The newest Game Geeks is up and look what Kurt Wiegel has reviewed this week!
Quote: "Do you need Ghosts of Albion? Yes you do."
and
"You can not possibly go wrong with Ghosts of Albion."
If you recall he had reviewed this before.
Quote: "The best modern urban fantasy game you can use."
I am THRILLED TO DEATH that this game still gets all of these positive reviews all these years later.
I love all my Witch books, but Ghosts will always be very, very special to me.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Fantasy Art: Stainless Steel Dragon
I am not feeling so hot today so I went shopping on DriveThruRPG/RPGNow from some dragon art.
In my search a company called Stainless Steel Dragon came up and they have a few products. I had a few bucks burning a hole in my pocket so I decided, what the heck.
The first thing I grabbed was the Ultimate Fantasy Photo Art Collection.
I grabbed it because it came up in a search for "Dragon art", there are no dragons in it. That was something of a disappointment, but I kept on going, after all there are a 150+ pages here.
The art varies from semi-serious, to cheesecake. It is all photos with fantasy style trappings and backgrounds. There are some topless women here (and me, fair is fair), but it is all of an artistic sort.
There are not many images here I can use in my games, but the ones that I can seem perfect. There is an African-American male vampire in this is perfect (and they must have also thought this since we get a couple of him), but my opinion was changed with the picture of the "witch" on page 101. Again it is a case of the right thing at the tight time for me. NOTE To publisher: I appreciate the names of the models, but is there anyway to know what page they are on? Ok, just who is the model on page 101?
The models are all attractive and we get a variety of types, genders and ethnicity here so that is certainly a plus. One of my first thoughts was there are a lot of good visual images here for a Ravenloft game or some other dark fantasy.
There are also 24 pages of "character sheets" featuring the various models (again the witch on 101 is back on page 150), plus a blank and a back page. Suitable really for most games, but certainly a FRPG in mind.
So while it was not exactly what I was looking for and I also like to buy art I can reuse somehow, I can't fault the publisher any of those.
Great fro printing out and using in a game as a visual aid. Or if there is a character you really want to detail then it's perfect if the character you envision is here.
NOTE To publisher 2: maybe small thumbnails of the pictures on the character sheets might be good on your website? That way if someone sees something they like they have a good reason to buy this.
In truth you get a ton of images for $5 (when on sale). Can't really complain about that.
EDITED TO ADD. You can find some of the images on their website, http://www.fantasyphotoart.com/
I found my witch and picked up the jpg for a buck.
I also checked out some of the other images on DTRPG/RPGN to fill in for other characters. Here is what I grabbed.
Fire Witch
Blue Moon
Water Nymph I would like to have one of this model as a witch/warlock too.
Succubus
Sword Maiden
All are huge HiRes images. Most are right around 2542 x 3386.
I had actually picked up AoV: Fantasy Art (Reflections of Voldaria) in some sale a while back and forgot about it.
Looking forward to more.
In my search a company called Stainless Steel Dragon came up and they have a few products. I had a few bucks burning a hole in my pocket so I decided, what the heck.
The first thing I grabbed was the Ultimate Fantasy Photo Art Collection.
I grabbed it because it came up in a search for "Dragon art", there are no dragons in it. That was something of a disappointment, but I kept on going, after all there are a 150+ pages here.
The art varies from semi-serious, to cheesecake. It is all photos with fantasy style trappings and backgrounds. There are some topless women here (and me, fair is fair), but it is all of an artistic sort.
There are not many images here I can use in my games, but the ones that I can seem perfect. There is an African-American male vampire in this is perfect (and they must have also thought this since we get a couple of him), but my opinion was changed with the picture of the "witch" on page 101. Again it is a case of the right thing at the tight time for me. NOTE To publisher: I appreciate the names of the models, but is there anyway to know what page they are on? Ok, just who is the model on page 101?
The models are all attractive and we get a variety of types, genders and ethnicity here so that is certainly a plus. One of my first thoughts was there are a lot of good visual images here for a Ravenloft game or some other dark fantasy.
There are also 24 pages of "character sheets" featuring the various models (again the witch on 101 is back on page 150), plus a blank and a back page. Suitable really for most games, but certainly a FRPG in mind.
So while it was not exactly what I was looking for and I also like to buy art I can reuse somehow, I can't fault the publisher any of those.
