The People of Yeltharan (Open Legend)

Yeltharan has a population of around 14 million people.  Aside from a few large cities with populations over 100,000, most of these people are scattered into either small towns or independent farm and home steads. About half the population is involved in agrarian pursuits of some kind, and the other half are fairly evenly split between lumbering and mining.Yeltharan is a closed economy that neither imports nor exports, so it provides everything that its people need internally.

Gearing up for Cthulhu (Last step of Character Building)

All right Game Fans, it’s Halloween and we’re going to cover the last step of building an Investigator for Call of Cthulhu today.  The last thing we’re going to need for our Investigator is to gear up for the myriad of potential things you could bump into while investigating the Mythos. Bear in mind, you aren’t playing Oregon Trail, so you need to figure out exactly what your character has on hand, and what he or she can lay his or her grubby mitts on when the situation demands. Let’s take a closer look at equipping yourself in Call of Cthulhu.

Player's Choice (Half-Orcs)

Player's Choice (Half-Orc Edition)

So you’ve taken a hard look at Dungeons and Dragons and decided that it’s time to make your first character for Dungeons & Dragons.  First off, welcome to the family.  You’ve taken your first steps into a world of shared storytelling and high adventure.  We’re going to take a look at the process for building your character and go over the options you have available in the Player’s Handbook (we use the 5th edition, as it’s the most recent, and we think it’s one of the most accessible systems we’ve seen in a long time.).  So grab your scratch paper, your pencil, and your character sheet as we explore the magical world of Dungeons and Dragons.

Open Legend (Work in Progress Part II)

Let's take a look at the land and the important areas of Yeltharan. 

Filling in the Background (Character Building advice for Call of Cthulhu)

All right Game Fans, we’re back to finish up our character building for Call of Cthulhu

We’ve Rolled our Attributes, generated our statistics, picked a profession, and assigned our skill points.  We’re coming in on the home stretch but we’re at one the most important parts of constructing a character, building the Backstory.  Let’s take a look at Building a Backstory, Call of Cthulhu style.  Call of Cthulhu gives you a lot of leeway for building a backstory, and they offer a variety of tables to help inspire you.  We’re going to use that narrative tool for building a backstory, to give you folks at home an idea of how the tables works.  

 

Puzzle Quest (Dungeon Mastering Advice)

All right Game Fans, today we’re going to talk about Puzzles and how to include in your encounters.  Puzzles are a staple of the fantasy genre and really came into their own with the rise of video games. Puzzles can include Movable blocks, hidden floor panels, and other combinations of environmentally based scenic elements  that can be manipulated to effect a change in the environment of the area.  They also represent password protected areas or barriers that prevent movement forward (The secret door into the Mines of Moria, for example).  Let’s take a closer look at puzzles and some of the best ways to incorporate them into your game, and some suggestions on puzzle traps to avoid.  

 

Arcana (WIP Open Legend 1)

Another look at some setting material for Open Legend

The History of the World (Open Legend)

Here's a look at the idea I had for a campaign setting for the Open Legend RPG, from 7th Sphere:

 

Bluebeard's Bride (A Closer look)

Bluebeard’s Bride is horror roleplaying game from the wonderful minds at Magpie Games.  They’ve put together a dark and sinister fairy tale of survival and determination, written from a feminine perspective.  Based off of the dark fairytale Bluebeard’s Bride, the players take the role of “sisters”, each of which represent a portion of the Bride’s mind as she explores the house her new husband has given her the keys to.  Let’s take a closer look at some core thoughts and ideas for the game.

 

The Star League Era (Technology Ascendant)

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with another look at the Star League Era for Battletech.  Today we’re going to take a look at the Military technology of the Era and how it shaped both the Star League Era and the Eras that followed.  We’re going to feature specifically Unit types that have their time in the sun during this period as well, and hope you can see how many of the in-universe experts in Battletech refer to this as the peak of humankind’s technological development.  

