My “Lunchtime After Ragnarok” campaign has resumed after a too-long hiatus. We had to hit pause for a variety of reasons ranging from too-busy work schedules to the birth of a baby, but as summer wound down we down we finally got back to the table. As before we’re playing over lunch in Kenneth Hite’s The Day After Ragnarok campaign setting using the Savage Worlds rules. We usually get in 1-2 games a week, each lasting 45-60 minutes.
The Unknown Regions is the final sourcebook for Wizards of the Coast’s Star Wars: Saga Edition Role-Playing Game. The book serves as a placeholder for all the books left unpublished, and promises to carry players to the unexplored corners of the Star Wars galaxy. It does this by venturing into The Unknown Regions to explore what fans know — the Chiss, the Rakata and the Sorcerers of Rhand — and plenty that they don’t.
The Unknown Regions details eight worlds created just for the book, introduces a planet generator that game masters can use to make their own, and debuts creature generation rules to populate them. Since Scouts are essential to exploring these brave new worlds, they get a variety of feats and talents, and because no final frontier should be without its dangerous challenges, the book re-envisions “Hazards” as Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition-style threats that require a combination of brawn and skill to defeat. The end result is a toolkit that gives players everything they need to continue their adventures beyond the last book in the Star Wars Saga Editions line.
I backed the Numenera Kickstarter today after I had a moment of panic over breakfast that I’d missed the deadline. The kickstarter for Monte Cook’s far-future science fantasy role-playing game has four days left to go, and has hit the amazing total of $338,450.
That’s just … huge. The kickstarter has broken all of Monte’s stretch goals and yielded an impressive line up of game materials. You can read about them on his web site. Of course, the question now becomes … can he deliver? Given his track record with Dungeons & Dragons, Arcana Unearthed, and Malhavoc Press in general, I’m confident he will. Or at least, I’m confident in the print materials. I’m not so sure about the character creator; that strikes me as being more complicated than he might originally have anticipated (just look at how long for D&D to get a worthwhile character creator).
In the real world, our gaming group’s seen numerous weddings (and will see yet another this fall), but in the game world our heroes never got hitched. Until tonight. Over the last year of our Second Darkness campaign one of the characters, Skender, has been seeing a priestess of Calistria named Carlila Zalteri at the … Read more
Skill challenges were the best thing to emerge from our Dungeons Dragons 4th Edition mini-campaign, and when we started playing Star Wars: Saga Edition, we pieced together our own version of the rules. We based them on 4E’s examples, the skill DCs established in Scum and Villainy, and personal experience. The end result created some of the most memorable moments in our campaign, including the heroes’ disastrous attempt to escape a proto-star nebula.
Galaxy of Intrigue formalizes these ad hoc rules by creating a Skill Challenge system for Saga Edition that improves the 4E iteration in every way. The source book introduces new feat and talent options for skillful characters, nine new species (including the Bith, Defel and Neimodian), an entire world dedicated to intrigue, eight mini-adventures, and the “The Perfect Storm” campaign.
Tumblr is one of those sites I find myself stumbling across time and again, but never lingering on. I suppose that’s by design; it’s meant to be a platform for quick hit updates, somewhere between the microbursts of Twitter and the full-on blogging of WordPress. With another Knights of the Dinner Table column looking, I’ve … Read more
It didn’t take long for Monte Cook to find something to do after his much-discussed departure from the D&D Next design team. He’s launched a Kickstarter to fund Numenera, a rules-light, far future role-playing game Here’s how he describes it: I’m really excited to announce that I’m working on a new game. It’s called Numenera, … Read more
I’ve played in a few RPG sessions, mostly one-shots, involving giant rampaging monsters. They’ve been disappointing because they focus on killing the monster, which reduces this huge lumbering horror to litte more than a 40-story sack of hit points.
At the opposite extreme are monsters who can’t be defeated (and I’ll admit to unleashing one of these in my campaign; a CR 35 horror that destroyed the city of Stoneheim in the World of Greyhawk). Those can be equally disappointing for players because characters (especially high level ones) think they can defeat anything.
Then again, maybe that’s missing the point.
Aliens. We always knew they were out there, ready to invade our planet, enslave the population and strip mine its resources. But we also knew that if they should try it, Earth’s greatest superheroes would rise up and save us. We were wrong. When the V’Sori came they slaughtered our super-powered defenders just as easily … Read more
The dwarven warrior D’klar Ironforge stood on the Deep Roads bridge eying the darkspawn before him. Spittle from the creature’s mongrel face glistened in the reflected light of the lava far below. Covering its black-furred hide were the crudely-arranged castoffs of dwarven chain and planted, while its obsidian-clawed hands held a short sword wet with … Read more