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Welcome back!
Hi there!
I’ve posted another couple of reviews on Game Knight Reviews…
A review of Advanced Feats: The Summoner’s Circle from Sigfried Trent and Open Design and a review of Warrior, Rogue, & Mage from Michael Wolf of Stargazer Games.
The Summoner’s Circle provides a fresh take on the Summoner class in Pathfinder. By adding a unique, wizard-crafted creature you can summon to your side, you gain some additional muscle when you need it and not just mindless critters fighting for you.
Warrior, Rogue & Mage (WR&M) offers a simplified, yet elegant rules system with limitless possibilities for fantasy roleplaying. Using a single d6 you and the rest of your party can focus on role-playing instead of roll-playing and still have the flexibility and balanced rules you may have been looking for.
Both have some interesting crunch to dive into, so be sure to check them out if you’re looking for a new game (WR&M) or some new tools for Patfhinder!
–Fitz
Tags: Advanced Feats, Books, Fantasy, Game, Game Knight Reviews, Games, Michael Wolf, Open Design, reviews, Rogue, Roleplaying, Sigfried Trent, Stargazer, Stargazer Games, Summoner, The Summoner's Circle, Warrior, Warrior Rogue & Mage, WR&M
So what’s my goal for this new Moebius Adventures project?
Immortals’ Wake: Rivergate will bring together a few things from the settings and rules we’ve written Moebius Adventures over the years. The goal will be to use the rules of Warrior, Rogue & Mage and finally express the high fantasy, nearly superhero world of IW.
Yes, you heard that right. Fantasy and Superheroes. I don’t quite know how else to describe the setting.
The general idea is you have a normal high fantasy world with wizards, priests, warriors, thieves, and everything else thrown in (though it is an all-human setting – no elves or dwarves here, sorry). And then some of these people become “Changed” – sort of like the Fantastic Four from Marvel Comics when they get bombarded my cosmic rays and come back with superpowers. Except in this case, the “Change” is sparked by an insane immortal – “The Nameless One” – who controls the elements – earth, air, fire, water, and spirit. Anyone who crosses his path has a chance that he or she also gains the ability to control an element to some degree. Most people try to flee when he is near, but a handful are crazy enough to want the Change.
The Change manifests in different ways. Some of the Changed are powerful in their element, while others seem to barely have any control at all. Sometimes the Change itself drives the person mad and for others it gives them a purpose. Like in the real world, ability doesn’t necessarily relate one to one with skill. And where most spells are about rote memorization, control of an element is more fluid – sort of like Rand al’Thor in the <em>Wheel of Time</em> weaving flows together to create effects.
Also consider that though these people can control the elements to a degree, the elements begin to change them as well. Imagine someone with power over Earth with skin starting to look more like marble or clay than flesh. Or imagine a Water Changed stuck in a desert somewhere, dying more quickly of dehydration than a normal human might.
As if these side effects weren’t bad enough, these “Changed” individuals are typically hunted, tested (or tortured depending on your point of view), and killed as they have been touched by evil. Known simply as “Demons” by the Church, the Changed live in constant fear of being discovered. Not everyone in the Church fears them and a few even support them in hidden ways, but for the most part the Church hopes to extinguish all Demons from the face of the world.
Immortals’ Wake: Rivergate will serve as a stepping stone into this world. Rivergate is but a small gateway to the Kingdoms. The Nameless One is rumored to be wandering through the Kingdoms, though few are brave enough to locate him themselves. Will he come to Rivergate? Or will adventurers seeking power at any cost seek him out?
Here’s the general outline of the book…
- Overview
- Chapter 1: Places (Local, Near, Far)
- Chapter 2: People (Local, Near, Far)
- Chapter 3: Characters (Skills, Talents)
- Chapter 4: Magic (Supernatural, Divine, Common Spell Books)
- Chapter 5: Rumors/Hooks
- Appendix 1: Changed (discuss Wild Talent over the Elements – Fire, Earth, Air, Water, and Spirit)
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What do you think? I’d love some feedback below…
Hi all…
In case you missed it on my reviews blog, I wrote about Brother Ptolemy and the Hidden Kingdom over at Game Knight Reviews. Nevermet Press has put together a heck of a setting and adventure that would fit nicely into most of the D&D-based campaigns (4e or 3.5e really, though the book is tailored for 4e) I’ve played in in recent years.
Jonathan Jacobs and the rest of the gang at Nevermet have created a worthwhile villain in Brother Ptolemy. He really thinks he’s doing the right thing, which just amps up the creep factor for me. It’s these morally wrong people who feel they’re helping their fellow man that always make the best villains!
Check out the review here at GKR!
