Day 5: Which RPG cover best captures the spirit of the game?

I think this question has come up before and my answer is always the same: Shadowrun. That single scene covers almost everything you do in Shadowrun and shows what makes it different: guy plugging in to computer, girl with a gun and some kind of magic effect, and then indian-painted guy with dual sub-machine guns, all in a dirty part fo town with a backdrop of skyscrapers and opposition - Yeah, that covers a lot of ground.

It's so perfect for the game that second edition kept the same cover - how often do you see that?

Later edition still have nice art but 3rd kind of lost it's purpose and became "generic action scene", 4th goes back to something similar to these covers (a step in the right direction), then 5th is so busy I can't tell what's going on.

My runner-up hasn't changed in a long time either:

Gamma World has had some incredibly evocative covers and this one really pushed my buttons as a kid when it was current - armed men going into a ruined, overgrown city - please tell me more! That is a whole bunch of what the game is about. Plus the whole style is pure 60's-70's sci-fi art and it really sets the tone.

Then with second edition we get this:

This is another winner with Giant Deadly Robot acting out against a human with a stone axe and some kind of mutant with an energy weapon - yep, that's pretty much Gamma World. The cover of the rulebook inside the box was pretty solid too:

Mutant with pistol and shield and another with a fusion gun against blaster guy on a horse? Yep, that's the game!

Honorable Mention:

It's not a rulebook but it is the origin of the legendary Stop Sign Shield! This picture, again, is totally in line with what a Gamma World adventure looks like.

In contrast ...

There are lots of good covers out there, and even more bad ones - static posed hero, static posed monster, symbol of something relevant to game + title of game = boring and non-evocative. They may be pretty at times but they are often just too plain. The covers for 5th edition D&D and for FFG Star Wars are usually pretty and well done technically but they don't tell me much about the game itself. Most Pathfinder rulebook covers have some kind of action happening and so in my mind are a step above. Look at Numenera or The Strange too - what do they tell you, visually, about the game or the setting? Even the new Trek game, for example, on the collector's edition has a cover picture that is a close up shot of a starship hull.

WHY? It's incredibly boring and tell you nothing about the game! At least the standard version has some characters doing something! It's a great example of "pretty but uninformative". People get excited about Star Trek ships, sure - but not hull textures. Not really.

It's an interesting question today and I ended up writing quite a bit more about it than I expected.

More tomorrow!

Day 4: Which RPG have you played the most since August 2016?

Warhammer 40,000!

OK maybe that doesn't count.

How about "Star Trek Online"?

Nope?

I'm in a weird place here compared to my usual routine. I've run 3-4 sessions of a bunch of games over the last year - D&D, Pathfinder, Mutants and Masterminds, Deadlands, and Star Wars. In some ways this makes me happy as it means we're broadening our experiences and playing a lot of games. That said, we're not being very consistent. Hopefully the continuing focus on my Beyond the Rim campaign will give us some stability here, so I'll go with "Star Wars" as my final answer.

Day 3: How do you find out about new RPGs?

This is a pretty straightforward question so this will be one of the shorter entries this month:

• EN World - it's mainly focused on D&D type games but it ends up being the biggest tabletop RPG site and a lot of things are announced/noted/promoted there.
• Kickstarter - once you've done a few you tend to get notified of related projects, one version of the Network Effect.
• Other Blogs - I have a regular rotation of blogs I read and a lot of time they have news of a new game that I may not have seen elsewhere. If I like the blog enough to keep coming back and they think a new game looks interesting then there's a good chance I will feel the same way.
• Podcasts - similar to blogs above but also really good for things related to the game the podcast covers. Alternate rules, adventures, or a new game by the same writer or from the same company.
• Company Websites: Pinnacle, Green Ronin, Paizo, and FFG are all places I visit regularly.  

That's about it!

