Deal of the Day - Ascendant (Supers RPG)

Let me get a few things out of the way. I'd rather be upfront than hear whispers in the dark.

1) Ascendant is written and published by Alexander Macris. I know there is a segment of the gaming community that has a hard-on for Alex. If you are covered by the prior statement, you can bugger off right now. This post isn't for you.

2) I consider Alex a friend. More than an acquaintance, less than a bestie. Still, it may color some of my observations, so you should be informed. Also, see Number 1, above.

3) Although I am a fan of the superhero genre, I've yet to find a supers RPG that I've felt comfortable with. At best, they've been "blah".

4) I bought the Print plus PDF version of Ascendant. Currently, the Print version is not for sale as it is being updated with errata. This purchase was made possible with your money, the readers of this fine blog, as it was funded by affiliate monies. This is NOT a review copy. When I do a review (so many books, so little time) it will be without obligations.

5) Alex DID send me the first chapter of his upcoming Ascendant graphic novel in PDF. I have done little more than look at some pretty pictures at this point. 

6) The fucker has gone Platinum at DTRPG in 2 1/2 months. Very impressive.

Until tomorrow morning at 11 AM Eastern, Ascendant is marked down to 10 bucks in PDF from its normal 20 bucks. 

Here's the sales blurb:

Ascendant is the superpowered role-playing game of infinite possibilities. In this 496-page standalone rulebook, you get:

• Elegant game mechanics that swiftly simulate the physics of a comic-book world using easy-to-reference real-life benchmarks
• Color-coded challenge action resolution tables that resolve complex actions with superspeed
• Infinitely scalable system lets you play heroes of any power level, from streetfighters to living gods – and replicate virtually any character from your favorite anime, comic, manga, or movie settings
• Countless powers all customizable with an easy-to-use system of modifier tags that lets you match your power’s specifics to your character concept
• Comprehensive detective mechanics for investigating crimes, interviewing witnesses, and finding clues
• Detailed options for super-geniuses to create inventions, cure diseases, and even bring their outlandish devices into mass production
• Extensive rules for responding to emergencies such as asteroid strikes, avalanches, disease outbreaks, earthquakes, fires, nuclear disasters, tornados, tsunamis, and volcanoes
• A huge catalog of pre-built characters and objects including major military vehicles such as aircraft carriers, attack submarines, and ballistic missiles
• A dynamic mission generation system to help you create challenges for your heroes
• An optional campaign setting with ready-to-use heroes, villains, and organizations
• Spectacular artwork by industry-leading pencilers, inkers, and colorists

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 

New Release - Ascendant (Supers RPG)

Let me get a few things out of the way. I'd rather be upfront than hear whispers in the dark.

1) Ascendant is written and published by Alexander Macris. I know there is a segment of the gaming community that has a hard-on for Alex. If you are covered by the prior statement, you can bugger off right now. This post isn't for you.

2) I consider Alex a friend. More than an acquaintance, less than a bestie. Still, it may color some of my observations, so you should be informed. Also, see Number 1, above.

3) Although I am a fan of the superhero genre, I've yet to find a supers RPG that I've felt comfortable with. At best, they've been "blah".

4) I literally just spent 55 bucks plus shipping for the Print plus PDF version of Ascendant. This is your money, the readers of this fine blog, as it was funded by affiliate monies. This is NOT a review copy. 

5) Alex DID send me the first chapter of his upcoming Ascendant graphic novel in PDF. I have done little more than look at some pretty pictures at this point. I'm impressed but need more Covid-free focus before actually reading it.

6) I wanted to let my readers know that Ascendant was on sale in PDF for the next 6 days, as part of the New Year, New Game Sale at DTRPG. There are many other fine RPGs for sale too. Your purchases will fund further reviews.

7) The fucker has gone Gold in less than a month. That's pretty impressive. It's also the #1 Bestseller as I type this.

K, enough of that. I'll need to read Ascendant before reviewing it (reviews return to The Tavern in 2022). Your money will be used to review books YOU may be interested in. No obligations to do a positive spin. No "reviewer's copy so no negative reviews" bullshit. Simply honest reactions.

