Shadowrun, Fifth Edition. Catalyst Game Labs verffentlichen einen ersten Vorgeschmack auf die kommende 5. Edition des Cybergangstermrchens fr Rollenspieler.

Auf 12 Seiten gibt es die Kurzgeschichte Another Night, Another Run (von Russell Zimmermann), ein Slang Glossar und einige bunte Bilder.

Sehr aussagefhig fr ein Rollenspiel. Will der amerikanische Verlag eine Romananthologie verffentlichen?

Des Weiteren gilt fr einige Shadowrunner scheinbar noch immer der gute alte Grundsatz mehr hilft mehr!

Shadowrun 5 trivia: The spine width for SR5 is 1.0625 inches. The SR4A spine width was .787 inches.-Matt

--- CatalystGameLab (@catalystgamelab) 27. April 2013

Wer braucht eigentlich eine Neuauflage? Der Verlag oder die Fans? Ich tippe auf den [...]

I’m not sure whether to file this as LARP or cosplay. This ogre costume was created for Halloween and resulted in many prizes for “best costume”.

The orgre was created by 6’2″ Scott Carreras who has it on sale at etsy for $2,000 and he reckons a smaller person could wear the suit – but the ogre would have stumpy legs. Carreras also hints that the ogre costume could be a bit of an investment if you use it to win all the cash prizes at your local “best costume” competitions near you.

The post Impressive ogre costume appeared first on [...]

(Note: Normally I will sumarise an entire adventure in each report. However, to show you how the new format will look, here is the last game in a few paragraphs...)

(Covering Events from 18:30 19/5/51 to 19:45 19/5/51)
During their extended rest, Ormid and the group speak to the aenochian about what lies below. They are told that the Dracane lairs deep beneath their feet, coming and going by unknown means. There is another entrance however, which is used by its servants, the Nahokir'Gigorim (Sand Giants), and it is this entrance that the group can most easily access. [...]

Just in time for the April entry!!

This month’s Annual Issue was a welcome return for one of my favourite cartography, Jonathan Roberts, who drew the beautiful overland maps in the Midgard Campaign Guide.

In fact, this issue was a style based on these very maps. I decided to map the same [...]

I tried to pick another topic for z. I really did. However the more I thought about it and looked around and my options, zombies just seemed to be the way to go. Much like vampires in recent years, zombies have been done to (un)death. Sorry I love my bad puns. 

In no particular order, my top five favorite zombie/zombie-esque flicks are Return of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Zombi 2 (known as Zombie in the US), Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (don't judge it's actually an interesting story), and Re-Animator. Evil Dead gets an honorable mention, but [...]

I tried to pick another topic for z. I really did. However the more I thought about it and looked around and my options, zombies just seemed to be the way to go. Much like vampires in recent years, zombies have been done to (un)death. Sorry I love my bad puns. 

In no particular order, my top five favorite zombie/zombie-esque flicks are Return of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Zombi 2 (known as Zombie in the US), Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (don't judge it's actually an interesting story), and Re-Animator. Evil Dead gets an honorable mention, but [...]

So, as well as a new job, getting married next year, and moving house, I am going to be getting me a newborn in the autumn. This of course means that I am going to have even less free time than I already do...which means I need to cut back on a few things.

Now then, obviously, I'm not stopping gaming - I need my D&D to keep me out of Xix' realm. However, I am going to be stopping the regular game updates here, or at least, in the format they currently are. I do intend to continue [...]

Chapter 4: Black, White, or a Mixture of Grays? continues from Part 11.

Three items of Note:
1) direct quotes from the text will be italicized,
2) my analysis of this text is not an attack on individual Christians or to paint Christians as a whole in a broad brush, and
3) the authors' ideas will be critically examined, especially when they present a Christian idea without using the same rigor that they have used [...]

You thought I had forgotten about Conpulsion? Well, nop! Another of the seminars at the convention and this time Andy Hepworth, Scott Neal, Paul Bourne and Paul Canavan speak about the world of art and all the funky stuff they get up to. And I asked a few questions. Because... you know... that's what I do...

I though I would come up with a few pieces of cyberware and equiptment for BB:CP. Just some off the top of my head conversions.

Cybernetic limbs:

Cyberarm:
There are three levels of Cyberarm:
Cyberarms have one upgrade option slot.

