#RPGaDay2015 days 21-31

#RPGaDay2015 days 21-31

Real life conspired against me being able to finish this properly. However, I wanted to see it through, so here are the rest of the days and my choices. 

Day 21 – Favorite RPG Setting:  I really dislike published settings. They all too often disappoint me. I like Conspiracy X, as it blends my flavors of alien invasion into a cohesive whole. I like the old World of Darkness and know how to run it without it becoming monster super heroes (but that is also fun). Night’s Black Agents doesn’t count, nor does AFMBE. Those games don’t have a metaplot.

Day 22 – Perfect Gaming Environment:  My house, when the dogs behave. There are currently no children here to cause distraction.

Day 23 – Perfect Game for You:  Something sandboxy with rules my players like. AFMBE fits this, as does BRP for the most part. I prefer to use my own settings, when possible. For a short term game, Night’s Black Agents is badass. It works as written, but also for Impossible Mission Force games.

Day 24 – Favorite House Rule:  Changing how Fast Reaction Time works in Unisystem. In my house games, it no longer lets a player go first. Instead, it adds 5 to their initiative roll.

Day 25 – Favorite Revolutionary Game Mechanic:  Random Charts or Soak. Probably Soak, even if it is outdated and I don't play in games that use it.

Day 26 – Favorite inspiration for your game:  Kult, but my muse is my wife.

Day 27 – Favorite idea for merging two games into one:  Slayer’s Gauntlet.

Day 28 – Favorite game you no longer play:  Star Wars WEG. I loved the Force out of that game. It had a good run and I don’t know that I could ever re-light that fire to do it justice.

Day 29 – Favorite RPG website / blog:  Outside of my own? Probably Age of Ravens, my Google + “Gamers” feed, or the AFMBE FB group.

Day 30 – Favorite RPG playing celebrity:  My wife. She’s one of the most popular gamers in our area.

Day 31 – Favorite non-RPG thing to come out of RPGing:  The many friends I’ve made over the years and the opportunity it gives me to channel my creative abilities outside of music.

#RPGaDay2015 Days 10-19 catching up and working ahead

The day job is busy and we have much going on with the family, right now. So, I hope you will pardon me as I catch up and work ahead in one post. 

Day 10:  Favorite Publisher

Currently, this is most likely Pelgrane Press. I like the look and feel of their books. They do column layout and design better than most of their competition. I like many of their game lines and can use nearly anything rpg related as source material. They are also more than happy to talk to their fans and are quick to sign books for their fans at conventions. Simon and Cat are good people.

Day 11:  Favorite RPG Writer

This is a hard one for me. If I buy a book, because a specific person wrote the book, it’s because they are a friend of mine. Shane Hensley, Jason L Blair, Jason Vey, Tim Brannon, and Dave Chapman come to mind very quickly. I like their products, but I am also friends with them outside of the rpg space.

If I buy a book, because I like the game line, it’s very rare that a book I purchase is by one single person. Ken Hite and Gareth Hanrahan are a great team up.

Maybe this is a take-away for me:  look into rpg authors and discover them.

Day 12:  Favorite RPG Illustration

Favorite? Not likely. Art, in this form, serves as inspiration. To narrow it down to one image is impossible.

I will side step and give you my favorite artist:  Timothy Bradstreet. I first viewed his work in Vampire:  The Masquerade. His images became icons for the game line. His work in Armageddon is awesome. However, his Punisher MAX image covers are just as iconic as his VtM work. I think the only genre I have yet to use his artwork as inspiration for, is fantasy. I should rectify that someday.

Day 13:  Favorite RPG Podcast

I have fallen out of listening to podcasts. I grew disillusioned with what they were offering. Some gave too much non-rpg content, others added personalities or changed the line, another began covering topics I just don’t care about, and the worst wander down completely unrelated, unnecessary rabbit holes. However, if you are looking for recommendations, you could do worse than start with Podcast at Ground Zero, PLay On Target, or Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff. The latter two have been nominated for awards in the rpg industry.

Day 14:  Favorite RPG Accessory

The Internet.

