Guess where I’m blowing $20
I was catching up on a backlog of old news feeds and I came across the following video:
Guess who is going to pick up these games as soon as they come out?
If you said me, then you are right! I love old school final fantasy games! After VII, I never got into them any more.
Maybe I’ll do a quick review when Apple/Square Enix final release them.
Topics: Videogame RPG | 6 Comments »
Struggling with Savage Worlds
Back before Christmas, I offered to run a Pirate game for my gaming group. The group is great bunch and we aren’t set any any particular campaigns and have played several types of games including Mutant and Masterminds, D20 Modern, Boot Hill, and Star Wars Saga since I’ve joined them. So, we were in some discussions about some upcoming type of games we would like to play and several things came up but the only thing that was missing was Pirates. Aaarrrrrr… Who doesn’t love a pirate?
So, I sat down to start working on a campaign that I could run 2 or 3 sessions and complete the story. I began talking about using the Savage Worlds rules and thought about using 50 fathoms or Pirates of the Spanish Main campaign settings. I was really digging the backstory and setting of 50 Fathoms, who wouldn’t? Pirates with a touch of Magic and Alien type of creatures. The more I read in the Campaign setting, the more I realized that I probably wouldn’t be a good enough GM to pull off a 50 Fathom world. A couple reasons – that story is very in-depth and would take quite a long time to finish the complete campaign and Savage Worlds system wasn’t clicking in my head, yet.
So, I looked closer at Pirates of the Spanish Main setting and I like the information that was in that setting as well. I could come up with a decent story line and try to complete it, but as I was putting all of the pieces together they didn’t seem to fit together either. I don’t think that this is the fault of the system. It all falls on down on me not grasping Savage Worlds play style and the ability to GM it.
Granted, I’ve never DMed before so this will be my first time and I’m nervous about running it. I’m really excited to do this, however I just don’t think Savage Worlds will be my first DMing experience. I think I need to get a couple of games down as a player to be able full grasp this and then I could feel confident that I could run a Savage World session.
One of the guys from my group ran a Spy D20 modern game that was a lot of fun. It was not bogged down with numerous different type of dice rolls and it just felt comfortable playing. I did some more digging in d20 modern and discovered that d20 past would fit my need perfectly for a Pirate campaign. A system that I am comfortable so I don’t worry as much about the rules and can concentrate more of the story telling and DMing. I think the PCs will appreciate it more and it will help me transition into the life of a DM.
Time to start working on my encounters…Aarrrggghh!!
Topics: D20 Past, POTSM, SAVAGE WORLDS | No Comments »
Dungeon and Dragons – Kids Rpg style
Tonight was a great night for gaming with Ean, my 5 year old. He has been asking to play Dungemon and Dragons pretty much since the last time we played newbiedm’s kidsrpg that I modified for Star Wars. Dinner was finished, dishes in the washer, and the table was clear. Time to play. I did stay true to newbiedm’s rules with a small exception – to extend the game I put in two red poker chips that were medicine potions that could be picked up.
Tonight I went for the classic fantasy Dungeons and Dragon, including a Green Dragon as well as a small dungeon. As I laid out the tiles, I thought of the quick plot in my head, but then Ean threw in the wrinkle. He wanted to be the Dragon and the bad guys. So, after some quick thought, we were ready. The basic plot was simple, the Green dragon was bored of playing with his current two friends. He flew out one night and kidnapped a young girl to be his friend to play with him and his other friends. The other two bad friends didn’t like that the Dragon brought a girl into their hideout so they closed the gate on the Dragon’s room keeping him and the kidnapped girl in there.
The heroes come in as they were friends of the young girl that was taken and they wanted to rescue her. As the dice would play out, such things wouldn’t come to happen.
Below is the recap and photos of how the events went.
The Heroes enter the dungeon.
The Green Dragon trapped in his room.
Ean’s character sheet and level switch for the gate
Reviewing the character sheet for the first combat.
Heroes enter – Magma man attempts to stop them, while the Tin man heads to gate switch.
Archer takes out Magma man.
The Dragon is free and mad about his friend.
Dwarf gets behind the Dragon, enough to irritate him.
Magma man healed by Tin Man, and the Heroes start going down.
Going for the final blow, the only bad roll. Dwarf is free to move around.
