In Which The Warlock Lauds the Commendable...

So, last post was something of a downer, no?  It's easy to criticize, easy to point out the negative.  By nature, I tend to be a bit cynical--then again, who among my generation isn't?--but there's a lot to love within the pages of today's roleplaying games.  Let's pull some of my favorites!

The Doom Pool!

Roll that Doom Pool!

Chalk one up for Margaret Weis Productions' Marvel Heroic Roleplaying for an absolutely fantastic mechanic.  Even the most experienced GMs sometimes balk at having to make a judgement call on complex environmental actions, and even the most worthy of players sometimes chafe at the concept of 'GM fiat'.  For me, the Doom Pool mechanically addresses this difficulty in a simple, but effective manner.

Making your way through a burning building?  Roll against the Doom Pool to avoid falling debris or smoke inhalation.  Weaving through girders while flying?  Roll against the Doom Pool!  Need to make that super-science device extra-fast?  Doom Pool!

While it's not a be-all, end-all device, the Doom Pool serves as a quick outlet for all those times where a GM might be stuck.  It keeps play at the table moving and keeps the GM with his players, rather than referencing a rulebook.  Really, any mechanic that provides a quick resolution fits here:  the Savage Worlds "common knowledge" roll, the WEGS "frozen roll".  They're great!

In Text Fluff!

Now, this one's a spot of divisiveness.  Some gamers love the atmosphere and mood that in-text fiction brings, while others tend to loathe it.  While I tend to view rpg books more as instruction manuals than fiction collections, the occasional bit of in-character fiction really hits home the ideas and themes behind the game itself.  Plus, it pushes those archetypal ideas that form the core of a setting.

While I have issues with their fundamental rules-set, the Fantasy Flight Games' publications of Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch really capture the essence of what it means to live in the Warhammer 40K universe.  While they have a ton of material from which to generate this setting info, the tone and descriptions in these books blend the world and the mechanics together beautifully.  If only the rules themselves weren't such a mess...

Focus!

This, above all else, is something that I've been reveling in.

Burned spies kill vampires?
There's a game for that...

So many games for so long have been about "universal" mechanics.  d20, GURPS, even Savage Worlds, all try to wear so many hats that they fail to focus on one particular sort of game.  As I mentioned last entry, Savage Worlds makes for a great system for pulp and action, but I'd never want to use it for a horror game--it's just not built for that genre.  But GURPS?  What's the purpose?  Why this system?  Yes, I'm sure you could run a horror game, a sci-fi game, and a fantasy game with it, but why would you?

The print-on-demand and PDF era of publishing has granted us not just the freedom of choice, but also the ability to enter new genres and tell new stories using systems built specifically for genre-emulation.  Want to run a game about down-on-their-luck boxers?  There's a game for that.   Want a game that focuses on the backroom dealings of Japanese samurai families?  Yup, a game for that, too.  Want to be a former CIA agent hunting vampires?  Yes, you're covered.

The Kickstarter Revolution!

Yes, print-on-demand and PDF are great.  But, as I'm finding out more and more, getting a product off of the ground takes start-up capital.  Kickstarter and other crowd-sourcing sites like it have become great ways for rpg designers to not only come up with said capital, but also to publicize their works.

That'd be great in and of itself, but what's best comes right alongside the Kickstarter revolution:  the discussion and analysis of an industry that, for a long time, really hasn't had any intellectual critique at the marketing and distribution level.  Now, it's a daily occurrence, through Facebook groups and message board discussions aimed not just at the design and development end of role-playing games, but also how to take a game and make it into a clean, published product in a cost-effective, efficient manner.

It's that type of discussion that really pushes forward revolution and innovation.  While I can't say that every product has benefited from these discussions, they're a massive benefit to any would-be developer.

In Which The Warlock Taps, Swipes, and Pinches...

A few months ago, I mentioned that I'd come into possession of a certain tablet device, as part of a program through my school.  Now that I've finally had some time to play with the darn thing, it's round about time to give some opinion on the various toys that I've been playing with!

GoodReader

PDF viewing and editing comes foremost for me, in terms of utility on the iPad.  With so many books nowadays coming out in digital and dead-tree versions simultaneously, it's often a lot easier for me to just carry a tablet to my various games around the Ohio Valley, rather than lug books around.  While I still love books while at my home table (and to read before bed!), the convenience of a PDF really trumps a book when elsewhere.

