Hey this looks good. Pay what you want for a bundle of tabletop games. Check it out! (Starts in 11 hours from the time of this post.) The Bundle of Holding

Another Friday, another Perpetual Geek Machine podcast! In addition to audio goodness this particular podcast is available as a video google hangout! You even get a bit of bonus material in the video, as we typically take a mid show break and cut it out. This week we break down out favorite outdoor memorial day [...]

Cast

• Iola (wood elf monk 3)
• Perseus (human paladin 3)
• Yllian (high elf wizard 3)
• Corvus (human ranger 3)
• Randy (wood elf druid 3)

The characters had been hiking across the Goathills for about an hour, searching for wherever it was the wights that had attacked them last night had come from--ideally an unguarded, treasure-laden burial ground--when they came across a gentle, grassy valley.

Given that Corvus was having no trouble following the trail left by the wights, they decided to cut across as the terrain would be easier on the wagon and it would save time. This worked out well enough until they [...]

Second discussion for this week, but it's something that's been on my mind a lot today. We all have things we don't like. Maybe it is just a genre or some aspect of a genre that you don't like, or maybe it is something bigger and more personal. We all have something that makes us not want to be part of a game. Something that might even have us taking a step back from an established group because we didn't like it. So what is it for you?

Personally, I'm not sure. I enjoy gaming and what gaming does [...]

Most of the experienced GM's that I spoke to after my first blog post on Iron Tavern about campaign building tended to be more top down designers for their worlds while I was advocating a bottom up style in the blog.  Again I will point out that I am writing the Iron Tavern posts for those people that are new to intermediate as the top down approach can be very daunting to a new GM.  In essence if you are a big planner and like to have things well set up there is more work to do the top down [...]

Mind your Ps & Qs. Sorry, couldn't resist.
Interesting factoid: there are many suppositions about where this phrase came from. The one I think most plausible is that typesetters using old printing presses had to be very mindful of how they arranged the letters for print, since p and q are mirror images of each other.

Now that's out of the way, on to the P & Q......Hey! That would make a great name for a tavern! It could be short for Pints and Quarts, or it could be the initials of the owners.

Padraig, the Irish [...]

On G+ earlier tonight, I posted about a different type of crowdfunding site. The site is called Patreon and it features a different system intended to reward content makers for making new content.

I’ve tried to explain it, but I really can’t explain it better than they can. Here is the basic idea from the FAQ:

General Questions

• What is Patreon?

Patreon lets fans become patrons of their favorite artists and content creators. Unlike other fundraising services that raise for a single big event, Patreon is for content creators who create a stream of smaller works, like youtube musicians, bloggers, comic creators, etc.

• Who can be a content creator on Patreon?

Anyone! All you need to do is setup your creator profile on the site and then tell your fans about it.

• What are the benefits of Patreon?

As a content creator:

• Get funded for working on what you love
• Give back to your most passionate fans with rewards
• Continue growing your fanbase with our social tools

As a patron and fan:

• Support the artists and content creators that you care most about
• Get rewarded by your favorite artists with pre-sell concert tickets, personal gifts, hangouts or meet & greets, or anything else they can offer as a way to say thanks
• Spread the word so others can support your favorite artists and content creators

I see folks like Autarch with ACKS doing Kickstarter after Kickstarter and it works for them. They have about 115K for income in about 94 weeks. That’s just not bad, you know?

They are always making content, interacting with their fans, being human when criticized and most importantly, they make a great game.

So what would it look like if a game company made more content, more often? The closest thing that comes to a Patreon type of thing is dungeonaday.com Pay 60 or 120 USD and you get lots and lots of [...]

“You’ve gone mad,” a voice intones, “you are no longer under your own control.” These words would strike fear into the heart of anyone, but in Mansions of Madness, a board game published by Fantasy Flight Games, these words herald your doom.

Mansions of Madness is a board game for two to five players set in a mansion where something diabolical and yes, eldritch, is churning below the surface. If you’re aware of the Call of Cthulhu series, you’ll have an idea of the kind of setting Mansions of Madness occupies. The players are the Investigators and at the start of [...]