Day 2: An RPG You Would Like to See Published

This is a tougher question than it would have been a year ago:

• There's a new Star Trek game. It's not my favorite set of rules but it's in print and appears to be well on the way to being well-supported. This would have been my #1 answer.
• I'm learning to at least like the new Star Wars game (new = published 5 years ago apparently) so I don't feel the need to call for a new version of that.
• Cubicle 7 is going to publish a new version of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying, one based on the 1st and 2nd editions of the game. Those are the two I like best so I'm pretty happy with this news. When FFG a) went with a funky-dice system for 3rd edition and b) then stopped publishing the game altogether I was disappointed. I haven't run a ton of WFRP compared to say D&D but I do like having it around.  
• There's a mechanically decent version of Rifts available.
• Classic Runequest is available again.
• Mutant Crawl Classics will be out soon and is effectively a modern version of Gamma World
• Heck, we just had a Kickstarter for a new version of Top Secret!

So getting something "old" so to speak out has been handled in a big way over the last few years. That's usually where I feel the need - when an exiting game or setting goes out of print. Let's start there:

The obvious choice: a Warhammer 40,000 RPG. We had several, they all went out of print when FFG's license ended, and was never all that thrilled with them anyway. What makes for a wonderfully grim and gritty system at the Warhammer fantasy level gets pretty bulky and feels very different when you try to use it in a setting with power armor, missile launchers, and tanks. So I would like to see a new 40K RPG - completely new, not a reprint. There are Rifts-level power differences between what you might think of as typical characters in a 40K RPG so it's an interesting challenge for sure. 

Bonus Wishlist Item: Marvel Heroic. We have Cortex Plus books, we have 60 years of Marvel and even more of DC, but I would be ecstatic if somehow someway someone started publishing (or re-publishing) a licensed superhero game that used it. That was way too interesting a system that was cut down way too early.

But if we were looking for something completely new what would it be?

• Semi-original premise #1: "Fantasy Roman Empire" - the setting is the early  Roman Empire but with all of the trappings of a typical D&D world. Instead of just barbarians on the borders, how about orcs, elves, dwarves, etc. There have been various attempts at this over the years but none of them have ever taken off. I'd like to see some decent designers and writers backed by an experienced company try to make this work. There are enough interesting twists to make this stand out in my opinion. Then of course you get the "Mythic Greece" sourcebook or alternate campaign for it and we're rolling in the classics + dragons.
• Semi-original premise #2: "The New World" - The game assumes a Renaissance Europe type background and that you are part of a group heading out to settle the "new world" only recently discovered. This could go somewhat old-school with some resource management aspects but characters would lean more towards the lighter end of things. The GM side though ... his fun is in picking out and setting up exactly what is waiting for the players across the sea. Is it simply native tribes at a severe technological disadvantage? Maybe it's a far more fantastic threat - orcs and dragons? Maybe it's technological - the "new" world is actually the older world, one ruined by warfare or technological collapse centuries ago so you get flintlock-wielding colonists threatened by mutants and robots. Maybe it's a continent controlled by intelligent apes. I think an RPG with a set starting point for the players that caters to multiple scenarios for discovery detailed by the GM would be a lot of fun to play. 

Slightly more original premise:

• "Super Rock Band: The RPG" - Select your character's musical specialty, their talent level, their skill level, their personal charisma, and various physical traits. Maybe a "signature move" or item. Keep the rules fairly light - somewhere between FFG Star Wars, d6 Star Wars, or ICONS. I don't know that the purely mundane rocker world is enough to sustain a campaign so you can also select their "other" job:
• Maybe they solve mysteries as they travel around the world (+Scooby Doo or Josie and the Pussycats)
• Maybe they secretly fight crime as costumed heroes (+Teen Titans or The Impossibles)
• Maybe they protect the world against supernatural evil (+Supernatural or Hellboy)
• Maybe they protect the world against alien invasion (+ Dark Conspiracy or The X-Files)
  
  The focus would be on running single-session "episodes" where the band travels to a new city, uncovers some kind of problem, solves it, then plays their gig as the finale, getting bonuses or penalties for what they did during the session. Good performances increase their fame/power/money, while bad ones damage it in some way. This would be a sort of live XP system.
  
