Ravenous Role Playing

A friend of mine suggested I start doing a “Friday Five” which contains the five top blog articles about role playing that I’ve seen during the week.

So… here is the first Friday Five for Ravenous RPG.

Don’t make the PC’s ride your newbie railroad!

This is a great article by newbiedm that speaks to one of the great fears I have of all new GMs which is, “Will they railroad me into the ground?” I’ve been fortunate to avoid many railroad situations, and I’ve walked away from more than a few games because of this. If all GMs, or aspiring GMs, would read this article, the role playing community would be that much stronger.

Epic Words, Obsidian Portal, and MyDndGame Compared

This is a great review of three different services. It doesn’t really make any decisions for you, but it does give you clear and concise information about all three on-line services to allow you to make your choice. I don’t use services like these, but after reading the article, I think my choice would have to be Epic Words. It just has the right feature set for how I run my games.

DM Tips for Restarting a Retired Campaign

I don’t know how often a group resurrects a dormant campaign, but I’ve done this quite a few times. Sometimes after just a short hiatus, and other times it was a lengthy absence. I wish I had this article in past attempts to restart a game.

Hands On: Monster Builder Beta

This is a great review of the D&D Insider Monster Builder Beta. It comes complete with step-by-step instructions on creating a monsters and screenshots to boot! Very well done, Critical Hits!

I Didn’t Know You Could Do That With 4E: Adventure-Length Effects

While most, if not all, games I run last over a long period of time, so the advice here doesn’t hit too close to home for me. However, I do like the idea of negative effects that last over a long period of time, but not ones that require an extended rest to recover from. I can totally see using this in future games of mine to add some more flavor and uniqueness to the game.

This is the final installment of this year’s Free RPG Day reviews. I saved the last one for Khyber’s Harvest by Wizards of the Coast.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Khyber's Harvest Cover

This book is a quick-and-dirty D&D adventure set in the Eberron world. The adventure is for second level characters, and five sample characters are provided in the back of the book.

I’m not going to plot out the adventure here and spoil it for all of you players. I am going to say that I love the detailed work WotC put into the adventure, and I’m still totally in love with the new style of stats for monsters, adversaries, traps and other such obstacles. However, I’m still not a huge fan of social skill challenges. If it’s a mechanical, arcane or some other physical challenge that the players can’t get up and safely reenact, then I’m all for dice rolls. However, for things that involve the characters talking, then the players can talk their way through it. Using skill challenges to replace role playing opportunities just seems horribly wrong to me. If I were to run this adventure, the diplomacy, bluff, intimidate, etc. style checks would be thrown out and replaced with true-to-form role playing, not dice-invoked roll playing… but that’s just me.

The adventure came with a card stock, double-sided piece that contained nicely done maps of two of the rooms. However, I would have preferred WotC to save their money on the card stock and spend it on higher quality printing of the GM’s maps. The two maps on the inside covers of the adventure are lacking in detail, hard to read and are missing the ever-so-vital (especially in 4th edition) grid markings. I did notice faint hash marks in place of grid lines, but that induces so much eye strain, it’s not worth it. Despite the poor print quality of the maps, they are well done and match the flavor text very well. It’s always frustrating when a module or adventure doesn’t get the text to match the maps. That’s not the case with Khyber’s Harvest.

Grade: B+ — Give me better maps, and it’s an easy A. Wizards of the Coast just barely missed the cut in getting an A for their freebie.

I’ve been hooked on Burn Notice on USA Network since day one. It’s in its third season, and I highly recommend the show for any role player. It’s a great example of how clear thinking can overcome incredible odds. It’s more than just a natural 20 on a bluff or diplomacy check. It goes to show that a great plan of action can pull the PCs butts out of the fires the GM puts them in.

