but there is an afterlife...
First off. Dammit. I hate the word Blogoshpere!
Secondly. No blog is meant to last forever. We come, we go, we leave a little bit of ourselves behind.
I am here to make a humble request of my fellow RPG bloggers out there.
When you decide to leave, first please know that you will be missed.
Secondly, for the love of all that is sane, please either leave you blog in place and turned off or at least do something about your URL.
I was very excited to see that Bree Yark! was back today. http://breeyark.blogspot.com/
Until I actually began to read the posts. Nope. Looks like one of the blogs that people use to either age links of make money. It might be a real person there with real thoughts, but damn it reads like computer generated text.
To quote Frank Zappa:
When you pay the bill, kindly leave a little tip
And help the next poor sucker on this one way trip.
When you leave your blog, leave a little behind for the rest of us.
Like Chgowiz did.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
White Dwarf Wednesday #15
White Dwarf Issue #15, October/November 1979.
White Dwarf #15 is an interesting one for me to do today. First off, it is one of the first WDs I remember ever seeing in the stores (and to this day I can't look at the cover and not hear Ozzy's "Bark at the Moon").
It is also one of the issues I am missing pages of. Page 6/7 and 26/27 have been torn out. Honestly I didn't recall them being missing till I picked it back up to read the Editorial.
Let's jump right in shall we?
Well my issue starts with some ads and then gets into the stalwart of early game zines, an article on HP!
Roger Musson gives us what might be the first "Wounds" system based on Con. It is certainly playable since I have seen dozens of iterations of the same idea over the last few years AND it is as current as posts in my Google Reader today. As good as it is, I am still a "HP as abstraction" kinda guy.
Andy Slack has Part 3 of his Expanding Traveller Universe article. This one is more interesting than last weeks. Lots of cool tables on planets and alien life. Weird, trippy, 70s sci-fi always appeals to me and Traveller encapsulates that.
In the main feature of the magazine is a new board game/mini game called Barbarian from Ian Livingstone. The purpose of this two player game is regain a magical sword and shield of the "Old Fathers". The game is simple (it even says so). There is a two page board, counters and charts. All that is missing are players and dice. One player plays Vaarn the Barbarian, the other plays the creatures trying to stop him. The combat advantage is given to Vaarn, but there are more than one monster to play.
Don Turnbull has an EXCELLENT article on running the "New" D series of modules. Honestly, if I ever run these again I am going to copy this page and stick inside the modules.
Open Box has some new reviews up. Metagaming Microgames has two offerings this month Ice War (5/10) and Black Hole (9/10). Don Turnbull felt that Ice War should have been a bigger game, but Black Hole was a near perfect mini-game. King Arthur's Knights from The Chaosium is not as it turns out a prequel to Pendragon, but one can't help think it influenced it somehow. This is a 16-page mini game that received a 7/10 review from Jacek Gabrielczyk. We are treated to a bunch of Traveller books including 3 from Judges Guild. A mixed bag of Traveller Screen 7/10, Traveller Logbook 9/10 and Starships,and Spacecraft 5/10. We also get Animal Encounters from Game Designers' Workshop 9/10.
It was certainly a great time to be a Traveller fan in late 1979.
Treasure Chest gives us a very cool height and weight based on race and strength table. So good in fact that I did Xerox this one! We also get an alternate undead draining table that drains Abilities. It is different than the one I have done, but the idea is the same.
Fiend Factory is back with an acknowledgement of all the letters it has been bringing in of late. Don Turnbull mentions that he is keeping a eye on the quality and hopes that the feature continues to give us good monsters. Some monsters have Monster Marks, others do not. What do we get this issue? Well...we get a metal sphere that spits fire in the form of the Heat Monster. The Dragon Dog (related to dragons and the Hell Hound) and the Tacharnid (which has no stats). Next is the weird Russian Doll monster. This thing starts as an Ogre till you do 10 points of damage to it, then the skin peels off and it's now a Bugbear, 9 points later a Gnoll, 8 points later an Orc...you get the idea till we end up with a kobold of 4 hp AND then till we get to the very end, to discover it was a Leprechaun operating the monster from the inside. They went ahead and calculated it's Monster Mark and it comes out to be as much of a challenge as a Stone Giant (OD&D). We round up the lot with a Time Freezer, a monster that can freeze time, to at least one creature. And the Pebble Gnome, a gnome completely immune to magic of all sorts.
This marks the 10th issue of Fiend Factory. Coming up is the top 10 as voted on by readers.
And finally. Ads.
