Gen Con: Games I Ran One: Doctor Who

My experience with this year's Doctor Who was interesting.

I don't own the rulebook in a dead tree format. I ran games last year from my tablet. Silly me though took those PDFs off my tablet so I picked up the dead tree version from Cubicle 7 to run it.

Had a blast. I was fortunate enough to have Kurt from GameGeeks pick up and play the Doctor himself and while I don't want to say that his performance encouraged other players to pick up the slack or anything like that, they certainly feed into the game in an organic matter that seemed to me that it would've fit the show perfectly.

The actual organization of the game was a bit wacky though. See, a few of the actual ticket holders were late, but not so late that I couldn't take their tickets, so some waiting to use their generics, couldn't play. And that was after I handed out an extra character that was 'gender neutral' and so had a male and female version, which I just decided were husband and wife. The bad thing though, is that during the game, two of the people had to leave so I could've taken the other individual with the generic tickets. Ah well, outside my control.

Anyway, the game involved some characters coming from a modern time to the 'Victoriana' age so to speak where a certain reptile woman lurks with a few other standbys. The introduction to get all the players together was fairly quick and no one seemed to mind as it was a good flow to get all the characters from different times together without having to actually have everyone start off in the Tardis at once.

The players managed to avoid most combats by use of quick wits and fast talking, as well as some excellent reminders from Kurt that the Doctor is not one to be trifled with.

With I say everyone had a good time, I'm speaking from my own observation. I can't tell you what people were thinking or actually feeling, but the involvement level of almost all the players was pretty high even when they were playing a father desperately worried about his son.

In terms of the game itself, most people seemed very impressed with the new edition. I'm not certain how much has changed between editions because I don't actually play or run enough Doctor Who to break it down, but apparently there is some PDF with the main changes on it. Everyone was impressed with how nice the book looked, the free dice, the billions of story points, the nice cards, the numerous pregenerated characters and most importantly, how sturdy the box was. Apparently the old box wasn't anywhere near as sturdy so people had some gruff concerns about that, but Cubicle 7 took care of that issue by attacking the root cause of the problem.

August Kickstarter Notes

Well, it's August and I can tick down the Kickstarters again or go with what my gut is telling me.

RPGs and Kickstarters are not a good combination. When the game companies themselves can't make their release dates for various reasons, for Joe and Jack Smoo to boldly seize the Kickstarter model and put a date on that there has NOTHING to do with reality, well, it's time for me to realize that as much as I'd love to support the hobby directly and as much as I admire some of the people involved with the games coming out and as much as I'll miss some really cool stuff, it's just not my thing on the RPG side.

I can tick off three that are months late and the people running it have already said, "Uh yeah, it's going to be done when it's done." So business as usual. Why would an individual running stuff have a better track record then a company that usually missed it's deadlines? Or any gaming company that missed them? Ah well. Hopefully the whole thing doesn't turn into another 'Razor Coast' fiasco because some of these individuals are decent people and I'd hate to see them ruin their online reputations. If people start asking for refunds, that will be the real test.

So I'm pretty much done with RPG kickstarters. A little annoying really and maybe when the RPGs I've backed finally do come through maybe I'll be like, "Oh wow, that was so awesome having to wait months and months and months for it that I'll support your project in the future."

But probably not.

But for whatever reason, I'm still doing the miniatures:

http://www.indiegogo.com/drakskullsmenace Picture a Games Workshop Vampires Count Army. Now picture it with Games Workshop Orcs but still for Vampire Counts. Some pretty cool stuff coming out here.

http://www.indiegogo.com/pirate-goblins Pirate goblins? Pretty good prices? Yeah, down with that.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1513061270/reaper-miniatures-bones-an-evolution-of-gaming-min?ref=live People want to see Reaper Miniatures come out with more Bones, their inexpensive plastic variants of their miniatures. This Kickstarter is going to be friggin' huge.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1103158358/red-box-games-helsvakt-horde?ref=history Tre Manor is a Reaper sculptor who has his own line of goods. He's switching over to a new material.

Historical note here: I thought that as soon as Games Workshop went to 'Finecast' that it was over for metal. I posted on RPG.net about it. The price is too much in flux and almost always going on way. Looks like I'm pretty much right on the money. It'll be interesting to see what happens as this trend can only continue.

The Old Ways by David Dalglish

The Old Ways is another book in the paladins series. It's also a bit shorter than a regular novel but reads longer then the previous two. David continues to have a relatively small cast, but it does grow. In many ways, the setting grows in this book as we get more views of how things are working and turning out in the setting as a whole.

It's another solid book and plays well into the previous series and even brings back the baddies from the first book.

Now onto spoilers.

1. Watch the Magic. The 'evil' priest here manages a sacrifice and is rewarded with VAST friggin' power. Too much power for the amount of sacrifice in my opinion. The reason why I say watch the magic is that if you make it too easy to get power, then the players are going to want to know why when they do the same thing it doesn't work. The other problem is that it cheapens the methods used if you're just going to have the heroes block everything the baddies have. What good was all that power eh? You just got Punk'd.