 

The Rise of Tiamat (Review for D & D)

Hey Game Fans, today we’re going to cover the last component of the Tyranny of Dragons story arc for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition.  We’ve dealt with the Hoard of The Dragon Queen, and we’ve taken hard looks at the entire 1st season of the Adventurer’s League organized play campaign.  The last book in this arc is a doozy, The Rise of Tiamat.  It picks up where Hoard of the Dragon Queen left off, and i think it would be very possible if you had played the entire way through the Adventurer’s League season 1 to be able to take that character and start Rise without being under leveled compared to the book’s expectations.  Let’s dig in and see what we find, shall we?

 

Player's Choice (Half-Elf Edition)

So you’ve taken a hard look at Dungeons and Dragons and decided that it’s time to make your first character for Dungeons & Dragons.  First off, welcome to the family.  You’ve taken your first steps into a world of shared storytelling and high adventure.  We’re going to take a look at the process for building your character and go over the options you have available in the Player’s Handbook (we use the 5th edition, as it’s the most recent, and we think it’s one of the most accessible systems we’ve seen in a long time.).  So grab your scratch paper, your pencil, and your character sheet as we explore the magical world of Dungeons and Dragons.

Open Legend Character Creation and Basic Rules

Open Legend is the new hot Universal Role-playing Game from Seventh Sphere.  We’ve talked about it a couple of times so far during their Kickstarter campaign, and today we’re back with a look at the Core mechanic (I do like games that have a core mechanic, “One mechanic to rule them all” so to speak), and the character creation process.  Open Legend is a story first game, and anytime the player or the GM pick up the dice, it’s always for a specific, story driven reason.  Let’s take a closer look at the core mechanic, and the character creation process.

 

Shadowrun: Anarchy (Time to Bake the Cookies, Part III) Keebler Harder

All right Chummers, we're back with the third and final part of our character creation example for Shadowrun: Anarchy.  Shadowrun: Anarchy is the brand new, rules lite, story heavy alternative rules set for telling stories and playing games in the Shadowrun Universe.  It's a story telling focused game, and the mechanics of the game are built for players to tell awesome stories that look and feel like Shadowrun.  Now Last time, we were working through the many steps of building your own character, and got through the first five or so.  If you're new to the blog, check out https://zardozgames.blogspot.com/2016/10/shadowrun-anarchy-time-to-bake-cookies.html for the first part of the article.  If you missed the second part of the series, check it out at http://zardozgames.blogspot.com/2016/10/shadowrun-anarchy-time-to-bake-cookies_24.html Let's dig into the chrome and the meat of building a character.

Shadowrun: Anarchy (Time to Bake the Cookies, Part III) Keebler Harder

All right Chummers, we're back with the second part of our character creation example for Shadowrun: Anarchy.  Shadowrun: Anarchy is the brand new, rules lite, story heavy alternative rules set for telling stories and playing games in the Shadowrun Universe.  It's a story telling focused game, and the mechanics of the game are built for players to tell awesome stories that look and feel like Shadowrun.  Now Last time, we were working through the many steps of building your own character, and got through the first five or so.  If you're new to the blog, check out https://zardozgames.blogspot.com/2016/10/shadowrun-anarchy-time-to-bake-cookies.html for the first part of the article.  If you missed the second part of the series, check it out at http://zardozgames.blogspot.com/2016/10/shadowrun-anarchy-time-to-bake-cookies_24.html Let's dig into the chrome and the meat of building a character.

Shadowrun: Anarchy (Time to Bake the Cookies, Part II)

All right Chummers, we're back with the second part of our character creation example for Shadowrun: Anarchy.  Shadowrun: Anarchy is the brand new, rules lite, story heavy alternative rules set for telling stories and playing games in the Shadowrun Universe.  It's a story telling focused game, and the mechanics of the game are built for players to tell awesome stories that look and feel like Shadowrun.  Now Last time, we were working through the many steps of building your own character, and got through the first five or so.  If you're new to the blog, check out https://zardozgames.blogspot.com/2016/10/shadowrun-anarchy-time-to-bake-cookies.html for the first part of the article.  Let's dig into the chrome and the meat of building a character.

