Stargazer's World
A Role Playing Games Blog
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!
Our thoughts on D&D 5th Edition
11January 11, 2012
I have to admit that I was totally oblivious to WotC’s big announcement (which was first published by the NY Times) until my team member Youseph told me about it. But I don’t really follow D&D news for quite a while now. But since D&D is the grand daddy of all roleplaying games out there you can’t really ignore it either.
So, what the news at WotC? What the community suspected for quite some time now, is actually true: WotC is already working on a new edition of D&D. If it will be called D&D 5th Edition or something else is still unclear, but Mike Mearls obviously likes the idea of just calling it “Dungeons & Dragons” and drop the edition number altogether.
This time they want to do it right and bring back the highly fragmented D&D community. This also more or less proves that D&D 4th Edition wasn’t as successful as the decision makers at WotC and Hasbro hoped for. I suspect the success of Paizo’s Pathfinder and probably even the Old-School Revolution are responsible for that.
While their goals are laudable I fear they are doomed to fail. They plan to create a new edition of D&D that shall please both fans of the recent D&D 4E but also bring back the OSR crowd. They intend to manage this by creating a modular ruleset and community involvement during the design and playtest phases. I have to admit that a highly modular D&D game could be quite interesting. The Unearthed Arcana book for D&D 3.5 was one of my favorite books back when I still played D&D. Being able to pick and choose the rules options you like in your D&D game might be pretty nifty, but in my opinion it’s very hard to pull off.
Community involvement in the design phase may also be pretty problematic. Only a small portion of gamers does participate in online communities or attend gaming convention. How do you make sure that the game appeals to this silent majority and not only to the quite vocal minority that actively participates in the design process?
I have to admit that I’m not that invested in that topic as I was a couple of years back. I wish WotC all the best and if the next iteration of D&D is a roleplaying game that sounds fun to play, I might give it a try. But if it’s not my cup of tea I’ll just play something else. There are so many interesting games out there, so that I am not dependent on Dungeons & Dragons.
Before I let the team speak their thoughts, let me share you some interesting links for you to check out later:
-
Charting the Course of D&D (Mike Mearls, Official D&D site)
- Wizards of the Coasts announces new edition of ‘Dungeons and Dragons’(CNN)
- Gamers React To New Dungeons And Dragons (Forbes)
So, what are my fellow team members’ thoughts on that topic? How do you feel about WotC’s announcement?
New Year’s Gaming Resolutions
0January 10, 2012
Before talking about the plans for 2012 let’s have a look back at the last year. Back in January 2011 I set one goal for 2011: play more. And while I discovered Google+ Hangouts as a perfect medium for online gaming, I didn’t actually achieve that goal. When I am not totally mistaken I did actually play less than in 2010. Scheduling has been more difficult than ever and a lot of the plans I made fell flat in the end.
But that doesn’t mean I have given up. So my first gaming related resolution for 2012 is the same as last year: play more. We actually scheduled our first game for the second weekend in January where I want to wrap up the Call of Cthulhu game from New Year’s Eve.
But aside from that I want to run a campaign from start to finish in 2012. It doesn’t need to be long, but a story arc that covers at least a dozen sessions would be a nice change. I have a couple of ideas what I would love to run in the new year, but before making any plans I should consult my players. More than once I’ve made plans for a game that I never ran because I couldn’t interest my players in it.
One of the things I would love to do is running a sandbox campaign with Lamentations of the Flame Princess. I recently got my print copy of Carcosa and I utterly love that book. The setting is extremely weird, has a lot of Lovecraft influences and looks and reads great. I’ll also have to think of a way on how to make use of Vornheim, too, since it’s another book I would like to use someday. I am not sure if my players are into old-school D&D, but it might be worth a try.
When it comes to game design I still have a couple of unfinished projects on my harddrive that need some more work. So another goal for 2012 is to at least finish one of those projects. Heck, perhaps I should resurrect the Gearbox project or finally finish that game I’ve been working on in secret for way too long…
So what are your gaming resolutions for 2012? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!
Review: Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space
8January 9, 2012
Roleplaying games based on licensed material are usually hit or miss. Either they are either utter crap or totally awesome. Luckily the game based on one of my favorite TV series is the latter. Cubicle 7’s Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space is not only a perfect adaption of the series but it’s also perfectly suited for new gamers. The game’s presentation is flawless and the rules are fast, easy to learn and support the mood of the series. But before going into detail, let’s have a look at the boxed set itself. Yes, the game comes in a boxed set!
Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space Unboxing
As you can see the box contains not only three rulebooks (86, 140 and 32 pages respectively) but also pregenerated characters sheets, unfilled character sheets, gadget cards and a shitload of story point counters and a full set of dice. Throw in a few sheets of scrap paper and a couple of pencils and you’re good to go! The boxed set really makes it easy to jump into gaming without setting the hurdles too high.
The Player’s Guide starts with a short story set into the Whoniverse called “Shaking the Box” which is followed by a short introduction into the Doctor Who universe and roleplaying. Oh, did I mention that the game is based on the “new” Doctor Who series started by BBC Wales in 2005? It features a lot of still photography from the series, especially the David Tennant episodes. As far as I know an updated version of the game is in the works which will feature the 11th Doctor as well. But I digress. (more…)
Happy New Year
1January 2, 2012
Even though I am still on vacation I wanted to give you a short update on what I’ve been up to lately. For the most time I have celebrated Christmas with my girlfriend’s and my family which means we had a lot of great food and spent hours talking, laughing and playing games.
My girlfriend and I played a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic recently, which is a lot of fun. It’s the most immersive MMO I’ve played so far and Verena and I are enjoying it immensely. The game also makes me want to run some Star Wars pen & paper game, but at the moment, I have neither the time nor the players needed to start a new campaign.
On New Year’s Eve I’ve run a Call of Cthulhu game for a couple of friends. I picked the first episode of the Age of Cthulhu campaign by Goodman games, which has an interesting story but has some issues that made it harder to run than I expected. But we still had a lot of fun.
And there’s something else I want to tell you about. I got a very special gift this Christmas. Some of you probably know that I am interested in astronomy that’s why I picked the nickname Stargazer a couple of years back. I own a small telescope but I don’t go out watching the skies as often as I would like. So my girlfriend thought she gave me some incentive to do so. She gave me a star as one of her Christmas gifts! One star in the Draco constellation is now registered1 as “Stargazer’s World” and I have the documents to prove it. So, next time you look up into the sky, look out for “Stargazer’s World”.
1) Yes, I know that only the IAU can actually name stars, but I don’t mind. And the deed really looks great on the kitchen wall. 
Taking a break
2December 21, 2011
The holiday season is upon us and outside it’s already looking like the proverbial winter wonderland. Today will be my last day of work for this year and unlike last year I decided that the blog should take a short break, too.
In 2011 the team of Stargazer’s World has posted over 300 times. Considering that we usually don’t publish posts on the weekend this is quite an achievement. But the holiday season is usually used as a time to look back on what you’ve done and to relax. And trust me, especially my creative batteries are almost dead, so some days without thinking about what to post next are in order. But fret not, we’ll be back in January 2012!
Until then the team of Stargazer’s World wishes you happy holidays and a happy new year!
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