–Fitz
Tags: 4e, adventure, Book, Brother Ptolemy and the Hidden Kingdom, D&D, Dungeons & Dragons, Game Knight Reviews, Games, Nevermet Press, Ptolemy, review, setting, villains, Wizards of the Coast
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been looking at extending the already cool system for Warrior, Rogue, and Mage for my new project. I’m trying to incorporate a few of the concepts we developed for Moebius Adventures as well as some new skills and talents.
For example, at character creation time in the base W,R,&M book, you get 3 skills and a talent. I’d like to tweak that slightly so that players pick skills based on different broad age groupings. So if I’m playing a young character, I should pick 2 skills with an eye towards childhood and 1 with an eye towards adulthood. Or if I’m playing an older character, perhaps only direct 1 skill to childhood and the other 2 to maturity.
I’m not quite sure yet how that will play out. I suspect that most players with such a small set of skills would focus on the usable skills for the character as opposed to how their childhood went. Perhaps this will be an optional rule players can use to help them define the life of their characters up to the present. I definitely don’t want it to get in the way of what players want – just to propose it as an option.
Beyond that, some of the new skills I’m considering adding include:
- Animals (Mage): The ability to train and control animals. This would mostly be for domesticated animals, but could be expanded to wild animals as well.
- Art (Mage): The ability to create a visual, auditory, or other sensory work to evoke an emotion in an audience.
- Food (Mage): The ability to cook, prepare, and preserve food for consumption or storage.
- Games (Rogue): The ability to play various games and apply strategy.
- Performance (Rogue): The ability to perform (via acting, dance, or some other skill) in front of a crowd.
- Wilderness (Warrior): The ability to hunt, track, trap, and live off the land in the wilderness to survive.
In addition, there are thirteen different wizardry skills ranging from Alchemy to the Supernatural, each with a particular spell book and magical philosophy. The first book will only cover a couple of these more closely tied to the sea – Supernatural Magic (similar to Voodoo) and Divine Magic (prayers to deities or forces of nature to help with a particular aim). I figure sailors (in fiction at least) have always been a superstitious lot and can use all the help they can get when rough seas come around.
Talent-wise, I’ve only really come up with one so far:
- Healing: The ability to heal oneself or others using Mana.
I’ve thought about a few other possible talents that may come out of the old Random Fates list from the Moebius Adventures books, but haven’t defined them so far. These would be relatively minor talents such as the ability to see ghosts, knowing what direction they are pointing in regardless of position, and so on.
The existing skill lists in the base W,R,&M book are perfectly open-ended, so I don’t want to add too much clutter to it. My goal is to define these additional options for the rules and focus on the world of Immortals’ Wake. Each subsequent book will further define additional magic and talents as well as flesh out additional areas.
What do you think?
(By the way, if you’re looking for more details about WR&M – check out the website here at Stargazer Games.)
Tags: Character creation, Game, Immortals Wake, Mage, Magic, Mana, Moebius Adventures, Riverport, Rogue, skills, spellbooks, spells, Stargazer Games, talents, Warrior Rogue & Mage, WR&M
When Da’ Vane (Christina Freeman) dropped me a note about the first D-Jumpers product from DVOID Systems, I was definitely intrigued. Da’ Vane is another of the folks going through Yax & Johnn Four’s Gamer Lifestyle Project. She started in April 2010 and in six months has released a book with help from Ouroboros I (Sebastian Klement), which is an impressive feat to begin with!
With that in mind, I started to dive into a final copy (minus artwork, which had been delayed) of D-Jumpers Volume #1: A Gate to Adventure… As a fan of cross-genre rules systems, my interest was piqued by the very first paragraph and the question – “Why limit your games to one genre, to one setting, to one world, to one imagination?” This product provides four different encounters in very different worlds – from fantasy and space opera to the great beyond.
Each of these mini-campaigns is presented as “systemless,” which should allow you the freedom to mix/match ideas and concepts but use any rules system from Storyteller and d20 to any other system you like or no system at all (though I’m not sure how that would work, it’s an interesting idea). As you go through each “Encounter,” they’re set up the same way, with an Objective, Hooks, Details, Development, Options, and a Checklist. This makes it easy to hop from one encounter to the next with a known structure.
“Gate Keeper” introduces characters to the multi-world concept of D-Jumpers. The PCs meet an inventor who’s managed to create a tool (i.e. spell or device) allowing adventurers to go to various places to gather critters, items, and information for him. He then can better plan how to take over the weaker worlds and gain more power… Of course, this evil genius doesn’t let the PCs in on his ultimate goal of controlling the multi-verse, so they won’t know what they’re getting themselves into...
→ Read More at Game Knight Reviews here...