Crescent Hawks (Shining a light)

I’ve heard rumors for several months now about unit specific force briefings coming down the road for Battletech.  The first one of these, Spotlight on: Crescent Hawks released earlier this week and i have to say, it hits a lot of good buttons but misses a few as well.  Let’s take a closer look at this new product, and show off one of the most famous units in Battletech’s history.  

Open Legend RPG (thoughts and ideas)

Hey Game Fans, we’re going to be taking a closer look at the Open Legend RPG from our good friends at Seventh Sphere Publishing.  They’ve just started a Kickstarter to fund their first core book release along with a campaign setting, Amaurea’s Dawn.  At around 33K in on their Kickstarter with 29 days to go as of me sitting down to write this, they’re going to have an excellent campaign, and we sincerely hope that they crush their stretch goals.  Let’s take a closer look at the character creation system, and some thoughts on the underly mechanisms.  

Shadowrun: Anarchy (Time to Bake the Cookies)

All right Chummers (See, we know at least one piece of Runner Slang), we’re back and taking a look at creating a new character for the Shadowrun: Anarchy rules set.  We’ve talked about how characters drive stories, and today we’re going to show you how to build your own.  Remember this is a collaborative storytelling game set in the Shadowrun Universe, so let your creativity run wild when you come up with your concept (You’ll see how whacky we’re going to get).  

Exploring your World (Dungeon Mastering Advice)

Whether you’re a little boy or girl exploring a cave with a flashlight, or a member of the Fellowship of the Ring exploring the Mines of Moria, every adventurer is going to confront an area they’ve never been to before.  Exploration forms a key pillar of adventure gaming, and i would suggest that it is the third primary struggle for adventurers.  Struggling against the environment has been a storytelling tool since we started telling stories, and as a Game Master, you can use exploration to create wonderful encounters and stories for your players.  Let’s take a look at some of the tools you can use for exploration.

Shadowrun: Anarchy (Characters Drive Stories)

Shadowrun Anarchy is loose on the streets and it is a completely new way of looking at how the Shadowrun Universe can be interacted with.  Stories are the driving force behind this new way of looking at Shadowrun, and i’ve long maintained that Characters drive stories.  Let’s take a look at some of the character ideas for Shadowrun, (we’ll compare them to Shadowrun 5th edition and yes, i’ll cover Shadowrun’s character creation system at some point)

Bluebeard's Bride (First Looks)

Another great find on Kickstarter is Bluebeard’s Bride.  Some roleplaying games are big, and full of epic adventures and cover many different types of stories.  Bluebeard’s Bride takes that idea and says “no.”  It focuses on one specific story that it can tell over and over again, rivalling a 1,001 nights in terms of depth and interaction.  I have been reading and playing roleplaying games for over 25 years, and i think that i’ve seen a lot of the different ways that you can present roleplaying games.  Then i see something like this and it just blows my mind.  Let’s take a look at Bluebeard’s Bride.

Open Legend RPG (First Looks)

A couple of interesting games popped across my Kickstarter Feed this week, and i have to admit i have been mightily impressed by both of them.  I’ll talk about the first one, Open Legend, in this article, and the other one, Bluebeard’s Bride, should get a feature later this afternoon.  Open Legend is an Open Source, System Agnostic Role-playing Game and features a lot of heavy talent from the RPG community, including, Ed Greenwood (Yes, that Ed Greenwood) and Matt Mercer (Yes, that Matt Mercer) to name just a couple of the people that are involved.  My connection is tangential, as it is through my internet friendship with Ryan Schapals, one of the many hard working folks who help bring Hyper RPG to life every week.  It’s a brand new kickstarter campaign that’s only been up for a day, but when last seen had allready cracked two stretch goals.  Let’s take a closer look under the hood of the game.

Player's Choice (Gnome Edition)

So you’ve taken a hard look at Dungeons and Dragons and decided that it’s time to make your first character for Dungeons & Dragons.  First off, welcome to the family.  You’ve taken your first steps into a world of shared storytelling and high adventure.  We’re going to take a look at the process for building your character and go over the options you have available in the Player’s Handbook (we use the 5th edition, as it’s the most recent, and we think it’s one of the most accessible systems we’ve seen in a long time.).  So grab your scratch paper, your pencil, and your character sheet as we explore the magical world of Dungeons and Dragons.

