Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Book of War

I have been watching the evolution of Dan Collins' "Book of War" mass-combat system quite eagerly and just purchased a PDF copy. I'm looking forward to playing it and seeing how it works out!
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Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Game of Thrones

I just discovered the HBO mini-series "Game of Thrones." It is really awesome, and I highly endorse it if you can find access (HBO, annoyingly, refuses to embrace Netflix, Hulu, or any sort of pay-on-demand service if you don't have a traditional cable subscription). I never read the Song of Fire and Ice books but it is really a very compelling world. I've ordered book #2 for my Kindle so I can continue onward.

In other news, I haven't abandoned this blog. After a long vacation "off the grid" with little access, I have been working 60-90 hours most weeks these days, so between the two of them my posting has been very light and will probably continue to be light to non-existent until Christmas or so when hopefully work lets up. For now I am focusing on sleeping, eating, clothing myself, and spending what little time I have with family so gaming is not even really on the priorities list although I do have some ideas still rattling around.
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Monday, November 22, 2010

Read on Kindle

I recently acquired a Kindle. As a side note, I love it. I'm a frequent traveler and for road warriors I think it is hard to beat. The ability to pack around a library in my hand is awesome. Moreover, the screen is actually great for reading, unlike most e-readers or computers.



Gamers might be interested to find out that the Kindle can display PDF files. I pulled S&W Core, S&W Whitebook, AD&D 1E and a few other PDFs onto the device and they displayed alright. More graphically intense files tend to have slow load times but it is tolerable. While it isn't ideal for rapidly paging through books, it is serviceable in a pinch, especially if you "tab out" the books first with bookmarks so you can quickly jump to key pages.

In any event, I am doing a lot of reading on the Kindle so I went ahead and had the Potion Shop hosted on the Kindle Store. If you have a Kindle this lets you pull down the blog in an easy to read format for a nominal fee every month. Note that I only get a small fraction, most of the subscription goes to Amazon and AT&T. I'm not doing this for the money; it is more as a convenience for any of my readers that may also appreciate being able to read blogs in Kindle format. I still do this primarily for me and as you may be used to, there may be gaps in posting. So don't be PO'd if you pay your $0.99 and I don't post every day!
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Saturday, February 13, 2010

Elegia

I just found a nifty free game called "Elegia." It is intended as a hybrid between a simple old-school game (think 3LBB) and 8-bit console RPGs. I never really played console RPGs, but I still found the implementation to be charming. It looks like a solid, simple, and playable system. I was hooked when I saw that the author also chooses to use stones for enc! I was also happy to see the movement rates and such which line up nicely with my thoughts on Hexploration. It also shows a four-attribute system implemented pretty smoothly, and the skill list is not bad.

I was originally disappointed by the magic system, which focuses on flashy evocation. However, the author's notes later in the text explained the reasoning, which does make sense.

But video games actually have one noteworthy advantage over the traditional
model of tabletop RPG, and it all boils down to those oft-derided limitations.
In video games, the magic system is simple and focused. Wizards are good at
raining down fiery death upon their enemies, but they lack the game-breaking
spells that allow them to solve any challenge easily and one-up the other
character classes at every turn. Wizards can’t divine for secrets, polymorph
themselves or their opponents, fly or teleport past physical obstacles with
impunity, or end the adventure with a single well-worded wish. And magical items
are rare enough that nobody else can do these things either.
In a nutshell,
the truncated magic system forces players of all experience levels to think
creatively. Even players in control of 20th level characters can’t rely on
spells or items to solve all of their problems. This frees up the referee to use
a wider range of challenges—things that would make high-level characters in
other RPG systems yawn, while the players look to their character sheets for the
half-dozen ways that they can bypass the obstacle with no thought or originality
involved. (Unless, of course, the problem at hand is monsters that aren’t dead
yet. Elegia magic remains pretty darned good at cracking that particular
chestnut.)

In any event, its free and takes only 10 minutes to skim. Could be a fun way to burn an afternoon someday!