Level I is a replacement arm. This is a prosthetic that replaces a missing arm. It has its own BP of 20.

Level II is a reenforced arm.  This arm has a ceramic shell and titanium reenforced skeleton. BP of 50 and melee and hand to hand damage is at +3 when wielded in this cyberarm. [...]

Goodreads. Game of Thrones oder besser A Song of Ice and Fire von George R. R. Martin befindet sich auf dem besten Weg, seinen verdienten Platz im Olymp der Popkultur einzunehmen.
Die 3. Staffel der Fernsehadaption zieht von Zuschauer- zu Downloadrekord.
Connaisseure des fantastischen Meisterwerks knnen aufGoodreads ihr Serienwissen mithilfe des The How well do you know A Game of Thrones? quiz unter Beweis stellen. (via Katharina D.)

It's been a long week already, and it won't end until Free Comic Book Day, but I'm pretty happy with my output for the month of April.  Obviously the A to Z Blog Challenge helped me get plenty of posts in and I wish my month hadn't gotten so busy that I could've spent more time on each post.  But it least I finished.
May will be odd because of how busy it is for us (5 birthdays, 1 anniversary) and a trip to Disney World (huzzah), but hopefully I'll maintain a post a day.
As always, thanks for keeping [...]

Hey ElfQuest fans, (and those not yet fans!)  Did you know that all of the old back issues of the comcis are available to read, on the internet, posted by the creators themselves?  No, well just head on over to ElfQuest.com and go to the comics section.  Pure awesome.  If you like it, donate to the creators through the "Donate" button on top of the page.  It also looks like a film might finally become a reality.  In addition to all of this, it looks like the Pini's will be doing a new ElfQuest! series published by Darkhorse.  All good news for fans of Cutter [...]

I love everything Lovecraftian and I mean everything. My collection of Cthulhu oriented books, idols, toys, etc is quite extensive. I even wrote a book of Blasphemous Cocktails based on Lovecraftian themes. I think my favorite Lovecraftian item is a 14″ tall Cthulhu I won in a game of Call of Cthulhu some years ago. It sits with pride on top of my china closet and scares the bejesus out of my grandkids. While looking for some awesome kickstarters to write about I discovered one that sucked me in. It wasn’t what the kickstarter was about, which is pretty cool by itself. It was one of the prizes you could get if you pledged enough dough.

The Kickstarter is Island of Ignorance, an adventure supplement for Call of Cthulhu. The concept is a sound one and the book looks like it will be fun to play. I can’t wait to see the final product. The swag being offered is slightly different than most of the other kickstarters in the sense that you get to be a part of the book instead of getting goodies. A few levels do offer goodies and one of these goodies is so sweet that I am [...]

Long-time readers of this blog will know that I have been a fan of knives longer than I've been a gun-owner.

I have many, many sharp things, including a Cold Steel Kukri Machete and a Mora Clipper, as well as several spears (but, sadly, no swords. Yet.) and two things remain the same in my experience:

1. They all need to be sharpened
2. There is no such thing as a universal sharpening system

Pocket knives usually have a different grind than a fixed-blade knife, and certainly are different from the grinds of the heavy working edges of  axes and hatchets.  Combine that with the [...]

Back in March Geek Native featured the Magic: The Gathering trailer for 2014 that made its debut for PAX East. It’s a firey one.

The character featured in Chandra Nalaar. Over at CGHub we can sample the art by Brad Rigney (aka Crypt Crawler) for Chandra.

The post Magic: The Gathering “Ignite Your Spark” art appeared first on Geek Native.

First, a huge "Thank you!" to everyone who watched and commented on my recent youtube video.  The video, for those who have seen it (I've included it below for reference), left an important nugget of information out, such as this is D&D Carcosa... not Call of Cthulhu.  Yeah, that makes a wee bit of difference.  Oops.

Even though I knew there were plenty of options, I wanted to do something special, something new - to challenge myself as a Dungeon Master.




So many choices out there!  I could have had the party fight and [...]

By Animotion.

I continue to feel unmotivated to make setting updates (or even talk about gaming at all) in part because I'm so busy that spending the intellectual capital necessary to write the update I want to write seems to be just a little beyond me at the moment.

Plus, one of my other obsessions--hiking and backpacking--which has been so long unserviced--has really captured my attention again, and I can't seem to get it off my mind.

