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Port Loren Travel Agency! Star Frontiers Virtual Con 2012
0January 31, 2012
I am a longtime fan of Star Frontiers, I’ve written about it before, and every now I then I visit the fan sites still supporting the game. Imagine my surprise when I discovered this, the Star Frontiers Virtual Con 2012!
Imagine my surprise when I realized my first sci-fi game turns 30 this year… Now I understand the white hairs. I didn’t start playing it in 82, heck I was not playing RPGs back then. If memory serves I picked it up in 88. I played that game so much, it was one of my longest running games, my longest running sci-fi, the game where I first tried running two separate campaigns that influenced each other. I did a lot of experimenting and developed many of my DMing skills with Star Frontiers.
Is the game prefect? No, it definitely shows its age, and despite the enthusiasm fans still have for it, I wonder if I could run a campaign using the system. I would definitely run a pickup game, or participate in one. That’s why the concept of the virtual con intrigues me. I want to participate, and while it sounds interesting, the registered participant’s page only lists two people. Still I’m intrigued and if time and the new class schedule allows I may just join them.
If you are a fan of Star Frontiers, check it out!
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.
More details on my new campaign
0January 23, 2012
On the weekend my girlfriend worked on the campaign world for our upcoming Shadow, Sword & Spell game. I am actually very happy with the result so far and aside from a proper map I have almost enough material for the next step.
The next step will of course be character creation. When I know what kind of characters my players want to play and more importantly what their goals are, I can put some more work in the world itself. But instead of fleshing out everything, I’ll focus on what I need to run an interesting game suited to my player’s characters and their goals.
I also decide that instead of running a pure sandbox game I will probably use what I call the “Elder Scrolls method”. The Elder Scrolls computer games are basically sandbox games at their heart with a main plotline tacked on. So while you can explore the world at your own pace and set your own goals there’s also a plot to follow. The Elder Scrolls also differs in another aspect from a pure sandbox game. Some events only happen when they are initiated by the player. I will probably use this approach, too, mainly because both my players and I are not too familiar with sandbox gaming and a more plot-based approach may make things easier for us until we are comfortable with this mode of play.
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…
New Year, New Game
1January 19, 2012
One of my goals for 2012 was to play more often and until now things are looking good. At the end of the month I’ll start a new campaign using Rogue Games’ Shadow, Sword and Spell. I’ve been planning to run SS&S for quite a while now.
I made first contact with this fine game back in 2010. When I was at Gen Con, Richard Iorio II offered to run a game for us. Alas Richard got quite sick and was unable to run a game, so Zachary Houghton prepared the game in just 45 mins. We created our characters at the Red Dragon Inn with Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton having dinner at the table next to us.
I quickly fell in love with the game. It’s a sword & sorcery roleplaying game inspired by the works of Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft among others. In my opinion SS&S is even more lightweight than the Rogue Games games, which makes it a perfect entry into the 12° system. And the human-centric, low-magic sword & sorcery genre is a welcome change to the classic high-fantasy genre that seems to dominate our hobby right now. If I had to pick my favorite game from Rogue Games’ portfolio, it would definitely be SS&S. It’s a real gem.
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…
Oldies but goodies! Some great digital game supplements for the New Year…
0January 12, 2012
It’s really strange that I just classified as “oldies” some books that became available in digital format just a few short months ago. I guess it’s the nature of the digital age, the immediacy, and the ease of publishing that has changed my perspective. But the fact that these supplements where published some months ago doesn’t make them any less amazing.
These books where provided by the publisher for review and even if I took my sweet time to get to them I am always really flattered that publishers will submit their products for review. Thanks, that doesn’t mean I’ll pull my punches!
So without further ado, the reviews…
What about Kobold Quarterly #19?
Issue 20 of Kobold Quarterly just came out, and I plan to review it much faster than the previous issue, but the issue at hand (pun intended) is 19, the Fall issue. I’ve reviewed previous issues and the wonderful people at Open Design have made me a fan, with a mix of nostalgia for the old Dragon Magazine coupled with great new content for some of the most popular fantasy RPGs in the market right now, D&D, AGE and Pathfinder. So what’s good in this issue? Glad you asked!
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