The show has inspired me to dust off my complete collection of Top Secret S/I and see if I can emulate the show to some degree. I’ve always run TSS/I games in the past with the players being active ORION agents, but thinking about the game from a different angle, I can totally see how the game would be just as fun with a burned or retired set of agents. Loads of fun.

Now to see if I can convince my group to do something “a little different,” but first I need to put some thought into a campaign arc.

All of the infants in the town suddenly gain the ability to speak clearly and coherently, but the parents of the babies can only babble and gurgle. Anyone without a child is unaffected by this strange phenomenon. What are the PCs going to do about it?

Castles and Crusades… Ahh… A classic. Yeah. I know it’s only been around for about five years, but the voice, feel, senses and concepts in the game take me back to my original AD&D days. If there are any gamers out there who think that 3.0 is “old school”, I highly suggest they check out Castles and Crusades from Troll Lord Games.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Castles & Crusades Cover

The book starts in with the usual attribute, race and class sections that can be found in games of this style. When I was reading these sections, it really reminded me of 1st edition AD&D. It’s almost like the Troll Lord Games desginers were channeling Gygax and Arneson when writing these passages. Yes, I know that there are some gamers out there who snub their noses at the classic style of gaming, but I really enjoyed this book.

Once the basics of the system were explained, there was a small section on magic and how it works. Again, more classic feel goodness here. Then came the description of combat flow and how various mechanics of the game go. There were a few confusion points that I hit, but I’m sure they are clearly explained in the full book where more time and space can be dedicated to the various aspects of the game.

The second half of the book was dedicated to The Wizard’s Tower adventure. Again, the look and feel of these pages took me back decades in time. Good stuff. My only real complaints about the adventure are that the maps could have been done in a more clear manner, and the “bad guy acting like a victim” was very cliche and obvious even to the most novice of gamers. If I were to run this adventure, I’d tweak things a bit more to “hide” the bad guy a little better.

Grade: A+ — All in all, a great introduction to the system, a good adventure and excellent work on the feel of the game. I would suggest this to my current group, but the response would be, “Why don’t we just play 1st edition?” and at that point, we’d pull out the yellow-spined books and have at it.

Cloak of Roc Feathers: Heroic Level Artifact

The Cloak of Roc Feathers is a simple cloak adorned with the feathers of a Roc.

Item Slot: Neck
Property: You gain a +4 to AC.
Property: You gain the ability to fly with a speed of 30 feet per round.
Power (Daily — Arcane, Illusion): Minor action. You can use blur (wizard, level 10).

Goals of the Cloak of Roc Feathers:

• Rescue and save as many innocents from danger as possible.

Concordance:

• Starting Score: 5
• You gain a level: +1d10
• You rescue an innocent from danger: +2
• You kill an innocent person: -4

Pleased (16-20)
The Cloak’s feathers glow with a soft light and shimmer in darkness.

• Power (Encounter – Martial): Minor action. You can use shake it off (warlord, level 2).
• Power (Daily – Healing, Martial): Minor action. You can use stand tough (warlord, level 6)

Satisfied (12-15)
The Cloak flutters in an unfelt wind.

• Power (Encounter – Martial, Weapon): Standard action. You can use leaf on the wind (warlord, level 1).

Normal (5-11)
The Cloak hangs from your neck and will occasionally flutter in the wind.

Unsatisfied (1-4)
The Cloak hangs limply from your neck.

• Special: The Cloak no longer grants a bonus to armor class.

Angered (0 or Lower)
The Cloak wraps tightly about your body and refuses to turn loose.

• Special: You no longer gain the ability to fly using the cloak.

Moving On
When it is time to move on the Cloak detaches from your neck, and flies off on the winds of fate to find another bearer.

The Rogue Trader book from Fantasy Flight Games is a great introduction to the game system. It starts with the sample characters (which is kind of odd) and continues on to explain the characters, combat, skill check rules and general game system. I was quite impressed with the thorough treatment of the rules in such a short span of time.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Rogue Trader Cover

The latter half of the book was filled with a great mini-adventure that was entirely non-linear. The players actually have choices in the flow of the game. I really enjoyed reading the book and the adventure. I think I would also enjoy the game system as well. It seems to be a good mix of technology and mysticism. I doubt I could get my current group to play the game, though. It’s just too dark for their tastes.