2. The God's Will Is Not Your Will. David hit this a little last book but it hits again this book. When the gods are real in the setting, thinking your method of worshipping the god, of what the god wants, may get smacked upside the head when you see something that doesn't jib with your morale or perhaps even your entire foundation of the religion. If you didn't get that right, is anything about your religion right?

3. Gods Have Servants. On the cover of the Old Ways, we see some servants of the evil god of order here. They're like fiendish lions made of obsidian with lava for blood.

4. The Supernatural Has Limits. There is a wraith introduced here as well as the demonic loins. None of them can cross water. It makes a nice change of pace from seeing the can do this and that and and and and... Putting some limits on monsters allows you to have some perhaps more powerful monsters but creatures that have limits.

An affordable fantasy series that should provide some inspiration for those who run paladins or have them in their campaigns, the Old Ways brings a lot of threads together even as it expands the setting.

Clash of Faiths by David Dalglish

So after reading the first book for free, I went to Amazon and bought the second book which was under one dollar. It's not really a full length novel but more like a novella. Like the first book, it features Jericho and Darius, paladins of different faiths who find themselves clashing again.

The book continues the focus on high action stakes but raises the background focus a little this time. Instead of just being on a small town, we have a locality, 'The North', where it's a wild and lawless land where a good king has passed on his inheritance and an evil king, his younger brother, is abusing his rank and privilege.

Overall its a satisfying book with enough action to keep fantasy readers happy and its also fairly low magic. The big magic that does occur tends to happen from one 'GMNPC' so to speak and its usually not flashy and not in the heroes favor when its in play.

Below I'll be going into some spoilers so reader beware!

1. Faith is Not Its Own Reward. One of the interesting things here is that David Dalglish plays with the idea of how faith is rewarded and how its interpreted. Imagine your whole life spent believing your faith was pushing you one way but you went another and hey, since the gods are real in this setting, you quickly discovered your error. In D&D, the Dungeon Master has a lot of power over how he lets the players that have divine ties act. The gods can quickly take away their power. A paladin without his spells isn't too but one that loses all his abilities and has a holy sword that he can't use anymore? Yeah, he's going to have problems.

2. Build Slowly But Surely. As mentioned above, the focus of the setting moves up a little. This is again reminiscent of older D&D games where the characters start small and by the end may be travelling the planes and fighting lost gods and dragons of epic renown. Theres no need to add all of those things unless the game requires it at that second.

3. Religious Orders and Royal Knights. While note the focus of this book, the fact that the paladins are accorded a bit of respect and leeway in how they handle things is an interesting bit to note as it showcases how they may be interacting with the laws and lay of the land.

4.And Then An Attack Happens. When things are moving too slow, throw some competition or some enemy fire into the game. Nothing gets players to stop playing with their toys like having to actually roll the dice and pay attention to the game.

After having read the second book, I suspect I'll be looking at the other books by this other very shortly.

Night of Wolves by David Dalgish

A free book in a series called the Paladins available from Amazon at this link? Yes please.

Night of Wolves is the first book I've read by David Dalgish and it was good enough that I went back to Amazon and bought the other two books in the series. The second one is an easy sell as its only .99 cents while the third book soars in price to $2.99. Still, three books for under four bucks? Good deal.

The person who is going to like this book is one who likes a small cast that is always engaged in action. This isn't to say there isn't any character development or that the world isn't larger than what we see in the novel. However the focus is on action and on survival of man versus monster and of course some of that man versus man bits there. Its a relatively short novel and moves at a good clip and is a good way to see if you'd be interested in further books by David Dalgish.

Below I'll start hitting some of the spoilers of the book so if you don't like those, read no further!

1. Starting Small. One of the things that many early D&D adventurers have in common is that its up to the characters to save the small town or to explore the small town. Here that remains true as well. Events move up a little in the chain of importance but for the main characters in this book, saving the town and surviving the uprising of the wolves is the primary goal.

2. Paladins are more than just warriors. Several times during the novel the paladins provide encouragement and prayer to those under their care. They are there for more than just being knights and valiant warriors.

3. Players and their Orders: There are two paladins in the book, a 'light' one and a 'black' one. The former is more like the healing and beneficial style cleric we all know and love while the later is heavily militant based and focused on bringing order to the world. The two in this novel get along well to the point where when ordered to attack the 'white' paladin, the black one does not. This should be a model for player characters. While it can be fun to have betrayal and other backstabbing elements in the game, its often better to keep the player characters together and have the NPCs doing the dirty work. It's okay if the PCs are mad at the GM and not quite so good when they are against each other.

