Junkyard Goldmine or Just Junk

I played 5^th edition D&D for a few years when it first came out and got a little burned out on it. I’m still slightly bitter toward the game because they weren’t producing new materiel. It looked to me like they were just updating old modules and re-releasing them. I tend to gravitate more toward the OSR scene than many of my gaming peers. Most of my friends are into Savage Worlds, Genesys, or ICRPG. The OSR scene is continually producing good content, which is more than I can say for the DM’s Guild or the Savage Worlds Adventurers Guild.

This got me thinking, what if I’m missing out on something in there. I just saw a photo of Satine Phoenix on Twitter unboxing a 5e D&D haul. Again, a lot of it appears to be Wizards of the Coast is just re-releasing old modules. Now I’m wondering if the creators that are publishing under the DM’s Guild are producing good content. I’ve always just turned my nose to it because when you open up the platform to anyone you generally get a lot of garbage content which makes it hard to find the gems.

Now, I must admit that I mostly ignored the DM’s Guild because it was 5e. Once I found Savage Worlds, 5e was pretty much dead to me. That’s not to say 5e is a bad game. No, no, no. On the contrary, 5e is what got me back into the hobby. It will always hold a special place in my heart. Back to my original thought. Am I missing anything by ignoring the DM’s Guild? I generally buy books as inspiration for whatever game I want to run. I’ll take stuff from many different sources and import the ideas into my Savage Worlds game. That’s not to say that I only use Savage Worlds. Anyone who knows me well enough, knows that I like to try new systems all the time but I keep coming back to Savage Worlds.

Basically what I’m wanting to know is, what can others recommend to me from the DM’s Guild that far exceeds their expectations? I’m talking about the good stuff here. It has to have the whole package. Good layout, artwork, editing, writing, and play tested.

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Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit: A Review

Editing Note: As I prepare to smash the publish button in blogger, I realized that I didn’t quite say everything that I wanted to say. There is so much more to this Cyberpunk Red world and this article is already twice as long as I would prefer. I’ll definitely have to continue my thoughts on this in another post. Thanks for reading and I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

Where do I start Choomba? I suppose the first thing I should mention is my disclaimer. Cyberpunk is not a genera I’m completely familiar with. I’ve read most of Cyberpunk 2020. and Neuromancer by Gibson and have a few other books in my que to read. I’ve played a few games of Shadowrun and watched Johnny Mnemonic, both Blade Runner movies, and a few other not so cyberpunk movies. I've never played any Cyberpunk games by R.Talsorian Games Inc. With this in mind I’d say its fair for me to be impartial between the different versions of Cyberpunk out there.

First off, I have to say that the production value of the Jumpstart Kit is phenomenal. High quality printed materiel and dice are included in the physical box. The current cost of the physical box is $30 plus tax and shipping but if you’re a digital fan or just want to print it yourself, it can be had for $15 over on DriveThruRPG. So head on over to your closest Vendit machine and get you some cyber mods for your VR system.

Before I received the jumpstart kit, I took some time to get familiar with Cyberpunk 2020. I briefly read through the RPG and watched some actual plays to get familiar with the system. My first impression was that it’s a bit clunky and slow, especially for combat. There weren’t any game sessions that used Netrunners so that tells me the rules for that aspect of the game is probably not that great unless the whole party consists of Netrunners.

Once the box arrived, I practically devoured its contents over the weekend. The box contains a 44-page rulebook, a 52-page worldbook, a folded 11x17 quick reference sheet, two 11x17 double sided maps, 6 pregenerated character sheets, a card stock sheet with 19 standees and 4 vehicles, some plastic stands for the standees, and a set of dice (2d10 and 4d6). Everything in the box looks amazing with the only caveat being the 2d10 dice. Those d10’s are almost unusable. You have to pay extra special attention to the orientation of the dice to know if you rolled a 6 or a 9. They certainly can’t be used to roll d100 because both d10’s look exactly the same. Normally you would either use two different colors to denote the ones position and the tens position, or one of the dice would have 00-09 to denote the tens position.

By now you might be wondering what is Cyberpunk Red? This version of Cyberpunk takes place in the year 2045. It’s essentially the in-between for Cyberpunk 2020 and Cyberpunk 2077. Cyberpunk 2020 is the previous tabletop RPG and Cyberpunk 2077 is the upcoming videogame RPG. The premise behind Red is that during the roaring 20’s, two smaller Megacorps went to war with each other trying to scoop up the resources of another bankrupted Megacorp. Well, these smaller corpo’s aligned themselves with some bigger fish that you might have heard of. One sided with the American based Militech Megacorp, while the other was backed by Arasaka. This in turn was the start of the 4^th corporate war. Then came the bombing of the Arasaka towers in Night City. In 2023 a small nuclear bomb was detonated on the upper floors of the towers. Some blame Militech for the disaster while others say Arasaka detonated their own towers to maintain cyber security of their headquarters in Japan. It really doesn’t matter who set off the nuke. What matters is what happens next.