Grade: A — Great descriptions of the system, characters, combat flow and the adventure made for a top-notch introduction to the Warhammer 40k RPG system.

Today’s review is of Paizo’s Bonus Bestiary for their Pathfinder system. If you don’t know what Pathfinder is, I strongly suggest you go check it out. It’s well worth your time. I can’t wait for the full system to be released.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Pathfinder Cover

The Bonus Bestiary just wet my appetite even more for the release of Pathfinder. I’ve downloaded the beta, and the quality of the game is top-notch. The Paizo crew really know their stuff. Heck, they did Dragon and Dungeon magazines for years. They should know what they are doing with role playing games.

Back to the Bonus Bestiary…. There are 13 different monsters in full detail with excellent illustrations (except for the Faerie Dragon, which is very cartoonish). The production value of this book is very high, and I didn’t find a single thing I would change about the text or stats provided for the monsters. This is what I’m looking for in an RPG book. Something I can buy, skim/read and put to use in the next session without too much work or effort. I’m a busy guy and I don’t have time to ponder over things too heavily and munge with published stats that should otherwise be usable.

Grade: A+ — Paizo obviously knows the 3.0/3.5 system very well and has made it even better with their Pathfinder efforts. Good job, guys!

This could apply to a fantasy realm or a modern one. One of the PCs receives a message from a dead relative. If it’s a fantasy setting, the message comes in the form of a ghostly manifestation of the dead one. If it is a modern/future genre, the message is the deceased’s voice left on a voicemail or answering machine message.

The message from the dead person is simply this, “See you soon.”

What does this mean for the PCs? Imminent death? A foretelling of doom? A soon-t0-come visit to a fortune teller?

Today’s review is of Hearts of Chaos, also by Goodman Games. Hearts of Chaos is an Amethyst adventure.

Free RPG Day 2009 - Hearts of Chaos Cover

The Amethyst system uses the core 4e rules and expands on them to allow for a modern-ish setting. Why modern”-ish”? This is because the world of magic, fae, dragons and creatures of the imagination have invaded the modern world. The characters can be pulled from traditional fantasy or the modern “techan” realm. I really like this idea as it reminds of one of my favorite RPGs of all time: Rifts.

Goodman Games does an excellent job of setting the scene within a short period of time before getting to the adventure. The rules additions are clearly explained, and the setting is well done. Once the adventure portion of the book starts, the quality really steps up a notch.

The traditional overview of the adventure is given along with a brief description of each of the encounters. Then the details roll in and the writing is very well done and very streamlined. The module is even well balanced and very playable, which is the opposite of the other half of the physical book, Immortal Heroes. I applaud Goodman Games for a job well done.

I really like the adventure, and I may run it for my group as a one-off game while our GM for the current Rifts game is out of town on a motorcycle trip with his biker buddies.

The only downside is that five pre-generated characters for the adventure are only available online. They are not provided in print format. This was a fact that I overlooked the first read-through, and when the book ended, I was left wondering where the promised sample characters were at. After a quick skim of the text, I focused in on the words “available online” and went seeking the characters. If you are in the same boat I was in, then here is the easy link for you to download the characters.

Grade: A+ — After reading Immortal Heroes first, I didn’t have high hopes for the game balance capabilities of Goodman Games, but they have totally redeemed themselves in this half of the book. I’m quite impressed with the writing, balance, feel and flow of the game. If I didn’t already have a bajillion dollars invested in Rifts books, I might run out and pick this one up ASAP. As it stands for me, personally, I’ll wait until I have the spare cash for the book, and then pick it up. Good job, Goodman Games!