  System-wise I'd start with the d6 system, add a new stat or replace one of the old ones with "Musical" and have a separate skill for each instrument and singing style. Default is stat + skill so a really talented musician could fill in for a mind-wiped bass player even if they had no real skill in "bass guitar" Work in something like FFG's Obligation system from Edge of the Empire to give the group some other pressing issues to deal with and I think you could have a ton of fun with the right group. I think it would be a great one-shot or con type game too.

That's enough words for now - more tomorrow!

RPG-A-Day 2017

Hell, why not? I see it on EN World and on Barking Alien's place and I've not been posting as regularly so why not take this as an opportunity to pay a little more attention to the RPG side of things here?

So Day 1 is "What published RPG do you wish you were playing right now?"`

Is that literally right now? Because it's a Tuesday morning and I'm in between work duties, so that would be awkward. I suppose I could try to finally finish Baldur's Gate, or fire up Star Trek Online but I don't think that's what they mean.

Recently I've been running D&D 5th edition and Star Wars Edge of the Empire. I'm pretty happy with those. I've also been digging in to some other games for research/prep:

• Dungeon Crawl Classics - they had a kickstarter for scratch-off zero level character sheets which has me wanting to finish our first foray into this game.
• Mutant Crawl Classics - the kickstarter PDF recently went to backers and it looks like a lot of fun.
• Twilight 2000 - I have an almost complete set of published books for this game and at least two interested players. I'm working on completing the collection and contemplating how or when I would run a campaign.
• Shadowrun - the Apprentices have never actually played and it feels like I should fix that
• Savage Worlds Rifts - still haven't run a game. It's been discussed, it just hasn't happened yet. 

Lots of older school stuff there. I'd be happy running any of those if it didn't interfere with what I'm already doing.

The question specifically mentioned "playing" though. I don't know that they meant it to be that specific but let me take it as "playing" and not "running". I run a lot more than I play so this is a more interesting version of the question.

I'd say supers - M&M, Champions, ICONS, BASH, Marvel, whatever. It's been forever since I've played in an ongoing superhero game. My decision to make this year the one I catch up on Astro City is probably contributing here too.

Runner up: "Star Trek" - I'd like to play in a Trek campaign for a good while run by someone who knows and loves the material. Again, the rules are not the issue so much here as the genre or setting. 

So there's my answer to the question. 

This Looks a Bit Familiar: Bright

I don't pay a ton of attention to San Diego Comic Con anymore because it's turned into such a huge thing it's just a torrent of information - it's overload. I did see one thing over the weekend that caught my eye though:




I know "urban fantasy" is a wider genre these days but that looks a ton like a Shadowrun movie. Plus, Will Smith actually looks entertaining in this one, unlike some of his other recent appearances.

So color me interested in this one ...

The New Campaign

Vader voice: "... and these so-called 'Beastie Boys' will not be able to help you this time."

40K Friday: 8th Edition Upgrades - Iron Warriors

We've played a fair amount of 8th edition at this point and we really like it. The rules are cleaner, run faster, and there is a ton of flexibility in army composition without breaking the game. I expect some things to get cleaned up - the recent FAQ gives me a lot of hope for an "active" GW in this edition - and some significant changes in the imminent tidal wave of codices to keep thing interesting for quite a while.

