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New Treasures: Ashen Stars by Robin D. Laws

New Treasures: Ashen Stars by Robin D. Laws

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ashen-stars2Back in August, we reported that Pelgrane Press’s new space opera RPG Ashen Stars had won a 2012 ENnie Award for Best Setting. That was enough to pique my curiosity, and I ordered a copy.

I’ve been waiting for a science fiction role playing game with a truly rich setting for a long time. Our Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones has been exploring Traveller in a series of occasional articles — most recently on the Netherell setting and The Third Imperium — but to be honest I always found the setting for Traveller to be fairly generic, at least in the early editions. The last SF RPG to really impress me was Rogue Trader by Fantasy Flight, a gorgeously produced game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe; before that I have to go all the way back to Holistic Design’s future-medieval setting Fading Suns, first released in 1996.

I’m very pleased to be able to add Ashen Stars to that short list. Drawing heavily upon his successful GUMSHOE mystery system, author Robin D. Laws has created an extremely appealing game of space opera procedural mysteries. In the tradition of the best hard boiled detective fiction, players are constantly scrambling for money, equipment, and respect… all of which they’ll need to succeed in a war-ravaged perimeter where trust is a precious commodity, and very little is truly what it seems.

The players in Ashen Stars are private eyes — excuse me, licensed mercenaries — acting as freelance law enforcement on a rough-and-tumble frontier called “the Bleed,” where humans and half a dozen alien races mingle, compete, and trade. The Mohilar War that devastated the once powerful governing Combine ended seven years ago, and no one is sure exactly how. The Combine is in no shape to govern the Bleed, and rely on loosely-chartered bands like the players to maintain peace in the sector, keep a lid on crime, and investigate odd distress signals from strange corners of space. Like the crew of the Serenity, your loose band of players operate on both sides of the law, secure lucrative contracts, scramble to maintain your ship and upgrade your aging equipment, and maintain a code of honor in a place where reputation is the most precious commodity there is.

The writing and color art are impressive throughout, and the book is filled with fascinating tidbits that will make you anxious to play, and re-introduce you to the essential joy of role playing.

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The Paris Fashion Week of Fantasy Games

The Paris Fashion Week of Fantasy Games

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empires-of-the-voidSix months ago, I attended the Spring Games Auction at Games Plus in Mount Prospect, Illinois, the premiere auction in the country for serious game collectors. Last Friday, I was checking the calendar. They occur every six months, which meant the next one was… holy cats! Saturday morning. I packed up my rental car the next morning and headed out, after making a blood oath to my wife Alice that I would be fiscally responsible this year. Or at least act within the bounds of forgiveness, I told myself.

The auction did not disappoint. The Saturday auction focuses on science fiction and fantasy board games, as well as role-playing games of all kinds. They start promptly at 10:00 am and run for the next seven hours, rattling off about ten games per minute; hundreds every hour, and thousands over the course of the day. For me, it’s the Paris Fashion Week of games — my chance to see all the latest and greatest in new games without having to leave the comfort of my metal folding chair.

Just as last time, the real wonders weren’t dusty artifacts from the early days of gaming, but a panorama of gorgeous and enticing new titles. And again, my knowledge of modern science fiction and fantasy gaming proved woefully inadequate, as time after time, games I’d never seen before made their way to the auction block.

Now, it’s dangerous to be ignorant at an auction. It’s easy to overbid on an item that looks expensive and rare, only to find Amazon has it on clearance for ten bucks. It’s even easier to drop out of the bidding when the going gets tough, confident you can find it cheaper online — only to find copies commanding outrageous prices on eBay. I’ve done both, and while most collectors agree that the greater pain is the memory of that rare item that got away, that’s because they haven’t met Alice and her corrective-therapy broomstick of agony.

