Preview The Ultimate Adequate Commoner on Kickstarter Now

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Sep 252014

I just finished reading the meat of The ~~Ultimate~~ Adequate Commoner. Well, the preview copy that is. I must say I’m a bit surprised, it has a lot of information in it that supports everything you will need as a player to be ordinary – except one thing and we will get to that at the very end.

The Adequate Commoner starts out by asking you the question about the why you might want to play a commoner. Which is the perfect place to start. Many players will just look at it say why and never think about an application of ordinary. For most of us the goal is to play a hero right? Well don’t you know many of heroes are ordinary, or they were at the start of the story.

After defending the commoner as a class J.W. moves into what I would refer to as archetypes. Sharing with you a few common themes in literature and gaming, like a peasant that enjoys melee, and my personal favorite the peasants that rebel or ninjas. Not ninjas like Hollywood glamorizes, but the original ninjas. The ones that learned to hide because they didn’t know how to fight and guerrilla warfare was their only method. He also includes with each of these descriptions concepts on for a GM to consider when balancing the class for the player. In other words ne is encouraging the GM to help polish the otherwise scuffed commoner. Which is something I think a good GM does anyway.

The class in and of itself is well developed and appears to be balanced in structure – ordinary remember. The class only gets 2 weapon inefficiencies, but they get a job. Something I argue with friends about all the time. Adventurers need to get paid too!

There is a lot of information in the book about gear, magic, alchemy and he even covers the aspect of an all commoner party, but if I tell you everything you won’t buy it. So what was that one thing?

This book will give an excellent frame to build an ordinary character. The kind that gets off the school bus starts to walk down the driveway and sees an orc horde charging the house. What does that common person do? Run, freeze in fright, or charge to help their family? I know my answer. That one thing is the personality of the character.

This book will bring you to that point where an ordinary person is prepared to face that defining moment. A moment that shapes the personality of a character. This book will help players go beyond playing a mere role and step forward into playing a character.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall Director’s Cut now out!

Catalyst Game Labs, Shadowrun Comments Off

Sep 192014

Press release

Shadowrun: Dragonfall Director’s Cut now out!

By JHARDY | Published: SEPTEMBER 19, 2014

It’s a fine day to play Shadowrun! But then, I always think that. Today’s an especially good day, though, because you can get the Shadowrun: Dragonfall Director’s Cut. What’s that, you ask? Well, it’s a standalone version of an expansion to Harebrained Schemes’ critically acclaimed Shadowrun Returnscomputer game that was even more critically acclaimed than the original. How critically acclaimed? Well, people said things like this:

You can read the full article at Catalys Game Labs.

Valiant RPG Rules Review

Catalyst Game Labs, Featured, RPG's, Valiant Comments Off

Sep 182014

The Full book is about 200 pages. Nearly two thirds of the book is about the Valiant universe, its characters and some adventures. That means the meat of the rules are contained in about fifty pages. This sets the stage for a rich setting, great roleplaying and light rules.

I’m a big fan of this book. The art alone makes it worth the purchase. You find great valiant art on nearly every page. If you’re new to the valiant universe, like me, You will find this book to be a tome of vast knowledge. It was way too easy for me to become immersed in the fluff – not something I normally do.

I have already reviewed the QSR, but if you haven’t read that here is what I think you should know. Valiant is a storytelling game. The players each take turns narrating a chapter. They must combine their efforts to play through the challenges while attempting to overcome the obstacles thrown at you from by the lead narrator (ln) – who is also playing a character.

As you might expect you will face challenges that will require you to pass a test or two along the way. In order to make such a check you roll a d12 plus the appropriate stat die vs d20 plus some modifiers. The higher number wins. Luck is the wild card and it always remains a static number. When the die roll plus the static number match luck it’s a crit!. The other cool part about this is that the stats are represented by dice.

Which brings us to character creation. It is a pretty fast and smooth process, I made my first character in 20 minutes and my second in about 15. Creation uses nine steps one of which is assigning power dice and picking powers. This system is fast and easy. It’s so easy I think Valiant could be a great gateway game for a college dorm.

I have played a few time now and I find that the system flows smoothly, with very few hiccups. I was really surprised at that the narration works. It seems that there is never a dull moment in this universe, largely because each narrator is trying to out do the other. With all that said, I’m concerned for theValiant RPG – it might just be too much fun.

You can find a copy at DriveThruRPG or visit Catalyst to learn more

Valiant RPG QSR Rules Review

Yashima is Green Brier Games Next Kickstarter

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Aug 212014

One of the highlights of my Gen Con Experience was stopping by the GreenBrier Games booth and learning about Yashima. The first part of this experience was meeting with Tony, the game developer. We did an interview where he discusses the basic mechanics of the game

I fell in love with that description.

Flip Through the Alchemy Manual from Paizo

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Aug 212014

Matt Flips Through the Alchemy Manual for Pathfinder while sharing what he sees as promising. This book includes archery and Alchemy, oozes, poisons, and more.

You can learn more at Paizo. Until next week game well.

