Thursday, June 27, 2019

Space Barbarians!

These are from Barbarians of Orange Boiling Seas, an upcoming adventure written by Zzarchov Kowolski for Lamentations of the Flame Princess.




This one was supposed to be the matriarch of a Neanderthal clan, but it looks more like Doctor Who person Steven Moffat. Oh well.

I believe the adventure will be released at this year's Gen Con in August, and will be on general sale soon afterwards.

Thursday, June 20, 2019

Missed Opportunities

Following on from the probably-incomplete list of games I have played, here are the games I have owned but have not played, and in some cases haven't even read:

2300AD
3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars 
13th Age Glorantha
Apocalypse World
Barbarians of the Ruined Earth
The Black Hack
The Cthulhu Hack
Cyberpunk 2020 (I have to play this next year, before it's too late!) Update: I played this just before the end of 2020 but forgot to blog about it!
Death Is the New Pink
Forgotten Futures
Godbound
GOZR
Into the Odd Update: Played Silent Titans, which uses the same rules, in 2022.
Lacuna Part I. The Creation of the Mystery and the Girl from Blue City Update: Played in 2021.
Lady Blackbird
Lords of Creation
Mage: The Ascension (My copy of the rulebook is long lost, so I doubt I'll be playing this!)
Make You Kingdom
Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game (I may never play this as I don't have the cards!)
Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales (this is technically a campaign setting but it changes AD&D2 to such an extent that I'm going to include it; thanks to Martin for the inspiration!)
Mekton II
Mutant Future
Nemesis
Night's Black Agents Update: Played in 2021.
Psi World
Puppetland
Ruination Pilgrimage
Silent Legions
Silent Titans Update: Played in 2022.
SINless
Small But Vicious Dog
Tenra Bansho Zero
Traveller, the original flavour.
Troika!
True20
Villains and Vigilantes

These are the games I've bought or -- in the case of freebies -- made an effort to acquire. Most are hardcopies, with a handful of pdfs; I am not including all the free pdfs you get given every so often at Drive Thru RPG because then the list would go into the hundreds and that way lies madness.

It's not as bad as I thought, although it is a little bad; there are things here that I will never play and I know it. The bigger issue perhaps is the number of adventures and campaigns I've bought with no clear idea of when they will be played; perhaps that's a list for another post, if I can stand the crushing shame of it all.

Monday, June 17, 2019

Playa Got Game

This popped up on Twitter the other day:



I replied with a list. Then remembered a few more. Then another few more. Then some more, then I gave up and decided to post the list here instead. I knew I'd played more than four. I didn't realise it had been more than ten times that.

This list doesn't include the games I've owned and never played -- which is a smaller list, but only just! -- nor the games for which I've generated characters and then the game never happened.

13th Age
Adventures in Middle Earth
Barbarians of Lemuria
Call of Cthulhu
Cold City
Conspiracy X
Cyberpunk 2020
(the last days of 2020, just in time!)
Cybergeneration
Cypher System
Dark Conspiracy
Deadlands
Deadlands Noir
Delta Green
(v2 in 2019)
Dragon Age
Dragonlance: The Fifth Age
Dungeons and Dragons
(Basic, 2, 4, and 5)
Elric!
Feng Shui
Fiasco
Fighting Fantasy
Golden Heroes

Hot War
Lacuna Part I. The Creation of the Mystery and the Girl from Blue City
(2021)
Lamentations of the Flame Princess
Legend of the Five Rings
Middle Earth Roleplaying
Monster of the Week
(2021)
Mutant
(Year Zero, Genlab Alpha, Mechatron)
Mutant Chronicles
Nephilim
Night's Black Agents
(2021)
The One Ring
Pandemonium!
Paranoia
Pathfinder
Pendragon
Phoenix: Dawn Command
Redbox Hack
Rogue Trader
RuneQuest
Savage Worlds
Shadow of the Demon Lord
(2020)
Shadowrun
Silent Titans/Into the Odd
(2022)
SLA Industries
A Song of Ice and Fire
(sort of; Ben used the rules to run an Arthurian game)
Star Wars (d6)
Trail of Cthulhu
Traveller: The New Era
Unknown Armies
(sort of; Stuart used a homebrew system based on Star Wars d6)
Vampire: The Masquerade
Vultures
(2022)
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
(4th edition in 2019)

I think that's it, but I expect to remember half a dozen more games about thirty seconds after I click "Publish".

Monday, June 10, 2019

Inspirational!


My group is always forgetting about Inspiration when we play D&D5 so here's an idea to make it more memorable:

When a player gains Inspiration, give them a d30 and when they "cash in" the Inspiration they get to use the d30 instead of the usual d20.

(To clarify, instead of rolling two d20s and keeping the highest result, you're rolling one d20 and one d30 and keeping the highest result.)

This method gives the player a unique token that stands out amongst the usual table detritus, plus Inspiration itself gets a bit more oomph, both of which should make the mechanic less forgettable in play.