Face to Face or Online - Which is Your Preferred Method of Playing Your RPGs?

There is a certain intimacy that in Face to Face gaming that you don't get with most Online / Hangout / VTT sessions. It's also easier to see if your players are distracted or fading.

Online offers a much larger pool of players for your group. Our current group consists of players ranging from the east coast of North America to the west coast, from Florida to Canada and in between.  Kinda impossible to pull that off Face to Face.

Running sessions online also cuts down on time lost to commuting to the game site. Oh, and you only have to clean up after yourself ;)

Both methods have pros and cons, and in the ideal situation I think I'd prefer face to face. That being said, my ideal gaming group spans 3 times zones and two countries, so I'll take the ideal group over the ideal method in this case :)

Face to Face or Online? Which is it for you?

Thoughts on a "Mad Libs" Style Mini Dungeon

Sometimes thoughts come from out of the blue and trip you up bad - they derail your ability to think of anything else.

This is one of those times.

As I sit here thinking about some regular sections and such for the Unofficial OSR Zine, the idea of a "Mad Libs" styled Mini Dungeon came to mind. Instead of using nouns, verbs and the like, it would be things like "choose humanoid", "choose mindless undead" and "giant _____" in the room encounters. Could even work out a system for traps too.

Maybe it's silly, but no two dungeons would run the same. Besides, silly can be fun too.

If you have no idea what Mad Libs are, Wikipedia defines it as:

Mad Libs (from ad lib, a spontaneous improvisation) is a phrasal template word game where one player prompts another for a list of words to substitute for blanks in a story. The game is frequently played as a party game or as a pastime.

Maybe under the title "Spontaneous Dungeons".

Or maybe i just need some sleep ;)

 

Mini Review - Verloren The Rufescent and the Atramentous (LL Mini Setting and Adventure Hooks)

Where to start. Verloren is a city ripped from it's place in time, moved forward or backwards no one is truly sure. It is, effectively, an urban sandbox of sorts.

The map of the city is unlabeled, and in truth, probably not needed. The city is in the midst of moral decay. The hooks, and there are many, don't coincide to places on the maps - they are linked to personalities and events.

See, this isn't an adventure and to come to it with that expectation would leave the prospective DM frustrated. It's a series of hooks and story elements that can come together as a bigger picture, but the DM and the players are going to be the ones to put that together. It's a toolkit of sorts. A very disturbing toolkit at points.

Unless the DM is comfortable running game sessions from the seat of his pants, Verloren is going to need significant prep work, not the least of which is how the players react to the shift from normal city to one quickly decaying.

The big plot hook behind this all? Pretty interesting, and I'm not going to ruin the surprise.

Negatives? I already mentioned the virtually useless city map. As there really isn't much need for it (the DM may be well advised to possibly map out a very localized block or two for some of the hooks) being useless isn't so much a problem, but it would have been nice to have some locations / hooks labeled.

You need to watch the video to find out it's for adventurers 5-13 as it isn't spelled out at the RPGNow site.

The blurb:

Verloren is a city hanging in the balance.  Either it will fall to an ancient evil or triumph based on your actions.  Enclosed are city details, maps, nine original monsters, and interesting non-player characters for encounters in and out of Verloren.  In this fantasy supplement, players will face powerful monsters and explore a decaying city to discover the secret of The Change and save the thousands of inhabitants.

    9 Original Monsters
    Over 20 Original Illustrations
    3 New Spells
    Lots of NPCs and Story Hooks
    2 Maps

A Kickstarter That Needs a Priest - ZEITGEIST AP hardcover compilation (Pathfinder & D&D 4E)

Well, I gotta give it to Morrus - he certainly knows how to grab attention ;)

In all seriousness, what little work I've seen from E.N. Publishing has been fairly good (admittedly that is from the 3e days), but as I play neither Pathfinder nor 4e, this is all wasted on me.

If I did play either, the $60 price point for the color HC edition and all of the stretch goals in PDF is probably the sweet point.

