TROLL HUNTER ... the movie?!?!

Ok ... its foreign ...

clearly ... its low budget ...

But holy crap the more I've seen about this movie the more I want to see it!!

STUPER POWERS DELUXE and TACO BELL!!! ¡AY, CARAMBA!

I would like to give anyone out there who doesn't know about it a quick heads up on one of my favorite little systems ... its great for one shot supers games (if you want zany/campy hilarity) its called STUPER POWERS DELUXE.  I haven't played for years but it  "is a role-playing game in which you play a superhero endowed with silly, useless, and downright gross superpowers, sent into battle against the only slightly less ridiculous forces of evil."  You end up with characters who can project smells into the minds of their foes ... catch is they themselves have to experience the smell (have fun with that one), they shoot ice cream (instead of fire or ice or energy beams), heroes summon vehicles made of fruit, etc. crazy retro camp at its finest.  This system really isn't the game a group would probably pick for long term play but for some funny one and two shot games this is just a priceless system.  Every game I've experienced of it has been a blast.

The hilarious Taco Bell advertisement just screams for conversion into a stupor powers game ... of course the group would have to make a run for the boarder at some point during the session :)

Is technology ultimately a distraction in tabletop gaming? Or is it a amazing tool?

First this might seem trite and contrived but to me this is a fundamental question that I have yet to really address on my own terms. Clearly the answer is something in the middle as it always is with an open ended question like this.

For me though this discussion has long been raging in various gaming groups I've been a part of.  Lately its been along the lines of Iphone apps, dicerollers, board game aid-applications, the demise of character builder/monster builder as we knew them with 4e, etc. Yet I can not put my finger on the answer from my own perspective.  I tend to be averse to too much technology I find it is distracting and a huge time waster.  Do we really need to twitter everything we do?  Be honest how much time on facebook is even enjoyable for most people.  Blogs ... hell this blog I've had a ton of mediocre posts ... a handful of people have read them  it is not why I do this so it doesn't bother me, but wouldn't my time be spent better painting figures or terrain or reading a new ruleset or something ... probably is the answer I have to give.  I think if we try to stay aware of whether or not the technology we are using is really as useful as its being billed to be is a good starting place.  I think the problem is tech is hip ... and here in America most people whether they admit it or not are pop culture whores and hipsters and being seen with the latest model of apple product, using applications for everything you do .. is hip .. its trendy ... its in and its cool.  The price we pay though for that is it really worth it?  For me so far I am leaning towards no ... in terms of tabletop gaming.  Then again I'm not in a group that is completely pushing it so I don't know what the global gaming community really feels on this.

Clearly off in the future sometimes all tabletop gaming is likely to be borg-ized by technology for good or bad ... its inevitable.  We all know it.  Board game companies will likely blend with other media companies and we'll be downloading the new Twilight Imperium or Arkham Horror expansions rather than buying the tabletop version.  With minis its harder to say but we've seen the first attempt already.  But the big question is does tabletop gaming die a little more, does it lose some of its magic, when technology runs amok? Or is it a long over due liberation?  For me I have mixed feelings.  Just since around 2000 I feel there has been a massive hit to the average tabletop gamers attention span and willingness to delve into complex rulesets, maybe that is a good thing?  Don't really know.  But also numbers seem to be down a bit.  More people seem to be content to stay home and game via WoW or the newest video game release.  That might just be my own biased personal experience based on trying to find new gamers.  But things do seem to be changing and at least at this moment and from my own individual perspective ... not all for the better.  To me technology seems somewhat distracting and invasive at this point. 

I agree that there is a big convenience factor with using tech aids in gaming.   I think that is the ultimate seduction of technology its easier, faster and able to accommodate more complexity in a manageable way, etc.  I mean if it isn't why would we use it at all?  So yes tech is a tool that can make things "easier" but the question is always is the price (literally sometimes) worth it?

I for one though hate using PDFs for games ... exclusively.  They can be a great reference, very handy, but using only PDFs has at least in my experience been somewhat problematic.  Perhaps its just my antiquated sensibilities but I have talked to many other people who feel the same way.  But the value of PDFs is high and clearly PDFs have changed the gaming industry big time.  The indie scene especially.  I think that is the ultimate seduction of technology ... its easier ... I mean if it isn't why would we use it at all?  So yes tech is a tool that can make things "easier" but the question is always is the price (literally sometimes) worth it?

I think we are sort of at that place with technology and tabletop gaming where technology and much of the rest of society was say five or ten years ago.  Its odd to me that even tabletop gaming is an area of interest that attracts a high percentage of geeks, techies, nerds and generally folks more apt to use tech and explore new uses as soon as whatever piece of technology is available.  Yet here we are ... just now in the past 3 or so years really getting more and more of it.  Seems like the tabletop gaming industry/hobby is lagging behind the rest of post-industrial society a bit.  For example this past year we saw the first (at least widely available in the US market) game that fused tabletop miniatures with tech Ex Illis.  That game was really interesting it is a grid based tabletop game.  You paint and assemble your minis just like the warhammer range, but when your done you play on a grid and record your moves in a computer.  Much more complex math can be done so ultra customizable options are available which otherwise wouldn't be or would be so complex that the vast majority of players wouldn't want to play.  Yet playing the game felt odd ... the question "why don't we just play a video game" kept coming up over and over.  Yet undeniably a blending of tech is inevitable.  As future generations grow up with tech everywhere around them, I think games that don't have some tech element are going to be a hard sell. 

