The Day After Ragnarok

I find it appropriate that I picked up the Savage Worlds supplement, The Day After Ragnarok today considering it's the day after my birthday. Or it's not appropriate, whatever, just thought it was interesting that it's in fact The Day After My Birthday as well. Anywho, I'm still trying to get a grip on the next game I plan on running. I started reading the rules for Warhammer 3rd edition last night and am enjoying the huge production value put into the books. Obviously I'm also interested in Ragnarok and giving the Savage Worlds ruleset a try as well. I'm leaning towards Ragnarok at this point as my best guess since it's a Weird War II setting and our most picky player is a big fan of WWII history. Bonus points on my side because the world is different enough that he can't really catch me on too many historical inconsistencies.

Planning is continuing to go forward with my Genius: The Transgression character. At this point he's roughly based on Tony Stark (Iron Man) and Roland from Borderlands. I'm leaning now more towards a playboy-style character. He's definitely an arms-designer and engineer, that's my priority, but he's got the exploration and treasure-hunting ambitions of Roland. I'm thining my first wonder to focus on will be my steampunk SMG-styled rifle. I'm thinking something to look like this. Gotta love Soviet weapon designs.

In the A/V club, I keep picking up new PS3 games from Goozex since finishing my first playthrough of Borderlands. Loved Borderlands, but I need a bit of a break between playthroughs (although I'm itching to try out the Siren class at some point). Valkyria Chronicles is as good as the demo suggested and I plan on playing it up a bunch. Just got Modern Warfare 1 as well, and I think I understand why it's so popular. FINE, I GET IT. I still thought the demo for Killzone 2 was prettier, but that'll be a purchase for a later day.

(Image borrowed from the Late to the Party's Review of The Day After Ragnarok.)

New Year's Resolutions!

WARNING: Obligatory post about what I'd like to get accomplished this year that has a tie to the New Year's holiday is forth-coming. You have been warned!

1. Continue (as in no quitting/getting bored of) my Twitter story, The Saga of Hoplite, to develop my storytelling abilities. I don't really know what a healthy amount of tweets would be for a Twitter serial (these things aren't exactly an established format at this point), but I hope to be at 400 tweets of Story-telling super hero goodness by 12/31/10. That's a little over a post a day at this point, which is quite a modest goal. If you're not following it, check it out here: SagaofHoplite.

2. Actually run my Hunter: the Vigil game via pdf's that White Wolf graciously provided me for review at Eye of the Vortex.

3. Continue to work on writing quality articles for Eye of the Vortex and expand my area of coverage.

4. Spend at least two months doing Shocktober-style posts for here at the Hopeless Gamer as part of a larger effort to continually develop my writing skills.

5. Provide live coverage of both Gencon Indy 2010 and Con of the North which The Bro and I are all set up to do in February (excitement!).

6. Complete at least the first draft of my first homebrew game so it can be up and running for play tests and revisions.

7. Learn how to play and run a game of WHFRPG 3rd Edition!

8. Learn about 5 new indie games I have never seen a pdf copy of or held in person (basically I could have heard of it, but no real exposure to it).

9. Play an RPG at a convention or locally with a group I've never played with before (although this could include The Bro or The Wife).

That's it for now!

Post-Chirstmas-Pre-New-Year's Gaming.

I've been playing video games a lot lately, I won't lie. If you're following my Twitter account, you'll know that the PS3's taken a lot of my time as of late. I've beaten Arkham Asylum, Infamous, and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I've played a bit of Dragon Age Origins, Assassin's Creed, and Fallout 3, but none of those have clicked for me. Currently I'm playing Borderlands and have grown a little obsessed with it.

I started thinking about what system/game I want to run next, and formulated a plan. I made a list of all the systems I'd be willing to run a game in and discuss it with my players beforehand to come to a democratic solution! For some reason this has never occurred to me before, but here we go! Here's what I came up with:

World of Darkness - Mortals
Hunter: The Vigil
Geist: The Sin-Eaters
Mouse Guard
All Flesh Must Be Eaten
Wild Talents
Warhammer Fantasy RPG 3rd Edition
Savage Worlds
Dread
3:16 - Carnage Amongst the Stars

I haven't ran all these games before (I haven't even finished reading the rules on some), but they're all systems either I like or would like to give a shot. Savage Worlds in particular I've been brainstorming on making a Borderlands setting for. Like I said - kind of obsessed. I was hoping to have a discussion today, but one of our regulars couldn't make our session, so I postponed it.

Instead we played Neuroshima Hex! Turns out The Bro's been holding this for a while, debating on trading/selling it away. Something got in him today to read the rules before the group got together, we played four players and immediately played a second game. It's a real nice mix of strategy and lite-ness that makes a nice intermediary product from heavy games like Chaos in the Old World and light games like Incan Gold. It plays quick and like a puzzle game, but with a lot of theme and nice varied strategies. It was a winner and something that I look forward to playing more (also it doesn't use dice, which is awesome!)

