I’ve been out in California for two months and I still don’t have a gaming group, except for weekly CCG stuff. And Magic is fun, but it’s not what I want to write about here.
I still don’t care about 4e. And while I think it’s awesome that people like old-school D&D and have a whole [...]
Opinion poll. In an Unspecified Medievalesque Fantasy RPG, an average combat encounter (not including large set-pieces or arc-ending showdowns) is best when it lasts:
Under five minutes because non-combat stuff is more interesting.
Under five minutes because our whole team are ninjas and we shivved everything during the surprise round.
10-20 minutes.
20-40 minutes.
Most of a session.
All of a [...]
I’ve been playing more board/card-y games than RPGs lately, so I’m going to chat about that for a while. More RPG stuff will come. Cthulhutech one-off this Sunday that I’m really looking forward to running, for example.
Anyway, I’ll get my two current favorites out of the way first, and those are Dominion and Race to [...]
As mentioned a few posts back, I’m on an Exalted kick again, and this may require harassing a friend into running a game.
Some of them are understandably leery about running Exalted, particularly Solars. And it’s not like I haven’t taken ruthless advantage of Solar badassery in the past to hijack the train, mount some rockets [...]
So, due to a variety of scheduling issues and conflicts, AiP has been kind of sparse since the last session. We’ve only gotten three sessions in, though that was enough to finish Sunless Citadel. The next two sessions will be posted soon-ish, I’m just trying to get back in the habit of writing.
Session three was [...]
So, after some delay, I’m back, and ready to take a look at the rest of the PHB.
I’ll first say this: 4e is slowly growing on me the more I read. I’ll be trying to talk one of my usual groupmates into running a one or two session game so I can evaluate it from [...]
I have seen 4e. And it is… well, it’s kinda not bad. Which is, admittedly, the very definition of damning with faint praise, but that’s where I’m going with this.
Before I move on to the details, I can save some readers a lot of time: 4e is “balanced” because they just removed a huge number [...]
So, over the weekend I visited some friends up in Detroit; a bunch of us got together to eat, drink, and be merry, and one of the things we decided to do was give Keep on the Shadowfell a shot. I ran it for five(ish) characters over two sessions, and while we never actually made [...]
Treasure in 4e.
This is awful. Seriously, it’s just bad. I mean, I don’t care about encounter advancement, since I’ve moved to doing XP for accomplishments anyway and plan to keep on with that. But the treasure system is dreadful.
On a systems level, it’s maybe tolerable. If you play it by RAW, it would seem to [...]
So, I’ve been following the Paizo Pathfinder thing. And mostly, my first reaction is good – I think that keeping the 3e ruleset in print in some form is a neat idea, I think it can totally coexist with 4e, and kudos and best of luck to them for doing it. I’m also really thrilled [...]
The 4th ed rogue has been posted.
This article contains the first two design decisions I’ve heard about so far that I unambiguously and completely agree with.
First, they changed the HP scaling – it’s much higher at first level (class + constitution score), but grows more slowly (fixed by class). Fixes one of my biggest gripes [...]
Alternate Title: Never trust a grand vizier.
Being a review of Manual of Exalted Power: Sidereals, published by White Wolf.
Summery: Sidereals are cheating cheaters, which can make it tremendously difficult to fit them into a game. Their entire strategy revolves around using auto-win powers when they can, and running away when they can’t. They have a [...]
Noble soul Rob Herman has posted a review of Exalted: War for the Throne.
Summary… well, I’ll quote:
Verdict: Let R be the your rating on an arbitrary scale for Risk and E be your score for the Exalted RPG. Then your rating for this game will be (2R+E) / 2.9. (The quotient is 2.9, not 3, [...]
Noble soul Cody of Shrieking Emu has praised my talent and might and been rewarded with blog pimpage. Looks like a nice mix of digital, board, and role-playing games. Go check it out.
Apparently lots of people want to know if Ptolus is worth their money, because I get more hits on my review than any [...]
Alternate Title: Oh yeah, well my father is THOR GOD OF THUNDER, so fuck you.
Being a review of Scion, based on the first corebook, published by White Wolf Studios.
Summery: It’s White Wolf modern occult, BUT! It’s not all about conspiracies and stuff! Yes, apparently it was written by goatee-sporting Bizarro White Wolf. It takes the [...]
I’m not dead. I’ve been spending non-work time mostly on non-tabletop stuff. Though I am in an Exalted game at last, playing Whisper Iron Wind, an itinerate one-eyed barbarian anthropologist sorcerer. I love Exalted.
D&D 3.5’s recent Magic Item Compendium is a useful book, mostly for compiling and updating the six hojillion magic items and weapon/armor [...]
Since I’ve been remiss in my posting lately, mostly because I’ve gotten back into World of Warcraft and it’s eating a fair bit of my blogging time, I thought I’d look at an interesting controversy over in MMO land. Background will be provided.
Previous Dreams in Digital articles:
Part 0: Terms and Questions
Part 1: Inherent in the [...]