Just 118 more backers for the "Divine Intervention" ritual attempt :)

Of Blogger and G+ and the Piss Poor Mish-Mash of the Two

I'm an active blog poster. I probably post on average three to four times a day over here at The Tavern. Each of these posts also get shared on G+, and I guess I'm fairly active over there too. Heck, as of today over 4,000 fine folks have included me in their circles. I'm flattered.

My experiment of trying out the use of G+ for comments in Blogger lasted a few hours. It prevented those without G+ accounts from commenting, which I thought was pretty damn limiting as many of my blog readers and commenters aren't active on G+.

So, the communities overlap to a large extent, but the blog and G+ are also a bit separate.

Now, I posted a comment on a Blogger blog yesterday that had G+ integrated into the comments section, and it turned my comment into a publicly shared post by me on G+, which lost much of the context of the comment as the blog was linked to, but not quoted from by G+. I wasn't looking to fan any flames, but to get the original poster's thoughts on a specific question.

My comment basically started it's own thread, which was not my intention.

Looks like I'll be avoiding commenting on blogs that have G+ integrated in their comments section until Google figures this shit out.

What Are the Best OSR Gaming Supplements Out There?

Yes, I know it's a question that's very subjective. Still, it doesn't invalidate the question.

I have two favorites, for very different reasons.

The Teratic Tome, because it is amazing to behold (both in print and PDF). The unspoken setting behind many of the creatures presented must be brutally amazing. Did I mention the art is awesome and there are so many creatures I want to find ways to sneak in Rappan Athuk?

The second is the Tome of Adventure Design. I really should do a post a week, creating adventure locations and the like using the table in this book. The amount of inspiration in this book is beyond my ability to quantify - lots doesn't come close. Get it in dead tree format if you get the chance - there is nothing like flipping through this book to make you want to run a game session.

Now, despite my two picks above, I am sure there are numerous other choices that are just as worthy, if not more.

What are your picks?

Review - Monsters & Magic - Part 2 - Checks Please!

If you are still thinking "D20" with Monsters & Magic, please stop (although if the name automatically is translated as "Might & Magic" you probably played the same computer games I did). M&M doesn't use a D20, it uses "Checks" built with 3d6 plus modifiers for resolution.

Heck, sometimes you dont even need to roll, you just go with attribute score + trait bonus if you'd rather not leave it to chance. It's kinda like "taking 10" in 3e - not that I've played more than a single session of 3e, but I do own and have read the books back when they were new. No stress? Figure out your Static Check - as in "doesn't change".

Action Checks are probably the most common checks in the game. Want to attack, persuade, cast a spell, pick a pocket or any of potentially dozens of other actions? You need to make an Action Check.

Resistance Checks are used in traditional save situations and as a passive resistance. In most circumstances the rules suggest you would use the Static Check, but apparently you can choose to roll it as a sort of active defense, which could be higher or lower than the passive Static Check.

Then we have Ranked Checks, which is used for things like initiative, contests and competitions and the like.

If it seems a little confusing it very well might be, especially if you are coming at this from the OSR side of things and not one of them "new fangled" games like Fate or Dungeon World. Once you start adding trait bonuses, armor bonuses and damage dice to the checks I need to step back for a minute and grab a beer, as now things start getting a bit complicated.

This is where I'm no longer standing on solid ground, and for the purposes of this review I'm going to reproduce the Damage Dice & Armour Bonuses Table from page 37.

Are you following along at home? A "Golden Carriage" has a "Damage Die". "A Member of Nobility" gets an "Armour Bonus".

It took about half a beer to get past this and remind myself there are two types of damage in this game, two types of armor class.

If you are going to bring "social combat" (for lack of a better phrase coming from my fairly insular "Old School Gaming" background), this is probably the way you would have to introduce it to me. Don't bother thinking that I'm standing on steady ground at this point, but it makes more sense to my sensibilities than Fate does. Actually, it may go so far as to help me understand Fate. Or not, but there is hope.

Crap. Actions are next. Which are pretty much the types of things you can make a Check to attempt to do. This is really where you find out how the Effect Engine figures out your success or failure (and margin of such) and helps you interpret that based on the action you were attempting (as well as the applicable Resistance).

