This one contained the Basic Role Playing hardback (the so-called "Gold Book") and the pocket edition of A Song of Ice and Fire.
I normally buy my stuff locally, but I wasn't really jonesing for BRP badly enough to pay RRP and the deals on each of these were so good it was too good to pass up.
I've been using BRP, or one version of it, for about thirty years now in my Call of Cthulhu games. I used to keep a copy of Runequest with me for those times when the Call of Cthulhu version failed to deliver (typically in combat). Runequest was the original game from which BRP was derived.
I started a voyage of discovery about a year and a half ago in which I deliberately sampled many new game systems. GURPS, Savage Worlds, D20, these were the initial focus of my experiments.
Savage Worlds was a spectacular success. I have reservations about some aspects of the system, but the benefits it offers as far as easy adoption and rapid assimilation along with the obvious enjoyment of the players have made his a new favorite with me. I have become known as something of a Savage Worlds evangelist at my LFGS (Local Friendly Game Store).
GURPS was fascinating but scary. Characters take forever to build in this system, but the realism possible using it is incredible and the flexibility of the engine for powering the incredible number of settings is legendary. It seems that Steve Jackson Games is not in the business of Setting books any more - there's only one I'm aware of (Vorkosigan Saga) in a fourth edition, er, edition. In any event, the rulebooks are terrifying to me now. When I was thirty I would have lapped this stuff up. Now, I don't have the time or the mental agility for it.
D20, the old workhorse, has proved surprisingly flexible while at the same time proving that the GM must be aware at all times of the level-based abilities, even in a game where XP are sparse. D20 Call of Cthulhu has proved popular, but I think I may be close to breaking the game because of my earlier carelessness in adjudicating advancement awards. We'll see. I'm not scared of D20, but I think Savage Worlds offers much that D20 does at much less cost in brain cells.
But of late I found myself wondering what all the fuss was about with the Gold Book. The price was right for me to explore BRP in depth again. Who knows where that will lead? As I skimmed the book I found myself pondering different games I could run using BRP...
Maybe I'll do a port into BRP that I was intending to do as a Savage Worlds port.
In any event, I'll post my thoughts here as I browse.
A Song of Ice and Fire was purchased because I signed up for a game just to see what the fuss is all about. I'll let you know what I think after I've had a chance to digest it.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
New Arrival
Bookhounds of London, a Trail of Cthulhu campaign book from Pelgrane Press.
Hardback, with the same production values that have made Trail of Cthulhu the most popular alternative to Call of Cthulhu for the world's Mythos Fix.
Priced at the extreme range of what I'll pay for a setting book these days, $35.
The idea in this one is right out of The Ninth Gate, with the players taking the part of less-than-squeaky-clean types who hunt up Mythos Tomes - to sell them for profit to the bad guys (and occasionally stop them using them)!
This is a nice idea from where I sit. Players often like to explore the ambiguity of their Call of Cthulhu characters, but the truth is that in all the published materials the players are essentially the Boy Scout types, the cavalry that will ride in and save the day if it is at all possible, with the shady characters firmly on the GM's side of the screen.
Not only that, players usually never get to play the really dirty swine on account of they are typically mad, dead or mad and then dead before their morals are truly irrevocably compromised.
I did manage to get some players to sacrifice to a Dark Young a few months ago, but they did it for the good of the community and the players were appalled when I casually pointed out that they were now, in point of fact, Cultists. Cultists were to be fought, killed, stamped out because they are the bad guys!
Bookhounds of London doesn't so much turn this idea around as discard it as irrelevant. There are no bad guys, just customers. Okay, some of the customers need to be dealt with but mostly because they represent a significant threat to the bottom line.
I'm trivializing the great idea at the core of this wonderful campaign, and I urge everyone to buy it, read it and judge for themselves.
There is much in the Trail of Cthulhu line for the trad Call of Cthulhu GM (with a little work) too, though I'd personally urge Call of Cthulhu GMs to look at the Trail of Cthulhu rules with their knee-jerk circuits offline. There was a time - a long time - when I would have sniffed at going "off the reservation", but I know better now.
Hardback, with the same production values that have made Trail of Cthulhu the most popular alternative to Call of Cthulhu for the world's Mythos Fix.
Priced at the extreme range of what I'll pay for a setting book these days, $35.
The idea in this one is right out of The Ninth Gate, with the players taking the part of less-than-squeaky-clean types who hunt up Mythos Tomes - to sell them for profit to the bad guys (and occasionally stop them using them)!