March and April were such good months for blogging, But not May...
I remember when I was in college I used to think how great it'd be after graduation and all the free time I'd have. And truth to tell, the amount of free time I had prior to kids was pretty cool, though I did work at a computer start-up for a few years of that... May does tend to be a busy month in my family, with the school year approaching its end and both daughters being born in May. Plus I have a project at work nearing [...]

As of this very evening, Arcana Rising is officially a thing. Which will exist. I am actually taking a break from writing the chapter on magic in order to write this little blog post announcing its future existence to the world.

I want to thank everyone who contributed to this project, and everyone else who at least helped get the word out on the thing, and look forward to seeing it completed and on the virtual shelves at DriveThruRPG!

This is a follow-on post to my previous one about how to get a certain DR value for the lowest cost possible. Well, the lowest cost possible without dressing up a a wicker statue. Or a tree.
I'm biased that way.
Still, I promised to revisit this for the wealthy, and so for GURPS-Day today, here we go.
Introduction Repeated
GURPS Low Tech is a pretty darn good book. There's a lot of value there, and even more so in the three companions.

There are a few books out, such as Instant Armor, and the forthcoming Low Tech Armor Loadouts, that help whittle down the very large job of choosing armor kit. It took me a very, very long time to assemble the armor for Cadmus, my Warrior Saint in +Nathan Joy's game.

Along the way, I put together a spreadsheet. It took permutations of the various armor types in Low Tech, with quality and heaviness modifiers. I then sorted it by DR, and calcualted Cost/DR as well as Weight/DR.

Here, I present a long summary table of the results of that work, this time sorted by DR per unit weight. I've removed enough material that you can't do without the book (and I'm still not even remotely sorry).

Warriors Unburdened
My premise here is less simple than last time, where you were starting off on a budget.This time, you've either purchased enough Wealth or starting cash that you can skip the cheap stuff, or [...]

For the upcoming Petty Gods supplement.


The Sword of Rasoob



Green with corrosion, this sickle sword looks absolutely ancient. Made of bronze, it is heavier than a steel sword of identical size, and its edge has been blunted over time (-2 penalty to hit and damage). However, these penalties may be overcome through certain ritual actions, which impart a cumulative bonus to the sword for each act:

• Remove all objects of iron or steel from the wielder's person:  +2
• For each member of the party who similarly forsakes iron and steel: +1 per party member
• Ritually sacrifice magical items of armor or steel [...]

Many people give money to various causes for various reasons. Some causes are well worth your cash, while others are best left behind. Many of us in the gaming industry, tend to ignore causes as we have our noses buried in a book or a computer screen. Well now is your chance to support a great cause while doing the thing you love, game. RPGnow is offering publishers the chance to give to various causes while selling their products. This is great for you. You can go buy Dockside Dogs for Call of Cthulhu and “All proceeds from the sale of this scenario will go towards Cancer Research courtesy of the Relay for Life UK charity” or you can buy Inked Adventures: Evil Summonings and see your money go to Doctors Without Borders. This is a great service that RPGnow offers and as you look over the list of charities you will see that they even have links to just donate. Check it out and see if there are any products your desire or even a cause that you want to put your cash towards.

The post Gamers supporting charities appeared first on Not the Singularity.

I received my proof copies of MTDAA Volume 1: Tour of Duty in the mail today. The box was a smidge beat up, and one of the copies (I ordered 5) had a ding in the corner... I hope that individual copies fare better from them. I'm a wee bit concerned, but at this point I'm all in with Createspace for my print publishing, so I will keep my fingers crossed.

I had to make a few minor tweaks to the cover and back cover, but everything else looks good. The book is how I always envisioned Army Ants, [...]

This is one I'm looking forward to using in one of my upcoming games as I like the sense of otherworldly creep-factor that I get from the very idea of this one.  The story I've included here is pretty much the same as the one you would have heard elsewhere but it's nice to gather up all of the information in one place.  Besides, sometimes the classic tales are more terrifying than anything I could have dreamed up.  You can read more about the Pied Piper, other True Fae Tales, and other Changeling-specific articles over here.