So I played it safe this time. I watched a lot of marvelous games go to other bidders, jotting down the titles as they did. I gave up on a used copy of Fantasy Flight Games’ Sky Traders, a game of intrigue and trading in an era of skyships, when bidding shot past $27; it’s in stock at Amazon for $35. Same with Guards! Guards!, a fabulous-looking Discworld game from Z-Man Games, which sold for $40 (new for $57 online), and — perhaps the hardest to let go — a magnificent space combat game based on David Weber’s bestselling series, Honor Harrington: Saganami Island Tactical Simulator, which the fellow next to me bought for $40 (cheapest copy I can find online is $75). And plenty of others, including Zombietown, Dark Minions, Peregrine Games’ Prince of Chaos, and the curious Gnomes of Zavandor.

Later this week, I’ll talk about those items I did bring home, including Empires of the Void, a terrific-looking space exploration game from Red Raven Games. That post will be much more cheerful, I promise.

Vintage Bits: Black Isle Resurfaces

Vintage Bits: Black Isle Resurfaces

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black-isle-smallInterplay, publisher of some of the most acclaimed fantasy role playing games of all time – such as the Bard’s Tale series, Wasteland, Dragon Wars, Baldur’s Gate, Fallout, and Icewind Dale — has announced that the legendary development studio behind many of its most popular titles, Black Isle Studios, has reformed.

Black Isle was owned by Interplay and created in 1996 by Feargus Urquhart. It was formed from the crack team of developers who had created Fallout. Over the next few years, they developed many hits, including Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment, and Icewind Dale. Working with a tiny outfit in Canada named BioWare, they also produced Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn.

Interplay began to experience serious financial difficulties in 2001-2002, after publishing a number of high-budget failures such as Messiah and Kingpin. Black Isle was dissolved as Interplay imploded, a move that shocked the industry. All the employees were laid off on December 8, 2003.

Their last titles were the poorly-received PC game, Lionheart, and Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II for the Playstation 2. At the time they were dissolved, they were working on Baldur’s Gate III: The Black Hound, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance III and Fallout 3, none of which ever saw the light of day. A nearly bankrupt Interplay eventually sold the rights to the Fallout series to Bethesda, who developed and released its own version of Fallout 3 in 2008.

The closing of Black Isle was a serious blow to RPG gamers, and it marked the end of Interplay as a force in the industry. As someone whose all-time favorite games include Dragon Wars and Icewind Dale, I saw it as the end of an era. Interplay survived for most of the next decade by re-packaging its classic games, especially Fallout, Baldur’s Gate, and Icewind Dale, as well as their sequels.

Most of the star developers associated with Black Isle, including Feargus Urquhart and Chris Avellone, are not on board for this new iteration. Urquhart and Avellone founded the successful Obsidian Entertainment (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, Neverwinter Nights 2). But Mark O’Green and Chris Taylor (designer of the original Fallout) have both reportedly returned.

No announcement yet on what titles the resurrected Black Isle is working on. But I’m certainly looking forward to finding out.

Rediscovering the Joy of the Boxed Adventure: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

Rediscovering the Joy of the Boxed Adventure: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

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the-witchs-song-smallIf you’ve been gaming as long as I have, you’ll remember when the great adventures of the day — Gygax’s Tomb of Horrors, say, or Descent Into The Depths of the Earth — came packaged as slender stapled sheets wrapped in a two-tone cover. Color arrived years later, and adventure modules got thicker and more elaborate. In the mid-80s TSR dazzled gamers with the first boxed adventure sets, including the World of Greyhawk, The Ruins of Undermountain, and the fabulous Menzoberranzan, home of the Drow.

These weren’t just game modules — they were entire campaigns, weeks or even months of epic subterranean exploits crammed into a cardboard carton. There was nothing like opening up Dragon Mountain or Dark Sun for the first time, and seeing reams of folded maps and dense booklets promising near-limitless adventure.

Alas, it was not to last. TSR published its last boxed adventure in the late 90s. By the time Third Edition D&D arrived they had vanished, replaced with bland adventure books. Boxed sets were too expensive to produce, pundits said. And modern gamers want to be able to flip through books before they buy, see what they’re getting. The rest of the gaming industry followed D&D‘s lead, and the beloved boxed set appeared to have disappeared for good.

