The Mynock's Cave

Spellbound Kingdoms, Revised Now Available!

2011-03-23T09:27:00.000-04:00

Spellbound Kingdoms, Revised Now Available!: "

Spellbound Kingdoms, one of my favorite small press Fantasy RPGs has just come out with a revised edition with a whole bunch of changes to refine an already impressive game. I’ve been keeping an eye out for this since I’d heard that it was in production and now that the revised edition is out, and now that it is, I won’t be able to forgive myself if I didn’t plug it here on my blog:

This is the revised core rulebook for the Spellbound Kingdoms RPG. 300 pages of zeppelins, courtesans, feral children, alchemy, sorcery, engineering, politics, dragons, and slavering undead.

Bound by magic, haunted by fear, and clinging to love, the people of the Kingdoms live in a world on the brink of a new age. Whether that is an age of Enlightenment or a new dark age is up to you.

Spellbound Kingdoms is a traditional RPG with innovative rules for:

* Tactical combat where your fighting style matters.

* Storytelling support.

* Mass combat as an integral part of the game.

* Dramatic and tactical dialogue. Fashion as a weapon. Improv-style drama scenes!

* Emotional depth.

* Players can play nobles, peasants, soldiers, generals, or anyone in between.

* A fast pace. Blazing pace, really.

* A world and an economy that are consistent with the rules.

* Combat that is easy to learn, difficult to master, fast, fun, and not a pain in the GM’s butt.

* Cooperative worldbuilding.

* NPC relationships that matter.

Spellbound Kingdoms offers dark Renaissance fantasy gameplay with rules that support swashbuckling action, courtly intrigue, and insidious magic.

New for the revision are over 70 spells, dozens of monsters, a new Talent system, rules for multiple PCs in the same thieves guild or other organization, new combat styles including Mounted and Black Powder & Crimson Blade, many new monster combat styles, advice for creating your own combat styles and spell schools, new alchemical and engineering items, a printer-friendly version of the pdf, and a lot more.

Welcome to the Kingdoms.

Here, love and fear are the most powerful forces in the world. You only have to ask yourself one question: is that a good thing?

—-

Spellbound Kingdoms, Revised is now available on DriveThruRPG for $9.99 or roughly Php 440.

Heroic Journey Publications » Blog Archive » Mecha Setting Creation

2011-03-22T00:03:00.000-04:00

Heroic Journey Publications » Blog Archive » Mecha Setting Creation: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Mecha brainstorming

2011-03-11T22:22:00.003-05:00

So I'm a passenger on a lp ing trip back from Florida. I've been asked by my good friend Chris Perrin to try and come up with ideas on how to make setting creation an interesting and inclusive part of a Mecha RPG campaign.

Time to start thinking. I'll let you know if I come up with something. In the meantime you should head over to RPGNow and pick up a copy of the game. Its pretty awesome.

Mecha brainstorming

2011-03-11T22:22:00.001-05:00

Time to start thinking. I'll let you know if I come up with something. In the meantime you should head over to RPGNow and pick up a copy of the game. Its pretty awesome.

Unity Underground

2011-02-24T08:48:00.002-05:00

Last night I had a great time playing the beta of Unity Underground with my friend Clint Krause and a group of others on Skype last night.

Unity Underground is Clint's latest project and is a game where you play Underground members fighting against the corrupt Union who now runs the United states. You play in a sandbox environment but occasionally can get missions from the Underground Radio that point you in a direction to help out.

The system is fast and furious that can be quite bloody if you're not careful, and follows the old school format of get mission, kill stuff, take the loot, rinse and repeat. Lots of fragging, lots of fun and you don't need a battle mat to play it.

If you want to check it out during the beta period head over to Clint's web site Red Moon Medicine Show and sign up.

New Zealand Red Cross Earthquake Relief - RPG Bundle

2011-02-23T12:59:00.002-05:00

If you're looking for a great deal and a way to help people in need you can't go wrong by dropping $20.00 on the New Zealand Red Cross Earthquake Relief package at RPGNow.com. It contains some great books including Cold City, The Book of Knights, and even Mecha!

Greeting to all again!

2011-02-23T09:21:00.002-05:00

I just noticed that Sterling Hershey gave me a plug in his own blog Delusions of Grandeur. This blog is my place to talk about whatever is on my mind at the time be it movies, games, or technology.

Currently I'm in the middle of running a Star Wars Saga Edition Campaign for my home group the Ancient Gamers. I've got an overarching plot but I'm running it sandbox style to give the players as much freedom as they want to play in the galaxy far far away.

I'm reading a few things, notably the Icons RPG from Adamant publishing. It's a great superhero game that brings back the feel of the old TSR Marvel Superheroes Role Playing Game. Character generation is random and the gamemaster never has to roll dice, he just controls the action while the players make all the rolls. As a bonus Adamant just lowered the price on all their PDF items to $1.99 so you can't go wrong.