This is a nice idea from where I sit. Players often like to explore the ambiguity of their Call of Cthulhu characters, but the truth is that in all the published materials the players are essentially the Boy Scout types, the cavalry that will ride in and save the day if it is at all possible, with the shady characters firmly on the GM's side of the screen.
Not only that, players usually never get to play the really dirty swine on account of they are typically mad, dead or mad and then dead before their morals are truly irrevocably compromised.
I did manage to get some players to sacrifice to a Dark Young a few months ago, but they did it for the good of the community and the players were appalled when I casually pointed out that they were now, in point of fact, Cultists. Cultists were to be fought, killed, stamped out because they are the bad guys!
Bookhounds of London doesn't so much turn this idea around as discard it as irrelevant. There are no bad guys, just customers. Okay, some of the customers need to be dealt with but mostly because they represent a significant threat to the bottom line.
I'm trivializing the great idea at the core of this wonderful campaign, and I urge everyone to buy it, read it and judge for themselves.
There is much in the Trail of Cthulhu line for the trad Call of Cthulhu GM (with a little work) too, though I'd personally urge Call of Cthulhu GMs to look at the Trail of Cthulhu rules with their knee-jerk circuits offline. There was a time - a long time - when I would have sniffed at going "off the reservation", but I know better now.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
It's a Deja Vu Reboot All Over Again Once More
Okay, time to do some game talk.
It's been a while and I've done quite a bit of gaming in the year and a half I've been gone from here.
I started running Masks of Nyarlathotep a newly reprinted campaign for Call of Cthulhu that my wife bought for me for Christmas, but the campaign has stuttered a bit this time through, with players dropping out before I can kill their characters or drive them mad. Oh well. The advantage of running the game in a Game Store is that there is always an audience, and that audience has recently been knocking on my door asking if they can join in. Naturally I say "Hell yes!" I'll be starting a thread for this game and the observations that arise from it from now on.
The monthly Delta Green campaign sessions are as popular as ever, over-subscribed now with eight players sometimes at a sitting. I enjoy running for this group very much. Their buy-in is atypically fervent and they are a total joy to GM. This game will soon be kicking into higher gear and I will be threading this game in it's own subject too. I have a lot of thinking to do when it comes to D20 Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green.
The recent (read: end of last year) launch of the Savage Worlds Space 1889 setting and my love affair with all things Savage Worlds has resulted in my convening not one but two separate parallel campaigns, each being an iteration of the Red Sands campaign from the eponymous setting book. I'll be threading these games both together and individually for pontification purposes.
I've also begun playing Solomon Kane, another Savage Worlds-derived game setting (though in this case one that is self-contained and that requires no additional purchase of a Savage Worlds rulebook). It looks to be a very interesting way of presenting a nuts-and-bolts action-adventure/horror game and I love the rulebook.
My attendance at this year's RetCon was a success, with all four of my games subscribed to the right level. I ran a Realms of Cthulhu scenario set mostly in the Peruvian Rainforest, A Deadlands:Reloaded game set in Great North Woods, A Space 1889 scenario set in the Martian desert at the juncture of the English and German fields of influence and a Call of Cthulhu session late on Saturday night which was a shortened version of A Cracked and Crooked Manse. It was a great success and greatly simplified by the decision to this year go with an all-Savage Worlds program (with the exception of the Call of Cthulhu session).
There were some failures to aviate.
Notably, my friend of many years decided that he no longer wished to play Call of Cthulhu since he did forensic paperwork for a living and was not keen on doing it in an RPG for relaxation, and an attempt to start the D20 Conan campaign Trial of Blood fell flat. That was sad because I was hoping the milieu would appeal to my friend so we could game together again, but it was a total non-starter.
Then there was the Paranoia game I tooled up to run only to find that no-one who had said they wanted to play was actually prepared to turn up. Fiasco! drew no players at all in three weeks of advertizing the session.
And a Dresden Files RPG campaign I was hosting every other Friday, and for which I was taking vacation time to be able to do so, eventually resulted in an evening where I and one other were the only people to show up after a dozen sessions.
Lessons learned:
Dresden Files has taught me to be absolutely without compunction when it comes to giving away a players seat if they haven't RSVP'd for the game (all the store's available slots are booked using Meetups). My campaigns sometimes feature a floating cast list these days but I don't get messed around by losers.
Paranoia taught me that people talk a lot on the web but often don't follow through, even if you know them personally. Don't spend money on rulebooks unless you have at least three "I'll be there's".
Conan taught me that sometimes it is just that the right mix of people isn't there and motivated to play. Two of those who did show interest found they didn't like my style and rather than say so simply faded from sight.
