Better Late Than Never

Tonight I should be posting July's RPGNow Discount Code and the participating publishers. I also have a few more prizes for the prize closet. Already have a quick and easy contest in mind for the weekend. Let's see if I can pull it off.

NYC heatwave might have broken, so I'll stop bitchin' about the heat and annoying my Southern readers ;)


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Thoughts and Random Crap

It's still hot.  No, I don't like heat.  That is why I live in the North East.  Hopefully this heatwave ends and I can get back to thoughts of games, books and dice.

Got my hard copies of the Dresden Files RPG 2 Volume set today.  Holy crap but those are big books.  They might go out as gifts as I have the PDFs, but they are certainly a beauty to behold.  I just stumbled across the TV series on Netflix on Demand last night... I'm getting psyched... now to find a game ;)

Probably will have a short review or two up for tomorrow.  Depends on how the day progresses and if I can get any reading done during lunch tomorrow.

Stay cool.

Gathering of Fools

Looks like the Spring / Summer Gathering of Fools - (aka my old gaming group) will fall on the last Saturday of this month. It's also right near my birthday. The lads better take care of the old man ;)

The heat here in NYC in right there in the unbearable range. Not that it would have kept me from gaming at the back yard table in my younger years, but these days give me A/C or don't even think of gaming / gathering or anything.

Heck, even the A/C at work can't keep up with the heat, and they are all new centralized cooling units.  Can you tell I don't much like the heat?

At least it's a short work week. 


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Basic Roleplaying Quickstart Edition - Worth It?

Earlier today I gave my thoughts on Classic Fantasy for Basic Roleplaying.  Some folks may be interested in checking out the system, but don't want to cough up huge wads of cash for something that might not be their cup of tea. 

I understand.  Really, I do.  It's why I've been putting together the free quick starts postings.  Sometimes a new RPG game system can be like sushi - all your friends like it, but to you its just raw fish.

For those that are interested in Basic Roleplaying, but are concerned it might just be raw fish, Chaosium has published the Basic Roleplaying Quickstart Edition.  It's not free.  It's a whole 2 bucks.  Less then a Starbucks Coffee - except I also group coffee with raw fish, but I digress.

Two bucks gives you a pruned down version of the BRP rules (no Magic, sorry), but it is more then enough to run a session or two, or even a campaign if you are the improvising type.  Well, probably lots of improvising, as  the equipment list is fairly short.

It includes 7 extremely short scenarios, but they serve the purpose of showing the flexibility of the rules as written.

Me, I'd want a copy of the BRP Quickstart in all my players hands before running a BRP game.  Let them print out their own copies or just work off the PDF.  I'd rather start them small and add to their knowledge, then drown them behind all the options presented in the full rulebook.

Classic Fantasy - Bastard Child of BRP & AD&D

So, I spent some time perusing the Classic Fantasy Monograph for Basic Roleplaying from Chaosium.  I wasn't sure what to expect going in, and I wasn't entirely sure of what I saw as I started reading it.  The reason for that confusion is that I felt like I was in two worlds the whole time - Classic AD&D (although the Bard is more AD&D 2e or even Dragon 56) somehow translated into BRP.

When one thinks of the two systems, they are pretty far apart.

AD&D uses classes and levels.  BRP uses broad professions and skills.

AD&D uses a D20 for most task resolution.  BRP uses percentiles.

AD&D characters earn experience points.  BRB characters earn skill increases.

The list goes on with spell lists and levels, hit points, the whole power curve for the players is different.  On the surface, there isnt much that links them, besides perhaps the fairly similar ability list overlap of Strength, Constitution, Intelligence and Dexterity.  Then Rodney Leary came along and did his mash up.  From what I can tell, it works fairly well, if it is a bit disorienting.  At times, I didn't know whether to read with my AD&D eyes, or my Basic Roleplaying eyes.

All of the basics from the players' POV are included.  All the classes you know and love (except assassins) are included.  The classic fantasy races are there. Multiclassing rules are even included, which is pretty nice for a expansion built on a classless system.

