Retrospective on Blue Rose

Cover for the new AGE version of Blue Rose

Blue Rose was always one of those games I felt people talked more about than played.  I remember running into it at Gen Con in 2007. I had wanted to go over to the Green Ronin booth since I was already enamoured with Mutants & Masterminds and thought Green Ronin seemed like one of those “cool companies”. Like Eden was in in the early 2000s and Cubicle Seven is today.  Green Ronin is still cool, but they are no longer the scrappy little upstart, they are elder statesmen and stateswomen now.

Blue Rose attracted me from the start. The Stephanie Pui-Mun Law art, whom I had known from her days at the Elfwood art website so long ago, was so eye catching and so different than anything else I had ever seen.  The game inside lived up to that art.
I picked up the book and saw the names. Of course I knew who Steve Kenson was (and he was standing just right over there too), I had played M&M and of course had his Witch’s Handbook from GR.  There was also John Snead, who only the most uncouth plebeians didn’t know.  I had worked with John on the Magic Box for the Buffy game and he was a great guy and great writer.  I saw other names that were unknown to me then (not now), but picked it up on the (substantial) merits of the first two authors.   Jeremy Crawford is now one of the people behind 5th edition D&D and he did quite a bit of work on 4th edition D&D as well.

Now I had an idea what “Romantic Fantasy” was.  I had read Diane Duane, Mercedes Lackey and Marion Zimmer Bradley, but years ago.  Reading through the rules then I was struck by how much was here that I wanted to work into my own worlds.  By 2007 I was weary of d20 and the True20 of Blue Rose seemed like such a breath of fresh air.  It was almost a Cinematic d20 to me.

I played a few games of Blue Rose.  I ran a few others.  I found that converting some of my old WitchCraft RPG plots to Blue Rose was actually quite easy. For example my “Vacation in Vancouver” under Unisystem became “Vacation beyond the Veil” under True 20/Blue Rose.  The story was essentially the same; gifted individuals were being kidnapped for a demonic sex trade. The problem in both cases was that some of the victims didn’t want to be “rescued”.  It looked into issues of slavery and sentience and what people do for pleasure.  In “WitchCraft” there is a serious horror over tone, but in Blue Rose the horror shifts away from the demon to the victim.  What if a victim is sentient and a slave, but in return lives in a lap of luxury and pleasure. Are they different than the “Companions” of Valdemar or the Blue Rose analogues, the Rhy-Creatures? It became an interesting story to unfold.  When I took a turn as player (because that is something you can do in touchy-feely story telling game) I want to explore this and have my witch (hey...gotta be me) “go native” and go from would be rescuer to something needing rescued.  Sadly like many games and most online chat games we never finished the story arc.

I went back to Blue Rose in 2009/2010 to try again with my “Black Rose” idea.  This was a merging of the Blue Rose and Ravenloft games I detailed a while back.  Now there was a fun game.  Also one that did not see a terminus, but that is fine.   In Blue Rose I felt there were a lot of the same things I liked about Ravenloft.  Emphasis on character development and storytelling, less on combat.  One by nature the other by choice.  In BlueRose/True 20 I saw the answer to a lot of the problems I had with Ravenloft.  Ravenloft as an idea was Gothic Horror stapled onto a fantasy action adventure game.  True 20 at it’s core was systemless.  It was much easier to represent more people with combinations of the Expert, Warrior and Adept classes than the standard D&D ones; or worse the 36 some odd classes we had in the d20 Masque of the Red Death.  For me the match was so good that I have considered to see what bits of both True 20 and Ravenloft are OGC to try it on my own.  I never went that direction, other games have since done it.  Some of the ideas from this game lived on in my current D&D 5 “Come Endless Darkness” game.

Some binders of notes for my various Blue Rose games.

“Kingdom of Rain” was game I ran inspired by Lovecraft.  My attempt to bring a little Innsmouth to the World of Aldea.  It was an intentionally short lived arc dealing with the Sea Folk and how some of them were becoming more like Deep Ones.  I will openly admit I based it more on the 2001 movie Dagon than the story “Shadows of Innsmouth”.  I wanted to continue the game dealing with some winter-related ideas, but I only got one session in.  This was also the first time I used a Wendigo as inspired by August Derleth.