The Pied Piper

Centaurs are a noble race of beast-men who, as in their appearance, straddle a line between humanity and animal savagery. Their trust is hard to earn; their wrath is cheap indeed!

Sorry for the lateness of this! Busy work and busy weekends make Joe a tired boy. Also apologies for the boobs on display here, I just felt like 99% of the fantasy centaurs I see are bare-chested, muscled males and I felt like switching up the gender - the result is something like Walt Disney's (planned) topless centaurs for Fantasia meets Merle from Escaflowne or some other borderline-furry [...]

You read that right.

Psi-punk: a Fudge Cyberpunk RPG is available now!

If you were a backer, you received an e-mail earlier today with a link to download the files. If not, don't worry -- you can buy it now from OneBookShelf for just $19.99.

I expounded a bit more on this announcement at the Accessible Games website.

Thanks to everyone who helped support Psi-punk up to this point, and to all of the new fans who are just coming on board!

To my mind, character immersion is the very quintessence of Roleplaying Games. Making decisions from the perspective of your character and feeling what your character feels is pure magic. There's a simple trick GM's can use to help nurture this immersion: customising descriptions to the characters at hand.

Hey! Look! Examples!---------"It's a crisp and altogether pleasant autumn day as you all steadily trek up the mountains," I said to the group as a whole. I then turned to the one player not playing a native of the region. He happened to come from a  much warmer climate. "It's [...]

Character creation and leveling up can be confusing, even for experienced players. There's a lot of keep track of, including abilities to choose and statistics to be recalculated.

The Character Workbook line for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is a series of game aids designed to walk you through the process and help you keep track of all those changes. It's not a character sheet -- you'll still need one of those -- but it will help you make sure you've filled out your character sheet completely and correctly. You'll never have to worry that your character has been short-changed. If you [...]

The wait is over.

Thanks to the support of 116 amazing backers, 5 special freelancers, 1 very excited new game designer, and one very patient significant other Psi-punk is here.

Available now in PDF format through DriveThruRPG and RPGNow, Psi-punk is ready for the gaming public. Softcover and hardcover versions will be available soon via print-on-demand options through the same websites; their set-up time is a bit longer as we have to order and approve a proof copy first.

Are you as excited as I am? If so, please remember to leave a review at any one [...]

Continue reading [...]

Squishy dice are fun. You can throw them at your players. Players can throw them at their GM. You can squeeze them when you’re stressed. You can smash them with a book when they don’t perform. The dog might eat them so be careful to keep them off the floor but have no fear, you can always get more. I really dig these dice and can’t wait to get my own.

The post Squishy Dice appeared first on Not the Singularity.

Wandered Roads of Varisia
Session 19
January 26, 2013
Campaign Timeline



I'd Like to 'Axe' You a QuestionOathday, 13th of Lamashan

The party headed back to Thistletop in search of Ehlyna's missing axe and hoping to end the existence of the evil demon creature residing in the lower levels. The trip there and the delve to the lowest level of the ruins was uneventful, though Leela was excited for the opportunity to see and map a new ruins. Outside the immense metal door with the 7-pointed star engraved on it, the group took a moment to magically prepare [...]

So I know that we still know next to nothing – but I’ve had a chance to read all the way through the new preview for 5e Shadowrun and I continue to realize that I’m just not going to like this game. Nothing in this preview improves my perception of the limits system. If anything, […]

In September, WizKids will launch a 6-month long storyline organized play event for Star Trek: Attack Wing, its new Star Trek Heroclix tactical space combat game.  Participating stores will host tournaments where players challenge each other for dominance of the Alpha Quadrant, as part of the Dominion War.  Players will collect a participation prize each month and will compete for a new playable ship that will be offered only through the organized play events.  At the end of the six months, the player with the best record will be awarded the title of Fleet Admiral as well as a special grand prize.

The Dominion War story line was mostly developed throughout the Deep Space Nine series and features the struggle and chaos faced by the Federation and their allies when the Jem'Hadar and the Breen Confederacy established a presence in the Alpha Quadrant and attempted to conquer everything in their path with [...]