Tags: adventure, campaign, Fantasy, Game, GMs, players, plots, Role-playing game, Roleplaying, Universal
For a couple of years now I’ve been whining and moaning about how I’m not a system guy. I’m not. I’ve accepted that. My attempts at system often end up muddled messes that don’t scale well. And that has stymied me a bit as far as Moebius stuff goes.
Well, today I ran across a blog post today from John Payne over at Nevermet Press about Old School gaming. And he mentioned a game called Warrior, Rogue, and Mage that’s evidently been getting quite a bit of press since it’s debut a few months ago. Evidently I’m oblivious, but that’s nothing new. 
Warrior, Rogue, and Mage (or WR&M) is a light rules system for fantasy roleplaying that’s been released under Creative Commons by Michael Wolf (Stargazer from Stargazer’s World and Stargazer Games). But beyond the free aspects, it is damn straightforward. And it embraces many of the ideas I was trying to implement in the revamped Moebius system. However, unlike my failed attempt at rules-light, WR&M provides a simple combat system that just… works!
So I think that with a little massaging I can easily migrate the Immortals’ Wake and Age of Phaedrus fantasy settings to use Stargazer’s system. And Covert Directives, which is more of a near-future cyberpunk setting, might be able to take advantage of some of the work started a few months ago by Mark Meredith at Dice Monkey for Pointman, Hacker & Thief – a modern spy adaptation of WR&M.
That leaves me with a bit of a conundrum however regarding the Creative Commons (CC) license of WR&M. The main game guide is licensed under the Attribution (cc-by), Non-Commercial (cc-nc), and Share-Alike (cc-sa) conditions.
Though “cc-by” seems to allow me the freedom to create a commercial product based on WR&M, the “cc-nc” and “cc-sa” conditions would seem to override that and not allow me to create a commercial product. I’m good with CC’ing any system tweaks (i.e. a “Moebius”-themed set of races, skills, and talents), but would like to release products for a small fee on RPGNow.com or in other venues.
Can anybody clarify how that would work? I *love* the system and am happy to extend it and allow folks to use my extensions as long as they attribute the extensions to me and the base game back to Stargazer – but I don’t want to make my setting details completely free… Seems like a catch-22.
Anyway… Minor quibbles… Back to devouring WR&M to better understand the ins/outs of the system…
Tags: Age of Phaedrus, CC, Covert Directives, Creative Commons, Immortals Wake, John Payne, Mark Meredith, Michael Wolf, Moebius Adventures, Rogue, Role-playing game, setting, Warrior Rogue and Mage, WR&M
When you look up the word “martial” in the dictionary, most definitions tend towards the use of a few key adjectives – warrior, warlike, or military. So I’d be lying if I said that the Martial Flavors book from Chaotic Shiny Productions focuses on mostly peaceful people. Most of these cultures could be described as mercenaries, raiders, or warriors whether they believe in the chain of command or the power of the strongest sword.
At a mere 55 pages, Martial Flavor has to be one of the most colorful supplements I’ve seen in a while. Color, art, fonts, and text boxes are used to provide a layout that’s easy on the eyes and convey details on multiple levels.
The use of color works well to denote different sections, such as green for the titles, introduction, and table of contents, and a red/green pattern for The Daikort Pack, a green/brown pattern for The Elessim, etc. And each section is laid out consistently from group to group – starting with a vignette, an overview, appearance, hierarchy, rituals, races, sample characters, powers, and feats.
The full color and black and white artwork used on the front and back covers and inside provides not only a great way to break up the text, but provide a feel for each culture’s dress and appearance as well as what’s important. For example, for The Daikort Pack, we see a full color picture of an fair-haired elven maid wearing leather and a plate breastplate, which tends to indicate she’s more ready for a fight than to go frolicking in the woods in which she’s standing. But for The Elessim, there are three horses in the picture on a broad grassy plain and one rider. Something tells me the horses are important!
The black and white art was also quite striking...
→ Read More at Game Knight Reviews here...
Tags: Arts, Book, Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, Games, Roleplaying, RPGNow
When you’re in school, it’s easy to find gamers. I remember playing with people in junior high and high school, in college and even immediately after college. But at some point it starts to get difficult. People have jobs and families and other commitments that don’t let them game as often as they’d like. Or maybe they’ve had to move for some reason (work, family, or school being the big three reasons)… Or perhaps a game has just drifted apart over time as they sometimes do.
How do you find other gamers in your area? Well, Filling the empty chair from Johnn Four of Roleplaying Tips fame (RoleplayingTips.com) aims to help you find other like-minded individuals near you to keep your gaming habit alive. Finding a good gaming group is sort of like finding a good pair of sneakers. You may have to try a few out before you find a good fit, and even then they may wear out over time. But don’t be discouraged… As Four says in his Introduction, “Gaming is too important as part of living a balanced, healthy and enjoyable life. Do not let it go by the wayside.”