Nuclear fallout occurs for the next couple of years. The detonation at higher elevation flattened the central part of the city but most of Night City was spared total destruction. Then the US president stepped in and immediately nationalized the Militech corporation, effectively seizing the company and its assets under the auspiciousness of ending the global conflict. She then banned Arasaka from operating on US soil. The particulates from the nuclear explosion are floating in the air for the next couple of years giving the sky a permanent red hue. Even still today in 2045 the sky shines red during sunrise and sunset.

I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the world lore of Cyberpunk Red. It evoked many images to pop up in my head but at the same time I felt a bit confused. You see, I always thought of cyberpunk as a bunch of 80’s punk rockers with cyberware all over their body who had a nihilistic approach to life. To me, its about living in the apocalypse and the goal isn’t to save humanity, it’s about saving yourself. There are two groups of people, the rich and the poor. There’s no in-between. The poor scumbags of the city will do just about anything to get ahead and become one of the wealthy. It’s a story about the anti-heroes. The whole time I was reading Red, I kept thinking to myself this is way different than what I imagined. Red seems to be about rebuilding the city and surviving the post apocalypse. Then I look at the images in the books and am quickly reminded that no its not about post apocalypse. It just feels that way to me for some unknown reason.

 Although the corporations are still around, they aren’t as omnipotent as they were in 2020. The corporations used to control the city council but not so much anymore. The current Night City council is composed of Nomad families, Edgerunner factions, old city government, and a few corporations. Many of the city inhabitants live in apartment megablocs. Much like what you’d see in Judge Dredd. Store fronts are practically nonexistent with your shopping needs met by Vendit machines and your personal Agent (interactive PDA/cellphone). You need some new cyberware or perhaps just an upgrade installed? Time to head over to your favorite Ripperdoc. They can provide you with any of the legal items and cosmetic enhancements. If it’s illegal weaponry you’re after then you better have a good Fixer. They’re the ones who can point you to the Night Market.

Night City is broken up into 5 distinct areas with each one having its own ecology. The Hot Zone Wasteland is what used to be the central corporate zone of Night City (ground zero of the Arasaka towers bomb). The Rebuilding Urban Center Zone is the area immediately surrounding the hot zone that survived the blast. The Overpacked Suburbs Zone is what used to be the outer ring of old Night City (the safe suburbs where the corpo’s used to live). The Reclaimed Perimeter Zone is what used to be abandoned ghost towns of old Night City. Last but not least is The Open Road Zone. Here is the Mad Max area of the game. It is routinely patrolled by pack of Nomads to help keep it a little safer. If you venture out here you better be in a Nomad caravan.

This review is getting rather lengthy so I’m gonna wrap it up. There’s tons more to delve into but I need to talk about the system mechanics and give my overall thoughts. Cyberpunk 2020 used the Interlock system and Red is so similar that I assume its still the same system. They’ve tweaked certain mechanics in Red so I’m not sure. The overall mechanic is easy if you’ve ever played D&D. Its STAT+SKILL+d10 versus a difficulty value (DV) set by the GM. At first glance this seems fairly easy but from what I’ve seen of actual plays, it drastically slows down a game that should be more cinematic in my mind. Characters and NPC’s can have a health value of up to 50 hit points. This means combats are long and drawn out. It’s very similar to mid-level games of D&D in this respect. The attrition based systems are antiquated at best and not all that great.

This is why I’m going to abandon the Cyberpunk Red mechanics in favor of Savage Worlds. I think this game has tons of potential but not with the Interlock System. It’s also worth noting that Red attempts to fix the Netrunning rules by partially dismantling the NET. Yes, the NET is still around but it’s not global anymore. They are more like LAN’s now and the Netrunner has to get their butts off the couch to join the team in meatspace. One more thing to keep in mind is that these are Jumpstart rules. It’s not the full ruleset and this product seems to focus mostly on the world lore and Netrunning mechanics.

I will definitely buy the full rulebook of Cyberpunk Red when it’s released. If for nothing more than inspiration to run my own Savage Worlds Cyberpunk game. I must admit that I’m not opposed to the Interlock System at all. If someone invited me to play in a game of Cyberpunk 2020 or Red, I’d be all over it. For now though I’d still give this product 4 out of 5 eddies. If someone asked me if I’d buy it again, I’d say absolutely! It’s an excellent product. It’s not quite as good as FFG’s starter sets but that’s the gold standard in my opinion. See you on the flipside Choombata’s.

P.S. – I nearly forgot to mention that on Veteran’s Day weekend in the US, the Nerds-International group is holding an online convention open to the public November 8th-11th. We need more players and GM’s. If you’re interested in playing some Savage Cyberpunk with me then head on over to the sign up page at https://piersonjaime.wixsite.com/nivcon If there is enough interest in my game then I could be convinced to run another game on Sunday morning.

P.P.S. – I’d like to give a shout out to the 3 T RPG Podcast. My buddies Harrison and Nikk are very talented podcasters with a hilariously informative production. They have DCC actual plays and talk about all kinds of RPG’s.

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The Savage Worlds Killer

This morning on my drive into work I was listening to Finding the Narrative, a Genesys podcast hosted by Tony Fanning and Chris Holmes. They started talking about combat and it made me realize that I like Savage Worlds more than any other system on the market to date. I do like Fantasy Flight Games' game and it does some stuff really well but Savage Worlds does it better.

