Graph Paper Games

Last Friday we had a pretty satisfying gaming experience with my 4E D&D game, making it two pretty solid sessions in a row.  Both times I've begun to learn some lessons about what works and what doesn't. First, the most recent session featured a Hannibal Lector-esque figure named Benalkazar (whose name was stolen shamelessly from some a family I know).  Benalkazar is a humanoid figure with a long robe, gloves, and mask who claims that he hasn't seen his face "in years."  The PC's don't know what he is.  Altered human? Demon?  Aberration?  Minor god?  He can do stuff magically that aren't in the rules, like perform rituals without materials.  He has a magic item also not in the rules.  And he basically snookered the PC's into releasing him from this prison, and then sent them an engraved thank-you note.  I half expected them to either side-track their current quest to go after him or at least file it away for a future quest, but ins...

If it was cheaper, I'd feel better about having bought it. Okay, so the "Civil War" was a major event in Marvel Comics that set the narrative for most of their titles for years to come.  It was also a thinly-veiled commentary on post-911 Patriot Act-era America, and set a very gritty, post-modern tone for the company that pretty much existed through the "Siege" storyline when they decided to just pretend like most of it didn't happen. So if you set the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game at the beginning of the Bendis-era Avengers, then the Civil War is the obvious follow-up (they have already announced that they will be releasing the Initiative as a sourcebook). But how does it far as a sourcebook?  Well for starters, if you're not setting your MHR campaign in the mid-2000's, all you are really getting is a smattering of NPC's that are often already available as fan-made datafiles on the internet and vague idea about how the creators want you...

I'm running a quasi-sandbox D&D 4E campaign right now.  I use the term "quasi" because I don't have an elaborate map of the city of Grimfest, where the campaign is largely located.  What I do have is a running tally of multiple quests, anywhere from three to seven on average, that the PC's can tackle.  So before each session the players tend to email each other saying things like, "hey, those ogres are continuing to hassle the outlying farms around Grimfest, but I really want to return this statue to its rightful place at the temple of Eternal Dawn." The Icicle Club, a   private club for the wealthy and decadent of Grimfest that also serves as the hunting ground for a group of vampires led by a Baelnorn Lich, has been the most engaging of locales.  Earlier the group had infiltrated the club and discovered the lich's presence (also, on the side, destroying a few of the master vampires that make up the lich's inner circle). Last night the p...

I've owned this game for a very, very long time and with my mini-convention coming up was thinking about doing a Star Trek scenario.  I wanted to try it out, however, and decided to run a one-shot using the Last Unicorn Games version of Star Trek. I'll say first off that PC creation is a cinch and only takes a couple of minutes if you use the pre-made packages for their early childhood, training cruise, etc.  There's enough options for ship positions to round out a five-person party easily without someone having to be "Ship's Counselor," which I think would be a dull position in most cases. I will say that the dice mechanics, as it played out in the scenario I designed were odd.  When you want to make a skill check you roll the number of dice equal to the applicable attribute, pick the highest die (they are all d6's) and then add the skill rating value.  So if you have a skill rating of 2 and an attribute rating of 3, you roll three d6's, pick t...

     Since World War II, there were always those guys.  The ones that got dressed in tights and Halloween costumes and hurled exploding frisbees at each other.  Mystery men.  Daredevils.  Acrobats.  Brave heroes and diabolical villains, but very, very few could actually be called "superheroes."  There were always rumors, legends, and stories about people with powers beyond those of normal humans, but few believed them and fewer turned out to be true.      Then came the Age of Wonders.  An incredible trinity of beings came into the public light, and thankfully all three of them were on the side of humanity: the alien, the sorceress, and the genius.      Unquestionably the Celestial was the most powerful and least human.  His first appearance at the turn of the century truly began the Age of Wonders.  Possessing incredible powers including godlike strength, the ability to fly through space, and ...

I've written but not posted about five different blog posts weighing the pros and cons of using licensed universes for superhero RPG's, but I realized each time that the article's content was so obvious that it didn't really need to clutter the blogosphere (short version: licensed universes are familiar to players, yet difficult to shoehorn new PC's into). My deliberation back and forth had me to the point where I wondered if I should even more forward on running a Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game when I had a bit of brainwave (no pun intended) thanks to the good people at DC Comics, namely Earth 2 . For those who don't know, as part of the wholly loathsome "52" quasi-reboot/retcon/fiendish-plan-to-alienate-readers.  DC Comics started from scratch with their characters, but then promptly created an alternative universe in order to continue to milk money from people like me who liked the Justice Society of America.  Hence, Earth 2 . The basic plot ...

Silver Gryphon Games didn't make it to KantCon by Friday afternoon, which is when we had to head home so I could host my regular D&D game.  The people running the convention were surprised that SGG even said they were coming, given that one of the primary people lost a child last month in a tragic accident. Needless to say, I'm not complaining.  Mac got in a game of Microlite20 when the DM allowed him to come in even though he wasn't pre-registered, and I spent the morning playing board games with Macy, who rarely gets me all to herself. In the afternoon after lunch with Mrs. Q who popped over from work we bombed around the convention and I ran a quick mini-adventure for the two kids using their Ingenium characters.  I didn't end up buying anything except some souvenirs for the kids.  I saw the new "it's not a Monster Manual" for OSRIC, but a glance through it didn't thrill me.  I considered succumbing to my temptation to buy an interesting look...