I finally broke down and messaged the guy who took us on some of our trips when I was a [...]

Today is the last day.

Due to a licensing change with Marvel, Margaret Weiss Productions will no longer be selling Marvel Heroic Roleplaying.


MHR is a great game, but you need the right group to do it.  That might have factored into the sales vs. licensing equation.  In any case get these game books today while you can.

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying: Basic Game
Marvel Heroic Roleplaying: Civil War Event Book (Essentials Edition)
Marvel Heroic Roleplaying: Civil War Event Book (Premium Edition)
Marvel Heroic Roleplaying: Annihilation Event Book (Essentials Edition)
Marvel Heroic Roleplaying: Annihilation Event Book (Premium [...]

So it has come to this.

Here’s the Heroic Monk class for reference:
Essentials Dungeons & Dragons GW Monk Class (v0.1)

I was faced with the two most difficult profession for opposite reasons — the Monk, whose main schtick is healing, and the Elementalist, who pretty much just blows stuff up. They’re both kind of boring to me since they’re so uncomplicated.

I mean, without some variation, what is there to build from?

I began preliminary design work on the Monk when I was between the Warrior and the Ranger and trying to decide what to work on next. I copy-pasted Healing Word (which [...]

During my long time of watching lots of movies, I saw something that returned in most of the movies. It's actually a simple thing, and a really cool and useful one. The thing is that the place from where the characters come is closely related to their role in the movie. Role as in good or evil, that is.
When characters enter from the left of the screen, they are usually the good guys. When they enter from the right, they are usually the bad guys.
I think that this simple fact can be really useful, in two ways. Firstly, [...]

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Game Publishing Lessons LearnedIntroduction

In April 2012, Neil Carr, a member of the RPGGeek community, started a series of Amateur Kickstarter discussion threads. These discussions were partly his way of bouncing ideas off of the community and partly his way of getting advice about how to get started with a Kickstarter project he had in the works. I took part in these discussions and learned a lot of great lessons from them myself.

Now, one year later, I wanted to reflect and share what [...]

Continue reading Game Publishing Lessons [...]

It has been way too long since I've sat down and posted something. I won't be the first - or last - blogger to post how much they miss it when. I seemed to have an endless string of things to write about. But no time to actually WRITE it. I write this entry because I have so much to share and I just *HAVE* to. Trip to Montreal

For those of you who did not know, I spent two weeks in April in my hometown of Montreal. Gripped in the throes of pre-play-off hockey. Yes, my team, the Montreal [...]

This is the first Indiegogo project I've posted, but the artwork and greens created so far are quite impressive. Check it out at: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kensei-fantasy-creatures--2 IF you appreciate Japanese mythology, you have to check this crowdfund out, even if you don't want to fund it, check it out to appreciate the concept drawings AND the greens thus far. CREATURE PACK A:

Yes! And it only took me three-odd years to get here!

Time to break out the good champagne and plan the next 100 posts.

Oh, and many-many thanks for reading my ramblings!

Take a look at this right here:


Yeah. That's a funded Kickstarter.

Arcana Rising has officially passed 100% funding. You can find more details about the next two stretch goals on the Kickstarter page's latest update. Up next at 150% is hiring Sam Drost back to work on layout for the game so I can focus on the game design.

In the meantime, I am working away today on the job system for AR, and hope to have the complete list statted up shortly.

It was not something you expect to find in an abandoned tower, a set of zoo cages. The first one held three skeletons of what the ranger said were bears. It had some sort of trap in front of the cage, but our scout was unconcerned with it, until he stepped in front of the cage and in a flash of light was changed into a bear and then the floor raised up, the cage door opened and he was dumped inside. We stood dumbfounded as the cage locked behind him.

Zoomorphic Cage CR see below

A corridor, one side lined with [...]

Ying is the name often referring to area to the east of the Valley.  It is actually a vast ocean, that the Great River flows into, covered in Island Chains.

Precisely, Ying is the name of a seaborne empire that exists, ruling from the island Kelewan.  It is the Ancient Imperial House of Ying.  The empire is ruled by a succession of Sorcerers, descending from the original (Ying I) who subjugated a powerful fire elemental and stole his powers, many centuries ago.  The ancient Ying Empire was a contemporary of the Old Ones in the valley.  The grip of [...]