Then I thought, what is it about Genesys that I like? Well for starters, its magic system is top notch. I think it performs better than most other systems. The magic user can adjust how powerful her spell is on a case by case basis. It allows free form sculpting of the spells on the fly and is only limited by the spellcasters imagination. Savage Worlds can't quite do this but it does come closer than anyone else with trappings.

Genesys' use of talents makes more sense to me than just increasing your skills. The use of talents allows players to have a bit more narrative structure to their character while also including boons to skill rolls, strain, or soak value. The tree by which talents are selected is designed to force the players to make difficult choices and also makes sure the character is balanced (i.e. not overpowered). Savage Worlds is very similar to this in the fact that some Edges have prerequisites. Players cannot simply take Improved Counterattack without first taking Counterattack. Then Counterattack in itself has requirements of its own. 

One last thing that I really like about Genesys is its use of Motivation. Motivation is a tool for both the player and the GM. It helps the player to better define the character by describing when and how they learned the skills that they have. It also provides the GM with ideas to incorporate the character's background into the story. I don't know how many times I've asked players to write a short background on their character and only get a few people to actually do it. Savage Worlds sort of accomplishes the same thing through the use of Hindrances but too many players only see these as a way to generate bennies. It is meant to help mold the character to your concept. Flawed characters are always more fun than perfect ones.

Now onto some of the things I dislike about Genesys. Combat actions, this irks the hell out of me and the deciding factor of why Savage Worlds is better. Much like D&D, in Genesys you only get one combat action. I remember the first time I saw Savage Worlds played by others. I saw someone perform multiple attack actions and move around. This was an epiphany to me. This is what I was missing from D&D. I was growing tired of the no you can't do that because you only have one action mentality. I wanted to be able to jump onto a table, kick an Orc in the face, swing from the chandelier, and tackle another Orc. Not gonna happen in Genesys or D&D. 

Let's talk about Cool and Vigilance used for initiative. This is stupid. Why are there two different skills for performing the same task? I understand they're trying to differentiate between someone being surprised and someone who is ready to engage in combat. It does speed up the surprise check process but it doesn’t make sense. Why do I need to invest points into two different skills that only has one purpose, combat initiative? Just have the players roll Perception for surprise, if they fail they act the next round. Then have all successful players roll initiative. The players who are surprised take the last available initiative slots. 

Abstract initiative turn order is not something I enjoy all that much either. I don't see a whole lot wrong with it but I see it as encouraging meta gaming. I'm not saying meta gaming is bad. I'd just like to see a little less of it during combat. Savage Worlds and Castles & Crusades gets this part right. Initiative is determined every round simulating the fact that combat is more fluid and you don't act at the same time every turn.

Before I forget, I really don't like how characteristics in Genesys are pretty much stuck after character creation. Or at least they should allow for a more accessible way to increase them after creation. Currently the only way to increase them is after picking up a tier 5 talent and that is pretty dang tough to accomplish. A tier 5 talent will cost 175 experience points minimum. In game terms that means you could increase one characteristic by 1 every 9 sessions assuming you don't spend it on skills.

Savage World is not perfect by any means either but it handles everything I've wanted in a game fairly well. Just to name a few things I'm not keen on are the different uses of Investigation and Streetwise to accomplish the same thing. They both perform the same function but are narratively defined differently. I've also heard that the new version will breakout Performance from Persuasion which again are serving the same function with different narrative descriptions. They will also combine Climbing, Swimming, and Throwing into a new Athletics skill. They really need to keep Throwing separate from Athletics. Throwing is a combat skill that needs to be on its own.

Basically what I'm getting at is that no game system is perfect and Genesys is not, nor will ever be a Savage Worlds Killer. I'm looking at you Jamie. Anybody who's familiar with the Nerds-International Google Plus community will know that SWK is just a term we use to joke around with about one system being better than the other but we all know that Savage Worlds just does some things better than others. It should go without saying that we put ICRPG into the same category of ribbing each other.

Even though I'm not a huge fan of ICRPG, I cannot deny the fact that it has changed how lots of people play table top RPG's in general. It has made a huge impact on the game industry as we know it. At least once a week I'll see someone on social media talk about how they don't play it but it has opened their eyes or showed them a new way to look at something. For that, I say thank you Hankerin Ferinale.

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Herald: Lovecraft & Tesla The Tabletop Roleplaying Game Review

I finally got around to running Herald: Lovecraft & Tesla, a Savage Worlds tabletop roleplaying game from Ravendesk Games and Action Lab Comics, and I really like the game. I would say this is pulp style of Cthulhu but honestly it all depends on your GM style. You could easily run this game in a pulp fashion or a hardcore Lovecraftian Cthulhu style. I had loads of fun running an adventure over the last two weekends even though there were some flaws that I should have anticipated before running it. I think the game I ran started out as a pulp version but by the time we got to the last scene it was more reminiscent of a Cthulhu game where 2 of the 3 player characters died and the last ran away in babbling frenzy of fear. MUWAHAHA!

