Oh My Zod It’s Full of RPGs ‘March Madness’ Days 30 & 31 Finale!

Other blogs can be found HERE. It is over a dozen now, so I am pretty happy with that.

The questions can be found HERE. They’ve proven not to be perfect, but they are stimulating some good discussions and sharing of experiences.

It’s funny that although I started this blog challenge, I have fallen the most behind in it. If you know what kind of a hellish ride life has been this month, you’d probably be surprised I finished it at all.

I’d like to thank all the participants – their responses have made me laugh and add quite a few entries to my future gaming list. Personally, this challenge has served its purpose of learning about various games from people with a similar interest in, so I’ll also be watching their blogs in future.

On with the last hurrah!

30 Which non-D&D supplemental product should everyone know about? Give details.

Back in the day, Palladium used to produce a range of ‘complete guide’ books that every GM I knew had on their shelf. Want to see the difference between a voulge and a Bohemian ear spoon? The Palladium Book of Weapons & Armor is for you. Want to know the difference between a H&K 9mm SMG and a Skorpion? You need the Compendium of Contemporary Weapons. They were great for players to thumb through when the DM was in the can or working through some issue with other players.

I see that in addition to the old favorites such as the Compendium of Exotic Weapons, they have put out some newer titles, such as Weapons & Castles of the Orient. If they’ve kept up the art and research quality, definitely pick up a dead tree version at your FLS or PDF at DriveThruRPG.

31 What out-of-print RPG would you most like to see back in publication? Why?

Tough, tough question as usual due to my narrow repertoire of played games. I have seen people take PDFs of older games and print them through a POD service such as Lulu, so I guess the question is moot, but I would pay for a reissue of the Games Workshop version of Stormbringer. It was the revised Stormbringer 2e plus all the material from the first Companion stuffed into one heavy, gorgeous tome with an iconic cover image of Elric at the end of his world. 

I am sure there are better games that deserve a reprint more (Unknown Armies springs to mind), but I can’t help what I want.

And that’s a wrap! Far from being a chore, this challenge has diverted me at a time when I sorely needed diversion and made me feel far less lonely ensconced in my ivory tower where I pump out questionably useful academic writing. Thanks to all who wrote, replied, and read.

It has been a hoot as writer and reader, and inspired me with a dozen or so post and game ideas to work on the coming months. Since I am getting up 6 am for my 2 hour commute to the new workplace, in addition to fatherhood and an encroaching phd deadline, I am sorry to say the blog will be slowing back to its weekly or less pace.

Cheers!

Hobbit 2 Review

Just saw The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Good time, great film. I’ve heard some negative reviews and honestly I don’t agree. I thought it was heaps better than the first one and its plodding scrotal chinned goblin king section.

The barrel ride has been described as overlong, but I wonder how short of an attention span do you need to think so. PJ turned a short, boring page in the book into tense, action packed ride followed by some humour and subterfuge. There was a hint of rubber leg CG Legolas, but on the whole actors and CG flowed well.

One minor flaw that came later was a bit of CG lingering. CG effects work best when the camera spends little time on them, like the great dragon chase. The CG lingering on the gold king felt overlong and muddled the meaning, but didn’t ruin the film at all.

If there is one complaint, it is that in making characters and dialogue out of whole cloth, PJ sometimes doesn’t know when to stop. Case in point is Tauriel. I am all for adding in tough female characters in Tolkien – in LotR, we get tough women like Eowyn, who gets promised action and agency only to get cut off at the knees figuratively and relegated to a handmaid.

Tauriel seemed about to break that mold. She did her own thing, turned away love from a friend, then saved an enemy because it was the right thing to do. When this dwarven enemy deliriously remarks that she shouldn’t be there, this would have been a great place to end the scene. Instead he asks, “Would she have loved me?” and marks the return to the sappy chains of womanhood. Didn’t ruin the film, but made me wish PJ had taken a chance and let one strong woman stand alone.

My Report Card:

Hobbit 1 = B

Hobbit 2 = A minus

RPG Multiverse ‘March Madness’ Days 28 & 29

Other blogs can be found HERE. It is over a dozen now, so I am pretty happy with that.