Alignment is a major addition, especially for classes that need to reach certain levels in good / law / etc to unlock new abilities.  For the Paladin's warhorse, or his turning undead, or his spell use... he needs to do actions that show how good he actually is.  It's a novel concept to work around BRP's lack of level advancement, and I think it would work well.  Heck, it might work well enough to lift that for AD&D, D&D and their brethren. 

The spell list is extensive and takes up about a third of the book.  Most of the spells are fairly direct ports from D&D and it's different variations.  I can't tell you how well the spell casting replicates D&D, asI think I would need to see it in action, and I'm about 20 years away from playing Runequest 3 and its horrid spell casting system.

There is a decent equipment section included, as well as some new / optional rules that deal with dungeon delving in BRP.  It lacks a monster bestiary, but there is a book just for that. Classic Fantasy is pretty much the Player's Handbook for a Fantasy themed BRP campaign.  On that level, it works pretty well.  You just need to remind yourself its not Dungeons & Dragons, no matter how similar the taste ;)

Beating the Heat

My A/C does about a 10 degree temperature change from the outside, so 102 on my back porch in the shade converted to 90 degrees inside... not fun.

Still, I got to watch American Pickers on the History Channel for the first time, and it's pretty cool watching them go thru other peoples stuff.  It's almost like going to a garage or yard sale, but the junk is better on TV.  I'd love to see them run across a classic sci-fi / fantasy collection, or, god forbid, some gaming material.  I can always hop... heh

Started reading Classic Fantasy for Basic Roleplaying.  It's kinda like AD&D meets Runequest.  I'll give more feedback when I get further.  Besides, it's splitting time with Obsidian Twilight on my iPad ;)

Quick Start Rules - The Listing - Part the Fourth

Damn it!  I missed posting the Fourth part on July 4th by a day.  Ah well, here we go, a day late and a dollar short:

Mecha Quick Start - Heroic Journey Publishing.  Think Japanese robot cartoon and comics, and you have the right mindset.  Has to be a better system then Robotech (not talking setting - just system).

Mage: The Ascension- (Revised) Quick Start) - Back in the day this was the 2nd White Wolf game I picked up (Vampire: The Masquerade was the first).  My plans for the campaign that never happened were very Dresden-like in retrospect.

Hunter: The Vigil Quick Start (The Hunt) and (One Year Later) - This quick start puts you in the roll of Philly's Finest surviving in a world full of supernatural.  One Year Later is the follow-up / new quick start.  So it's like a two-fer, or a White Wolf three-fer ;)

Supernatural: The Hunt Begins - Margaret Weis Productions.  This is based upon the CW Network tv show of the same name.  I need to watch more TV apparently.


That's it for today.  Enjoy the day off if you have it ;)

Obsidian Twilight - First Impressions.

Wow.  Seriously.  Simply wow.

I got my copy Obsidian Twilight  last night, Dropbox'ed it for easy viewing on my iPad, and what I saw was damn sweet.  Visually, it looked nice on my netbook, but it was a beauty on my iPad.  LPJ Design really outdid themselves with the presentation.  I would go as fat to say it is visually stunning.  That being said, it would be a beast to print out at home for those that like to do so.  Perhaps Louis can add a "less-frills" version to the file for those that like to hold a copy in their hands.

Obsidian Twilight is a dark world for sure.  Death and the walking dead are everywhere.  Which makes it a huge change from most default game settings.  While made for the Pathfinder rules, I plan on looking at how much work would be necessary to move this to Labyrinth Lord, or Castles & Crusades.

I literally have done little more then read the first chapter and flip through the rest.  I'll give this a  real write up when I  finish reading it.  First glance is extremely promising.  Here's part of the blurb:

Inside this book you will find you’ll need to embark on adventures in the exciting setting of Obsidian Twilight: 

• 8 new races usable as player characters or NPCs.
  
• Over 100 new feats, over 140 new spells and 6 new prestige classes.
  
• New equipment, weapons and magic items.
  
• New monsters and monster template.
  
• Highly detailed regions and history, new organizations to launch your campaign
  

Players assume the roles of brave adventures facing ultimate evil in the hopes of saving the world, all in a postapocalyptic setting of survival horror and adventure.