This 180 page book contains the typical character creation and setting rules along with new edges and hindrances. The first 57 pages contains the player section while the remainder of the book is for the GM's eyes only. Included within are 45 pregenerated Novice characters, 5 Seasoned characters, and 5 Veteran characters. You also get a character sheet, a two page spread of 20's slang, a 10 page bestiary, 6 one sheets, and 5 adventures. As part of the Kickstarter campaign I took part in, I also got an adventure titled A Fistful of Dholes.

The setting book itself is a rather fast read that I enjoyed. In this game the players are part of the Mythos Resistance, a secret organization of people from all walks of life (mostly famous people and celebrities) who are trying to protect John Q Public from the invasion of unnatural beings during the roaring 20's. They "keep the world safe and ignorantly blissful." Cosmic horror and invaders from beyond the stars is what this game is all about. There isn't any magic therefore there are no arcane backgrounds. Saying there isn't magic is a rather broad statement but it doesn't mean there isn't really magic. It just means that if it’s not normal or un-explainable then it’s not natural or "unnatural". There certainly could be magic in your version but in order to maintain the pulpy feel of the game then it should be explained in a way such as weird science rather than magical.

This setting uses the Fear mechanic from the Savage Worlds Deluxe core rulebook with a slight twist. It's up to the GM when a Fear check is called for but it shouldn't be used for anything weird or mysterious. This is more for Cosmic horror or unnatural encounters. "Being surprised by a bear in the woods is natural." Seeing giant 3 foot long worms erupting from a rotting corpse towards you is a Fear check. They also replace the d20 fright table with a 2d6 Cosmic Horror Chart. While you can still use the standard fright table, this new chart changes things up a bit. Most notably by removing the heart attack effect.

If you've already purchased other Cthulhu style games then this book may not be for you. Don't get me wrong, this is a good book but the ideas presented here aren't entirely new. What you're getting are some new edges, hindrances, Tesla tech gear, lots of pregenerated characters, bestiary, and some adventures to run. Having said that, I think it's worth the $24.99 PDF price tag. The artwork is fantastic and looks like it came straight out of the comic books. The style and feel of this game via the artwork, time period, and Tesla inventions are what sets it apart from other Cthulhu games.

I decided to run the Dhole adventure for my friends Blaine, Jamie, and Stephen. As I said before, I had a blast putting my friends in the Mythos Resistance and seeing how they reacted to the situations they were put in. This adventure had two major flaws that I should have caught beforehand. One was a scene where the player characters talk to a condescending university professor as one of the clues they were provided. This scene has way too much information to convey to the players that it almost fell apart halfway through. There's nearly a full page and a half of text that your supposed to read aloud along with a requirement to have them pass a short oral exam of what they just listened to. If they fail the exam then they miss out on some vital information. I should have anticipated this ahead of time and adjusted how the information was conveyed. The second flaw comes in the final scene where the players are supposed to summon an Egyptian demi-god who helps them eliminate the threat. The problem with this is that it turns into an NPC vs NPC encounter taking away any heroic acts of the player characters. I think the right word for this is anticlimactic.

As a side note, I just saw that the characters should have had some equipment that is supposed to be standard issue. The Lightning Pistol is a hand held lightning bolt projector that ignores armor. Oh well, at least I know for next time. Sorry fellas, I'm just a dumb dora that's full of banana oil.

As far as the setting book goes, I'd give it 4 out of 5 Jalizaran Moons. I think the sheer number of pregenerated characters and combination of one sheets and adventures bump it up a notch. The adventure A Fistful of Dholes on the other hand would get 3 out of 5.

P.S. Some friends of mine have a new podcast about the Genesys RPG from Fantasy Flight Games. It's called Finding The Narrative: A Genesys RPG Podcast. The link will take you to Podbean and you can also find them on the Nerds-International Google+ subcategory page. Check it out and you wont be disappointed. 

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Still Life and Death: A Review

Thanks to my friend Eric Lamoureux from the Nerds-International G+ community, this adventure was brought to my attention. It is an interesting horror adventure for use with Savage Worlds. Still Life and Death by Ben Baker from Melting Point Publishing is a 43-page pdf available on DriveThruRPG. It was released on June 14, 2017 and is their first product. Also available for pay what you want is a Character Pack which contains 8 pregenerated characters for both Seasoned and Veteran ranks.

Even though this one starts off with a typical "please help me find my missing loved one", it is a great adventure with a good twist. Inside you'll find an adventure full of cultists, zombies, and a pig-ogre. It's difficult to write a review on an adventure without spoilers but I'm gonna try.

This adventure is an investigative horror scenario with a Lovecraftian feel. It uses your normal playwright formula of three acts and three scenes with a bonus/alternate scene thrown in in act three. Included in the adventure are 5 extras and 4 wildcard NPCs. One of the things that sets these NPCs apart from other publisher's products is that Ben included what he calls Roleplay Hint's, Appearance, and History info on each one. This helps the GM get a feel for the characters so they can relate it to the players much better. It's clear he spent some time thinking about the characters and how they fit into the story.