Box Breaking 111 Dementalism from Off the Cob Productions

Card Games, Featured Comments Off

Aug 112014

In this Box breaking Matt looks at Dementalism, a wacky game of memory. Dementalism is the game child of Andy Hopp and Off the Cob Productions. Featuring the art of Andy Hopp. Andy is also the manstermind behind Low Life and half a dozen other games.

Leare more here Dementalism.

Thank you Music Alley.

Another TV Dinner performed by Aardvark

Con on the Cob Interview 6 Andy Hopp

THE STRANGE Player’s Guide

Gaming News Comments Off

Aug 092014

THE STRANGE Player’s Guide

$19.99 SRP

This will be a 96-page softcover book that will give a brief introduction to the setting and provide information needed for character creation. GMs can give this to their players to introduce them to the game. It’s also really handy at character creation time, or any time it’s useful to have another copy of the most important rules at your gaming table.

THE STRANGE Core Book Hardcover

Gaming News Comments Off

Aug 082014

THE STRANGE Core Book Hardcover

$59.99 SRP

Beneath the orbits and atoms of our natural universe lies a network of dark energy. Those who have learned to access and navigate this chaotic sea have discovered an almost endless set of “recursions” in the shoals of our Earth: Worlds with their own laws of reality, reflected from human experience or imagination, given form in the swirling Chaosphere of the Strange. Worlds teeming with life, with discovery, with incredible treasures, and with sudden death.

Worlds sometimes jealous of our own.

The secret plunder of these worlds draws the brave, the daring, and the unscrupulous – and it draws dangerous enemies from these recursions back to our Earth.

And slowly but inexorably, it draws the attention of beings from beyond Earth’s shoals – beings of unfathomable power and evil from the unknown reaches of. . .

The Strange is a game that crosses multiple worlds, called recursions, which player characters can explore and defend. In The Strange, your characters change with each world they travel to, taking on new aspects suited to that recursion’s unique laws and structures. Eventually, as characters progress, they might even gain the ability to create a recursion of their own!

This will be a full-color hardcover coming in at 416 pages. It will be lavishly illustrated and organized, referenced, and annotated, very much on the model of Numenera. The goal is to make it a breeze and a joy to run this game, and–if you get the print version – something beautiful that game lovers will want to keep on your coffee table in between games.

Countdown to Gen Con 10 days Left Adventure a Week

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Aug 022014

Another day gone only 10 days left. Where is the time going? Talk about an absolutely nuts day. It started at 4:45 in the morning. My boys had to march in the Football hall of Fame parade. Took the van in for repairs and I cooked dinner for my parents! I’m tired.

Today I’d like to chat about Adventure a Week. If you are a role player in the D20 world this might be worth your time. Every week they publish a new Pathfinder or D&D 3.5 adventure.I’m certainly going to look into it.

In March they finished the Rise of the Drow on Kickstarter. It puts the previous PDF’s into print. Plus the book puts some great people,like Owen K.C.Stephens, Jen Page, and Robert Gulver. to work on the stretch goals. I will admit I’ve never seen the PDF, but after seeing the art for the Kickstarter I really want to take an in depth look at the book. I mean it’s Drow and it has a mushroom forest. Something that I had started designing myself. I love the idea and maybe I’ll be lazy and use theirs.

They Currently have another Kikckstarter Snow White. An adventure for 6^th -8^th level characters in a fairy tale adventure. If it keeps climbing stretch goals we will see some great additions from Ed Greenwood, Wolfgang Bauer, and Jen Page. I would really like to see what Wolfang has planned for that deep and dark fairy tale magic.

Well it’s late and I’m exhausted. I fell a sleep three times typing this.

Til tomorrow take care

Matt

Guardians’ Chronicles in August From Iello

Board Games, Iello Comments Off

Jul 302014

Guardians’ Chronicles

$69.99 SRP

Guardians Chronicles is a superhero-themed miniatures game in which you play as one of the members of the Liberty Patrol or as the group’s archnemesis, Professor Skarov.

To set up, the Skarov player arranges the nine double-sided game board tiles into a 3×3 grid, with his control room in the center space. Each player takes her character sheet, miniature and 7-10 action cards. These characters enter the grid on one of the side tiles and need to advance around the square – confronting minions and traps along the way – in order to achieve whatever objectives are in place for this game, such as thwarting a nuclear missile attack.

Each turn, the hero players play 1-2 action cards; each card shows both a special power and modifiers to that hero’s inherent statistics – movement, attack, defense and mental – and the played cards can be used for either the special power or the modifiers. Each hero player has four actions in a round, and the players can play in any order they wish; the actions are move across the base, attack an enemy, or use a special power on a played action card or the hero’s character sheet.

Professor Skarov then receives a number of action points based partially on the heroes’ actions, and he uses these to activate himself, his minions, or his robots, with these figures also performing move, attack, or special power actions.

As the players complete (or fail to complete) objectives, the newspaper’s report on who did what, and the sum of those reports determine who comes out on top.

2-5 players

Ages 14+

1 2 … 8 9 10 11 12 … 20 21

Press release

Shadowrun: Dragonfall Director’s Cut now out!

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