The first role-playing game I ever played was Dungeons & Dragons. The second was Star Frontiers. Saying I “played” Star Frontiers is something of a stretch; I game mastered one or two sessions in 8th grade and that was pretty much it. Except … it was much more than that. Star Frontiers grabbed the world-building part of my brain, and wouldn’t let go. I created the Starrior star system, and populated it with the benevolent megacorp known as Astro Mining & Freighting (or simply AMF). I detailed the vast starfleets of the United Planetary Federation and the smaller – yet still formidable – Starrior Militia.
There’s been a bunch of good news on the superhero role-playing front lately. Green Ronin has announced Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition and DC Adventures, which is a DC Comics-based superhero RPG.
The first DC Comics book, DC ADVENTURES drops in August 2010. Three subsequent books detailing heroes and villains will be released later this year and in 2011. Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition will use the same ruleset, and be released in Fall 2011.
At the same time Savage Worlds Super Powers Companion is now available in print (it had been out in PDF earlier this year).
Mass Effect 2 is Bioware’s follow-up to their awesome-but-flawed space opera role-playing game. The sequel is a beautifully crafted game that knows exactly what scifi notes to hit to get player’s blood pumping and keep them engaged, even as the main story is less than stellar.
The game – and that I almost wrote “movie” tells you a lot about it – picks up where its predecessor left off. Exactly where that is depends on the choices you made in the previous game. My main character was woman named Xandra Shepherd, a tough-as-nails, victory-at-any-cost commander who hated the anti-human Citadel Council, the ruling body of much of the galaxy. When their base of operations – a massive alien construct known as the Citadel – was attacked by life-destroying entities known as Reavers, Xandra didn’t lift a finger to save the Council. She did, however, defeat the Reaver incursion. As a result, my game began with a new human council in charge of the Citadel … and the galaxy in denial about the threat of the Reavers.
I love Savage Worlds. Half of the guys in my group love Savage Worlds. But part of what keeps the other half from jumping on board, at least for a fantasy campaign, is the lack of a Vancian magic system (aka the “fire and forget” memorization system from Jack Vance’s Dying Earth series and popularized … Read more
Dark Void is a videogame with a great deal of promise. When I first heard this game described, I couldn’t have been more excited.
A pulp adventure set in the Bermuda Triangle with alien technology, Tesla inventions, and jet packs! An Indiana Jones-like hero fighting the good fight against Battlestar Galactica-style foes out to conquer the world! Wow, that’s right up my alley.
Or so I thought.
Dark Sun, the grim, post-apocalyptic fantasy setting for Dungeons & Dragons is re-launching this summer for D&D 4E. In honor of that, I’m writing my next “Summon WebScryer” column for Knights of the Dinner Table about Dark Sun … but I need your help. I need web sites dedicated to the setting. I’ve found a … Read more
The cornucopia of Star Wars: Saga Edition content continues this week with a 5-part series from Wizards of the Coast about “Mythmaking in Star Wars”, which talks about adapting Joseph Campbell’s monomyth theories to role-playing games. They’ve also go two new ships detailed in “Message to Spaces”: Crusader-class Corvette and the Heraklon-class Transport. In blog … Read more
In recent months there have several major disasters involving superhumans. A cry has gone out amongst the people to hold the superhumans accountable for their actions. Congress answer that cry with the Superhuman Registration Act. The act requires anyone having or utilizing any form of superhuman abilities to register with the government as a “living … Read more
The first iPad showed up at my gaming table two weeks ago, and I have to say — it was pretty damn cool. It’s got a bright, clean screen, and while my friend didn’t have a native PDF viewer on the device, I can definitely see the potential there. Comic books looked beautiful, and surfing with it was a breeze. That said, not everyone’s sold on the iPad, and I haven’t seen any reviews of it up on RPG blogs — if you’ve done one, please let me now in the comments.
That said, there are other tablet computers out there, and Chaos Crenade looks at one with A Tabletop Gamer Look: ASUS T91 Tablet PC. It’s a netbook-style computer running Windows XP, and the reviewer takes a look at how well common RPG tooks like the D&D Character Builder and Hero Lab work on the device.
Wizards of the Coast has been busy with D&D 4E since the last time I did a reviews round up. The first of the big 2010 releases is Player’s Handbook 3, which includes the bedrock psionics character classes needed to power the Dark Sun Campaign Setting being released in August. Critical Hits reviewed the book and liked what they saw. This lengthy review offers an overview (and thoughts on) all of the new races, classes and skill powers.
When we were starting our Star Wars campaign and were kicking around where we wanted it to fall within the Knights of the Old Republic timeline, we struck up on the idea of the Mandalorian Interlude.
We knew we want to start the campaign in the Restoration Period — a relatively quiet, calm time after the Great Sith Wars — but at some point we’d enter the Mandalorian Wars, followed by the Jedi Civil War.