The book starts by providing a list of eight pages of some of the best websites for finding gamers online. Sites include everything from some of the RPG-related Meetup.com sites and NearbyGamers.com to RPGRegistry.com and PenAndPaperGames.com. I’d never heard of many of the sites listed, but hope to take advantage of some of them to put a new group together myself.
The bulk of the book however is dedicated to tips on finding a group or recruiting players. The 28 tips included cover everything from having business cards you can pass out if you find someone who’s interested to hanging out in game or bookstores to inviting your family and non-gaming friends to join you. It’s never too late (or too early) to bring new people to the hobby.
→ Read More at Game Knight Reviews here…
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Tags: Board game, Colorado, Colorado Springs, Finding, Gamer, Games, Play Groups, Recreation and Sports, Role-playing game, Roleplaying
When I reviewed Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs, Volume 1 back in October 2009, I felt it was a monumental and worthwhile compilation of game material from around the blogosphere. Jonathan Jacobs somehow managed to do everything from curating the articles to having the book printed and available. The result was a book that managed to provide players and gamemasters, both new and old, more inspiration than you could shake a stick at.
With Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs, Volume 2 (OGTv2), Jacobs managed to get much more help with nearly every part of the process – from nominating material to editing, art, and so on. He even managed to get sponsors to help foot the bill to pay for part of the publishing effort so it wasn’t all out of his wallet.
To avoid any misconceptions, I helped with a couple of parts of the process of OGTv2. I worked as a peer reviewer and contributed some funds to help get the book printed. But even with my help and the help of many other folks, I suspect Jonathan put in the lion’s share of the work on this book.
That said, this book is simply astounding from the description of the daily gaming convention on the web in the foreward from RPG industry veteran Justin Achili to Trent Colwell’s hilarious article – “The Tale of Jacques: A Study in Ignominious RPG Death” – in which poor Jack’s character drowns in spectacular fashion teaching everyone to make sure the rope is tied off before you jump into a torrential river of death… I think there’s something for everyone stuffed into this 158 page volume…
→ Read More at Game Knight Reviews here…
Tags: blogs, Book, cartography, Dungeon Mastering, Enrique Beertran, Fantasy, Game, Games, gaming, Jeremy Jones, Jonathan Jacobs, Justin Achili, Kobold Quarterly, Nevermeet Press, Newbie DM, Open Game Table, Publishing, review, reviews, Role-playing game, Roleplaying, RPG, RPGKids, Trent Colwell, Universal, Yacine Merzouk
As a GM, it’s nearly impossible to get by without a few maps. Sure, you can come up with a village on the fly, or maybe a 5-room dungeon, but cities are sometimes tough to design at the drop of a hat. Not only are there landscape concerns, but population, location, general disposition (friendly or un-), and so on.
Thankfully, there are many creative, artistic people who have created maps for us already. The Kingdoms of Kalamar: City Map Folio from Kenzer and Company provides more than 30 detailed maps to use for inspiration or in a Kingdoms of Kalamar campaign. From the full color map of Kalamar presenting the region where all these cities are located to the gorgeous interior black and white maps, there’s plenty here to salivate over from cartographers Craig Zipse and Clayton Van Sickle III.
What impressed me the most was the little details. Though the maps themselves have few labels or legends, anyone familiar with maps appearing in RPG adventures or books over the last 30+ years will instantly understand what they’re looking at… from rivers and roads to walls, buildings, forests and plains. Seeing how buildings flow around obstacles such as major roads, rivers, and docks can provide fodder for the most inquisitive player to explore…
And each map provides a small summary of pertinent details such as the city size, longitude and latitude, type of government, as well as major alignments, races, and size of the population. Also included is the name of the ruler (or rulers) of the city – such as with Baneta… “ruled by wizard Lakaran the Twisted under figurehead Lord B’Pareso.”
I did find it very difficult (impossible in some cases) to find a particular city on the full color map at the beginning of the book. It would have been nice to perhaps broken the bigger map into smaller regional maps to simplify finding them in the larger context. I also found it interesting that every single map in this collection has a wall or other defensive structure completely surrounding the heart of the population. Though I can see having walls around some portions of a city, I can’t imagine that building one around a population of 20,000 people can be cheap or easy to maintain.
That said, the Kingdoms of Kalamar: City Map Folio (first published in 2004) offers GMs tons of inspiration for their own campaigns and worlds. Who knows what dangers may lurk in these literally thousands of city streets ripe for the picking? Definitely worth the $6.99 as a PDF from DriveThruRPG.com.
Tags: campaign, cartography, City Map Folio, Clayton Van Sickle III, Craig Zipse, GM, inspiration, Kingdoms of Kalamar, maps, RPG
