So does anybody know the timeline on this game's release? I've read things talking about Gencon being a limited release. Is that when I'm going to be able to buy a full fledged pdf online and/or a hardcopy on Amazon, or am I going to have to wait until after that. Indianapolis is only 4 hours away, but the only day of Gencon I'd be able to go to is on Sunday. I'm potentially interested enough to make that drive on a whim (I've never been to Gencon, but Sunday's the boring day I hear), but if I drove four hours there and payed a fee ultimately to buy a copy of a game that they had run out of, the resulting rage might unmake aspects of reality.
So does anybody know the timeline on this game's release? I've read things talking about Gencon being a limited release. Is that when I'm going to be able to buy a full fledged pdf online and/or a hardcopy on Amazon, or am I going to have to wait until after that. Indianapolis is only 4 hours away, but the only day of Gencon I'd be able to go to is on Sunday. I'm potentially interested enough to make that drive on a whim (I've never been to Gencon, but Sunday's the boring day I hear), but if I drove four hours there and payed a fee ultimately to buy a copy of a game that they had run out of, the resulting rage might unmake aspects of reality.
And we wouldn't want that.
This will be my 4th trip to GenCon. Sunday is the "everyone is stumbling around recovering" day. If you want to experience GenCon, Sunday is NOT the day to go. Friday or Saturday is normally the best. If you are looking for something with a limited release, then you need to be there Thursday at 10am when the hall opens. Really popular things can run out within a half hour.
I recall one year I was going through the Wizards of the Coast line to get a new Star Wars Saga book that was being released, only to hear people ahead of me suddenly cry out in terror as they ran out of the new DnD miniatures set that was being released. This was within 40 minutes of the Exhibitor Hall doors opening.
I remember seeing something about an RPG in the works called "Synapse". It apparently had no stock races, instead you used a point-buy system to build your character's race from a list of genetic options with varying costs.
Now, apparently Synapse is a thing that does not exist anymore. Are there any finished games that contain such a system?
I remember seeing something about an RPG in the works called "Synapse". It apparently had no stock races, instead you used a point-buy system to build your character's race from a list of genetic options with varying costs.
Now, apparently Synapse is a thing that does not exist anymore. Are there any finished games that contain such a system?
So does anybody know the timeline on this game's release? I've read things talking about Gencon being a limited release. Is that when I'm going to be able to buy a full fledged pdf online and/or a hardcopy on Amazon, or am I going to have to wait until after that. Indianapolis is only 4 hours away, but the only day of Gencon I'd be able to go to is on Sunday. I'm potentially interested enough to make that drive on a whim (I've never been to Gencon, but Sunday's the boring day I hear), but if I drove four hours there and payed a fee ultimately to buy a copy of a game that they had run out of, the resulting rage might unmake aspects of reality.
And we wouldn't want that.
I'm pretty sure it's a October release normally.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
I remember seeing something about an RPG in the works called "Synapse". It apparently had no stock races, instead you used a point-buy system to build your character's race from a list of genetic options with varying costs.
Now, apparently Synapse is a thing that does not exist anymore. Are there any finished games that contain such a system?
So does anybody know the timeline on this game's release? I've read things talking about Gencon being a limited release. Is that when I'm going to be able to buy a full fledged pdf online and/or a hardcopy on Amazon, or am I going to have to wait until after that. Indianapolis is only 4 hours away, but the only day of Gencon I'd be able to go to is on Sunday. I'm potentially interested enough to make that drive on a whim (I've never been to Gencon, but Sunday's the boring day I hear), but if I drove four hours there and payed a fee ultimately to buy a copy of a game that they had run out of, the resulting rage might unmake aspects of reality.
And we wouldn't want that.
AFAIK all the pre release ones might already be spoken for, so I wouldn't worry about it. But they still might be running games.
Not an Exalted fan personally, but the designers are saying the right things, given the problems even Exalted fans acknowledge is present in the system as it stands.
The Creation Ruling Mandate is included in the Core.
Dragon-Blooded will have Bending Charms.
The Realm will be returning to it's rightful status as the Final Boss of Creation.
AFAIK all the pre release ones might already be spoken for, so I wouldn't worry about it. But they still might be running games.
After further consideration, I've decided to try and take Thursday night off and make a day of it. Friday and Saturday are not options, but I can probably at least get one day. If I can snag a copy by going there cool. If not, well I'll just try to have fun at Gencon for a day. I'm sure I can manage that.
This will be my 4th trip to GenCon. Sunday is the "everyone is stumbling around recovering" day. If you want to experience GenCon, Sunday is NOT the day to go. Friday or Saturday is normally the best. If you are looking for something with a limited release, then you need to be there Thursday at 10am when the hall opens. Really popular things can run out within a half hour.
Gen Conners unite (I'm pretty sure this is my 15th year). Indeed, anything limited disappears really early on if the community has gotten so much as a whiff of it. If it's a limited Gen Con run, it'll sell out. If WotC is releasing something at the con a month or two early, it'll sell out (or they'll ration it and it'll sell out within minutes each day). Gen Con is great for a lot of things, but guaranteed purchases of new material is not it. I think it's just not worth anyone hauling a metric fuckton of books to Indianapolis, with the only notable exception in my mind being the Pathfinder release which had gigantic stacks of books and huge lines.