I started off focused on the Iron Warriors and they have undergone quite a few changes over the last six months. I had a plan for them for the old Chaos Codex, I then revised it for the Traitor Legions book and now I am changing it up again for the Index book. With an actual full Chaos Codex coming I have slowed down a bit on coming up with a "permanent" force organization for them and I am just trying out different groups of units to see how they play under the new rules. The main outcome of this is that I now have about 6000 points of IW's under the new system - a dread here, a squad there ... it adds up quick. I've added a ridiculous number of Chaos Marine bits as well as sometimes when you have a very specific plan you need very specific bits to build those units. Some highlights of my meandering plans:

Work is in Progress

•  I was going to go with 6 Rhinos for them. I think that's probably overkill now as I want to spend those points on other things, particularly if 2000 points is the new standard. The original plan was chosen, possessed, and 4 marine squads in those rhinos. Now I'm thinking 2 chosen squads in one rhino - one melta-shooty and one with power swords and pistols, and 3 marine squads. I'm not sure the possessed really belong in this army.
• I also have considered a completely different approach to troops by taking 4x five-man squads each with a heavy bolter. Set these up in ruins with a few havoc squads and you have a pretty stout gunline for the backfield.
• Triple predators is a lot of points but is looking pretty solid in this edition. I'm glad I built them up
• I'm up to five helbrutes for these guys. With the loss of the deep strike option they are not quite as mobile as before but if I take all of them ... that's a lot of fairly tough targets on the field. 
• I'm seriously considering adding Havoc launchers to the Rhinos. It's not terribly expensive  - comparable to a Heavy Bolter Razorback - but it makes them more of a threat on the table and so might convince someone to shoot at them rather than a predator or a havoc squad or a helbrute. Also it's cool to have a decent gun and still have a ten-man transport capacity. 
• For HQ's I have pretty much settled on Daemon Prince + Terminator Lord + Terminator Sorcerer. The biker sorcerer is still an option but I may not use him as much as I thought I would. 
• Fast Attack and Heavy support are unchanged though I am a lot less impressed with Obliterators right now than in the last few editions. 

The more general feeling I am dealing with right now is that 2000 points still feels "tight" when ti comes to taking what I want to play. I am thinking 2500 might be a better fit for us, or some odd number like 2250. Ah well it's all about "interesting choices" right?

Star Wars: The Next Campaign

So Friday night I am starting up a new Star Wars game. I got the itch to run some more Star Wars a while back but it's been tricky to line up the boys for our Red Sabers campaign. So I decided to put together a "limited campaign" for FFG Star Wars.

Now I've talked about my feelings on the game in general before and about our last experience of playing the Jedi Beginner Box. I see some potential but I'm not sure it's really our thing. That said I want to find out and the best way is to finally create our own characters and run through a longer adventure. I am taking one of the published adventures as a base, making some adjustments based on published reviews/notes/after action reports and we will see how it goes. It's mainly "Edge of the Empire" so I'm going to try and keep characters focused on that book but I'm not going to shut the door on everything else if someone has a strong concept they want to play. Well, other than full-on Jedi - we're not doing that just yet. It's a rebellion-era game so that shouldn't really be a problem anyway.

My approach here is the limited campaign or "The Movie" - it's not open-ended, it has a definite beginning and a defined end point. What happens in between is pretty flexible. The end point is somewhat variable as well - it might be "villain X is slain", "the imperial operation is stopped", or "the players run away to lick their wounds and plot revenge". The "movie" description to me means that it has a limited amount of running time or sessions, it has a single major story arc, it's cinematic as all get-out, and the stakes are high. Mechanically it means that no, we're not going to worry much about things like food and encumbrance but heroic character death is completely acceptable. We don't have to worry about keeping the ship intact. Locations and relationships with NPCs that are important in this adventure may never appear again. In general, continuity is not the primary goal - making a memorable adventure is. I don't want anything to be "routine".

My best previous example of this is documented here. That was a fun campaign.

Why do I do Star Wars this way? Well, most of my attempts at ongoing campaigns involve a gradual build-up to the big stuff like dragons or demon lords. It works in D&D but for Star Wars when I have tried this it just doesn't seem to excite anyone. No one wants to "fight kobolds" in a Star Wars game and in a non-level based system why should you have to? Why not dive right into the action and the epic plot? Why not get right to the good stuff? To facilitate this, I run them in bursts and think of each burst as a movie. This helps my players too I think so they think of "whats the most cinematic thing I can do here" and not "preservation".