Great fro printing out and using in a game as a visual aid. Or if there is a character you really want to detail then it's perfect if the character you envision is here.
NOTE To publisher 2: maybe small thumbnails of the pictures on the character sheets might be good on your website? That way if someone sees something they like they have a good reason to buy this.
In truth you get a ton of images for $5 (when on sale). Can't really complain about that.
EDITED TO ADD. You can find some of the images on their website, http://www.fantasyphotoart.com/
I found my witch and picked up the jpg for a buck.
I also checked out some of the other images on DTRPG/RPGN to fill in for other characters. Here is what I grabbed.
Fire Witch
Blue Moon
Water Nymph I would like to have one of this model as a witch/warlock too.
Succubus
Sword Maiden
All are huge HiRes images. Most are right around 2542 x 3386.
I had actually picked up AoV: Fantasy Art (Reflections of Voldaria) in some sale a while back and forgot about it.
Looking forward to more.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Here There Be Dragons updates
With The Witch out and EW in the hands of the publisher it is time to move on to other projects.
I want to talk about "Here There Be Dragons" for a bit. We paused on this last year to give my son time to concentrate on his school work. Over the summer things were just way too busy and then I needed to finish the Witch.
Be we are back. One of the things we want to do is come up with a good dragon statblock that covers the Old School feel we wanted but also includes all the information we want to get out about dragons. I also want to retain as much good information from the SRD as we can.
In the 1st Advanced Era dragons had 8 age categories. In the 3rd Edition/SRD era there are 12.
The age categories are also significantly different. In earlier editions of the game the differences were not great. In the newer versions there is quite a bit of difference between a Wyrmling and a Great Wyrm.
This can be seen in the SRD here for Blue Dragons.
There are plenty of good and open under the OGL stat blocks for dragons. OSRIC has one, Labyrinth Lord Advanced Companion is another and slightly different. The stat blocks in Castles & Crusades are also open and try to merge the best of 1.x and 3.x in their own way as well. In fact they even fit 12 age categories into 8 rather well.
Additionally Dragons should have more spells as the age, have more treasure and be more powerful, not just harder to hit or kill.
So here is a rough draft of a dragon stat block for a Blue Dragon.
Blue Dragon
Frequency: Rare
No. Appearing: 1d4
Size: See below
Move: 90' fly 240' (AA: level II)
Hit Dice: typically 8 to 10
Armor Class: typically 2
Attacks: 1 bite, 2 claws or magic
Damage: 1d6 / 1d6 / 3d8
Special Attacks: Breath Weapon, Dragon Fear, Magic Use
Special Defenses:
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Very
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Treasure: ????
Chance of:
- Speaking: 40% + 5%/Age
- Magic-use: 20% + 5%/Age
- Sleeping: 10% + 5%/Age
- In Lair: 20% + 5%/Age
Level/XP: See Below
Breath Weapon: Lighting Bolt, 100' long, 5' wide, line
Spells: As Wizard of level equal to HD
These tables will be tweaked as we go along.
Not sure if this is the final version, it is though a working one.
I put in the the average hp on a d8 per HD since I also had the idea that HD could stay the same (say 10) and a dragon gets it's age category in hp. So Wyrmling would have had 10 hp and an Ancient dragon 80 hp. It works for the Blue here, not sure about the rest; I think it might.
Did not calculate the XP yet.
Still have no idea how I want to do treasure. Should I use LL Hoard Classes or list out like in OSRIC?
Credit where credit is due.
Section 15 of the OGL.
System Reference Document copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
OSRIC copyright 2006-08 by Stuart Marshall, adapting material prepared by Matthew J. Finch, based on the System Reference Document, inspired by the works of E. Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, and many others.
Advanced Edition Companion, Copyright 2009-2010, Daniel Proctor. Author Daniel Proctor.
Hypertext SRD, 2005 Jans Carton.
Castles & Crusades: Monsters & Treasure, Copyright 2005, Troll Lord Games; Authors Robert Doyel and Stephen Chenault.
Blue Dragon: Here There Be Dragons, Copyright 2012, Liam and Timothy Brannan.
All material is open under the OGL.
I want to talk about "Here There Be Dragons" for a bit. We paused on this last year to give my son time to concentrate on his school work. Over the summer things were just way too busy and then I needed to finish the Witch.