In other news the thing to be pulling me out of my video game psychosis at least a little bit is our first session tonight for planning our Genius: The Transgression game. Our regular D&D GM is planning this one, which, surprising to me, has really been refreshing for me. I get to create a character concept, not have to explain any rules (but can obviously help explain and interpret since I understand the nWoD system). Since thinking about my character more, I might be able to work out my Borderlands gaming obsession by basing my Genius character on Roland, the Soldier class character which also happens to be the character I'm playing currently.

Should be fun!

A Holiday Announcement

Happy Christmas Eve and Christmas everyone! We'll see you on the other side!

Because I don't have enough going on I give you: The Hoplite

The idea of a twitter account that is a dedicated, ongoing story struck me today and I did a little bit of research. Turns out that this kind of little piece at a time novel is a big hit in Japan, of course. Anyway, there have been a handful of attempts in the States, but nothing's taken off. To call it a trend would be gross exaggeration. This means it's still relatively new, yay!

So, here's my idea, I'm going to write an ongoing super hero adventure of an original creation of my own: The Hoplite. He's a modern day hero with an ancient origin, or something. Haven't really figured out the whole backstory, but I'm going to be telling his story through Twitter. I figure it'll be something fun to do while I'm at work and could be enjoyable for others to read at their own places of employment as well!

Follow it here: http://twitter.com/SagaofHoplite

Don't Rest Your Head Review is up!

Check out my review of Don't Rest Your Head at Eye of the Vortex! It's a quirky game, but completely awesome.

Gamer Christmas List: Last Minute Shopping Ideas.

So I was sitting here trying to think of what kind of last-minute shopping options there are out there for gamer folk. Of course you could always raid your local friendly game store and pick up whatever's out there for that special gamer friend. What about Amazon? You can still order as of tomorrow to get your late, late shopping in, just don't forget to select two day shipping! So is there a better option? What if I hate braving the cold streets and busy parking lots? What if I'm a nervous wreck about stock running low for online options? Well, fear not, there is a third option, and better yet, you can do it right from your computer desk!

Of course I'm talking about pdf format or pdf-exclusive gaming products. Places like rpgnow (image borrowed from their website) and drivethruRPG (which, honestly might be the same website now that I look at them side by side - showing my ignorance here) are great last minute shopping options as you can purchase a pdf product as a gift and it gets sent directly to your friends email. It's a nice alternative to the hustle and bustle of last minute brick and mortar shopping. Ok, so now you have a buying method that won't drive you crazy and definitely won't run out of stock, you're probably begging for some pdf-exclusive recommendations to really add bang to your Christmas-present-budget-bucks!

Portrait of a Villain: The Desire

This one's for the D&D 4th Edition fan in your life. I recently wrote a full review of this new indie supplement which you can check out on Eye of the Vortex. I go into a bunch of details on the review itself, but here's a quick summary. Basically it's an original city to be dropped into a D&D game. It comes with a central antagonist, "The Desire," the head of an underground brothel cartel that's got its hands deep in the pockets of every politician and underground group out there. You get stats on her, other NPC's of the city, lots of new generic monsters and henchmen, and three full sets of encounters. Lot's of value for this $9.95 pdf-only product.

Goblin Markets

Got a person who likes White Wolf games or in general likes modern urban fantasy? This is the supplement that's going to get that guy's juices flowing. Intended to be used in a Changeling: The Lost game, it can easily be transferred into any general World of Darkness game. The bonus is that it'll really throw your characters for a loop when they enter it. You can create your own goblin market and let your players explore it as appropriate to the game they're playing. Sure, it's awesome for a group of Changeling's to deal with a market, but think of the damage of a dedicated cell of Hunters could do to a goblin market, and more importantly how many new plot seeds it can create as countless goblins nurture a grudge against the group.

Sidenote: White Wolf has really embraced the pdf, direct-download format, and thus has a whole section dedicated to their pdf-only products. Good stuff!

Iron Kingdoms RPG

One awesome feature of the direct download pdf market for RPG's is the availability of out-of-print products. The best example of this I can think of (showing my Privateer Press bias, I'll admit) is the Iron Kingdoms RPG line. Designed to be a setting for D&D 3.5, these books have been out of print for a few years, and the prices for original copies have been sky rocketing on Ebay and Amazon. You'll get the big deal by reading the Character Guide, and then you'll just keep needing to get more and more until your collection is complete. Unlike the other two entries in this guide, this isn't exactly a budget buy, which can be a good thing when spending an appropriate amount of money is integral to the gift exchange, but fear not! They still are below the original retail price. For the quality of the writing and the amount packed in each book, it's a good investment.

Hope that helped, and good luck on your shopping and holiday-ing! We may not post much this next week, but I consider that healthy, darn it! Hopefully see you before the end of the year!