For me tech aided gaming has been cool.  In years past when I was a more avid 40K player I can't imagine life without the armybuilder program.  The 4e run wouldn't have been half as fun without the old character builder program, and though I know I didn't use it ... every DM who I have talked to that ran 4e seemed to have dearly loved the old monster builder. 

A few other interesting tangents sparked from this is the distraction caused by technology ... when one plays a game if their actions distract others that is a distraction. Especially with role playing games where generally immersion is desired.  This said GMs have long been using tools like audio tracks, visuals ... heck back in the 1980s I played in a summer game where we had access to a high school (one of the players dads was the school principal and would let us game in a classroom while he worked down in an office) ... our DM used photocopied transparencies and just hand drawn maps (dry erase) to aid the game.  It enhanced the game alot.  Clearly when a full "gametable" type setup is available ... just imagine the possibilities ... all board games in a digital format, all RPGs in a digital format.  Interactive tools via PDA devices (or just our phones) etc. etc. its mind boggling how far this could go and how cool it might be.

Yet the large question looming in my mind is along the lines of how much technology distracts from life itself and for me tabletop gaming has been a refuge to some extent from technology.  Anyway a really good article along these lines I read last summer sort of got me thinking about all this NY TIMES ARTICLE.  When the day finally comes that tabletop is heavily dominated by tech ... I wonder how I'll feel ... will that be what finally pushes me out of gaming entirely?  Or will it be a magical time again ... a new time of wonder at all the possibilities akin to the day when I stood in awe as the classic red box was opened?

What do people out there think?

I look at this clip and its friggin awesome (yes yes I know the game table itself is old news I'm just talking about the concept which I think very, very few gamers have yet to experience on a regular basis) ... it just gets my mind reeling about the possibilities.  Imagine if all of the good board games, all the good RPGs, even many tabletop miniature games had integrated features usable by a game table like that one (or maybe even a BIGGER one ... man a 4 foot by 6 foot table like that would be AMAZING!).  But then I watch the demo and I see how much time people spend dinking around with things .. granted its a demo ... its new tech.  As such systems come on line they'll inevitably be refined and people will get better and better at using them.  Its soooo enticing on one hand and so uncertain and disturbing on the other.  This stuff will be coming down the pipeline someday in the future ... clearly its inevitable.

COMMUNITY Dungeons and Dragons Episode!

OK ... first if you haven't seen the show ... why not?  Its great! (If you'd like to check out the episode just go to Hulu and hit the Community section ... its the most current episode (episode 14, season 2).

To explain why I'm posting this here ... its a mainstream example of gaming and I think its one of the best media depictions of the positive aspects of what RPGs are all about!  The fact that it occurred in a show that I already liked was just icing on the cake!

Really on the face of it one could go ... man the writers got it all wrong ... this isn't D&D ... (I'd slap such a statement in the face with a terse TROLL!  YOU MISS THE POINT!).

Yes Abed rolled for the party (I think that was a way to speed up the game as they only had 21 minutes for the episode! Community needs to be an hour ... *sniffle*) ... but this is hardly the first depiction of a game like that in film.  The suspense and effect of the random nature of dice was conveyed to the viewer so I don't think someone unfamiliar with D&D would misunderstand what the game is about based on that.

Pierce being a spoiler ... actually playing the antagonist ... well Abed rolled with it and wow ... turned out great! (well not for pierce ... but hey ... nothing ever goes well for pierce ... he is a dick after all).

Chang ... while his sad early demise was a disappointment (to me as I wanted more Drow ... damn why can't this show be an hour!) ... his dramatic death immediately escalated the stakes of the game and focused the players.  No wamby pamby goblins anymore ... they were playing for keeps!

Neal ... his legacy added legitimacy to the game ... the loss of a treasured hard earned essentially "heirloom" item was traumatic for him as a player but also for the rest of the group.  Drama builds!

I like the statement that was made with normally cool, together, generally bad ass ... Jeff Winger made through the episode.  He basically was too cool for the game.  He didn't let himself have fun ... he didn't let himself truly be a part of the game.  He missed opportunity to really shine and play to what would normally be his strengths.  Abed was throwing him an opportunity and he wusses out ... sad ... really sad Winger   Winger was actually playing the Troll (for proof watch the credits at the beginning ... hehe).

Brita ... well she started out bad but as the game went on she really lent to the game by helping build emotion! Wow look at her reaction at the death of an NPC whom she had befriended.  That is what Wickian DMing will do ... pull emotion out of players and heighten the experience for everyone ... bravo Brita!

The rest of the group:

Annie the love scene was fucking hilarious ... and what ... the often maligned, taboo, mocked ...  gender bending.  Oh sure it was in there for laughs but its a good point ... its a role playing game ... don't be afraid to stretch yourself (no bad pun intended ... given the well endowed moniker of her character). The dwarf character was funny ... Troy's character didn't do much but both he and Shirley good example of how meta conversation can add to the game actually and not detract from it.  Their meta discussion actually added to the fun and hilarity and built on the drama ... bravo to them!