Next up, end of the 70s, beginning of the 80s and when yours truly discovers this cool/odd little game.
It is also one of the issues I am missing pages of. Page 6/7 and 26/27 have been torn out. Honestly I didn't recall them being missing till I picked it back up to read the Editorial.
Let's jump right in shall we?
Well my issue starts with some ads and then gets into the stalwart of early game zines, an article on HP!
Roger Musson gives us what might be the first "Wounds" system based on Con. It is certainly playable since I have seen dozens of iterations of the same idea over the last few years AND it is as current as posts in my Google Reader today. As good as it is, I am still a "HP as abstraction" kinda guy.
Andy Slack has Part 3 of his Expanding Traveller Universe article. This one is more interesting than last weeks. Lots of cool tables on planets and alien life. Weird, trippy, 70s sci-fi always appeals to me and Traveller encapsulates that.
In the main feature of the magazine is a new board game/mini game called Barbarian from Ian Livingstone. The purpose of this two player game is regain a magical sword and shield of the "Old Fathers". The game is simple (it even says so). There is a two page board, counters and charts. All that is missing are players and dice. One player plays Vaarn the Barbarian, the other plays the creatures trying to stop him. The combat advantage is given to Vaarn, but there are more than one monster to play.
Don Turnbull has an EXCELLENT article on running the "New" D series of modules. Honestly, if I ever run these again I am going to copy this page and stick inside the modules.
Open Box has some new reviews up. Metagaming Microgames has two offerings this month Ice War (5/10) and Black Hole (9/10). Don Turnbull felt that Ice War should have been a bigger game, but Black Hole was a near perfect mini-game. King Arthur's Knights from The Chaosium is not as it turns out a prequel to Pendragon, but one can't help think it influenced it somehow. This is a 16-page mini game that received a 7/10 review from Jacek Gabrielczyk. We are treated to a bunch of Traveller books including 3 from Judges Guild. A mixed bag of Traveller Screen 7/10, Traveller Logbook 9/10 and Starships,and Spacecraft 5/10. We also get Animal Encounters from Game Designers' Workshop 9/10.
It was certainly a great time to be a Traveller fan in late 1979.
Treasure Chest gives us a very cool height and weight based on race and strength table. So good in fact that I did Xerox this one! We also get an alternate undead draining table that drains Abilities. It is different than the one I have done, but the idea is the same.
Fiend Factory is back with an acknowledgement of all the letters it has been bringing in of late. Don Turnbull mentions that he is keeping a eye on the quality and hopes that the feature continues to give us good monsters. Some monsters have Monster Marks, others do not. What do we get this issue? Well...we get a metal sphere that spits fire in the form of the Heat Monster. The Dragon Dog (related to dragons and the Hell Hound) and the Tacharnid (which has no stats). Next is the weird Russian Doll monster. This thing starts as an Ogre till you do 10 points of damage to it, then the skin peels off and it's now a Bugbear, 9 points later a Gnoll, 8 points later an Orc...you get the idea till we end up with a kobold of 4 hp AND then till we get to the very end, to discover it was a Leprechaun operating the monster from the inside. They went ahead and calculated it's Monster Mark and it comes out to be as much of a challenge as a Stone Giant (OD&D). We round up the lot with a Time Freezer, a monster that can freeze time, to at least one creature. And the Pebble Gnome, a gnome completely immune to magic of all sorts.
This marks the 10th issue of Fiend Factory. Coming up is the top 10 as voted on by readers.
And finally. Ads.
Next up, end of the 70s, beginning of the 80s and when yours truly discovers this cool/odd little game.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Gen Con Schedule is out
The Gen Con schedule is out now.
I do not have any Ghosts of Albion games running. I wanted to focus on paying games with my boys.
We are going to try to get into the D&D Next games, try to get some AD&D first ed in, and hopefully some D&D Basic (a clone) would be good too. I'll run some D&D 3.x too, so we will get the full D&D experience. I think it will be great.
I happy to see there are plenty of Victoriana games, some Buffy/Unisystem games and some others I am interested in. I'll have to put together a schedule.
I am sorry there won't be any Ghosts of Albion games. But I am not amiss to doing a pick up game one night.
I do not have any Ghosts of Albion games running. I wanted to focus on paying games with my boys.
We are going to try to get into the D&D Next games, try to get some AD&D first ed in, and hopefully some D&D Basic (a clone) would be good too. I'll run some D&D 3.x too, so we will get the full D&D experience. I think it will be great.
I happy to see there are plenty of Victoriana games, some Buffy/Unisystem games and some others I am interested in. I'll have to put together a schedule.
