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Ares Magazine 3 Now Available

Ares Magazine 3 Now Available

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ares-magazine-3-smallSPI’s Ares Magazine was one of the best things about the 70s and 80s. Seriously, a top-notch game magazine with an original SF or fantasy boardgame crammed into every issue? You know that was just too cool to last.

It didn’t, of course. The magazine folded after only  19 issues, but in that time it produced many games that are still fondly-remembered today, like Greg Costikyan’s Barbarian Kings, the Alien-inspired The Wreck of the B.S.M. Pandora, the post-apocalyptic strategy title The Omega War, the haunted house exploration game Nightmare House, and lots more.

In early 2014 Matthew Wuertz reported here on the successful rebirth of Ares Magazine. The first issue shipped that year, and issue #2 arrived late last year. I was especially intrigued by the fantasy-themed third issue, containing the extremely ambitious game Born of Titans, a game of quests and heroes in Mythological Greece.

Born of Titans is the issue game in Ares issue 3. It is a game of heroism in the world of ancient Greek mythology. One to four may play, with special rules at the end for one and two-player games. Each player portrays a hero from legend who undertakes quests to battle with fierce monsters and retrieve epic artifacts.

Each player controls the actions of one Hero selected at the start of the game. Hero counters are moved on the map… A Hero with no remaining Crew is essentially alone on a raft. Her crew is dead or has run off…

In the fashion of good mythology, BoT relies on a generous amount of Prophesy… This is important so a player can know what sort of challenge she faces on her next Quest or what a particular Sea Monster is… The first player to gain a third Completed Quest wins the game!

Sadly, Born of Titans experienced several significant delays, and eventually Ares #3 shipped without it. The company store still lists the standalone version of the game for pre-order, with estimated arrival in May 2016. However, sites like FRP Games are now listing the magazine available with game included, for shipment this month.

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Why I Went Old School — or Swords & Wizardry vs. Pathfinder

Why I Went Old School — or Swords & Wizardry vs. Pathfinder

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Swords&Wizardry_CoverWhen I got back into playing RPGs, I chose Pathfinder over 4th Edition D&D (as a whole lot of people seemed to do). I was familiar with 3rd Edition and the plethora of rules, skill checks, etc… I’m still pretty well versed in Pathfinder, which is a great product, and I’m a big fan both of Golarion, the campaign world, and of the company, Paizo.

Two members of my gaming group have never played an actual pen and paper RPG. One (she) is a hardcore World of Warcraft player, and the other (he) is a veteran PC gamer, with a lot of hours on Baldur’s Gate and Oblivion (among others). Both have also played the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords (which I LOVE!) with me. So, they get the skill check concept.

I decided to run them through a dice-rolling, paper mapping, minis on said paper, character-sheet adventure.

I initially considered Pathfinder. I have a lot of resources available, and I definitely know the system well enough to teach it to them. I even have a Beginner’s Box, still in the plastic (how about that, John O’Neill!).  But I quickly discarded that system.

Pathfinder is extremely rules heavy. I’ve seen it grow over the years and, as seems inevitable for any ongoing, lively edition, suffer from rules bloat and options bloat. The last game I ran, I limited players to the core rulebook just because I didn’t want to deal with so much “stuff.” Also, I’m not particularly interested in half-angel, half-goblin mammoth-riding gunslingers.

BTW – Gary Gygax had some very specific thoughts related to the expansion of the game (presumably through options), in his book, Role Playing Mastery:

Too often, new material purporting to add to a game system is nothing more than a veiled attempt to dominate the game milieu through power, not skill. Such creativity, if it can be called that, amounts to a perversion of the game. It is much like cheating at solitaire. Understanding the scope of opportunity offered to PCs by the game system will certainly discourage the intelligent player  from such useless activity.

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Cugel in Golarion: Song of the Serpent by Hugh Matthews

Cugel in Golarion: Song of the Serpent by Hugh Matthews

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The woman looked over at Krunzle, who was making sure no morsel of the meal escaped his needs. “What of you, errand-runner? Do you know much of where we are heading? Or anything, for that matter?”