I've labeled this as an "indie game," but really just because that's my tag for "3rd party games." This is really more of the "Old School Renaissance" flavor. I need to go add it to the list of retroclones...
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Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Reading for Diplomacy Players

I highly recommend "Anticipating Surprise" by Cynthia Grabo. I just devoured it for one of my master's classes and found it to be a quick, easy, and useful read. It formalized and clarified a lot of concepts that I'm familiar with both from my professional, educational (especially the poli sci side -- game theory, I'm looking at you!), and personal (diplomacy, gaming) experience.

Many ideas that I had inklings of but was afraid to acknowledge were confirmed ("A few smart people in a room are often better at predicting something bad will happen than many, many uninformed people going for consensus will be"), and confirmed others that I was quite sure of ("Most people will be hesitant to predict that conflict is coming because conflict is the universal human phobia"). Brownie points if you know who I stole the last half of that parenthetical from, too.

For gamers, I think its of some value. The savvy dungeon master will get some use out of reading it so that he can craft scenarios that really stretch his player's analytical capabilities. For Diplomacy players it really shines. The scenarios described in Grabo's work apply equally to Diplomacy players as they do for statesmen. If I ever find myself teaching strategic analysis (as I might someday, in a quaint town in the American SW that I know H-- loves) I think I may have my students play Diplomacy because I can think of no better way to illustrate some of the points than through that game.
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Friday, April 10, 2009

Blue Rose

Does anyone know anything about Green Ronin's True20 Blue Rose system?

Thanks!
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Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Attack of the Retro-Clones

I wanted to compile a list of retroclones and what they seek to emulate. Perhaps later I will add links to reviews and the source websites -- so consider this a work in progress! Please feel free to chime in with comments if I've left something out or if you have more information/links to add!

Here's a link to a similar page: http://www.retroroleplaying.com/content/retro-clones

With no further ado:

"CLASSIC" D&D CLONES

Swords & Wizardry White Box (S&W WB)

Swords & Wizardy Core Rules (S&W)


Labyrinth Lord (LL)


BASIC FANTASY RPG (BFRPG)


Microlite 74


OTHER CLONES

Open Source Reference & Index Compilation (OSRIC)

Project 74

Microlite20

Mutant Future

ZeFRS (Zeb's Fantasy Roleplaying System)

Original Edition Delta

Generic Old-School Roleplaying Engine (GORE)


REIMAGININGS (What if...?)

Long Live the Magic Users and Fighting Men!

Castles & Crusades

Spellcraft and Swordplay

Epées & Sorcellerie

Mazes & Minotaurs

Wayfarers

Elegia


NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
These aren't What Ifs, they aren't clones, but they are in the vein of older works. Its arbitrary, I know, but this is an index, not a review, and I aim to be as inclusive as possible.

Tunnels and Trolls

The Barbarians of Lemuria

Fantasy Sagas


Legendary Lives

Dragon Warriors

Realms of Wonder

Legends of the Ancient World

Dungeon Squad

Dungeon Slayers

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Sunday, April 5, 2009

Telling the Hero's Story: Exalted

Well, I can't properly call this a review, as I don't own Exalted (yet?).

However, I was doing some surfing and figured I'd head on over to White Wolf's website and see what they have been up to. I really haven't checked out WW since they released Mage, and that was sometime ago.

Some of the developments look pretty predictable (hordes of splats), others are just stupid (a pimp RPG? Really?). One caught my eye, however, "Exalted."

Exalted is WW's attempt to bust into the heroic fantasy market. It is designed to facilitate the telling of heroic, epic stories. It incorporates a lot of the ideas I've been toying with -- characters have archetypes ("natures"), are encouraged for using virtues (but the virtues have a tragic dark side -- not bad), and the game is meant to help tell stories in a mythic age (lots of Elemental flavor, etc).

Now the problems I have with it. First, its saddled with this pseudo-asian mythical anime-ish flavor. Ridicolous names for Charms, art that I probably won't appreciate, and over the top combat stunts. Second, it looks like a bloated version of the storyteller system. I like the NWOD Storyteller system because its fairly rules light. This looks like a pretty heavy version, with lots of complex charms, stunts, etc that violate the rule of 7 left and right. Plus, they haven't patched the "exploits" in Storyteller yet -- for example, everyone knows its better to start with 4 dots in something and then to buy one or two dots in other things than it is to try to buy up to 4 dots. So there is still the choice to suck.

