So I’ve been running a game of The Expanse RPG since April. I’m going to be reposting/linking my session recaps from my Tumblr. Here is the first session.
veganshane.tumblr.com/post/649202556322693120/so-i-ran-my-first-game-of-the-expanse-rpg-from
So I’ve been running a game of The Expanse RPG since April. I’m going to be reposting/linking my session recaps from my Tumblr. Here is the first session.
veganshane.tumblr.com/post/649202556322693120/so-i-ran-my-first-game-of-the-expanse-rpg-from
One of two RPG books that entered my library this holiday season was the Basic Hero’s Handbook for Mutants and Masterminds (M&M) by Crystal Fraiser.
The book is a great looking rule book and fairly trim compared to some behemoths, The art great and many pieces call to mind classic comic book covers.
The goal book is a simplification of the M&M rules from the Deluxe Hero’s Handbook for third edition. I’m going to be brutally honest about M&M Deluxe Hero’s Handbook, the rules are a bit dense and more math heavy than I usually like but this book breaks down the system basics into more digestible chunks. It explains the rules much more clearly. This makes M&M nearly as friendly to new RPG players as more rules light games.
A big focus of the book is character building. Instead of buckets of power points to create a character it is a series of fairly intuitive steps.
The rest of the book is the nitty gritty of the rules and basics about advancing the heroes, GM advice and a few short adventures and villains to spice up the game. Baddies to knock through walls are important after all.
As is you could run a fairly satisfying superhero game before needing the Deluxe Hero’s Handbook.
This lil guy was the first challenge the PCs in my Starfinder game faced
SPYDERBOTCR3
XP800
N Tiny technological construct
Init +3 Senses darkvision 60 feel Perception +8
DEFENSE HP 40
EAC 14 KAC 16
Fort +3 Ref +5 Will +0
Defenses: construct immunities
Weakness: vulnerable to electrical attacks
OFFENSES
Speed 40 (climb 30)
Ranged
Dart pistol +12 1d6 plus poison
Melee
Slasher +8 1d6+4 slashing
Offensive Abilities: Haste circuit
Statistics
STR +2 DEX +4 CON — INT+1 CHA +0 WIS +0
Skills
Stealth +13 Perception +8 Computer +8
Languages common
Gear dart pistol mounted, camera. Data storage
Organization solitary
Ecology
Created by a brilliant robotics engineer and used for missions from spying/recon to assassination the toxin load out on the dart pistol changes by the job assignment.
If you have been paying any attention to table top role playing games this year, you have heard the buzz about Paizo Publishing’s new science fantasy game STARFINDER.
STARFINDER updates the PATHFINDER rules and campaign setting. Giving the company the chance to fine-tune the now venerable game engine. It also advances the Golarion campaign setting several millennia into the future. It combines Tolkien with Guardians of the Galaxy, and it looks fun in a gonzo sort of way.
This week I was able to attend a STARFINDER preview event at a local Barnes and Noble. Paizo’s Erik Mona ran the event that featured a Q and A followed by a short demo where four lucky people were able to play a short demo. I was lucky enough to get to play n the demo, more about that later.
The Q and A covered a lot of stuff that had been revealed in various other sources like the Paizo blog and various podcast easily found with a quick search of the internet. Some things did stand out.
Most exciting to me as a GM the monster building systems will be a lot simpler, not requiring all the math and crunch, no adding class levels just for one feat, etc. This will be detailed in the upcoming ALIEN ARCHIVE hardcover due out in October. Plans to add Mecha/Giant Robots in a future book we’re also mentioned, PACIFIC RIM anyone? It sounds like a whole lot of other subsystems were made a bit less crunch heavy.
The highlight of the evening was getting to play in a short demo where four of the iconic characters board a derelict starship infested by goblins.
I played Navasi the iconic Envoy, and I got a decent feel for how lower level combat runs. On the whole it felt much smoother than PFRPG although to be fair it has been a while since I did a low level fight. The new hit, stamina and resolve point system ran very well creating an appropriate sense of peril as the game progressed.