Previous Dreams in Digital articles:
Part 0: Terms and Questions
Part 1: Inherent in the System
Part 2: So You’re Sitting in a Tavern
How have video games and tabletop RPGs impacted each other over the years?
Previous Dreams in Digital articles:
Part 0: Terms and Questions
Part 1: Inherent in the System
What are the gameplay tradeoffs, i.e., how similar is the tabletop D&D experience to that of playing a D&D-inspired CRPG?
Here’s the dark of Total Warfare. If you like the BattleTech ruleset, but wish it were easier to find the rule you need when you need it, then hurry up and buy the damn book. If you don’t like the BattleTech ruleset, then don’t bother, because not much actually changed. If you’ve never played BattleTech, [...]
Previous Dreams in Digital articles:
Part 0: Terms and Questions
What are the design tradeoffs in adopting D&D for video games, or a video game to tabletop D&D?
Some thoughts, most of them probably obvious with a few minutes of reasoned thought, but maybe I’ll ramble my way to something interesting.
By request, and because it’s an interesting topic, I’m going to be taking a look at D&D and video games, and some of the interesting interrelationships therein. This will comprise several posts over the next week or two – this post being the largely procedural introduction.
Alternate title: Skill points are for weenies anyway.
Being a review of Castles & Crusades, based on the Player’s Handbook, published by Troll Lord Games.
Summary: Someone took a battleaxe to D&D 3.5 and hacked away everything that wasn’t in Basic D&D. What’s left is a slim, light, streamlined system that, while faster and easier than 3.5, [...]
Planewalker.com (the officially WotC-blessed Planescape site) has come a long way on their 3.5 Planescape adaptation since the last time I checked in. It almost looks balanced, for example. I continue to think that if any city needs the Ptolus treatment, it’s Sigil, but that will probably never happen, since Wizards seems to be pouring [...]
There’s a card set called Once Upon a Time, published by Atlas Games, that’s really quite neat. Dare I say, peachy-keen. In this game, players play cards from their hands representing narrative elements, and must weave these into a collaborative fairy tale.
Everway’s kinda like that, but with PC protagonists on a backdrop of planar travel [...]
I’d love to do a full review of Burning Empires. But I can’t. Not without playing it.
It’s quite odd, and I’d hesitate to even call it an RPG. The closest I can come is ‘narrative wargame with role-playing elements’.
Basically: Players (including the GM) use the World Burner to construct the planet for the game, then [...]
Alternate title: Finally, something thicker than Hero 5th Ed. Revised.
Being a review of Ptolus (pronounced TAW-less, sayeth Monte Cook), based on the book.
Summary: If I could say only one thing about this book, it would be “raising the bar”. The bar has been raised. Also, the roof, which someone tells me is on fire. I [...]
Alternate title: Mnemon can still kick your ass
Being a review of Manual of Exalted Power: Dragon-Blooded, a hardcover Exalted supplement released by White Wolf.
Summary: New dynasty, same as the old dynasty. Doesn’t look like much has changed here, though some things get a nice fleshing out. Insufficient application of the new core rules is irritating, [...]
Win: The trait and escalation mechanics in Dogs are flexible enough that it won’t be too much trouble to work in varying levels and types of psyker traits.
Loss: Dogs has a very straightforward escalation ladder – words, fists, weapons, guns. 40K has a rather… broader range of options. Something like words, fists, weapons, force weapons, [...]
Alternate title: Why ‘lightweight’ is a meaningless term
Being a review of Savage Worlds, based on the core book, released by Great White Games.
Summary: A generalized system with fast combat, a low to moderate power level, and a fair level of character crunch. In theory, adaptable to most settings and genres, though like any system, [...]
Savage Worlds and Manual of Exalted Power: Dragon Blooded arrived today.
They have entered the review queue as well.
Bonus! I’ll throw up a capsule review of the Weapons of the Gods Companion: It’s stupidly awesome. The Great Game rocks, the Kung Fu creation rules rock, and the new Lore sheets and styles rock on toast. The [...]
As part of my recent push to get my hands on more indie rpgs, especially Forge-inspired narrativist stuff, I’ve been looking into Wushu, because everything I’ve heard makes it sound extremely neat.
Then I found out it’s been released under the Creative Commons license. So, yay.
Verdict: It is, in fact, extremely neat. Shocking!
Alternate Title: Yay for Steampunk Mecha!
Being a review of Warmachine, based on the core book (Warmachine Prime) and materials available on the official Privateer Press website.
Summary: Based on the D20 setting Iron Kingdoms, Warmachine supports battles ranging from 350 points (4-6 models per side) to 2000 (20+ models per side not impossible) or higher. Armies [...]
What makes a good RPG? Well, that’s a much longer, involved discussion, that I’m certainly not going to attempt to answer in this post.
But what do I like in an RPG? That’s a question I can answer.
I like rules that support the setting – in general theory-speak, coherent systems with high points-of-contact. I don’t particularly [...]