This is the first year in a while where I'm not going to Gen Con with a goal in mind. All the games I'm interested in playing filled up like immediately, and I couldn't give a damn about WotC D&D 5e news so there's little to get hyped about. I'll probably pick up random games to read, try to get all buddy buddy with whoever affiliated with 13th Age is around, and probably make a fool of myself in at least one fighter tourney.
I'm glad someone else is running this. I'm curious if you did any of the intro adventures before jumping right into a campaign? I'm taking one of my 4e groups (and perhaps another group on Sunday) through chargen and the combat scrum tomorrow before we dive in, but I'm psyched. I'll try to remember to post something about how it goes, if life doesn't happen.
3DS: 2466-2307-8384 PSN: bssteph Steam:bsstephanTwitch:bsstephan Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e Occasional words about games:my site
I'm glad someone else is running this. I'm curious if you did any of the intro adventures before jumping right into a campaign? I'm taking one of my 4e groups (and perhaps another group on Sunday) through chargen and the combat scrum tomorrow before we dive in, but I'm psyched. I'll try to remember to post something about how it goes, if life doesn't happen.
Nah, we jumped right into a campaign because I am a masochist and a fool.
Reminds me, I meant to post a list of the magical items I gave the 5 characters present, still trying to decide what I'm going to give the sixth one if he shows up this Saturday.
For the pacifist bard: A lantern that casts darkness instead of light. The flame is still visible to the eye (MAGIC!!!!), but it and any flames lit from it will absorb light in the same amount a normal flame of equal size would cast.
For the reincarnated sorcerer: A knife with which he can harm himself to heal others in an equal amount -- this includes an ability to, gods forbid, sever an entire limb in order to allow someone else to regrow that same limb.
For the rogue-turned-paladin: A ring. When he takes it off, he immediately teleports to the place where he put it on. The ring stays behind, but could theoretically be recovered should the opportunity arise.
For the war-wounded cleric: A hammer that allows him to trade AC for BAB.
For the one-eyed fighter: A flask. If he fills it up (with any liquid) and takes a drink, he may instantly understand one thing about the next person who drinks from that flask. The drink must be taken directly from the flask, but the target need not be aware of the flask's purpose. Basically, free mind-reading if the effort can be put in to arrange the circumstances.
"And then the ghost of the murdered detective possessed the body of the Cyborg Velociraptor that had killed him"
Tonight we played "Danger Patrol!". Which is an amazing and exciting game for one shots. It follows the format of pulp adventures, meaning that you don't have to justify how or why a thing would happen, you just do it because it is fucking awesome. Someone make a grand entrance by crashing their rocket cycle through the wall? Then who cares if the room is in the basement, cause it is AWESEOME and Pulp Fiction. The setup of a TV show also adds a lot of convience... you start out with a "Last time on Danger Patrol!" segment, where the players narrate a few quick flashback scenes from the last episode (which was not actually played). This gives the players the power to help set up the story for this weeks game. It also sets up the expectation that the session will end on a cliff hanger, allowing the session to end on a high note.
And the empowerment of the players is a constant theme of the game. I had several ideas of where I was going to take the story, but it turns out with the players contributing so much I didn't need to. As the GM I felt I was more curating and narrating a story created by the players than guiding the players through a story of my creation, although a few times I had to say no or change something around. At the start of the game the players had somehow settled on a hardboiled detective noir style, which I felt wouldn't fit the system, but with careful retelling of things the players said happened, I was able to bring it back to 1950's Sci Fi Pulp. Every turn they have the option of adding d6's to be rolled. Each d6 added this way represents a higher element of danger, usually narrated by them. Which means the players themselves took over a lot of story creation and dangers in combat.
Overall, Amazing game; look forward to the next opportunity to play it. Next Week we'll be playing GHOST/ECHO.
weirdspaceshipsi will eat your still-beating heartRegistered Userregular
We recently picked up Mars Colony and had a really good time with it. It's basically a two-player politically themed game, where you play a politician on Mars attempting to save the Earth colony, implementing plans and action to deal with the problems. However, if the dice roll bad, you might lose a ton of progress (and you're only allowed so many rolls before the game ends, so they have to count), so you have the option of lying to the public and covering things up, which will bump your progress up anyway. However, the more you do that, the more likely there is to be a scandal, and you lose all of your points based on lies!
I played the Savior, and our Health Markers were "terrorism, corruption, and radiation." I picked radiation, wanting to balance out the social threats with a more physical one.
Ho boy. Turned out, District 5 was really poor and suffering from the radiation leaks, people were dying left and right, and shit was just bad. So they were bombing the hell out of the other districts and trying to get their message out. I first dealt with the corruption of the government (Mars Colony has each player write Fear Cards, things they fear about their actual, real-life government, for inspiration, and we had a lot of "they care more about money than us, corporations are people, no one cares about the poor," etc.) by forcing the current asshole mayor and all lobbyists to print out and declare where they were spending money, where it was coming from, and also to track all expenditures. This stopped the mayor from letting companies buy out votes and prime real-estate in an already crippled colony. Then, radiation and terrorism were neck and neck, each feeding off of each other. I had built up quite a bit of Deception (it's what you get when you lie), and even one scandal would have ended the game prematurely for me. I gave District 5 shitty medicine and placebos, telling them their problems would be fixed with time, blah blah lip service, until we could actually get in there and fix shit.