Nowhere else can I potentially play with friends across the globe, work directly with contributors, bounce ideas off friends to make sure I’m not going down a rabbit hole myself, or address concerns of fans. I can research my next game session, find images that outline the layout and history of a castle to include in my game, run name generators, and find new players for my games.

Dice rollers included, no dice tower needed. Cool battle maps can be found or built. Free scenarios for that new rpg you just purchased are there for downloading and using.

For me, it’s just as much an accessory as the next “tool.”

Day 15:  Longest Campaign Played

This is likely Lowell Francis’ Freakish Band of Adventurers or a Vampire:  The Masquerade game that I ran. Both went 3+ years, playing every other week.

Lowell’s was a game of continent travel, righting rights, releasing gods back into the world, and a game where one (?) character was a full blooded human (mine). There was a rakasta, elves, half-demon, aperkitus, and a wizard who was not all there, even if he did look human – in addition to my character.

The vampire game spanned years in game time. There were three players and an occasional fourth (who didn’t fit in the mix) who fought Nephandi, Sabbat, Inconnu, Angels, Highlanders, and everything else that the Internet could source in the mid- to late 1990s. The game ended with the end of the world and the characters joining different sides to support.

Day 16:  Longest Session Played

It has been decades since I played one that would qualify. There were long nights playing Vampire:  The Masquerade from dusk until dawn and overnights of D&D. None stand out for me this many years later.

Day 17:  Favorite Fantasy RPG

Of a company I work for? Either Dungeons & Zombies or Spellcraft & Swordplay. They have the same author, but it depends on whether I want a ton of zombie options or just zombies.

Of a company I don’t work for? 13^th Age. I don’t run it as is. I drop out the relationships ideas. I find them tedious and intrusive to my game style. What I do like is the mechanics. They use the same skill types as Spellcraft & Sorcery. The combat feels very gamey to me and completely in style of as characters build experience, their abilities increase with more than just feats or another cool thing. Damage increases, options increase, and if you’re looking for a game where you can min-max your heart out, you can likely do it with this one.

Day 18:  Favorite Scifi RPG

Sorry, Dave, it’s not Conspiracy X. Although, Con X is my favorite modern game with a sci-fi bent to it.

My favorite sci-fi game is WEG Star Wars. Of sci-fi game, I ran this one the longest. If you look around the Internet hard enough, you can find a .pdf of material either from the game, or rehashed, to make a new product.

Eclipse Phase is a close 2nd. I think I need to run a campaign or two to see how the fun level compares. 

Traveller, Fading Suns, and Dark Heresy are also worth checking out.

Day 19:  Favorite Supers RPG

The World of Darkness. No, seriously. It is or at least, that’s how most folks I know play it. Which is fine if you are looking to run a game where the setting is more supernatural than superhero.

I think the best rules out there are for Mutants & Masterminds. I haven’t played many supers rpgs:  old DC Comics, old Marvel, Hero, and M&M. M&M is the best for my money. The math works out the best for me and in a game wherein you can potentially play the upper limit of power, you need that. Maybe, one day Beyond Human will fill this roll. For now, it remains vaporware. Don’t worry, I’ll keep bugging George to publish it. J

The superhero game I want is Gotham Central:  players as human cops taking on super villains. Maybe one day I’ll do it and do it right. Mutant City Blues may be the way to go with this one. The game includes a chart of how different powers are related. That builds in another clue structure to the game. It also uses GUMSHOE which is clue driven.

Day 20:  Favorite Horror RPG

I’ll stop right there. This one is going to be special.

#FavoriteRPGofAllTime #RPGaDay

#FavoriteRPGofAllTime #RPGaDay

This is a bit of a hard one for me. I don't like to play favorites with rpgs. I tend to be very picky about my games.

Most nostalgic that no longer plays like it used to? World of Darkness products

Most nostalgic game I feel I never had an opportunity to do enough with it? Traveller

Most fun I have had at a table with a game that had lots of dice to roll? WEG Star Wars game of Jedi. My players rivaled Warhammer 40k players with the number of dice being cast on the kitchen table.

Most innovative game I've played in the past two years? Action Cards! from Age of Ravens.

