Warhammer Fantasy Role-play 4e - First Look

This past Friday I was at the Complete Strategist on 33rd Street in Manhattan with JoeTheLawyer and my wife Rach. On a shelf near the Pathfinder books I saw a lone copy of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4e, the new edition from Cubicle 7.

I've heard good things about the latest edition, and it wasn't long before i grabbed it in my greasy paws. 60 bucks (plus tax) later and it was mine. I must say, I am impressed.

Physically, it is a beauty to behold. The art simply screams Warhammer, and although it steps away from the black and white art that I've always felt was iconic of WFRP 1e, the color art does a fine job on its own.

Character generation detail is superb. What I really like is that 4e encourages "roll in order" and "take what is rolled" by offering bonus XP for doing so, but still allowing players that are unhappy with what is rolled some further choice.

Ambitions are personal and / or party goals that can be minor or major. Accomplishing such offers bonus XP.

Player Character races are well detailed and have some nice details about the races opinions of each other.

Just started reading the classes. I really want to run this.

WFRP 4e is available on Amazon for 47.44 (ships Prime) - and yes, this is an affiliate link.

More as I dig further...

First Look - Dungeons & Dragons - Art and Arcana: A Visual History

Just as I was walking out of the house this morning, the postman delivered a not too large but fairly heavy box into my hands. I saw Random House of the box and knew it had to be a review copy of the soon to be released Dungeons & Dragons Art and Arcana: A Visual History. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I found not just the standard released but also a copy of the Special Edition, Boxed Book & Ephemera Set. Grognard heaven :)

These are huge books and they may not weigh a metric ton, but they come close ;)

The paper quality is really good (much better than the B1-B2 omnibus) at the same base retail price (50 bucks). The binding looks like it will stand up to a lot of reading, and reading I need to do. It's not just the art but the history happening around the art.  Maybe I'll read this instead of watching football on Sunday, as both the Jets and the Giants are having a horrible start to the season.

I'll be sharing a bunch of pics on this post. It's not a review post. Its simply first impressions, an I'm simply blown away.

Dungeons & Dragons Art and Arcana: A Visual History has a suggested retail of $50 - on Amazon, it is available for pre-order at $31.45

Dungeons & Dragons Art and Arcana: A Visual History - Special Edition, Boxed Book & Ephemera Set has a suggested retail of $125 - on Amazon, it is available for pre-order at $76.27

Note - these are Amazon affiliate links. A small portion of your purchase price made via these links will go to support The Tavern. I Thank you.

The following pics are from the Special Edition:

New Release - Eldritch Tales: Lovecraftian White Box Role-Playing (S&W)

Wow. Simply wow. I just started looking through the Eldritch Tales: Lovecraftian White Box Role-Playing and it is a beauty. Art? Spectacular. The layout is clean and the table of contents are bookmarked.

System-wise, Eldritch Tales is built of the Swords &Wizardy White Box rules you already know with some twists. Attribute feats are checks against one of the ability scores. Basic difficulty gives a 50% chance of success on a d6. High ability scores make that a 4 in 6 chance. More difficult situations will adjust the chance of success downward. Class skills can give bonuses. Simple and effective.

There are four classes: the Antiquarian, the Combatant, the Opportunist, and the Socialite. It covers the range of what you need and the optional Occupations allow further specialization.

Wait. What about insanity? Wisdom is not a dump stat here.

Contacts are the game juice that players can use to move things along. They also add depth to the characters and the campaign. It's a great touch and could easily fit into an urban fantasy campaign setting.

I personally like the Random Occupations Table. I think it adds depth to the characters.

Alright, only six chapters in thus far. More later, likely a full review, once I digest this fully. But damn does it look good this far.

Aeons before man arose from the primordial mire, ancient creatures descended from the stars or stepped through dimensional passages to inhabit the Earth. Whilst many of these Old Ones have since passed into inactivity, the secrets they carried with them have been shared with man and now terrible cults haunt the fringes of modern society. These ancient terrors thus still menace mankind and, if the prophecies are to be believed, the Old Ones shall return to reign again over the Earth! 

Eldritch Tales: Lovecraftian White Box Role-Playing in an OSR rule set with its roots in the Original version of the world's favorite RPG, but instead of exploring musty dungeons, characters in Eldritch Tales investigate Mythos horrors in the 1920s! The setting and background are based on the cosmic horror tales of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and other members of his writing circle.  

Within the pages of Eldritch Tales you will find four character classes representing many classic pulp archetypes, occupations, rules for insanity, spells, monsters, esoteric tomes, artifacts, and setting material, as well as advice on using Eldritch Tales with other White Box games. This game is compatible with Swords & Wizardry White Box and other OSR games.