I need another beer I think ;)

Some RPG Definitions I'll Be Using on This Blog

There is an on going debate as to what falls under the OSR and what doesn't. So, I'm setting some definitions for use here at The Tavern. It should make some things easier, at least from my perspective. I'm open to new definitions, but not the whole argument of what does or doesn't fall under the OSR.

So, what is the OSR or Old School Renaissance here at The Tavern? Any AD&D 2e or earlier game system, clone or derivative.  Pretty simple. If it can trace it's roots directly to early D&D or AD&D, it's OSR. (note - this is the definition i'm using HERE starting now. Use your own definition over THERE ;)

Next is OSG or Old School Games. Tunnels & Trolls, RuneQuest, Traveller, Rolemaster, GURPS, the old Pacesetter line and the like are Old School Games. The OSR is a subset of the OSG.

New Wave - Fate, Apocalypse World, Dungeon World and the like are new wave to my eyes. I don't seem to grok the new wave stuff so well but I try.

Indie - Savage Worlds, Umbiquity System and similar systems are under my general Indie Label.

The OSR and the OSG are where most of my interest lies, as long time readers of this blog should know.

Eh, I needed some accurate tags for all of these blogposts, and the above is a start. Feel free to add your suggestions below, such as "Shite" for the WoD line or Insane for the crunch laden Hero line (which is also OSG I guess ;)

The Winner of the: Tell Us About Your Favorite Monster and You May Win a PDF Copy of "Monsters & Magic" is...

Dave and his Gelatinous Cubes!

Congrats Dave, you are the random winner - I need you to send an email to tenkarsDOTtavernATgmailDOTcom so I can send you your code for your free PDF copy of Monsters & Magic. Thanks to Mindjammer Press for the PDF copy.

Hopefully back to reviewing M&M tomorrow - it was a busy Father's Day weekend ;)

An Interesting Old School Kickstarter - Whisper & Venom (Old School Styled Setting / Adventure / Minis in a Box)

I find Whisper & Venom to be a very tempting Kickstarter.

It's got all the things that tempt me - an old school setting, and old school adventure, mini and a box. There really is something to be said about boxed sets.

So yes, I'm very tempted even tho' I probably already have more minis then I'll ever attempt to paint in a lifetime (assuming my Reaper Minis ever arrive - sigh).

See, this is the quote that gets me really hopeful:

We wanted to make the single best fantasy role-playing game product possible. One that was designed with old-school role-playing games in mind but interesting and exciting for any fantasy role-playing system.

The problem is that $75 is the sweet point to get all of the stretch goal, many of which have been met.

At the current stretch goal, you get:

A Guide to Whisper Vale

The Whisper & Venom Adventure Sourcebook

an 11" x 17" two sided map

a set of dice

10 minis

oh, and a PDF copy of the adventure and setting.

Did I mention the Jeff Dee art?

It's not a bad price point but I have some much money tied up in Kickstarter RPG promises.

Eh, maybe I'll ask for it as a birthday present ;)

The OSR Made a Great Showing on Free RPG Day 2013

Let's look at the RPG products actually offered for Free RPG Day in Print - which means we cross off the retailer shirt, the dice tower and the Chessex and Q Workshop Dice. Which brings the 16 offerings down to 12.

The Cosmic Patrol Quickstart is a left over from last year and the Tuese'al Quickstart is only per box, so it's presence is negligible. If we remove them from the count, we really have 10 products being offered in print and new.

Of those 10, 4 are solidly OSR, and as I consider Tunnels & Trolls to be OSR, it's actually 5 out of 10.

"Hall of Bones" for Swords & Wizardry

"Better Than Any Man" for LotFP's Weird Fanyasy

The DCC / XCrawl Double Adventure from Goodman Games

"A Pot of Broken Bones and Halfling Broth": for Castles & Crusades

and lastly "Fire Dwarves of Zorr" for dT&T

not a bad showing at all.

Even RPGNow Recognizes the Death of Free RPG Day 2013 PDFs

How do I know they recognize it? They sent out an email titled "Hundreds of FREE RPG Quickstarts, Maps, Adventures & more!". Many of the items linked? You guessed it - they are from previous years' Free RPG Day promotions.

I'm not complaining about the links. Free is free. I'm just surprised how little attention was paid to the PDF side of Free RPG Day this year, especially for the gamers outside the states.