What excites me the most about this is its a very positive portrayal of D&D ... oh sure there are geek references, etc.  But really the point is the positive side of RPGs and what they can do.  Hell these people are trying to SAVE A DUDES LIFE with D&D??!?!?!  This ain't the Tom Hanks 80s bible thumper burn all e-vile D&D!! Or the standard ... D&D is for losers ... again ya they portray "Fat Neal" as a nerd with no life ... but ... they sort of hold him up as someone worthy of compassion and a good guy.  The show focuses on the positive side of what a role playing game is ... and what it can mean.  Bravo ... bravo!

Farewell to an old friend ...

Farewell to an old friend ...

I heard today that an old friend passed away ... he was only in his mid 30s (Born in 72') ... had a terminal illness for years.  He was very private about it and I didn't know (I don't think many people outside of his immediate family did) that it had returned.  I post this here because Rick was a gamer ...  through and through ... dyed in the wool ... gamer.  He was mainly a mini game fan ... but he was an old time D&D player and an avid video game player as well. I met him through the Las Vegas Gamers Club ... he and I were basically part of the founding group.  We had a wonderful five year run as a club ... then people moved away and things sort of fell by the wayside.  I'd only spoken to Rick a few times since I left Las Vegas in 2009. 

He LOVED ... I mean dearly LOVED Games Workshop games ... particularly 40K.  I think they guy owned and fully painted to high tabletop standard ... damn near every army GW makes for both 40K and WHFB.  He was crazy for the stuff ... he'd buy an army ... paint it ... sell it off ... buy another ... lol.  Always so fun to shoot the shit about gaming with.  He really didn't care if he won or lost when you played against him ... he never lost his cool and got ticked about losing .. or gloated about winning ... he was really just in it for the fun and good times.  He could find the humor in a bad loss ... find humor in rolling 8 ones out of 9 dice (I witnessed him make that roll once btw) for a game losing round of close combat in a tournament.  When he won he was gracious.  He was quick to compliment people, quick to open a door, quick to pat someone on the back when they needed it.  When we had our first child he got a card and a heartfelt gift ... I mean none of my other gaming friends did anything like that and I didn't expect them too ... but Rick did ... he was that kind of guy.

He was one hell of a nice guy ... one of the nicest people I've ever known and I say that with all sincerity.  Always there to lend a hand, always willing to pitch in on gaming club activities, etc.  He was one of those guys who not to be cliche "would give you the shirt off his back" but really he was ... he could be down to his last five bucks and if you needed it ... he'd give it to you.  He was just a salt of the earth person just an amazing person.  He had a very young daughter and a loving wife.  It tears me up to know that his child won't know him and that he won't have a chance to see her grow up, go through school, go off to college, get married, have a career, kids, etc. 

Rick rest in peace man ... you will be missed ...

To follow the blog heard ... who will pick up the Star Wars RPG license?

So who will pick up the Star Wars RPG license?

Here is my based on nothing but opinion opinion ... 

To start as we all know The Old Republic looms on the horizon ... its going to generate interest in the Star Wars franchise that it hasn't seen in years.  Clearly all the bean counters, marketers, executives and legal folks are well aware of this and as we know Lucas is all about the Ben Franklins ... they could give two shits about anything else.  Again obvious givens right.  So keep this in mind then when one speculates on who is going to pick up the license.  For Lucas Arts ... they have so much merchandising going on ... in so many genres ... the RPG license is a small nat on a nats arse sitting on another nat who happens to be on a mouses ass.  In short its pointlessly small.  I'd think they'd be far more concerned about the collectible card games/mini games/board games, etc.  So why would a company like Mongoose with really poor history in the US (I have no clue what their history is in the UK maybe its better) in terms of big successful titles, and their licensed stuff is bottom barrel stuff.

Mongoose is a terrible, terrible company that has put out consistently bad games.  I'd die laughing at the house that does Babylon 5 ... picked up a Lucas Arts license ... it would be a huge joke.  Mongoose isn't remotely the caliber of company they'd be interested in IMO.  They have had a few ok RPG supplements but in general everything they've done from their minis lines to a fair portion of their RPG stuff hasn't been of a level that Lucas Arts would be looking for.  If I had to take a shot in the dark guess on who would be in the running I'd say:  Green Ronin (they've done high quality licensed product), Fantasy Flight Games (they are just a top notch all in one shop, Lucas Arts could sign them up across the board for tabletop and they'd be set).  Unless its some crazy lotto win for some third string company like Mongoose ... I'd wager it would be one of those two.

Cubicle 7 would kick ass (Legends of Anglerre rocks) ... but do they have the chops to compete for a Lucas license??  The only companies I know of that make sense are FFG and Green Ronin ... Green Ronin has Dragon Age, Warhammer Fantasy 2nd ed, and A Game of Thrones under its belt. Again all idle speculation at this point ... Upper Deck will likely end up with the license and farm out the RPG stuff to someone we've never heard of ... lol.  Who knows ... likely Lucas will drag its feet for a few years and award it to some shitbox company that does a bad job ... and we'll end up with a game designed by Jar Jar Binks ... woot!

Happy Turkey Day ... consume mass quantities ... nom nom nom!!