You  can download a free preview of Obsidian Twilight here. 

Chaos? Nope, Chaosium

Over the last week or so Chaosium has been pumping up its selection at RPGNow.  From what I can tell, if it's offered at Chaosium's site, its offered at RPGNow too.  This means that a lot of the classic Call of Cthulhu adventures are now available.  The shame is, except for possibly around Halloween, I have virtually no chance of running this stuff with my extremely hard to corral group.

What I find really interesting is that they are  offering the Basic Roleplay Monographs.  These are like small print run settings or adventures, such as Agents of the Crown (Victorian) and Aces High (Western).  If you are a Basic Roleplay gamer, you options are increased exponentially.

I need to figure out how close the BRP Fantasy rules hew to Runequest 2nd edition.  Might be my new Old School backup game...

In any case, I have way to many options to review from Chaosium.  Drop a line and let me know what you are interested in me giving a look to.  A sense of direction is always nice ;)

Villains and Vigilantes - New and the Same

I'm sure you've already heard the Villains and Vigilantes has been redited and reformated with new artwork from co-creator Jeff Dee. 

Strange thing is, V&V missed me in its first incarnation.  Not that I didn't know about it.  My gaming group back in the 80s was always torn between V&V and its random chart charactrer generation, and Champions' "lets set a session or two aside to create some heros... point based... advantages... disadvanages... tweaking...mixing... arghh".  The few times we decided to try a Supers game, we defaulted to Champions.  I think we ran one session of gaming amidst all the sessions of character gen.  So sad.

I've often wondered if  we had chosen Villains and Vigilantes instead, maybe we would have gotten past character generation and actualy gotten to play a bit.  Now I can give it a shot and find out (although I do have one hugely anti-supers player, so we will see ;)

iTabletop 2.0 Pandoren - Video Pitch

Paladin from the iTabletop Pandoren Virtual Table Top has released a video newsletter giving an update on developement and a honest pitch to sign up new lifetime members for the service for 25 bucks.  I have a minor quible, and that is the insinuation that the other paid to play VTTs charge for upgrades / updates to the software.  I can only speak for Fantasy Grounds, Klooge and Battlegrounds RPG, but I've never been charged for an update to the software from any of these companies.

That being said, the video is a fine demo of the video quality of the iTabletop Pandoren software.  I think Paladin would have been better served if he devoted a minute or two to the actual use of the software in play, especially as the video link was sent out to over 3,000 members of the forums, many of whom signed up and rarely (I suspect), if ever, returned.  Such is the nature of the internet.  To see iTabletop Pandoren in action, go here and try the video links. (Paladin, if you are reading this... the site upgrade looks awesome).

Full disclosrure:  I own one of the earlier lifetime memberships (that gave 10 floating licenses) and gifted two.  So, in for a penny, in for a pound and all that.  Then again, I own a Battlegrounds RPG license with 5 floaters, a Klooge license with 6 floaters, and a Fantasy Grounds Ultimate Licesne with unlimited floaters.  I'm kinda commited to Virtual Table Tops in general ;)

The Adventurer - For Those 3d6 in Order Games

Do you generally roll sucky rolls when creating your Old School PC?  Forced to play with those poor rolls in order rolled?  Then this may be the class for you.

The Adventurer from Soap Box games gives you the class to play when you CAN'T roll above a 12 in any ability you might need in combat.  It's the ultimate in the "everyman" situation.  Actually, it isnt a bad class.. its a good class for bad rolls.  75 cents for this short PDF.

As an aside, it would make a pretty good class for a Watchman type character.

Second aside, I answered Greg here.

What's in the Hopper

I'm currently thumbing thru Villains & Vigilantes re-release, the Judges Guild Initial Guidelines book,  Dark Heresy - Dead Stars, some Labyrinth Lord stuff, a pile of Chaosium releases, some indie game stuff... if anyone has a preference give a shout out below and I'll get to it.  Otherwise, I slog thru as I slog thru.

If you read this blog and your not a Google Connect Friend... what are you waiting for?  Giving out free PDFs courtesy of RPGNow to a random Google Connect Friend when we hit 40, 50 and 60 Friends.