But nobody seems to have told Fantasy Flight, publisher of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Since 2009, they have been producing a top-flight line of boxed adventures for the Warhammer RPG, including The Edge of Night, The Gathering Storm, and the latest, The Witch’s Song:

Something unnatural is stirring in the small fishing village of Fauligmere. Legends of a swamp witch are whispered among the superstitious townsfolk. And if it weren’t for the haunting voice coming from the mists of the Cursed Marshes, you might laugh at such tales. But in Fauligmere, nothing is as it seems.

The Witch’s Song is a standalone adventure for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, introducing new rules and options for hedge wizards and witch characters. This boxed adventure features a full-colour book detailing this mysterious adventure in a suspicious town, as well as all the sheets, cards, and tokens a GM needs to bring the story to life. Players must investigate the mysteries that plague Fauligmere, gain the favour of the people, and learn the truth behind the town’s legacy. Can you resist the lure of the witch’s song?

Typical for Fantasy Flight, the production values and art are top-notch. Best of all, they don’t skimp on that most essential aspect of the boxed adventure: the goodies. The Witch’s Song, for example, is packed with dozens of play aids, including action cards, location cards, creature cards, player handouts, party sheets, and more — most illustrated in full color.

Is it too much to believe this is the start of a new trend? In May of last year, Wizards of the Coast released The Shadowfell, the first D&D boxed adventure in more than a decade. Since then, they’ve followed up with Madness at Gardmore Abbey. It’s still too early to declare a true return of the boxed adventure, but I’m keeping a weather eye out.

Twilight Sector Kickstarter

Twilight Sector Kickstarter

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six-guns-lasers-kickstarter-imageIf you’re a gamer, you’ve probably heard of the renowned Traveller role-playing game of science fiction in the far future. And if you’ve played Traveller recently, you MAY have heard of the work from Terra/Sol. If not, you should have. I’ve been raving about each of their products that I’ve reviewed for Black Gate because they’re inventive, engaging, and well-written.

Today, I’m turning over the site to Mike Cross of Terra/Sol so he can tell you about a new Kickstarter project and the alternative Traveller setting used for all of their products.

I asked Mike to describe the game setting a little, and then he describes the new Kickstarter. The one thing he doesn’t mention here is that it’s going to be authored by one of my very favorite RPG authors, Martin Dougherty. I scramble to read everything that the man writes! Anyway, take it away, Mike:

Welcome to the raggedy edge of human space, the Orion Frontier. This is the edge of human exploration. Rimward from here: There be Dragons! No star chart or encyclopedia tells us what lies beyond, only the whispered tales of scouts and pirates provide us myth-inspired answers.

The Twilight Sector Campaign from Terra/Sol Games is a science fiction setting specifically designed to tell stories across a wide range of mediums. These include role-playing games, fiction, comics and electronic games. The setting seeks to provide a level of detail reminiscent of “Known Space” or “Middle Earth”. The tone is of Transhumanist evolution against a grand space opera background of far flung planets and stellar nations stretching over a 1,000 light year canvas. With 26 products in the last three years Terra/Sol Games has painted an ever evolving picture of this setting.

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Jolly Blackburn’s Knights of the Dinner Table #191 Shipping Next Week

Jolly Blackburn’s Knights of the Dinner Table #191 Shipping Next Week

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kodt-191Time to remind all you people that you should be reading Knights of the Dinner Table.

Why? Because it’s one of the best comics on the market. And for gamers it’s a lot more than that — it’s one of the finest magazines out there, packed with articles, reviews, and ads for the best new games.

Knights of the Dinner Table follows the misadventures of a group of misfits from Muncie, Indiana, whose love of gaming routinely trumps normal social conventions, and occasionally even their sense of self preservation. If you’re a Black Gate reader you’re already familiar with the Knights: the Java Joint strip in the back of every issue draws from the same cast of characters. Knights of the Dinner Table: The Java Joint, collecting the complete Black Gate strips, is now available in print and PDF.

