Bargain Bin Find - Mage The Ascension Second Edition

I've always been intrigued with the World of Darkness long before I got into tabletop gaming. I'm a horror movie fan and other than Galactica, my favorite TV shows would have to be Buffy, Angel, and Supernatural. There's just something about the unknown dark corners of the world that trips my trigger and sparks my imagination. I can't get enough of the stuff. Throw it all together in a book or collection of books and you've pretty much got me by the throat.

Dragon Age Set 1 - Have I finally found my fantasy RPG? (Part 3)

Enough with the preamble, you want to know about Dragon Age the tabletop game, right? I was drawn to Dragon Age because it offers the simplicity and stream-lined qualities of an old-school game or D&D clone with the benefits of learning from the lessons of the last 30 years of role-playing design. The system is sweet in its simplicity. Roll 3d6, add ability modifiers, add gear, and compare your result to a target number.

It's something you may seen a million times before, but it's the execution of the system that makes it so easy to understand. First, you have eight basic ability scores. They're similar to the six traits you know from D&D. Once you roll three d6 to determine your abilities, they're instantly converted to a basic ability modifier with an average of +1 and up to +4. I like how simplistic this leaves your character sheet. But if we're talking simplicity, let's look at their skill system. Instead of a list of skills each with their own value, you simply have a list of focuses that further advance the basic ability score when the focus applies to the test. For example, instead of having an acrobatics skills, the ability Dexterity has an acrobatics focus you can add on. Abilities can have as many or as few focuses as you want for them, and there's no minimum ability score required for any focus. I particularly like this last part as it takes a bit of the bookkeeping aspect from other games out of the equation. Beyond abilities and focuses, characters also have talents. Talents are the feat-equivalent for Dragon Age. They are what further differentiates characters from each other.

There are two other character aspects that draw me to the system. First is the spell system. There aren't a whole lot of spells listed in the first box set (it is just for levels 1 through 5 afterall), but we have good options for any type of mage you'd want to play. The way spells are presented is easy to understand. They have a target number to hit on their own, a well-explained effect, and sometimes a resist number for the more powerful spells in which a target can attempt to resist the number. It's a good universal mechanic that leaves a lot of room to breathe for variation.

The other aspect is stunts. It's the real variety of standard combat. Whenever a double is rolled out of 3d6, players get a number of Stunt Points to spend on some extra effect for the attack. They can disarm an opponent, make their attack armor penetrating, or even give yourself essentially a free major action (characters get a minor and a major action each turn). Stunts can be made cheaper or more powerful through specific class abilities, but all classes have equal access to the general stunt list. They create a universal language across all players but still retain a unique flavor depending on the class, and I love them.

Beyond these player benefits, GM'ing looks like it's going to be breeze. Stat blocks for monsters are short and concise. They tell you all you need to know in the space of about half a 3 x 5 index card. The GM guide for boxset 1 has a nice list of adversaries for your players, and I'm really looking forward to how monsters are going to scale up in future releases. There are also several adventures already available for Dragon Age, and for the first time since my very first GM'ing experience, I think I'm going to run my campaign based off a series of published adventures. I hope to do this very soon, and make sure to check back to see what I think of the actual play experience!

Dragon Age Set 1 - Have I finally found my fantasy RPG? (Part 2)

Yesterday, in part 1 of this article series, I discussed where I was in regards to the current state of my GM'ing. Things look kind of grim long-term, but short-term I have several one-shots that I could run with about 20 minutes of prep time. My Savage Worlds campaign is lagging (mostly due to my own lagging interest). I've never ran a fantasy game before, but I've always wanted to.

Dragon Age came into my life almost exactly a year ago. We had just picked up our PS3 at Wal-Mart for Black Friday and were heading to Best Buy to see which new PS3 games we could get for on the cheap. Dragon Age: Origins was one of those games. It was the first game I tried out for my new system and was gorgeous in HD. It was a fantastic setting with extremely rich characters and a richer storyline, but you don't have to take my word for it. The only problem is that I didn't like the actual game play of the game. Soon after I traded it away and left the situation with a sad face.

Then the Dragon Age tabletop game was announced by Green Ronin and my hopes soared that I'd play a game that worked for me, regardless of video vs. tabletop. For some reason I lost track of it, but a couple of months ago Chuck tells me that he's picked up the boxset for someone else in the group to run. He's sold enough on the concept that he'll pay to play it. The good news is that three of our five regulars were obsessed with the video game for a while there and would be an easy buy-in. The better news is that the three of them don't include Chuck or me.

So last weekend I finally catch the bug to run Dragon Age and found something I could finally get in a trade from Chuck for my copy of Vade Mecum (completing his Cthulhutech line). I picked the boxset up this past Wednesday and am already working my way through the second book in the set - the Game Master's Guide. I'm eating this stuff up. I've pitched it to three out of the four regular players I can expect to be there weekly, and it's gone over well.

Check back on Wednesday where I go into more details on the system itself and what my plans are moving forward with my Dragon Age campaign.

Dragon Age Set 1 - Have I finally found my fantasy RPG? (Part 1)

Something recently possessed me to trade Chuck for his copy of the Dragon Age Boxset 1 for my only remaining Cthulhutech book - Vade Mecum. Cthulhutech is still something I'm very interested in, but I just can't see myself running it. I'll leave it to Chuck since he is definitely the Cthulhu and Lovecraft guy. Don't get me wrong, I love horror, but when it comes to the Mythos, Chuck knows how to set the tone and put his players on edge.

