at your local shops (in the US at least). I haven’t spotted it on Amazon, yet.
