Apr 22 2013

Life Signs

Reports of the unfortunate and sudden demise of Stargazer’s World are highly exaggerated. Even though I haven’t posted in the last few weeks doesn’t mean I plan to shut down the blog for good. I actually have a couple of posts in preparation and I hope to get things running again soon. But on the other hand I decided that taking a break from blogging wouldn’t be the end of the world. At the moment I slowly try to get things running again. So please excuse that this post is of a more personal nature than what you’re used to.

The last weeks and months have been quite hard for me. Even though I have been in therapy for the last months, my mental health issues flared up again earlier this year. I had to cancel a SWN campaign I wanted to run, because the fear I could mess up things again, turned into fully-blown anxiety attacks. Focussing on anything became exeedingly hard and I had to be signed off work for four weeks.

According to my therapist I suffer from a moderate depressive episode. In my case anxiety and sleep disorders are among the major symptoms. I am also pretty thin-skinned and prone to bouts of anger. I easily get frustrated, which doesn’t really help with creative endeavours like preparing for a roleplaying campaign or writing blog posts. In the last few months it has become pretty obvious that I suffer from some kind of mental health issue. But looking back, I realized that I have been suffering from depression for much, much longer.

Being able to call my mental health issues by name is actually helping a lot. Up until a while ago, I always had to give some pretty fuzzy explanations on what was wrong with me. Now that I know that it’s depression I suffer from, things are easier. I still have to cope with the symptoms from time to time, but it’s easier to talk about my problems. In addition to that the new medication my doctor prescribed seems to help.

Since I haven’t run any games in a while, writing about RPGs is becoming harder. I always drew a lot of inspirations from what I’ve experienced at the game table and at this moment I feel like a fake when I am writing about something I actually don’t do at the moment. There are also a couple of books on my shelf that need to be reviewed, but I haven’t managed to read them thouroughly – and my bad conscience isn’t helping.

I am pretty sure that things will slowly improve over time, but currently I am still struggling to cope with the daily chores. So please bear with me, if I don’t manage to post in a regular manner. I also hope you don’t mind if I use this blog to write about my depressions from time to time. Talking with other people about my problems has always helped me to cope and writing about it isn’t much different. I also got the impression that depression and other mental health issues are not uncommon in the RPG scene, so perhaps this topic is not completely off-topic at all.

By • Random musings, RPG, Site News • 13

Apr 5 2013

Wanderers of the Outlands, a sci-fi setting!

Milky_Way_GalaxyAlmost two years ago I wrote my first post about a sci-fi setting I had in mind. I plan ahead for my campaign so I knew I wanted to run some sci-fi and began to put together some ideas about what to run. I posted a first draft here in the blog, talked with my players, the majority was excited about the prospect, listened to the comments the first time around, and have been tinkering with it ever since.

In the meantime I wrote about designing aliens (and some wonderful readers offered to help with the design, I never took you up on it because just what the aliens looked like had not really solidified in my mind, but if the offer is still good I’d love to work with any artist willing to help!) and wrote the end of the campaign for a ConCurrent game I ran, both at a Geeknic and online during the con (the links to part 1 and part 2).

So coming back full circle, here is the finished background to my sci-fi game. I already discussed it with my players, and they seem to be on board. Some elements remain undeveloped, but that is a purposeful decision because my players have agreed to develop specific elements of the campaign. I love that idea and look forward to their input.

So, without further ado, Wanderers of the Outlands! (I’ll be back after the background to discuss some specifics of the campaign…)

By • Ask The Readers, FATE, Fluff/Inspiration, Other Systems, Pathfinder, Random musings, RPG, Star Wars Saga Edition • 4

Mar 27 2013

SWN: Jumpstarting my Creativity

Stars Without Numbers Mongoose CoverFor the last few weeks I really struggled getting anything done. I don’t know what caused it – perhaps it’s this long, cold and dark winter – but my mental health issues have been more severe lately. At this moment I am slowly starting to feel better. The bouts of anxiety I get from time to time are fewer and further between, but I still have troubles when it comes to creativity.