The Reunification War (Battletech)

Hey Battletech Fans, we’re back with another feature on the Star League Era for Battletech.  Today we’re taking a look at the conflict that serves as the origin of the Star League, the Reunification War.  The Reunification War has several different perspectives to take a look at, and I’m going to cover the broadest strokes of that conflict.  If you’re interested in more, I strongly encourage you to dive into the Historical: Reunification War book from Catalyst Game Labs.  It’s the book i’m using to put this write up together for you, and will hopefully give you depth of details you’re looking for.

Building your Investigator, One Job at a time (Professional Help for Call of Cthulhu)

Hey Mythos Fans, we’re back for another article in our series on putting together an investigator for the Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game from Chaosium.If you’re curious, check out the first part of our series further back in our archives, just look over on the right side at the article list and find the ones on Call of Cthulhu.  Today we’re going to take a closer look at one of the more critical decisions that you get to make when you’re building a character.  What is your character’s occupation?  In some games this represents your character’s class, or primary job.  CoC takes this in a different direction, and looks at your character’s occupation as the penultimate piece of your background before you found your way into the Mythos.  What were you before the madness started to leak into the world?

Adventurer's League Season 1 (Part VIII, the finale)

All right Game Fans, we’re back with our final look at the first season of Dungeons and Dragons organized play, The Tyranny of Dragons.  We’ve had a heck of a ride so far folks, but we’re at the final adventure in this season, DDEX 1-14, Escape From Phlan.  We will still be covering the Rise of Tiamat Hardcover adventure and take a bit of a break before we start the write up for Season 2.  We have looked at this from the perspective of participating in the Adventurer’s League organized play campaign, so we’ll focus on it from that and go from there.    Let’s see how this particular adventure season ends, and prepare to bid a fond farewell to the city of Phlan.  

DFA: Renegades Week 2

Hey Game Fans, Sorry we didn't post anything, we were out of the office with the flu.  Today we're back with a look at the second episode of Death From Above: Renegades.  For those not aware, Renegades is an eight week mini-series put on by Hyper-RPG and the fine folks at Zombie Orpheus Entertainment and is a parallel story to the main Death from Above plot.  It centers around Jackrabbit, a MechWarrior for a frontier/wild west style travelling show, and his two companions Cade and Mack.  The rest of the principal cast are Cotton, a successful mercenary MechCommander and Smalls, a young and freshly tested MechWarrior.  This week's episode starts with the return of Cotton's mercenary command and then things just go sort of wrong...

Social Encounter Building Ideas (Part II)

Hey Game Fans, last week we took a look at some ideas for how to setup your encounters for your role-playing games.  The crux of what we looked at revolved around what you expected your players to gain/glean/suffer for engaging the encounter.  Today we’re going to look at another important part of encounter building, the antagonist.  I’ve called them the Challenge in the past, and i’m sure there are dozens of other titles and names that people have used in the past.  Let’s take a closer look at what the antagonist is supposed to do, and the role they play in the story you’re setting up for your players to experience.  

Guardians of the Galaxy (MUMG)

Continuing our series on the teams for the Marvel Universe Miniatures Game, we’re going to take a closer look at the Guardians of the Galaxy team.  Currently the smallest team, it has the core members of the team from the movie, Nova, the Thing, and Dr. Doom.  There are several potentially fun additions that Knight Models can make to the team, and the Guardians have a surprisingly deep bench of potential team members.  Now we’ve all ready covered the Thing and Dr. Doom with our feature on new releases, so if you’re interested, dig back through the archive on the right hand side of the screen and take a look. Let’s take a closer look at the starter set then and see what sort of trouble we can get into.

Last Days (Huge News)

Congratulations are in order to our good friend Ash Barker and his Last Days Project.  Details came down last night about his contract with Osprey Games to bring Last Days to the market place.  This is the culmination of a lengthy process of testing and revision, and we wish the absolute best to Ash and his happy future as a Games Designer.  We also hope he lets us review this game in the future.  Look for it in about a year, so it should be ready for a potential Halloween release in 2017. That sounds like good marketing to us. 

