One of the more common adventure types that I encountered during my brief time with the RPGA was the investigative adventure – the mystery. Recently, I’ve been playing the Star Wars RPG "Dawn of Defiance" series of adventures, and guess what we’re finding? Mysteries. Not every adventure, but enough of them. And I really, really hate them. Especially in Star Wars. But also … Continue reading I hate mysteries
I ran two campaigns in the County of Ulek between 2001 and 2007, using similar themes: the invasion of the county by the “Fhoi Myore”, deformed giants (read Fomorians) with mystical powers, drawing heavily on Celtic mythology and the works of Michael Moorcock. The County of Ulek was the homeland of my original AD&D character, Meliander Corthan, and material I developed for his background made … Continue reading Greyhawk – In the County of Ulek
Is it just me, or is the Petrelli family looking a lot like the family of Oberon of Amber? Inbred, manipulative (or manipulated) people with links to everyone else? Oh, and they’re effectively gods to normal people. Just watched "I am Become Death" (Destroyer of Worlds), and I was really struck by the resemblance to the characters of Roger Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber… which … Continue reading Heroes and Amber
At present, I’m running one of my groups through the H series of Wizards adventures; we’re about half-way through H2 at present. To some extent, I think the adventures published for a game display the feel of that game far more than the core rulebooks do. When I think about AD&D, it’s not really the rules that I concentrate on: it’s the early adventures. T1-4, … Continue reading Thoughts on Wizards’ 4e adventures
Yay! The latest errata has been posted for Star Wars Saga Edition! My character, Miles “Starkiller” Tradora, who is currently a Human Noble 7/Officer 1, has gained 5000 cr out of the errata, but it doesn’t seem much else has changed for him. Bunch of Force power errata, though I don’t know how much is new and how much is significant. Continue reading More Star Wars errata
I’m back writing RPG reviews. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep doing them (writing reviews I find pretty draining), but for those who are interested, I’ve completed the following in the last few weeks: Castle Zagyg: the Upper Works (C&C) H1 Keep on the Shadowfell (D&D 4E) H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth (D&D 4E) Dungeon Master’s Screen (D&D 4E) Lands of Darkness #1: The … Continue reading Reviews!
Star Wars this week saw us almost complete Echoes of the Jedi. It also saw us missing our techie (Nathaniel) and our medical robot (Greg), which was incredibly not good. However, some of the opponents we were facing made me wonder what the heck is going on in development for the DoD campaign. One opponent we faced had us start down the condition track and … Continue reading Echoes of the Jedi
I’m becoming very fond of PDFs for my gaming hobby. Now, I love hardcopy, there’s no doubt of that. However, I’m finding it harder and harder to store stuff. So, PDF for the magazines? Fantastic! The other aspect of this is the rulebooks. I got very attached to the d20 SRD, but access to the rulebooks is even better. I bought the 4e MM pdf … Continue reading Roleplaying with PDFs
I’ve decided that I’m going to allow players in my 4e games to hire NPCs as henchmen, men-at-arms, hirelings or whatever. Whether this will make combats too easy, annoy the other players or suchlike we’ll see, and we might adjust things as the game goes on. One advantage of this is that if a player is missing, there’ll be a henchman (etc) to back you … Continue reading Henchmen, men-at-arms and hirelings
Someone on EN World asked about a rather strict Star Wars GM who gave out Dark Side Points for any use of Force Grip. I had a think about the situation and gave my reply; I repeat the reply here. I think it provides a useful solution to the Move Object debacle we’ve had in our games, although Martin will need to make the final … Continue reading Dark Side Points and Force Powers