Happy Turkey Day ... consume mass quantities ... nom nom nom!!

Hell Dorado Mini Skirmish game being released in the US

Ok ...

Some folks out there might be familiar with this game/minis range out of France called
Hell Dorado.  Awesome and interesting minis throughout the range!!  Perhaps just as interesting is the concept for the game itself:


LOL ... I did a babel fish on the intro text block and here it is ... I like the translation as always odd sounding language but the back story for this game is rather novel/interesting and really dark (in a super cool way) ...

"1634… The voluptuous languages of the flames of the war lick the heart of the men… One commits suicide for the faith, the richness, the power, glory… Under mud and the debris, a door towards the hells s' is open. And they s' there engulf, by tens. Missionaries, conquistadores, colonists, roughneck soldiers, large captains… In bottom, c' is a New World which awaits them. A world d' hope, a world to be plundered, a world to be built. A world populated of demons which n' do not intend to yield an inch of their territory. A world invaded by d' other human, come d' The East to find l' result of their mystical search. A world where are terrent unnamable creatures, lost for any humanity. This world, c' is that of Hell Dorado, and c' is now your new horizon!" 

Anyway it looks like Cipher Studios picked up the line as the US distributor also the Warstore is going to be stocking the game so I'm sure its only a matter of time before people get ahold of these pretty minis and start actually playing the game.  No idea what the game plays like ... but again it looks interesting.

FIASCO

Fiasco –

Alright … this past Sunday yea olde indie gaming crew tried out yet another title Fiasco.

Fiasco is an indie title published by Bully Pulpit Games and their description is as follows:

“Fiasco is inspired by cinematic tales of small time capers gone disastrously wrong – inspired by films like Blood Simple, Fargo, The Way of the Gun, Burn After Reading, and A Simple Plan. You’ll play ordinary people with powerful ambition and poor impulse control. There will be big dreams and flawed execution. It won’t go well for them, to put it mildly, and in the end it will probably all go south in a glorious heap of jealousy, murder, and recrimination. Lives and reputations will be lost, painful wisdom will be gained, and if you are really lucky, your guy just might end up back where he started.

Fiasco is a GM-less game for 3-5 players, designed to be played in a few hours with six-sided dice and no preparation. During a game you will engineer and play out stupid, disastrous situations, usually at the intersection of greed, fear, and lust. It’s like making your own Coen brothers movie, in about the same amount of time it’d take to watch one.”

The game has a pretty simple mechanic that centers upon relationships between the characters.  To mention again the game is a GM-less system where everything is resolved via a shared dice pool mechanic.

The game starts by everyone taking a black and a white die … tossing em in a big pile and having someone roll em all up. That is the game's starting dice pool. From there … you would either have previously selected the “playset” (think mini setting basically … or the stage upon which your little story is going to occur) or you'd do it then. I guess really it might be even easier to describe the playset simply a theme which is represented by a series of tables by which you establish all the relationships, locations, objects/props and then you act out the a few acts and come up with resolution. Incidentally our playset was "Boomtown"   Though your playing within the genre so to speak of the playset ... and you get specific terms or signifiers you aren't flat out pigeon holed into the type of character you build, or the relationships you form, its really free form and the players individually and collectively get to weave their own story.

Ok now that I've given you my basic description of the game here is a really brief synopsis of what we did with it …

Our game involved four main characters … two brothers … the Sullivan Brothers … a woman posing as a man (yup) running a shady den of iniquity ... combination whore house gambling den (aren't they all), a faith healing snake oil salesman and his crooked, yet rather comely, accomplice Isabella. They all had a tangled web of relationships … some humorous … some twisted … and as the story unwove they sank deeper and deeper into a dark, sad tale of woe. Their own greed, arrogance and human frailty generally got the best of them … some managed to emerge at the end of the long dark night somewhat unscathed … and others paid the price.  We all thought it turned out awesome ... well in a darkly humorous way anyway ...

All in all it was pretty fun and the darkness of it all was heavily balanced with hilarity. I think every one of us really wants to play this game again. The sheer number of playsets being released (mostly for free) for this game guarantees a lot of re-playability. Just the mechanics of the game in the core book mean this is a game that you could play for weeks on end and not have much repetition.  We had a blast ... we will be back to this glorious game again and again ...

Pretorian Heads ... over pricing?

Ok ... just a simple observation here ... I as many of you out there follow Tabletop Gaming News ... I noticed that over the past few years there has been an EXPLOSION!!! of epic proportions of garage companies selling GW related bitz. I'm shocked that sue happy GW hasn't been suing the living crap out of many of these mom and pop shops as was there old practice. I'm happy that GW isn't doing that and I wholeheartedly wish all these guys well ... it expands all of our gaming options ... saves us time etc.  But I have noticed some of these companies putting out products at prices as high or higher than forgeworld .. which leads me to believe that there is alot more room for such product in the marketplace (something most of us have been saying for years as well). Whether we are in a 3.5 D&D OGL era glutted market period for minis ... or a true renaissance for mini gaming ... I don't know ... does anyone out there have an opinion? statistics? share if you do.

My main point for posting this quick blurb though has been to discuss a specific product and its cost vs. other readily available products.