But just today I found a good way to jumpstart my creativity again. Stars Without Number has a pretty elaborate World generating system that allows the game master to quickly roll up detailed worlds. There are random tables for atmosphere, biosphere, tech level, population, tags, etc. Within a few minutes you can roll up a whole slew of worlds. Since I want to run SWN in the near future I decided rolling up a sector would be a good start. So I got my dice and started rolling.

To make things easier for me, I created a spreadsheet in Google Drive that allows me to enter the numbers I rolled and it automatically puts out the results. That way I didn’t have to write everything down myself. Instead I just rolled and watched as the worlds slowly took shape on the spreadsheet – and in my mind. Especially the tags generated by this system really help to jumpstart one’s ideas.

For one world I rolled up the tags Unbraked AI and Zombies. Immediately I had ideas about a world controlled by a mad AI that creates mindless cyborg zombies from any hapless human being it can get its hands on. This world could be the perfect setting for a horror-themed adventure. In another case I got Desert Planet and Alien Ruins, and my mind was filled with ideas of a lost alien civilization whose remains are scattered across a deadly desert. Within a couple of minutes I had a couple of great adventure ideas.

Of course rolling up the worlds is just the very first step. I still have to turn everything into a workable setting. Some worlds I created using the random generation method are pretty silly and don’t make much sense at all, so I’ll have to make some subtle – and not so subtle – adjustments in the coming days. But the important part is that using the random world generation in Stars Without Numbers helped me getting some creative work done. Now I have to make sure that my perfectionism and self-doubt don’t stop me dead in my tracks. Wish me luck!

By • Advice, Fluff/Inspiration, Other Systems, Random musings, RPG • 7

Mar 25 2013

Geeknic XI: There and back again!

pr_roleplayers_logo1I’ve blogged at length about Puerto Rico Role Players, a local group of role-playing game enthusiasts dedicated to promoting tabletop RPG games in Puerto Rico. Besides running demos a cons, something that’s become a tradition over the last three years have been the geeknics. Picnics for geeks where we gather to game; spend time with other RPG and share the love for all things geek!

It’s been three years now… How time flies! And for the anniversary of our first large gathering as a group we planned a BIG bash. We are going back to the same place where the first one was held, Luis Muñoz Marín Park and we plan various special activities.

Members of the group have already announced there will be a D&D Next playtest game, a Vampire Storyteller is recruiting players for his game and I will run a very special game, more about this momentarily! Besides the RPGs there is always somebody that brings a board game or card game to play. At the last geeknic people played card games, miniatures games and board games as well. So there is something for everyone!

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By • D&D Next, Legacy D&D, Non-RPG, Other Systems, Random musings, RPG • 0

Mar 21 2013

Star Wars Infinities – The Gathering Storm (Part 9 of 9)

SW InfinitiesWell here we are at the end of this weekly series! It’s been a great experience for me. For a long time I had wanted to try my hand at doing a series of related posts on a unifying topic and I’m very thankful to Michael who said “Go for it!” when I told him of the idea of revisiting my old Star Wars RPG Infinities (i.e. What if? or alternate story) type campaign.

Through the process of writing these posts I’ve revisited, edited and remixed my notes on that campaign and have reacquainted myself with my plans for the game. In a way it’s reignited my desire to revisit the game. Perhaps it will happen…

I had originally planned to do eight sessions but as I revisited my notes I realized there was one more bit of information I wanted to share with our readers. The characters! My players back then made some very interesting characters and I wrote some introductions for each of them.

When the game began our group had just changed the location of our game, some players had move to the USA and amazingly I had only 4 players as the campaign began. That quickly changed and the group eventually grew to 5 early one and eventually to 6 by the end of the campaign, about 8 or 9 months later.

On this post I’m going to share the character concept the players gave me and the introduction I wrote after my discussion with the players following character creation. The following stories are not simply my creation they were crafted with player input, so I am very thankful we could tell these stories together. A BIG thanks my player then, Luis Manuel Alvarado, Luis Lao, José Bellavista and Karlo Yeager. Two of them are not currently playing with us regularly, but I always hold hope these good friends will sit at my table once more.

