Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Additional gaming material for Carcosa

I really like my Carcosa book. It's probably the most beautiful RPG book that I own. At least it's the one most to my taste.

Now it seems I found an additional game material for Carcosa: the Carcosan Grimoire

I have to give it a read. It's fan made and seems to have at least some neat random tables, etc.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Savage Warhammer: Elderly Mage: Kvothe


Kvothe - Mage

Agility      D6
Smarts     D7
Strength   D4
Spirit       D6
Vigor      D4
Pace: 5; Parry: 5; Charisma: 0; Toughness: 4

Edges: Arcane Background (Magic); Wizard
Hinrances: Elderly; Cautious, Stubborn
Skills: Climbing d4, Fighting d6, Healing d4, Investigation d7, Arcane d7, Notice d8, Persuasion d6, Spellcasting d7, Swim d4
Powers: Bolt, Armor, Fear
Robe and Staff

Savage Warhammer: Dwarven Troll Slayer: Brori


Agility      D4
Smarts     D4
Spirit       D6
Strength   D8
Vigor      D10
Pace: 5; Parry: 7; Charisma: 0; Toughness: 7

Edges: Low Light Vision; Tough, Berserk,Mighty Blow
Hinrances: Slow; Death Wish, Big Mouth, Vow
Skills: Fighting: D10, Climbing d4, Brawl d6, Streetwise d4, Taunt d4, Intimidate d8, Survival d4


Leather Trousers, Dwarven War Axe

Sunday, July 29, 2012

If I could keep only 10 RPG products

This question has been going around the web lately. This is my list. I am sure, I could do it with less than 10. Probably 3 would be enough. So I will probably end up with 3 rule systems and 7 settings. I also have to add that I know The Dark Eye 1 by heart, so I do not need to add it. But let's do it anyways, because I have too much space. :)

Savage Worlds Deluxe
Primetime Adventures
World of Synnibarr

The Dark Eye 1 - Basis Box
Carcossa
Vornheim
50 Fathoms
Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP)
Mythic Role Playing (Word Mill Games)
Savage Worlds Adventure Deck (The nice card deck for player story intervention)


Friday, July 27, 2012

Savage Warhammer: Taal Priest: Durnhelm


We decided to play the Enemy Within campaign from Warhammer FRPG, 1st edition, with the Savage Worlds rule set. This is one of the 4 player character so far.

Durnhelm - Taal Priest

Strength   D4
Agility      D6
Smarts     D6
Spirit       D8
Vigor      D8
Pace: 6; Parry: 7 (without equipment 5); Charisma: 0; Toughness: 6

Edges: Arcane Background (Miracles), Holy Warrior;
Hinrances: Hero, Loyal, Minor Pacifist
Skills: Fighting: D6; Guts: D8; Healing: D6; Notice: D4; Survival: D4; Swimming: D4; Tracking: D4; Faith: D8.
Buckler and a Rapier.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

The development of genre tropes

The transition from historical war games to war games based on fiction (fantasy in this case), also openend a can of worms, because suddenly we are not any longer operating on axioms of realism, but on genre tropes. It took around 10 years (at least that's how I understand it), for this difference to become explicitly noticed. As far as I know CoC and Marvel FASERIP were the first games to hardwire the tropes in the rules.

This is not about having magic in the world, but about having bigger than life heroes, plot immunity, etc. The whole 90ies (AD&D2, WoD) seemed to be a time of struggle, in which people tried to enforce this via best practices ("How to run a good game") instead of just focusing of designing rules according to what they wanted to achieve - at least in the mainstream. Only in the 00ies the rules were fully understood as having another potential: providing an exciting game as well enforcing a genre. Latter not really in D&D 3.X though.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Overview over my RPG collection

RPG.net provided this really nice service, but save your collection:

The pen and paper RPG collection of tartex

Just follow the link! The only problem is that German books are not included.

I also did not include PDFs that I purchased.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Using random hit location die to create NPCs

I often want to define a non player character within seconds.

While there are many tables for random names and motivations, I also wanted to know their 1 or 2 outstanding traits.

For that I am going to use my six sided hit location dice in the future: on it's different sides you find body parts. I just roll and connect each symbol with a stat and/or skill category.

Head - 1 - Smarts
Body - 2 - Vigor
Left Arm - 3 - Charisma
Right Arm - 4 - Strength
Left Leg - 5 - Speed or Double Outstanding
Right Leg - 6 - Agility

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Gamma World One Shot

The characters are living on a backwood farm, where a radioactive roach Bryant and 4 hillbilly farmhands (3 big guys Steven, Todd and Nate: 1 with 3 arms, 1 with 3 legs, 1 with 3 eyes (Monster Vault P.170 Common Bandit) + 1 pretty girl: Annabella, farmhand), are harvesting Melons and Blood Oranges. Take care of the Grab Grass though (P. 99) and the Porcubine Bushes.

The PCs arrived some weeks ago and everything seemed fine.

Down the river is the Church of the Minute and Bryant send the characters down to bring up a priest to bless the coming harvest.

Areas:

Cornfields,

Badder Town Defense (Roadblock) P. 142G