I later went back to Blue Rose after reading the works of Barb and J.C. Hendee and came up with a “prequel” to Black Rose that I called “The Guardians of the White Rose”.  I went back to fertile ground and converted some ideas from a 2001 WitchCraft/Buffy game I was running at the time called “Coming Up Roses”.  The Guardians of the White Rose was the Queen’s special cadre of adepts used to fight the many supernatural threats to Adlis.  Their motif was a White Rose intertwined with a Blue Rose.  There were two characters, Helyg and Bryn, two new adepts.  Helyg had been a scholar in Jarzon and Bryn was raised with the Roamers.  They both were also caria daunen, just to add to the in universe feel.  Only got a little bit into that one, but played it out over a long course.  The lessons learned here? There is a LOT to do in Adlis that doesn’t require any form of “Murder-hoboing”.

More recently I have been going through the newer books of Mercedes Lackey. I picked up a bunch at a local library book sale and managed to Half-Price Book find the ones I was missing.  It has put me in the mood to try out some more Blue Rose.  This time I would feature the Guardians of the White Rose, but they are background.  This would be my monster hunter game.  The non-lethal damage track in BR/T20 makes this mechanically easier.  The idea is that the great Magerium is opening in Adlis. Rare and nearly extinct creatures are going to be brought in for study and give them a place to live.  Ah now if you are at all savvy to the Blue Rose world or many of the books that it is based on you will see a problem with this.  I want to see if my players do too.

I am now coming up on 9 and half years of personally playing Blue Rose. Nearly 10 years and four (or five) different and nearly unrelated campaigns.  I have read the background material and other books that would fit the definition of “Romantic Fantasy”. I think I am in a good place to provide a nice comprehensive review of the game.

Now I am going to be looking at the True20 version of the game, which I am sure is going to be sunsetted in favor of the new AGE version.  Well. When the AGE version comes out I'll have to review that one as well.

So until the new one is out, let's get to it.

Map Your World

This is the sort of thing I love the most.  Mapping tools I never knew I needed.

+Thomas Denmark over at Original Edition Rules shared this great mapping tool to turn a 2d map into a 3d globe.

http://maptoglobe.bitbucket.org/

I quickly turned the Mystoerth map into a globe.  I added some oceans first and then converted.

http://maptoglobe.bitbucket.org/?map=hjZMZKv


I have not played with all the features yet. I kind of want a better map first then play with all the neat options.

Obviously I need to add some polar regions.  I'd also like to add Blackmoor and Ansalon to this as well.

But in the meantime this is a lot of fun.

More Trek

Working on some more ideas for my Trek game.   I spent some time last night talking to my Trek-loving son and came up with some ideas.

I want to put this between the TOS and TNG shows.  Sometime around 2344 or later, maybe the 2350s. There is nothing that I know of going on then.
The timeline in my games might be altered, maybe not to the extent of the "Kelvin" Universe of the new movies, but some other things.
For starters I want to use these uniform variants.

Though I might swap the colors for the TNG assignments. We know the red uniforms from WoK were still being used in 2250 though with TNG style com badges.

Still planning on using an "experimental" ship.  I am going to severely limit how the transporters are used I know that much.

Now MY big plot point that has nothing to do with the play test.

My son says you judge how good the playtest is by the number of coffee stains!

I know I should be ashamed (or shamed) for doing this, but I REALLY want to do "Trek + Cthulhu".

For my first adventure "Where No One Has Gone Before..."  (might change that) the new ship is taking it's first run using the new engines.  They are pushed to Warp 13 (I know...stay with me) and they end up in orbit over a dead planet orbiting the star Thuban, Alpha Draconis, 303 light years away.  Here they encounter Mythos-creatures, ones that now know of their existence.
I get the crew back to the Alpha Quadrant (I am not redoing Voyager) but now this new threat is on them.

I want to have an Admiral or Commodore on my ship for the first adventure. He is the one that betrays the Federation to the Old Ones.  I want to keep him alive, but deeply insane, they will need him later.