Throughout the adventure Ben has included fictional snippets at the beginning of each scene. This kind of threw me off a bit and made me wonder why he included it, so I asked him and his response was "Regarding the Fiction sections, I think sometimes it can be difficult for a writer to really convey the mood and atmosphere they are trying to build in a game. Realistically, I’d say that however a GM wants to run any game then as long as the players enjoy it then it’s right for that particular group. But I wanted a way to help give the GM more ideas for the tone and setting, and also touch on some aspects of the larger setting that it’s not practical to do using only box text and the like. I think the Fiction parts help break up the flow of the book. Also, sometimes a group will find a way to really derail an adventure, and having some fiction to plunder for inspiration can really help a struggling GM to get the story back on track without railroading the party too heavily."

It's a bit long to be used as a convention game but I suppose you could shorten it up enough to fit into a four-hour time slot. I believe this is more suited for multiple game sessions. One thing I'm fairly certain of is that this has huge potential to be a Total Party Killer. There's potential for some combat in the first act but the next one is where the meat grinder starts with three combat encounters back to back. If the players make it to act three, they have their work cut out with another very deadly encounter that could turn into yet another encounter. You may want to run away if you get the chance!

Sometime this month or February, Ben is planning to launch a Kickstarter campaign to fund a number of other standalone adventures and supplements. One of which will be The Krell Effect, a modern adventure that draws the party into a race against time to stop a crazed scientist from unleashing chronal energy and tapping into them a seriously misguided attempt to become ‘the immortal master of time’. He also has plans to publish a mini encounter called Carjacked. This can be used with The Krell Effect or any other modern adventure.

The last project he told me about sounds like a huge job. Ben wants to publish a character pack for 22 Savage Worlds fantasy player characters. Included within this pack will be separate sheets for each character to span the ranks of Novice through Legendary. That’s a total of 132 character sheets! So keep an eye out for his Kickstarter campaign.

One last treat for my wonderful readers. The first 100 readers to use this link www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?discount=9e7c114d19 will get a 20% discount on Still Life and Death.

This barbarian would pay 4 out of 5 Jalarizan Moons for Still Life and Death.

I'd also like to welcome the newest member of the Nerds-International family. Gaming Ronin has multiple blogs where he does reviews and talks about his experience with RPG's and other shit. Check it out at http://gamingronin.blogspot.com/

P.S. 

Dont forget to check out the Nerds-Internationl Virtual Convention (NIV-Con) on March 10th and 11th. It's a great way to meet new people and have a fun time gaming online.

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Con on the Cob!

Today is November 24 which in the good ol' US of A means Thanksgiving. Gobble, gobble, gobble. Corny, I know, but happy holidays to everyone.

This is a long overdue post report of Con on the Cob and some thoughts on a game I'm a player in. Con on the Cob is a convention put on by Andy Hopp near Cleveland Ohio. For those of you who don't know, Andy is the author and illustrator of the Savage Worlds game Low Life. This convention was a blast to be a part of. This is the most family friendly con I've ever seen. For me the best part of the con were than the group of friends that attended with me.

Nerds-International was proudly represented at Con on the Cob by Gary McCallum, Jamie Pierson, Blaine Wagner, Eric Lamoureux, Matthew Jones, Chris Holmes, Stephen Dragonspawn, and Tony Fanning. This was the best convention I've ever been to and it was because of these people. Most of us arrived on Wednesday night before the con started. We played a couple of games but mostly just hung out in the atrium. Later that night we saw Andy and he stopped by to say hi. I had so much fun that most of the days start to blur together for me. I remember all the games just not when they were played. All of the games I played were run by the N-I folks so I can't really speak about the other games going on at the con.

Thursday morning I ran Tales from the Loop: Roleplaying in the 80's that never was. This was my first time running Tales from the Loop so I was a bit apprehensive but got into the groove pretty quickly. This game was the most fun I've ever had as a GM and it was all because of the players. We started out by making some characters from the archetypes in the book plus one I made up. This took us somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes. Then we introduced each character and got right into the first mystery in the book; Summer Break and Killer Birds. I think this game went so well because the players fell right into the roles. I think its because all of us at the table grew up in the 80's and they're a group of great role players. I really liked that I didn't have to make any dice rolls as the GM and I could focus more on what the players wanted to do. My job was to give them clues and see how they reacted. Fortunately they had some great ideas and I was able to roll with them. I only used two scenes from the mystery and everything else was based upon what the players wanted to do. I really like Tales from the Loop and if you don't have this yet then you really should pick it up.

Later that day we had a full table of players for Blaine's game of Formula D. This was the second game I've played of Formula D. It was still a little confusing on some of the rules but nonetheless we all had lots of fun. It took us 4 hours to do 2 laps around the board.

On Friday morning I was scheduled to run Savage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Overall I would say the game was a success but there were definitely some problems. I was using Palladium's Truckin' Turtles book for the adventure and the story was inconsistent at best. There were some great scenes and the players were great but the story just seemed to fall apart. I brought along some props for the players but I didn't get it to the level I had hoped to. This game will be a work in progress for sure. I also got some great feedback from the players as well. Later on in the day I met the guy who inspired me to make this game. Norm Hensley's blog, savageboldfistblog is where I got the characters from and I just needed to modify slightly because he made them using the older Savage Worlds rules.