In the end, I solved three of the five Health Markers, travelling back to earth and letting the now de-corrupt-ified government deal with the funding issue (I spent a ton of money) and the energy issue (finding alternative sources besides the colony's radioactive fusion engine caused a lot of rolling blackouts until things got stable, but at least people weren't fucking dying ) and with the colony's full admiration and support.
The game takes maybe an hour and a half, and it's only 6 bucks. I really recommend it.
I enjoyed it and my players all seemed to as well. After getting through chargen and the usual "why are you all together?" song and dance (which we kind of glossed over, in retrospect), they barged into a hamlet, confused/riled up the locals, and got pointed towards the goblins terrorizing the populace before heading out. This was pretty hilarious, especially with the "fail forward" concepts. The one player's unique take on NPC negotiations in a fail forward situation pretty much killed the table in laughter. Great times.
This was followed by a bit of adventuring skill checks and then combat, which went mostly smoothly although there were some wrinkles. The dragonborn player wasn't keen on the 1d3 targets for his breath weapon, and preferred a reliable 2 --- a house rule I can get behind. The pet ranger player felt like his damage didn't compare well, though he was rolling low and I wonder how he'd scale after a couple levels. Relative distances, and especially engage/disengage, felt a bit janky, but since we usually play 4e I think it was just a bit unfamiliar to us. Maybe it gets smoother with familiarity.
Moreover though I can't shake the feeling that I did the mook rules wrong. @Gandalf_the_Crazed, am I supposed to track which individual mooks are engaged with each PC, despite their generally being a mass of bodies with one set of hit points? It felt a bit overpowered for the mooks to unerringly engage the entire front line, especially since they went first in combat, totally cutting off any kind of intercept opportunity. Did I miss something?
Despite that I think combat still went favorably. The escalation die is pretty cool in practice, in contrast to me being a bit skeptical on it when reading the rules.
I'm not surprised by this, but the icons and icon relationships are even more awesome in practice; between them and the free-form backgrounds, I really think the non-combat parts of the game take a great life of their own. Really pleased and impressed by those mechanics.
All in all, it had some rough edges but was overall very good. Everyone would play it again, and now I have to decide how I want to juggle it and the 4e game I'm running with them. I need to work on fail forward and not leading the PCs too much, on the other hand I need to remind them to just try something and see how it plays out/works mechanically rather than asking if they can do/know/find something. With all the out-of-combat options we have, we're still stuck a bit too much in the 4e mindset.
Really positive on the game though. I can't wait for the real release, because if there's one thing I really wanted of the game tonight, it was a real GM screen with all the handy improv tables.
3DS: 2466-2307-8384 PSN: bssteph Steam:bsstephanTwitch:bsstephan Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e Occasional words about games:my site
Moreover though I can't shake the feeling that I did the mook rules wrong. @Gandalf_the_Crazed, am I supposed to track which individual mooks are engaged with each PC, despite their generally being a mass of bodies with one set of hit points? It felt a bit overpowered for the mooks to unerringly engage the entire front line, especially since they went first in combat, totally cutting off any kind of intercept opportunity. Did I miss something?
Uh, heh. To be honest, I'm not sure. I wildly underestimated my players -- I tried to underpower their first encounter, and apparently rolled a critical success on that endeavor. :P As a result, all 17 mooks were dead before they could legitimately engage with any of the players.
I'm not surprised by this, but the icons and icon relationships are even more awesome in practice; between them and the free-form backgrounds, I really think the non-combat parts of the game take a great life of their own. Really pleased and impressed by those mechanics.
This, so much of this. Our Paladin grew up among thieves and liars, so he has a very Rogue skillset. It makes for great RP.
I expect that in any other system I use, I'll hack in the 13th Age Backgrounds and Icon Relationships. Something like Paranoia might be an exception, but that's mostly because you're not supposed to have a "character" in Paranoia, just a puppet.
Moreover though I can't shake the feeling that I did the mook rules wrong. @Gandalf_the_Crazed, am I supposed to track which individual mooks are engaged with each PC, despite their generally being a mass of bodies with one set of hit points? It felt a bit overpowered for the mooks to unerringly engage the entire front line, especially since they went first in combat, totally cutting off any kind of intercept opportunity. Did I miss something?
Uh, heh. To be honest, I'm not sure. I wildly underestimated my players -- I tried to underpower their first encounter, and apparently rolled a critical success on that endeavor. :P As a result, all 17 mooks were dead before they could legitimately engage with any of the players.
Hah. I had a similar experience, I think --- the combat scrum is kind of set up to be something that drains most of the characters' resources, but they came out of it pretty well, and that was after the wizard rolled a fumble on his sleep that would have taken out most of the mooks. I guess that's the consequence of playing with people who are much more adept at combat.
I don't see anything that suggests I had done things wrong with the mooks, so I'm thinking it's just a preconception thing. In any event, I've got a short list of feedback to send off to the guys. I'm hoping my one player gets back to me, since he was playing a monk and they're specifically looking for feedback on it.
