Paranoia

Jan16
by verycutegm on January 16, 2012 at 9:22 pm
Posted In: Roleplaying Games

Who doesn’t know what Paranoia is? In case you don’t know, Paranoia is a dystopian science fiction tabletop rpg written by Greg Costikyan, Dan Gelber, and Eric Goldberg and published under Mongoose Publishing. In this setting society is run by the Computer. Players play to win the Computers loyalty by killing traitors, commies, and mutants. However players are also part of a secret society that usual oppose the computer and they have mutant powers. Kill or be killed but in slapstick humor way.

It’s a fun game. Expect many deaths in the game but they have clones of course. There will many explosions of fiery death, acid face melting, and misfired lasers. The best challenge to overcome if keeping your players from killing each other too much. That is right…player vs player. But unlike a dungeons and dragons game pvp is encouraged! I love it as a one shot, but I probably couldn’t play it for a campaign. There is only so much slapstick killing humor I can take

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Lady Blackbird Flies

Jan12
by verycutegm on January 12, 2012 at 3:02 pm
Posted In: Roleplaying Games

I recently ran a game of Lady Blackbird and my group had a blast. Lady Blackbird was written by John Harper and a free pdf is available on onesevendesign.com. Each character has traits and key words that describe them. When an obstacle is faced a player will be asked to roll a d6 and are able to add addition dice to their rolls if character has traits or key words that can be applied to the situation. The player has a pool of 7 6 sided dice they may use in addition to the dice they are already rolling. Difficulty of the obstacles is rated from 1-5. If an obstacle has a difficulty rating of 2, when a player rolls his/her dice s/he must have at least 2 dice with a value of 4 or higher to succeed. If this happens they pass, if they fail the obstacle increases in difficulty. The game uses similar mechanics to another game, The Shadow of Yesterday. Pool dice in certain situations are not regained unless there is a “refresh scene”, a refresh scene can be a flashback enriching the character experience.

It is a wonderful game. I am a big fan of free form roleplay. The sky was the limit figuratively and literally.  Everyone in my game played their characters wonderfully. It especially helped that we felt like we were playing a steampunk verison of Star Wars. The game relies heavily on the players rather than the game master. The gm may be able to nudge here and there but it is the players that have to “get into it”.

The only problem is that a game master like me needs at least a little prep for a game. There are scenes where Cyrus Vance, one player characters, will needed a lot, but someone like Snargle, the goblin pilot, will not be as engaged. If you cannot improvise quickly you might have a little trouble. Like any good game master look around the table, see who isn’t engaged/appears to be bored, and try to create an obstacle engage the bored player.

Those who wish for something more structure with rule heavy combat will be disappointed, but everyone lives once. Try and see for yourself and maybe one day I’ll encounter you in the wild blue yonder.

 

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It’s the Bloody Red Dragon Inn

Dec25
by verycutegm on December 25, 2011 at 7:29 pm
Posted In: Card Game

Recently, I played Red Dragon Inn one, two, and three at a friend’s house. It is a fun little card game created by Cliff Bohm and published by Slugfest Games. The idea of the game is that you part of an adventuring party staying at an inn doing what adventurers do best, drinking and gambling.

Each player has a fortitude, which is one’s health, and an alcohol content. Fortitude starts at twenty and alcohol content at zero, when your alcohol content meets your fortitude value you pass out and get thrown out of the tavern. The other way to get thrown out of the inn is to run out of gold, which you have ten of at the start of the game. Everyone plays an adventurer that each has his or her special quirk. One your turn you discard, and draw cards until you have seven in your hand. You may play an action, then you give out two drinks to anyone at the table, then you take a drink!

There are many cards that counteract actions, restore fortitude, deal more alcohol points, gamble, and etc. It is a very strategic and it more fun in play in action than explaining it. By the way roleplaying your character is optional but encouraged. It makes the game even that much more fun. I command you to GO BLOODY BUY IT!

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Rifts…No not the Video Game!

Dec20
by verycutegm on December 20, 2011 at 3:54 pm
Posted In: Rifts, Roleplaying Games

So last week I played Rifts for the first time. For those who do not know Rifts is a multi-genre roleplaying game published by Palladium games, who also published the TMNT rpg and Heroes Unlimited. What can I say about it? I liked it.

