Please help support NCMEC

Still not feeling so good, but I woke from a nap to read my emails and found this.

DriveThruRPG is hosting another charity drive.  This time for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/101247/National-Center-for-Missing-%26-Exploited-Children-%5BBUNDLE%5D&affiliate_id=10748&

Here is the information from their site.

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month and DriveThruRPG has partnered with several publishers to raise funds for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Click here to make a donation to this cause and get rewarded with a bundle of products from DriveThruRPG and our publishers

For more information about National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, visit www.missingkids.com.

This is a more than worthy cause and for 25 bucks you also get some great games.

Not feeling well and vote for me!

Hey all.

So I am not feeling so hot today.

But if you can, please vote for me for the RPG Site of The Year over at Surf
http://stuffershack.com/reader-voting-group-1-of-5-for-the-2012-rpg-soty/

For the Poll
http://www.micropoll.com/a/mpview/1096059-2614351

Vote for "The Other Side"!
Thanks.

N is for Not Feeling So Well

Not feeling well today.

If there is an N post it will be later today.

M is for Mutant future

Yesterday I talked about Labyrinth Lord.  Today I want to talk it's sister game Mutant Future.

Mutant Future is not really a Retro-clone, near clone or anything like that.  The closest game game it is like is Gamma World.  Set in a post apocalyptic world, Gamma World has it roots in the dawn of the RPG age and D&D in particular. Filled with mutant animals, plants and humans of all sorts.
Gamma World was fun but it was not a game I played.  One of the reasons was it was close enough to D&D but far enough removed that my teenage self dismissed it as a lesser product.  Stupid I know.

Mutant Future not only doesn't have that issue (it is the exact same rules as Labyrinth Lord) but *I* don't have the same issues.  So Mutant Future then is a new game that feels like an old game that never really existed.

Mutant Future does have some differences from LL. The game is set in a post apocalyptic Earth like Gamma World. Characters can be an Android, synthetic, mutant animals, mutant plant, mutant human or the rare pure human, also like Gamma World. Abilities can go as high as 21 and there are a different set of saving throws, but the basic rules are the same.

So think Mad Max or better yet Adventure Time!
As I mentioned yesterday Labyrinth Lord + Mutant Future = Adventure Time!

Finn is a Pure Human, but everyone else is a mutant of some sort.  Including his magical shape sifting dog Jake.

Jake (for Mutant Future)

8th level Mutant Dog
Age: 26

STR: 15		Energy Attacks: 9
DEX: 16		Poison or Death: 8
CON: 15		Stun: 10
INT: 12		Radiation: 9
WIS: 13		*Saves are very similar to LL
CHA: 15

AC: 6
HP: 52

Mutations:  Stretchy, Growth, Body Adjustment
Increased Intelligence (all dogs have this)

To Hit AC

-6	-5	-4	-3	-2	-1	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5

Equipment: Viol,  picture of his girlfriend Lady Rainicorn

Well the game looks like it is a lot of fun, gotta try it with the boys now!

Happy Friday the 13th!

Picked up Cthulhu by Gaslight in dead tree version today.

As you all know I love Victorian horror.

This is going to sit on my shelves very nicely.  It is going to sit at my table when I play Ghosts of Albion even better.

Sitting on my table next to me in fact is Ghosts of Albion, Cthulhu by Gaslight, Gaslight (OGL), Victoriana (2nd ed) and Victoria.

All are great fun.

L is for Labyrinth Lord

Last Monday I talked about Basic Clones.

Today I want to focus on one of them since it will tie well into tomorrow's M post.

Today L is for Labyrinth Lord.

Again, what is a basic clone?  Well a basic clone is a new game, using new rules to emulate an older game.  In this case the rules are D&D from 2001-ish (called 3.0 or 3.5) to emulate "Basic" D&D from 1980-82.

Why would someone want to play a game that is 20 years old?
Well D&D Basic is long out of print.  D&D 3.x (the 2000s version) is a great game, but the complexity is also much greater.  D&D Basic is easier to learn, faster to play and perfect if you are teaching younger kids how to play.  But I can't buy copies of D&D Basic anymore.

I can buy Labyrinth Lord.

Goblinoid Games is the publisher of LL and in many respects could be considered one of the pioneers of the both the Retro-Clone game (their game GORE simulated Call of Cthulhu) and OSR (Old School Renascence).

Labyrinth Lord specifically is most like the B/X version of Basic, or the Moldvay, Cook/Marsh edited versions.  Which is great because that is the version I enjoyed the most and talked about last year.

You can get Labyrinth Lord in three different "Editions", though all work roughly similar.
Labyrinth Lord - the original.
LL: Advanced Companion - which sets out to emulate AD&D 1st Edition
LL: Original Edition Characters - which emulates the original D&D from 1974

All are compatible with each other, maybe more so than the games they try to emulate.