I'm not surprised by this, but the icons and icon relationships are even more awesome in practice; between them and the free-form backgrounds, I really think the non-combat parts of the game take a great life of their own. Really pleased and impressed by those mechanics.
This, so much of this. Our Paladin grew up among thieves and liars, so he has a very Rogue skillset. It makes for great RP.
I expect that in any other system I use, I'll hack in the 13th Age Backgrounds and Icon Relationships. Something like Paranoia might be an exception, but that's mostly because you're not supposed to have a "character" in Paranoia, just a puppet.
Yeah, I'd absolutely use the backgrounds system in 4e or anything else d20, and icon relationships could port to anything well. The concept of fail forward is not new to the system, but it is equally great.
3DS: 2466-2307-8384 PSN: bssteph Steam:bsstephanTwitch:bsstephan Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e Occasional words about games:my site
Anyone wanna run a Mutants and Masterminds game? I really want to play in a good 'ole fashion superhero campaign. Might end up having to run Pearl City again if no one starts one soon!
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AssuranIs swinging on the SpiralRegistered Userregular
Been rereading the V:TM books again while I work on my Phalla for inspiration. I forgot how much I loved this game, especially before the game got overrun with the metaplot starting with the week of Nightmares.
Though I started with Rifts in 6th grade, I think Vampire was my first true game crush when we found it in high school.
I think I'm weird, in that DnD, though played occasionally, wasn't my gaming groups game of choice until I was in college. Before that, we played Rifts, Vampire, Call of Cthulu, and Deadlands, with Vampire and Rifts being the big 2.
Oh, neat, Monte Cook has the website up for his new game world, Numenera.
Numenera is a science fantasy roleplaying game set in the far distant future. Humanity lives amid the remnants of eight great civilizations that have risen and fallen on Earth. These are the people of the Ninth World. This new world is filled with remnants of all the former worlds: bits of nanotechnology, the dataweb threaded among still-orbiting satellites, bio-engineered creatures, and myriad strange and wondrous devices. These remnants have become known as the numenera.
Player characters explore this world of mystery and danger to find these leftover artifacts of the past, not to dwell upon the old ways, but to help forge their new destinies, utilizing the so-called “magic” of the past to create a promising future.
PMAvers on
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I am immediately skeptical of any work which uses the phrase "so-called 'magic'". I mean I know, sufficiently advanced technology and all that, but I dislike attempts to bludgeon the distinction away.
Maybe it'll be cool.
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ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
Not an Exalted fan personally, but the designers are saying the right things, given the problems even Exalted fans acknowledge is present in the system as it stands.
The Creation Ruling Mandate is included in the Core.
Dragon-Blooded will have Bending Charms.
The Realm will be returning to it's rightful status as the Final Boss of Creation.
I much prefer it as Your Boss than Final Boss but hmm... interesting.
Oh, neat, Monte Cook has the website up for his new game world, Numenera.
Numenera is a science fantasy roleplaying game set in the far distant future. Humanity lives amid the remnants of eight great civilizations that have risen and fallen on Earth. These are the people of the Ninth World. This new world is filled with remnants of all the former worlds: bits of nanotechnology, the dataweb threaded among still-orbiting satellites, bio-engineered creatures, and myriad strange and wondrous devices. These remnants have become known as the numenera.
Player characters explore this world of mystery and danger to find these leftover artifacts of the past, not to dwell upon the old ways, but to help forge their new destinies, utilizing the so-called “magic” of the past to create a promising future.
I wonder if I can have a Sunsword and a Chewbacca-esque friend named Ukla. Because honestly, playing in a Thundarr game setting would be amazing.
The concept does have some appeal... but Monte Cook? Eww. This seems like something that could easily be handled by a system like, say, the pulp adventure RPG Savage Worlds.
... I'm feeling the itch to world build now. Dammit, but I already have so much I need to get do.
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Jeff Rients had that up on his blog. I would play it.
re: Monte Cook, yeah, I'll pass.
Other news, my group has been kicking ass and taking names. Tonight their adventure begins in a dream and will either end with them in jail or fighting roving bands or Ogres who are desecrating holy sites.
On Monday I finished my Pathfinder evil campaign. 3 of my players survived the final battle. Then Asmodeus made them fight to the death to determine who would rule the world. The evil Druid won.
So, now my DM duties are completed, and it is a nice relaxing feeling, knowing that I don't need to be prepped to run in a week. Of course, that's not slowing me down too much, as now its time to turn my attention to building my Legend of Five Rings campaign. I have no timeframe for when I next need to run (as another player is DMing the next campaign), so I'm just slowly building things at this point.
For other stuff, though, next week is GenCon. I've got a bunch of stuff scheduled, but I made sure to leave time in there to wander the exhibition hall and try out all the new games. I am really looking forward to seeing what's out there.
Oh, neat, Monte Cook has the website up for his new game world, Numenera.
Numenera is a science fantasy roleplaying game set in the far distant future. Humanity lives amid the remnants of eight great civilizations that have risen and fallen on Earth. These are the people of the Ninth World. This new world is filled with remnants of all the former worlds: bits of nanotechnology, the dataweb threaded among still-orbiting satellites, bio-engineered creatures, and myriad strange and wondrous devices. These remnants have become known as the numenera.