GoodReader's tools are intuitive, easy to use, and usable with any number of cloud storage utilities out there.  Pllus, the PDF mark-up tools allow you to annotate, copy, and denote texts easily and quickly.  I actually used a character-sheet from Cold Steel Wardens to demonstrate GoodReader's PDF mark-up tools to my fellow teachers!  It's that quick and easy.

Hands down, GoodReader is worth the $4.99.  It's gotten rave reviews from numerous sources, and the praise is well and truly due.

Gamer Dice

This one, however, I was much less a fan.  One of the biggest draws for me, as a gamer, is the social and visceral feel of sitting around a table, rolling dice.  While Gamer Dice provides a stable replacement for the actual art of rolling dice, it can't replace that tactile feel of letting your d20s tumble between your fingers, clatter across the table, and roll to a stop.

Now, obviously, there are situations in which polyhedrals simply aren't realistic, but Gamer Dice doesn't do much to make me want to use it.  The app's base configuration is a flat, matte gray.  While its interface is functional, it has no visual appeal and no ability to simply input a number--rather, you have to tap the plus or minus button numerous times.  While this isn't a problem with small dice pools, rolling 5d12+22 would take a huge amount of time.  Plus, Gamer Dice doesn't allow for rolling of multiple types of dice simultaneously, which means that games like Marvel Heroic Roleplaying aren't playable with this app.

I'm sure that there's got to be a better dice roller out there than this one--save your time and effort.

Elder Sign:  Omens

Now, here's a real winner!  Fantasy Flight Games--producers of Arkham Horror and numerous other games--decided to take their card-based Cthulhian race-against-the-clock and build a version for the iOS and Android systems.

ES: O, as a product, is really polished and smooth, using art from its various Cthulhu lines and smooth mechanics.  Visuals and sound effects are evocative and immersive, drawing the player in.  While some have criticized the game for being a "trumped up version of Yahtzee", the more recent patches and the addition of two more Ancient Ones--Yig and Cthulhu himself, to go with the default Azathoth--have really expanded gameplay.

I find myself playing this one anytime I have nothing to do and have my iPad close at hand.  It's addictive, has a good deal of depth, and is outright fun to play.  Pick this one up and splurge on the expansion.  It's worth it!

In Which The Warlock Muses on GenCon...

With my British overlords at Cubicle 7 needing GMs for their games at this year's GenCon, I couldn't help but volunteer my services to run The Laundry.  In addition to being able to make good with the muckitty-mucks of C7, I wanted to be able to get a crack at GenCon!  Plus, Will the ManMan (also known as the Journeyman GM) joined me out there, running some sessions of Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space.

A glimpse of the dealer hall at
GenCon Indy 2011

While it's true I'd been to the "best 4 days in gaming" before, you could hardly call my visit to GenCon last year a true representation of the convention itself.  While gaming with Keith Baker was a massive treat, I only managed to spend about an hour in the Dealer Hall or surveying the convention itself.  This time, while I was still busy, I got a much better handle on the convention itself!

One of the biggest things that struck me was the sheer size of the Dealer Hall.  The hall itself was about half again the size of Origins' hall, with a massive amount of vendors, authors, and publishers.  The crowds were incredibly dense, but I didn't feel that they were that much larger than any I'd already seen at the Big O. 



Pieces for Fantasy Flight's upcoming
"X-Wing" miniatures game.

One of the neatest things that The Journeyman GM and I got to take part in was a demo of X-Wing--a forthcoming by the new owners of the Star Wars license, Fantasy Flight Games.  While still in development, X-Wing was a neat little miniatures game, built to be playable without the need for a map or measuring tape.  I'm not too heavily into miniatures games, per se, but the game was quick, enjoyable, and easy enough for newbies to pick up.  I'd like to see the ships deal a little more damage, but this was an early prototype, with many changes on the horizon.

But that wasn't why I was there!  Rather, I had some Laundry agents to drive mad!  I ran three sessions of "Case Goblin Willow" (or, was it Case Goblin Winter?  It kept changing with each draft of the adventure I received...), with some great moments of role-play at the table.  I was really shocked at the amount of fans for Charles Stross' series--I'm not exactly up on the sci-fi/fantasy scene anymore, but still--wow! 



Laundry Agents make their way through
Quarae House, in CASE GOBLIN WILLOW

My favorite session of the three had to be my second session, which got ambushed by two zombies...who promptly managed to nearly kill off two of the agents (with shovels, no less!), and send the others into a fighting retreat.  As the police arrived to investigate the gunshots, the agents realized quickly that they still had a corpse lying in the middle of their home-base!  With two of the agents hospitalized and three more incarcerated, none stood in the way of the adventure's villain from summoning STAIRCASE DWELLER (read: Yog-Sothoth!) and causing an early occurance of Case Nightmare Green...