Yep, that's an affiliate link above.

First Impressions - Dark Albion - The Maps

This is just a section of the Albion color map

If there is one complaint I have with many maps in rpg supplements, it's lack of scale. For some reason, it's often missing from the map (but occasionally mentioned in the product's text. That is not an issue with Dark Albion.

The Dark Albion PDF (I couldn't wait for the softcover to arrive and I was bored at work last night ;) includes 19 maps. Now, that number can be a bit misleading, as the same area may be covered by a color map and a hex map or a player map. Still, it doesn't detract from the fact that the maps are awesome by themselves.

This is about 1/4 of one of the six player regional maps - each regional map comes with a companion player's map

Shit, I don't even need the Dark Albion book to mine these maps for potential adventure inspiration.

To be honest, the maps accompanying the Dark Albion PDF could probably see as a stand alone product at RPGNow. Then again, I love maps.

The Dark Albion PDF is 285 pages long, so the review may take a bit to get to (and the bulk of the reading will await the softcover to arrive), but +Kasimir Urbanski (RPGPundit) and company put together an excellent package of maps to accompany Dark Albion.

Buccaneers and Bilge Rats (Swords & Wizardry)

It's not that I totally forgot that Buccaneers and Bilge Rats released last week. It's just that I was juggling too many cats to properly get the word out.

Barrel Rider Games, aka +James Spahn , has hit the ground running when it comes to his Swords & Wizardry compatible releases. First was the Player's Companion. Now we have the pirate themed Buccaneers and Bilge Rats. Who doesn't like pirates? Besides, Barrel Rider Games has had consistently quality releases for - well, pretty much all of it's LL and S&W releases.

This would actually work well with the Razor Coast setting / adventure.

From the blurb

With Buccaneers & Bilge Rats for Swords & Wizardry (and other old-school fantasy role-playing games), you'll be ready for adventure on the high sea! This 34 page supplement brings piracy and swashbuckling your Swords & Wizardry campaign! 

Two new character classes: The dashing Pirate and mysterious Witch Doctor
The Cleric-Variant Class Priest of the Sea
Two new player character races: The graceful Sea Elf and cursed Dagonite
Complete rules for Firearms, Artillery, and Fencing Styles (note - Firearms are VERY lethal)
New Melee Weapons
New Nautical Spells
New Magic Items
Dead Man's Cove - a complete adventure ready to use in your campaign!

First Look - City State of the Sea Kings (Judges Guild Wilderlands)

This book is more massive than I expected. City-State of the Sea Kings clocks in at 380 pages and a map. The map itself is two-sided. One side has the numbered hex map of the Isle, the other side has the map of the city. Both are very well done.

I didn't realize that this is one of the last projects that Bob Bledsaw senior had an active hand in (but I found out that and more reading the foreword - good thing I didn't skip that like usual).

It uses the "Judges Guild Universal System" for stats, which is easier to understand and convert (for me at least) then the system used in Lich Dungeon and the like. Still would have preferred OSR generic, but the system used has history behind it and is familiar to many.

Layout is easy on the eyes (I do wonder about all of the highlighting throughout the text, but maybe that will sort itself out with a solid read).

You probably could run a full campaign from beginning to end on this isle.

I want to move this to the top of my review pile - but that pile is getting friggin huge! Still, City-State of the Sea Kings is calling to me - loudly.

First Look - Whitehack - Old School With Some New School

I must admit, for a person who suddenly has much less free time on his hands I have a
plethora of excellent RPG systems to read. I'm not just talking the big guys of Numenera and 13th Age, but Five Ancient Kingdoms and now Whitehack.

Whitehack does have one huge advantage over the rest - it's a mere 32 pages (less the OGL).

I'm dead tired after the 7 hr install session that was Fios (all hail Fios), but after visiting my mother in law tomorrow afternoon, I plan to give this a solid read.

Much thanks to +Christian Mehrstam for putting a copy in my hands. My cat appreciates it too ;)

First Look at "Five Ancient Kingdoms" ("OSR" Ruleset)

What is Five Ancient Kingdoms? Apparently it's NOT an RPG but a Fantasy Adventure Game. Semantics aside, if you like OSR gaming (and are a bit of a completist) this is probably something you should take a look at.

It comes in with 3 booklets, a short adventure and a set of 4d6. These aren't your usual d6, as where one would normally expect to find a "1" you find a "zero" instead. I need to look deeper to find out how that effects the usual number spread.