Player characters explore this world of mystery and danger to find these leftover artifacts of the past, not to dwell upon the old ways, but to help forge their new destinies, utilizing the so-called “magic” of the past to create a promising future.
I wonder if I can have a Sunsword and a Chewbacca-esque friend named Ukla. Because honestly, playing in a Thundarr game setting would be amazing.
That Adventure Time 4E adaptation would have had a much better chance of not being C&D'ed by Wizbro if it had just stuck to races, classes and an adventure rather than verbatim redistributing large chunks of 4E rules.
Tonight's game was Ghost/Echo. It was a successful failure. It was successful in that we discussed why it failed and learned from it. It failed because it didn't have enough structure; but it was interesting to discuss what structure was lacking.
One problem was that we had just played Danger Patrol! last week, which rewards you for upping the danger and failing in awesome ways. Ghost/Echo invites you to define the danger of your failures and the consequences of your actions; but doesn't reward or punish you. This minor difference lead to the group creating epic dangers and failures, but the big payoff never came.
The 3.5/Pathfinder vets felt that the lack of rules structure hindered the game. With only a single resolution mechanic (roll 2d6, choose which die is the danger and which is your action), it forced every action to be a possible bad thing, which created a sense of action paralysis. Why attempt something if it has a better chance of punishing you than helping you. I felt that the lack of story structure hurt the game. Example: I felt we were running a cyberpunk game with the story structure and goals associated with that, while other players thought it was a horror game with the story structure and goals associated with that.
Regardless of what was lacking, it manifested itself with a lack of direction, a lack of synergy in the story, and eventually a lack of interest in the game.
Perhaps the best thing that came out of the session, besides the group discussion about why it failed, was the world we built together. We all want to run more games in that world, but not with this system.
If I was to play this document again, I would open with a discussion with the group about selecting a genre, setting a goal, how to build dangers and some basic world building to get everyone on the same page.
Next week we have a Guest GM running Amber.
Edit: I was asked to also point out that one of our 3.5/Pathfinder fans disliked the lack of a death system.
Lord knows how I randomly stumbled across a mention of it this morning, but it has caught my interest. Very random, character warband narrative based, can be played solo, minis but fairly quick and brutal combat, and this odd reaction system whereby you're only really playing the leader of your warband and the rest are pretty much NPCs reacting via various random dice tables to the action.
Bit of a lack of info out there though and the designers seem pretty insular and stuck in their ways. A symptom of which being that the main community for the game is a fucking Yahoo group. C'mon! It's 2012! I'm not wading through that disorganised mire to find information on your product.
If anyone picks up Legends of the Wulin, let me know how it is. I just recently heard about it and I guess it's out now.
i was in the beta read and i enjoy the game muchly
i have not gotten a chance to play it but man i had a serious itch to, unfortunately my crew aren't big wuxia fans
I honestly don't know much about the game other than the theme sounds cool as shit. And from pics I've seen of the book, it's gorgeous. Would you mind giving a quick overview of how it works?
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weirdspaceshipsi will eat your still-beating heartRegistered Userregular
Tonight's game was Ghost/Echo. It was a successful failure. It was successful in that we discussed why it failed and learned from it. It failed because it didn't have enough structure; but it was interesting to discuss what structure was lacking.
One problem was that we had just played Danger Patrol! last week, which rewards you for upping the danger and failing in awesome ways. Ghost/Echo invites you to define the danger of your failures and the consequences of your actions; but doesn't reward or punish you. This minor difference lead to the group creating epic dangers and failures, but the big payoff never came.
The 3.5/Pathfinder vets felt that the lack of rules structure hindered the game. With only a single resolution mechanic (roll 2d6, choose which die is the danger and which is your action), it forced every action to be a possible bad thing, which created a sense of action paralysis. Why attempt something if it has a better chance of punishing you than helping you. I felt that the lack of story structure hurt the game. Example: I felt we were running a cyberpunk game with the story structure and goals associated with that, while other players thought it was a horror game with the story structure and goals associated with that.
Regardless of what was lacking, it manifested itself with a lack of direction, a lack of synergy in the story, and eventually a lack of interest in the game.
Perhaps the best thing that came out of the session, besides the group discussion about why it failed, was the world we built together. We all want to run more games in that world, but not with this system.
If I was to play this document again, I would open with a discussion with the group about selecting a genre, setting a goal, how to build dangers and some basic world building to get everyone on the same page.
Next week we have a Guest GM running Amber.
Edit: I was asked to also point out that one of our 3.5/Pathfinder fans disliked the lack of a death system.
Sorry to hear you didn't dig G/E! I'm curious to see your group's take on Fiasco, however, should you guys opt to play that one!
Loving these write-ups, by the way!
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Mostlyjoe13Evil, Evil, Jump for joy!Registered Userregular
You know, when Exalted 3rd does finally come out I wouldn't be against running a few online games of it.
G/E wasn't all bad; it was an interesting experiment. I'm thinking of it as a training exercise, actually. If RPG's are a stage, my group is used to Props, scripts, strange assumptions (diaglog spoken while facing the audience can't be heard by other characters), everything you'd expect a production to have. And G/E is a few actors on a street corner without any prep work.
