Bundle of Holding - Flying Circus

No, not Monte Python's Flying Circus, but Flying Circus, the aviation-fantasy tabletop roleplaying game. So, what the heck is aviation-fantasy tabletop roleplaying?

Fly high with this new Flying Circus Bundle featuring Flying Circus, the Apocalypse Engine aviation-fantasy RPG from Newstand Press. In Flying Circus you're a fantasy adventurer, but instead of a sword and spells, you have an overworked biplane with rusty machine-guns – and you might still have to fight a dragon. Above the sprawling industrial-fantasy land of Himmelgard, daring pilots – heroes, knights errant, and scoundrels for hire – protect small rural communities beset by monsters, bandits, and tyrants. Flying Circus optimizes the Apocalypse Engine system to support highly detailed aircraft construction rules and an authentic (and authentically dangerous) flight experience that will charm fans of anime classics like Porco Rosso and Laputa.

For just US$12.95 you get all four titles in our Circus Collection (retail value $75) as DRM-free ebooks, including the complete Flying Circus Core Rulebook, previously presented in our November 2020 Indie Cornucopia 8 (plus the free Aircraft Catalogue Core) along with the expansions Horrors of the Heights, Flights of Fancy, and First Flights.

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Kickstarter - Vagabonds of Dyfed RPG: OSR meets PbtA

"An unholy union between OSR principles and PbtA mechanics. A modern take on fantasy rpgs compatible with the classics."

Let me state this up front - I am not a fan of Apocalypse World. That being said, I am intrigued by the potential hybridization of OSR rules with Apoc World or Dungeon World promised by Vagabonds of Dyfed.

Our design goals were simple: make a game that's mechanically compatible with OSR retroclones (and their mountains of content) while leveraging the compact but non-binary PbtA system.

• A single PbtA "move" core: 2d6 + mod, tiered results
• Player-generated character traits instead of predefined playbooks or attributes
• High character lethality
• Strong GM authority

So yeah, intriguing.

How 2d6 as the core resolution check will be "mechanically compatible with OSR retroclones" should be interesting to see.

Heck, you can even download a draft of the rules now.

There is only one backer level:

Goal of $4k. Its at $4,500 with 17 days to go. Not too shabby. For 10 bucks I'll roll 2d6...

Kickstarter - Broken World - A Post-Apocalypse Tabletop RPG

Let me see if I have the lineage correct: Apocalypse World, the game without failure, just complications, begat Dungeon World, and there was much rejoicing as the hordes of fantasy role players could now play a game without failure, just complications.

And so it was that Dungeon World begat an offspring, one that would climb the no longer so high gates of the land of Kickstarter, and the offspring it left unto the Worlds was a broken one. A Broken World to be exact.

This Broken World was to be a post-apoc RPG.

Say what?

Didn't this all start with Apocalypse World, which is by it's very name "an apocalypse world?" Did we come full circle so soon? No one wanted to do a Star World or Cthulhu World or even Land Before the World?

A retread of the game that started this line of gaming? Which has already hit over $9k against a $3k goal.

Shit. I need to quit my job and roll out some games written with the Apoc Engine. Maybe tack on some fate. FATE World. Ka-Ching!

I Have Three Non-OSR Games Dueling For My Attention - There Can Be Only One!

I am solidly an OSR sort of guy. It's in my blood. It's what I caught my teeth on. Learning new game systems is sort of like learning a new language - I've found over the years I have my limits.

Savage Worlds is NOT one of the three games I'm currently looking at. It's a fine system and the Soloman Kane book could possibly tempt me at some point, but not now.

No, the three games in no particular order are Dungeon World, The World Between for Fictive Hack and the new/old Fate Core.

Dungeon World appelas to me because I know how well AW plays despite the poor presentation of the rules. Dungeon World overcomes that particular handicap. I do have an issue with the whole "training wheels, flag football, no one really gets hurt" aspect of the AW system. I need to look closer to see how DW adresses that aspect of the engine. (or just wait for a reader to point me in the right direction)

The World Between for Fictive Hack is just a fucking cool setting. Death and even crippling effects are in game system. I need to stop bouncing back and forth through the document so I can perhaps grasp the rules fully.

Then there is the granddaddy / baby of the group - Fate Core. I'm slowly making my way through the current iteration of the rules available via the Kickstarter and I like what I see. I "think" I'll be able to grasp the rules now. The Dresden Files were a beautiful yet painful read, and I feel the actual rules got lost in the presentation.

So yes, I'm looking for a system to run "in addition to" by usual OSR style of game.

I'm open to your thoughts / ideas / favs / hates / etc ;)

Mini Review - Take on Magic Items (Dungeon World / Generic)

I'm going to sum up my take on Apocalypse World, which I've stated many times in the past. It's the best playing poorly written set of game rules I've ever tried to read.