I am a Android phone user and own an original Motorola Droid which I love and a Velocity Cruz Tablet. To me the difference between and Iphone and a Droid is the same as a Mac and a PC. If you want an item that just does what its supposed to get an Apple. If you want control over your phone then you want an Android.

I do some work with Heroic Journey Publishing and recently edited the Mecha RPG a cool game from my friend Chris Perrin that lets you game in the anime world of mecha.

Welcome to my blog! I'll try and update it more often then not.

Finally a Android application for blogger!

2011-02-04T14:22:00.003-05:00

Hello everyone! Its been a long time since I posted anything here.

I got a new android tablet for Christmas and started picking up a variety of e-books and PDFs. For my kindle app I've got a lot of the Colonial Gothic books and I've got to say they a lot of fun.

Also I found a great PDF reader called "repligo" which has allowed me to actually read my PDFs easily. Currently I'm reading the Icons super hero game that I reported on earlier.

If you hour an android tablet shoot mea post, maybe I've got something to share or you've got something don't know about.

All for now!

A new Super Hero game "Icons"

2010-06-06T00:45:00.002-04:00

I couldn’t help myself. Icons. This is the new game from Steve Kenson, the man behind Mutants & Masterminds. What you say? Why would he design a rival Supers RPG? Well this is a lot simpler game, made more for pick ups than long campaigns and reminiscent of the old Marvel Superheroes game a favorite of mine from long ago.

It’s available now from RPGNow.com for only $14.95. I can’t wait to dig in and I’ll let you know how it looks.

Technorati Tags: Super Hero,RPG,Game

The end is nigh!

2010-06-02T21:06:00.001-04:00

We played another session of our Star Wars Saga Edition Clone Wars Campaign “Operation Rancor” on Sunday and it went fairly well. I admit I have trouble generating balanced encounters once the number of PCs gets above 5.

The players that were knocked unconscious during the crash landing in the last game the Kel Dor Soldier named Sil and the Duros Scoundrel Teebo left the ship behind. Riding swoops at breakneck speeds through the woods to catch up to their companions the stumble upon an an Republic patrol being ambushed by numerous Super Battle Droids and Dwarf Spider Droids. The clones were being lead on a patrol by a Rodian scout named Neely.

The players stop to aid their comrades and end up bringing Neely with them . They arrive at the capitol and make their way through the sewers to the palace courtyard where they find the destruction left by the others.

Once reunited the players try to find a data jack for R5-D4 to plug into to get them the coordinates to the secret droid maintenance bay in the palace where the Rancor Battle Droid is being Rebuilt. They make their way to the throne room and find an ambush waiting for them. The Separatist leader Durge is waiting for them.

Making short work of Durge’s Droid patrol they take on the ancient cyborg themselves and he nearly hands them their heads and they are forced to spend some destiny points to stay alive. But some well placed shots (Crits) and perseverance they get Durge to the point where he tries to escape. The Jedi will have none of that and use the force to pull him back into the battle where a lucky Critical by the Gungan Sniper takes him out.

The Gen-Dai’s spineless for is forced to escape through the small cracks that are in the ancient throne room. The characters gain enough experience to make level 9 and dread the upcoming battle with Xanatos in their quest to liberate the Rancor before it falls into enemy hands.

Once more onto the breech…

2010-05-17T02:22:00.001-04:00

We started playing Star Wars Saga Edition again tonight. Down two players we improvised heading into the third chapter of our Clone Wars campaign.

The characters have retrieved most of the pieces of the Rancor Super Droid from the Sith Wars, except for the head which was retrieved by the Separatist Dark Jedi Xanatos.

Returning to Coruscant they hear the news that Count Dooku was slain by the Jedi Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi who are now hunting down General Grievous.

They are give orders to return to Khador where the expert droid scientists are reconstructing the pieces of the Rancor and return it to Coruscant with the Republic fleet.

Arriving on Khador they find the world besieged by the Separatist forces who have engaged the Republic fleet in battle. Their ship the “Mugdon” is hit and is forced to make a hard landing on the planet where they learn that the Separatists have taken the capitol city and are searching for the hidden lab where the Rancor awaits.

The Jedi Sevrus’s former master Kronk the Gammorean weapons master is all that’s left of the forces that were guarding the Rancor. He requests that they infiltrate the city and get the Ancient droid out before it can fall into enemy hands.

The group finds a small entrance through the sewers guarded by some Battle Droids and makes their way to the palace where they fight their way though. They hear one last transmission from Kronk warning them that the Separatist leader is a Cyborg before he dies of unknown wounds.

Now on their own, they must get the Rancor before Xanatos and the mysterious cyborg do.

The Core Mechanic: Gamers Help Haiti - Donate Today & Get Over $1300 Worth of Gaming Loot Too!

2010-01-20T01:15:00.000-05:00

Check out this deal. If you've got $20.00 it all goes to Haiti Relief and you get $1400.00 worth of RPG PDF Goodness.

The Core Mechanic: Gamers Help Haiti - Donate Today & Get Over $1300 Worth of Gaming Loot Too!