Game I seem to go back to time and time again in this series of blogs? Most likely All Flesh Must Be Eaten. That probably sets this up as my favorite rpg of all time. Night's Black Agents creeping up on it, though.

Well, that's it for this event - a double tap to the brain. . . 

#RPGaDay #FavoriteLicensed#Game

Hands down, it's Star Wars. I refer the out of print West End Games version.

I have run this as a run and gun game, a pick up game, a campaign, and a game of mostly Jedi characters. I think it does a great job of emulating the universe.

My friend Wojo ran a campaign that ended with the player's characters taking on the roles of leaders at the Battle of Endor, as the movies characters were incapacitated.

Second choice would be Buffy, for all of the opportunities she gave Eden Studios and myself.

#RPGaDay #RPGWillStillPlayin20Years

Do you honestly have to ask? It's All Flesh Must Be Eaten. I own all the books, have most of the rules memorized, and who doesn't love killing and being killed by zombies? It's a past time around here!

I could also see some WEG Star Wars being played, as well. I have gone nearly a decade between running campaigns, so it could happen. 

Anything I haven't played in 20 years is highly unlikely to be picked up, again, today. I think that's all of D&D, AD&D, and 2nd ed AD&D.

Sci-Fi Saturday: Star Wars rpg WEG edition

An intro letter to a Star Wars game set after the original movie

You are all Jedi being tutored by the same Jedi Master.

The Empire is in charge of the universe. You know little of the Rebellion, having only heard of the Death Star’s demise from two years ago. You do know the Empire is bad. They have done bad things to local people and your master has warned you they will kill you if they discover you possess Jedi powers or a lightsabre.

You live with your master on his plantation, hours from the nearest town with a space port. There are other workers who live with you and they all know you are Jedi students. They do what they can to keep you safe and unknown to the rest of the populace. Most of the workers remember the old Jedi Knights and the good they did for the universe.

You have all lived on the plantation for as long as you can remember. You have never been off-planet, but you have seen holocron movies of other planets and places. You may have relatives who also live here on the plantation (player decision).

Since your later teenage years, you have been responsible for taking goods to the nearest town for trade, as well as, doing any shopping needed for the plantation. The nearest town does not have a star port. You use a repulsor lift vehicle to get there.

The Empire maintains a good-sized garrison in the capital city. They have a small presence in the local town you visit for supplies. A liaison office, more or less. Your master has warned you of a very large garrison of troops based on the planet’s nearby moon. There is an Imperial Star Destroyer stationed in the galaxy.

There is a lake near your plantation. Your master instructed you when you were young, to never go near it. You grew up thinking it was do the Hssiss lizards who lived there. You would later learn you were half right. Yes, the Hssiss lizards are the problem, but not just because they like the taste of manflesh. They also radiate Dark Force power. This, your master has explained to you, is why you may practice your Force abilities on the plantation, without being noticed by Imperial Inquisitors.

We will begin on a day when you are returning from the nearby city, repulsor lift filled with supplies.

And with that, I began the game by killing off nearly everyone at the plantation. 

The Empire discovered the Jedi Master and came a-callin’. 

The players would go on to exact revenge on the Empire.

7RPGs as a Player

I started as a player, so here are #7rpgsplayed

1. D&D 2^nd edition
2. Vampire the Masquerade
3. Star Wars
4. World of Darkness mashups
5. Traveller
6. Lowell's fantasy hack
7. Freeport

For those that have never gamed with me, I will start by stating that I prefer to run games, not play in them. I cannot speak to as why. Perhaps, it is due to playing in bad games. Perhaps, it is due to playing in games with bad players. There are games not in this list that I have played and enjoyed moments therein, but they did not provide me with the level of experience that I gained with those within this list.