The system is aces, but it is presented with such obnoxious fake attitude, useless vileness and utterly confusing rules presentation that it really turned me off. Thank God there are other games out there to riff off the system and can leave the poor presentation behind (yes, I know some folks LOVE how AW is presented. I'm happy for you. I'd rate the rules a 9.5 and the presentation a 1, both on a scale of 1-10. I wouldn't line my birdcage with the the AW rulebook unless I was looking to improve the presentation).

Which brings us to Dungeon World, an RPG that riffs off of AW and Old School RPGs. I'm an actual supporter of the Dungeon World Kickstarter. Not what you would expect from someone that threw his AW book across the room in frustration when I first (and last) tried to read it. The folks behind DW know how to present rules. User friendly rules.

Heck, Dungeon World isn't even officially released yet and supplements are trickling out for it (thanks to it being released under a Creative Commons License). Today I'm looking at Take on Magic Items.

Take on Magic Items is a collection of magic goodies for use in a Dungeon World campaign. They are well written and nicely presented, and I remember enough from the few sessions of AW that I did play (under great GM who understood my frustration with the AW rules as written) to make sense of the mechanics with ease.

The strange thing is, as I was reading them, I was also instinctively translating them into OSR items in my head. They literally convert that easily. Some need no conversion at all. The following example is one of my favorites (as I have a player that would LOVE this item) and it requires no conversion whatsoever for D&D/ OSR, Savage Worlds, RQ/Legends, Rolemaster/HARP, etc:

Miser’s Amulet 

This simple silver amulet is of seemingly
shoddy craftsmanship, yet never requires
repairs. 

When you are wearing the Miser’s Amulet
and you give someone one or more coins, a
few minutes later one of those coins reappears
in a coin pouch on your person. 

When a coin reappears in your coin pouch,
the amulet grows cold and slowly warms
over the next few minutes. 

If you have a Miser’s amulet you probably
should have a coin pouch.

It's an awesome item that has the potential of bring forth endless roleplay possibilities. Great bit of atmosphere it conjures up too. There are 23 other items in Take on Magic Items of similar quality and atmosphere. Well done!

I'll be using them in my A&A game for now ;)

Apocalypse World - It Ain't My Bag

I've spent some time trying to slog my way through the Apocalypse World rulebook in dead tree format, hoping beyond hope that I may find it more appealing that the PDF...

That shit ain't happening.

It's not that it's poorly laid out.  The layout is fine.  I just feel the writing sucks ass.

When I complained about Vornheim, it was about the layout and how the horribly small font made it a struggle to extract the goodness that others were finding in it.  For the sake of forcing art on the product, the meatiness of it was pretty much obscured from me.  I just don't have the patience to dig through annoying crap to find my reward.  I tried that with HoL back in the day (but I knew going into HoL it lacked redeeming rewards besides humor)

With Apocalypse World, Baker hides what many call an excellent RPG behind an attempt to be an "Artistically Shocking Author", or at least that's what I'm going to call it.  It's disjointed.  It's confusing.  It's fucking annoying.  This is probably why almost everyone I've seen talk / post / whatever about Apocalypse World and how great an RPG it is, usually follows it up with: "But I never read the rules, I just play in the game.  The GM read the game".  Well, God bless your fucking GM, because he's a stronger man than I am.  He's also probably half way to insanity, but who isn't?

Why all the "fuck" in my language in this post?  Because it's the most used word in Apocalypse World.  Sex may be a close second, but fuck has it by a mile.  I'm a cop and Baker uses "fuck" more than I do.  For him, it's gone from seasoning enhancement to main course.

K, I'm going back to my baby - my Original Dungeons & Dragons Boxed Set.  I need some grounding after this experience.

A Sphincter Says What? Delving Into Apocalypse World

Alright.  I was told that Apocalypse World was the greatest thing since sliced bread - except that it is apparent to me that some asshole grabbed that loaf of sliced bread and squeezed the living shit out of it while it was still in it's Wonder Bread bag with twisty, put it back on the shelf and I bought it.

The best I can figure is I'm going to have to work real hard at getting to the meat in this nut of an RPG.  Want proof?  I'll give you proof (which, BTW, was read to me last night by the same guy that convinced me to buy it last week.  I literally pulled the trigger an hour before game time last night):

The rules for moves is to do it, do it.  In order for it to be a move and for the player to roll dice, the character has to do something that counts as that move; and whenever the character does something that counts as a move, it's the move and the player rolls dice.

Oh my fucking God!  Who the hell thinks that a run on sentence that would make even a German cringe is a great way to introduce a game rule?  Even worse, a run on sentence that makes NO FUCKING SENSE!

I know EGG used to right some confusing shit back in the day, but this seems to be written to be confusing.  It's almost like the author feels that isn't being cool unless he's writing like a fucktard.

There, I feel better.  I needed to vent.  I'm sure the rest of this PDF isn't going to be as annoying to read, 'cause if it is, Feltothraxis is going to be treating this a whole lot worse then he did Vornheim.  And yes, I ordered the dead tree / PDF combo.  I expect to find some redeeming qualities soon in this purchase, even if it means having a dragon puppet do bodily functions that puppets just aren't meant to do ;)