The Shorty Awards - The best producers of real-time, short form content on Twitter

2010-01-07T23:10:00.000-05:00

The Shorty Awards - The best producers of real-time, short form content on Twitter

Vote for your favorite Twitter users!!

Wayne Humfleet's Profile - Windows Live

2009-11-10T01:08:00.001-05:00

I started my Windows Live page. Stop by if you want to.

Wayne Humfleet's Profile - Windows Live

Hey I'm back!

2009-10-25T00:29:00.002-04:00

Hey sorry for anyone that's actually following my blog. I've been pretty busy with things. I've got a gig posting reviews at Gamecryer.com. Check them out if your interested in game reviews by some talented people.

Also I'm working with Heroic Journey Press on some upcoming projects. A setting for a popular fantasy game, and other little projects in the hopper. Lots of writing.

I've also started going back to school to get my bachelors. My current class is 2003 Server Infrastructure. Not as easy as I thought going in, but very interesting and things I should know for my job.

To top it off I got my certification in Citrix Systems 2003 Server XenApp 4.5 - 5. I've been working on Citrix systems for around 13 years and have held the cert a few other times, but like most technology certs it gets outdated often. So getting it again is good.

On the gaming front my group "The Ancient Gamers" is still playing Paizo's "Age of Worms" campaign that was originally posted in Dungeon Magazine. We're also going to be getting back to my Star Wars Saga "Clone Wars" Campaign soon. The players have discovered two pieces of the Ancient Sith Battle Droid "The Rancor" and are in a race to find the final piece with the Separatists, and their Dark Jedi Ally.

Reading wise I've been reading an interesting book called Legionnaire, and unofficial legionnaire's handbook. It's a look at life in the Roman army. It's fun and keeps your interest. Also, I'm reading Mutant City Blues for review soon and Deadlands Reloaded for Savage Worlds. Tonight I picked up Mutants and Masterminds Second Edition, since it's a classic system, and I don't currently have a Superhero RPG.

I haven't had time to Podcast with Kore Podcasts lately. But eventually I'll probably get back into it as time permits.

So, I'll wrap this post up with a wish for everyone's good health in this time of pandemic fear. Wash your hands, and cover your mouth. Take care.

Powered by Fantasy Craft

2009-09-11T00:23:00.001-04:00

Game Chef 2009

2009-09-05T10:56:00.002-04:00

Ok, I'm going to try out an experiment and put my hat in the ring for Game Chef 2009. The rules call for the use of Intrigue (The Mutiny), Fleur-De-Lis (The French Crew), Stars (Takes place at night), Dividers (The mutiny is being plotted in a section of the hold seperate from the rest), and finally Seabird (The ship is the Seabird) My entry is called Mutiny on the Seabird, and this is my initial alpha entry to get things started. All comments will be taken and considered. Feel free to post.

Mutiny on the Seabird

The year is 1690, the French pirate ship the Seabird has been sailing up the eastern coast of America looking for ships to plunder with no luck. 3 months ago they put to sea, their rations are running low, as well as their run, no booty is coming into their coffers, and there is nary a wench in sight!

The Captain has not made good on his promises and the crew's morale is at an all time low. It's time for a change, you and your fellow conspirators gather at night when the captain is sleeping. In a small hold whose walls divide up the cargo area, you plot your mutiny. One of you must become the new captain, with a small group of followers you must win over the rest of the ship.

The rules:

Each Mutineer receives 5 token to represent loyal crew members
The Captain (GM) receives 5 Tokes per player for his loyal crew members

Play starts clockwise from the captain.

The first Mutineer starts his scene describing how he is going to go about swaying crew to his cause, this can be against another player or the captain.

Roleplay out the scene with the player in question then make your move. You take 3d6 and add an additional d6 for every crew you wish to commit to the action. Crew committed are put at risk during the round and can be lost.

Your opponent commits rolls 3d6 and also can commit crew to resist. Whether the opponent commits crew or not all of his crew is at risk.

Dice are rolled and the highest single dice is taken as the attack and defense. Matches are added together to get bigger numbers for example if a player rolled 5 dice and got a 4, 5, 2, 2, 2 his highest dice would be a 6 with the 3 two's added together.

If the attacker wins he sways crew to his cause and the difference is added to his crew total.

If the defender wins, the difference up to the committed crew is added to his loyal crew, they changed their minds, etc..

Crew committed to an action cannot be used again until the players next scene.

Play progresses around the table with the captain ending the turn. His actions represent him trying regain his position, and win back the loyalty of the crew.

If a player runs out of crew he is outed as a mutineer, and a scene is played out representing his punishment, keelhauled, or set adrift, whatever sounds fun. That player is then out of the game.

I voted! Please vote for Heroic Journey Publishing for fan choice!

2009-07-24T23:44:00.000-04:00

May Movies

2009-03-21T21:26:00.006-04:00

Boy I am both looking forward to the May movies and dreading them. I usually only get to go to a few movies a year any more and everything I want to see is coming out in May! X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Terminator Salvation, Star Trek, And Angels and Demons.