"Personally I should not care for immortality in the least. There is nothing better than oblivion, since in oblivion there is no wishunfulfilled. We had it before we were born, yet did not complain. Shall we then whine because we know it will return? It isElysium enough for me, at any rate."

– H. P. Lovecraft

This was the last thing I posted before going to the mental ward. It is by far one of my favorite quotes and is pretty much my feelings on death. Now that I spent a month away it hasn’t changed much but I am feeling better. [...]

Ancient Bendari Empire Mekton (Mark Simmons, R.Talsorian Games Inc.)

Mekton Zero. Meine Gte, wie cool ist das denn?! Endlich kehrt ber Kickstarter eine, nein, die erste amerikanische Hommage an das Mecha-Genre zurck.
Mr. Cyberpunk RPG: Mike Pondsmith, R. Talsorian Games Inc., macht eine berarbeitete Neuauflage seines “Kampfroboter-Tabletop-Rollenspiels”.

Keine stmperhaften berhitzenden Mechs – sondern eine “richtige” Verneigung vor den Anime-Vorlagen Macross oder Gundam etc..

In your face: Erst Robotech Tactics und nun auch noch Mekton – ganz wunderbar!

Ich schere mich einen feuchten Kehricht, um die dusseligen und lahmenBattlemopse aus dem Hause Fasa oder Catalyst Games. Die overhypte Kopie der Kopie kann meinethalben in der [...]

I can’t get enough role playing into my life. I have been playing rpg’s for far too many years and want to play more. I wish I had the time to play all day every day but I am content making it work once a week with friends and extra time going towards online rpg’s. Now Dungeons and Dragons is offering me something new and I am real excited.Soon there's going to be a whole new way to play D&D! Announced today,Wizards of the Coasthaspartnered withDeNA, a global leader in mobile games, to createDungeons & Dragons:Arena of War, the first ever Dungeons & Dragons mobile game.

Arena of Warputs players in the Forgotten Realms forabattle roleplaying game that combines questing, character leveling, and small team collaboration with the most engaging mobile game mechanics on the market, such as in-game events and massive multiplayer competitions. The game is being developed and published by DeNA and it will be available on the company's Mobage mobile social games platform later this year for Android, iPhone and iPad devices.Arena of Waris available for pre-registration now. Best thing about this game other than its D&D awesomeness, is that its going to be FREE.

Now for some awesomeness [...]

Art By Eric Quigley
Three Eyed Land Sextopod ("The Green Nightmare")


Hit Dice: 12 (58 HP)
Armor Class: 1[18]
Attacks: 4 Tentacles (1d8) plus bite (3d6)
Saving Throw: 8
Special: If 2 or more tentacles successfully hit their target, the bite attack is made at +4 to hit
Move: 12
Alignment: Chaotic
Number Encountered: 1
Challenge Level/XP: 12 / 2000

The Three Eyed Land Sextopod, colloquially known as "The Green Nightmare", is obviously a mad mage's experiment gone wrong. We say "obviously", as all specimens encountered (with actual survivors on the "encountering side") have been sexless, therefore the conclusion that these are magical creatures. Well, that and the three aye / four tentacles dealie ;)

Green Nightmares do not retreat from combat, but [...]

Mike Shea joins us in this episode to dispense advice with us on DMing a D&D Next playtest group. Enjoy!

Sponsors:

Noble Knight

Links:

Mike’s Lazy DM book

Download Standard Podcasts

The Castles & Crusades Witch

Castles & Crusades is often called the Rosetta Stone of RPGS.  Actually that is not to bad of a claim.  Here is my Witch class from The Witch, converted to C&C.  I used the S&W versions and an old d20 version of mine to help fill in some of the blanks.  As usual, the PDF version is available in the Box download area to the right.

Let me know what you think!

OGL Notice: The following text is considered OPEN under the Open Gaming License. 
Section 15: "The Witch for Castles & [...]

I wrote this on my wiki some time ago.  It's a good starting point.
Primogenitors are truly monstrous vampires, creatures who have no humanity left in them at all. Primogenitors don't really feature in the campaign, and nobody has seen one in centuries, at least not that they've reported. The Primogenitors are the remnants of the once noble defenders who came to fight the Fallen One and contain him, and were in turn poisoned and corrupted by him. They are said to be literally the first vampires in the world.

