How about a feet for DnD Next?
Mobile Assault
Prerequisite: Charger
You are a mass of muscle and blades streaking across the battlefield
Thoughts?
Product: Pathfinder Player Companion People of the Sands
Producer: Paizo
System: Pathfinder
Price: $12
TL;DR: An EXCELLENT PATHFINDER SUPPLEMENT! 100%
Basics: Come on down, hope a carpet and fly! People of the Sands serves as a guide book to Osirion, Rahadoum, Thuvia, and deserts in general as well as being the Mommy’s Mask Players Guide. The book starts with the ancient and no so ancient history of Osirion. Then, it moves to the different types of people who live there. The centerfold of this book is a beautiful, weathered player map of Osirion. Next, the book discusses the three major desert modern day nations of Golarion. The last section of the book transitions to more player focused offerings covering two new player prestige classes, new magic and normal items, and then the players guide for Mummy’s Mask.
Crunch or Mechanics: This book is full of mechanics. It full of new feats, spells, items, and two prestige classes (one of which is open to any class). While the book is mostly geared to alchemists, cavaliers, inquisitors, and sorcerers, it honestly has something for everybody. I LOVE it when supplements do that! 5/5
Fluff or story: Again, this is an amazing book. This book is full of detail regarding history, people, and the societies of the desert. It’s not only “just” the standard book of facts, it’s FULL of small details like sayings that different group use. That might just be filler to some people, but it helps me learn a little bit more about the people and their society. Heck, I’ve read a lot of Pathfinder books, and I learned new things from this book. 5/5
Execution: This book follows the standard Pathfinder Player Companion line layout: start with who the book is for/ask you GM section, then the real information. I love that and the rest of the layout. It makes the books read well. The test is broken up enough with headings and other thins often keeping the page from being just two columns/wall of text. I liked the art as it’s the standard Pathfinder quality. If you ignored the text and just looked at the book, this is an example of how to layout and design a good RPG supplement. 5/5
Summary: I really liked this book. I felt it was worth my money. The book has lots of background, but it didn’t skimp on the mechanics. Honestly, the book felt like a 50/50 split between the fluff and crunch. My only complaint isn’t the books fault. I liked when the adventure path player guides were separate books. That part almost felt tacked on as the book covered so many different topics. However, even that section added more options for the players. When I’m working out and the bike rings to tell me I’ve gone far enough, but I can’t put this book down so I keep going, you know you have a winner. 100%
How about another spell for DnD Next?
Caustic Spells
You’ve spent a lot of time learning how to cast spells not using Draconic, but more evil, vile tongues. Languages the hurt the ears of those who hear them.
Thoughts?
While I didn’t love Star Wars Saga Edition for a lot of reasons, I did love the condition track. I like the idea of being able to subdue an enemy instead of mercilessly beat the down. Also, in a lot of RPGs, the “More then None, Ready to Run!” attitude is a bit to pervasive. I want a slightly more realistic approach to combat. To that end, I present the condition track.
Basically, as you lose hit points, your condition gets worse. For every quarter of your HP total you lose, you gain a -1 wound penalty to all actions and saves. This represents you physically becoming less able to do anything as you become more and more broken. When you are healed up past a quarter mark, you lose the would penalties associated with being that wounded. When you have a -4 penalty, you pass out. While this would normally be you’ve lost all your hit points, spells could easily fit in this space that allow you to impose conditions on enemies like a stunning blast. To be kind to both the GM and players, I think the saving throws you make when a character has less then 0 HP should not have the wound penalty as this would kill players far to often.
When you lose constitution points from say a wight, you would track your current hit points relative to your previous maximum, not your new maximum. This way a wight will leach away your life just like any other creature.
I would also suggest when you take damage equal to double your constitution score, you have to make a constitution saving throw DC= Challenge rating of the creature that damaged you.
Thoughts?
Game: Red Dragon Inn
Producer: Slugfest Games
Price: $40
Set-up/Play/Take Down: 1Hour
TL;DR: An good, light card game. 92.5%
Basics: Let’s drink after the adventure! This game takes place after the adventure. The heroes have saved the day, and, more importantly, gotten paid! Each player takes the role of either the wizard, the fighter, the druid, or thief. Players take turns playing cards from a character specific deck. Each turn a player can discard cards and draw up to five. Then the player can play one card. These cards are typically attacking other players, healing yourself, or gambling. When gambling players play cards to have the last card that says they win the round and take all the money. When you hurt other players you reduce their fortitude. Other cards a player can play are cards that you can play off turn in response to other characters. After your action, you take the top card of the drink deck and give it to another player. After buying drinks, you drink any drinks you have in your drink pile. These drinks typically increase your alcohol content. When your alcohol content equals your fortitude, you pass out and lose. If you gamble and lose all your money, you get kicked out of the bar. Last man or women in the bar with money wins!