What are you looking forward to seeing?

Carnage!

2008-12-17T23:13:00.004-05:00

Picked up 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars. It;s a simple, low prep time game, that most call the Movie Starship Troopers RPG. Hunt bugs till they're all dead. I'll post more once I read more into it.

Chris "The Lockergnome" Pirillo Gift List Contest

2008-12-15T19:09:00.002-05:00

Check out what Chris Pirillo is doing over at his blog. I'm asking for the Star Wars Smiles Gift List.

Star Wars Saga Edition Session 2

2008-12-10T00:18:00.004-05:00

When we last left our heroes they had destroyed the Communications blocking station that was hampering the Republic forces on Cador. They Return to General K'Ronks command post and are debriefed and allowed a limited equipping excursion into the armory.

They are briefed by K'Ronk that King Kordair has managed to get word out from the capitol city of Cardoon, where he and his son Prince Korath are being held prisoners of the Separatists of a archeological find his researchers have discovered in the ruins scattered around the planet of a super weapons used during the Sith wars. The King is unclear of all the details but tells them where the information was brought for processing, and suggests that they look into it before it falls into the wrong hands.

The general informs the characters that the research lab where the information is being held at is under siege and will be impossible for them to get into from the main entry points and suggests they look up a Rodian information broker, Galthrok, to find out any other possible ways into the lab.

The characters head into the city of Cardoon, trying to avoid any Droid patrols. They start asking around for the broker, and quickly discover that he is the head of the sanitation department for the city. Failing a stealth check the characters have to fend off a patrol of Destroyer Droids before they make it to the city admin building.

After intimidating their way around City Guards to enter the building, they locate Galthrok in his basement offices and bribe his secretary into giving them an appointment. Glathrok is not the friendliest guy, but they manage to convince him with some credits and a promise to return an audio device that he wants from the lab, to tell them of a secret way through the sewers of Cardoon into the sub-levels of the research lab.

They find the sewers entrance and make their way to the labs, along the way they discover a gang, lead by a Twilek Scoundrel has taken up residence in the sewers avoiding the droids above. The gang tries to shake down the party only to discover that the Gungan sniper is crazy and shoots a rogue in the face. Combat ensues and the party quickly bests the gang. (This is where I discovered that sometimes a hard encounter isn't as hard as I thought it would be.) As they were holding the Twilek head down near a deep pool of water a giant sewer snake came out and bit the head off of the helpless gang leader. Then it went after the rest of it's live meal. This evened the stakes and the party had a major battle on it's hands as the party tried to get out of the range of the snake. A the Kel'Dor soldier went down from an opportunity attack and the Jedi Defender jumped to his defense as the Medic pulled him to safety. The party manages to barely bring down the snake, mostly thanks to some Force slams from the other Jedi.

Making it to the sublevel the Duros Scoundrel hacked their way into the building from the secret elevator. They surprised a patrol of battle droids that went down way to quickly, and made their way through the building looking for the lifts to take them up. Another pitched combat in a storage area, and the party found that an R5 droid had managed to avoid being destroyed in the melee. They reprogrammed the droid wiping it's memory and making them it's new owners. They then looked to see what it's name was. R5D4 was visible. Yes the same droid that blew it's motivator in episode 4. The Medic took to it immediately and the first destiny was set. R5 needed to survive while it remained in the parties care, and the Medic became it's caretaker unknowingly.

This ended the second session, the characters leveled and were all now level 3 in their professions.

Fear the Boot Plug

2008-12-09T23:50:00.003-05:00

I want to take minute to comment on one of my other favorite podcasts. Fear the Boot. This was one of the first podcasts I discovered when I got my Ipod. It's a gaming podcast dedicated to Roleplaying games and a little bit more, the hosts currently Dan, Chad, John, Chris and Pat take on a variety of topics about playing your RPG Games better, have a spirited banter about whats on their minds, and keep it clean. They have been around for a couple of years now, and are a good place to start when your discovering RPG Podcasts.

Despite what other shows have said about the guys at Fear the Boot, they remain relevant and fun to listen to. Currently they are the only show I've actually gone back and listened to their entire back catalog of shows and I encourage anyone that starts listening to do if they have the time.

They have just started their own Blog at their website that features articles from hosts, friends of the podcast and others about a variety of topics.

Star Wars Saga Edition Campaign Begins...

2008-12-02T01:15:00.008-05:00

Ok, well actually it's been going for about 2 months now. Our group "The Ancient Gamers", die hard D&D players are letting me try my experiment on them.

The Characters in the group consist of 2 Human Jedi, 1 Gungan Scout (Sniper), a Kel Dor Soldier, a Human Noble (Medic), and a Duros Scoundrel (The Pilot).