In the afternoon Tony ran a game of Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars RPG. I really wanted to play this game for two reasons. Number one its Star Wars. Come on, who doesn't want to play Star Wars. Number two was because I was always skeptical of the narrative dice system used by FFG. Tony ran a great game and it left me wanting to try the narrative dice again. We went through an entire adventure of Star Wars without once firing a weapon. Well almost. Tony really wanted to show us noobs how combat worked in FFG so he made us fight one minion group of troopers. Unfortunately I think it backfired on him just a little bit. We managed to take out the troopers before they even had a chance to do anything. By the end of this game I was just starting to grasp the concept of FFG's narrative dice. I was still a little confused on the symbols and how to utilize the effects of the dice. With Tony's help and with the help of other experienced players at the table the mechanics of the dice narration made the game run smoothly. I'm still not sold on it though.

As Saturday rolled around, Chris ran a game of Edge of Primeval Thule. This is his home-brew game of FFG's Edge of the Empire mixed with Primeval Thule. Think FFG's narrative dice used with a gritty fantasy setting where Cthulhu is alive and well. I wanted to play this game because I really enjoyed reading Primeval Thule and it would give me another chance at using the narrative dice. The adventure was great and only two characters died at the very end. Chris did a great job of challenging the players and the dice system was starting to grow on me. It's still slow going when trying to interpret the dice symbols but that would come more naturally over time. My biggest confusion with this system is how to use advantage, threat, triumph, and despair. Chris was able to provide suggestions on how to use them best and it worked out well for everyone.

I think Chris and Tony both did an excellent job of explaining FFG's narrative dice and I thoroughly enjoyed both games. Both of you guys are excellent GM's. After the con I find myself wanting to play FFG Star Wars and now FFG Genesys' release is just around the corner. I think my biggest complaint about the narrative dice system is the symbols on the dice. It's not intuitive as to which symbol cancels the corresponding inverse symbol. An explosion (success) cancels a triangle (failure). With the new Genesys dice coming out I think that problem will be solved.

An hour later Eric ran a playtest for a new game he's writing which is tentatively called Wiseguys. This is a full blown Savage Worlds setting in a similar vein as Just Insert Imagination's smash hits Fuhgeddaboudit! and Badabing Badaboom! Eric has some great ideas for this game and the pregenerated characters were awesome. I played an Elvis impersonator who can disguise himself and impersonate others after studying the mark for a short time. He was also a cooler. This was hilarious. As a known cooler in Las Vegas, I was banned from all casino's. Of course I had to convince a casino employee to give me his uniform so I could sneak into the hotel. Then as I walked through the casino floor to the hotel everybody started losing and the machines were acting funky. Eric did a great job with his description of what happened. More wacky antics ensued and in the end we got the guy who sold us out. Keep your eye out for Wiseguys.

Throughout the con we pretty much stopped the RPG's around 7pm every night. That was reserved for events and live streams. We had our own table at the con thanks to Andy and we hung out together and played card games. Gary was the evening entertainment most nights. That guy if fucking hilarious. Gary, you're the man! He convinced a police officer to allow an artist to draw a penis on his forearm. Of course when I said this con is family friendly, the evening is for adults only. All of the child friendly events were held during the day up to 7 pm. There was a costume contest, miniature golf, basketball, video arcade, swimming pool, miniature painting, and more. They even had staff to entertain and babysit the kids so the parents could partake in the convention games.

I also wanted to take this time to write about a bi-weekly game I'm currently in on Wednesday nights. Mutant Year Zero from Modiphius Entertainment. We have played a few sessions of this game and I find myself getting a little bored with it. The setting, the GM, and the other players are good. It just feels like there's way too much book keeping for my tastes. We literally have to keep track of everything. Currency, food, water, status of our ark projects, and condition of our ark are most of it. We just hit a cliffhanger last night so I'm interested to see where it goes but I'm losing focus of my character how to play him. It's really hard to explain why it feels the way it does. There's social conflict in our Ark and now we just got attacked by outsiders. One of the difficult things for me is the meta knowledge. Imagine yourself as someone who has never seen a pair of scissors before. In the game your character doesn't know what they are but you know what it is and how to use them. Separating everyday common knowledge from the game and roleplaying it is difficult for me. I'm also curious to see what the others think about this game. I believe Eric said he's losing interest in the game as well but I don't want to put word in his mouth.

There were many, many, many more games hosted by Nerds from the network that I didn't mention only because the blog post is getting lengthy. I didn't forget and they aren't any less memorable than the ones I mentioned here. You guys Rock! Con on the Caaaaab!

P.S. Thank you to all the people I mentioned earlier for making the first annual Nerds-International gathering at Con on the Cob one I will never forget. Thank you Andy Hopp for your hard work putting on the con and letting us take over part of the atrium. I'm still waiting for you to run Low Life for us Andy, maybe next year.