Dwarf ended up using potion on Swordsman, but alas, it was too little too late and the Heroes party ended up being wiped out. The bad guys cheered for joy as they have a new friend to play with and they stopped the heroes from invading their hideout.
The action was fast paced and Ean even roleplayed Magma Man and Tin man apologizing to the Dragon for putting him in the caged room.
And as always, as soon as I said “The End” – he was asking when we were going to play again. Makes a geek dad proud.
Topics: KIDSRPG | 1 Comment »
My thoughts about the D&D Experience announcements
So, I live just outside of Fort Wayne, Indiana and some of the biggest news from Wizard of the Coast happened today some 25 miles from me at the D&D Experience
I just wanted to post some thoughts on some of the major bullet points (Stealing the major bullet points from Chris at Icosahedrophilia. )
- D&D Miniatures line continues in a different packaging format. Visible minis are gone. Six miniatures per blind package, sixty miniatures per set. August 2010 set “Lords of Madness” includes huge miniatures and introduces a new “very rare” frequency category. 2010 releases: Orcus, Lords of Madness, and a surprise.
- Not happy with the current path of minis. I don’t have the tons of money need to chase down rares and Wotc following this path means I’m using paper figures or tokens to represent the hard to find figures. I’d like to see a packaging for the broke – a package of 30-40 figures for $14.99. Some of the larger dragons and rare monsters could be sold separately for a fixed price. However, this collectors game was one of the main reasons that I quit playing Magic the Gathering. I couldn’t continue to keep buying the ultra rare cards to have the best unbeatable deck.
- New “master sets” for Dungeon Tiles (The Dungeon in July, The City in October) will be kept in print to provide consistent access to a core set of tiles for new purchasers/players. Look for The Wilderness in December 2010. Expansions like March 2010’s Harrowing Halls will provide more variety but will still come one printing at a time, as currently.
- Since I haven’t really played 4e yet, I’ve not got into buying tiles although I like having a selection of them and they aren’t really too pricey.
- Monster Manual 3 (June) will contain more story elements (fluff).
- Nice! I like fluff, but I need enough stats to keep my “needing to buy DDI subscription to play” out of the equation.
- New line of “essentials” products such as the starter kit (September 2010) and Dungeon Master’s Kit (October 2010) are like “quick start” products for new players and DMs.
- I am looking forward to these. I don’t have alot of the books yet and look forward to these to help me get up to speed as a wanna-be DM and get some friends into playing (including my wife.)
- Gamma World will also have a collectible card component.
- I’m looking forward to Gamma World, but not another collectible card component – this leads back to hunting of rare items and paying outrageous amounts.
- A second D&D board game ships in November, Dungeons of Dragonfire Mountain, with mechanics similar to the Ravenloft board game.
- Yawn. Not my cup of tea.
Some other things that were announced today:
- D&D Encounters: an in-store weekly adventure series coming soon to Wizards Play Network retail locations worldwide.
- Sounds fun – a great introduction for a few week span of 1-2 hours play sessions. I wonder if any flgs within 15 miles of me will be hosting it. I might have to stop by and play some.
- The announcement that Wotc was not renewing the Star Wars licence with Lucasfilm.
- To me, this was the biggest announcement of the day, even if it came out of the West Coast and not the D&D experience. I got into playing RPGs recently because of Star Wars Saga. I found a great group of guys that I play with and I’ve learned more than just Star Wars Saga. But I’ve just started scratching the surface of SWSE and I can’t wait to dig deeper. I’m saddened that the end of the line has come for Saga and I look forward to trying to complete my collection prior to everything disappearing off the shelves. Thanks Wotc for the great books and I look forward to being able to use them for many years to come!
I do look forward to reading more about the upcoming products, but I need to see what would be the right purchases for me.
Topics: 4E, STAR WARS SAGA | No Comments »
RPG Kids – Star Wars Style
Ean and I have played Star Wars Minis as a very simple RPG system before. We used a d20 for all of the success and failures in a very simple system. At the time, I felt that was enough for Ean to get interested in playing rpgs and miniatures.
He asked me the other day if we could bring out “those little Star Wars guys” and play again. So, I started thinking about what I could do to liven up our mini games.
I have been following @newbiedm on twitter and have read several of his blog posts about dungeon mastering and recently he had posted about developing a game system for his four year old daughter. I download his rule-set and began thinking on adapting it for Star Wars.