Wargame Factory Plastics .... VS .... Secret Weapon Miniatures

15 bucks for 20 heads   ..... OR ..... Five bucks for five

However you get THE ENTIRE figure including alot of other bitz from Wargame Factory Plastics ... Secret Weapon Miniatures ... you just get five heads.  I'm honestly not too impressed with their sculpts for those prices.

It seems like every other somewhat well followed blog out there is pimping one of these garage companies and their somewhat over priced product. 1 buck for sculpy-hobbiest quality sculpted shoulder pads from one place ... 40 bucks for some friggin wolves that are recasts of kids toys with a saddle and some extra armor ... etc. There is alot of low quality stuff out there ... coupled with some pretty high prices. I have complained and bitched for years about GWs prices ... but they put out professional quality product, sculpted by industry professionals, using high quality industrial processes. Even Forgeworld ... as many miscast pieces, etc. as I've gotten from them over the years ... their general sculpts and quality of their miniatures are AMAZING usually. I'm sorry but there is alot of stuff on the market place that is really shoddy and people are apparently paying top dollar for it.  Anyway I noticed this one pretty big discrepancy and just wondered why people wouldn't go with a much cheaper plastic alternative ... ok sure if you want five alt heads ... or you just need five heads ... maybe paying more for less is worth it. But if your doing an entire Pretorian army (and you could just use the entire fig .... 20 troopers for 15 bucks ... erm ... a little converting ... adding guard weps and bitz here and there ... bada bing ... done and done ... for ultra cheap).

To be or not to be ...

 RPG related quandry ... its an age old one for me as I've had this issue many times in games I've played in and ran and have yet to really find a decent answer other than one I'll provide. But I'm tossing this out in hopes of maybe getting some points of view or ideas I hadn't encountered before.

OK 

The problem goes like this:

Player X is your typical happy go lucky  ... fun loving ... team playing ... D&D fan. He just is stoked to be at the table, happy to be hanging out with his friends, eagerly anticipating what the DM is going to do this session. This guy is a team player, he wants to get along, ok sure sometimes he will disagree about going right or left, about what to ask a captive, etc. he tends to play "good-ish ... maybe a little neutral at times."

Player Y is not necessarily your typical fun loving guy ... he is a bit edgy (maybe its an act to seem kinda cool ... or maybe he just listens to too much death metal ... and/or watches too much twisted shit on the internet ... probably Japanese or German twisted) ... he generally gets along with people. He knows the rules, has fun most of the time and isn't a jerk at heart really ... he is just a non-conformist. The guy never wants to play anything near a "good" alignment tending character. He hates just going along with the party ... no matter how sound the "group" plan is he tends to want to do something else. He frequently suggests things that are overtly evil ... pulling an NPC into an alleyway and killing them because they have something he needs (when there are non-evil/murderous alternatives readily available) ... etc. 

So at the end of the day playing a "good" or "evil" party in my opinion is ok ... either option can be fun ... either option can have good combat or good RP ... or both. I just strongly feel that you generally need to as a group decide this before you start to play. IF you choose the very difficult option of playing a mixed party, and your going to stay true to your character concepts ... you better be ready for some PVP at some point. Again its totally ok if that is what everyone is willing to sign on for ... BUT ... to just randomly pick character concepts and alignments that are in diametric opposition to one an other ... in my opinion ... is just asking for trouble. So my preference is to just play a somewhat synchronized game where the party is loosely on the same page.

This said ... it never fails ... best laid plans soon fall to ruin ... the plans of battle rarely survive contact with the enemy ... the road to hell is paved with good intentions ... yada yada ... 

So the question is ... when ... X+Y= Shit^100 ... what should one do?

I mean in the case that player X and player Y are both showing up, know the rules, being polite out of the game ... yet are abjectly miserable half of the time while playing the game ... what should one do? I know honesty is the best policy, but frequently people don't listen or don't understand fully what is being said. So the group talk is had .. and nothing changes. What then? Just quit the game ... reboot without one of them?

This has happened several times to me over the years and it seems like there isn't a good option really.

What happened to my dashboard???

What happened to my dashboard??? Does anyone out there know how to return it to the old format?

Montsegur 1244

Montsegur 1244

I'm going to try to pick it up and run it sometime this fall/winter ... its very esoteric and most assuredly not for everyone.  I like the mechanics of the game though and if you have a group of good roleplayers the game can lead to some very deep RP ... the one session of the game I played in was really amazing. But this is a game of emotion and relationships ... gritty combats are unlikely (though the mechanics would allow for scenes to be framed with gritty combat if one so desired) ...

Here is some interesting background information on the history of the Cathars and Montsegur

Montsegur 1244  and more on the Cathars and a cool BBC radio program on it:

Historic Prelude

In 1199 A.D., Pope Innocent III declares that a good Christian no longer needs go to The Holy Land to go straight to Heaven. Heathens can be found a lot closer to home. In Northern Europe kings compete on bringing Christianity to the Baltic region. In southern France a long and bloody war against the Cathars begins.

Skull The Catholic Church has been in a weak position for a long time. A new religious doctrine has been spreading and threatens the Church. Maybe the bishops have been too busy with their intrigues in Rome. Maybe they have been tax collecting a bit too zealously. The message of a simple life, following the example of Jesus, wins sympathy and listeners. Told directly in people’s homes by abstinent, humble men and women.