Finally, its saddled with this complex and kind of stupid backstory. Rather than sticking with the real mythic world (like Zenobia -- and the tie to the real world is one of the draws of NWOD) we've got this totally made up pseudo mediterranean place with a complicated backstory. My tolerance for learning new backstories is dropping rapidly. Like most Storyteller games, the setting is vital to the mechanics so I don't think it'd be easy to seperate them.

So, I think I'm preemptively passing on Exalted. It looks tempting, but I don't think it will deliver what I want. It is frustrating because of all the big name RPG companies out there, I trust WW to do a good job with a mythic heroic storytelling game. But, Exalted looks like it went the wrong direction for my tastes.
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Saturday, March 28, 2009

Blogroll Additions

I wanted to note a few additions to my blogroll as well as a notable post or two on the existing ones.

TROLLSYMTH

Trollsmyth is a creative old-school DM and player with a lot of good ideas. I like his magic hack for OD&&D/LL a lot (LINK: http://trollsmyth.blogspot.com/2008/06/playing-with-magic.html), and he's got a lot of other hacks/sub systems that are pretty cool and seem quite playable. All in all, a quality read. He also has quite a few playtest reports/gaming war stories. The worst bad thing here is that he doesn't seem to use labels for his posts. That can make it quite hard to find just what it is you're looking for.

GROGNARDIA

Wow, this is epic. A highly prolific blog with a ton of links to other good gaming resources. I don't agree with everything he says, and the author can be a bit doctrinaire for my tastes, but what a great collection of old-school reviews, thoughts, and discussion. Definitely worth a visit.

TRAN ESKOOR AN DOOM

The author had very kind words about my blog a few posts back and I am just now getting around to adding him to my blogroll. A wide variety of musings on various topics, with some usable if conventional resources (monsters, treasure, tables, etc). Plus the name is just cool to say. I imagine Hagar the Horrible gutturally spitting it out while jumping out of a longboat or something.

KILL THE WIZARD FIRST

A newer-school bent on gaming in many ways, but one with a lot of tinkering. The posts are nicely labeled which makes it easier to sort through and find what you are looking for. The theory is often abstract but quite interesting to read. Plus, this is another great title (note the sub-title: Doesn’t matter what system or setting: the dude in the pointy hat is going down. ).

DELTA'S D&D SPOT

Delta just published his own hack for OD&D. I don't agree with everything in there but he deserves great credit for actually put his thoughts together in a coherent and playable manner on paper. As always it is a pleasure to read his blog.
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Monday, March 16, 2009

My Blogroll

I've noticed that a lot of sites have extensive blogrolls. Unfortunately, they do not include a literature review. So the casual surfer has no idea why he should visit Blog A over Blog B. Maybe A provides reviews of old-school material, and B is more oriented towards homebrew; the surfer doesn't know until he visits and reads a stack of posts.

That's why I will include a literature review where possible of the links I've put on my blogroll.

Geek Grab Bag (http://geekgrabbag.blogspot.com/). This is my friend Dan's blog. Lately he has primarily been pondering about a homebrew fantasy adventure RPG that borrows heavily from AD&D and 4E. He also occasionally throws out info about WoW or the World of Darkness.

Ars Ludi (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/). This is a blog run by an experienced gamemaster, and its closely associated with an indie company named Lame Mage. I came across it one day with random surfing and was impressed by a lot of the ideas there. Normalvision, the Braunstein History, West Marches, and other articles are quite interesting. There's a lot of D&D material there but he also tends towards indie games that you might not yet be familiar with.

Delta's D&D Hotspot (http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/). This blog is run by a fellow named Dan who is apparently a statistics professor. He brings a strong analytical mindset and some serious number crunching to the table. The main focus of this blog is OD&D and he shares many of my own ideas regarding customary units, the rules of 7/3, etc. He also occasionally reviews obscure old school material. I just wish that he posted RPG design and theory ideas more often!
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