Some of the grouped links sent by RPGNow:

Quickstarts

Adventures

Maps

The above links are free all of the time, not just for Free RPG Day.

Where Are the "Free RPG Day" PDFs?

This is the first year I haven't seen talk of Free RPG Day PDFs, but it's always possible I'm looking in the wrong places.

Some publishers don't do PDF versions, and some that wait a week or two to release them, but usually there's some info on them.

Ah well.

Missed out on the Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls adventure and the Goodman Games DCC / XCrawl combo at Noble Knight - guess I should have stayed up last night ;)

edit: +Erik Jensen is working on a list of Free RPG Day PDFs

Tell Us About Your Favorite Monster and You May Win a PDF Copy of "Monsters & Magic"

Thanks to the generosity of Mindjammer Press I have a PDF copy of Monsters & Magic to give away.

All you need to do it comment below about your favorite monster and why it rates that way. See, pretty simple.

For me, its the Flumpf, because it's the first thing I think of when I think of D&D monsters. The Fiend Folio was my first monster book, even before the Monster Manual, and the flumph sticks out as the most useless creature one could ever dream up. For some stupid reason, I still love it ;)

So, comment below before 10 PM NYC time on June 16, 2013 (that's this coming Sunday) for your chance to win a PDF copy of Monsters & Magic. One random commenter will get the loot.

Appendix N Adventure Toolkits Have Arrived! (DCC RPG Kickstarter Adventure Series)

Lo and behold! I have in my possession five (yes five) copies of The Ruins of Ramat and five (yes five) copies of The Vile Worm!

Brave Halfling is in the house and he's made an excellent showing.

Seriously, as much as i enjoyed reading the PDF copies of both of these, the dead tree versions are simply amazing. Professional covers, striking maps, player handouts, nice art. It's almost like Christmas in July - but it's still June ;)

Sure, they would have been nice at Christmas, but I'm happy to have them now.

So, why all of the copies of Appendix N? For the summer of DCC RPG Contests silly! I still have some dead tree copies of DCC Adventures donated by Thick Skull and Purple Duck - so yes, I will be frequenting the post office this summer.

What will be the contest themes? Damn to all heck if I know, but we'll figure that out in time :)

If There's One Thing I Can't Stand It's Blatant IP Theft...

There is an author blatantly ripping off the Mystara setting for her line of fiction. Amazingly enough, she has been getting away with it for years (oh, and stealing art and maps too while she's at it.

+Timothy Brannan has the details here and here at the Other Side Blog and more at the Mystara Facebook Page.

I'm surprised Wizards dropped the ball on this one for as long as they have.

Just adding my voice to increase the volume...

A Kickstarter Whose Call I Need to Resist - Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition

Call of Cthulhu is one of those great games that I never play and pretty much know I never will. I have an earlier boxed set and the 6th edition softcover (and the D20 C0C book and campaign book).

I love to read the associated adventures and even kicked in for the Horror on the Orient Express for $70.

Do I really need yet another edition of the rules that I'll probably never get to play?

Maybe, but I am sure as hell trying to resist the luring call of the CoC 7th Edition Kickstarter. The sweet point on this one is 100 bucks, and I've got enough already tied up in not yet due / due / overdue / way fucking over due Kickstarters that my wife could probably use it in divorce proceedings if she ever found out ;)

15 days left in this one.

So far I'm doing okay.

Just broke out the 6th edition rules to feed my fix ;)

Review - Monsters & Magic - Part 1 - Familiar Yet Strange (OSR "New Wave" Ruleset)

Alright, I know there really isn't any OSR "New Wave" category or label. Maybe I should have used "OSR / Fate hybrid". Monsters & Magic feels very familiar to the OSR that I know until it doesn't. Maybe I need to explain that a bit.

The intent of the author when writing M&M was to combine the classic feel, gameplay and most importantly (at least from my POV) compatibility to the OSR / Classic / pre 3e adventures and sourcebooks while also including more modern gaming concepts from the "narrative" side of the gaming fence.

I guess Dungeon World does this to some sense, but it really isn't "plug and play" with OSR and classic D&D adventures.