Mechanics: The game is a card game and forces you the do the best you can with the cards you are dealt. Each player has almost the same deck of cards with each individual character having a slightly different deck with some character specific powers. The character specific powers are a nice mix to the game. Also, the game is pretty simple to play and is quick. However, like all card games, the game is a bit random as your deck can be a major factor in if you win. If you can’t use the cards you have, you will definitely lose the game. 4.5/5
Theme: The game has a decent amount of theme. The decks make you feel like your character. It’s not a perfect fit, but the art is nice, consistent, and entertaining. The names of each card give some nice flavor. Also, the drink deck adds some theme as each drink has a life of its own. However, the game doesn’t completely build a world. Just a small group of people around a bar table. 4/5
Execution: I really like the parts that come with this game. The card board coins are nicely done. The cards are of decent quality. The art is well done. The player boards are also high quality. Well done all around. 5/5
Instructions: Hands down great. My version of the game came with the instructions AND a set of instructions to cover the frequently asked questions and errata. I LOVE this. The instructions teach the game well make this a well done instruction set. Any game that I don’t have to rush off to board game geek midway through gets a five. 5/5
Summary: When I’m out teaching games to non-gamers, this is the game I bring. It’s not hard, it’s not complicated, and it’s quick. All this makes this game an excellent introductory game. However, if you wanted something with a bit more meat on its bones, then this isn’t the game for you. But if you want to get just one may game in with your hard core gamer friends and its three AM, this is an excellent game to bust out, especially if you’ve all had a few beers during the night! 92.5%
Been reading The Reaver novel for The Sundering, and saw a character do something. Let’s make it so your characters can do the same thing
Chosen
You are chosen of a God. You have a direct access to the power of a God…when they grant it
I’ve written before about how much I love Living RPGs. But, today’s post is about the dark side of Living Games. I was at a con this weekend, running a battle interactive, and some things went wrong at my table. I want to talk about some of what happened and some other Living RPG problems.
Most of this will break down to choice. In a home game of whatever RPG is your favorite, you have choice. You kill that Shoppe keeper, he’s dead, and you’re a marked man! You save the village from goblins and perform a minor bit of genocide, those goblins are never coming back, and you’re a hero. YOU have choice!
Living games have to tap dance around choice. Maybe one person in 1,000 kills the Shoppe keep. The people who run the campaign can’t kill him/her for everyone. So you lose some choice, and when the player who killed that merchant encounter him again, the GM will have to hand wave why he’s back. When you lose choice, your character matters a little bit less each time you lose choice. In the end, if the village is saved no matter what, then why do I need to be there!? If I kill every goblin in the world and then the respawn like in a MMORPG, then why am I even trying to make the world a better place!?
Let me provide a real example. I was running a game where one player HATED another player’s race. Now things were civil, but some words went across the table. It was playful, but eventually a major artifact of the hated player’s race was found. Most of the party wanted to leave the artifact. Heck, a few wanted to destroy the location of the artifact so it couldn’t get free. This led to some sadness and hurt feelings all around. Things got worse when a group of the hated players race went back, found the thing, and then brought it out of the dungeon. This made the hater player very mad and basically made him feel his choice didn’t matter.
I was the GM for this group of players, and honestly, I didn’t have a clue how to make this work out. There is the standard rule of don’t play dick characters and hate group XXXX, but the system has a long history of allowing that behavior. Should that item have been found regardless? Should the players have just had a cut scene happen so the campaign staff could ensure that the item would have been found no matter what? In either case, the players lose choice.
Choice is hard to get right. Shadowrun give a lot of free reign to its GMs. There, the campaign staff basically give a wealth limit for the players that the GM can give out, and say go have fun. As a GM, I feel like that gives me the ability to make the right choices for my group. However, Shadowrun doesn’t do Battle Interactive. I wonder what would happen if they did. Would they eliminate that freedom or embrace it even more?
Let me provide another example, this time with a happier ending, so I’ll name the system-Living Forgotten Realms (LFR). I ran a battle interactive a year ago, and in it I had more misbehaving players. They players were on sky ship, and they boarded an enemy sky ship just as theirs was destroyed. My group decided to take over this new ship as their ship dropped out of the sky. The people running the event hadn’t planed for that and had every table report if a player ship was destroyed as their crew was plummeting to their deaths. My crew had technical done that, but found a loophole. The campaign staff like the ingenuity and rewarded the player’s creativity. Everybody left happy!
However, LFR does have its problems. LFR and the Forgotten Realms novels no longer live in the same world. I am a purist, so when I read something and I get to game in the same universe, I want those two to interact. Because LFR and the novels don’t interact, I’ve basically decided one doesn’t matter. I gave up playing LFR as my characters didn’t matter. I lost any choice!
So the morel here is I need choice. Choice means I matter. When I play a single player video game, I matter and I’m the only one make choices. When I play an MMORPG, I don’t. If I kill every bear in the forest for a quest, the bears respawn after I leave. If I would have never played, the game will be the same. Make me matter! Let my choices have an impact, and I’ll play. Cut me out, even by inches, and I’ll walk away.
If you can get a bonus to go faster, can you get karma if you go slower?
Lame
Bonus 3 karma per rating (Max Rating 3)
You’re slow. It could because you have a bum leg. Heck, you could just need to hit the gym a bit more. Either case, you don’t make it out the door first when drek hits the fan. For each rating of lame you have, reduce your effective agility by 1 when you calculate your speed. If a rating of lame would reduce your agility to 0, you may not take that level of agility.
How about something to give you character a bit more umph when they are running from the gunmen the pissed off in Shadowrun?
Speed Demon
Cost: 3 karma per rating (Max Rating 3)
Maybe you were on the Cross Country team in high school. Maybe you put a little time in at the Y to lose a few pounds. Or, maybe you just got really good at beating feet when you were a kid so you didn’t bet pounded when you were in high school. Either way, you run fast. When determining your run or walk speed, your agility score is consider one higher for each level of Speed Demon you have.
Thoughts?
How about a feat for DnD Next? Ray of Frost is a good spell, but I don’t really need to keep people from moving. What I realy need is a way to reduce the attack of an enemy….
Frost Bite
You are the master of the cold, and when you inflict it on others they can’t function properly
Thoughts
Throat Punch Games 