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Mindjammer Returns

Mindjammer Returns

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mindjammer1Longtime Black Gate visitors and readers might remember a time, long ago, when  I gushed about a great new FATE powered science fiction role-playing game, Mindjammer. Back then, it was an expansion for the excellent space opera setting Starblazer Adventures.

Now it’s an animal on its own, and was nominated for two Ennies (the role-playing award handed out each year at GenCon) just this year. I can see why.

I was already impressed with Mindjammer. Back in 2010 Sarah Newton did a fabulous job creating strange new societies and making the far future gameable, including the concepts of neural implants, synthetic humanoids with thanograms (deceased human personalities), sentient starships, and other impressive ideas.

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Victorian Horror: Rippers Resurrected

Victorian Horror: Rippers Resurrected

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rippers 1rippers 2I’ve been waiting for this Kickstarter for years. You see, more than a decade ago, when Savage Worlds was newly launched, one of their very first expansions was a setting called Rippers, where brave heroes in Victorian times fought those things-man-was-not-meant-to-know. Those especially daring, or foolish, could harvest the organs or powers of the creatures of the night in the fight against them. These were the Rippers.

It’s only been available as a PDF or (very) expensive used book. I picked it up as a PDF and loved it, both for the setting and included adventures, and for the system. And I’ve been waiting for the an update, rumors of which have been swirling for ages.

I’ve become quite the fan of Savage Worlds because it really is, as advertised, Fast, Furious, and Fun. Savage Worlds places a premium on being streamlined and cinematic so that players and GM can worry about the story and not about the rules.

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition

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Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook Fifth EditionThe newest edition of Dungeons & Dragons, 5th edition, recently passed its one-year anniversary. Though I reviewed the books when they first came out, my gaming group didn’t want to give up their current systems to switch over. They’ve been playing edition 3.5 for years, are comfortable with the rule structure, and like leveling up into prestige classes.

One thing that is notable about this edition of Dungeons & Dragons is that players have not been swarmed by supplemental books or a variety of rule options. After a year, it’s rather refreshing that Dungeons & Dragons continues to have retained an emphasis on their core three books:

But this does mean that hardcore gamers like me, who are used to geeking out over systems where you’re really allowed to customize many aspects of your character, may feel like Dungeons & Dragons doesn’t cater to us. This is a bit unfair, and may be a sign that we’ve just gotten too spoiled with abundant choices in other games system.

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Adventures in Spellcraft: Rope Trick

Adventures in Spellcraft: Rope Trick

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Calling all old-school gamers, the folks who cut their teeth on the Players1st-edition-players-handbook Handbook, the Monster Manual, or even those long-lost oddities like Eldritch Wizardry and Greyhawk. For those of us still standing, which I do hope is the majority, I’d like to take a quick stroll down Memory Lane.

Don’t worry, it’s only a block or so away, just past Green Town, Illinois, and not so far from my last (highly opinionated) write-up on the ill-behaved sorcery known as Chain Lightning.

Great. Now that we’re walking, let me ask, do you remember that clever little escape hatch spell, Rope Trick? Very handy for “taking five” in the midst of a battle not otherwise going well. Very useful for getting undisturbed shut-eye while camped overnight in hostile territory. Very helpful when the goal of your particular role-playing adventure is to drive the GM bats.

The basics, for those who may not recall, is that the casting of a Rope Trick causes a length of rope to suspend itself vertically in mid-air. Anyone shinnying up the rope will disappear, arriving in a pocket of extra-planar space. The Players Handbook phrased it this way:

The upper end is in fact fastened in an extra-dimensional space, and the spell caster up to five others can climb up the rope and disappear into this place of safety where no creature can find them.

(I’m on page seventy-one, second level magic user spells, for those of you following along on the app.)

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Peril on the Purple Planet

Peril on the Purple Planet

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purple planet 1With NASA announcing astonishing news about the red planet, I thought it high time to talk about the purple planet, and the perils therein.