I decided that I wanted the game to start with before Revenge of the Sith in the waning days of the clone wars. This would give me some leeway on the Jedi and allow me to plot some simpler missions to get them going. By the time they reach 7th or 8th level I'll move into the Dark Times after Order 66 gets issued, allowing me to explore some darker on the run adventures.

The plot so far, the characters have been sent to the planet Cador, a forested mountainous world, that is ruled by a monarchy and has some advanced droid research facilities. The characters are to Aid the Grand army of the Republic which is fighting for control of the planet against the separatist forces.

Arriving on the planet they discover that Separatist reinforcements have arrived and try to shoot them down. I wanted to get them right into the action of a big Starship combat and give the rules a shake down. Combat went slow at first, but once we got used to the system the characters made some major headway and Destroyed the attacking starfighters. Narrowly escaping the larger command ships they headed to the planet and spotted a flare go up on the ground below. Landing they made contact with a lone Clone Scout that had survived an attack after they discovered the location of the Communications jamming station.

Making their way to the station they Destroyed a Battle droid patrol and found the station guarded by more droids. The larger combat went smoothly, but we had our first casualty of the night. One of the Jedi went down from a lucky critical hit. Lucky for him, it did not outright kill him and the medic was able to revive him and he was able to sue his second wind to get some hot points back.

They proceeded to break into the station hacking the security doors and took out the remaining droids. Using the Clones supply of explosives they Destroyed the jamming equipment, and then a communicator left by the droids went off. A man in dark robes demanded to know why communications were getting though again and when he saw it wasn't droids, but Replublic forces he ordered an air strike on the remains of the station. The players fled back to their ship and saw the explosions as they left.

They then made contact with the Jedi General on Cador Gammorean Jedi Master K'Ronk, one of the Jedi's Master. he ordered them to his command post and debriefed the team. As their reward he let them have access to the Armory where they stocked up on needed items.

I really liked the way the system flowed for combat, force use, and just about everything. It felt very much like the upgrade that the 3.5 D20 system needed. The players really enjoyed their character and what they could do, and I loved how easy it was to scale encounter strengths to the party. The one thing that came up was the harshness of the Natural 20 critical hits that automatically do double damage. We argued about that for quite awhile with suggestions flowing freely. In the end I opted to stick with it for simplicity and because it is how the game is designed, most of the players agreed that they actually liked crits that way instead of trying to confirm them like in 3.5 D&D.

The players all leveled by the end of the night, and prepared for the next adventure, Operation Rancor.

Star Wars Saga Edition

2008-10-09T22:48:00.001-04:00

Started planning for the new campaign for our gaming group. Everyone is really hot on the New Star Wars Saga Edition rules. We've already generated most of the key player characters with only one hold out. Te tally so far is 2 Human Jedi, one a Combat specialist/tank, the other a Jedi Shadow, 1 Duros Scoundrel specializing in piloting, 1 Kel Dor Soldier, aiming for a Gunfighter build, and finally 1 Gungan Scout heading towards a sniper. The last player hasn't given much thought so we'll see what he wants to play.

We're going to base the campaign in the waning days of the Clone Wars, months before the fatefulday of Order 66. We'll start out with some missions for the Republic on as yet unmaed planet. I'll post more as I get it written down.

Haven't run a Star Wars game since the days of West Ends D6 based game. This edition is the best one put out since then, and maybe even beats the original out.

More later...

The new laptop

2008-10-09T16:43:00.001-04:00

I just got my new laptop from Dell on monday. Got Dual Core 2 Ghz Processors, 4 GB of memory and a 256 MB ATI Mobility Video card. While it's not going to be a game machine it will be good for some of my older games and getting on the internet.

5 Games I'd Like to Play

2008-09-24T09:10:00.003-04:00

4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons
The Rules look interesting and fun.
Savage Worlds
This game and all of it's Sub-games, seems like the perfect system for those of us with little time on our hands.
Burning Wheel
Wow. This is heavy stuff. Will melt your brain.
Dark Heresy
Warhammer 40k, how can you go wrong with this. Kill the mutant.
Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing
The dark background and deadly rules would make for some interesting times.

What games do you want to play? Let hear them!

2008 Presidential Race

2008-09-14T22:04:00.002-04:00

Well, I thoroughly getting sick of all the crap that's been slung from all sides of this debate. I really don't care this year who gets elected, be it McCain or Obama. Change is in the air and whoever gets in will enact their own changes whether I agree with them or not.

So if I have to choose. I choose Star Wars.

Descent Journeys in the Dark

2008-09-08T08:05:00.002-04:00

We had a great game of Descent last night. Our gaming group was down two players and instead of continuing the 3.5 D&D game we've been playing we went ahead and broke out Descent. The game lasted about 6 hours and much fun was had by all. Rules, while used before had to be re-read and looked up often, but luckily one of our players is a wiz at absorbing rules. This is a great pick up game or as many as 5 players. It doesn't scale for more than that though. I'll be adding the campaign expansion to our game soon, since Experience and items don't transfer between games.

