Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Quick Start

So, I finally took a break from reading 13th Age and Numenera to look this over and am pleased with what I've seen.

It's funny, most of the changes that the development team have made are ones I would have made, but I found myself fighting the the old monster known as nostalgia as I moved through it.  Make no mistake, I like this iteration of the rules (and have 6 previous editions and the BRP rule book) and look forward to owning them.  I was simply surprised at missing statistics in the 3 -18 range and a even the hoary resistance table.

However, I feel that these rules make total sense moving forward and capture the essence of Call of Cthulhu and Basic Role Playing, and that is all that matters.

30 Day D&D Challenge: Day 4 Favorite Gameworld

This was tough and it covered several worlds.  I really like Planescape and had a long fling with Dragonlance.  I've devoted much time to the Forgotten Realms and wished I'd spent more time in Dark Sun.  But my favorite DnD world is...

Ravenloft.  Hand down.  I think I've purchased every version of the setting and have a deep fondness for it.  I won't lie, back in the heyday of ADnD 2E, I really wished for playable monsters and when White Wolf took it over during the 3.X era, part of me secretly hoped they would to a treatment of it using the World of Darkness rules.  But I still love Ravenloft and Strahd Von Zarovich and most games I run have, at minimum, a hint of horror.

Hopefully, we'll see some version of it for DnD Next, but no matter what, the mists of Ravenloft move through my games.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

30 Day D&D Challenge: Day 3 Favorite Playable Class

Dread Necromancer.  I LOVE necromancers and this scratched that itch.  I'm not much on optimization and maybe its a terrible class, but I like it nonetheless.

Even in MMORPGs, I'm a sucker for necromancers.  I think, part of it is the name, but if there is a necromancer option in a game, I'm going to explore it.

The idea of a (relatively) good character trying to explore death and try to turn it's power to help others is pretty cool to me.  And the stereotypical lonely death mage, working dark dweomers, in some profane temple is just a classic antagonist and is incapable of being over used.

Many of my DnD games has featured a necromancer named, Dunwich, plotting behind the scenes and manipulating the players and setting.


30 Day D&D Challenger: Day 2 Favorite Playable Race

Humans.  Hands down.  None of the other races inspire me...at all really.  I did play a dwarf (warlock in 4e) who betrayed his people in exchange for power, but I played him all emo and stuff.

DnD 3.X cemented it with an additional skill point and feat!

30 Day D&D Challenge: Day 1 How I got Started

This answer has two parts.

First, in Fifth Grade, I had a friend make me an elf named Melf (from the DnD Action figures) with Hank's Bow from the cartoon and he would tell me how awesome I was doing in the game (where he ran my PC).  I had a blast.  No, I don't know why I didn't just play in their game, it never occurred to my fifth grade self.

Second, I was a sophomore at the College of Mount Saint Jospeh and my old buddy, Barry, had been playing some Star Wars with some friends in highs school and when he came to the Mount I got pluged into his group.  We started on Champions, but quickly moved onto ADnD 2E, where I made a Fighter named Garamond (I was a Graphic Design student and took the name from the Font), who really wanted to be a Swashbuckler, but didn't have the stats to qualify for the Kit.  And no, our DM wasn't going to fudge anything...he only did that for a player named Kurt.

While I made the character for Todd's game, another friend, Richard ran the character first where we went to a town where if you left you lost your soul and were supposed to make it into a mysterious tower we never found the entrance to (Richard like puzzles...but he wasn't good at them).  The game last one and a half sessions.

Invincible RPG: I want to succeed more often and not break the Stunt rules

I really like the Invincible RPG and therefore the Dice Pool version of the Year Zero Engine . However, only succeeding on 6s and Pushing a...