But all this has also shown me that the facts of life are that there are four to eight times as many people who want to play a given game than are willing to sit the other side of the screen and run the bugger. The GM in my neck of the woods who is willing to bide their time will end up beating them off with a stick when word gets around (and if he is any good).
My problem now is time. I don't have enough, otherwise I'd be playing in at least two more games (One Ring and Eclipse Phase) and running even more, like Deadlands:Reloaded, and Slipstream, and Sundered Skies, and The Laundry, and Amber, and Traveller, and Dresden Files - which I dislike the complexity of but feel there's a great game in there struggling to get out - and that doesn't even mention the board games
It's been a while and I've done quite a bit of gaming in the year and a half I've been gone from here.
I started running Masks of Nyarlathotep a newly reprinted campaign for Call of Cthulhu that my wife bought for me for Christmas, but the campaign has stuttered a bit this time through, with players dropping out before I can kill their characters or drive them mad. Oh well. The advantage of running the game in a Game Store is that there is always an audience, and that audience has recently been knocking on my door asking if they can join in. Naturally I say "Hell yes!" I'll be starting a thread for this game and the observations that arise from it from now on.
The monthly Delta Green campaign sessions are as popular as ever, over-subscribed now with eight players sometimes at a sitting. I enjoy running for this group very much. Their buy-in is atypically fervent and they are a total joy to GM. This game will soon be kicking into higher gear and I will be threading this game in it's own subject too. I have a lot of thinking to do when it comes to D20 Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green.
The recent (read: end of last year) launch of the Savage Worlds Space 1889 setting and my love affair with all things Savage Worlds has resulted in my convening not one but two separate parallel campaigns, each being an iteration of the Red Sands campaign from the eponymous setting book. I'll be threading these games both together and individually for pontification purposes.
I've also begun playing Solomon Kane, another Savage Worlds-derived game setting (though in this case one that is self-contained and that requires no additional purchase of a Savage Worlds rulebook). It looks to be a very interesting way of presenting a nuts-and-bolts action-adventure/horror game and I love the rulebook.
My attendance at this year's RetCon was a success, with all four of my games subscribed to the right level. I ran a Realms of Cthulhu scenario set mostly in the Peruvian Rainforest, A Deadlands:Reloaded game set in Great North Woods, A Space 1889 scenario set in the Martian desert at the juncture of the English and German fields of influence and a Call of Cthulhu session late on Saturday night which was a shortened version of A Cracked and Crooked Manse. It was a great success and greatly simplified by the decision to this year go with an all-Savage Worlds program (with the exception of the Call of Cthulhu session).
There were some failures to aviate.
Notably, my friend of many years decided that he no longer wished to play Call of Cthulhu since he did forensic paperwork for a living and was not keen on doing it in an RPG for relaxation, and an attempt to start the D20 Conan campaign Trial of Blood fell flat. That was sad because I was hoping the milieu would appeal to my friend so we could game together again, but it was a total non-starter.
Then there was the Paranoia game I tooled up to run only to find that no-one who had said they wanted to play was actually prepared to turn up. Fiasco! drew no players at all in three weeks of advertizing the session.
And a Dresden Files RPG campaign I was hosting every other Friday, and for which I was taking vacation time to be able to do so, eventually resulted in an evening where I and one other were the only people to show up after a dozen sessions.
Lessons learned:
Dresden Files has taught me to be absolutely without compunction when it comes to giving away a players seat if they haven't RSVP'd for the game (all the store's available slots are booked using Meetups). My campaigns sometimes feature a floating cast list these days but I don't get messed around by losers.
Paranoia taught me that people talk a lot on the web but often don't follow through, even if you know them personally. Don't spend money on rulebooks unless you have at least three "I'll be there's".
Conan taught me that sometimes it is just that the right mix of people isn't there and motivated to play. Two of those who did show interest found they didn't like my style and rather than say so simply faded from sight.
But all this has also shown me that the facts of life are that there are four to eight times as many people who want to play a given game than are willing to sit the other side of the screen and run the bugger. The GM in my neck of the woods who is willing to bide their time will end up beating them off with a stick when word gets around (and if he is any good).
My problem now is time. I don't have enough, otherwise I'd be playing in at least two more games (One Ring and Eclipse Phase) and running even more, like Deadlands:Reloaded, and Slipstream, and Sundered Skies, and The Laundry, and Amber, and Traveller, and Dresden Files - which I dislike the complexity of but feel there's a great game in there struggling to get out - and that doesn't even mention the board games
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