D&D Begone, my take on things

There’s a lot of churn and chop in the TTRPG industry thanks to Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro trying to change the foundation of the Open Game License. There’s a lot of coverage on lots of web sites about this. If you need more background, check out the Youtuber DndShorts at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4kGMsZSdbY My opinion: The game Dungeons and Dragons has been in a toilet spiral since the fourth edition and WotC is still trying to migrate the TTRPG game to a video-game style of play. 5e was an attempt to stifle Paizo and other companies who were trying to fill the …

Pieces of Soul

A kidnapping and a chase brings the heroes to the dark and mystical mountains of Eisen where they must confront an ancient horror. Can they rescue the victim? Can they stop the evil plot of a creature who’s lived for centuries? You and your 7th Sea second edition group can find out. This is the last installment of the Tale of Art, Love, and Fear story arc now available for purchase at www.drivethrurpg.com

Cover of the 1981 module X2: Castle Amber

Running X2: Castle Amber again after 40 years

It’s been almost 40 years since I first brought a group of friends into The Castle Amber. Last night the grey mists swept in and the party awoke in an elegant foyer. Their hirelings and pack animals are waiting outside in the thin band of grass between the walls of the chateaux and lethal fog. Rather than running this as a B/X we are using DCC for the mechanics and that has been a complete blast. The off the wall encounters and strangeness of the Amber family makes this such a fun adventure. Why not break the boredom of centuries …

The Faux Marquess

The second adventure in my A Tale of Art, Love, and Fear is now available for purchase on drivethrurpg.com here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/354526/The-Faux-Marquess This second 5-7 step story for 7th Sea second edition is a follow on adventure from The Painter and the Pirate, also for sale at drivethrurpg.com. The heroes attempt to find a woman that everyone thought had perished in a storm at sea. She’s very much alive, looks like a missing marquess, and has amnesia. This second adventure offers more chances for fighting and chasing as the heroes work with or against one or both villains to help the …

Traveller T5 first impressions

The PDF files for the recently concluded Traveller T5 3 big black books have been released to backers via drivethrurpg. I’ve read through Book 1 and here are my initial impressions: Wow. It feels like the little black book. These PDFs are visually similar with a simple black and white presentation and a writing style that is concise and focused. For modern RPG people this will be a very different experience from the glossy full color pages with rules explained in great detail in multiple sections. I have started on Book 2 and the same feel and style are consistent. …

New Pathfinder ACG Core set

The new Pathfinder Adventure Card Game core set arrived at the house yesterday. I broke it open and read the rules. The rule book has an excellent section for those of us who have played this game a bunch to highlight the new rules and some of the changed terminology. Tonight I tried the starter adventure a few times with one character and it did not go well. These are some of the changes: Locations that have small, medium, and large deck settings that controls how many cards are at each location. Blessings have specific powers vs the generic give …

Traveller vs Starfinder

Sci-fi role playing games have been around for a long time and I have been a fan since I first found the Traveller box set in the 1980s.  A few decades later I found myself caught up in the Starfinder release by Paizo and ran a year of Starfinder Society play.  I found that both systems had strengths and weaknesses and may appeal to different groups of players. Starfinder is a science-fantasy RPG that is based in the Pathfinder universe.  The game is very much a mixture of science fiction and fantasy.  There is magic in this game and hi-tech.  …

Photosythesis – a review

The abstract tree growing and harvesting game from Blue Orange is not something that I would have normally picked up. It’s a game about growning trees. Every once in a while I find a game that is outside my normal fare (pirates, Cthulhu, space conquest, fantasy combat) that I find fun and fresh. Photosythensis is in this club.

GenCon 50

This year was the 50th anniversary of GenCon and it was a large and amazing trip.  We went out for all four days and managed to try some new things.  I played my first convention RPG session, the Starfinder test game.  It was not bad but it did feel a bit off.  We played a much more mechanical combat mission.  With the mat and miniatures it felt more like a board-game than a true RPG experience.  It was hard for me to build rapport with stranger so that I could play my character’s personality beyond the archetype. Another new experience …