Here's the sales blurb:

Ascendant is the superpowered role-playing game of infinite possibilities. In this 496-page standalone rulebook, you get:

• Elegant game mechanics that swiftly simulate the physics of a comic-book world using easy-to-reference real-life benchmarks
• Color-coded challenge action resolution tables that resolve complex actions with superspeed
• Infinitely scalable system lets you play heroes of any power level, from streetfighters to living gods – and replicate virtually any character from your favorite anime, comic, manga, or movie settings
• Countless powers all customizable with an easy-to-use system of modifier tags that lets you match your power’s specifics to your character concept
• Comprehensive detective mechanics for investigating crimes, interviewing witnesses, and finding clues
• Detailed options for super-geniuses to create inventions, cure diseases, and even bring their outlandish devices into mass production
• Extensive rules for responding to emergencies such as asteroid strikes, avalanches, disease outbreaks, earthquakes, fires, nuclear disasters, tornados, tsunamis, and volcanoes
• A huge catalog of pre-built characters and objects including major military vehicles such as aircraft carriers, attack submarines, and ballistic missiles
• A dynamic mission generation system to help you create challenges for your heroes
• An optional campaign setting with ready-to-use heroes, villains, and organizations
• Spectacular artwork by industry-leading pencilers, inkers, and colorists

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 

Kickstarter - Ascendant (Superhero RPG)

A new superpowered role-playing game of infinite possibilities.

I've always had mixed feelings about superhero RPGs. Usually, they were too many dice (Champions) or had random powers (V&V). TSR's Marvel Superheros probably hit the sweet spot, and as much as I thought I wouldn't like the color-coded charts, they grew on me and became second nature.

Yesterday, Autarch launched a superhero RPG Kickstarter - Ascendant - and it has its own color-coded chart. Heck, they forwarded me a PDF of the rules - when I'm healthy I'll delve into them - but at first glance, they look solid.

20 bucks for the PDF, 40 for POD w/ PDF, 60 for the limited HC w/PDF.

Crowdfunding - The Sinister Stone of Sakkara for 5E

As if to prove my thesis that the OSR and D&D 5e have much more synergy that the OSR ever did with Pathfinder, we find The Sinister Stone of Sakkara for 5E by Autarch over on Indiegogo. Proper conversions of OSR adventure material to 5e makes it just that much more likely I'll actually play 5e. I know, those are heretical words to some ;)

From the press release:

I'm excited to alert our fans that our adventure module The Sinister Stone of Sakkara is being released for Fifth Edition. We're currently running a small IndieGoGo campaign to cover the costs of layout and printing so that we can offer an offset printed version of the book.   

You can check out the IndieGoGo here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-sinister-stone-of-sakkara-5e-adventure#/ 

This is Autarch's ninth crowdfunding project, but it's our first Fifth Edition project. All of our prior material has been for our proprietary Adventurer Conqueror King System. 

We're very excited to begin to adapt our material for the world's most popular RPG.  

The adventure scenario is approximately 50,000 words. That's 10,000 words more than the adventure's old school version.  The Sinister Stone of Sakkara has been re-written from the ground up to follow the XP, Challenge Rating, and Treasure guidelines for 5E.
The adventure is set in our Auran Empire campaign world, a swords & sorcery setting inspired by the Late Roman Empire. For the first time, we offer Fifth Edition stats for many monsters of the Auran Empire, including the Abominable Young Dragon, Abomination, Birthing Tree, Brigand, Possessed Giant Spider, and Zaharan Ruinguard, plus 5E stats for Imperial Cataphracts, Legionaries, Legates, and more.  

As with the ACKS version, the adventure features: 

• Dozens of black and white illustrations by Michael Syrigos and a pair of full-color landscape paintings, one of the fortress of Türos Tem and one of the buried temple by concept artist Jeff Brown
• A starting base including a villa, headquarters, hospital, chapterhouse, infantry barracks, cavalry barracks, bathhouse, traveler's inn, and forum, all mapped and keyed.
• A dungeon with two levels, the first with 75 rooms and the second with 39 rooms, mapped and keyed, along with two custom random encounter tables. 

If you play 5E, I hope you'll check it out. It's a great adaptation that brings the fortress and dungeon to life with 5E mechanics. If you know friends who are into Fifth Edition and looking for new content with an old-school feel, please have them take a look. Thank you, as always, for being a supporter of our work.

Kickstarter -Secrets of the Nethercity (ACKS / OSR)

I've slowly been playing catch up after NTRPG Con. Didn't help that my desktop's hard drive was failing before the con and I had to replace the computer on Friday (and had to reschedule the recording of the return of... yeah, let's get that recorded before I mention it) Then my smartphone died. Yep, it's been that kind of week.

Just trying to explain why, being that I have an unformatted word document of Secrets of the Nethercity, I won't be referring to the document with this post. I will get to it, hopefully over the next few days. When I've read it I'll post a follow-up.

So, let's peek at Secrets of the Nethercity. It includes the following:

• An epic "kilodungeon" with 240 location entries spread across 20 different dungeon sub-regions that can be explored in a nonlinear fashion over the course of your campaign 
• 12 new monsters, including the chryselephantine statue, faewyrd, hydropian, and terror of death
• 30 new magic items, including the bag of faerie seeds, the funerary barge of the cults, horn of the eagles, scepter of sacred power, and shadowcowl robe
• 4 new character classes, including the elven cultist, hierophant, and warlord
• A special appendix providing step-by-step worksheets to adapt the Nethercity to your favorite campaign setting
• A home base (the city of Cyfaraun) for use by your adventurers in between dungeon delves. The city is presented in summary format in the adventure itself, and the city and the sewers below it are presented in more detail in a supplement called Capital of the Borderlands (available at $20 and above pledge level). With every bonus goal, we'll expand the city and sewer levels!