How To Host A Dungeon

2008-09-04T22:45:00.002-04:00

Also just picked up "How To Host A Dungeon" from Tony Dowler. It's a solo game where you build a Dungeon Randomly and it gets populated and depopulated by inhabitants over the ages finally ending when it is defeated by the Heroes. The Dungeons built with this can be used to create interesting D&D Dungeons with a History that is already fleshed out. Very cool stuff. Check it out, the PDF is only $5.00 or you can get it all printed and packed up for you for $19.00 with the PDF.

Houses of the Blooded

2008-09-04T17:10:00.001-04:00

Just grabbed John Wick's new Magnum Opus "Houses of the Blooded" on PDF for only $5.00. Check it out at IPR.

Star Wars Saga Edition Review

2008-09-04T00:29:00.002-04:00

Product
Star Wars Role Playing Game Saga Edition.

Company
Wizards of the Coast
Review
Star Wars, a movie that inspired thousands of imaginations. Ever since the end of the West End Games line of Star Wars products fans have been wanting a new game let them tell their own stories of a galaxy far far away. Star Wars Saga Edition is the third Role playing game published by Wizards of the Coast that allows players to once again journey from the Dune Sea on Tatooine, to the Baroque palaces of Naboo.

The book is oddly shaped for a role-playing book, a neat square that is decorated with a gold image of Darth Vader beckoning to you on the cover and stands out either on your bookshelf or coffee table. Weighing in at around 288 pages all in full color is really is presented like no other game book on the market.

The game itself discards many of the rules and classes from the previous incarnations from Wizards. Gone are the Fringer, Tech Specialist, Force Adept, Jedi Guardian, and Jedi Consular, replaced by s smaller but more customizable class selection. Classes include the Jedi, Noble, Scoundrel, Scout and the soldier. These classes all have multiple talent trees, like in online games such as World of Warcraft, that allow you to decide which path your character will take. For example the Jedi can take talents from the Consular Tree, allowing him a range of negotiation skills. The Guardian tree makes him more of a combat oriented Jedi, the Sentinel tree which grants him the power to fight the darkside, and finally the Lightsaber Combat tree which contains all of the cool things Jedi can do with their favored weapon.

Numerous prestige classes allow for further customization of characters allowing them to branch into such careers as Gunslinger, Jedi Knight and Bounty hunter, along with Some classes for your NPCs like Crime Lord, Sith Apprentice and Sith Lord.

SWSE as it’s often abbreviated also contains many changes to the feats, which come much faster to characters, and the skills, which are not as micromanaged. Each character starts with a number of trained skills, which improve as the character levels. Gone are the days of tracking how many skills points you have to distribute. In order to gain new skills you must spend a feat.

Force powers, very confusing in earlier editions, have been streamlined. No longer are they distributed between feats, skills and powers. Now you can do many of the simple things with one skill, “Use the force” which is also used to activate the powers that are more specialized. This was one of the failings of earlier games.

Force points are back for all characters, and add bonus dice to various skill checks, attacks, and ability checks. They can also be used to avoid character death and power certain Force Powers. They are joined by a new concept, characters Destiny. At the start of the game a character can choose a destiny such as Luke’s Destiny of Redemption. You start with one destiny point and gain a new one every level. They can be used to provide an even greater bonus than Force Points, such as making an attack against you miss, or acting out of turn when used to fulfill the characters destiny. When the characters destiny is fulfilled they gain a permanent bonus to their character.

The rules themselves have changed significantly. Making the game much more cinematic and fast moving.. Armor class is now in the past, replaced by your saving throws, like Reflex, Fortitude and willpower. Characters can still wear armor, but as they gain more levels it becomes more of a burden to some, while others such as the soldier can still gain benefits from it. Combat encourages movement and trying new tactics, by changing the actions available and limiting the number of attacks a character can make in a single round of combat. Characters start with a great number of hit points, but are subject to damage thresholds pushing them along a condition track that ends in unconsciousness. But even this is done in a very cinematic way allowing characters to use actions to recover and even get a second wind healing their damage.

The book also includes simple rules for Starship and vehicle combat. A range of vehicles and starships has been added to the book, which is by no means complete. These have since been updated with the release of Starships of the Galaxy.

SWSE does not favor any specific era in the Saga and details planets, creatures, and characters from various points in the movies. This is by no means a complete list, and some tweaking by the game master will be needed to add missing things. A brief run down of all the eras of play is included, along with a nice game master section that gives some good advice on building encounters and campaigns.

In conclusion, SWSE is a worthy successor to West End Games Star Wars RPG. The rules changes are a preview of some of the changes coming to Dungeons And Dragons 4th edition, and are exciting and fun. The only downside currently is the lack of Support, with only one source book, Starships of the Galaxy available at the time of this writing. Wizards has been supporting the game with a free series of adventures on their website called the “Dawn of Defiance”, this campaign will take characters from level 1 to 20 and is set in the time between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.