4. Paladins are fun. Dragon magazine once had an article along the lines of a plethora of paladins. Paladins often have unique mounts ranging from their horse to nightmares to pegasi to other beasts. Paladins often, regardless of their level, have unique weapons and armor suited for their mission. In older editions of the game, due to their high stat requirements, paladins were often some of the most powerful characters in the game.  When looking at the role of paladins in your own game, do they follow the Deeds of Paksenarrion? Are they well known? Do they have organizations? Do they war with one another along the lines of their gods?

5. Enemy with a Cause. While no one wants the wolf men of the novel to win, David does a good job of providing some rationale as to why they are acting the way they do. Why they are such fierce creatures. When looking at the main foe of your campaign, pepper them up a little so that they are more than just statistics for the players to burn through.

Night of Wolves is well worth a read at its price point and its page turning action should encourage some great werewolf battles in your campaign.

Not Dead Yet!

Normally the start of the month is when things slow down and I get to catch a breather or two. That has not happened this month. Instead, I'm working six to seven days a week still and trying to prep myself for Gen Con where I'll be running games for Crucible 7 with The One Ring and other games. While I am a little rusty, I'm not too worried about the whole running of games bit as much as trying to get some system mastery in while I'm still painting and trying to have a life outside of hobbies and work.

Not easy!

Still, I am reading very rarely in between and wishing that Gen Con wasn't around the corner because Comixology has some fantastic sales going on with both Godzillia and the Walking Dead. Because of Gen Con though, I'm holding back.

But Gen Con isn't enough to stop the continued backing of some Kickstarters! After I lay down some money and see some more results I'll try to add those to next month's ranting and raving about them.

In the meanwhile, I hope the drought isn't effecting your state or home. I'm already dreading the price increases we're going to see on produce as the news has just been hammering how badly Indiana and Illinois have been hit and even though I'm sure a lot of that corn is corn feed for animals, that just means that the price of meat will continue to skyrocket.

Stay cool and stay safe!

The Kickstarters That Weren't

I figure since I discussed the Kickstarters I've supported, I might as well talk about the ones I didn't and give a brief run down of why. Please note these are my own depraved opinions and my own cynical brain working so they are not necessarily the reality of the situation. Proceed with caution!

Appendix N Adventure Toolkit: Two things here. Well, three things. The amount of playing I've been involved is in small. Two, I don't own the Goodman Games RPG this is for. Three, I missed it. No, really, I was going to back it. The funds were relatively small for even some of the better rewards and I was going to. Figure I'd try to do a whole renaissance thing of gaming for myself with the Goodman book and some other bits. It's not that I won't get into it eventually but so much painting to do...

Norsgard: Well, this one didn't receive that much funding at all. The figures they do have look nice but I think they're a little too indie and unknown right now to go for such a huge goal. Another company that's been around for a while had a large goal and almost didn't make it. Might be better to start with smaller goals when your this new.

Avatars of War Dwarf Army: This is the one I was talking about that almost didn't make it. I know, you look at the total know and you're like, "Is Joe crazy?" For a long time that meter didn't move. It seemed to be a surge at the last minute. I didn't back it because Sedition Wars and Mantic kicked me in the face and left my wallet bleeding and unable to fund ANOTHER miniature scale at the size I'd want to. I was also slightly put off by shipping fees. I know things aren't free but most of the ones I've participated in didn't have shipping.

City Of Clocks: I love city campaigns. I love city books. Not too fond of generic books. Still, I was about to support when I saw their updates. They were going to provide some gaming notes but they started off with what I consider some fairly popular systems but left the most popular systems at the very top of the food chain. My cynical brain decided they were doing that to lure people into pledging in order to get up to those higher levels. That's just me. Probably completely wrong but when I see Savage Worlds and Pathfinder after some OSR stuff? M'eh. If it comes to retail and I have funds I'll probably take a look at it then.

Jeff Easley/Scott Taylor: Another retro project. I love the art involved here. However, if you're going to sell the completed product at the exact same price at the finished product, why I am getting in ahead of the game? Sure, if I was a die hard fan the answer would be to insure that it's created. For me, I have hundreds of books I haven't read yet. I've got a bit of a collector's problem but it's also a cynical bit so while the various Half Price books have numerous dollar racks, I have no problem buying the occasional e-book or kickstarter project. But when you're charging the same thing for people to buy it from you direct as the kickstarters? And again, that's just my opinion. And here's the other thing. While some may hate Amazon, I love that I can sync my Kindle books from any purchases from the store automatically. Have to do it manually when you buy the files individually.

It's something another Kickstarter did where they were selling it on Amazon before you got your Kickstarter copy. So.... I could buy it from Kickstarter, wait around for it to be sent or pay the same price and download it to all my devices with no problem? I know which route I'm taking in the future.

Again, I'm sure I'm missing some and there are some things I want to kickstart but have to wait on the old funds to see where what lands when but those are the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

Have there been any kickstarters you've looked at and said.... "You know... outside of... but really..."