Modiphius Entertainment are going to be creating a new Mutant Chronicles RPG, a re-boot if you will and a full rewrite, making this the 3rd edition. And they have asking all their fans, and fans of RPGs in general to take a look at a survey they are holding on their website, to gauge the [...]

192 Pages of Concentrated PC Destruction

I normally don’t let my flip throughs existoutsideofYouTubebut I really wanted to bring you guys the quick overview I did of the new Dungeons of Dread book. I’m a really big fan so far and I’ve already begun putting it to good use for an upcoming D&D Next session (conversion is damn easy) so there’s definitely a lot of value here for gamers old and new.

With that I’ll leave you with the video, consider this my apology in advance for using the words “vagina tree“. Classy, I know.

[Link to video for those using alternate reading [...]

These glasses reflect more then mere beauty. They change your character's life forever!Take a look right over HERE

We have a tendency in this hobby to borrow a lot of terms from other creative endeavors. We borrow terms from creative writing, film, television,The problem is, sometimes we start equating our hobby with those other creative outlets from which we borrowed the terms, when ofttimes our hobby is very different.

RPGs are not Novels

I’ve talked a lot about GMs who mistake table-top RPGs for novel writing, with GMs constantly trying to manipulate the game to tell the story they’ve already decided upon. Some GMs will railroad the party toward the scene they seem hellbent on acting out. Other GMs will [...]

Bullet Points: 8 Animal Feats All right, by now you know the drill: 3 pages of pdf, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/SRD, 1 page content, this time for...

101 Mystical Site Qualities This pdf is 43 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 2 pages advertisement, leaving us with 38 pages of content...

Gothic Grimoires: Spellbones of the Destroyer This installment of Legendary Games’ so far impeccable line of weird receptacles of knowledge forbidden and foul is 8 pages long, 1 page front...

Goblin markets, those dangerous and wonderful fairy fairs, those bazaars of the bizarre, where one may buy the impossible, in these hidden emporiums, strange and magical creatures sell even stranger items to buyers from across time and space. Here one may find your heart's desire on display in a fishmonger's cart. But you may find the price too high. And even if you can pay the price, you may find the owning not to your liking. Here, buyer's remorse can be a terrible thing.

Goblin markets are a fantastic addition to any game of magic, particularly Urban Fantasy or High Fantasy. [...]

On a different note, I'm pleased to announce that I have been selected as the designer of a gazetteer-style supplement for the Secret Fire RPG.  Although the project is unrelated to Mystara, I'm posting this here since I'm directly involved.

The Secret Fire RPGWinner of the 2012 Innovative Game Design Award from I-CON 31, The Secret Fire uses a unique blend of game design and storytelling to create a fast and flexible original fantasy game system of roleplaying, exploration, and constant danger. (This campaign also includes Stretch Goals to bring the TSF roleplaying mechanics [...]

The Archers of Arrowsight Field by Khairul Hisham

In this episode ofMonsters of the Shattered World, Andreas and his companions attempt to defend the city of Arrowsight from an army of allied goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs.

This episode contains a snippet of the Litany Against Fear, originally written by Frank Herbert for hisDune series. This is my homage to my favorite book.

For those of you new to this show,Monsters of the Shattered Worldis astorytelling podcast. It’s about a young scholar out on his own in the world, the newest member of an adventuring party encountering strange monsters and writing about them. Each [...]

Welcome back Greyhawk fans! Once again it's time to check on the progress of our adventuring trio in page thirty-three of the epic Castle Greyhawk graphic novel. Follow the link to read extra important exposition by multi-talented author Scott Casper. You can also view the latest episode here, courtesy of Maldin's Greyhawk.

Artist's Commentary: The first chapter is winding down fast and our "heroes" aren't wasting a moment to sift through their chest. Many times, especially in low level dungeon crawls, treasure scales up as PCs increase in level. So a minor haul could be useful to a 1st level character but then at 10th [...]

Welcome to the first of what will hopefully be the first of several guest posts. Although myself and Scipio have become something of a blogging double act (I let him do the hard work) and we've done joint projects, we've never done proper, intentional guest posts. As we both agreed on this particular issue, it seemed like a good opportunity. Take it away sir....+ + +

This old stereotype again?!What?! Faeit 212 has gone!  Bullied from the blogosphere by a team of super-elite ninja GW Lawyer Marines, this is one more blow in the ceaseless war of [...]