Maybe YOU were clued in, but despite a widely advertised Kickstarter campaign the impending release – nay, even the existence – of the purple planet completely passed me by until I swung by tenfootpole.org and read an enthusiastic review of a splendid sword-and-planet setting. I determined then and there to lay my hands on the product and learn about those perils myself.

purple planet 2My verdict? If you love sword-and-planet you need it. Even if Dungeon Crawl Classics isn’t your role-playing system of choice, you need it. Hell, you might even need if if you like sword-and-planet and don’t intend to game, because it’s just a blast. And I can highly recommend getting the boxed set. In his own review at tenfootpole, Bruce Lynch laments that it could be even cooler if there are more locations, because he read only the basic adventure. Voila, there ARE, within the set.

For once, the hype on the back cover copy delivers on all that it promises. If this sounds good to you, go ye forth and buy it: “The Purple Planet: Where Tribes of man-beasts wage an endless war beneath a dying sun. Where might death orms rule the wastes, befouled winds whistle through ancient crypts, and forests of fungi flourish in the weirdling light. Where ancient technologies offer life… or a quick death.” If that doesn’t sound interesting, I won’t bother trying to convince you to look within.

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Modular: Kickstarting The Northlands Saga Complete (Frog God Games)

Modular: Kickstarting The Northlands Saga Complete (Frog God Games)

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Northlands CompleteThe Vikings are coming!

I’m a fan of Frog God Games. Rising from the ashes of Third Edition D&D’s Necromancer Games, they make RPG products for Pathfinder, 5th Edition and Swords & Wizardry. Way back in 2014, I wrote here about The Lost Lands, the campaign world that would synthesize almost all of the Necromancer and FGG products — from classics like Rappan Athuk and Gary Gygax’s Necropolis to newer deadly adventures like The Slumbering Tsar saga.

I’ve happily backed several Lost Lands Kickstarters the past few years (including Sword of Air, Cults of the Sundered Kingdoms) and there’s been a ton of Pathfinder goodness for me (Don’t let the list price put you off — the PDFs are more affordable). The latest Lost Lands Kickstarter, which wraps up October 2 (and is 75% funded as I type this) is one I have anxiously been awaiting.

In 2010 and 2011, Frog God released the first four modules in Kenneth Spencer’s series set in the Northlands. The first two had a bit of an American Eskimo feel, then moved into pure Viking territory in the third and fourth. You can read my thoughts on the series here.

Then, the modules stopped coming. Greg Vaughan, Pathfinder Creative Director (and author of the previously mentioned Slumbering Tsar epic), told me that The Northlands was on hold and that it would become a separate campaign book for The Lost Lands. So, I waited… and waited…. and waited. Wait no more!

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RuneQuest: Korantia and Mythic Britain

RuneQuest: Korantia and Mythic Britain

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Shores of Korantia-smallIn 2013 I wandered over to Monster Island, one of the first journeys I’d ever made to a RuneQuest destination. I found it excellent. And recently, after I returned from GenCon2015, I  travelled once more into RuneQuest realms and learned that excellence is a standard practice in their products.

Shores of Korantia is a setting book for a bronze-age land rich in intrigue and adventure. It covers the regions of the empire in detail that’s thorough but not dry — not so much an encyclopedia entry, but a travel guide with adventure hooks, so that every page you turn sets your mind ablaze with ideas to spin adventures from. Like Monster Island before it, one doesn’t have to be at all familiar with RuneQuest in order to utilize the setting, or even a gamer to enjoy reading it. If you like reading about imaginary worlds, any of the RuneQuest Design Mechanism books I’ve read are a great time.

Korantia is a tottering empire propped up by a noble young ruler that you just can’t help but find yourself rooting for, which is pretty typical of what writer Jonathan Drake manages throughout the book — the people detailed are engaging, their situations interesting. In short, it’s chock full of the potential for story. There are fascinating places to go, engaging people to meet, and mysteries to unravel.

[Click on any of the images in this article for bigger versions.]

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Diablo 3: Fourth (Season)’s the Charm

Diablo 3: Fourth (Season)’s the Charm

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Screenshot093Diablo 3 has gone through a lot since its release in 2012: From the lead designer moving on, to patch after patch after patch attempting to address complaints about the design. Of course, we can’t forget about the Auction House system that left a major black stain on the game until its removal.

Flash forward to today. Diablo 3 has come a long way, as we just entered the fourth season of ladder play. Normally I don’t take a look at games I’ve already reviewed, but given everything that’s happened and the latest patch, today I’m making an exception.