One thing that did frustrated me was the layout of the convention center, and the fact that numerous games--RPGs, board games, and many others--weren't even in the convention center proper!  Rather, they were in the adjoining hotels, which could be up to 3 blocks away!  That makes for a ton of travel time, which makes the whole process much less convenient.  Plus, with many of the streets near the convention center under intense repair, it only became much more difficult to get around!

Overall, though, I was really pleased with GenCon.  With Origins moving their dates forward, it's looking more and more likely that GenCon will soon become my "con of choice" for a weeklong game-a-thon.  All in good time, no?

(See my whole album from GenCon 2011 on Facebook!)

Origins Blog 2008! Entry Five--The Swag!

No con is complete without the Swag! I was good, and kept to my vow of not spending more than $100. I even came under budget this year, spending only about $90. But that said, I was more than pleased with my purchases.

(Koplow Dice Tray)

I said I was going to get it, but this ended up being my last purchase. No surprises here—I’ve needed one for a while, and now I have it. The pleasant thing was seeing Bob (Don’t Call Him The Diceman!) at the booth. He seemed rather receptive about coming back to WittCon, which is a great positive—it’ll be great to have him in our corner again!

(Ironwind Metals—Fantasy Miniatures)

With the advent of 4e, and the tactical feel of combat, I set out for the Origins auction to look for some used minis that I’d be able to use when running the game. While the auction didn’t have what I was looking for, Ironwind did! At $2.00 an ounce for loose minis, I was able to pick up quite a selection (including a Cyclops, which is the spitting image of Craig T. Nelson’s monster in Flesh Gordon). Not too bad at all, particularly for $18.00 total.

(Sorting Chips—250—Multi-Color)

If it’s one thing I’ve noticed in many of the games I’ve been running recently, it’s that status conditions are getting more and more numerous. WEGS has its “Lost Action Phase”, and that’s to say nothing of Sure-Shot, Catlike-Tread, Magic/Mystic Sense, and more. D&D 4e, in addition, has “marked” targets, Warlock curses, “Hunter’s Quarry” targets, and much more. Having a way to keep track of these seems like a good way to go, and this was a cheap way to do it. At $4.00, you can’t beat the price—it’s great!

(Hex Hex; Smirk and Dagger Games)

Demoing this game with Curt Covert, while talking shop, may have been one of my most favorite sections of this year’s Origins. Hex Hex is a fun little game of backstabbing, which really runs when you’re sitting around with some good friends, just having a good time. It’d make for a stellar drinking game, too…but that’s another story. I was so impressed that I picked up the expansion, as well, Hex Hex Next, which has some even more lethal cards to toss in.

(Mutants and Masterminds 2e, Green Ronin Publishing)

Free is absolutely the best price, but this was an unexpected find. While I still love Palladium’s Heroes Unlimited, quite a few of the Witt-Weggers (Ebbs, for one) are all about the M&M. Reading through this, I can’t say I blame him too much—it’s a sweet little system. It may never replace my nostalgic favorite, but it’s a solid rules-set, with a lot of support behind it. None too bad at all.

So, I guess that, if you’re reading this, you’re wondering where are my reviews on Black Industries’ Inquisitors’ Handbook and the Kingsport Expansion for Arkham Horror. Well…I bought neither. But, this is for two different reasons.

I didn’t really find a good deal on Kingsport, and Bookery Fantasy is still offering their 15% off sale through the summer. I’d rather support my FLGS and get a sweet discount than simply get the expansion at a con, just for the experience of buying it there. I may even hold off for a tick, as Kingsport will be there for a while, and we typically play AH over at Lionel’s, so my set would go unused.

As for Inquisitors’ Handbook? Well, it’s a matter of cost. I paid $45.00 for the Dark Heresy core rules, which are in full-color and a beautiful matte hard-cover. Expensive for a book, but not unheard of. The Inquisitors’ Handbook, concurrently, is the same price, but is a soft-cover and only in black and white with red-borders. While I’d love to have it and use it, I just don’t think it’s worth it right now. Particularly when one considers that Fantasy Flight Games is expecting to put out their version in July, which will be in both hardcover and full-color. Thanks, but I’ll wait for that.