Each section will begin with the character concept as presented by the player, in italics, and the introduction I wrote for each of them. So here we go!

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By • Ask The Readers, Fluff/Inspiration, Non-RPG, Other Systems, Random musings, RPG, Star Wars Saga Edition • 0

Mar 15 2013

Star Wars Infinities – The Gathering Storm (Part 8 of 9)

SW InfinitiesYes you read that right! This was supposed to be the 8th installment of the weekly series of posts based on my old Star Wars Infinities campaign. Organizing the information for these posts has been a trip down memory lane and I realized that I have materials for one additional post. So next week will be the REAL final installment, an overview of the campaign itself. But for this week we’ll venture into crunch territory, house rules!

While the first 7 posts were mostly fluff and (I hope) usable for any Star Wars game, regardless of the system, this one is specifically about the Star Wars Sage Edition RPG. Published in 2007, we quickly embraced the system and got to playing. As I often do before a campaign I submitted a survey to the player about campaign expectations, this gave way to the Infinities timeline and background you’ve read in previous posts. It also gave way to the following house rules.

Back in 2007 I did share some of these rules in the EN World forums and got some excellent feedback form members. The rules evolved, I took some of their advice, ignored other bits, and came up with the following rules…

(Various caveats: I wrote the rules back in 2007, only the core rules had come out. I had some idea of how I wanted the system to work, specifically cutting back on some of the Jedi’s power. Whether I succeeded is debatable. In the end I believe I added needless complexity and there were some easier fixes, but hindsight is 20/20! One last thing, the force talents were adapted from those posted online. I cannot find the original source for all of them; some are adapted from the Imperial Knight Prestige Class (found here), the others I cannot identify. I don’t think I wrote them from scratch, but I am not sure.)

These are the house rules as I presented to my players back them. So let’s take a trip down memory lane to 2007!

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By • Blogging, Fluff/Inspiration, Non-RPG, Other Systems, Random musings, RPG, Star Wars Saga Edition • 0

Mar 13 2013

What about Open Gaming Monthly? A short review…

OGM 01After my review of Gygax Magazine and my bemoaning of the loss of Kobold Quarterly, I discovered another magazine that was recently released in digital form Open Gaming Monthly, a digital only magazine supporting open gaming and brought to you by the folk at PFSRD.com and Fat Goblin Games for $2.99. You might be wondering is the price of admission worth it? Most certainly!

Ok on to the fiddly bits…

The magazine is 99 pages long, full color, with a good balance of ads and content and a catalog of the items for sale at the PFSRD Shop in the back. Right off the bat I must say this did not feel like a shopper, the ads were there but they did not overwhelm me. They had certain columns, like previews, news, notes, and upcoming releases; with a print magazine such content can quickly become dated, but taking advantage of the digital format it’s all hyperlinked and really useful. And there is so much goodness here, from the small columns and asides, like GM Advantage with links to articles and tools, a Resources column, and Random Treasure, little boxes with items all around the magazine.

The content is solid, almost all open content! They had interviews, but they were NOT the main focus of the magazine. The focus was actual content, fluff and crunch I can immediately use in my game. Monsters, items, races, locations, adventures, optimization advice and an open content shared setting to be developed each issue.  There is an artic theme running through many, but not all, articles, which is very nice. The theme ties together parts of the magazine but does not make it so that people NOT running artic or cold themed setting are left hanging.

The largest chunk of the magazine is really Pathfinder content, but with publishers also hosting the Sword and Wizardry SRD and the Mutants & Masterminds SRD, I hope there is space for content for both these games and other OGL games in the magazine.

There are other details, like a full reproduction of the cover art with artist info, and even a recipe! Yes you read that right, a food recipe for Spinach Lasagna Rolls. The art, layout and everything about the magazine is top notch. If they can continue producing such a wonderful magazine month after month they have a regular client here.

An excellent product all around, if you like Pathfinder, Open Gaming content games and want to support PFSRD.com and their related sites, check it out!

By • Just my two cents, Mutants & Masterminds, News & Reviews, Other Systems, Pathfinder, Random musings, Reviews & First Looks, RPG, Swords & Wizardry • 0

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