Be we are back. One of the things we want to do is come up with a good dragon statblock that covers the Old School feel we wanted but also includes all the information we want to get out about dragons. I also want to retain as much good information from the SRD as we can.
In the 1st Advanced Era dragons had 8 age categories. In the 3rd Edition/SRD era there are 12.
The age categories are also significantly different. In earlier editions of the game the differences were not great. In the newer versions there is quite a bit of difference between a Wyrmling and a Great Wyrm.
This can be seen in the SRD here for Blue Dragons.
There are plenty of good and open under the OGL stat blocks for dragons. OSRIC has one, Labyrinth Lord Advanced Companion is another and slightly different. The stat blocks in Castles & Crusades are also open and try to merge the best of 1.x and 3.x in their own way as well. In fact they even fit 12 age categories into 8 rather well.
Additionally Dragons should have more spells as the age, have more treasure and be more powerful, not just harder to hit or kill.
So here is a rough draft of a dragon stat block for a Blue Dragon.
Blue Dragon
Frequency: Rare
No. Appearing: 1d4
Size: See below
Move: 90' fly 240' (AA: level II)
Hit Dice: typically 8 to 10
Armor Class: typically 2
Attacks: 1 bite, 2 claws or magic
Damage: 1d6 / 1d6 / 3d8
Special Attacks: Breath Weapon, Dragon Fear, Magic Use
Special Defenses:
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Very
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Treasure: ????
Chance of:
- Speaking: 40% + 5%/Age
- Magic-use: 20% + 5%/Age
- Sleeping: 10% + 5%/Age
- In Lair: 20% + 5%/Age
Level/XP: See Below
Breath Weapon: Lighting Bolt, 100' long, 5' wide, line
Spells: As Wizard of level equal to HD
|
Age
|
Size (length)
|
HD (hp)
|
AC
|
Breath Damage
|
Breath Range
|
Level/XP
|
|
1
|
4'
|
4 (18)
|
5 (15)
|
4d8
|
40'
|
4/
|
|
2
|
8'
|
6 (27)
|
4 (16)
|
6d8
|
60'
|
6/
|
|
3
|
12'
|
8 (36)
|
3 (17)
|
8d8
|
80'
|
8/
|
|
4
|
20'
|
10 (45)
|
2 (18)
|
10d8
|
100'
|
10/
|
|
5
|
25'
|
12 (54)
|
1 (19)
|
12d8
|
120'
|
12/
|
|
6
|
32'
|
14 (63)
|
0 (20)
|
14d8
|
140'
|
14/
|
|
7
|
48'
|
16 (72)
|
-1 (21)
|
16d8
|
160'
|
16/
|
|
8
|
60'
|
18 (81)
|
-2 (22)
|
18d8
|
180'
|
18/
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Age Category
|
|
Age Years
|
|
1
|
Wyrmling
|
0-10
|
|
2
|
Young
|
11-25
|
|
3
|
Juvenile
|
26-50
|
|
4
|
Young Adult
|
51-100
|
|
5
|
Adult
|
101-250
|
|
6
|
Old
|
251-500
|
|
7
|
Very Old
|
501-1,000
|
|
8
|
Ancient
|
1,000+
|
These tables will be tweaked as we go along.
Not sure if this is the final version, it is though a working one.
I put in the the average hp on a d8 per HD since I also had the idea that HD could stay the same (say 10) and a dragon gets it's age category in hp. So Wyrmling would have had 10 hp and an Ancient dragon 80 hp. It works for the Blue here, not sure about the rest; I think it might.
Did not calculate the XP yet.
Still have no idea how I want to do treasure. Should I use LL Hoard Classes or list out like in OSRIC?
Credit where credit is due.
Section 15 of the OGL.
System Reference Document copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
OSRIC copyright 2006-08 by Stuart Marshall, adapting material prepared by Matthew J. Finch, based on the System Reference Document, inspired by the works of E. Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, and many others.
Advanced Edition Companion, Copyright 2009-2010, Daniel Proctor. Author Daniel Proctor.
Hypertext SRD, 2005 Jans Carton.
Castles & Crusades: Monsters & Treasure, Copyright 2005, Troll Lord Games; Authors Robert Doyel and Stephen Chenault.
Blue Dragon: Here There Be Dragons, Copyright 2012, Liam and Timothy Brannan.