The questions can be found HERE. They’ve proven not to be perfect, but they are stimulating some good discussions and sharing of experiences.

28 What free RPG or what non-English RPG did you enjoy most? Give details.

Since the next response is about free RPGs, I’ll focus on non-English games. The first one I bought was the Japanese Creguian space opera rpg. Although I never played or ran it, it was a beautiful box set and reading it shot my Japanese level through the stratosphere. It also inspired me to start my collection of Japanese RPGs, of which I have a dozen now.

That said, I am intrigued by some of the French RPGs out there. I have mentioned Empire Galactique before, with its 1980s Metal Hurlant/Moebius art and aesthetic, and I love the look of the French Stormbringer and Hawkmoon games. That in mind, I have to find a copy of the Bloodlust RPG at some point. Bloodlust turns Stormbringer on its head – it is a game where you play the intelligent weapon that makes pawns of its human wielder. I have read a few reviews and blog postings and it seems excellent food for thought if nothing else.

Of games I have, the Japanese RPG Ryutama is something I would love to try. I have read through it but still need to wrap my head around it. It is basically D&D without the focus on fighting, but instead with a focus on character interaction and personal goals. It reminded me a lot of the anime series Spice & Wolf, which has been called "equal parts fan service, medieval romance and macro economics anime," and would need a pretty cohesive group to enjoy.

29 What OSR product have you enjoyed most? Explain why.

Honestly, I haven’t bought any OSR products between living on the other side of the planet, being too busy for anything but intermittent gaming, and shouldering the financial burden of school, the wife and child, as well as meself. I have interacted with OSR bloggers who refuse to consider the opinion of anyone who hasn’t either sold or bought an OSR product.

Well bollocks to that. I say nay to either the OSR as a buyer or seller’s club. I’ll do my own thing thank you very much.

When I have free time to game and money to shop I may treat myself with the cream of the crop (Vornheim, Dungeon Alphabet, Barrowmaze, ASE1, Death Frost Doom, etc), but now to have them sit on my desk or harddrive seems a waste. I have some projects I’d let to set out for free and possibly a for sale one, but these will have to wait. All this narrows my response considerably.

I would have to say the One Page Dungeon collections are by far the most useful things I have downloaded. At two different cons I ran the same adventure about an ogre or a troll in a sewer environment (I forget the name and am too lazy to look it up), one time setting it in Lankhmar the other in Anth-Morpork. Short, sweet, easy to run and drop in any setting, players at both games loved it. The one page format is just enough for a GM, and both games ran radically different. The first group interacted with the guardsmen and successfully hunted down the creature and saved the children it had kidnapped, while the second rushed in and suffered a near TPK.

I’d call that a smashing success for a one page free product.

Rogues & Rouges

I don't know why this bothers me so much, but can we make an effort to stop writing 'rouge' when we mean 'rogue'?

Rouge is a red color beloved of old lady lipstick, rhymes with luge, the winter sport.

Rogue rhymes with Kylie Minogue, is the hottest X-men, and is your beloved rascal thief or spy.

Trust me, it is a little thing but mistaking it looks so bad.

Farflung RPG ‘March Madness’ Blogwalk Days 26 and 27

I realize that by calling this blog challenge ‘Non-D&D’ I am conversely attesting to what a huge footprint that game has left on the hobby. It is close to being a proprietary eponym like “Let’s Google it.” “Let’s D&D” is understood to mean roleplaying, and does not always mean TSR’s game.

Therefore I think for the last week of this challenge I won’t be acknowledging D&D in the title. Once again, I don’t hate D&D, I just would rather give the nod to other great games without constantly harkening back to Gary’s game.

Anyway, on with the show!

Other blogs can be found HERE. It is over a dozen now, so I am pretty happy with that.

The questions can be found HERE. They’ve proven not to be perfect, but they are stimulating some good discussions and sharing of experiences.