As an addendum to the earlier write up, me and the primary GM were discussing it, and we think that playing G/E really highlighted some issues with our group.
At first I was going to say "We already did Fiasco! Look at my write up!" but it looks like I never actually posted the write up. Which is odd, because I remember writing it. We loved it, and we will be playing it again. If I don't post a write up before then, I'll post it after we replay it and it is fresh in my mind.
Glad you enjoy the write ups . We have Amber, Lady Blackbird, and Fiasco coming up. Shadowrun is being run while I'm at PAX, but I don't think Shadowrun needs a write up.
Posts
So does anybody know the timeline on this game's release? I've read things talking about Gencon being a limited release. Is that when I'm going to be able to buy a full fledged pdf online and/or a hardcopy on Amazon, or am I going to have to wait until after that. Indianapolis is only 4 hours away, but the only day of Gencon I'd be able to go to is on Sunday. I'm potentially interested enough to make that drive on a whim (I've never been to Gencon, but Sunday's the boring day I hear), but if I drove four hours there and payed a fee ultimately to buy a copy of a game that they had run out of, the resulting rage might unmake aspects of reality.
And we wouldn't want that.
This will be my 4th trip to GenCon. Sunday is the "everyone is stumbling around recovering" day. If you want to experience GenCon, Sunday is NOT the day to go. Friday or Saturday is normally the best. If you are looking for something with a limited release, then you need to be there Thursday at 10am when the hall opens. Really popular things can run out within a half hour.
I recall one year I was going through the Wizards of the Coast line to get a new Star Wars Saga book that was being released, only to hear people ahead of me suddenly cry out in terror as they ran out of the new DnD miniatures set that was being released. This was within 40 minutes of the Exhibitor Hall doors opening.
Now, apparently Synapse is a thing that does not exist anymore. Are there any finished games that contain such a system?
The Microlite20 collection has rules for that.
Legend also does the same thing.
Though those might not be what you had in mind.
I'm pretty sure it's a October release normally.
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Haven't seen Legend before...the Track system for class features is a seriously sexy little bit of system.
AFAIK all the pre release ones might already be spoken for, so I wouldn't worry about it. But they still might be running games.
Here's a helpful list of the things we know.
Not on the list:
Dragon-Blooded will have Bending Charms.
The Realm will be returning to it's rightful status as the Final Boss of Creation.
After further consideration, I've decided to try and take Thursday night off and make a day of it. Friday and Saturday are not options, but I can probably at least get one day. If I can snag a copy by going there cool. If not, well I'll just try to have fun at Gencon for a day. I'm sure I can manage that.
Gen Conners unite (I'm pretty sure this is my 15th year). Indeed, anything limited disappears really early on if the community has gotten so much as a whiff of it. If it's a limited Gen Con run, it'll sell out. If WotC is releasing something at the con a month or two early, it'll sell out (or they'll ration it and it'll sell out within minutes each day). Gen Con is great for a lot of things, but guaranteed purchases of new material is not it. I think it's just not worth anyone hauling a metric fuckton of books to Indianapolis, with the only notable exception in my mind being the Pathfinder release which had gigantic stacks of books and huge lines.
This is the first year in a while where I'm not going to Gen Con with a goal in mind. All the games I'm interested in playing filled up like immediately, and I couldn't give a damn about WotC D&D 5e news so there's little to get hyped about. I'll probably pick up random games to read, try to get all buddy buddy with whoever affiliated with 13th Age is around, and probably make a fool of myself in at least one fighter tourney.
I'm glad someone else is running this. I'm curious if you did any of the intro adventures before jumping right into a campaign? I'm taking one of my 4e groups (and perhaps another group on Sunday) through chargen and the combat scrum tomorrow before we dive in, but I'm psyched. I'll try to remember to post something about how it goes, if life doesn't happen.
Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e
Occasional words about games: my site
Nah, we jumped right into a campaign because I am a masochist and a fool.
Reminds me, I meant to post a list of the magical items I gave the 5 characters present, still trying to decide what I'm going to give the sixth one if he shows up this Saturday.
For the reincarnated sorcerer: A knife with which he can harm himself to heal others in an equal amount -- this includes an ability to, gods forbid, sever an entire limb in order to allow someone else to regrow that same limb.
For the rogue-turned-paladin: A ring. When he takes it off, he immediately teleports to the place where he put it on. The ring stays behind, but could theoretically be recovered should the opportunity arise.
For the war-wounded cleric: A hammer that allows him to trade AC for BAB.
For the one-eyed fighter: A flask. If he fills it up (with any liquid) and takes a drink, he may instantly understand one thing about the next person who drinks from that flask. The drink must be taken directly from the flask, but the target need not be aware of the flask's purpose. Basically, free mind-reading if the effort can be put in to arrange the circumstances.
Tonight we played "Danger Patrol!". Which is an amazing and exciting game for one shots. It follows the format of pulp adventures, meaning that you don't have to justify how or why a thing would happen, you just do it because it is fucking awesome. Someone make a grand entrance by crashing their rocket cycle through the wall? Then who cares if the room is in the basement, cause it is AWESEOME and Pulp Fiction. The setup of a TV show also adds a lot of convience... you start out with a "Last time on Danger Patrol!" segment, where the players narrate a few quick flashback scenes from the last episode (which was not actually played). This gives the players the power to help set up the story for this weeks game. It also sets up the expectation that the session will end on a cliff hanger, allowing the session to end on a high note.