Because of their great age, their appearance and power [...]

The next milestone of this marathon painting challenge is the kobolds.  Just like the Giant Rats I painted last time, these are one of the monsters in my Monster Mini Box: Level One and are a classic low level minion and dungeon pest.

Lots of people have gone before and written heaps about The Ecology of Kobolds, how they are Reimagining Kobolds and even how Kobolds are the D&D equivalent of Star Wars Jawas.  I'm not going to be going into that level of detail about their origins or whether or not they're the offspring of dogs and dragons [...]

Bill Cavalier, The Dungeon Bastard, has strong opinions on DMs who want to run Call Of Cthulhu as a change from Dungeons & Dragons!

My brain does this pretty much all the time!

I post pretty regularly about various things that have inspired elements of my D&D game, from songs, to movies, to books. Honestly, I can find inspiration in the weirdest places, in large part because at least part of my brain is always thinking about my game, or at least receptive to how things could fit into it. I cannot count the times when I've been hanging out with the Fiancee, and had a conversation similar to this:

Scene: Grocery store produce section.

Fiancee: Hey babe, what's next on [...]

Almost nothing this week – I was too sick to get stuff done. The Mass Effect 3 part of the entry for the Justicar Samara had a bunch of typos corrected as it had accidentally missed its last round of editing. And that’s about it – more action next week, hopefully.

The traffic on the site is stable at 1000+ unique visitors per day ever since the sudden drop of late January and early February, and I still can’t pin down the cause. Since I’ve reacted with various search-engines-friendliness improvements, we are in a in ironic situation where our traffic took [...]

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This year's Game Chef analog game design competition is already halfway through and I thought it could be interesting to share some of my experiences with it and the current status of my design in this episode. A lot of this is quite preliminary, but the basic foundations are likely to stand until the end of the competition.

I have no hopes of winning, but I will certainly submit my game and hopefully find the time to develop it further after the competition. We had a playtest, last night, and everybody had fun with the concept. [...]

Tonberry

Small Humanoid
Armor Class 114

Hit Points 32 (9d6) 
Speed 20 ft.Senses lowlight vision 50 ft.

Str    9 (-1)      Dex 16 (+3)    Con 11 (+0)Int  12 (+1)     Wis 13 (+1)    Cha  15  (+2)
Alignment chaotic evil Languages undercommon

TRAITS______________________________________Stealthy +5: The tonberry gets +5 to all checks to avoid detection.

Grim Determination: When the tonberry is constrained it can use an action to end the constraining effect at the end of its turn.
ACTIONS_____________________________________Melee Attack---Wicked Dagger: +5 to hit (reach 5 ft.; one creature). Hit: 28 (7d6+3) piercing damage.
Ranged Attack---Hooded Lantern: +6 to hit (range 10 ft. radius; all creatures). Hit: 10 (2d6+3) radiant damage.


ENCOUNTER BUILDING Level 9 [...]

I wound up re-categorizing my previous post on the subject. Now you can find it under “Game of Roles” where it belonged all along.

The Elite Action (Mar 11, 2013)

I’ve had the opportunity to test it out, and I have this to say — the Elite Action property is the simplest, most elegant, and most effective means of improving the staying power of an Elite or Solo creature I have found.

With one change:

Elite Action: You gain one extra Standard and Immediate action each round. You can use these actions while Dazed or Stunned.

In addition to increasing the overall number of Immediate [...]

What’s 7 feet tall, covered in fur, can easily hide in the forest, and rip you apart with its four claws?
The Quadquatch
Hit Dice: 3
Armor Class: 6[13]
Attacks: 4 Claws (1d6), Bite (1d8)
Saving Throw: 14
Special: Stealthy
Move: 12
Alignment: Neutral
Challenge Level/XP: 4/120

This large four-armed humanoid lives primarily in wooded areas. Quadquatches are generally avoid contact with other species but males can become very hostile and territorial during mating season. Quadquatches have a habit of collecting shiny objects. Occasionally, valuable objects can be found in their nests. Some magic-users can craft invisibility cloaks or other magical [...]