I discussed my experience with D&D 2^nd edition

here. Playing in a game set in the Empire of the Petal Throne was my first real foray into a campaign. It was a very good experience. I was playing with seasoned veterans and a good GM. I was unfamiliar with the setting, but had read my share of fantasy novels and as many D&D books that I could get my hands on. This game connected many of the dots I did not grasp or did not know existed in the D&D rules. I would later play in other D&D games I did not enjoy with players and GMs I did not enjoy. I played in an 1^st edition Oriental Adventures game while living in Memphis that I enjoyed. I also ran a 3^rd edition game years later that was fun. I even played in a few 3^rd edition games with a group of friends, all older than I, that was enjoyable. Still, there was something about D&D and my experiences between EotPT and my 3^rd edition game that turned me off of fantasy and D&D, in general.

The next campaign I remember experiencing was Chicago: by Night for Vampire: the Masquerade. From rolling d20s to the concept of dice pools was a change that I enjoyed. We played in a friend's basement, we started after nightfall, and made it a rule to end before sunrise – we were gother than thou. This was in the early 1990s and we were all in college. We compared all vampire movies to the game, we eschewed non-vampire horror films, and White Wolf had yet to expand its game line out to Werewolf, let alone Mage, Wraith, and Changeling. It was a good time to be alive and we spent Friday nights participating in skullduggery and Clan warfare.

When we were not playing White Wolf products, we were busy playing West End Games' Star Wars. Sometimes, there were plots, sometimes, there were not. Many of the games I first ran were pickup games that were barely more than cause mayhem, shoot it out with storm troopers, get to the ship, fight tie fighters in space, blast into hyperspace, and then do it all over again on the next planet. After I moved to Memphis, I played in a game that was built around many of the characters and situations from the old Marvel Comics Star Wars comicbook series. At one time, I had owned the first 90 or so of those comics. I loved the series and where it went. I gave it away to a friend, but have since gone back and picked up a few of the collected graphic novels. This game taught me that there could be much more to a Star Wars game than simply run and gun. I would further experience that through conversations with a friend that I made after moving back north. He ran a Star Wars campaign that culminated with the players running the Battle for Endor, following the movie's characters had been caught and executed on Hoth.

I have played and run several World of Darkness mashups. I ran one for several years we referred to as the “Creature Feature.” The game was set in the area in which we lived and the players portrayed fictionalized roles of themselves. I would later discover that many other groups had run through similar campaigns. Other WoD mashups would be run and played. I played in several of MrFenris' and one of Lowell's. For the most part, we all had fun with them. They allowed us to create our own settings or play in others' settings. Something like the Matrix wasn't far off from several of our games – especially those that involved sci-fi elements. Lowell's game would even involve elements from Highlander.

Traveller: The New Era was a game I purchased while I still lived up north, but would not get a chance to experience until I moved to Memphis. It would be a year or two until I discovered the history of the game with the Little Black Books and the controversy of the virus. One of the first games I played in Memphis was a Travellergame. The GM gave everyone a secret that no one else knew, but would be drawn into the game. The game was gritty, nasty, and used completely unfamiliar rules. Psychics mimicked those in movies and books, at the time. The entire game was unfamiliar territory and it allowed me to try new things as a player, to go in directions that I had yet to experience, and I think much of that was due to the make up for the group. These players were much more experienced than I and brought a great range of diversity to the table.

After moving back to the north, I would play in a fantasy hack that Lowell put together. For rules, it combined elements of GURPs, Rolemaster, and Unknown Armies. There were seven or eight players and this was a high fantasy game – something I was not overly familiar in playing. This campaign lasted seven years and would earn the moniker of “The Freakish Band of Adventurers.” Elves, half-elves, a former demoness, assassins, cat people, dog people, and a lone human made up this group. The campaign moved from location to location as the players tried to put together what happened during a lapse of amnesia, the recovery of land that fell from the sky, a murder of elves, a battle on the moon with Ratkin, and a return of ancient evils. The rules felt wonky at first, but I think over the course of the first year, we figured them out, and did not have any problems with them over the course of the next two years. Lowell's notes on the game several posts in his blog.

Lowell puts together good mashups. I did not realize this at the time. At that time, percentile systems and high fantasy were not something I was comfortable with – I liked the idea of the former, but didn't realize quite why I did not care for the latter. Lowell has gone on to mash up several different games, both for settings and for rules. Everything from L5R to WoD to Changeling:  the Lost to Fate and Fudge to making up his own rules using cards. I do not have images from the old Freakish Band of Adventurers game, so I'm using an image from his profile from this entry.