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Seven Worlds Test Drive Review

For those of you that may not have heard, Seven Worlds is a new Savage Worlds setting coming to Kickstarter soon. It is written by Luis Enrique Torres and published by Intellistories. You can get the Seven Worlds Test Drive at DriveThruRPG here. The Wild Die Podcast did an interview episode with Luis but as of this writing it is a Patreon supporter only episode. Here is a link to their Patreon page if you would like to pledge your support to listen to the episode. I believe it will be released to the public when the Kickstarter campaign goes live so you may want to wait.

Right off the bat my first question is, what sets this science fiction RPG apart from all the rest? First of all it has the Atomic Rockets Seal of Approval. What is that you ask? It is a highly sought after approval by Sci-fi writers, game designers, and programmers. It's basically just an acknowledgement that the fiction written is based upon real science and therefore more closely related to hard Sci-fi.

My first impression of this document is it looks really good. The layout by Thomas Shook is clean and simple, I like it. The first page after the cover is the map of the known universe. The map is usually the first thing I look for in Sci-fi settings. This 2-dimensional map looks fantastic and has 7 colonized planets. Hmm, I wonder where they got the name from? You can also go to their webpage at www.sevenworldsrpg.com and get yourself a 3-dimensional map. I tried the Instant Reality InstantPlayer but it seemed pretty glitchy to me. I have yet to try the Cortona 3d Viewer.

There are 6 pages of setting background information (I like to call it the fluff). After looking for the map, I then go looking for the fluff. This is where I get a good sense of how the rest of the book will be written. The game starts out in the year 2217, exactly 200 years after the Circle Foundation is created. There are two major organizations, The Circle and The Brotherhood. The Circle, founded by Donovan in 2017, is focused on space exploration, expansion, and protecting humanity from the dangers therein. The Psion Brotherhood, founded by Michaels, is dedicated to protecting and educating people with psionic abilities. These two founders, Donovan and Michaels, were high school friends who had a falling out over a girl named Melissa.

In 2021 Helium-3 fusion reactors are invented and the search for a stable supply of this fuel leads the human race to mine it from the gas planet Saturn in the 2050's. Around this time Donovan passes away and his longtime partner Melissa gives his personal notebooks which include theoretical formulas to what would become the basis for an Interstellar Engine. In 2089 the first test of this engine is successful with a 6 light year jump. Two years later an alien race makes itself known to humanity. The N'ahili race arrived, attracted by the interstellar jump to Barnard's Star, and shared coordinates of jump membranes to several new stars within 12 light years of Earth (Sol).

Humans have now colonized two new worlds and are eager for more expansion. The N'ahili come to the rescue and provide more star coordinates. Now the known universe has expanded to 22 light years from Sol and two more planets are settled. This second set of planets are nearly identical to that of Earth making them important to humanity's survival. In 2133 an unknown comet was discovered on a direct path to Earth. The planetary defenses are able to break up the comet into smaller pieces but it is too late. The effects of an impact induced nuclear winter will last until around 2150. Evacuees are transported to the planets of Concordia and Bay Jing making them equivalent to Earth in both population and importance. By 2165 the N'ahili surprise us again with new coordinates which increase the human presence to 30 light years from Sol.

This new expansion of human kind brings on the settlement of 2 new planets of which one is important. It is important because Concordia and Bay Jing both settle on the planet of Nouvelle Vie. Conflicts between these two colonies leads to the first war humans have in space. During the war, the Circle is instrumental in stopping war crimes mostly by the use of the Stellar Communications Network. Widespread news updates keep the warring planets honest, or at least as honest as possible during war. The Brotherhood also plays an important role in the war by helping to prevent atrocities through the use of "suggestion" and mind-reading without direct mind-control. By 2181 the war is over but the government of Bay Jing is secretly manipulating the population into blaming the Brotherhood which leads to the Psion Riots of 2188.

This brings us to the present day of 2217. Earth has now returned to its former glory and is seen as an equal among Concordia and Bay Jing. Nouvelle Vie is still being torn apart by home grown terrorists waging guerrilla war. The last colonized planet of Logan's End has become the ultimate frontier world with exotic jungles and tourist attractions. Recently, strange energy signatures have been detected in space around an asteroid belt in the far reaches of Nouvelle Vie. Ships are disappearing and stories are circulating about suspicious activity.

Included in the Test Drive are new setting rules, skills, hindrances, edges, psionics, a new derived stat, space ship combat, four pre-generated characters, and an adventure designed for four players. This Test Drive doesn't go into creating characters or covering all the new stats. It is meant to provide you with the necessary information to play the included characters and adventure. Mental Toughness is the new derived stat which is equal to two plus half of your Spirit. This is a measure of how tough your mind is against Psionic attacks.

The two new setting rules are Microgravity and Zero-G and Assistants. Microgravity and Zero-G reduce the character's pace by half and cause a -2 physical action penalty. A roll of a 1 on the trait die regardless of the Wild die causes the character to slip and tumble in around in three dimensions (treat the character as Shaken recover with Agility). Weapons that are not rated for Zero-G use cause the user to become Shaken as before on an attack roll of 1 or 2. There is a -2 penalty for using non Zero-G weapons as well. In Seven Worlds most characters own an Assistant. This virtual assistant appears in your Augmented Reality (AR) glasses, lenses, or on display screens. There are numerous functions the assistant can help the hero's with. During combat the assistant can be activated with the use of a bennie and perform a smarts trick, test of will, generate an advantage/disadvantage, or use a special action. If the assistants roll succeeds with a raise the player gets the bennie back.

