#RPGaDay2015 - 4th - Most Surprising Game

It's August 2015, and to follow on with the success of last year's #RPGaDay event, David Chapman at Autocratik has created a new list. Each day in August, I'll be posting my "answer" to that day's topic.

Since there's no time period assigned to today's subject—Most Surprising Game—I'm drawn to a session I played a few years ago, run by my friend, Bill Keyes, at a charity gaming event: Lucha Libre Hero. The reason this game stood out is that Hero is really not a game that fits my current interests—character creation is too involved and the system tends to focus too much on minutiae. Still, the game goes down in history as my favorite play experience of all time in a public setting. It was a combination of things that made it my favorite.

For starters, the people at the table were amazing roleplayers. There were four of us, but I don't recall the fourth player's name. My friends, Wendy and Camdon, were there, and they are both top shelf players. Couple that with Bill's GMing style, and it made for a lot of fun.

Speaking of GMing style. Bill stripped out a lot of the fiddly parts of the Hero system for his game. He also had wrestling moves on the character sheet, and I've been a wrestling fan all my life. It was fun to pull off moves in-game, and due to my familiarity with wrestling, it made visualization really easy. He also did a great job explaining the Lucha Libre genre, as it's presented in the game.

I do so wish there was a Lucha Libre RPG that utilized a system more to my tastes than Hero.

#RPGaDay2015 - 3rd - Favorite New Game

It's August 2015, and to follow on with the success of last year's #RPGaDay event, David Chapman at Autocratik has created a new list. Each day in August, I'll be posting my "answer" to that day's topic.

Today's post—favorite new game of the last 12 months—was harder than it should have been. I was overthinking really. Is it new or new to me? Do setting count, since they're not a game in and of themselves? I've decided to just write about what I've liked the most this last year.

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition is my favorite edition of the game. Previously, my answer would have been 2nd Edition, but 5th Edition is just that good. I love having most of the character abilities rolled back into the classes. I love the simplicity of the inspiration die and advantage/disadvantage. I'm not a fan of Forgotten Realms, but that's just made me want to re-visit setting design, maybe even try a hexcrawl. For the first time in 15 years, I have no complaints about the holy trilogy of gaming: Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual.

Many settings released this last year for my favorite RPG, Savage Worlds. Two of them stand out for me: East Texas University (ETU) and The Last Parsec. You can look to yesterday's post and find why ETU is one of this year's favorites, but The Last Parsec, I'll explain here.

The Last Parsec is Shane Hensley's love letter to Star Frontiers. Why is that a big deal? The very first game I GMed was not D&D; it was Star Frontiers. As a kid, I was a much bigger fan of Sci-Fi than I was fantasy, especially Star Trek. I was all about exploring strange new worlds. I remember the Yazirian felt like something between a Klingon and a Wookie to me. I used one as my GM character for that game. The Last Parsec works seamlessly with the Core Rules and the Science Fiction Companion, and Shane & Company certainly captured the feel of my belovedStar Frontiers.

#RPGaDay2015 - 2nd - Kickstarted Game

It's August 2015, and to follow on with the success of last year's #RPGaDay event, David Chapman at Autocratik has created a new list. Each day in August, I'll be posting my "answer" to that day's topic.

I had a tougher time with this subject than one might expect—Kickstarter game most pleased I backed. I've decided on presenting a tie: Mermaid Adventures and East Texas University (ETU). As you might guess, there's a story for each.

Mermaid Adventures is a great kids game about... Mermaids! There are several cool things about it—the system is fun, it's written by my good friend Eloy Lasanta at Third Eye Games—but the main reason this one's special is that my daughter playtested it when she was eight. Consequently, I ended up running a lot. When it came time for the survey when I backed it, I did so in her name.

When Pinnacle Entertainment did their Kickstarter for Deadlands: Noir, I skipped it. I was feeling a little burned out on Deadlands and Savage Worlds at the time. To this day, it is "the Kickstarter that got away" for me. Aside from being a great game, it's one of the best values to ever grace Kickstarter. I haven't missed a Pinnacle Kickstarter since.

That in mind, there's no way I would have missed the ETU Kickstarter. I have always loved 12 to Midnight's Pinebox setting. What's more, ETU was announced in (I think) 2008, and I've literally wanted it since then. To this day it is the Kickstarter I've backed for the most money ($80), and, like Deadlands: Noir, it was a great value.

#RPGaDay2015 - 1st - Forthcoming Game

It's August 2015, and to follow on with the success of last year's #RPGaDay event, David Chapman at Autocratik has created a new list. Each day in August, I'll be posting my "answer" to that day's topic.

I don't know how to say this without sounding like I'm bragging. I'll just have to ask you to trust me on this one. The RPG I'm most looking forward to hasn't been announced yet. I believe it will be later today at Gen Con, but I learned about it over dinner several weeks ago. There's no way I'm scooping it, which would not only be a betrayal, but it would build me a reputation as a guy publishers can't talk to about their games.

That said, thebig announcements, and maybe that means this would have been a better question for August 3rd or 4th, rather than the 1st.
question got me thinking about how the whole concept of "forthcoming" has changed. Does a PDF release with a preorder for a physical book count as forthcoming? I think the people who only sell PDFs would differ with that definition. Then there's Kickstarter, which is really a preorder system for many gamers, combined with a bit of gambling if you ask me. Gen Con is still the main place to get all the

What do you think?