So how does this work long term? Well, I'm going to run this one all the way through and figure it should take a few sessions. Once we're done, if everyone liked it, we will try another "movie" in the fall after school starts and everyone's schedule adjusts. If you like your existing character then you can bring them along for the "sequel". If you want to try something new or your character died then you can make a new one with all of the XP you earned in the prior adventure applied to the new character.  This avoids penalizing people for the heroic sacrifice or an interest in something new. I've found some players really like continuity and others like variety and I don't want to punish either one.

For now though, we have session #1 of the new game Friday night. I'll let you know how that goes.

RPG Updates for July

Well I didn't post that much in June because there was just too much going on. With cars and college mostly sorted out things should settle down for the rest of July. I figured I would take a minute to post my thoughts on what I've been doing and on some hopes for the rest of the year.

• All I've run the past month is D&D 5th edition and we just finished Session #3. I am happy with both the rules and my choice of campaign so things are moving along quite nicely now. We have a rotating cast of players and even added one new player, so that's been fun as well. 
• As far as new players I've been playing with mostly the same group of people for quite a few years now so I decided a few weeks ago to look for some fresh faces to mix things up. I do appreciate that having a steady group can be a rare thing but I also don't want to sink into a rut and have everything become routine. Adding someone new to the group can help avoid that. Also, with all of the schedule issues people have at times - including me - having a larger pool of players makes it that much more likely we will have enough people to pull a game together on any given weekend. 
• The Deadlands game has suffered somewhat. There's still interest but anytime my 3 players have been available other people have been available as well and we have opted to play D&D instead. I'm going to call this "a good problem to have" rather than an emergency. We will pick it back up soon enough.
• Mutants and Masterminds has suffered as well due to being unable to sync up all of the college crowd's summer schedules. I suppose it's the downside of adding some new players but the sessions we had were a lot of fun. We will probably have to leave the "crisis" hanging for a few more weeks at least. In the meantime we may just have to run some side stories if we want to get in some M&M time.
  I have also resolved to pick up the books I have not yet acquired. M&M was running at a pace of about a book a year, but with 2017 shaping up to have three books released (Hero High, Atlas of Earth Prime, and Freedom City 3E) I decided it was time to get current. I am almost there.
• The other side games like our Star Wars campaign have been quiet too as whenever the boys have been here we've been playing the new edition of 40K or doing other things. I expect we will get back to them at some point before school starts back up but they are not on any particular schedule so it's not a big concern. I'd like to play them more but there's only so much time in each week.

• New Stuff!
• The new Star Trek is officially out. Still not all that thrilled with the system but I will probably pick up the PDF at least to see the final official version and to see if we want to try it out. With some renewed interest in Trek on my part I also managed to complete my collection of Last Unicorn Trek books so now I have all of those, all of the Decipher books, and everything for FASA minus a few of the adventures and honestly those are not a high priority for me.
• DCC has a kickstarter going for scratch-off character sheets for zero-level characters. I think it's a great idea and I will be a part of this one.
• There's a new version of Top Secret for the modern era on Kickstarter. The system looks interesting and the print version is a good deal. With the original creator involved I am also jumping on to this one. I've never had a ton of success sustaining an espionage type campaign but it's also been a long time since I tried to run one. 

• Plans for the Future
• Starfinder still looks interesting but I might look at this one more as a player than a DM. I think it's a good opportunity to see if someone else wants to run rather than assuming I will be that guy.
• Really looking forward to the new Freedom City book. That may turn out to be the biggest one this year for me personally. Well, other than catching up on 5th edition D&D. As far as new books released in 2017 though I think this is the big one. 
• The rest of "the plan" is to stay on a steady schedule and keep running and playing games - that's it!