I really enjoy the Castle Ravenloft boardgame. It is a really great way to boil 4ed down into an hour of play. Almost right away I wanted two things: more character options, and campaign play. I’m working on that campaign play bit, but this morning I tried my hand out on creating some new character classes and I want to share them with you. read more »
Games I Purchased:
Outbreak: Undead (Hunter’s Books) – I’m a sucker for anything zombie related. After a quick read through, this RPG has some neat little kernels of game mechanics, but I’m not sure I would use the system whole-sale. I very much enjoy the exploration of building your own safe zones after the apocalypse–something most other zombie games don’t delve into too deeply. The book is $45 and feels like a high-quality hardback, but the interior layout and art doesn’t match the price (for $10 more I can get core books from companies like Fantasy Flight, which are at the head of the industry as far as art and layout.) I realize this is a small-scale company trying to make a good impression with their product, but they might benefit from cheaper soft-cover versions.
I’m weighing in on this whole “what is D&D?” trend. I think this differs pleasantly from edition/OSR wars in that it is a philosophical exploration of a concept, rather than dirt-slinging.
I was recently reading articles about megadungeons. The portion of my brain constantly dedicated to worrying about zombies managed to bring up an interesting proposition: Could one run a modern day zombie apocalypse game like an old-school megadungeon? Here are my points of thought:
This is a set of mechanics to represent personality and its change over time in terms of some abstract game mechanics. As it is presented it will function with all editions of D&D, but could easily be modified to fit just about any RPG system. This system is not meant to replace role playing. The idea is to provide a context to define a character’s personality to other players, as well as a way to have a character’s personality have some effect on other mechanical elements in a game. This system is largely inspired by the traits and passions from the Pendragon system. read more »
Pictures of a game of 40K against my wife. I was playing Eldar, she was playing Necrons. read more »
On occasion I get the urge to sit down and mash together favorite bits of rules from different systems. This article covers a mash-up that starts with 2ed D&D and adds in some Hackmaster Basic, Savage Worlds, and 3.5ed/4ed. The actual rules doc is presented in PDF format and a direct link can be found at the bottom of this article. The article itself serves partly as a summary of the rules changes, and partly as a designer diary into my thinking behind the changes. The PDF is a first draft and is just a dump of information–there isn’t much formatting or pretty layout. It was written with the idea that the reader is at least familiar with the 2ed rules set. Since your tastes will likely vary anyways, you might just want to use this as a jumping-off point for adding some of your own radical rules ideas. read more »
I’m putting together a list of stereotypes for character ideas. I’m building the list using iconic characters from movies and fiction. It is my intention to use this list to build personalities for characters that will be used in some one-shot games, but I’m sure the list could also be used for instant NPCs and such. Here is my list so far: read more »
James Raggi over at LotFP has issued a request: Come up with a devious trick to unleash on your players. One so dirty and evil that it will undoubtedly make them want to quit your game. Here is my idea:
Just a couple of short ideas I’ve used recently. They both worked well, so I thought I would share.