You can try KODT for free online with the weekly Knights of the Dinner Table web comic. The current “Celebrity Hack” strip, featuring Seinfeld characters playing Hackmaster, is more than worth the trip.

In addition to a great cover by artist George Vrbanic, spoofing the original Unearthed Arcana art by Jeff Easley, issue 191 features 8 complete comic strips, plus feature articles including “Siftings of a Hoarder’s Lair: An inventory of things found in a Kobold’s Lair,” by Barbara Blackburn. This issue’s GameMaster’s Workshop looks at Bait and Tackle: Adventure Hooks on the Fly, Denizens of Tellene: Shazahn Ghanim, and Gaming the Movies covers the film Outpost.

All that plus regular columns Tales from the Table, Web Scryer: the Best of the RPG Web, and reviews of Masque of the Red Death, The Drifter’s Escape, The Tempus novels, Ugg-Tect, Flapjacks & Sasquatches, and Decktet. See this complete list of contents here

Knights of the Dinner Table is published monthly by Kenzer & Company. Issues are 64 pages, black & white, and priced at $5.99. It gets my highest recommendation.

Josh Wimmer Reviews Everything I Need to Know I Learned From Dungeons & Dragons

Josh Wimmer Reviews Everything I Need to Know I Learned From Dungeons & Dragons

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everythingineed-toknowilearnedfromdungeonsdragonsEverything I Need to Know I Learned From Dungeons & Dragons
Shelly Mazzanoble
Wizards of the Coast (192 pp, $12.95, September 2011)
Reviewed by Josh Wimmer

I have my first-edition AD&D Monster Manual open on my desk, and I’m looking at the entry for “mimic.” As many of you will likely recall, a mimic is a creature that disguises itself as something else — a chest, maybe, or a door — to fool unwary adventurers.

That is where my head went after reading Shelly Mazzanoble’s second book; she is a bit of a mimic. I don’t mean that she cannot stand sunlight or that she resembles stone or wood — hey, this is not a perfect analogy — or even that her armor class is only 7. I bet it is at least 5. She strikes me as dexterous (not to mention closer to chaotic good than true neutral).

No, what I mean is that Everything I Need to Know I Learned From Dungeons & Dragons, while delightful, struck me as only tangentially “One Woman’s Quest to Turn Self-Help Into Elf-Help,” as the subtitle puts it.

Mazzanoble is fun to spend time with. Most of the book is concerned with her relationships with her mom, Judy (this is the mom ur-name, I think), and boyfriend, Bart. Judy has a lot of advice to offer, much of it on the subject of Mazzanoble and Bart’s love life. Mazzanoble clearly adores her mother — they talk daily, which I can accept intellectually is a beautiful thing, for someone else who is not me — but she gets justifiably fed up when Judy starts sending her an unending stream of books like The Secret.

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New Treasures: Warhammer: Dreadfleet

New Treasures: Warhammer: Dreadfleet

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dreadfleetThere are games that are perfect for an impulse buy, and there are games you need to budget for. And then there are games that you lust after for months, scrimping and saving, until you’ve collected enough pennies to seal the deal.

Such a game is Dreadfleet, a prize I’ve been eyeing for many months. It finally arrived on Friday, and I’ve been cooing over it ever since. I haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but I’m sure if I leave it out where Drew can find it, he’ll ask to play it with me.

Dreadfleet is a tabletop miniatures board game from Games Workshop, which means it comes packed with dozens of great toys and a fabulous back story. The back story this time deals with the dread pirate Captain Roth, sailing the high seas to avenge the death of his family at the hands of the Vampire Count Noctilus. Dreadfleet is set in Games Workshop’s popular Warhammer universe, and was designed by Phil Kelly with art by John Blanche and Alex Boyd.