So where does that leave me as a GM? Well, I've got my Day After Ragnarok "Project Snakebite" campaign. While it's going well after several sessions, I feel in a bit of a slump. They just entered my first dungeon and cleared the first level of the dungeon. I don't know why, but I just am not motivated to map out the rest of the dungeon. I know where they're going and what their ultimate goal is, but I just am not feeling the in-between.

Besides Snakebite I've got several (at least five) different one shots mapped out and pretty much ready to run. Of course since we're facing the holiday season it'll be tough to get everyone together to run any campaign, so I'm trying to prep these to be able to run on-the-fly with whoever shows up. I'd like to be able to bank some of these for future Friday Night Gaming sessions when we're missing just a person or two.

So I've got my lagging Savage Worlds campaign and several games over several different game systems (mostly Dread, but I also want to give Time & Temp a shot). I've wanted to run a fantasy game for a long time now. I've mentioned before how I've never actually GM'ed anything in the fantasy genre before. I don't really think of myself this way, but I'm far and away a modern (or near modern with WWII) GM. We play a lot of D&D 4th Ed, but I've never run a game (although Wraith Recon looks like something I'd definitely consider running).

This brings me back to Dragon Age. Come back tomorrow to learn more about how I got to the point where this might just be the perfect fantasy game for me to GM!

I'm Thankful for Old School Gaming

Everyone has to do one of these things, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Clearly I'm thankful for a lot of real things in my life, but since this is The Hopeless Gamer, I thought I would focus on some gaming things to be thankful for.

I was trying to think of what specifically has me excited right now. There are a lot of newer, less traditional games that have my attention, specifically Time and Temp and De Profundis. Both of these games are really exciting and do things I haven't seen before in role-playing. They each transform the media just a little bit, and I'm very thankful these creative game designers have stepped forward and found an audience enough to print their products.

While I'm excited to continue to read these new games and work them into our rotation of friday night games, right now old school games have really grabbed my attention. From Dragon Warriors to Swords & Wizardry to the heavily-influenced by old school games Dragon Age, it's like a new world has opened up for us. Granted, all our games are just in the planning stages right now, but considering we've never played any of these, I'm really looking forward to the slightly-less tactical gameplay these games can offer. We love D&D 4th Edition, but sometimes we need a break from all the power cards and six page character sheets. Make sure to check out our future old-schooling posts as we continue to explore the oldest genre of tabletop gaming for the first time. Look forward to lots of reviews as well.

Also, I'm thankful for my readers and followers! Thanks everyone, and have a good holiday!

We Might be Old-Schoolin' It.

It's no secret that we like our games new, miniature-focused, and/or just down-right bizzare. However, there was a spot in our gaming schedule that opened up, and Chuck is taking the plunge in running a game of Swords & Wizardry (S&W).

The only problem is, I've never built a character for a D&D clone before. We've played Call of Cthulhu, but that's really as old as it gets for our RPG skills. I downloaded the free version of the whitebox rule set (you can find it for yourself here). I found myself sending Chuck about 10 emails back and forth with diifferent questions simply about character creation.

I will say this for the rules - they are incredibly versatile for creating your own character. S&W takes a very minimalistic approach to characters and power. A +1 modifier to a roll makes a huge difference in this game. This means that a roll with no modifier is still pretty competent.

And then there's the fact that, while it's a fantasy game, it's really open to making it your own. Chuck's making pre-gens for most of the other guys to choose from, but of course I had to make my own, and that means I automatically wanted to know more about the fluff. Another email later and I pretty much had the entire world open to me with pretty much no established setting other than what we make of it.

I immediately went even older-school than a D&D clone and decided to go Tolkien all up in here. I wanted a high elf, but not a magic user. I ended up with Ecthelion (yes, I know, but I like the name), an old hermit of an elf who finally decided he's been in this world too long. He's donned his armor, bastard sword, dagger, and shortbow one last time for a tour around the world before he sails West forever.

Of course I'm going Tolkien, but I don't mind the fact that the other guys won't take that route. That's cool though - I have a feeling that if we keep playing, we'll build our own mish-mash fantasy setting to fit all of our interests.

Now I just need to figure out how these hit dice work...

Random Character Generation? Just Maybe!

I've been reading the Dragon Warriors pdf that I picked up in the latest round of fundraising pdf magic over at Drivethru RPG, and I'm really liking what I see. Dragon Warriors, for those who are historically challenged, is one of the old great games that was released around the same time period as D&D. From my understanding, the edition we have now isn't changed all that much from what was originally released. Because of this the system is definitely an old-school game rather than anything resembling modern-day d20 or D&D 4th Ed. It does use a d20, but instead of adding it to some ability or skill score, you try to roll underneath your ability score. It's a fun change of pace, but it's not my point!

My point: Dragon Warriors uses random stat generation. This isn't a new thing - it's pretty much a staple of old-school gaming - but it's something we've never tried before.

Having grown into the hobby with Star Wars Saga Edition and really embrace weekly gaming with D&D 4th Ed., we're used to min-maxing our characters because the games really require you to do such a thing to enjoy the game. Dragon Warriors has gamey aspects, but there's just something about it that makes me really want to run a game using random stat generation. I haven't finished reading the game yet, but it seems simple enough to teach and a great game to run on the fly, so I think I might give it a shot. Dragon Warriors seems to encompass much more than just combat and action. It's very much modelled after Dark Ages Europe, and social status and profession define characters.

I don't actually GM fantasy games... like ever. I've done lots of Dread, Savage Worlds Day After Ragnarok, and Star Wars, but never a fantasy game. We'll have to see if Warhammer Fantasy or Dragon Warriors wins out as my first fantasy game. I'll make sure to keep you updated!

Oh, NaNoWriMo? Of course this isn't a form of procrastination. Shut. Up.