MEET MARISSA KELLY

Marissa Kelly (MK) grew up with roleplaying as a favorite hobby; her father often made up house rules for classic roleplaying games, spinning epic tales of bravery and heart. From a young age, Marissa was inspired to draw the characters and scenes from these stories, her imagination spilling out onto the page. As she grew older, she kept roleplaying, enjoying systems of all types, and always drawing what she saw in her mind’s eye. As an adult, she now finds herself drawn to tweaking and changing systems in order to bring those kinds of experiences to a new generation [...]

We use the term raising taxes to mean that taxes are going up. I will suggest an interesting point of origin, however, along the lines of the development of the term levee: levy (v.) early 13c., "act of raising or collecting," from Anglo-Frenchleve, from Old Frenchleve"act of raising," noun use of fem. past participle oflever"to raise" (seelever). Originally of taxes, later of men for

My long awaited (kickstarter) Traveller 5 kit arrived in my cross-border drop off, and I hastened to pick it up yesterday.

Here are my first impresssions.

The book is big, and beautiful. at 654 pages, it is heavy, but well made and nicely bound. The cover is classic with the black background, red and white lettering and lines. The book seems very comprehensive, with loads of generators for specific things – obviously characters, starships, worlds, star-systems, vehicles, and adding guns, aliens, sophonts (including androids, clones, synthetics) – and a generic universal “ThingMaker” system. There is even an entire (short) chapter on the [...]

I've pretty much scratched level limits from my current AD&D / OSRIC game. Main reason?

I don't expect the campaign to go much beyond the "by the book" level limits for demihumans anyway ;)

The party ranges from 5th to 7th level. They started around 3rd or 4th (depending on class and / or class combinations) and that was back in December. If we end the campaign after a year of play, more or less, they'll probably be around 9th or 10th level at this rate.

In my opinion, why limit options by limiting levels. Besides, both of my demi humans are multiclass, which by itself throttles down the level gain. If the game was going to level 20 I'd probably have have some [...]

As a kid, I was never into models, even though they looked very cool on the store's shelf.  One problem with models was having to put the kits together and then they lacked articulation and probably wouldn't be safe to play with.  

Zoids, however, let me build something AND play with it.  I loved putting them together and having them battle like titanic monsters out of a Godzilla film...or the forthcoming Pacific Rim.

I was kind of startled, as a kid, how much I enjoyed putting them together and messing with them.  I guess, I was never [...]

I am the Warden!!

Regular readers are probably aware of the heaping plateful of responsibilities on my plate at the moment: Killshot Reloaded, school, video editing, launching a Kickstarter, even some ongoing plans for Optional Core, but it seems all that was just not quite enough. What can I say? I'm a sucker for lost causes.

Over the weekend, I posted a note on my bulletin board titled "List of Regrets." On there are two entries: NaNoWriMo 2012 and the D&D Next Character Sheet Contest. Both of these are contests or tryouts I wanted to invest time and [...]

So an IBMer buddy of mine will let me pick his brain sometime in the near future regarding networks and mainframes. He designs them or something like that. He talks to China and they build stuff. It's pretty cool. But I wanted to get some ideas out there.

First off I'm trying to sort out how networks could be designed for yuse with my system. Not being a computer science major I'm woefully ignorant of how it all actually works. Hence the reason I'll be hanging out with J and working it out. But  I see a few possibilities:

The year is 1979 Imperial Reckoning.

The great Imperik Empire, founded 1979 years ago has crumbled into a hundreds little kingdoms and territorities. The spirit of this age is one of decay and decline.

The Imperiks hold on to the dream that their empire can once again be restored. Del Reloes, "The City of Peace," in the land of Gothlor still stands as a beacon of hope in an endarkening world. The Imperik's hold on to the idea that they are Virtoaa's Chosen people, meant to rule.

The so-called "lesser races" of men--the Ethodians, the Abu-Steins, [...]

TO THE BRIDGEThe April RPG Blog Carnival considers running for a "Ship of Fools." I'm usually of the opinion that the collective intelligence of the players outweighs my own. I put situations in front of them expecting that they'll come up with a solution. Usually I haven't come up with one- perhaps I have some ideas, but I trust players through shared creativity will see something I didn't. That's part of why I rarely track character sheets and equipment. I want to be surprised by what they do. They're off some times, but that's rare. Rarer still that all [...]