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Purpose Built Centurion

Purpose Built Centurion

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Centurion RPGThe idea for a role-playing game focused on playing legionaries was in my head as early as August of 2009 when I did a podcast series on playing military characters in role-playing games, and did episodes on Republican Rome, the Civil Wars and the early Empire. I had always loved Roman history and the image of the legion, and I had run games set in Imperial Rome, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, but hadn’t thought about actually designing a game for legionaries.

Then I created Sword Noir and Kiss My Axe, and I realized this was something I could do. I decided it was something I wanted to do. And thus was Centurion: Legionaries of Rome set on its long path to realization.

What’s the point, you might ask, of developing a game with such a specific focus when there are other games out there that could probably do the job? One of the reasons is because I can. The mountain climber answer never appeased anyone, so let me try this: other games might do the job, but what if one wants a game designed for the job. There’s a good chance that game will do the job better.

I spent most of my role-playing life playing with one system: Dungeons & Dragons. Why bother to learn another system when this one does what I want? And, yeah, sometimes it doesn’t do exactly what I want, but it’s close, and I can always house-rule it.

So until a little under a decade ago, I was in the thrall of D&D. Completely. It was not a bad place to be, and let me tell you, I am excited about 5E … or D&D Next … or whatever it’s going to be. I still love D&D and that’s because it does its own thing so well. It has created its own fantasy genre that is different from anything else out there. That doesn’t mean it is the perfect game for all genres.

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Weird of Oz Huffs About Hit Points

Weird of Oz Huffs About Hit Points

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evolutionWith gamer-geek hat still squarely donned following last week’s review of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, today I want to chat about hit points. First off, I think it’s safe to say that the concept of hit points revolutionized gaming for all time. Its influence is seen in almost every video game in existence today. Any arcade game that featured a life bar in the corner of the screen, growing shorter with each bit of damage inflicted until the inevitable “Game Over,” originated from the idea of hit points — a scale that keeps track of the damage a character has sustained and that lets the player know how much more punishment the character can take before he/she either has to retreat or drink a healing potion or die.

What got me thinking about this was reading Michael J. Tresca’s book The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games (2011). Tresca notes that hit points were introduced by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in the 1972 wargame Don’t Give Up the Ship! from Guidon Games (p 50). They would later incorporate it into their most famous collaboration: Dungeons & Dragons. In prior strategy wargames, the winner of a skirmish was determined by first move, rank, or number of troops (sometimes with the added luck factor of a dice roll).

First move is employed in chess or checkers. If your knight lands on my pawn’s square, I lose my pawn. But if my pawn lands on your knight’s square, you lose your knight: There’s no question of whether a pawn could beat a knight in combat, or whether the knight might be able to defend his square against some lowly upstart pawn — even if the pawn did get the drop on him!

Rank is exemplified by card games. King of hearts beats a jack of hearts every time. Never has the scenario come up when a player laid down a king on a jack, and the other player said, “Surprise! My jack was harboring a poison dagger in his sleeve — your king is dead. Et tu, jack of hearts?”

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Unearthed Adventures: Announcing the Winners of the Best One-Paragraph D&D Adventures

Unearthed Adventures: Announcing the Winners of the Best One-Paragraph D&D Adventures

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unearthed arcanaLast month we announced a contest seeking the best one-paragraph descriptions of your favorite D&D characters.

Because we’re awesome (and because we’re tight with Wizards of the Coast, who are even more awesome), we secured a very special reward for four lucky winners: a copy of the brand new Unearthed Arcana 1st Edition Premium Reprint — which we first examined here. Those four names were drawn at random from the ten best entries, as selected by our judges.