Today was game day for Ean and I and I broke out the Kids RPG rule-set. I created a new character sheet based off of newbiedm’s sheet. I changed the character roles to Jedi (sword guy), Blaster (Bow & Arrow), Droid (Magic User), and Dark Side(All of the bad guys). I should have changed the “Medicine” field to “MedPack”, but that is an afterthought.
House rules:
Before I get into the game play description, I did come up with some house rules.
Game 1:
Basic Plot: Yoda contacts Obi-Wan, Captain Rex, and R2D2 (Ean said he had a laser to shoot with) to inform them that Count Dooku had stolen a secret code to the Jedi Temple and was headed back to his hideout so he could plot the destruction of the Jedi Temple.
The game:
Ean’s group won first initiative and came out running into the train station. He quickly located the super battle droid and R2 and Captain Rex made an attempt to take out the battle droids, while Obi-Wan cut through the train cars to flank Dooku. After taking out the Super Battle Droid, Rex discovered a speeder bike and hopped on it. I gave the speeder bike a movement of 9 and could also fire 9 squares as well.
He quickly took out the other battle droid, while Dooku started to make a break for it from Obi-Wan. Rex came flying up at Dooku and Dooku made a successful roll when slicing off the front of the speeder bike. Rex jumped cleared, but was dazed. Obi-Wan then found the second speeder bike and attempted to close in on Dooku. As Obi-Wan got close, he leaped from his speeder bike and attempted to slice Dooku down. The roll was a 2, so Obi-Wan missed and went flying off to the ground.
Dooku, who had been hit, was trying to reach the closest medpack, when the recovered Rex shot Dooku in the back effectively taking him down.
Then Yoda contacted Obi-Wan asking the status of the code recovery. R2-D2 in the meantime was picking out the code from Dooku’s pocket with his small mechanical arm. Obi-Wan reported success and Yoda thanked Obi-Wan and his group for a job well done.
Game 2:
Main plot: Luke, Han Solo, Chewbacca and R2-D2 were on a mission for the Rebel Alliance. Their ship was overtaken by a Star Destroyer. While Luke, Han and Chewie were hiding in the ship when the stormtroopers investigated the ship, R2-D2 was captured and placed in a holding cell. The gang then had to rescue R2-D2 and escape from the Star Destroyer. As they get ready to enter the airlock, Luke feels the presence of Darth Vader onboard.
Gameplay:
This game played out a little longer because I increased the number of baddies. I had two main baddies (Vader and a Stormtrooper commander) and four 1-hit stormtroopers and the dice didn’t go very well for Ean in the beginning of this game. As soon as the gang opened the airlock, the surprised stormtrooper rolled a critical 12 and took out Chewbacca. Han Solo then played medic and tried to dispense a Medpack was having a hard time rolling an even number. Meanwhile, Luke (using Ean’s roleplaying) cut a hole in the wall into the next room to get out of the airlock being undetected. Luke crept around and went behind a stormtrooper and took him out. Ean then said “Luke takes the armor off the stormtrooper and puts it on so they don’t know he is a Jedi.”
Han finally revives Chewie, but the stormtrooper has already triggered the alarm so additional troopers come run. Chewie and Han don’t have much of an issue taking out the rest of them, but Luke comes face to face with Vader, who dispatches Luke easily (with a critical 12). Vader then starts heading out to get the other two, but they sneak through Luke’s airlock hole trying to get to Luke.
Luke successfully rolls an 11, when I gave him a force check for force recovery. He recovers to a “hurt” status and re-joins his gang. Then they all attack Darth Vader and force him to flee.
They complete their mission of rescuing R2-D2 and escape successfully.
If was a fun day and I know that it was a success because Ean was asking to play again, but we had to stop for lunch and Ella’s naptime. After lunch, Ean pulled out his Star Wars action figures and played for quite some time. We will be playing again and I’m thinking about going fantasy this time or even using of his Indiana Jones Legos for an adventure as well.
You can find more on the Kids RPG rules and other DM goodness at newbieDM’s website.
Topics: KIDSRPG | 2 Comments »
Documenting RPG thoughts
I’ve been heading back into the world of Pen and Paper RPG – I’ll use this blog as a place to document my thoughts, the introduction of RPGs to Ean and others in the family as well as some recaps of games that I do play.
Topics: RPG | No Comments »