Tormented

Before we talk about the latest patch, I want to bring everyone up to speed on what’s happened since Diablo 3 was released. For the first few years of its life, Diablo 3 was marked by polarizing reviews; many people loved the game’s streamlined design, but the poor loot distribution and auction system made the endgame a nightmare.

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Vintage Bits: How G.O.G. Rescued the Classic Forgotten Realms Computer Games

Vintage Bits: How G.O.G. Rescued the Classic Forgotten Realms Computer Games

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Pool of Radiance SSI Gold Box-smallLast year I signed up at GOG.com, the digital video game distribution platform, because they had great deals on classic RPGs. I’m not kidding — this site requires some serious self control. I got Starflight & Starflight 2 for just $2.99, Planescape: Torment for $3.99, Wizardry 6 & 7 for $2.99, and Baldur’s Gate for $3.99. Best of all, they did all the hard work of converting the games to run on modern versions of Windows, so I could stop fussing around with DOSBox and my Amiga emulator. GOG is owned by CD Projekt, a Polish company that also owns CD Projekt RED, the developer behind the popular Witcher games.

A few weeks ago I was delighted to discover they were now offering a package deal on my all-time favorite computer role playing games — SSI’s Pool of Radiance and its various sequels, the so-called Gold Box games. I bought a package of eight games for $9.99 (and I swear I’m going to play them soon. All of ’em!) But I hadn’t realized the amazing story behind GOG’s new offering — that in order to secure these classic games, the company had to navigate a legal ownership maze to obtain the rights, before they could begin the hard work of converting them for modern platforms. Dan Griliopoulos at PC Gamer posted an excellent article yesterday exploring just what was involved:

With the trail running cold, GOG tracked down SSI’s original President and founder, Joel Billings. “As a huge fan of D&D he was willing to help walk us through a detailed history behind SSI mergers and narrow the search down to two potential candidates: Mattel, or Gores Technology Group (who had acquired The Learning Company). The latter was a hit. We had found the actual rights owners to the Forgotten Realms games, and after several more months of negotiations, they agreed to sell them to us outright.”

GOG managed to recover thirteen games this way. They are: the party-based RPG Pool of Radiance; its sequels Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades and Pools of Darkness; C&C creators Westwood’s minigame RPG Hillsfar; the RPG construction kit Unlimited Adventures; Westwood’s first-person Eye of the Beholder Trilogy; the roguelike FPS Dungeon Hack; the two Savage Frontier games; and the Ultima Underworld-like Underdark exploration game Menzoberranzan.

Then they had the not-so-small matter of getting all thirteen running and bug-free for modern systems including Windows 10. Considering these were huge games — and not bug free in their release versions — that’s a massive task that the GOG team has been working on since April.

Read the complete article at PC Gamer — and check out the amazing and fast-growing library of old games at GOG.com.

Vintage Treasures: The Pocket Games of Task Force Games, Part One

Vintage Treasures: The Pocket Games of Task Force Games, Part One

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Starfire Task Force Games-small Asteroid Zero-Four-small Valkenburg Castle-smaller


Three Task Force Games: Starfire (1979), Asteroid Zero-Four (1979), and Valkenburg Castle (1980)

Task Force Games, based in Amarillo, Texas, was one of the very best board game companies in the business in the 80s, especially for science fiction fans. They published the majestic Federation & Empire (and its follow-up, Federation Commander), Kings Bounty, Godsfire, Battlewagon, Armor at Kursk, Musketeers, and the RPGs Crime Fighter, Prime Directive (based on Star Trek), and the glorious Heroes of Olympus — among many, many others — before the company was sold to Might & Magic developer New World Computing in 1988, and then went out of business.

Of course, who could afford big games like that? Not me, that’s for sure. But that’s okay, because Task Force Games was also a pioneer in the microgame market, with a line of truly stellar Pocket Games, starting with Starfire in 1979. Starfire was one of the most successful microgames ever released. It sold a zillion copies, went through six different editions, and is still being sold today by Starfire Design Studio. It was so popular it eventually inspired a series of novels by David Weber and Steve White, including the New York Times bestseller The Shiva Option.

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