Anyway, back to M&M. It's built on the same classic ability score you know and love. You can even roll 3d6 in order if that's the way you make your players roll.  Score range from 3-18.

M&M includes all of the classic AD&D classes (including all of the usual sub-classes), the usual races (even Gnomes and Half-orcs) and the races have the abilities you expect, even if they are redefined as traits. Heck, it even includes racial restrictions to classes (although if every other race can have clerics, I dont see why halflings can't)

Weapon damage pretty much uses the dice you'd expect. It all feels very familiar, until you realize the system has done away with the d20.

I'll let that sink in for a few seconds, as it's near sacrilege amongst much of the old school.

Monsters & Magic does not use a d20.

Instead, M&M uses 3d6 with modifiers added to the total for task resolution / checks / combat / etc. Which actually makes prefect sense, as the bell curve makes a really high roll (or low one) less likely and makes modifiers more important. Look at that. I'm okay with losing the d20 ;)

Did I mention you have two types of hit points, physical and mental? You even get different sized hit dice to roll.

Interestingly enough, most monsters from classic sources are easy enough to convert to M&M. The more comfortable you are with the idea that "close enough" is good enough, the easier the conversion process. That goes with converting characters and NPCs over too. The play is different but the "data" need to run things is pretty much the same, its just the interpretation that differs.

Time to break for the moment. In part II I'll start by talking about "Advancements", which are sorta like powers, feats, skills - and then some. They are integral in personalizing your PC. Oh, and I'll "scales of play", which includes domain level play and more. And of course the more "narrative" aspects of play such as effect points.

Monsters & Magic is a very similar and very different take on the D&D I know.

(Hey, I have a free PDF copy of Monsters & Magic to give away! - expect a post later tonight on the give-away)

When Did You Play Your First RPG Session?

I remember my first RPG session very clearly. It was a one on one session with my friend Kenny as the DM and me with my fighter Cyrus. AD&D DMG, dice and graph paper. Not even a Player's Handbook.

I THINK is was during the 7th grade, after school one winter day, but I'm not 100% sure it was the 7th grade. There is a small chance it could have been 8th grade. Still, most likely my first RPG session was in early 1980.

I would have been 12.

Over 33 years ago.

I did have a huge gap from March of 1997 to late 2007 where I didn't game. I bought, I collected and I read, but I didn't game. I had no group until I took the plunge into Fantasy Grounds 2.

Hmm, so about 23 years of gaming in that stretch. About half a lifetime, as I turn 46 this summer.

I guess I need to make up for that 10 year gap ;)

So, what year did the world of RPGs open up for you?

Mini Review: d20pfsrd.com Presents Open Gaming Monthly #3 (OGL Magazine)

Let me preface this with the following observation: I did not expect this Pathfinder centric magazine to fit my gaming needs and for the most part it met those exceptions.

Moving on to the review:

d20pfsrd.com presents Open Gaming Monthly #3 is an OGL magazine, but the truth is it's pretty much Pathfinder (there is an M&M article). It's well put together, attractive to look at and the articles that are generic / statblock-less are pretty. It's a nautical / pirate themed issue, so it has a lot that would fit into a Razor Coast / Pathfinder game (Swords & Wizardry GMs have their work cut out for them converting).

My highlight was Port Parley, a shared world article. I'd need to go back and grab issues 1 and 2 to see if it's a regular feature, but I assume it is. I like world building. I like new worlds. This was cool.

I'd guess most of this issue would be awesome for Pathfinder players, but in truth, all OGM #3 did for me is remind me why I don't play Pathfinder - a creature's stat block can take up an entire page, endless feats, magic items that can use their own chapter (alright, I'm exaggerating, but not by much).

Actually, before I got back into actually gaming, 3.5 and Pathfinder seemed like cool systems. Once I returned to the fold, I found the complications to be an albatross around my ability to actual play the game.

Yeah, I know, old age and all that shit.

If you are skilled at Pathfinder, this actually looks like an awesome magazine for you. If you don't mind converting Pathfinder to a more OSR suitable format, this isn't a bad investment. For folks like me, there's too much work needed to put this in a format that fits my needs.