Before we get to the winners, let’s enjoy some of the best entries. First up is Daniel J. Davis:

When I created my first character, a Minotaur warrior named Glokk Maghorn, I rolled an 18/00 for strength. I couldn’t have been happier. At the time, I was an almost perfect stereotype of the “typical” D&D player. I was smaller and weaker than most kids my age. I was uncoordinated, awkward, and bullied. But in the land of Krynn, I was going to be an 8-foot tall mercenary beast man with a battle-axe and a loose definition of “fair play.” I didn’t care one whit about my low charisma score. I spent most of my waking life trying to compromise and bargain with people big enough to wipe the floor with me. This was D&D, and I was going to bash some heads for a change. I retired him at 15th level, after his crowning moment of awesome: Failing a saving throw against a white dragon’s breath weapon, surviving with a single hit point, and finishing it off with a critical hit on my very next action.

Any story involving an 8-foot Minotaur whose name rhymes with Foghorn Leghorn is an instant classic in our book. Nice one, Daniel.

Next up is John Burt, who found a more noble motivation for his character: petty larceny.

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Earn Your Gold Honestly in Valdora — By Digging For It

Earn Your Gold Honestly in Valdora — By Digging For It

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valdora gameOn March 10, I attended the Spring Auction at Games Plus in Mount Prospect, IL. I went chiefly in search of select fantasy games I’ve had my eye on for some time… but also in the hope of a surprise or two.

It didn’t take long to get what I wished for, at least in terms of surprises. I wasn’t in my seat ten minutes when an eye-catching box with three obvious adventurers on the cover came up for bid.

What the heck was this? The cover art — with snow-capped mountains, a medieval walled town, and three young lads decked out in standard issue dungeon-exploring garb — spoke of an adventure game, but I’d never heard of it. The box looked substantial (and expensive), and it appeared to be in great shape, but there’s only so much you can tell sitting in a metal chair at an auction.

Bidding was brisk, and I didn’t have much time to make up my mind. I took a chance, and seven seconds (and 15 bucks) later a nearly-new copy of Valdora was mine. Here’s what I found on the back when I was able to examine it:

Hidden far away from our time lies a valley of unimaginable riches. Drawn by the lure of gold, silver, and precious jewels, adventurers from all over the world soon find their way there. While some of them still carefully choose commissions and provisions, others quickly rush off to bring valuable gems back to their patrons. But those who wish for fame and fortune will have to be cleverer than their opponents!

Peeking through the box there seems to be a dearth of dungeons, but plenty of Settlers of Catan-like strategy, with players working to acquire tools, complete commissions, and control workshops. Looks like you have to earn your gold and gems the old-fashioned way: by earning them. The components — including a colorful and detailed game board, gemstones, cards, tiles, coins, pawns, a sturdy fabric bag, and four wooden books — are excellent. It looks like a solid family game that I can force all of my children to play with me.

Valdora was designed by Michael Schacht and published by ABACUSSPIELE/Rio Grande Games. It was released in 2009, and has a list price of $74.99 — which makes my auction purchase at $15 a real bargain. Score another point for the Paris Fashion Week of Games.

Tomb of Horrors Gets a Fourth Edition Makeover

Tomb of Horrors Gets a Fourth Edition Makeover

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Tomb of Horrors 4th EditionOne of the more intriguing treasures I brought home from the Paris Fashion Week of Games last week was the compact new edition of Gary Gygax’s famous player-killer Tomb of Horrors.

Now, if you don’t play role playing games yet still find the name Tomb of Horrors oddly familiar, it’s probably because it’s a touchstone of considerable significance in geek culture and you’ve come across one of the many modern references to it. Most recently, for example, it featured in Ernest Cline’s best-selling novel Ready Player One, which is set in a virtual reality world created by a fan of Tomb of Horrors. Or maybe your older brother’s beloved 10th-level paladin was killed by an unspeakable thing 20 minutes after he set foot inside the Tomb, and he’s been suffering from PTSD ever since, muttering the name Acererak and shuddering uncontrollably.

The original Tomb of Horrors was released in 1978; it’s one of the best-selling Dungeons and Dragons adventure modules of all time. I’m not sure why, to be completely honest. You don’t have fun playing Tomb of Horrors, exactly. And it has certainly killed far, far more player characters than it has rewarded. You know the phrase “Bad things happen to good people?” It was first spoken by the few, shell-shocked survivors of Tomb of Horrors.