All material is open under the OGL.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Zatannurday: Zatanna Witch
Maybe should have done this one last week, but hey Halloween is not something confined to one day or even one weekend for me!
Friday, November 2, 2012
Halloween Hangover
Well. That was the most postings I have ever done in one month.
Please don't expect that for November!
I doubled my normal abut of visits and page hits and I added about 20 new followers. I also discovered a bunch of new sites and blogs, so that is always welcome to me.
The Witch is selling rather well and I am pleased with the sales. I never expected it to sell thousands of units; it's a niche product inside a niche market for another niche set of rules. There are only so many ways to cut up this pie.
I have a few WIPs on my harddrive. A couple for another publisher, my son's dragon book and a couple of others that people have told me will never sell because they are too "out there". I will share more about those in the next few weeks. Gotta see how they shake out. Maybe I will release them for free.
I still have a desire to write a modern-supernatural game even though I well know the market is flooded with them.
I also have a number of reviews I am really behind on. Have to get those done too.
Please don't expect that for November!
I doubled my normal abut of visits and page hits and I added about 20 new followers. I also discovered a bunch of new sites and blogs, so that is always welcome to me.
The Witch is selling rather well and I am pleased with the sales. I never expected it to sell thousands of units; it's a niche product inside a niche market for another niche set of rules. There are only so many ways to cut up this pie.
I have a few WIPs on my harddrive. A couple for another publisher, my son's dragon book and a couple of others that people have told me will never sell because they are too "out there". I will share more about those in the next few weeks. Gotta see how they shake out. Maybe I will release them for free.
I still have a desire to write a modern-supernatural game even though I well know the market is flooded with them.
I also have a number of reviews I am really behind on. Have to get those done too.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
And the Winner is...
a Rafflecopter giveaway
David of Tower of the Archmage!
Emails have been sent.
Thanks everyone for participating in everything this past October..
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
October Challenge: BloodRayne: The Third Reich (2011)
BloodRayne: The Third Reich (2011)
I am a glutton for punishment. Each year I watch something from Uwe Boll. And each year I ask myself why.
This year I didn't, because I finally get Boll. He is not trying to be Spielberg, or Howard or anyone. He is just trying to have a good time and make some movies.
BloodRayne though really has a lot going for it on paper. Hot half-vampire Rayne who is a little bit of everything (she's half-vampire, half-human, ambidextrous, bisexual) is fun to watch. You have Nazi's as the big bad, and really watching them die never, ever gets old. And unlike the first two movies, this one is somewhat closer to the video game.
Don't go into this expecting high entertainment. This is B-Movie all the way. But it is fun. The plot holds together surprisingly well. Michael Pare chews up scenes all over the place and Natassia Malthe still can't act to save her life, but that is fine.
It has all the right elements of a horror or action movie and I will say this. I doubt a "better" director would have done better on this. Sometimes you get steak, sometimes you get cheeseburgers and sometime you get a slider. This is a slider, don't pretend it is steak. That is OK. Sometimes a couple of sliders is exactly what you need.
I enjoyed this movie quite a bit to be honest.
Tally: Watched 33, New 24
I am going to go back over all the other participants (next month) and see what they watched.
What are you watching?
This year I didn't, because I finally get Boll. He is not trying to be Spielberg, or Howard or anyone. He is just trying to have a good time and make some movies.
BloodRayne though really has a lot going for it on paper. Hot half-vampire Rayne who is a little bit of everything (she's half-vampire, half-human, ambidextrous, bisexual) is fun to watch. You have Nazi's as the big bad, and really watching them die never, ever gets old. And unlike the first two movies, this one is somewhat closer to the video game.
Don't go into this expecting high entertainment. This is B-Movie all the way. But it is fun. The plot holds together surprisingly well. Michael Pare chews up scenes all over the place and Natassia Malthe still can't act to save her life, but that is fine.
It has all the right elements of a horror or action movie and I will say this. I doubt a "better" director would have done better on this. Sometimes you get steak, sometimes you get cheeseburgers and sometime you get a slider. This is a slider, don't pretend it is steak. That is OK. Sometimes a couple of sliders is exactly what you need.
I enjoyed this movie quite a bit to be honest.
Tally: Watched 33, New 24
I am going to go back over all the other participants (next month) and see what they watched.
What are you watching?
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