In 1208, an army of crusaders attack. The main force consists of Normans. The first town, Bezier, refuses to surrender their minority of Cathars to the crusaders. When the town finally falls, there is no mercy. The order is: “Kill them all, the Lord will recognize His own.”

More towns fall in the following years. But after a while, acts of war die out. The Count of Toulouse, a defender of the Cathars until now, gives in to the pope and promises to fight the heresy. An uneasy peace spreads.

In 1234, the papal inquisition is formed to help uncover heretics and to prevent vigilantism and lynching. But the efficient and brutal conduct of the inquisition is not to everyone’s liking.

Also this brings to mind the cool places to find games like these such as ... the "un" store ...

http://theunstore.com/index.php/unstore/browse

Indie Press Revolution

http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/home.php

and

Drive Through RPG

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/

Ghost Echo ... AWESOMESAUCE!

Two completely free ... AWESOMESAUCE Indie-RPG games for you if you just hit the links below ... 

Ok .... 

Most Sunday evenings are "Indie-RPG" night for me .... I have loads of 4e and other standard fare going on Thursday through Saturday ... but Sunday is reserved for the sometimes avant garde sometimes silly ... sometimes just crazy ... world of small press indie RPGs.

This past weekend we tried Ghost Echo ... "a quick-play aetherpunk adventure module for 2-6 players."

Wow .. where do I begin.

To start I was sort of sad as one of our regular indie game crew has had to drop out of our indie game (though he remains for other gaming so its not a total loss) due to school wearing him down. Totally understood ... real life comes before gaming (that just sounds so heretical though doesn't it). We had planned to play Lady Blackbird ... ironically yet another one.seven game ... and we've been saying we are going to try it for quite some time and just for whatever reason haven't . As an aside I should mention that I've also done Danger Patrol from them ... AWESOMESAUCE ... but haven't tried Agon yet though I own it ... it looks cool but its a bit more crunchy than their other titles.

Anyway so its just the three of us ... fellow indie fans Rustin and Sadie and myself ... Rustin busts out Ghost Echo ... having not really had it prepped or anything ... though he has run it once before ... and we just get into it. I'm not going to go into the dynamic of the mechanics ... seriously just download it and read it ... its friggin small ... it is certainly not a crunchy system.  But it is really sleek and I have to say in our case we felt it was simply profound. 

We had a really immersive interesting game that just came together and was very satisfying. We started with a few terms that led us into some odd cyber-feudal corporate wars setting and our characters were really cool and the world just popped out to us. I seriously wanted to convert it into a longer playing campaign ... it was that good.

What we discussed in the post game wrap session is that this system (as Rustin has used it once before) would be actually well suited to generating character back-story for the big simulator systems ... with some slight adjustment ... for really any game ... from D&D to RIFTS to Dark Heresy to Shadowrun to you name it ... clearly if your already playing something Old School or indie you wouldn't need that ... but in the big crunchy systems ... short of boringly having all the players type up ... yet again ... a two to five page back-story *yawn* ... which will likely never come into play ... using a quick method to really delve into an interesting story might be the ticket to getting certain types of players really engaged right from the get go with their characters.  I'm going to try it next time I run a game. But in the meantime ... I'm going to keep Ghost Echo close at hand for those off nights when we need something impromptu. Download it ... Try it ... hopefully you'll enjoy it as much as we did!

Obsession with A song of Fire and Ice ... WINTER IS COMING!

Winter Is Coming

For years I've heard how good these books were from most of my friends ... between work ... family stuff ... gaming ... and a passion for reading non-fiction dry old history books (the history major in me never dies it seems) I just never got around to it. Well several months ago when I heard that HBO was doing a Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones series by George R. R. Martin  ... I finally bit the bullet and read the books.  I just finished the 4th book "A Feast for Crows" and thus far I'm very much in love with this series. I've actually already started thinking about gaming in this universe ... unfortunately the available RPG stuff is somewhat hard to find ... I do plan this winter to utilize yea ole Amazon.com and pick up the Green Ronin RPG ... the original RPG put out by a now defunct Canadian company. As for miniature gaming ... we've been talking about using WHFB or Warhammer Ancients or possibly even Armies of Arcana and running a campaign.  At any rate I'm happy I took the plunge and read the books prior to the television series ... I'm extremely excited it appears as though the cast is top notch ... its being done by HBO which bodes well and it sounds like Martin has been somewhat involved in the adaptation (though not the actual production). Good all round! Something to look forward to this winter for sure Winter is Coming!! (that link is to a really good blog that has a very comprehensive amount of info on the production, the cast, shooting info, etc. etc. its huge and very detailed! Check it out ... well worth it!!).

Addendum: 
My biggest worry honestly is that GRRM won't actually FINISH the series ... he apparently has stalled on the 5th book ... and there are at least two after that more that need to be written but knowing him probably 3 to 4 (The Winds of Winter and a Dream of Spring) ... the guy is over weight ... 62 ... clearly preoccupied with traveling and doing geeky stuff (can't say I blame him there) ... so be warned if you haven't read these books ... you might come to a frustrating end. 