For more information please visit http://www.wizards.com/starwars. For fan made conversions of older Star Wars RPG material check out http://saga-edition.com. Finally for an excellent podcast the Order 66 podcast provides great information on everything from Class discussions to advice on running the game and is located at http://d20radio.com.

Dungeons & Dragons Tiny Adventures and other stuff

2008-08-23T23:08:00.002-04:00

Ok, I'm totally addicted to a new facebook game written by the programmers at Wizards of the coast. Dungeons Dragons Tiny Adventures is pretty much a choose your adventure with less choices. You pick your equipment, use your potions, and let the computer roll all your stuff. It even keeps going after you log out of facebook.

Right now it's pretty buggy. The team didn't anticipate all the geeks using facebook apparently, I hope this doesn't bode ill for the new D&D Insider that they plan on putting out sometime in the future.

Got my new books from Amazon the other day. The Knights of the Old Republic book is very nice. Lots of cool stuff from the games and comics. The new Forgotten realms guide leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. The layout is weird, it doesn't feel as crunchy and you still need the players guide to use it. What the hell.

Gotta miss my bi-monthly game tomorrow night. We're expected at my parent's house for a family reunion of sorts. Hopefully we'll be back early but I just don't fee like I'll be up to playing after a long day down there.

Tonight I fired Diablo 2 back up, fun game but man does it show it's age. It's almost blurry. I remember it being top of the line in graphics and fun. Guess some things should stay in memory.

If you're reading this leave me a comment so I know I'm not just typing to myself. :)

2008-08-18T00:35:00.002-04:00

I've been reading this book for about a week. I know, I'm a slow reader, but I got kids. I finally hit something that really bothers me. I know, the Clone Wars Movie is for kids, it's obvious since it's a cartoon. But the book, as written by Karen Traviss actually reads fairly well, and doesn't until recently insult your intelligence. The part that is really bugging me is *Spoiler Alert!* After calling on the Republic for help in returning his son Rottta, Obi-Wan meets with Jabba the Hutt, one of the most powerful crime lords in the galaxy. Jabba gives the Jedi 24 hours to return Rotta in return for free access to the core worlds. Obi-Wan agrees and Anakin is sent with the 501st to retrieve the Huttling. A pitched battle ensues between the 501st and the separatists and Anakin rescues the Rotta. All this is caught on video by Asaj Ventriss and her Spy droid who splices the tape together to make it look like Anakin is the kidnapper. This takes place in about 1 minute time. Count Dooku visits Jabba and tells him the Jedi are behind the kidnapping and after a short delay presents the video to Jabba who believes it hook line and sinker. The most powerful crime lord in the galaxy never thinks that this could be staged for personal gain by Dooku. Apparently Jabba has also fallen for the faked bigfoot pictures just released on the internet too.

I have read numerous Star Wars books, including several of the Young Readers, all of which don't try to make us believe that Someone as powerful and well connected as Jabba would fall for faked video. Oh well, got to take it for what it really is, a kids movie.

The Podge Cast

2008-08-10T23:44:00.008-04:00

Here's a shout out to one of my new favorite Podcasts "The Podge Cast". The hosts take a look at a variety of geek topics, including Movies, RPGs, and other stuff. If you want an Irreverent, fun show subscribe today.

Sculpting A Galaxy

2008-08-08T00:37:00.002-04:00

I just got this book from the Science Fiction Book Club for $11.00. Yep, a $50.00 book for $11.00, and what a book! Man this thing is awesome. Pictures of all the models and ships, close ups, and cool information and factoids from the designers. I highly recommend any Star Wars fan go out and snag it, especially if you can get it cheap from the sfbc.com.

The Clone Wars!

2008-08-06T00:47:00.004-04:00

I can't wait for this to hit theaters! Official G level cannon in a cool cartoon form, to kick off the official TV show. I know it's sacrilege but I'm already reading the novelization, I could care less about spoilers, matter of fact if you haven't read it yet pick up the "Revenge of the Sith" Novelization, it makes the movie that much better since it tells the side of the story you don't get and fills in needed gaps that were left out.

Finally made an Amazon purchase!

2008-08-04T23:31:00.004-04:00

After a lot of hard thinking I ended up going against my nature to get things with my gift certificate I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. This month 2 books are coming out and I want them both, but at a $40.00 Retail Price Tag each, I decided to purchase them. So as of now, I've got a pre-order for the 4th Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting and the Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Setting.

Even though I'll be setting my Upcoming Star Wars Game in the Rise of the Empire period, I figure there should be useful information on Jedi and other cool stuff in the Star Wars book.

What to get...

2008-07-31T07:48:00.005-04:00

Ok, I've got some Amazon Gift Certificates and actually have no idea what to buy. I usually like getting game books or things that I would not normally buy. So looking at my wish list I have Pirates Guide to Freeport, The 4th Edition Forgotten Realms book, Shadows Over Camelot Board game, and the World of Warcraft Adventure Game.

Any ideas?