So, you get your six "OSR" stats, which are generated using 4d6, drop the lowest and re-roll Zeros. You get the usual 4 core classes (even if they are renamed) and a butt-load of subclasses.

You also get "advantages", which is almost like a prior profession / skill acquisition. You get one randomly determined at 1st level.

Hit Points are randomly determined each session. That's damn interesting.

Alright, enough random observations from the first booklet - time to read this a bit more in depth.

Available in print only I believe, but a PDF version would look nice on my iPad ;)

First Look - Shotguns & Saddles (Classic Western OSR RPG)

With Shotguns & Saddles, +David Bezio (he of X-Plorers fame) brings the American Old West genre to the OSR. There are some notable changes to the system most of use are familiar with, which is why I'm making this post a "First Look"and not a mini review (that will come later). I want to look at the core of the system David is presenting in Shotguns & Saddles.

There are 12 attributes in S&S, not the usual 6 (or 7 for the 2e crew). Athletics, Book Learning, Fighting, Frontier, Grit, Horsemanship, Perception, Presence, Shooting, Stealth, Strength, and Quickness. Some of them are obvious reskins of OSR attributes, others aren't. Rolls range from 3-18 which then get converted to a score from -2 to + 2

The Background table adjusts 2 to 4 of these attributes by +1 depending on your roll. A Teacher would get bonuses to Book Learning and Perception while a Railroad Worker would get Frontier, Grit and Strength.

How fast you more is determined by athletics and a high quickness will help with your Defense (kinda like your AC, but as you don't wear armor, it also gets better with leveling).

Hit Die size is determined by you Grit score.

There is even an alignment system, but it is labeled by hat color: White Hat, Brown Hat, and Black Hat. You can probably guess the generalities of how the hat colors are defined.

You also get a randomly determined Special Ability which helps differentiate your PC from the others.

So, much of the above seem familiar enough and I doubt the the transition would be all that hard. I'll review this when I finish my way through the rest of it. I'm really hopeful that converting some Deadlands stuff, at least in a general sense, shouldn't be too hard.

Looking at Emerald Twilight for Legends of the Ancient World (The Fantasy Trip Clone)

First off, this isn't some "Twilight" hack, so all the vampy nerds should just avoid this post if google somehow send you here.

Secondly, I've been on a bit of a The Fantasy Trip "Quest" of sorts recently. It's one of the rare, fairly popular for the time, early RPGs that I never bought back in my younger days.

Sure, TFT spawned Man to Man (and Orcslayer) and GURPS for Steve Jackson (I have them all), but I never got a change to play with the original.

Still don't have the originals, but I'm looking at Legends, which is kind of a TFT retroclone. More precisely, I'm looking at Emerald Twilight, which is a programed / solo adventure which assumes a party of four.

I'm going to have to run this next week when I'm on vacation. I'm not so sure about using the combat map or tokens, but I suspect they are an assumed part of the system, so I'll give them a proper workout.

All of which leaves me to wonder - is there enough here to run a short campaign, or even a short story arc?

See, damn me! The historian in me wanted to see how this actually plays out and it it stands the test of time. Can a 9 page ruleset compare to the hundreds of pages the current edition of GURPS needs? Should it need to?

I needed these tokens when I ran
Attack of the Frawgs!

The Legends rules are available for free here. They also came with Emerald Twilight. 

First Impressions - Drinking Quest: The Original Drinking RPG

The only rule you need to know - if your character dies, you needed to chug your drink to bring them back to life (on the second or later death in the same session, 3 swigs can substitute for the chug). Really, what more do you need to know?

Alright, the art for Drinking Quest 1 looks real ly good, the game looks fun and you could run the game NA (non-alcoholic) if you would like - won't change the game from being fun and funny.

You can run it with or without a DGM - Designated Game Master. If you ran it with a DGM, it should work via Hangouts with a little prep. I'll try and hook something up - I already have a few interested and I'm sure there might be a few others.

The rules are simple, but I really need to read all the cards - then I'll do a "pre-play" review. Still, at first look, i'm very impressed and excited.

Hey, I wonder if we can get the "chug rule" added to D&D Next as one of those "modules" ;)

First Look - Pathfinder Beginner Box

I received my Pathfinder Beginner Box in the mail today and I think "Holy Shi!t" sums it up pretty well ;)  This is a box of gaming goodness.  Yes, I might be an OSR heretic for saying this, but Paizo has done the hobby on a whole a ton of good with this treasure chest.  This is an excellent starter for a person or group that is looking to get into RPGs.

First things first.  The box itself is nice and deep and sturdy.  Box alone blows away the D&D 4e Starter Set.  Then you open the box, and the components put the nail in the coffin of the 4e Start Set.  Paizo does it again.