In Production

Lately I've been on a quest to acquire a big set of figures for D&D. I have a pretty fair amount of GW Warhammer Fantasy Orcs and Goblins as well as Ogres, Undead, etc. My hope is that next summer I can run some classic D&D in a big Hirst Arts 3D dungeon. Then I'll have all that stuff available for an eventual game that I plan to run for my five kids ... that is still a few years out though ... but the figs are standard D&D with the group in the meantime as well. So its really a long term thing with hopefully multiple benefits as far as versitile gaming opportunity and really good return on investment for me in terms of just lots of fun with the same gaming material. 

Anyway I also noticed something really cool along these lines. Wargame Factory Plastics has announced that they are going to be doing orcs!! At first I was like ... meh ... I have tons o' orcs ... cool as it is to see em doing that ... not going to benefit me much. But then I saw their sculpts and they would make perfect D&D hobgoblins. So  I could do a big hobgoblin force. This also got me thinking about some of the WHFB fan-dexes and the  possibility of a counts as hobgoblin army for WHFB, etc. 

Long Hiatus ... GO UTES!! Back to School!

Well ... my blog has fallen on hard times this past month or so ... the back to school tsunami has overtaken me. After a long time away from the rigors of college ... I have returned!

I'm in a state of limbo sort of ... I'm presently an undergrad but will likely be a graduate student by the spring (ah the complexity of pursing a graduate and undergraduate degree simultaneously).  At any rate ... classes ... books ... scantily  clad nubile coeds ... wonderful and bewildering all at the same time.

I actually am going to be going to Strategicon here in a week or so and hope to be back into a more normal schedule as far as gaming and life in general. As far as gaming and campus stuff ... apparently there is a board game club on campus but nothing regarding miniatures and/or RPGs. Sooooo ... I'm hoping to perhaps form a miniature gaming oriented club and/or a RPG club.  Overall I'm really enjoying U of U ... its not Harvard nor UCLA ... but all in all it is quite a step up from my other Alma Matter UNLV (BA 99, MPA 00). With U of U going PAC-10 next year I am actually planning to pay attention to college sports (in 2011 that is) for the first time in well over a decade.  Exciting stuff for me ... and my plan is to not forsake gaming entirely but to continue enjoying my gaming hobbies.  Maybe I'll even get some nubile college girls to partake in gaming ... erm ... well I can dream can't I!!

Awesomesauce RPG family tree ...

Plundered from someone who plundered it from someone ... very cool indeed

The Unicorn Game ... the RPG that is all things to all people ...

Does it exist??

4e since its launch has been a lightning rod of controversy with legions of devoted fans who ardently defend it and many naysayers attacking it from afar ... generally stubbornly clinging to their 3.5 (a very few clinging to 2nd ed or an old school clone). I put myself with the 4e group ... I've played the hell out of 3.5 with many different groups and DMs. I have fond memories of those experiences ... but 3.5 is a bastardized amalgamation of broken combos and min max, feat centric complexity that I leave happily behind.

To me I think the big thing that all of the RPG theorists out there are missing is the simple equation that every game is bound by ... TIME ... you can do either deep complex roleplaying where you interact with dozens of NPCs and become embroiled in political intrigue, investigation, discovery ... dénouement! ... OR .... you can have awesome tactical grid based combat where the party works in  unison to defeat challenging encounters via a minis centered tactical skirmish game.

Yes you can have amazing RP with 4e quite easily ... you could even use the skill rules from say 2nd ed combined with the combat of 4e ... but at the end of the day ... if you play in an average group. You are constrained by TIME ... how much time do you have to get what it is done that needs to be done? Years ago I played in a weekly game where we met at noon every Saturday and went till 3 AM. We had alot of time ... we were doing 2nd ed ... we had alot of RP and did alot of combat. These days those kinds of games are rarer and rarer ... even hardcore gamers without busy schedules struggle to put together a five or six hour weekly session. So with a game like 4e ... that has somewhat complex mini centric combats that take an hour or two on average to resolve ... unless you have a good 8 or 10 hour block on a weekly basis ... trying to add deep long RP into the game ... well your not going to be able to get much done. So then you end up with a DM fudging exp so players level up reasonably fast, etc. etc. and you have all these wonkey add on house rules etc. etc. ... as I said ... I'll pass on that. 4e shines at providing cool gritty combat and it just flat out does NOT shine at facilitating really good RP. Yes of course you the DM and you the party can add that in ... but the RULES do not facilitate that. Whoever said previous versions didnt do that ... yes they did ... there were complex skill system sets that had rules for huge amounts of non-combat activity and that added to the options that players had for RP. If your chr was a rogue with alot of aprasial abilities, forgery, etc. etc. you could use that to springboard into RP stuff. All that is removed from 4e and you have a bare bones skill set that is ultra generic and ultra universal ... PERIOD. So 4e DOES NOT facilitate the RP like older versions of D&D did AND as 3.0 and 3.5 did ... 4e kills the RP mood frequently with the abrupt jump to the grid ... that really pulls people out of the abstract RP side of things and plunges you into tactical mini skirmish land ... where things function alot more like a minis game/board game than an abstract deep RP style game.