Despite — or perhaps because of — its killer rep, the module is still highly regarded today, and has been remade and expanded several times, most recently as a 4th Edition hardcover by Ari Marmell and Scott Fitzgerald Gray in July 2010. This isn’t that version. This is a bare-bones conversion of the original adventure for 4th Edition rules, written by Scott Fitzgerald Gray and mailed out to members of the RPGA as part of the DM Rewards program. Instead of the separate art booklet — one of the most famous features of the original release, which allowed players to gawk in wonder at detailed renderings of the horrific things that had just killed them — this edition incorporates most of the original art into the body of the module. The cover is also recycled from the 2002 Greyhawk novel of the same name by Keith Francis Strohm (which we last discussed in “The Seven Greyhawk Classics of the Ancient World,” here).

For all that, it’s still fun to sit down and re-read Gygax’s original sadistic masterpiece again. The layout is clean and attractive, and the map of Acererak’s tomb has been given new life as a detailed color fold-out. Since it was never offered to retailers it’s a little tricky to find, however, and prices vary widely. As it was originally offered for free, some folks re-sell it at a reasonable price; but the average asking price I found on eBay was just over $50. I paid $7 for a shrinkwraped copy at auction.

Tomb of Horrors, by Gary Gygax and Scott Fitzgerald Gray, was published by Wizards of the Coast in 2010. It is a 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons adventure for five 9th-level characters. It is 36 pages in softcover, with a loose cardstock cover and a fold-out color map. It has no price.

Releasing This Week: Warhammer 40K: Relic From Fantasy Flight Games

Releasing This Week: Warhammer 40K: Relic From Fantasy Flight Games

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Game Designers Workshop and Fantasy Flight — the folks behind the superb Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy role playing games — have teamed up once again to release Relic, an intriguing new board game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

Based on the streamlined (and well-honed) mechanics of the Talisman fantasy games, Relic allows two to four players to assume the role of powerful Imperial heroes, and bravely venture forth to protect the Antian Sector. By completing card-based missions and defeating dangerous enemies of the Imperium — including Nurgling Swarms, Fallen Inquisitors, Ork Vulcha squads, and even a Tyranid Hive-ship — characters compete to gain rewards and experience, increasing their chances to advance and ultimately be the first to defeat the evil that lies beyond the Warp rift. See all the details in the compact video run-through below.

Relic was published today, Mar 18, 2013, by Fantasy Flight, under license from Games Workshop. The game contains a game board, 10 plastic character pieces and character sheets, mysterious attribute and life dials, more than 300 cards, tokens, 4 six-sided dice, and a handsome rulebook. It retails for $59.95.

Weird of Oz Revisits Fighting Fantasy

Weird of Oz Revisits Fighting Fantasy

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0426111757Rogue Blades Entertainment continues to put out fine new projects — though, I lament, with far less frequency than in days of yore.

Also in those days of yore (about two years ago, to be precise), for a brief, shining, halcyon period of time (a few months, to be precise), RBE hosted a website that ran regular blogs under the banner “Home of Heroics.” It was my good fortune to be invited into HoH’s stable of bloggers, and I made a couple contributions before that heroism-vaunting home vanished like the fabled city of Xanadu. I only got in two or three posts, mind you, because I was on a monthly rotation rather than the weekly slot I enjoy here on Black Gate.

One of those posts that I wanted eventually to follow up on was an account of my experience revisiting Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. My report touched off similar nostalgic reminiscences from several readers.

Since, as far as I can tell, the material that ran on HoH is no longer accessible, I’d like to use this St. Patrick’s Day edition of Weird of Oz to resurrect that post here — with an eye to reviewing other single-player gamebooks down the road.