I am sorry there won't be any Ghosts of Albion games. But I am not amiss to doing a pick up game one night.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Willow and Tara: Marvel Heroic Roleplaying
I am still playing around a bit with Marvel Heroic Roleplaying now that I have seen it out in the stores. Saw a copy at my local Barnes & Nobel last night in fact. I thought this might be appropriate for today.
Willow and Tara in the Marvelverse
I have to admit, that anytime I think about the girls in a super hero universe I always think of it in terms of DC. But the roleplaying and character development aspects of MHR are too good to ignore.
I have already done up my two DC go-to characters Zatanna and Justice with this system. And I have stated up Willow and Tara in one other version of Cortex in the past.
For the girls in this universe I'll start with the assumptions that the events in my previous games, The Dragon and The Phoenix and Season of the Witch happened. In fact even though this game was not part of the original plan it would work fine as part of the Generation HEX season I started and never finished.
Name: Willow
ID: Willow D. Rosenberg (public)
Age: 32 (2012)
Base of Operations: Boston, MA
Affiliations: Solo d8, Buddy d10, Team d6 (Willow in highschool was certainly more Team, but this is an older Willow)
Distinctions:
Bad Ass Wicca
Technophile
Quick to Anger
Power Sets
Sorcery d10
Magical Spells d10, Blast d10, Senses (magical) d10, Teleport d10, Telekinesis d10
Limit: Conscious Effort
SFX: Versatile
SFX: Area Attack
Anamchara d10 (Willow and Tara can combine their powers)
"I will always find you." (Telepathy) d8, "I am you know...yours" (Combine) d10
Limit: Distance/focus
SFX: Multipower
SFX: Boost
Specialties
Mystic d10
Tech d10
Cosmic d8
Science d8
Milestones
Magic
1xp You uncover some plot that is magical in nature.
3xp You discover some new magical tome or artifact.
10xp You defeat the main villain without magic.
Anger
1xp When you loose your temper
3xp When someone you are helping takes trauma
10 xp When your anger threatens the world, or saves it.
Willow in "Generation HEX" is one of the most power spell casters in the world. But her own issues surrounding her anger still plague her. She has turned to magic as a means of not just obtaining control over her situation, but of herself. She is slowly getting there.
Name: Tara
ID: Tara A. Maclay (public)
Age: 33 (2012)
Base of Operations: Boston, MA
Affiliations: Solo d6, Buddy d10, Team d8 (Tara does best with Willow or in a group)
Distinctions:
Witchy Woman
Loyal
"Tara hide your magic" - Tara is a deep, quiet, well of magical power, but she has been told her whole life to hide it.
Power Sets
Sorcery d10
Magical Spells d10, Blast d8, Senses (magical) d10, Telekinesis d10
Limit: Conscious Effort
SFX: Versatile
SFX: Healing
Anamchara d10 (Willow and Tara can combine their powers)
"I will always find you." (Telepathy) d8, "I am you know...yours" (Combine) d10
Limit: Distance/focus
SFX: Multipower
SFX: Boost
Specialties
Mystic d10
Psych d10
Cosmic d8
Science d8
Milestones
Magic
1xp You uncover some plot that is magical in nature.
3xp You discover some new magical tome or artifact.
10xp You defeat the main villain without magic.
Soulmates
1xp When you or Willow are dragged into a problem together
3xp When someone uses you to get to Willow or visa-versa
10 xp When you have to work together after being apart to stop the threat
Tara is more self-actualized than Willow is. She knows and accepts the dangers and responsibilities of her power. What she is most afraid of is loosing Willow; either to death or darkness. In my games the girls have seen many alternate realities, any reality without a Tara in it results in Willow turning evil and destroying things.
Willow and Tara have a lot of linked powers and milestones, as to be expected given their lives together.
To follow along with the Generation HEX plot ideas, they are living in Boston teaching at a school that has a lot of magical kids enrolled. In my game they would of course know of Zatanna and I would still have to say they are not up to her power level on their own, combined though they could give Zee a run for her money. Not that they would mind you, Tara is a HUGE fan of Zatanna, I have this on authority.
Of course this would also be a good episode to have the girl visit the wilds of Canada and check out the Cave of Cool.
"Willow and Tara" by David Reynolds
Willow and Tara in the Marvelverse
I have to admit, that anytime I think about the girls in a super hero universe I always think of it in terms of DC. But the roleplaying and character development aspects of MHR are too good to ignore.
I have already done up my two DC go-to characters Zatanna and Justice with this system. And I have stated up Willow and Tara in one other version of Cortex in the past.
