A Game I Want to Play

Here is a beautiful quote perfectly describing the game I want to play:

The PC casualties in that campaign were ridiculously high.  Just getting from the beginning to the end of the session with the same PC was an exhilarating victory.  That's why I'm all for save-or-die, level drain, zero level funnels and balanced-dungeons-my-ass.  Not because I'm enjoy forcing players to suffer the same way I did, but because I want them to experience the high of just escaping the session with your life.

from Jeff Rient's blog.

I Suck At This

I read a great slew of blogs on a daily basis...but I can't seem to find the discipline of blogging myself.

So here is a quick something something just say something.

The Relationship Between A and B is (opt. 1-4 Bidirectional; 5-6 Unidirectional)

• 1-2: Hostile (worst)
• 3-7: Unfriendly
• 8-13: Indifferent
• 14-18: Friendly
• 19-20: Helpful (best)

How is A Related to B

1. blood relations (roll on Family Chart)
2. by marriage (roll on Family Chart)
3. married to
4. loves
5. is intimate with
6. childhood friends with
7. owes money to / is indebted to
8. knows a secret about
9. experienced something dramatic with
10. accused of some wrong by
11. works for
12. is indentured to / is a slave/servant to
13. works with
14. is in the same business as
15. lives next to
16. cheated
17. is stalking / infatuated with
18. there is absolutely no relationship
19. looks shockingly similar to
20. has a mutual friend with
21. is well known by through some great deed
22. frequents the same hangouts as
23. is of the same faith as
24. served in the town militia with
25. has some unexplained psychic/empathetic connection to
26. neither person will discuss it, even under pain of death
27. parents adventured together
28. reroll and apply to parents
29. reroll and apply to A's sibling
30. roll twice

Family Relations (A is a X to B)

1. parent
2. child
3. sibling
4. cousin
5. aunt/uncle
6. grandparent
7. grandchild
8. distant cousins

Here are some links to the forefathers of such thinking:

• Random Inter-NPC Relationship Table
• Polyhedral NPC Matrix

Digital Format

The big news coming out of GenCon appears to be the WotC announcement concerning the release of all their products in digital format.

WOO- HOO!!!

...Wait, what? Digital format? Does that mean I can pick up the Moldvay edition of D&D Basic in PDF or does that mean I can pay a monthly fee to access some version of D&D Basic on your website?

Those are two very different things - the former will create a customer whereas the latter will just espouse more bitterness and I'll just keep using the copy I have, your loss.

I don't have much faith but we'll see.

Numenera And Potential Campaign

update: it's already funded...I wonder how high it will go?

Numenera: A new roleplaying game from Monte Cook

Curse you Kickstarter!!!  I've got 39 days to come up with money...

From numenera.com and Monte's blog there are a couple of hints here and there...I'm always interested in new ways to play, but I'm leary of things like "choose from a number of descriptors like clever, tough, strong-willed, or mystical."  I'm just old fashioned and biased towards what I know, so if anyone can win me over it'll be Mr. Cook.  Here's a bunch of my money.

Which makes me want to talk about FATE ladders and stuff...but not today.  I can see a D&D game in my not too unobtainable future and I need to figure out what to play!  I'm trying to decide between the following three four contenders so the next couple of posts will probably be my ramblings about the various Pros and Cons.

1. Pathfinder
2. pure Moldvay/Cook
3. pure DCC RPG
4. mish-mash of OSR gems
1. fighter from DCC RPG
2. thief from LotFP WFRPG
3. Cleric & Wizard from S&W or LL
4. house rules absconded from all over the OSR blogosphere

Advanced Adventures Sale

I just saw that Expeditious Retreat Press is having a 50% off sale for today only - check out Joseph's Sorcery & Super Science blog for details.

Personally, if you don't already have it you should consider getting Stonesky Delve, the Shadowvein trilogy (here, here, and here), The Seven Shrines of Nav'k-Qar, or any one of another half-dozen great offerings.  As much as I love these, they are a bit expensive so a sale like this is great.  I think I'll finally pick up The Verdant Vault of Malakum.

A Little Me and Pips

I'm a D&D guy since back when my dad tried to teach me the game from the Moldvay B/X box (and now that I think of it I cannot imagine why he ever bought it actually...weird).  Although back in the day I played Gamma World, Star Frontier, Car War, and even some James Bond, Star Trek (meets Aliens), and Twilight 2000, really I was a D&D player at heart.  I was infatuated with anything to do with Camelot, magic swords, and dragons.

Today, real life almost always keeps me from playing.  I spend a lot time reading blogs and buying up products to keep myself involved.  I love the plethora of games out there and I'm fascinated by all the various ways people play.  One of the things I want to with this outlet is to document (review?) stuff, mainly D&D but also rules and mechanics.

I'm also a Kickstarter junkie, but that's for another day...

One of the things I was thoroughly impressed with from the Lamentations of the Flame Pricess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing Game (LotFP: WFRPG, or just WFRPG) is the skills d6 mechanic.  By itself, its a great little simplification to Thieve abilities with the addition that everyone gets a shot at it.  However, I was also enamored by the graphical representation of the skill by using dice.  Shade in the pips to represent your skill level.  Brilliant.

Now jump over to Sham's Grog & Blog and the Art of Delving.  Here is a nice mechanic for adjudicating tasks that allows for improvement (using pips).  I like this because (extrapolating) you don't all of a sudden get better at picking locks when all you've done lately is kill monster and take their loot.  Here your lock-picking only gets better when you actually pick locks.  Nice.

Tsojcanth from Lost Pages has taken this a step further and created a whole new game around the idea: Adventure Fantasy Game.  I waffled a few days but finally bought it.  I hope to do a more thorough review soon because I really like the concept applied to skills for OSR games.

Ooze Pits

Just finished reading through The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk and oh my gosh this Purple Sorcerer is amazing!

This adventure has it all, pig-stealing mist-men, bizarre cults, castle raids, freakishly huge trees, ooze out the wazoo, and tons and tons of PC death in pure DCC RPG style.  The best part though is that there are so many plot hooks and side adventure ideas a lazy GM could spawn off all kinds of setting-defining threads.

Remember, the Funnel is your Friend