The world is a rich one; it is set in post apocalyptic settings where the Earth after experiencing a golden age is torn apart by Rifts that tear the inter dimensional fabric. Now the world has been reformed where there are parts that that resemble the jungles of the Congo filled with fantastical creatures and other places where it looks as if someone dropped in scenes from Bladerunner.

I like how there are a lot of class opinions. If you want to be a heavy hitter a glitterboy or juicer might be for you however if magic is more of your forte a ley line walker or mystic might be in your future. There are even classes that are not combat centric at all that focus on skills such as the operator or rogue scholar. I for one like to be the rogue scientist astounding people with my giant brain power knowledge… logic thingy… of smartness… Shut up.

The combat system leaves more to be desired. Tentacle monsters definitely would reign supreme. Each class has a set number of attacks per round. Ranged combat…that gets a little confusing and don’t get me started on missile combat. I can see why a lot of people house rule of lots of the details. Don’t get me wrong it’s not as bad as Exalted rules where I can’t even slough through that stuff. Depending on whether or not you have hand to hand combat affect your ability to dodge, pull punch, and etc. Initiative if rolled after each round. But it is really easier to keep track of than it sounds.

It is very archaic much like dungeons and dragons 1st edition. Skills are based on percentages, which I have no problem about. It reminds be a little of what I heard about the Call of Cthulhu games. But there are so many skills such as weapon expertise and languages, but you also have skills like animal husbandry, which is prerequisite for veterinary. It can be a little excessive, if I were game mastering such a system I would have a list of highly recommended skills that will applied to the game.

Would I play again? Hell yes. Would I run a campaign with it? Yeah I would, but I’m more of a medieval fantasy person so it wouldn’t be really my forte.

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Migrating from 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons to Pathfinder

Nov07
by verycutegm on November 7, 2011 at 8:23 pm
Posted In: Dungeons and Dragons

So someone asked me, “When did you realize you were shifting away from Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition to Pathfinder?” I thought it would make a good blog subject. Instead of focusing on the games and the dungeon masters I’ve played like described in a previous post this will focus on me as a player.

Confidence is a great thing; wish I had more of it when I try new things. When I try something new, most of the time, I’m pretty nervous. Being an introvert doesn’t help too much either.  I never know what to expect and the idea of being new at something and sucking really terrifies me. If such an event were to occur, which results in me being laughed at, I would probably if I had the chance go into a little corner and lament. Thankfully 4th edition is easy.  There wasn’t any confusion and after my second or third game I had some idea of what the hell was going on.

After I had said confidence with 4th edition, I decided it was time to tackle something a little bit harder, 3.5 edition. This would be my taking the training wheels off moment. Granted 3.5 was a little harder to grasp. In many moments in this game the following could be heard in my head…

“What the hell is my grapple modifier?”

“Trip?”

“What do you mean drinking a potion is a move action?”

“What is this full round attack you speak of?”

“Difficult terrain is 1.5 movement?! What?”

Eventually I figured out what the hell I was doing. That is when I realized I liked 3.5 but it was on par with 4th edition still. It was so complicated. I wanted to play a caster type but too many spells…SO MANY SPELLS! WHAT DO THEY DO?! I DON’T UNDERSTAND! I still don’t understand how a barbarians rage works. On the other hand this is what 4th edition was starting to sound like…  WHY DO THE MONK ATTACKS SOUND SO STUPID? I wish spells were a little more versatile. Bloody fortune cards! They are banned from my game!

In other news the very cute game master is a raving lunatic…

I feel like Goldilocks with pathfinder, not too hard, not too easy, it is just about right for my personality. Combat maneuver attack, I was like, “Whoa! I don’t have to calculate my trip and grapple? Woohoo less math for my fragile brain! Etc…

Though I probably would not have felt this way if I hadn’t gone through both 4th edition and 3.5. If I had picked up pathfinder first this probably would’ve been my thought process, “Why is this so hard?”

/cry

But I didn’t and everything is chill. Peace!

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