You can find Ash teaching this game on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrPO7KIAtwVvZ4CR78eVOYBFtQLiUS7p

Check it out, we've done several articles on it, and would love to add even more. 


Big Ups, Ash

Game on, Game Fans

Player's Choice (Dragonborn Edition)

So you’ve taken a hard look at Dungeons and Dragons and decided that it’s time to make your first character for Dungeons & Dragons.  First off, welcome to the family.  You’ve taken your first steps into a world of shared storytelling and high adventure.  We’re going to take a look at the process for building your character and go over the options you have available in the Player’s Handbook (we use the 5th edition, as it’s the most recent, and we think it’s one of the most accessible systems we’ve seen in a long time.).  So grab your scratch paper, your pencil, and your character sheet as we explore the magical world of Dungeons and Dragons.

 

Star League Era (Amaris and the Rim Worlds Republic)

I did make a minor goof when i mentioned societal constructs that wouldn’t survive the Star League Era.  House Amaris and their Rim Worlds Republic would also be lost to the fires of Interstellar war, and by the end of the Star League Era, their systems would either be destroyed by the rigors of war, or absorbed by the Lyran Commonwealth.  Stefan Amaris, the last ruler of the Rim Worlds Republic, would be the architect of the fall of the Star League, but he had some some help along the way.  

Op-ed (Political, only going to do this once, ever)

Well, I would like to thank both parties for putting on the most amazing, absolutely classiest debate about substantive policy issues and action plans to help ensure the future of our country last night.  St. Louis could barely contain the statesmen (women) at their finest, discussing their political perspectives and engaging each other on their policy positions rather than any of a myriad of potential social and personal issues.  America absolutely deserves these two candidates right now.

Star League Era (House Cameron and the Terran Hegemony)

Hey Battletech Fans, we’re going to continue our long look at the History of Battletech by continuing our look at the Star League.  Today’s feature is twofold, and covers two very important things that defined the Star League, and are largely destroyed by the end of the Era.  House Cameron, and the Star League Defense Forces.  

Vanquished: Valiant RPG show (A show you should be watching)

One of these days i’m just going to put up a link to Hyper RPG on twitch and just leave it there.  I am consistently impressed with their analog role-playing shows and their digital games are fun to watch.  Longtime Readers (i think i actually have a few of those now) will remember my absolute love of Death From Above and CorporateSINs, as well as the fantastic work from Strix on Weekly Affirmations.  Today we’re going to add another show to the things we think you should be watching.  Vanquished is a wonderful show that features the Valiant comic book universe and the roleplaying game created by Catalyst Game Labs.  Let’s take a closer look at the game setup and the principal players.

Oh The Places You'll Go (Battletech)

Battletech has a rich science fiction background full of interesting places to go, things to see, and potential enemies to shoot at you.  There are thousands of inhabited solar systems in the Inner Sphere, and the Periphery expands that number even further.  At the furthest edges of occupied space lay the Clan Homeworlds, settled after an exodus by the Star League Defense Forces in the aftermath of the fall of the Star League.  We could spend years going over all of these star systems (and Catalyst Game Labs has released a series called Touring the Stars that explores a fraction of these worlds), but we’re going to take a look at five spectacular planets that you can visit while playing Battletech.  Some of these are era dependent, but we’ll try to make that notation when it comes up.

Encounter Building Ideas (Part I)

In the same vein as our other articles on helping new Game masters figure out how to build their own worlds and settings, we’re going to be putting together a series of articles on how to put together your own encounters and how to link them together for building your own adventures and campaigns.  We’re going to start at the small scale, and building low level encounters for your party.  We prefer to express things in terminology for Dungeons and Dragons, but we try to remain system agnostic, this advice should help you build encounters for whatever game you’re planning to run.  