Using the Evoy abilities flowed for the most part, hindered by my inability to roll above a 10 anytime it counted. Although not too effective on offense, those goblins wiped the floor and wall with me. I was able to keep the Shirren Mystic in the fight by inspiration (I pep-talked him into more stamina points).
After a taste I’m even more excited for the game to arrive come August/September. I will share more thoughts then.
The latest edition to the old gaming shelf is Cthulhu Realms, a new deck building game from Tasty Minstrel Games. The game was designed by Darwin Kastle one of the designers of my favorite deck building game, Star Realms!
For those familiar with Star Realms some of the mechanics will be familiar. The goal of the game is to pummel your opponent to zero sanity, or have the most sanity when the cards for purchase have been exhausted.
Each player gets a starting deck of ten cards: followers, goons and initiates that allow you to purchase Lovecraftian horrors and locations to add to your deck in hopes of bringing on the end of all things.
The cards have different color, abilities and the like with lots of interplay between card types. Creating many different options for play and replay.Opening up many many strategies for victory. Monster hordes, evil books and iconic and creep location it is all here.
The art on the cards is cartoony and wonderful. Some of jokes are subtle enough that it might take a couple of plays to notice them. Aside from the game play the cards are just fun to look at.
All in all I give this game high marks, deck builders are usually not my thing, but I think Cthulhu Realms may well dethrone Star Realms as my favorite, with deeper game play, but it never feels too heavy, or like I am playing solitaire, next to other people playing solitaire (my big complaint about Dominion) It is also has a reasonable price point of $20 its a bargain!
Earlier this summer, I picked up a copy of Dead of Winter after playing it at a friends house. It is one of the best horror or zombie apocalypse games around.
The story of the game is that you control a number of survivors at a sanctuary from the hungry dead. You are trying to survive the winter that has set in, complete story and personal goals, as well as keep the people in your colony, healthy and fed. There is also a chance someone is a traitor who has a personal goal that is cross purposes with the group as a whole.
Turn by turn players forage for supplies, shore up defenses and try to avoid being ate by zombies, getting frostbite or just getting injured in the environment by using their survivors’ special talents
This is accomplished via a dice pool determined by the number of survivors controlled by the player at any given time. These dice are compared to a survivor’s skill and applied to an action.
Fighting or moving between locations an exposure die is used and it determines injury, frostbite, death by zombie attack, or making it out unscathed.
Adding to the fun are the crossroads cards that toss in randomness into every turn and could bring in good or bad fortune.
The game does an amazing job of simulating the best parts of zombie apocalypse stories. There is palpable tension that builds and builds until the final turn. It gets in your head a lot more than a game like Zombicide or Last Night On Earth. While fun, they don’t bring the drama or real feelings of dread that Dead of Winter does.
If you like the zombie apocalypse genre, or co-op games with a traitor mechanic it is well worth the price.
So for my birthday I received the third book for the Dresden Files RPG: The PARANET PAPERS. The title refers to an online network that evolved from The Midwest Arcane in the Dresden-verse.
The contents feature a lot of information about the wider world of the Dresden Files, including other eras and several well fleshed out, areas to visit (just don’t violate that Sixth Law of Magic visiting the past).
Other sections update several entries from the OUR WORLD DFRPG source book. Mixed in with this are tips for creating plot device level entities and updates to Sponsored Magic and Thaumaturgy systems.
My only real complaint is the art in the book being a little inconsistent, and a stylistic departure from the first two books in the line. This is only a minor complaint, the book is a solid addition to the Dresden Files RPG.
Important locations are fodder for the city creation process for the Dresden Files RPG. So here are the first batch of locations that have made appearances in the games so far. Where appropriate I will link to the home pages or Wikipedia entries of the places in question.
NAME:Summit Avenue
DESCRIPTION:Old money and big houses
THEME (OR) THREAT:Theme
THE IDEA:The home of old families of the Twin Cities, and all the baggage that implies
THE ASPECT: Old money and dark secrets
THE FACE: Martha Griggs – Protector of reputations and tradition.
NAME: Dinkytown
DESCRIPTION: A borough of Minneapolis surrounding the University of Minnesotacampus, populated predominantly by college students and townies.