26 What RPG based on an IP did you enjoy most? Give details.

For official products, I’d have to say my old first love Stormbringer was the most fun I had with an IP product. The wonky chargen, the deadly combat, the demon summoning just screamed Elric to me, and was a welcome relief from the intricate spells and level grinding of Gary’s game. Second runner up would be The Watchmen sourcebook for the DC RPG. Although I never got to play it, it was one finely crafted product, and any fan of the comics would be proud to have it on their shelf. It has even inspired me to write a Watchmen scenario explaining why the Keene Act was proposed, one that I hope to put on this blog someday.

Although it is not an official, licensed Walking Dead product, I’d have to give mention to Kreg Mosier’s The Dead again. Whereas DC was not a great fit for the gritty world of Watchmen, The Dead nails its subject matter in terms of fear and character interaction. Grab it if you haven’t already.

27 What IP (=Intellectual Property, be it book, movie or comic) that doesn’t have an RPG deserves it? Why?

Wow, tough question. I think just about all of my itches have been scratched – Stormbringer, Star Wars, TMNT, Watchmen, Robotech, Firefly, and The Dead allow me to play in the gameworlds that are most alive to me because of their sources. I suppose the only IP missing would be Kentaro Miura’s Berserk, a great dark fantasy manga series about Gotts, a maimed swordsman who goes about slaying demons let loose in the world by his old comrade-at-arms, Griffith, while trying also to save his lover, warrior-woman Casca, whose mind was savaged in the same mass demon summoning that destroyed Gotts’ right eye and left hand.

Berserk has spawned some PS games, an anime series, and a recent series of gorgeously animated movies. Some people are turned off by the preamble part of the story when Gotts is traveling with Griffith and Casca before the summoning, but stick with it and the intricate art, amazeballs fantasy action, and philosophic meanderings pay off in spades. Dark Horse apparently does an English version, but the Japanese original is at the same time amazingly well-written but done in an archaic style that fits the genre but requires some work to understand.

100 Posts Preamble & It’s Not D&D ‘March Madness’ Blogathon Day 25

Wow, just realized I made 100 posts! March Madness has pushed me over the top, which is good because the next two months will see a bit of a slowdown. Big deadline end of May so wish me luck as you’re having fun gaming and blogging.

I see Dyvers’ top 10 rpg books meme, and sad to say that I won’t be answering because I don’t believe my repertoire is wide enough. I’ve read about lots of good games and supplements in the responses to Dyvers, and I hope March Madness has provided the same widening of perspective in some degree, though not as elegantly or concisely.

Anyway, on with the show!

Other blogs can be found HERE. It is up to an even dozen now, so I am pretty happy with that.

The questions can be found HERE. They’ve proven not to be perfect, but they are stimulating some good discussions and sharing of experiences.

  

25 Which game has the sleekest, most modern engine?

Kreg Mosier’s The Dead, a free rules lite zombie survival RPG, hands down. It is a lean, mean RPG machine that does exactly what it says on the tin – emulates The Walking Dead and its focus on survival through making relationships. The game was slick, with only those rules impacting on the story remaining, but with just enough dice rolls to make you sweat when the dead came calling. The game is almost postmodern with its lazer-like focus on story-supporting mechanics.

We played two sessions and it was scary how stark yet just like the comic book the game was – this was long before the TV show. I made notes for adding occupations and advancement for a long campaign, but these are unnecessary and just show how the game inspired me.

The game originally came out free with great atmospheric art, great writing, and rules lite enough to be nearly non-existant. Mosier cleaned it up and produced a second edition, but with an art-free no charge version.

It is available HERE. Pony up and get the art dead tree if you can.

Colonial Marines Background Tables & YOU

During this month’s blog challenge, the topic of Aliens has come up, especially on how appealing the setting is despite how bad the old RPG and recent PS3 games were. I’m itching to run or play a game in that universe soon as I have free time again, so with that in mind I’ve made up some tables based on US Census info to flesh out characters. I figure using a stripped version of d20 Aliens: Game Over with these tables would be a blast.

I’d also like to ask for contributions. For the table PARAMETER B = DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS, I’ve created 20 results, but I’d like to flesh out the table to a full 100. If you could add some futuristic, 1980s technopunk, or advanced savage characteristics I’d appreciate it. They can be clothing, body modifications, implants, whatever, just as long as they provide no game bonus (unless player’s use their imagination to think of one) and would fit the world of Aliens.