64 page Hero's Handbook, 96 page GM's Guide, dice, over 80 full color pawns (stand-up cardboard cutouts with stands), 4 pregens, 4 blank character sheets and a large, markable battle map.  It's a heavy, complete box.

The layout of the books looks like everything is set up to help out starting players.  More importantly, you can level up to 5th level before needing to move on to the full game.

I'll need to spend some time with it before I can give a proper review, but color me impressed so far.

A Look at the 6D6 Core RPG

I hesitate to call this a review, as it is less review and more "first view" of the 6D6 RPG, at least with my eyes viewing it.

Now, if you want the one minute summary you can view the video on youtube.  It's stop motion and brought back memories of Gumby for me, but it's also a better summary of how the game is played  then I could explain in a thousand words.  See, a (moving) picture IS worth a thousand words.

Did you watch it?  Good.  I didn't produce it it, the 6D6 guys did.  Just over a minute it length, it hits the post perfectly.  Much longer and it would have lost my interest.  Amazing what a one minute video can get across to someone.

Okie, here the next link. The 6D6 Ultra-Lite rules.  It's a free download.  It's billed as a 30 second introduction to the 6D6 rules.  I'd say it's closer to two minutes myself ;)

Alright, now that we are up to speed, more or less, I'll give some of my impressions of the 6D6 Core rules:

The use of cards, and in some instances actions similar to "tapping" actions from card games like Magic the Gathering and the like, may help make this a crossover game for those whose gaming experience is limited to or centered on such games.  Note:  The cards are not collectible.  You are printing them out yourself.  They are practical, not pretty, which is fine by me.

Less crunch, still crunchy - by this I mean the game is not written to be a realistic simulation.  Modifiers are generally 1D6 (plus adjustments) for each card you can play.  Its the play that becomes a bit crunchy, at least if you've been playing the standard types of RPG for the last 30 years (like I have).  The card system IS a different system, and it does take some getting used to.  I had a hard time grokking it myself until I found the youtube video I linked above.  It's not overly complicated - it's just different.

Its surprisingly flexible.  I thought the cards would result in the limiting of choices, but with the number of combinations that can be played (as long as the player can weave a plausible explanation for the situation in question) it covers a lot of possibilities.  Hey, and you can create new cards!

The cards themselves are like skills, or feats, or equipment, or mental and physical abilities - but they are used in different ways.  Not all can be available at once.  There is strategy involved in what you play and what you have prepared to play.

Monsters and adversaries are defined by cards too.  This part seems like it can get a bit confusing if you are running more then a small handful of monsters at a time.  Well, that's true in most RPGs, but keeping the cards in order for multiple foes seems to consume both time and table space.  There has to be a way to streamline it

Well, as I said in the beginning, this is less a review then a "view".

I need to print out a set of cards and try some mock encounters and generate a character or two.  I'll post the results when I get it done.

First Look - The Secret Fire (RPG)

I'm experiencing a bit of a sensory overload with all of the RPG products that have been released in the last week.  I'll get to the reviews of these games later, I need time to digest them them.  In the meantime I'm giving my first looks and initial impressions.

The Secret Fire is the latest game I've gotten to look at.  I'm really at a loss for words so far as to how to explain it.  It harkens back to the original Dungeons & Dragons White Box.  It quotes from Supplement III - Eldritch Wizardry and Chainmail 3rd Edition.  It seeks to carry on the mantle of EGG himself.  The question then becomes, does it succeed?

To that I don't have an answer just yet.  Mr Strayton, the author of The Secret Fire, has been granted access to all of EGG's notes and files by Gail Gygax.  It is quite possible that many of test ideas were tweaked and trimmed form ideas of Gary's himself.  It's just that at over 300 pages in length, so it's way to large for me to absorb at this point in time.  That being said, from what I've read in the beginning of the book, and what I've skimmed form the rest of it, there is certainly an early D&D feel to it.

If you have the time or the inclination, the PDF can be found on Lulu for 10 bucks - google search for a 20% off coupon and you can get it for 8 - a bargain for a game this size.

Give me time and I'll let you know if it succeeds at it's aims of uniting the fractured D&D gaming landscape.