Captain Roth’s hunt for the legendary Dreadfleet has led him deep into the fabled Galleon’s Graveyard. With the aid of the world’s most dangerous pirate lords, the Captain intends to send the Vampire Count Noctilus to a watery grave. Yet the count has allies too, each at the helm of a gigantic and unnatural warship. Can the pirate lords battle through legions of skeletal sailors, zombie sea monsters, and hurricanes of raw magic to slay the master of the Galleon’s Graveyard once and for all?

Dreadfleet is a game for two players that allows you to enact an intrepid vampire hunt in a nautical otherworld. One player commands the pirate lords of Sartosa whilst the other controls a coalition of dark and dangerous Undead captains. Dreadfleet is quick to learn but hard to master, and provides countless hours of swashbuckling fun, thunderous broadsides, and heroic derring-do as you navigate twelve exciting scenarios. Will the Captain get his vengeance upon his deathless nemesis, or will the Galleon’s graveyard claim their lives too?

Vampire lords, zombie sea monsters, undead pirates, strange magics… what more could you ask for? The action takes places on a gorgeous seascape mat measuring 5 feet by 3.5 feet, involving 10 miniature warships averaging around three to four inches. The miniatures come unpainted and require assembly, so bear that in mind if you expect to pick it up and be playing in minutes.

The game is designed for two players, but includes scenarios playable by up to ten. Although Games Workshop has a reputation for producing countless supplemental miniatures (just look at their Warhammer 40,000 line), as far as I can tell, Dreadfleet is a stand-alone product with no plans for auxiliary units.

Dreadfleet was published by Games Workshop in October 2011; it retails for $114.99. It is recommended for ages 12 and up.

The Numenera Roleplaying Game

The Numenera Roleplaying Game

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blackmonolith3I’m very proud to announce that next summer I will be releasing a brand new roleplaying game called Numenera. The game system behind Numenera, the Cypher System, is designed to be very simple to play and in particular to run as a GM, allowing the focus to be on role-playing, action, stories, and ideas. Numenera will be released under the Monte Cook Games banner.

Numenera’s setting is Earth, a billion years in the future, after eight great civilizations have risen and fallen. Thus, the setting is also called the Ninth World. The PCs are part of a new civilization rising in the Ninth World, hoping to forge its own destiny. But they must do so amid the remnants of a remarkable and in many ways unknowable past. The ancient peoples of prior eras mastered nanotechnology, interstellar travel, cosmic engineering, genetic engineering, and far stranger things. If the people of the Ninth World think of such things as magic, who are we to blame them?

Player characters explore this world of mystery and danger to find these leftover artifacts of the past, not to dwell upon the old ways, but to help forge their new destinies, utilizing the so-called “magic” of the past to create a promising future.

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Steampunk Spotlight: City of Iron Board Game on Kickstarter

Steampunk Spotlight: City of Iron Board Game on Kickstarter

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cityofiron-boxLast winter, I saw an excellent game on Kickstarter called Empires of the Void (Amazon). I was fairly new to Kickstarter, however, so didn’t actually back it at the time because I was hesitant about how the whole process worked. When I caught a glimpse of the game at GenCon, however, I was very impressed with the production values and wish I’d gotten it … because the Kickstarter discount turns out to be nearly 50%.

I’m not going to make that mistake again. Empires of the Void‘s creators, Red Raven Games, now has a second Kickstarter going. City of Iron is a steampunk-themed board game, complete with bizarre races, exotic lands (including floating islands), airships, and yes, even bottled demons. That’s right: one of the game’s many resources are bottled demons.

The goal of the game is to build up your civilization’s resource levels to surpass those of your competing civilizations. There are a variety of different ways you can proceed, with each turn allowing for three actions chosen from the following:

  • Build using a Building card
  • Buy Science tokens
  • Play a Citizen or Military card
  • Store a Building
  • Draw a card
  • Tax to gain coins
  • Attack a town

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