THEME (OR) THREAT: Theme
THE IDEA: The muggle origins of the name “Dinkytown” are unknown, but to the supernatural world, it is a central hub for pixies, brownies, dwarves, elves, sprites, and their related changelings, all of whom maintain a bustling Dinkytown Overcity of tiny homes and businesses atop the muggle-sized homes and businesses. The Dinkytown Overcity is, believe it or not, the center of supernatural commerce in the Twin Cities.
THE ASPECT: Fragglesque goblin-a-rific market.
THE FACE: Squeentyn McFarklerface III, the pixie mayor of Dinkytown Overcity, who is commonly seen to riding a massive rat that he insists is a mouse that he has named Lieutenant Bunderplum.
NAME: The Blue Door
DESCRIPTION: An upscale jazz bar owned and operated by supernatural creatures, for supernatural creatures, located in downtown St. Paul. Muggles need not apply.
THEME (OR) THREAT: Theme
THE IDEA: The Blue Door is Accorded neutral territory and one of the only agreed upon safe havens in the Twin Cities. Owned, operated, managed, and staffed entirely by supernatural creatures, it is a true nexus where the disparate supernatural powers truly play nice.
THE ASPECT: Peace enforced by threat of gratuitous violence.
THE FACE: Valentine, the owner, manager, and primary vocal entertainer for the Blue Door, is a mysterious figure of unknown nature and origin. She is beautiful and dangerous, with honey-colored skin, striking violet eyes, and is rumored to be one of the oldest denizens of the Americas, and possibly the world.
Aiden Croft acts as chief enforcer and bouncer at the Blue Door. Tall, broad, muscular and strikingly Teutonic, he makes no secret that he is, in fact, a werewolf. His dominance is sufficient that he could easily take alphaship of any werewolf pack in and around the Twin Cities area, but he instead chooses a solitary life as a lone wolf. It is believed that he and Valentine were lovers once, but now their relationship seems strictly professional.
NAME: St. Thomas University
DESCRIPTION: A parochial university located on Summit Avenue in St. Paul.
THEME (OR) THREAT: Theme
THE IDEA: Higher education with a very special library
THE ASPECT: Knowledge is a double edged sword.
THE FACE: Monsignor O’Malley – The Good Shepherd
NAME: First Avenue / 7th Street Entrance
DESCRIPTION: Aging music venue barely holding its market share. The walls have an amazing history of acts of all genres, home of the Twin Cities Sound.
THEME (OR) THREAT: Theme
THE IDEA: Don’t like the music, come back tomorrow, really please, come back.
THE ASPECT: The Twin Cities sound… of desperation.
THE FACE: Steve McClellan – club owner at the end of his rope.
NAME: Magus Books
DESCRIPTION: Dinkytown’s finest magic bookstore.
THEME (OR) THREAT: Theme
THE IDEA: The place to go for bits and baubles of a magical variety
THE ASPECT: A glimpse behind the veil
THE FACE: Derius DeWitt – the magic man.
NAME: Stardust Lanes
DESCRIPTION: South Mpls bowling alley with a sketchy reputation
THEME (OR) THREAT: Theme
THE IDEA: The seedy underbelly of Mpls
THE ASPECT: Good old fashioned corruption.
THE FACE: Leo Marcone – Hungry crime boss
NAME: The Basilica of St Mary and St. Paul’s Cathedral
DESCRIPTION: Center of Catholic Faith in the Twin Cities
THEME (OR) THREAT: Theme
THE IDEA: The archdiocese of these two great institutions form the heart of Catholic worship in the entire
Twin Cities Metro Area. Behind the scenes, however, the leaders of the church are reassembling a gnostic group that looks strikingly like the Templars. Whether or not this is done with the blessing of the Vatican remains to be seen.
THE ASPECT: Psalm 23:4 (Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.)
THE FACE: Father Benedicte Christos, Peaceful Warrior
NAME: Saint Paul City Hall
DESCRIPTION: The police on the east side of the river
THEME (OR) THREAT: Threat
THE IDEA: Minneapolis has its trouble with mundane corruption, the SP-PD has more supernatural troubles.
THE ASPECT: Saintly halos are beginning to tarnish
THE FACE: Detective Cameron Baker – Remarkably savvy peace officer.