Well it looks like Mike Pondsmith is resurrecting one of my favorite systems of all times! Mekton is trying to come back! Very cool stuff! Lets look into the video.   From The Kickstarter: 
"Hi. I'm Mike Pondsmith, head of R. Talsorian Games. You may remember us from our games like Castle Falkenstein, Teenagers from Outer Space, and, of course,Cyberpunk. And in case you haven't heard, with the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077video game, we're now back on the block in a big way.But this time, I want to talk about Mekton.Mekton was the first game I wrote professionally. I've always had a soft spot forMekton, even [...]

OK, I've had some time to think about things regarding a sponsored Inked Adventures contest and I've come up with some parameters for the contest.

My goal is to get some evidence of people using Inked Adventures product in their home game. I know from experience there is a huge difference between making something for others to use, seeing that people have at least downloaded it, and actually witnessing people having fun with your "stuff".

For the record, I don't benefit personally from this contest. This is my way of helping support a cool indie publisher.

Contest [...]

Do you dislike making attacks and rolling dice? I might just have the class for you — the Healer (no relation to the 3.5 Healer) is a “remix” of the PHB Cleric.

Here’s the Heroic Healer class:
Download: Essentials Healer (Cleric) v.1

One of my players had voiced the desire to play a “pacifist-type” healer character in our next campaign, so I had a couple ideas stewing already. The Healer is really the culmination of my work on the Captain and the Guild Wars Monk.

You’ll notice, the Healer receives no new attack powers whatsoever. Their encounter power is Life Bond, which is [...]

Review: DC Heroes Role-Playing Game 3rd Edition by Greg Gorden, Sam Lewis & Brian Reid, Ray Winniger with Thomas Cook, Bryan Nystul and other contributors.
Mayfair Games Inc.
Rating:

This is an ancient game.   Published back in 1993, this game might seem strange to the new generation of gamers out there who are much more used to rules-lite games, but trust me when I say few games can approach the super hero genre and scale well enough to represent young human characters like Robin as well as godlike personalities such as Morpheus, the King of Dreams himself.  This [...]

Locked in a civil war with the rebellious Hulin tribe, the hordes of Genghis Khan (aka Chinggis Khaan aka Temujin) are stricken by plague and so a ten-man squad (an "aravt") is dispatched into the mountains to retrieve The Great Physician, a renowned healer.

On the way, they come across a burned-out homestead where they discover an abandoned baby and immediately adopt him into their group - little realising he is the son of Harkhor (G.Zolboot), the son of Hulin leader Hukhtumur (Ayurdadi), who is now tracking them believing the aravt responsible for the death of his family.

Meanwhile, The Great Physican and his granddaughter Unumunkhlei (D.Ganqeqeg) have been captured at their camp by Hukhtumur, who needs the Physician's sikills to cope with his own illness.

Just to make matters even more complicated, the Hulin tribe has a treacherous snake in its midst who is seeking [...]

One of the things I've enjoyed about Paizo is their willingness to engage in blatant Yog-Sothothery in the same sense that Lovecraft himself imagined the term.  Their latest announcement, of a Bestiary 4 which will have a number of "high level" threats, including Cthulhu himself, is fairly recent.  I actually caught wind of it after seeing the cover art uploaded on Wayne Reynolds' facebook page.  So here it is.  Fun stuff.

Of course, the Pathfinder game itself is kinda going the exact opposite direction as me; where I like the d20 engine at its core, I want to simplify [...]

I had another post lined up for today or tomorrow, but this kind of takes precedence.
There is a Kickstarter for Mekton Zero.
It looks like there is a new mecha construction system involved.
It's returning to the time period of the Archipelago War, which was where the majority of my campaigns were set.
If you have any love for mecha games, this is probably going to be well worth backing. As more details are revealed about the game, I'm sure I'll comment on it.
Finally Mr. Pondsmith, you now have the honor of enabling my Kickstarter problem. I hope [...]