Alright, officially off from work for five days.  Time to get reading.

The Kobold Guide to Game Design V.3

Kobold Magazine from Wolfgang Baur is probably the best, all around, regularly produced gaming products around.  You can't go wrong with picking up an issue no matter what version of D&D or it's clones that you play.

Wolfgang also puts out a series of GM/DM advice books.  If you want to improve your game, there is something in one of these volumes that will help you.  The latest in the series is The Kobold Guide to Game Design, Volume III, Tools and Techniques.

First things first:  This product is extensively hyperlinked.  After flipping thru TKGTPD3 (phew) for a few minutes via the hyperlinks, you'll wonder why most gaming PDFs don't follow suit.  It really adds to the experience.

In my opinion, the article most useful to DMs of OSR styled game is the one dealing with sandbox style games. Titled -  Buckets in the Sandbox: Non-Linear and Event-Driven Design by Wolfgang Baur, it shows how a sandbox setting can have both order and freedom.  I've always though of a sandbox campaign as barely ordered chaos.  Now I have other options.  Well written and thought out, it's given me some ideas to think about as I plan for my next game.

All of the articles deal with different angles of adventure design and / or game design.  Want to get a head start on designing your own combat system?  Colin McComb has some thoughts.  Need to work on your plot?  Ed Greenwood has you covered.  The list goes on... its a whose who of game designers.

As for me, I think I'll be stealing... borrowing the most... from Wolfgang's sandbox.  Repeatedly.

(see?  I'm working my way thru the slush pile)

Wrack and Rune for Labyrinth Lord

Wrack and Rune for Labyrinth Lord was just released.  I haven't done more then give it a virtual thumb thru, but what I've seen looks nicely done.  It's on sale at 20% off thru July 4th.

The Blurb:  It's a typical job: Go get the thing, bring it to the wizard. Of course, you should keep a few details in mind... like the thing is a three-ton statue... probably broken in pieces... and sunk to the bottom of Eel Bight, a dangerous bay haunted by thick fogs, Reef Devils, and a magic island full of kidnapping fairy-folk. Oh, and this wizard is in a hurry, so the reward drops every day. Other than that, no problem!

In true old-school style, WRACK & RUNE pits the players against logistical challenges, resource management, and the ticking clock. Blood may spill, but smarts and creativity will win the day more than brute force.

Actually all of Faster Monkey Games' products are on sale thru July 4th.

See?  Way too much in my review slush pile to get thru quickly.  A few days off from work will do wonders.

Big Boys and Their Toys

When people think of Big Boys and Their Toys, guns, power tools and monster trucks come to mind.  Earlier tonight I got to play with the first for a few hours.  I don't do monster trucks.  I rarely do the power tools.  My main toys are the Roleplaying games I get to read and / or play.

That is what I want to do on my vacation.  Read all my new toys.  Delayed by half a day as I need to run into work in the morning.  Best laid plans and all that.

Midweek Madness - And then a Mini Vacation

Phew!  Alright, I've learned this week that RPG PDFs, pricing and viability, can be pretty hot topics.  I don't think it's over either, and I still have a topic or two to add as new post in the coming days.  Sometimes its fun to stir ;)

Expect some reviews to hit this blog over the coming days.  After I spend tonight putting holes in paper targets I'll be taking shots at my review pile.  I have some Call of Cthulhu books I need to get to as well as a bunch of others  (like the Kobold Guide to Game Design, Vol 3).  Lets see what I can accomplish amidst Fourth of July fireworks and partying ;)

 

Quick Start Rules - The Listing - Part the Third

Stepping away briefly from our PDF discussions here and here and even here, we come to our latest collection of quick starts.

Septimus Quick Start - Or just get the full version for free here.

The Chimera RPG Quick Start - Multi-genre rpg.  Of which I know nothing about.  Guess I need to get the Quick Start...

Dungeons & Dragons 4e Quick Start - The most popular game in the RPG world.  Easy way to see if 4e fits your play style. 