For the girls in this universe I'll start with the assumptions that the events in my previous games, The Dragon and The Phoenix and Season of the Witch happened. In fact even though this game was not part of the original plan it would work fine as part of the Generation HEX season I started and never finished.
Name: Willow
ID: Willow D. Rosenberg (public)
Age: 32 (2012)
Affiliations: Solo d8, Buddy d10, Team d6 (Willow in highschool was certainly more Team, but this is an older Willow)
Distinctions:
Bad Ass Wicca
Technophile
Quick to Anger
Power Sets
Sorcery d10
Magical Spells d10, Blast d10, Senses (magical) d10, Teleport d10, Telekinesis d10
Limit: Conscious Effort
SFX: Versatile
SFX: Area Attack
Anamchara d10 (Willow and Tara can combine their powers)
"I will always find you." (Telepathy) d8, "I am you know...yours" (Combine) d10
Limit: Distance/focus
SFX: Multipower
SFX: Boost
Specialties
Mystic d10
Tech d10
Cosmic d8
Science d8
Milestones
Magic
1xp You uncover some plot that is magical in nature.
3xp You discover some new magical tome or artifact.
10xp You defeat the main villain without magic.
Anger
1xp When you loose your temper
3xp When someone you are helping takes trauma
10 xp When your anger threatens the world, or saves it.
Willow in "Generation HEX" is one of the most power spell casters in the world. But her own issues surrounding her anger still plague her. She has turned to magic as a means of not just obtaining control over her situation, but of herself. She is slowly getting there.
Name: Tara
ID: Tara A. Maclay (public)
Age: 33 (2012)
Affiliations: Solo d6, Buddy d10, Team d8 (Tara does best with Willow or in a group)
Distinctions:
Witchy Woman
Loyal
"Tara hide your magic" - Tara is a deep, quiet, well of magical power, but she has been told her whole life to hide it.
Power Sets
Sorcery d10
Magical Spells d10, Blast d8, Senses (magical) d10, Telekinesis d10
Limit: Conscious Effort
SFX: Versatile
SFX: Healing
Anamchara d10 (Willow and Tara can combine their powers)
"I will always find you." (Telepathy) d8, "I am you know...yours" (Combine) d10
Limit: Distance/focus
SFX: Multipower
SFX: Boost
Specialties
Mystic d10
Psych d10
Cosmic d8
Science d8
Milestones
Magic
1xp You uncover some plot that is magical in nature.
3xp You discover some new magical tome or artifact.
10xp You defeat the main villain without magic.
Soulmates
1xp When you or Willow are dragged into a problem together
3xp When someone uses you to get to Willow or visa-versa
10 xp When you have to work together after being apart to stop the threat
Tara is more self-actualized than Willow is. She knows and accepts the dangers and responsibilities of her power. What she is most afraid of is loosing Willow; either to death or darkness. In my games the girls have seen many alternate realities, any reality without a Tara in it results in Willow turning evil and destroying things.
Willow and Tara have a lot of linked powers and milestones, as to be expected given their lives together.
To follow along with the Generation HEX plot ideas, they are living in Boston teaching at a school that has a lot of magical kids enrolled. In my game they would of course know of Zatanna and I would still have to say they are not up to her power level on their own, combined though they could give Zee a run for her money. Not that they would mind you, Tara is a HUGE fan of Zatanna, I have this on authority.
Of course this would also be a good episode to have the girl visit the wilds of Canada and check out the Cave of Cool.
A to Z: Reflections Post
So the A to Z Blog Challenge is over for another April. Not sure what I'll do next year, but I am sure I am going to plan ahead for it better.
How did your journey through the alphabet go? Did you meet new bloggers with similar interests? Are there any you would like to feature and share with others?
Yes. I joined several new-to-me blogs and found a bunch of books I wanted to read from my travels.
What were the highlights for you? (lowlights too...we want to hear it all)
Highlights for this blog was to get the word out on so man great games out to people that didn't know about them. Lowlights...trying to do this for two blogs at the same time!
Did you enjoy posting daily? What was your biggest hurdle? What was your easiest task?
I tend to post everyday anyway. Biggest hurdle was coming up with something appropriate for the letter in question that also fit with my theme. Easiest part was finding games to talk about.
Was time management an issue? (I know, silly question, when isn’t time management an issue - but, it is worth reflecting on)
It did cut into my schedule quite a bit to be honest.
And what about your content - did you have a theme or did you wing it? Was it easy to come up with ideas for each letter, or were some harder?