And the empowerment of the players is a constant theme of the game. I had several ideas of where I was going to take the story, but it turns out with the players contributing so much I didn't need to. As the GM I felt I was more curating and narrating a story created by the players than guiding the players through a story of my creation, although a few times I had to say no or change something around. At the start of the game the players had somehow settled on a hardboiled detective noir style, which I felt wouldn't fit the system, but with careful retelling of things the players said happened, I was able to bring it back to 1950's Sci Fi Pulp. Every turn they have the option of adding d6's to be rolled. Each d6 added this way represents a higher element of danger, usually narrated by them. Which means the players themselves took over a lot of story creation and dangers in combat.
Overall, Amazing game; look forward to the next opportunity to play it. Next Week we'll be playing GHOST/ECHO.
A list of things, should you be of the gifting persuasion
I played the Savior, and our Health Markers were "terrorism, corruption, and radiation." I picked radiation, wanting to balance out the social threats with a more physical one.
Ho boy. Turned out, District 5 was really poor and suffering from the radiation leaks, people were dying left and right, and shit was just bad. So they were bombing the hell out of the other districts and trying to get their message out. I first dealt with the corruption of the government (Mars Colony has each player write Fear Cards, things they fear about their actual, real-life government, for inspiration, and we had a lot of "they care more about money than us, corporations are people, no one cares about the poor," etc.) by forcing the current asshole mayor and all lobbyists to print out and declare where they were spending money, where it was coming from, and also to track all expenditures. This stopped the mayor from letting companies buy out votes and prime real-estate in an already crippled colony. Then, radiation and terrorism were neck and neck, each feeding off of each other. I had built up quite a bit of Deception (it's what you get when you lie), and even one scandal would have ended the game prematurely for me. I gave District 5 shitty medicine and placebos, telling them their problems would be fixed with time, blah blah lip service, until we could actually get in there and fix shit.
In the end, I solved three of the five Health Markers, travelling back to earth and letting the now de-corrupt-ified government deal with the funding issue (I spent a ton of money) and the energy issue (finding alternative sources besides the colony's radioactive fusion engine caused a lot of rolling blackouts until things got stable, but at least people weren't fucking dying ) and with the colony's full admiration and support.
The game takes maybe an hour and a half, and it's only 6 bucks. I really recommend it.
I enjoyed it and my players all seemed to as well. After getting through chargen and the usual "why are you all together?" song and dance (which we kind of glossed over, in retrospect), they barged into a hamlet, confused/riled up the locals, and got pointed towards the goblins terrorizing the populace before heading out. This was pretty hilarious, especially with the "fail forward" concepts. The one player's unique take on NPC negotiations in a fail forward situation pretty much killed the table in laughter. Great times.
This was followed by a bit of adventuring skill checks and then combat, which went mostly smoothly although there were some wrinkles. The dragonborn player wasn't keen on the 1d3 targets for his breath weapon, and preferred a reliable 2 --- a house rule I can get behind. The pet ranger player felt like his damage didn't compare well, though he was rolling low and I wonder how he'd scale after a couple levels. Relative distances, and especially engage/disengage, felt a bit janky, but since we usually play 4e I think it was just a bit unfamiliar to us. Maybe it gets smoother with familiarity.
Moreover though I can't shake the feeling that I did the mook rules wrong. @Gandalf_the_Crazed, am I supposed to track which individual mooks are engaged with each PC, despite their generally being a mass of bodies with one set of hit points? It felt a bit overpowered for the mooks to unerringly engage the entire front line, especially since they went first in combat, totally cutting off any kind of intercept opportunity. Did I miss something?
Despite that I think combat still went favorably. The escalation die is pretty cool in practice, in contrast to me being a bit skeptical on it when reading the rules.
I'm not surprised by this, but the icons and icon relationships are even more awesome in practice; between them and the free-form backgrounds, I really think the non-combat parts of the game take a great life of their own. Really pleased and impressed by those mechanics.
All in all, it had some rough edges but was overall very good. Everyone would play it again, and now I have to decide how I want to juggle it and the 4e game I'm running with them. I need to work on fail forward and not leading the PCs too much, on the other hand I need to remind them to just try something and see how it plays out/works mechanically rather than asking if they can do/know/find something. With all the out-of-combat options we have, we're still stuck a bit too much in the 4e mindset.
Really positive on the game though. I can't wait for the real release, because if there's one thing I really wanted of the game tonight, it was a real GM screen with all the handy improv tables.
Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e
Occasional words about games: my site
Uh, heh. To be honest, I'm not sure. I wildly underestimated my players -- I tried to underpower their first encounter, and apparently rolled a critical success on that endeavor. :P As a result, all 17 mooks were dead before they could legitimately engage with any of the players.
This, so much of this. Our Paladin grew up among thieves and liars, so he has a very Rogue skillset. It makes for great RP.
I expect that in any other system I use, I'll hack in the 13th Age Backgrounds and Icon Relationships. Something like Paranoia might be an exception, but that's mostly because you're not supposed to have a "character" in Paranoia, just a puppet.