New Pet Peeve

2008-07-30T23:51:00.009-04:00

I've got a new pet peeve. Role Playing Podcasts that seem to be done by children. I'm talking about a couple of recent ones that I've been listening too, ones that thinks just because we have an explicit rating means we can drop an 'F' bomb whenever they want to the point of excess. Or talk about sex constantly, it detracts from the points your trying to make. Finally the shows that have a bunch of friends on it just bashing each other and generally being jerks that you would kick out of your house. I'm going to refrain from naming the offenders, but I've already unsubscribed to a couple of them and got another on notice for deletion.

The good ones are run by adults who take the role seriously. They have a script, or at least talking points that might hint around at adult topics but don't explore the steamy underbelly of them, and the hosts treat each other with respect. I'd like to point out a couple that do this right, Fear the boot, Sons of Kryos, And the D20 Radio Family of podcasts and finally a shout out to Chris at Wapcaplets, an excellent bite sized show, get Chris's take on things and he's always polite about it.

Listening to a good podcast really makes the day go by fast. So go to RPG Podcasts and find yourself a good gaming podcast.

Dr Horrible!

2008-07-29T23:14:00.004-04:00

This has got to be the future of entertainment. Check it out if you haven't already, it's hilarious!

The year of Robert E. Howard

2008-07-27T00:47:00.008-04:00

Wow, looks like 2009 is shaping up to be the year for R.E.H. First, we have Solomon Kane, then I got word of a new Conan movie, sans Arnold, now Rose McGowan as Red Sonja! Can it get any better? She seems perfect for the part, at least more perfect then Brigitte Nielsen back in the 80's did. I just hope they get it right this time, but from the posters I think they'll do just fine.

New books have arrived.

2008-06-27T00:47:00.004-04:00

I really didn't know what to expect from 4th edition D&D. I got my new books a couple of days ago and all I can say is wow. This is a totally different game. It almost seems like they've brought it back to it's Dungeon Crawling roots. The Monster Manual, while missing standard creatures, has a nice selection of monsters from all the levels. The DM guide it chocked full of DM Advice, and is much more useful then previous editions.

So far, all the podcasts I listen to have gave it a thumbs up and I really want to play it. But, skeptics will probably prevent it. I might have to find another group more willing to try it. 3.5 is still a great game full of lots of depth, but this is new.

I like new stuff.

It's ordered.

2008-06-16T00:32:00.001-04:00

I just went ahead and ordered the Dungeon Masters Guide and Monster Manual for 4th edition along with the Keep on the Shadowfell Module. Hopefully one day I'll be able to play it. But until then theres always wishing and good reading.

Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition

2008-06-13T22:02:00.004-04:00

Well, much has been posted about this game. I have to say I'm one of the people that bought whole heartily into the 3.x edition with shelves full of books and not enough time to use all of them. But on a whim, and after reading alot of praise for the game even from Nay-Sayers, I went ahead and picked up the Players handbook. It is very nice looking and so far easy to read. I would have to say that this is a totally different game then our D&D, where 3.x at least kept some of the sacred cows that 1st and 2nd edition had. But it actually looks fun, more high adventure heroic fun, but fun. If I can convince my friends to try it, I might actually run it as a one-shot now and again. What was the skill check I needed for that?

Detroit

2008-06-05T23:55:00.003-04:00

Just got back from a half week in Detroit. We stayed at the Renaissance Center in in Downtown, about a block from Joe Louis Arena. The Ren Center is awesome, very big and lots of stuff in it. I ended up watching 2 movies, Narnia: Prince Caspian, which is surprisingly much more enjoyable then the first movie. It's much darker and has less preaching. I also saw Iron Man again, and this time sat through till the end. If you haven't seen it yet, sit through the credits.

We did a pub crawl during the 5th game of the NHL Finals. The Red Wings lost in Triple Overtime. It is fun to be out and about in Hockeytown during a night like that though. Lots of energy. But thank god they won last night, that last shot accross Ozzy's glove had us on the edge of our seats.

Hey I just found out they are making a Solomon Kane movie. I'm a recent Kane Convert and I highly recommend it if you love Pulp, Conan, Kull or anything Robert E Howard. The Puritan Swordsman kicks butt and takes names, and then moves on to his next target.

Rome Total War!

2008-05-29T22:54:00.002-04:00

Got it installed last night and played through some of the tutorial campaign. So far it is an awesome game. Good graphics, even for a not so current game. Great game play, tactical and strategic. I think I may have some fun with this.

On my own personal front, I've now lost around 57 Pounds. Thanks to diet and exercise. It really helps and I've never felt better. Last week I jogged 2.5 Miles in about 27 Minutes, a personal best. I think I'm going to keep going and do some 5ks this summer.

New game!

2008-05-28T23:45:00.004-04:00

Well, it's new to me at least. I picked up Rome Total War at Target on clearance for $5.00. What a deal. Installing it is taking forever, and it's a little late so I might not be able to play it tonight. But it looks cool.

Beginings

2008-05-28T00:45:00.003-04:00

Not much here right now. I'm just getting started, so I'll take it slow.