Theater of the Savage Mind, Part Two - Templates

In this series, I'm writing deeper rules concerning theater of the mind play in Savage Worlds. Think of these blog posts as drafts. These are not heavily playtested, simply a distillation of things I've been doing on the fly in my home games. Really they're suggestions that I'm hoping will create a conversation that leads to a final document that I, and those interested, will be able to use in their games. 

As I've said before, the Savage Worlds Deluxe "Games Without Miniatures" rules didn't go far enough for my tastes. Specifically, I mentioned that the Template conversion rules were merely a "good start." I'll be tackling those specific rules this week.

I think the rules, as is, are pretty good honestly. Though I'm willing to bet that people who use them forget that adjacent allies get hit automatically unless there's a raise scored and that the cover and diving for cover rules should still apply. I think the main reason has to do with a weakness of theater of the mind, and that's just keeping track of who is adjacent to whom.

To me the obvious answer is to use tokens (or minis) of some sort to track adjacency. In this way, players and GMs with area of effect attacks have an easy reference. Unrelated to AoE attacks, this method will also help in keeping track of Gang-Up. That said, I know full well there are GMs who can keep this sort of thing in their head. I'm simply not one of them, and honestly there's no guarantee everyone at the table have the same gift.

The one actual rules tweak missing from the Template conversion rules is the chance for a character to get hit by their own AoE attack. The solution here is pretty simple—tie it to the dice. If a player rolls Snake Eyes on their attack, they and anyone adjacent get hit. As an option, this can be extrapolated further using the Template sizes as a guide:

• SBT - acting character, plus adjacent allies
• MBT - acting character, another non-adjacent acting character, plus all adjacent
• LBT - acting character, two additional non-adjacent acting characters, plus all adjacent

For a thrown weapon, cover and diving for cover rules apply. For a propelled weapon, there is no diving for anything.

Thoughts?

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This game references the Savage Worlds game system, available from Pinnacle Entertainment Group at www.peginc.com. Savage Worlds and all associated logos and trademarks are copyrights of Pinnacle Entertainment Group. Used with permission. Pinnacle makes no representation or warranty as to the quality, viability, or suitability for purpose of this product.

Theater of the Savage Mind, Part One

It's no secret that Savage Worlds is my favorite system. I've always had one gripe with it though—it's written with tactical maps and miniatures in mind. The design is reasonable, especially considering it was derived from a tactical miniatures game.

When Pinnacle released Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition (SWD), I was elated to see there were rules added for games without miniatures, but really this short sidebar section of the book was more of a nod than a solution to my problem. The range section was still too granular for me (just using real measurements), and while the template conversion rules were welcome, they were really just a good start, as far as I'm concerned.

Since Savage Worlds has refused to stop being my favorite game (I think it's just addicted to me), I've decided to take some of my favorite "theater of the mind" gaming experiences from other games and use them to fully convert Savage Worlds into the game I wish it was. In thinking about design goals, I've settled on the following:

1. The rules will cleave as closely as possible to the overall paradigm of what one might expect from Savage Worlds
2. The rules will remain Fast, Furious, and Fun—I've no interest in making the exclusion of tactical maps and minis more complicated than using them
3. The rules will allow for any existing Savage Worlds character to be used with nearly zero modification

 As I've been thinking about how deep a conversion should go, here's where I will concentrate my efforts, at least initially:

1. Expanding on the template rules presented in SWD
2. Replacing the original range rules
3. Modifying affected Hindrances, Edges, and Powers in SWD

It's worth mentioning that theater of the mind rules need not be miniature nor map free. Minis and maps are great way to keep gaming groups on the same page in combat. I'm simply not interested in counting squares or hexes, or using a tape measure to move characters or determine things like range or line of sight—at least not in my roleplaying games.

It's my intention to post updates on this topic on Mondays, until I feel the rules are complete—or until my ideas go down in burning flames of bad design, whichever comes first. Stay tuned!

Long Time, No Write

Has it really been six months? Time flies. I plan to start posting regularly to G:TB, so I figured it'd be a good time to update you on what I've been up to, gaming-wise and gaming-related-wise.

For starters, I've been podcasting again. Kristian Serrano over at the Savage Bloggers Network has been kind enough to let me join him on his new weekly podcast, summarizing the news that flows through his feed. If you're a Savage Worlds fan, you should totally check it out. We also do monthly Google Hangouts On Air, where we interview different Savage Worlds personalities. The best place to get into all this is the SBN site. I look forward to seeing you there!

On the gaming front, I've actually been doing less than usual, to include paring back my GMing time. Most Fridays, I play in a Marvel Cinematic Universe Fate Core game, where I am reprising an old Savage Worlds character, the vigilante, Revenant. On Sundays, I am a part-time GM in a 13th Age game, and, starting this Sunday, a Last Parsec game. Once I month, I try to hit my FLGS, Isle of Games on their RPG day, and play in whatever is on the docket. Again, I GM, but only occasionally.

That pretty much sums it up. I've got some ideas floating in my head, begging to find a new home. I also have a couple reviews I would like to get done. I hope you enjoy it!