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Last Chance to Win One of Four New Copies of the Unearthed Arcana 1st Edition Premium Reprint

Last Chance to Win One of Four New Copies of the Unearthed Arcana 1st Edition Premium Reprint

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unearthed arcanaTwo weeks ago, we announced a contest to win one of four new copies of the Unearthed Arcana 1st Edition Premium Reprint, compliments of Wizards of the Coast.

How do you enter? Easy — by doing exactly what you’re doing already: telling complete strangers all about your D&D adventures.

Just send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com with a one-paragraph summary of your most memorable D&D or AD&D characters. Points will be awarded for conciseness and originality. We’ll publish the best here at Black Gate, and the Top Ten as decided by our judges will be included in a drawing for one of four copies of the new Unearthed Arcana 1st Edition Premium Reprint.

These WotC Premium Reprints have become quite the hot property, incidentally. The first three — the Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual — are already sold out and out of print, and I strongly suspect the same will happen to this one. The upcoming volume Dungeons of Dread is perhaps the most interesting one yet, as it collects the first four adventures in the S Series — Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth — complete with the original b&w interior art.

All entries become the property of New Epoch Press. No purchase necessary. Must be 12 or older. Decisions of the judges (capricious as they may be) are final. Terms and conditions subject to change as our lawyers sober up and get back to us. Not valid where prohibited by law. Or anywhere postage for a hefty hardcover is more than, like, 10 bucks. Good luck!

Kickstarter Alert: Dungeon Roll Dice Game

Kickstarter Alert: Dungeon Roll Dice Game

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DungeonRoll-bitsTasty Minstrel Game’s latest Kickstarter project has blown away funding goals and, with a week left, looks to be one of the best Kickstarter deals that I’ve seen in quite some time. This game is basically a dice-based dungeon crawl in a box (a treasure box, no less … and a mimic box for Kickstarters!) that has 7 days to go as of this writing (funds at 1:00 am Eastern on March 20).

The basic gameplay (as demonstrated in this video) is that you’re rolling a group of Dungeon Dice to get the monsters on a given level of the dungeon and then the Party Dice to try to get a combination that can beat the monsters. The different faces of the Party Dice get different benefits against given monsters, such as a Wizard on the Party Dice being able to destroy all of the Oozes with a single attack. The Heroes can modify the basic rules (the first 5 Heroes are shown on the video here). The goal is to get treasure and experience, making your way through the dungeon.

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Vintage Treasures: Shadows of Yog-Sothoth

Vintage Treasures: Shadows of Yog-Sothoth

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Shadows of Yog SothothLast week I wrote about the death of Lynn Willis, the legendary editor at Chaosium, who gradually became the mastermind behind Call of Cthulhu, one of the finest RPGs ever made. While at Chaosium Lynn helped write and edit no less than 54 Call of Cthulhu books and supplements like Cthulhu by Gaslight, as well as a host of other board games and products, including Arkham Horror, RuneQuest, Thieves’ World, King Arthur Companion, Stormbringer Companion, Carse, Tulan of the Isles, Atlas of the Young Kingdoms, and dozens more.

In honor of Lynn, I dug around this week to find those products that first captured my attention all those years ago. They weren’t hard to find, as they still occupy a place of pride in my collection.

When Sandy Peterson’s Call of Cthulhu was first released as a boxed set in 1981, the entire industry took notice. Here was the first truly appealing contemporary (or, at least, semi-contemporary) role playing game, which drew on the horrifying cosmic milieu and fabulous bestiary of none other than H.P. Lovecraft. It was an instant hit. But by itself, Call of Cthulhu was just a fascinating oddity. It wasn’t until Chaosium released Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, A Global Campaign to Save Mankind a year later that we realized what the game was truly capable of.

Shadows of Yog-Sothoth is an epic, self-contained campaign which first introduced role players to the kind of play demanded by CoC. Players who treated Cthulhu and his minions as simply big D&D monsters, chubby creatures ready to be harvested for their experience point value, were in for a rude awakening.

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