Not sure what will happen to be honest.
As my wont I REALLY want to give this a 70s feel.  Why?  Well TOS was an artifact of the late 60s and TNG was very much part of the late 80s, so it seems natural to me to make this feel like something from the late 70s.  While it is still Trek, I am going to liberally steal ideas from the old Buck Rodgers series that was on NBC (I know, it was the early 80s) and the original Battlestar Galactica.  Plus I can use some trippy ass occult stuff from the 70s. The so called "left over hippy shit".  Crystals, psychic powers, all of that.   I have plenty of ideas; things I have been playing around with for White Star.

Right now I have more ideas than structure.  So I am going to keep at it for a bit.

Sad Weekend Gaming

So in terrible news, JonBunny; my oldest son's pet rabbit, died this weekend.  He jumped off my son's bed, landed wrong and broke his back.  He ended up being paralyzed in his lower half.  I guess this is a known issue with this breed of bunny.  My son is (and all of us are) devastated.
We really miss that little ball of fur.

I did the only thing I could do.  I ran a marathon session yester of D&D to keep their minds off of what happened.

The Order of the Platinum Dragon went to the lower level of the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl.  They managed to free the daughter of the Storm King and defeat the remaining frost giant guards to get to the Jarl himself.   I got rid of his wife for a few reasons. She was just going to be another encounter; and not a very interesting one at that. I replaced her with a frost giant senechal who was also an ice powered warlock. Also I was going to have the Jarl attempt some weird ass forced marriage alliance with the daughter of the Storm King, so he needed to be single, or at least available politically. Also I don't have a female frost giant mini.

Everyone looks like they are going up a level after this.
After this the Order will head to the Storm Giants for aid, but little do they know that an evil Cloud Giant Queen has taken over the Storm King's Castle in Castle of the Cloud Giant Queen.

I also rewatched Galaxy Quest for some ideas on my Star Trek game.

Green Ronin Holiday Sale on DC Adventures

Spend any time here and you will know that I am a HUGE DC Comics fan.  Yeah like many others in the 80s I read the X-Men and of course Spider-Man before that.  I know Marvel, but my love is DC.

So it is with some joy (and some anxiety) that I let you know about a huge sale Green Ronin is having on their DC Adventures RPG.  All four books are on sale for $5.00 each.  Not a bad deal really.  Scratch that, that's an excellent deal.

DC ADVENTURES Hero's Handbook
This is the core book and the only one needed to play the game.  It is based on Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition, which is also a fantastic game in it's own right.  The book is jam packed with great DC art.  All of the art and the write-ups are pre New 52 and pre Convergence.  But you know what, who cares!  This is DC which means Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Booster Gold! (ok so maybe Booster is not a reason to buy this...actually Booster is not in this book iirc).
You can plan in any DC world you like.  Hell you can (and should really) play in the future with Terry McGinnis as Batman. Mix in Oliver Queen from the Arrow TV show, Isis from the 70s "The Power of Isis" show and the Birds of Prey from their short lived TV show and do what you like.
All you need is a d20.  I personally like to use a clear green one since it looks like Kryptonite.

DC ADVENTURES Heroes & Villains, Vol. 1
DC ADVENTURES Heroes & Villains, Vol. 2
The A to Z guide of heroes, villians, organizations and even some places of the DC Universe.
Very nearly everyone is here in one form or another.

DC ADVENTURES Universe
The "world book" or campaign guide for your games.  Great in that has some stats but it can't cover nearly 80 years worth of DC history, nor does it try.  It focuses on the then most current version of the DC Universe (Pre-New52 and just after the "Darkest Night" arc).
If you have read a DC comic then you know what you are in for. If you have only seen the Batman movies then you are in for a treat to a much larger and much more interesting world.

Not sure if this is the game for you?  Then try the DC ADVENTURES Quick Start PDF.

Now. I have heard a rumor that Green Ronin will be ending their DC license.  That is really too bad, but not unexpected.  Licenses cost money and the product doesn't always reach enough people to make it worth while.  I have (personal) experiences where a licensed product doesn't sell to the larger fan base of the license.  But no worries since I have my books and my PDFs.  The DC ADVENTURES game is also 100% compatible with (the same game as) Mutants & Masterminds 3rd edition.  So as long as we have that then we can play all we like.
Maybe Freedom City can be part of YOUR DC Universe.

I have spent a lot of time with this game and plan to spend a lot more.
Here are some character write-ups I have done over the years.