The thief returned her a level gaze. “I know who I am and what I can do,” he said. “I find that usually suffices.” He arranged a piece of fish on a crumb of bread and popped both into his mouth.

                                                                                                                                                                                                       from Song of the Serpent

I have read only a tiny fraction of Matthew Hughes’ prodigious output. What I have read, his Jack Vance-inspired stories of the Purloiner Raffalon, I like very much (see my reviews here, here, here, and here). Those four stories, plus five others, will be collected and released next year. I can safely write that that will be an immediate purchase for me.

A few weeks ago, when he posted about a novel he wrote back in 2012 for Paizo’s Pathfinder Tales, I was intrigued.

Back in 2008 at World Fantasy Convention in Calgary, I was in the bar when Erik Mona, publisher of Paizo Books, told me he was a great Jack Vance fan and that he liked my work. He asked me if I had a book for him. As it turned out, I was looking for a publisher for Template, my stand-alone Archonate space opera that had been brought out as limited collector’s editions by PS Publishing.

I sent it to him and he brought it out as part of the series, Planet Stories, which (like Template) were decidedly retro science fiction.

Later, Erik told me that he also published novels set in the Pathfinder RPG universe’s world of Golarion, and asked me if I would be interested in doing one. He also said he would really like it if I would do a Cugel the Clever story. I love the Cugel stories and said I’d be delighted.

So we made a deal and I wrote a novel originally called Out of the Blue that was retitled Song of the Serpent before publication in 2012. It told the tale of a thief named Krunzle the Quick who, like Cugel, is fast on his feet – he has to be because, again like Cugel, he’s not as smart as he thinks he is.

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Heavy Metal Lyrics, Sword & Sorcery Fantasy and Video Games: A Cultural Synergy by Dr. Fred Adams

Heavy Metal Lyrics, Sword & Sorcery Fantasy and Video Games: A Cultural Synergy by Dr. Fred Adams

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Fred_SpaceInvadersLast year, Dr Fred C. Adams, Ph.D., joined our parade of writers in the Discovering Robert E. Howard series with an entry on Esau Cairn, REH’s classic science fiction character. Dr. Adams is back for another guest post here at Black Gate. Put on your headphones and go!

The parallel (and almost simultaneous) ascensions of heavy metal music, video game technology (which later migrated to personal computers), and sword and sorcery fantasy to mass popularity from the early 1970s forward are not coincidental. Rather, they are synergistic. All three draw from the late 20th century youth culture’s fatalism and nihilism, honed to a fine edge in the fin de siècle era of the 1990s.

Consider the aesthetic of the Ur-arcade-video game of the 1980s, Space Invaders: ranks of grotesque aliens march across the screen as space ships fly overhead firing missiles. You, represented by a screen icon, scuttle back and forth, trapped in a small area firing and dodging missiles while trying to destroy the oncoming ranks of invaders before they reach you and symbolically stomp you into the earth.

The more you destroy, the more ranks appear, starting closer and advancing more quickly. You can forestall death for a time, but the denouement is inevitable. You will lose; the programming foreordains that you will die no matter how well or how long you fight. Other games of the era, like Missile Command, and Asteroids followed suit.

An occasional arcade game like Dragonquest allowed victory, but most reduced play to a life-and-death struggle the player will never win. The kill tally represents the only satisfaction—how many of them do I take with me? As the Time Traveler of Wells’ famous novel says of fighting an impossible number of Morlocks in the darkened forest, “I will make them pay for their meat.”

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What No Man’s Sky Can Learn from SFF Worldbuilding

What No Man’s Sky Can Learn from SFF Worldbuilding

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If you follow video games, you likely have heard the hype surrounding No Man’s Sky, the space exploration game with a decided pulp science fiction aesthetic that promises a universe with a whopping 18 quintillion procedurally generated planets to discover.

Beautiful planetary vista number 976,234,501--but then, there are billions just as beautiful.