From the blurb:

From SECRET FIRE GAMES™ comes THE SECRET FIRE™ (formerly known as George Strayton’s LEGENDS & LABYRINTHS™), a new, original game system with mechanics that emphasize exploration, roleplaying, and the constant threat of danger as adventurers set forth on perilous quests, engage in lethal battles, and win precious treasures. The design philosophy focuses strongly on imbuing the game world with a specific tone through elements of flavor, simpler rules, faster play, constant roleplaying (with associated mechanics that make it necessary to roleplay in order to win the day) and unlimited flexibility using innovative “literary” mechanics alongside traditional tropes of the fantasy game genre. The overall “feel” of this combination is what sets THE SECRET FIRE™ apart from all other games. It’s been 11 years in the making and now finally comes to a tabletop near you this August!

The foundation for TSF lies with the unknown, the dark and dangerous subworld which we all fear and yet desire to inhabit, if only for a brief time (so that we may survive and return to the world above and repeat). With that, we begin our journey….

PRE-RELEASE REVIEWS

“With THE SECRET FIRE, George Strayton is following in the footsteps of the inventor and master of roleplaying games, Gary Gygax, expanding on Gary’s original vision of fantasy roleplaying by taking it back to its roots while simultaneously bringing it into the future.”

— Gail Gygax

“A flavor-filled approach to fantasy gaming that puts the mystery and magic back into the dark recesses of the dungeon.”

— Monte Cook, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition

First Look - The One Ring (LotR): Adventures over the Edge of the Wild

Cubicle 7 just released The One Ring:  Adventures Over the Edge of the Wild in PDF on RPGNow.  I suspect it has released at GenCon in print, but one of my fellow bloggers that is in attendance will need to verify that.

It includes an Adventurer's Book, a Loremaster's Book and maps for each.

The game uses specialized D6 and D12 dice, but it's easy enough to substitute your own (standard) dice.

One thing of note is that gameplay is divided into two phases: The Adventure Phase and the Fellowship Phase.  The Adventure Phase is what we generally do doing our RPG sessions - kill things, take their stuff, overcome problems, etc.  The Fellowship phase seems to be what most gamers would do between sessions, kinda off the grid.  I need to read further to see how these would work in play.

I've barely scratched the surface, and I still need to spend more time with The Tome of Horrors Complete for S&W ;)

From the blurb:

Smaug has been defeated, the Battle of Five Armies has been won, and Bilbo has returned to the Shire. The War of the Ring is several generations away. In the relative peace, the Free Peoples of Wilderland look beyond their borders for the first time, establishing trade routes, renewing bonds between their cultures, and bringing prosperity to the region of northern Mirkwood, the Lonely Mountain, and the eastern slopes of the Misty Mountains.

But much danger still remains, and from the Orc-holds of the mountains to the dark and corrupt depths of Mirkwood a darkness waits, recovering its strength, laying its plans, and slowly extending its shadow . . . .

The One Ring: Adventures over the Edge of the Wild is the newest fantasy roleplaying game set in the world of The Hobbit^TM and The Lord of the Rings^TM. It provides you with everything you need to begin your adventures in Middle-earth, including:

• 192 page Adventurer's Book
• 144 page Loremaster's Book
• Two 22"x17" maps

Adventures over the Edge of the Wild is the first core set for The One Ring roleplaying game. Set five years after the events narrated in The Hobbit, it introduces players to the world of Middle-earth focusing on Wilderland, the region visited by Bilbo in his journey to the Lonely Mountain. Future core and supplemental publications will advance the timeline and explore other areas of Middle-earth.

First Look: Monsters! Monsters! (Reprint Edition)

I actually have my Monsters! Monsters! 2nd Edition (4th Printing) open right next to my Monsters! Monsters! reprint edition.

Some quick things.  Apparently the 1st Edition had a full color cover by Liz Danforth.  2nd Edition has a mostly black & white cover with red highlights.

The reprint is stapled, the 2nd Edition has the spiral binding that is either loved or hated it seems.

1st edition has some footnotes that are missing from 2nd Edition.  Apparently there were some text "errors" inserted by the 1st Edition's Editor, that were changed / corrected in the 2nd Edition.  Steve Jackson wasn't perfect back then it seems ;)

The 1st Edition Reprint has been reset professionally using modern techniques (computers) according to my untrained eyes.  It's not a photocopy of the original but a remastered copy.  Oh, and the Reprint also includes an 8 page GM adventure inserted in the middle... can't complain with freebies ;)

The rules appear to mirror T&T fairly closely, but I'd probably need to see them next to the 4e and or 5e  rules to make sure.  It looks like stat increase for leveling is boosted,  I'll look at it closer to be sure, probably over the weekend.

It is nice to see there is a Monster Glossary with a sentence or two detailing each of the Monster Kindreds, something sorely lacking in T&T 7.5 e.  Even at that it still takes 5 pages of the 40 page book (plus an 8 page insert of a town).

More later...