Category: RPG Ravings

Bits of 5th have been online for a while, and it officially launched at Gen Con. I have my PHB (and nothing else yet) and was thinking of gradually walking through the book, a review in parts. Let’s start with some general notes.

First, while I understand some of the business reasons for not dropping $200 worth of books on people at the same time, the staggered release still feels odd. If nothing else, Wizards of the Coast is training players to play without the official books, although I presume someone in their business office has run the numbers on that.

As has been noted widely, 5th is a throwback after the new direction 4th Edition took. It looks a lot more like 2nd Edition, so one hopes it contains enough new and interesting to justify using it instead of just going back to 2nd Edition. I have a lot of 2nd Edition books. Continue reading [RR] D&D 5th Edition Player’s Handbook

One of the big consumers of my writer’s juice has been a project I’ve been working on the for the past few months that is finally moving towards the light. I’ve been creating a line of tabletop RPG supplements mainly aimed at solo players or GM’s that need a bit more guidance.

The first release is UNE – The Universal NPC Emulator – which aims to create, color, and guide the use of NPC’s, non-player characters, in RPG’s. I released it back in 2007 on a whim, but now I’m trying to do things a tad more professionally. UNE has been cleaned up, and is now  heavily supported on the other thing that has been sapping my time.

ConjectureGames.com – this puppy has tons of examples, tutorials, and even previews for upcoming products. For example, it shows how to use UNE to create an adventure or create a villain with weaknesses.

Anyway, all the Conjecture Games products will be pay-what-you-want, and I am perfectly happy with the payment of $0.00. I just hope that they are useful to somebody in this niche hobby. BOLD is the next product, and is hopefully slated for September. It is the Book of Legend and Deeds and aims to create player histories, define downtime events, and even create a dramatic skeleton-frame for adventures.

–Ravious

At Origins, I played in a couple of D&D 5th Edition playtest sessions, for a module and for the online tools. Two mechanics stuck out for me: the new system for preparing spells and advantage/disadvantage.

Advantage and disadvantage are simple to describe and powerful in their implications. If you have advantage, make the roll twice and take the higher number; if you have disadvantage, make the roll twice and take the lower number. Done.

3rd Edition had a similar intent with its “+/-2” default rule. If the DM was not sure what sort of bonus or penalty something imposed, just go with “2.” That is a 10% difference on a 20-sided die. How does “advantage” differ?

Quite a bit. Several people have run the numbers (I think “enumerate the 400 possibilities” is a better method than running a simulation). As noted, the effect of advantage is small at the extremes and huge in the middle. If you are nearly certain to succeed or fail, advantage is +1 or +2. If you have a 50/50 chance, it is +5. Out of 20, that is really, really big.

Players will also feel advantage and disadvantage very strongly because of the perceived gain/loss of the second die roll. If you roll two 18s, “eh,” you say, “advantage didn’t matter.” If you roll an 18 and a 2, that’s a success with advantage and a failure wit disadvantage, and you can see fate hanging in the balance of that mechanic. It’s a psychologically powerful factor.

: Zubon

Atomic Robo is a great comic, and it has become a great tabletop RPG, Atomic Robo RPG (“ARRPG”). While the book has been in digital form for a few months, the book is just coming off the dead-tree presses. Early reviews seem to point that not only is it a perfect embodiment of the Atomic Robo setting, but it also is one of the best versions of the FATE system.

Drawn to Rules

One of the highlights to owning this book is how much time was taking in using the Atomic Robo comic to explain RPG rules. I’ll let the book itself do the talking:

There are lots of ways to learn, and adding a slightly more visual style by using the source material was just a fantastic move. I’m a FATE veteran, and even I appreciated all the comics that crossed the line in to RPG mechanics. Continue reading [RR] Atomic Robo RPG Review

I came back from vacation to my two play-by-post campaigns I was at the time playing before I left. I gave fair notice to all participants I would be gone, of course. When I came back only one was still running. The one that didn’t need a gamemaster (“GM”). The other one, well the GM decided he’d got in over his head, and he just wasn’t going to be producing a quality game. So the plug was pulled.

I am incredibly jealous of those gaming group that have had decades long campaigns. I’ve found in my gaming groups that was rarely the case. The current top games, Pathfinder and I guess Dungeons and Dragons, are swinging the pendulum further away by having drop-in type campaigns run at the local game shops. It’s a great idea to get people playing together, but I think it’s also indicative of the fickleness I’ve found in this hobby. Continue reading [RR] Ficklejuice

Your mileage may vary, but as a GM I find a unified front of players pretty boring. “Why, yes” they all seem to say although only one player is talking, “we all agree and do this.” In real life even something simple like choosing where to go to eat on a group dinner can become a balancing act. Bob’s on a diet, and Fi wants a steak, or at least something from a cow. Throw a vegan in to the mix and the difficulty increases exponentially. No one presses “X” to move along.

The more I play role-playing games, the more I get the feeling that the story isn’t that big of a deal. Sure, a cohesive metaplot would be nice. However, it’s the situations that really seem to stick. Those situations are especially good if players become invested in the outcome. Go for a full boat, when the players want different paths or outcomes.

I just started playing two play-by-post games at RPG.net, and already we’re hitting some great player vs. player or PC vs. PC situations. Continue reading [RR] Player Character Antagonism and Interaction

This review is based on the ePub version (i.e., Kindle), which is currently available for $10 at DriveThruRPG. A PDF version with art and print layout will be out later this year.

This is a roleplaying game. It is possibly the roleplaying game. It is genius. It is horrifying. It is a beautiful balance of everything that would drive a story forward. It is diceless. It is filled with meta-game moments. It is quite a task to understand. If you are on a path to better understanding how to grow as a gamemaster (GM) or as a player with a player character(PC) in tabletop RPG’s, I’d tell you to buy it. If you are on Pathfinder this RPG might as well be in ancient Martian.

This game was to play Studio Ghibli films. Perhaps not as adventurous as Princess Mononoke, which would easily fall under a standard RPG system. This system was designed to play Ponyo or Spirited Away. There’s one scene in Ponyo, where the boy takes Ponyo out in a boat to explore the submerged world. It’s such an interesting slice of adventure, but without much purpose. How would you create a game like that where the player is involved? Continue reading [RR] Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine Review

Personal investment in a pen and paper roleplaying game is one of the most important factors in the life and death of a campaign. It doesn’t matter through what medium the game is played (tabletop, forum, Google Hangout, etc.), the range of investment in the players matters.

The biggest investment in a conventional game is the gamemaster (GM). This is the player that tells all the other players “hey, come play in my world!” They are the rules arbitrator, worldkeeper, and general destroyer of fun. If the GM doesn’t have a strong vision or investment in the game they want to run, the game is not off to a great start. Continue reading [RR] Investment in the Game