Cheers & enjoy!

PARAMETER A1 = ETHNICITY (Roll d12)

1-2 Asian and Pacific Islander

3-4 Black

5-7 Hispanic

8 American Indian and Alaskan Native

9 Two or More Races

10-11 White

12 Other

PARAMETER A2 = NAMES

Asian & Pacific Islander (Roll d20)

Rank	Name
1	NGUYEN
2	LEE
3	KIM
4	PATEL
5	TRAN
6	CHEN
7	WONG
8	LE
9	YANG
10	WANG
11	CHANG
12	CHAN
13	PHAM
14	LI
15	PARK
16	SINGH
17	LIN
18	LIU
19	WU
20	HUANG

Black (Roll d20)

Rank	Name
1	WILLIAMS
2	JOHNSON
3	SMITH
4	JONES
5	BROWN
6	JACKSON
7	DAVIS
8	THOMAS
9	HARRIS
10	ROBINSON
11	TAYLOR
12	WILSON
13	MOORE
14	WHITE
15	LEWIS
16	WALKER
17	GREEN
18	WASHINGTON
19	THOMPSON
20	ANDERSON

Hispanic  (Roll d20)

Rank	Name
1	GARCIA
2	RODRIGUEZ
3	MARTINEZ
4	HERNANDEZ
5	LOPEZ
6	GONZALEZ
7	PEREZ
8	SANCHEZ
9	RAMIREZ
10	TORRES
11	FLORES
12	RIVERA
13	GOMEZ
14	DIAZ
15	REYES
16	MORALES
17	CRUZ
18	ORTIZ
19	GUTIERREZ
20	CHAVEZ

American Indian & Alaskan Native  (Roll d20)

Rank	Name
1	SMITH
2	JOHNSON
3	BEGAY
4	YAZZIE
5	LOCKLEAR
6	JONES
7	WILLIAMS
8	BROWN
9	DAVIS
10	WILSON
11	THOMPSON
12	THOMAS
13	MILLER
14	JACKSON
15	WHITE
16	MARTIN
17	LEE
18	HUNT
19	JAMES
20	LEWIS

Two or More Races

Choose two other tables, roll two names then hyphenate them.

White (Roll d20)

Rank	Name
1	SMITH
2	JOHNSON
3	MILLER
4	BROWN
5	JONES
6	WILLIAMS
7	DAVIS
8	ANDERSON
9	WILSON
10	MARTIN
11	TAYLOR
12	MOORE
13	THOMPSON
14	WHITE
15	CLARK
16	THOMAS
17	HALL
18	BAKER
19	NELSON
20	ALLEN

Other

Rank	Name
1	Spivak
2	Silva
3	Smirnov
4	Ibrahim
5	Muler
6	Wachowski
7	Angelopolis
8	Langston
9	Du Bois
10	Witts

PARAMETER B = DISTINGUISHING CHARACTRISTICS (Roll d20)

Rank	Item
1	NOTHING
2	TRIBAL TATTOOS
3	KANJI TATTOOS
4	PRISON TATTOOS
5	DAY GLO TATTOOS
6	HOLO TATTOOS
7	SHAVED HEAD
8	MOHAWK
9	AFRO
10	ANIME SPIKY HAIR
11	TURBAN
12	NATIVE HEADDRESS
13	BOWLER HAT
14	FACIAL PIERCINGS
15	NECK RINGS
16	RITUAL SCARRING
17	EXTRA FINGER
18	NERVOUS TIC
19	HELLO KITTY PAINTJOB
20	SUBDERMAL BOOMBOX

PARAMETER C = PERSONAL POSSESSION

Rank	Item
1	SHOTGUN
2	WHISKY FLASK
3	TWIN 6 SHOOTERS
4	FLARE GUN
5	RIFLE
6	CONDOMS
7	KATANA
8	STASH OF CASH
9	TOMAHAWK
10	LOCKPICKS
11	BULLWHIP
12	GRAPPLING GUN
13	THROW KNIVES
14	REBREATHER
15	SHURIKEN
16	FLASHBANGS
17	CUTLASS
18	RC DRONE
19	NELSON
20	MINI BOOMBOX