Hah. I had a similar experience, I think --- the combat scrum is kind of set up to be something that drains most of the characters' resources, but they came out of it pretty well, and that was after the wizard rolled a fumble on his sleep that would have taken out most of the mooks. I guess that's the consequence of playing with people who are much more adept at combat.
I don't see anything that suggests I had done things wrong with the mooks, so I'm thinking it's just a preconception thing. In any event, I've got a short list of feedback to send off to the guys. I'm hoping my one player gets back to me, since he was playing a monk and they're specifically looking for feedback on it.
Yeah, I'd absolutely use the backgrounds system in 4e or anything else d20, and icon relationships could port to anything well. The concept of fail forward is not new to the system, but it is equally great.
Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e
Occasional words about games: my site
2 guys showed up, 1 of them about 20 minutes late.
Discouraging.
Though I started with Rifts in 6th grade, I think Vampire was my first true game crush when we found it in high school.
I think I'm weird, in that DnD, though played occasionally, wasn't my gaming groups game of choice until I was in college. Before that, we played Rifts, Vampire, Call of Cthulu, and Deadlands, with Vampire and Rifts being the big 2.
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Maybe it'll be cool.
I much prefer it as Your Boss than Final Boss but hmm... interesting.
I wonder if I can have a Sunsword and a Chewbacca-esque friend named Ukla. Because honestly, playing in a Thundarr game setting would be amazing.
... I'm feeling the itch to world build now. Dammit, but I already have so much I need to get do.
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re: Monte Cook, yeah, I'll pass.
Other news, my group has been kicking ass and taking names. Tonight their adventure begins in a dream and will either end with them in jail or fighting roving bands or Ogres who are desecrating holy sites.
So, now my DM duties are completed, and it is a nice relaxing feeling, knowing that I don't need to be prepped to run in a week. Of course, that's not slowing me down too much, as now its time to turn my attention to building my Legend of Five Rings campaign. I have no timeframe for when I next need to run (as another player is DMing the next campaign), so I'm just slowly building things at this point.
For other stuff, though, next week is GenCon. I've got a bunch of stuff scheduled, but I made sure to leave time in there to wander the exhibition hall and try out all the new games. I am really looking forward to seeing what's out there.
Did someone say Under The Broken Moon?
It's based on Over The Edge, which is a damn good fit for a setting based on everyone being weird as hell.
One problem was that we had just played Danger Patrol! last week, which rewards you for upping the danger and failing in awesome ways. Ghost/Echo invites you to define the danger of your failures and the consequences of your actions; but doesn't reward or punish you. This minor difference lead to the group creating epic dangers and failures, but the big payoff never came.
The 3.5/Pathfinder vets felt that the lack of rules structure hindered the game. With only a single resolution mechanic (roll 2d6, choose which die is the danger and which is your action), it forced every action to be a possible bad thing, which created a sense of action paralysis. Why attempt something if it has a better chance of punishing you than helping you. I felt that the lack of story structure hurt the game. Example: I felt we were running a cyberpunk game with the story structure and goals associated with that, while other players thought it was a horror game with the story structure and goals associated with that.
Regardless of what was lacking, it manifested itself with a lack of direction, a lack of synergy in the story, and eventually a lack of interest in the game.
Perhaps the best thing that came out of the session, besides the group discussion about why it failed, was the world we built together. We all want to run more games in that world, but not with this system.
If I was to play this document again, I would open with a discussion with the group about selecting a genre, setting a goal, how to build dangers and some basic world building to get everyone on the same page.
Next week we have a Guest GM running Amber.
Edit: I was asked to also point out that one of our 3.5/Pathfinder fans disliked the lack of a death system.
Lord knows how I randomly stumbled across a mention of it this morning, but it has caught my interest. Very random, character warband narrative based, can be played solo, minis but fairly quick and brutal combat, and this odd reaction system whereby you're only really playing the leader of your warband and the rest are pretty much NPCs reacting via various random dice tables to the action.
Wondering if it could be adapted to some battle rules for my Chaos Wastes narrative thingy.
Bit of a lack of info out there though and the designers seem pretty insular and stuck in their ways. A symptom of which being that the main community for the game is a fucking Yahoo group. C'mon! It's 2012! I'm not wading through that disorganised mire to find information on your product.
i was in the beta read and i enjoy the game muchly
i have not gotten a chance to play it but man i had a serious itch to, unfortunately my crew aren't big wuxia fans
I honestly don't know much about the game other than the theme sounds cool as shit. And from pics I've seen of the book, it's gorgeous. Would you mind giving a quick overview of how it works?
Sorry to hear you didn't dig G/E! I'm curious to see your group's take on Fiasco, however, should you guys opt to play that one!
Loving these write-ups, by the way!
As an addendum to the earlier write up, me and the primary GM were discussing it, and we think that playing G/E really highlighted some issues with our group.
At first I was going to say "We already did Fiasco! Look at my write up!" but it looks like I never actually posted the write up. Which is odd, because I remember writing it. We loved it, and we will be playing it again. If I don't post a write up before then, I'll post it after we replay it and it is fresh in my mind.
Glad you enjoy the write ups