I had a theme and I stuck with it. But I had thought about it a lot and tried to find games ahead of time.
How about commenting - did you stumble upon lots of sites still using word verification? Did this prevent you from leaving a comment? What worked for your blog?
I tried to visit every blog in the challenge. Yes, I ran into a number that had Word Verification still turned on and it was annoying. Though much worse than that were the people the had to approve my post/comment and then never did.
I keep word verification turned off. I would rather have it easier for my readers than worry about spam.
What will you do different next year? (Yes, you are doing this next year, you know you are, even if your brain is telling you to run for the hills - it appreciates the exercise)
Try to get more posts in before April! Craft the posts in such a way to encourage more feedback.
What pearls of wisdom do you want to share with the Co-Hosts of this event? (We would love to hear from you and know what you think would make this awesome event even better)
There were a number of "dead" sites on the list and some were some that didn't link to their blog, but some other page. You might want to get more Co-Hosts next year to help clean out the non-participants (the ones that signed up then never posted) and dead links.
So I ended up with a bunch of new followers. 50 on the Other Side and almost 20 on Freedom of Nonbelief, and very little overlap between the two.
My growth in views was not as much relative to last year. But that is to be expected really.
I will be participating again next year.
How did your journey through the alphabet go? Did you meet new bloggers with similar interests? Are there any you would like to feature and share with others?
Yes. I joined several new-to-me blogs and found a bunch of books I wanted to read from my travels.
What were the highlights for you? (lowlights too...we want to hear it all)
Highlights for this blog was to get the word out on so man great games out to people that didn't know about them. Lowlights...trying to do this for two blogs at the same time!
Did you enjoy posting daily? What was your biggest hurdle? What was your easiest task?
I tend to post everyday anyway. Biggest hurdle was coming up with something appropriate for the letter in question that also fit with my theme. Easiest part was finding games to talk about.
Was time management an issue? (I know, silly question, when isn’t time management an issue - but, it is worth reflecting on)
It did cut into my schedule quite a bit to be honest.
And what about your content - did you have a theme or did you wing it? Was it easy to come up with ideas for each letter, or were some harder?
I had a theme and I stuck with it. But I had thought about it a lot and tried to find games ahead of time.
How about commenting - did you stumble upon lots of sites still using word verification? Did this prevent you from leaving a comment? What worked for your blog?
I tried to visit every blog in the challenge. Yes, I ran into a number that had Word Verification still turned on and it was annoying. Though much worse than that were the people the had to approve my post/comment and then never did.
I keep word verification turned off. I would rather have it easier for my readers than worry about spam.
What will you do different next year? (Yes, you are doing this next year, you know you are, even if your brain is telling you to run for the hills - it appreciates the exercise)
Try to get more posts in before April! Craft the posts in such a way to encourage more feedback.
What pearls of wisdom do you want to share with the Co-Hosts of this event? (We would love to hear from you and know what you think would make this awesome event even better)
There were a number of "dead" sites on the list and some were some that didn't link to their blog, but some other page. You might want to get more Co-Hosts next year to help clean out the non-participants (the ones that signed up then never posted) and dead links.
So I ended up with a bunch of new followers. 50 on the Other Side and almost 20 on Freedom of Nonbelief, and very little overlap between the two.
My growth in views was not as much relative to last year. But that is to be expected really.
I will be participating again next year.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Wayne Foundation Charity
Last year I posted about the Wayne Foundation and how they work to stop child sex trafficking.
They are having another Charity drive at DriveThruRPG/One Bookshelf.
All money goes to stopping the trafficking of children as sex slaves/merchandise.
Please consider this bundle of games, fiction and art.
They are having another Charity drive at DriveThruRPG/One Bookshelf.
All money goes to stopping the trafficking of children as sex slaves/merchandise.
Please consider this bundle of games, fiction and art.
Zatannurday: More Monday!
So popular in fact that Jettie herself Tweeted about it, asking if I had seen her newest version of the costume.
Well I have now! :)
And imagine my delight when I saw they were Steampunk Zatanna!
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.258798927493343.68039.209333585773211&type=3
So here they are by request and permission of Jettie herself! Photos by Bill Nash, http://www.billn.net/
http://www.billn.net/Events/Causeplay-Las-Vegas-Sept-2011/19100465_Rw3GcM#!i=1486556791&k=wJBV74f
I think she looks fantastic!
So please "like" her on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/jettiemonday, and follow her on Twitter, http://twitter.com/#!/jettiemonday and view her Flickr page, http://www.flickr.com/people/jettiemonday/
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