If there’s one thing in this game you’ll never be short of, it’s alien, picturesque vistas

Years of anticipation culminated in the game’s release on August 9, and on that day I, along with legions of frothing gamers, lit up my Playstation, grabbed the nearest 3-liter of Mountain Dew, slid my buttcheeks into the grooves of my favorite easy chair and settled in, happily anticipating a few hundred hours of wonder-stuffed fun.

Only. Well. The game. I mean. It’s. Well.

This video sums up what millions of gamers suddenly felt at once, and were suddenly silenced.

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Two Interesting Roleplaying Kickstarters!

Two Interesting Roleplaying Kickstarters!

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take-cover
70s Military Space Opera or screen SciFi with a horror element
I Love the Corps
The rules nicely balance story simulation with tactical gaming

We interrupt normal programming to draw your attention to two roleplaying-related Kickstarter campaigns!

First we have a fast-paced Military SF Horror game.

Earlier this year at Conpulsion, I had the fun of playing the beta version of I Love The Corps. My son — 12 — and his mate — 13 — also had a go and loved it.

It’s a Military SF game with a feel that’s best described as 70s Military Space Opera or screen SciFi with a horror element — think Halo, Verhoven’s Starship Troopers, Babylon 5 or Aliens. This is not the super science far future war of, say, Ken McLeod’s Corporation Wars.

Rather, this is the kind of game where Special Forces in powered armour exchange laser fire on the surface of Mars, while ground support drops combat trucks reminiscent of Warthogs.

The rules nicely balance story simulation with tactical gaming  — there are the usual points you can exchange  for stunts and stunning escapes, but ultimately the dice are a harsh mistress… which lends an edge to the experience.

Not only is action structured around cinematic scenes and montages, the mechanics support it! There is a neat system for automatic ability check scores when doing something in what I would think of as narrative summary. Characters can also satisfyingly rampage through low powered NPCs. Most of what you need is on the character sheet. The end result is fast-paced but substantial.

Go check out the Kickstarter page and take a look at the more detailed material there.

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Goth Chick News: Phantasmagoria the Game Turns 21 and Gets a Movie Treatment (Maybe)

Goth Chick News: Phantasmagoria the Game Turns 21 and Gets a Movie Treatment (Maybe)

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Phantasmagoria-smallAs you know (or can guess) I have publicly declared Phantasmagoria, the horror-themed video game by Sierra On-Line, as one of my all-time-favorites to this day.

Why you ask, when the quality of today’s gaming experiences are movie-like, compared to which Phantasmagoria’s live-actor-against-computer generated-background appears fairly cheesy?

To start, I’ll re-share some stats that my buds over at Bloody Disgusting dug up as part of their own Happy Birthday tribute.

Back in the ‘90’s when point-and-click adventure games reigned supreme, LucasArts and Sierra were the “Nintendo and Sega” of the era. And Roberta Williams was Sierra’s wunderkind; the designer responsible for a number of hit franchises like King’s Quest, Mystery House, and The Colonel’s Bequest. But in spite of the many titles that Williams worked on, she’s said that her sole entry in the horror genre, Phantasmagoria, is her favorite.

Phantasmagoria to this day remains one of the biggest spectacles of gaming. No expense was sparred and the game sprawled across 7 CD-ROMs due to the heavy amount of FMV (Full Motion Video).

Williams wrote a 550-page script for Phantasmagoria, (a typical movie screenplay is around 120 pages, as a point of reference), which required a cast of 25 actors, a production team of over 200 people, took two years to fully develop and four months to film. Phantasmagoria’s initial budget was $800,000, but by the end of production costs had hit a staggering total of $4.5 million (with the game also being filmed in a $1.5 million studio that Sierra built specifically for it).

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Steve Russell of Rite Publishing – RIP

Steve Russell of Rite Publishing – RIP

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SteveRussell2Steve Russell was the CEO and man behind Rite Publishing, a third party RPG publisher that was quite active with Pathfinder, including the very cool magazine, Adventure Quarterly. Pathways, Rite’s free e-zine, is one of the best Pathfinder periodicals you’ll find.