There is another game, Mutant Future, which uses the LL rules and is the subject of tomorrow's post.

But the one thing that occurs to me is this.  Since LL and Mutant Future do use the same rules, it gives you a chance to do some really weird things.  Actually the first thought I had was this "Labyrinth Lord + Mutant Future = Adventure Time!"

Adventure Time is a cartoon about a human boy named Finn and his magical dog Jake.  It takes place in the land of Ooo which seems to be a post-apocalyptic Earth.   The Dungeons and Dragons elements are all over the place including liches, gelatinous cubes, displacer beasts, dungeons, magic swords, Finn even calls himself a Paladin.   If that is not enough then check this out from Wizards of the Coast, http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4spot/20110408

The world of Finn and Jake is totally D&D...and Gama World.  So if we want one system to do it all it needs to be LL + MF!

Finn  (for Labyrinth Lord)

7th level Human Paladin (Fighter)
Age: 14

STR: 13		Breath Attacks: 9
DEX: 16		Poison or Death: 8
CON: 15		Petrify or Paralyze: 10
INT: 13		Wands: 9
WIS: 12		Spells: 12
CHA: 13

AC: 7
HP: 50

To Hit AC

-6	-5	-4	-3	-2	-1	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5

Sword +1, Backpack, Awesome Hat!

K is for Kids' Games

Last week I talked about Faery's Tale and I have talked about Witch Girls Adventures in the past.
This week I have more games for the younger crowd.

Kids, Castles & Caves

KCC is a very cute game.  It is an interesting one since it is t touch higher on the complexity scale than other "Kids" games.  That is not a complaint, but rather a nice little change.
Anyone familiar enough with any other RPG will pick this one up in about a minute.   Less than that if you eve played Basic D&D.
Classes and Races are the same thing, so you have "Wizard" "Knight" "Dwarf" and the cast of regulars, but also "Fairy" which is nice.
The classes have 3 levels each, which is plenty really since by the time the kids get to level 3 they will be ready for some more grown up games.
Everyone has something they can do every round so that is also good.
The game is simple, easy to learn and use and makes good on it's promise is something you can do with your kids in an afternoon with little to no prep time. At 28 pages it is the perfect length.

If you are a gamer and you have little ones, then this is a great way to introduce to our hobby!

Kids & Critters RPG Trilogy

An absolute steal at this price.

For under 3 bucks you get 3 complete games for kids.  

Tales from the Wood where you play creatures from The Wood.  Think Watership Down.

Lashings of Ginger Beer is about playing a kid in Idyllic England, so it might actually work best for adults.  Most similar to kids adventure tales. 

It's a Dog's LIfe is the best of the three where you play a Prairie Dog out on the American Plains with heavy American Indian/Native American influences.

All three games are simple to learn and easy to play.

These games require a bit more abstraction to play than some other kid games, but nothing a little kid with a great imagination couldn't handle.

Meddling Kids

So what is Meddling Kids? Well it is an introductory RPG for "kids of all ages" but recomended for ages 7 and up. The writing is very clear and concise and frankly one of the better "intro" games I have seen. It is designed as an intro game and is listed as "Stage 1 of the Starter System". I don't know if other stages were produced or not, but the feel here is one of "this is your first game so have some fun, and when you are ready we will have more for you". As with most starter sets there is lot the seasoned (or grizzled in my case) player can ignore, but it was still a very fun, light and fluffy read. 

The premise is simple. You create a teenage mystery-solver who belongs to a clique of other liked minded teens. Like in the TV show that this is so obviously taken from, different teens of various social standing and family incomes mix together well in a group united by their love of solving a mystery. Or maybe it's the talking dog. Or dune buggy. Or chimp. Or genie. Or...you get the idea. If you grew up in the 70s-80s then you know what I mean.

Character creation is simple. You create a background for your character, then are given points for Stats and Abilities. Pretty simple. Since we are talking about cartoons your Teen is put into an Archetype. So think Jock, Brain, Fluff, Goof and so on. 

The system is a simple one of Stat plus a roll based on Abilities plus a d6. Compare to a Target Number or resist the roll of something else.

What sets MK apart though is the use of the "Wild Card" character. This is a character, usually an animal, that hangs with the clique and is run by the GM. Not an NPC or even GMPC (though very close). The Wild Card is the one that helps in the adventure/mystery. So yeah, think Scooby Doo, or even Jabber Jaw or Captain Caveman. It is a fairly clever idea really and one of the only games I have read that encourages a GMPC like character. 

The book is small, less than 100 pages with pretty clear large fonts, so this is not a hefty tome to learn, it is a simple game that does exactly what it sets out to do and it does it rather well.

It is a great game to teach the little guys how to play using something that both parents and kids will know all about.