So for me as long as I'm gaming with people who have time constraints ... I'm always going to pick one or the other ... deep RP ... or crunchy combats ... the folks I game with just don't have the time necessary to really do awesome RP combined with awesome crunchy grid combat ... justice.  I've been there done that several times now with trying to make 3.0/3.5/4e be all things to all players ... and it just fails miserably. I strongly advocate that DMs/GMs and players match the kind of game they want to have with the system they are using.

I've also really come to believe that many people doing RPGs aspire to doing "deep role playing" but that of those throngs of people who say that ... only a small percentage really want to put the time and effort in to pull that off. Deep story driven games take a huge amount of prep on the DMs side ... and again ... many aspire to this ... but few want to actually put the time in. On the players side ... pulling off deep RP takes more than a 10 page backstory ... it takes actual roleplaying ability, focus during the game ... controlling yourself so your not constantly causing sideline BSing, and taking away from the immersive experience ... etc. etc. Deep story driven RPing is hard work. I love it ... but to be honest I've only experienced it a hand full of times in all the years I've been gaming. So this is another aspect of trying to have a game where your doing complex mini centric tactical skirmish combat ... AND ... doing awesome deep roleplaying. I think this might be a unicorn to be honest. I hear alot of bloggers out there claiming to be pulling this off ... but I'd love to sit in the back of the room and watch their group ... I'd wager that the vast majority of these so called "everything" games are falling far short of the mark.  

Addendum:


If I gave the impression that rules are necessary for good RP ... no they aren't ... you don't even need rules at all to RP ... if you have a good enough group with enough comfort, skill, etc. you can just hang out and weave a cool collective/interactive story ... but really ... be serious ... who does that?  What  I am arguing is that  rules that encourage RP can facilitate newer players ... or even experienced players who THINK they know what good RP is but really don't ... in moving towards better RP. At any rate that is my  main point . I don't mean to imply that rules are necessary to support decent role playing. The other main point is people focus too much on having a game that provides awesome combat and deep RP ... I'd argue NO version of D&D has ever done that very well. Along the lines of the mythical interactive story group ... that kind of group is exceedingly rare maybe just a myth.

For someone who is in gaming group building mode ... forming a new group with mixed ages and RPG experience levels ... rules can help. As for GURPS and any of the massive encyclopedic rules heavy systems ... again ... if you have a bunch of older gamers who aren't averse to that kinda game ... cool. If you have a mixed group, some hardcore gamers some not so hardcore ... some 36 some 19. No offense but GURPS, RIFTS, Shadowrun (all games I've played extensively, along with 3.5) are pipe dreams ... people get bogged down in the rules, people get bogged down in min maxing ... the games derail fast if the GM isn't a ripping bad ass master of the rules ... players get bored .. the game ends after 4 or 5 sessions. That's my experience anyway. Anymore I just hope that we have a DM/GM who is a master of the rules to such an extent that the game doesn't derail and that the players are having enough fun to want to come back the next week.

First game of 40K in a LOOOOOOOONG time ...

Well the struggles ... trials ... tribulations ... to get decent mini gaming back into my life seem to be finally paying off. I played my first game of 40K in quite some time. That entire quarter of the board is my Ork Horde (fully painted no less! once I get a proper display board and get some of my auxiliary units done up like the loota boyz and tank busta boyz along with the battlewagons ... I'll get some photos up) ... it was 1750 vs. 1750. Sorry that I'm not doing a full battle report, but honestly this was the first game out for both my opponent and I since last summer. We are both potentially decent players, but we were rusty as hell and  had some herky jerky ... stops and starts as we looked up rules or got things wrong, etc. That said though the game was AWESOME!!

We both made a few tactical errors that we likely wouldn't have made had we been back in the swing of things. We got a couple things slightly wrong (like him shooting at units with other units after they'd gone to ground, etc.). 

Though the setup favored the Tau (as you can see NO terrain that really offered much cover) ... we were playing an Annihilation mission. We went a full 6 turns and I barely pulled out a win (5 to 6). As you can see my list is basically Ghaz and lots of boyz with Ghaz in one truck with 10 nobs and a warboss in another truck with 10 nobs. My opponent was running an ultra shooty Tau list with 2 pathfinder squads, 2 hammerheads, a lone broadside, 1 min sized fire warrior squad and two squads of Kroot. It was in some respects my worst case scenario ... and I would have bet money each turn that I was doomed ... but da ladz proved me wrong and managed a victory anyway. Really fun times ... some tweaking will occur on my list ... but I'm not running Orks to win games ... that matters not to me ... being a bad ass at 40K is like being good at picking your nose ... its a nasty habit and rather pointless.  

I'd rather just enjoy games and have fun. I strive to make viable lists that give my opponent at least a bit of a challenge ... but I vastly prefer playing a somewhat thematic army at least loosely based on the actual backstory of the game. I also prefer to be running a fully painted army vs. another fully painted army (I'm working on the folks in the group to get their stuff painted ... we are doing paint nights, etc. ... we'll get there).  All this said it is possible at some point the gaming group might form a 40K team and run some jerk power gamer net lists against each other so we can attend some local tourneys  (facing the store trolls who will be running unpainted stuff with the BoLS list of the week *shudder*) ... but if we as a group do it together and work as a team to get better that might be fun (at least for a couple of months or so ... then it will be time to take a 40K break and do some WHFB 8th for awhile).