Cartoon Action Hour: Season 2 Playset (FREE demo version)    Maybe I can play the D&D Cartoon with these rules.  Heh.

Castlemourn Cortex Quickstart - A setting by Ed Greenwood using the Cortex system?  Forgotten Realms meets Battlestar Galactica?  Interesting none the less.

PDF Format, Viable or Not?

I got some excellent feedback to the question of pricing PDFs, both from the publisher and consumer sides.

I understand the argument "that all PDFs should be free", even if I don't agree with it.  Consumers have readily accepted digital media, whether music (both DRM and non-DRM), movies and even mainstream book publishing (Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook, numerous assorted e-book distributors and e-reader makers).

Yes, our hobby is small.  Yes, it may be nearly impossible to make a living off of it (especially after the D20 Implosion).  That doesn't prevent one from making a profit off of it, large or small, if you are able to produce quality (and probably quantity too) products.

I remember reading somewhere (at some time in the not too distant past) that a Role Playing Game PDF make 90% of its lifetime sales in its first 90 days or so.  That means although it has a unlimited virtual shelf life, its visibility window is fairly small.  How does one lengthen, or refresh, that window?

Is PDF the ideal format for RPGs in electronic format?  Is there a more viable or suitable format?  Are there features that PDF is missing that you wish it had to increase it's viability or usefulness?  Would a drop in e-book reader prices with suitable size screens lead to a higher amount PDF acceptance?

The market does change and adjust.  Before the merger of RPGNow and DriveThruRPG, DTRPG used to lock down it's products with Adobe DRM.  RPGNow watermarks most of its products these days.  Would you do anything different?  As a publisher?  As a consumer?  As a foul beast from the outer reaches? ;)

What is Your PDF Price Point?

I had this thought on my mind yesterday as I was driving to (and back) from Connecticut:  what is the magic PDF price point?  I'm not talking about absolute price, as in "I'd never pay more then $7.50 for a PDF book", I'm talking more on the order of "What percentage of the 'Dead Tree' version of the product's price are you willing to pay for an electronic / PDF version?"

This is an important question.  There are some folks out there that believe all PDF gaming material should be free, and it is certainly open to pirating (just like movies, music, and other electronic book formats).  There are others that don't like PDFs at any price... I can understand that point of view.  Then you have the other extreme:  those of us that prefer the PDF format - even more so in my case as the iPad is an AMAZING PDF reader.

I'm going to throw my own magic price point into the mix - somewhere in the 40% to 60% range of the printed product, although it is a rule I've managed to break more then once.  60% for the lower priced books, 40% for the higher end of the spectrum.

If you read this blog on any sort of semi irregular basis, you know I'm keen on PDFs.  I've always liked the format, or at least it's potential as a truly portable format that isnt stuck on your desktop or laptop screen.  The Kindle DX was leaps and bounds closer to achieving that then we had ever been, and the iPad makes in a full blown reality.  For me, PDFs are the key to my 21st century gaming library, tucked away on a portable device that takes up less space then the 1st Edition DMG.

If you aren't as portable in your reading medium for PDFs, their value to you may be less.  Then again, if you are far from a game store they may be more valuable then the physical book.  Each situation is different.

I like to find the really excellent gaming material that is made available for free from the companies themselves and share it with my readers.  Not just because it is free, but because it meant to be read and used.  In most cases, free PDFs from the named publishers are quality products aimed at showing your their works, in the hopes that you will buy further products from them, either hard copy or electronic.  It is in their best interest to make it a quality experience.

Not everything can be free.  When I started gaming in 1981 or so, the only free gaming material is what you or your friends wrote up themselves.  These days, with the OSR, retroclones, quickstarts and other stuff, I could probably game for years for free on stuff others wrote.  Yet I'd be shutting myself out from 95% or the hobby.  I'd never experience the Indy publishers, the ones that push our hobby to the edge and then some.

Me, I enjoy my free and not-so-free PDFs.  I find price to be less an issue then enjoyment.

Still, it took me a while to prefer PDF to dead tree.  Where do you stand?  What is your price point?

(Greg C. and I spoke a bit on this in email today- damn synergy at work ;)