• Justice
• Red Sonja
• Xena
• Tarot Witch of the Black Rose
• Willow & Tara

I have two "DC Universe" games I want to try out sometime.  Both are mostly based on the current TV universe (aka the "Arrowverse").  One is the "The Incredibly Awesome (and Not At All Made-Up) Adventures of Booster Gold and Blue Beetle!"  the other takes place in that universe but is more a rif on the "I, Vampire" storyline of the New 52 comic era.  The "big bad" of this one is going to be Dracula, something I have always wanted to do.  I'll either use my version of Dracula (which I'll need to update to 3e) or the official M&M3 one, but upgraded.

I have always wanted to use Dracula as my big bad, especially against "street level" heroes.

These are the Voyages...

I got my Trek play test materials from +Modiphius Entertainment for the new RPG coming out.
Was going to spend some time with them yesterday but other things like the day job came up.  Though I have managed to print out the rules and will be going over them soon.

Over the summer I mentioned a desire to play some Trek using what ever rules seemed right. Likely White Star, but now I might try a simple training mission using these rules in addition to the official playtest.

Of course I want to use the USS Mystic, NX 3000 that I found here:
http://www.mcfergeson.com/hobbycorner/2015/04/23/the-uss-mystic-a-kitbashed-starship-from-star-trek/

Of course I'd make mine the NCC-3120 USS Protector; an homage to all the ships that inspired it.
I love the idea of those experimental nacelles.

Not to steal too much from Voyager or even Event Horizon, but my basic outline would be that while testing their new Warp-13 capable engines (shout out to the Omega-13 from Galaxy Quest) the USS Protector is transported ...somewhere... and in this section of space the stars are right and there are horrors.

The game would have other technobable details like the curvature of the warp nacelles and how this ship uses triberyllium instead of trilithium in it's warp core.  Maybe it is a design upgrade the Federation got from the Thermians (all from Galaxy Quest). This produces an "asymmetric warp field".  So start off as a regular Trek-like game, and then BAM hit them with the horrors.   Hey, maybe the Theramins are evil. Who knows really.

Since it is based on the Ambassador Class space frame I could put it in the Enterprise C era.
Though if it is an experiment and the prototype in NX 3000 how do I explain the jump to NCC 3120?

No idea.  Maybe the old classic it was a clerical error in the system registry databases.

I have a small Ambassador class Enterprise C at home and I think it is a great looking ship. I just want to do something with it.

In any case I am going to enjoy this. I am ready with the beats and the shouting.

Wizards of the Coast Print On Demand: The Results, Part 3

Today is Tuesday so that means new releases.  Wizards of the Coast has some new classic D&D books up for POD today.  Be sure to check them out.

Today I want to compare the POD 3e Draconomicon to the one I bought my son when it first came out.
A bit of background.  The Draconomicon is a watershed book for the Brannan family.  I got it for my son because he loved dragons. Still does really.  Well he carried this book with him everywhere for years.  Needless to say it is in pretty bad shape.  I have wanted to get him a new one for years and I have seen many at Half-Price books and of course at my FLGS, but none have jumped out at me saying "buy me".  We I opted to spend some of the money from the sales of my own books on the POD version.  I splurged and got the "Premium Heavyweight" paper.

In the pictures the original print in on the left side of your screen, the POD on the right.

Side by side it is hard to know which is which.  The art on the POD version seems a little bigger.  You will notice there is a spot on the bottom where the cover doesn't quite make it to the bottom.  I have seen this before on other books.  Sometimes it prints like this other times it doesn't.

The Heavyweight POD is noticeably thicker than the original print.

The POD does not have the dragon art printed on the inside cover.  The images are repeated in the original printing but only one of each in the POD.  The POD actually looks more interesting.

Inside the books are remarkably identical.

My son was 6 when I got this for him.   He carried it to school for two years straight.

This is the LightningSource/OneBookShelf page added to all the books.   So no chance someone will mistake these for originals if they know to look for this.

Equally, the original features an ISBN barcode.  The the POD has a different one that is not an ISBN.

The spines are also very different. This of course is by necessity to accommodate the varying thickness of the paper choices.

In all I am happy with it.  It doesn't look like my original, but that is fine with me.  It makes it more of a "new" book in some respects.  Yes, just like the original I am giving this to my son for Christmas. Don't tell him.