 

Shadowrun: Anarchy (First Look)

Shadowrun: Anarchy is an alternative rules system for playing games and telling stories in the Shadowrun Universe.  Shadowrun has the distinction of being the 2nd role-playing game i’d ever played, and is one of the oldest of its kind still in publication.  Across the last five editions, Shadowrun has pushed the boundaries of the cyberpunk trope and thrown in some old world black magic for fun.  It’s a world where elven wizards take tea with ork hackers while plotting their next move against the Dragon sitting atop the corporate throne.  You can tell so many different stories in the Shadowrun Universe and make flavorful, neat characters that can do a lot of things.  

Adventurer's League Season 1 (Part 7)

ll right Game Fans, we’re back with another look at the first season of Dungeons and Dragons organized play, The Tyranny of Dragons.  We are looking at this from the perspective of participating in the Adventurer’s League organized play campaign, so we’ll focus on it from that and go from there.    Today we’re going to check out DDEX 1-12 Raiders of the Twilight Marsh, and DDEX 1-13 Pool of Radiance Resurgent

Player's Choice (Human Edition)

So you’ve taken a hard look at Dungeons and Dragons and decided that it’s time to make your first character for Dungeons & Dragons.  First off, welcome to the family.  You’ve taken your first steps into a world of shared storytelling and high adventure.  We’re going to take a look at the process for building your character and go over the options you have available in the Player’s Handbook (we use the 5th edition, as it’s the most recent, and we think it’s one of the most accessible systems we’ve seen in a long time.).  So grab your scratch paper, your pencil, and your character sheet as we explore the magical world of Dungeons and Dragons.

Caravaneers Warband (This is Not a Test)

First things first, we made a little boo boo in our last article.  Specialists are not an exclusive ⅓ ratio for determining their inclusion in a warband, they are inclusive ⅓ .  What this means is that as long as the ratio is 1 specialist plus 2 other guys is maintained, you can include as many specialists as you like.  The previous reported way was 1 specialist to 3 other guys, and is incorrect.  Our bad.  

Now then, onto our article for the day, a look at the Caravanners warband for This is Not a Test.  The Caravanners have a lot of options for a player, though they are the only warband in the core rulebook that has a single leader choice.  Let’s take a look at each section of the roster and see what fun we can find.

Creating an Investigator (Call of Cthulhu)

Hey Game Fans, today we’re going to take a closer look at building a character for the Call of Cthulhu 7th edition.  If you want to follow along, grab your copy of the Investigator’s Handbook, and I’ll try to give you page numbers to follow along with.  Sound Good?  Wonderful, let’s dive right into the atmospheric horror adventures of the Call of Cthulhu.

The Star League Era

The Star League is often looked back upon with nostalgia.  It was the last time that humanity was united under a single banner.  Technological revolutions, Scientific research, and colonization of new worlds rapidly changed the face of the Inner Sphere.  The Cameron dynasty, rulers of the Terran Hegemony (A state of technological advanced worlds around Terra), had united the five great houses of the Inner Sphere under their banner, and with the power of their armies, brought the Periphery to heel.  It was an age of peace, but it could not last.

World Building 101 Part II

Campaign Setting Write Up

So last week I put together the rough outline of what your players are going to need as essentials for building your own campaign setting.  So I thought I would put my money where my mouth is and show you all the basis of the campaign setting that I use when I am testing out new ideas and tinkering with how to build ideas and concepts.  So let’s take a look at my suggested starting points and see what sort of trouble we can get into. 

 

Death From Above: Renegades

For those of you who aren’t watching Twitch.tv’s Hyper RPG channel (And you really should be.  The folks there are putting on clinics about some of the best RPG games on the market, combined with a love of the technological aspects of modern gaming, more on them in the next post), Death From Above recently completed its 1st season of heavy metal armored mayhem.  I’m happy to report they’re taking what looks like an 8 week hiatus to get the next campaign arc hammered out (I’d expect something to do with the heirs of the Imperial throne of Zathrus, but that could just be me wishing hard) rather than ending a wonderful program.  However, that means we’ve got an eight week gap in the programming schedule, and that means eight weeks without giant stompy robot combat from the offices at Hyper RPG.  Sadness ensues.