There are 7 pages dedicated to space combat in Seven Worlds. Right away that should tell you something. In my opinion this is where Seven Worlds falls short. In a system that's supposed to Fast! Furious! Fun! space combat feels way too crunchy for Savage Worlds. This almost seems like a mini's game within a roleplaying game where distance and facing are important. They do a good job of explaining how to do it and provide examples but it's just now my cup of tea.

That was a highly condensed version of fluff in the Seven Worlds Test Drive document. If any of that sounds interesting to you then I encourage you to read it for yourself. I really hope the final setting includes more fluff. I enjoyed Luis' writing and look forward to reading the full setting once it is published.

Overall 9 out of 10 Lotus Masters recommend Seven Worlds.

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RPGaDay 2017 Day 31

What do you anticipate most for gaming in 2018?

Hooray! It's finally here. The last day of RPGaDay 2017. About damn time, right? I'm not really aware of any projects coming up for 2018 other than possibly the Savage Worlds core book, fantasy companion, and horror companion getting a facelift. I'm anticipating a great year of gaming and making new aquaintances and friends through the Nerds-International Google + community, Flippin' Tables Google + community, and Fantasy Grounds conventions. These online communities have been great to meet new people and help me expand my game writing. My eyes have been opened to new game systems that I might have otherwise passed over because of the excellent people online. There are artistic, creative, and talented people all over the world who are available to chat with over the internet and I would have never had the opportunity to learn from had I not discovered Google +. I look forward to more games in 2018.

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RPGaDay 2017 Day 24

Share a PWYW publisher who should be charging more.

Well this one is easy. I've been purchasing products from Just Insert Imagination for some time now and I think I've got most of what they have produced but they definitely should be charging more for their Pay What You Want items. Eric Lamoureux and Morne Schaap have been putting out some Plug and Play adventures that are all PWYW. These adventures are awesome and perfect for a convention. My favorite has to be Fuhgeddaboudit! Everything you need to run a one shot Savage Worlds game is included. It has pregenerated characters with secrets to hand out to the players, 3 maps, 2 new setting rules, mafia slang cheat sheet, and a great story with 9 scenes.

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RPGaDay 2017 Day 22

Which RPGs are the easiest for you to run?

In order to answer this question, I think we have to look at the person running the game. When I run a game I'm more of a rules light type of GM. Most of the time when a question pops up about a rule I'm unsure about at the table I'll do one of two things. First would be to make a snap decision. Just make up something on the spot and go back and check it later after the game. The second would be to have the player who asked the question look it up in the book while I move on and keep running the game. This way we don't get bogged down with rules and everyone has fun. With this GM mentality in mind then I can say most RPG's are fairly easy for me to run. As long as the system isn't too crunchy then it should play well enough for me to make snap decisions. Some systems lend themselves more so than others to ease of use. Savage Worlds is one of those systems. I keep coming back to Savage Worlds in my posts not because I'm a fan boy of the system but because it is an easy system to learn, play, and run.

All you have to do is look at how the items and actions are structured within the game and you'll see that most of the time all you really have to do to make something easier or more difficult for the player characters is give them a simple modifier. As an example, I want to make a combat encounter more difficult, so instead of just describing the scene as normal throw in some environmental factors. Lots of games account for these things but in Savage Worlds is as easy as just saying -2 to the roll. Dark outside, -2 to see the bad guy. The room is filling with smoke from the fire your NPC started, -2 to see and make a Vigor roll to not choke on the smoke or take Fatigue.

Let's say you want to make a rare item that your players can find. It's as easy as looking at the equipment tables in the core book and adding a +1 or +2. Yeah, but it's still a Glock 19 with just a modifier added. Well you can describe it as a Glock 19 with target sights and an extended barrel, or you could say it's a high tech phase shifting disruptor which is better than a normal non phase shifting disruptor. I would be very careful about adding additional dice to the weapons though. Usually +1 is good enough and +2 is awesome! Remember that shooting in Savage Worlds usually only requires a 4 to hit.

You can do the same thing with special powers and magic. Just change the descriptor of the spell to make it unique to the setting you're playing and if you want a more powerful spell as the characters gain rank then make an Improved spell. Set the rank requirement to Veteran and add a +2 to the effects. When you look at the way the game works, it'll make sense to you why so many people keep coming back to Savage Worlds once they have played a few games.

Before I forget, make sure to check out The RPG Brewery's Twitch channel tomorrow night. Jamie is starting a test run of Cthulhu type games with two of his friends. They will be starting session 0 of either Trail of Cthulhu or Call of Cthulhu where they will go through character creation. Also, go join the Nerds-International Google+ community. It's a great collection of podcasts, live plays, blogs, and other nerdy stuff. Click the link below.

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