Steve over at Kaijuville put together a group to take on Green Ronin's Freeport using the True20 rules. All of the players had played various forms of D&D and wanted something better than that. We agreed the True20 rules set would give us the freedom to play pirates appropriate to the setting, while still allowing the GM the freedom to pull from as many sources as he wanted. Steve did a great job of keeping the group together. The players in this group were as divergent as the characters from The Freakish Band of Adventurers. We would lose two players over time, but the core stayed in the game until the monstrous end. Steve's notes on his game can be found on his blog. Steve combined Pirates of the Caribbean and the Cthulhu Mythos to make this a bang up game. I do not know how much of the material we experienced was his own work and how much he pulled from Freeport, but I also do not care. I had fun and found that I could enjoy a game that used a d20 and was fantasy. It was not high fantasy, but it was fantasy and Steve did include some standard fantasy tropes.

I have not played in a game since Freeport and if I can find one that really interests me, I may play one next year...

Movie updates

I know, I know, I haven't posted anywhere in awhile. Life's been busy. I'll give ou an update later, maybe. Until then, here are some movie updates for those of you behind the ball like I usually am.

Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor trailer is up. Sadly, no Rachel Weiss.

I know Jim is having problems with the previews for The Dark Knight, but so far I like what I see.

twilight appears to be the latest teenie bopper vampire movie. Thankfully, it's not due out until December.

I Want to Believe only has two trailers out, thus far. I've seen no coverage on local television for this one. The trailer is dark and goes for the spooky vein, reminding me of the first season X-Files tv show.

Out of context with the rest of these comments is Religulous. While I probably won't see it in theatres, it def. looks to be a good one. Somebody better tell Skippy to not see this one - oh wait, O'Reilly will bash it and that will be enough for Skippy, I'm sure.

A second Madagascar movie is coming.

Speaking of animations, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is up to two trailers and continues to garner my interest. Now, if I could only gather enough interest in local gamers for a d6SW game! This second trailer is much more somber.

Punisher: War Zone looks like it may make the movie viable with standard movie fans. For those fans of the comics, it looks to combine the number of deaths per comic book page with really bad acting coupled with Hollywood action. Thomas Jane isn't in this movie and it looks like I'll be glad of that.

GI Joe: Rise of Cobra has a ton of people in it! Including Gerald Okamura!, Brendan Fraiser, Christopher Eccleston, Rachel Nichols, and Arnold Vosloo. I don't see a trailer available for it, yet, but the production pics are awesome. Sorry, I don't mind the leather, especially on Rachel Nichols.

Babylon A.D. and Death Race could be good, especially as the former has Vin Diesel and Michelle Yeoh in it. Stone is taking a stab at sending up W. Yes, that dubyuh.

That's all for now!

Star Wars: Infinities

I've started reading the A New Hope graphic novel in this series. The premise is that Luke's torpedoes didn't hit in the original Death Star, Yavin 4 is destroyed, and Leia is captured and taken as Lord Vader's student.

So, SW fans, does this sound like an interesting setting to play or no? I'm wondering if it's just me that's interested in the idea. As of now, I'm not looking to run a game of it.

Fan Films

While "Grayson" is IMO the best fan film in existance, I feel the need to share the love for some others.

Keeping in the superhero theme, I recently watched "Worlds Finest" by Collora Studios and "Batman Dead End" by Montauk Films & Level 7. While not as good as Grayson, they are still pretty cool endeavors. I was quite surprised by where "Dead End" went.

Switching speeds to the genre that originally got me into fan films (Star Wars), there's "TROOPS." I would rate this as my 2nd fav. "Broken Allegiance" does a good job, but there's something about it that never sat right with me. "Revelations" is pretty good, potentially better than BA, but it was completely over-hyped by the time I saw it. I've downloaded "Seeds of Darkness" 1-3 and I've watched the first one. So far, so good. They haven't done much to attempt to botch it, but we'll see what happens in the other two parts.

So, if you've the bandwidth, I'd suggest checking out any of these fan films.