So, why "kilodungeon"?

The Nethercity is bigger than an ordinary dungeon (like Sinister Stone of Sakkara) but not as big as a megadungeon (like Dwimmmermount). Get it? Kilo instead of mega... Let's just read on.

What are the price points?

10 for the PDF of Secrets of the Nethercity. 20 for the Nethercity and Capital of the Borderlands supplement.

30 for the softcover of Secrets of the Nethercity PLUS the Nethercity and the supplement in PDF.

40 gives POD at cost coupons for both books, PDFs of both books AND and early access playtester version of the PDF.

I think I'll be in for 40 bucks. There are other levels with many other goodies, but 40 is my sweet spot.

Kickstarter - Lairs & Encounters (Autarch - OSR Sandbox Supplement)

I like Autarch. I like the company a lot. They managed to salvage Dwimmermount and the Adventurer Conquerer King System (ACKS) is a solid system that my group will be returning to in the new year. It annoys me to no end that their Lairs & Encounters Kickstarter has escaped my notice until now. It's funded with 11 10 days to go.

Needless to say I backed this the moment I saw it, but for the curious, this looks to be an amazing sandbox tool. Here's the skinny right from the kickstarter:

Lairs & Encounters is the ultimate supplement for fantasy RPG sandbox campaigns. Designed for use with the Adventurer Conqueror King System™ (ACKS™), it is readily compatible with other fantasy role-playing games built on the same core rules. In Lairs & Encounters you will find: 

- More than 135 ready-to-play monstrous lairs - that's at least one lair listing for every possible monster lair mentioned in the Adventurer Conqueror King System. The lair listings are designed to be used both as dynamic points of interest that can be discovered while wandering through the wilderness and as obstacles to a would-be ruler’s attempt to secure land for a domain. 

-New subsystems for sandbox play, including rules for populating 6-mile hexes with lairs based on the terrain and extent of settlements in the region, and rules for searching for lairs in the wilderness factoring in terrain density, aerial reconnaissance, splitting up to cover more ground (never split the party!), and more. 

-Additional mechanics for monsters, including ability scores for monsters, proficiencies for monsters, and young monsters. 

-A complete system for taming and training monsters, with details on the lifespan, roles, tricks, trained and untrained value, supply cost, training period, and the trainability modifier of every monster in the game.   

-A complete system for creating your own unique monsters. In the ACKS Player's Companion we gave you mechanics to create balanced new character classes and new spells; now we bring our same rigorous attention to balance and customization to monsters.

Even better is that you get a draft copy in PDF when the Kickstarter funding completes. Damn skippy! I won't have to wait to start putting it to it's paces ;)

Playing "The Domains at War" - Subtitled: How to Fuck Up a Playtest

Last night I participated in a playtest of Autarch's Domains at War. It shows much promise but we did our very best to prevent any actual testing of the rules in question.

Let me explain. We were divided into two groups or armies. Each group of 3 to 4 players sat on opposite sides of a nice size conference room. The set up rocked. Each side had it's own map and it's own referee. Yep, we were playing a multiplayer double blind wargame. I was having flashbacks to my own college days.

The goal was to get to Dwimmermount while securing your supply lines and gaining allies while preventing our opponents from doing the same. We went with light and fast troops and no siege engines to slow us down. We quickly made an ally of Muttontown or Nutterburg or whatever it is right outside of Dwimmermount. All the while using our skills and spells to spy out our enemy.

When we found them, they were seeking allies in a fortress full of undead. The thing is, at that point we had found Dwimmermount and proceeded to loot the first level before encountering some difficulties in the second level. Never did see the rats with their stacks of coppers damn it!

The funny thing is, both sides were working off an overall strategy of securing one's positions and the two armies never did engage, which is a shame. We almost attacked our enemy in the last turn played, but they were secure behind their fortress walls and undead allies. So, we never actually tested the combat rules, but we did get to try out the double blind system, which I suspect will work much better in cons and less so at the kitchen table, but your mileage may vary and the rules are still under revision.

I had a blast, even without getting into mass combat. I explored part of the second level of Dwimmermount and lost a level to a wight. Yes, Virginia, there are wights in Dwimmermount. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I'm happy I'm a backer of this kickstarter, but I'll be using the mass combat rules on a smaller scale I suspect, and the double blind won't be needed as it will be the PCs against the world ;)