Steve and his pregnant wife, Miranda, had just moved back to his hometown of Dayton, OH, in late June. They were embarking on a new phase in their life when, sadly, Steve was killed in an auto accident.

I backed his Adventure Quarterly kickstarter. We exchanged a few emails about it, but I don’t claim to know him. But he was friendly to me and he was very earnest about Rite’s deliverables.

You can read Steve’s obituary here (with almost two dozen comments from friends and fans) and also tributes from Matt McElroy and Boric Glanduum.

We here at Black Gate send our prayers and condolences to Steve’s family.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Dungeon! – A New Kind of Board Game

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Dungeon! – A New Kind of Board Game

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Dungeon_boardTSR’s Dungeon! came out in 1975, just one year after Gary Gygax revolutionized gaming with Dungeons and Dragons.

The ground-breaking board game is still an excellent introduction to fantasy gaming over forty years later. The board represents a dungeon, divided into six areas (representing levels) of varying difficulty, differentiated by color.  There are monster and treasure cards for level and the harder the level, the tougher the monsters and of course, the greater the treasures.

The character classes have been changed over the years, but the player chooses from a Rogue, Cleric, Fighter and Wizard and each class needs to collect a certain amount of gold pieces (earned from treasure cards), ranging from 10,000 to 30,000. Also, each hero class performs at its best in certain levels. So you don’t want to take a Cleric to level six, but your Wizard is never going to win by traipsing around level one.

When a hero enters a room or a chamber, they draw a monster card (which might also be a trap). Every monster has a value assigned to each hero (as well as two spell values for the Wizard). The player rolls two six-sided dice and wins on a tie or greater. The monster is dead and the player gets a treasure card. If the Hero loses the fight, one of five things happens, ranging from nothing to dying and losing all of their treasure. The monster and any treasures remain in the room, waiting for another hero to enter.

Heroes explore until they gain the required amount of treasure for their class. The first Hero to make it back to the starting chamber with the requisite treasure wins the game. Bad things can happen on the way back to the starting chamber and the Hero may no longer have enough treasure. And once in awhile, it becomes a race to the finish.

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Need Some Cthulhu?

Need Some Cthulhu?

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AP_Sanity1Way back in 2003, The Shackled City began appearing in the pages of Dungeon magazine. Spread over twelve installments, it let characters adventure in a connected storyline from first to twentieth level and really, it was the first incarnation of the modern Adventure Path. Paizo followed this up with two others, Age of Worms and Savage Tide. A post about the real evolution of the Adventure Path, going back to the ‘Giants’ modules from TSR, would be a pretty interesting read. But that’s not this post.

Paizo lost Dungeon when Wizards of the Coast brought it back in-house. As we all know, Paizo went from developing 3.5 materials to the massively successful Pathfinder RPG. And at the heart of Pathfinder has been the Adventure Path: a six module, linked storyline, written by multiple authors, covering levels 1 to 20. Rise of the Runelords kicked things off in 2007-2008 (I highly recommend the Anniversary Edition ) and later this month, Paizo’s nineteenth Adventure Path comes out.

That’s 114 modules of adventuring. Wow. They range all over the Pathfinder world of Golarion and really showcase what a fantastic campaign world it is. I put it up there with the Forgotten Realms as my favorite (I’m not a big Greyhawk guy, myself).

Bet you wondered if I was ever gonna pay off the post’s title, didn’t you? Well, I am. Here’s a description of Strange Aeons:

In a distant land polluted by an alien menace from beyond the stars, a great cancer grows within the earth. As its tendrils reach out through the dreams of those who learn and study its existence, a sinister cult grows more active in preparing the way for a devastation that will destroy more than the minds of would-be heroes. Can the adventures reclaim lost memories in time to stop the advance of a cataclysmic contagion that could threaten all of Golarion? Can they resist the mind-shattering truths revealed by the Yellow Sign, and the monstrous force it symbolizes? The Strange Aeons Adventure Path pits the heroes against the cosmic horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos, with new monsters, mind-shattering terrors, and explorations far beyond the known lands of Golarion.

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