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Vicarious Roleplaying

Vicarious Roleplaying

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Dungeons & Dragons has become a spectator game, and regularly scheduled, live-streamed D&D games are legion. The voice actors of Critical Role, led by Matthew Mercer, are probably the best known. Their weekly live game has around 30,000 viewers, and each episode gets hundreds of thousands of follow-up views on YouTube.

I’m trying to keep up with Critical Role‘s new Mighty Nein campaign, but it’s 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there. If I had three to four hours a week to watch a live RPG, I’d have three to four hours to play an RPG.

I do, however, have time for podcasts. In fact, between chores, the gym, and the occasional road trip, I average about fifteen hours of podcasts a week. I have a regular list of fiction, gaming, and news podcasts to fill most of that time. However, in the fall, with all the chores that must be completed before winter arrives, my regular list falls very short.

Enter actual-play D&D podcasts. There are many. Most I’ve sampled are not to my liking, but here are the few that stuck with me beyond a few samplings.

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Pathfinder Playtest Update

Pathfinder Playtest Update

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PathfinderPlaytestSince Gen Con 2018, the Pathfinder Playtest has been in full swing, testing the new rule system that will form the basis for Pathfinder Second Edition, slated to release at Gen Con 2019. The game looks to streamline the system, and create a more coherent play experience across the diverse options that players of Pathfinder have available.

Participating in the Playtest

The major materials – the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook and the Doomsday Dawn adventure book, as well as supplements like the Playtest Bestiary and pregenerated characters – are all available for free download from Paizo.com, so that anyone can participate in the playtest experience. Feedback is provided through the messageboards on the Paizo forum and also by entering survey data when you’ve run someone through an adventure or scenario.

In addition to the download of the Rulebook, you should also download the Rulebook Update sheet. This is updated regularly – every couple of weeks so far – and includes ongoing modifications to the rules, which are to be incorporated immediately. The biggest change was a pretty comprehensive revamp of the Death & Dying rules, although they’ve since gone in and modified some of the classes a bit, added an additional healing option for the Medicine skill, and made other changes as needed.

The Doomsday Dawn adventure book has a series of 7 adventures that are linked together in a campaign style, set over a period of ten years, but you don’t always play the same characters. The adventures begin at first level and then skip levels as you proceed. The characters you play at first level show up in subsequent adventures, at higher levels, but in between you play with some different characters, with some adventures focusing more on outdoor adventures or healing characters. The goal is that playing through the entire adventure, you’ll have an opportunity to test out lots of different play styles and aspects of the game.

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The Priceless Treasures of the Barbarian Prince

The Priceless Treasures of the Barbarian Prince

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A complete set of Dwarfstar games. Probably worth more than my house.

I enjoyed Sean McLachlan’s Black Gate post last month, Wargaming with my Twelve-Year-Old. Sean and his son played Outpost Gamma, a 1981 science fiction board game of man-to-man combat on a distant colony world. You don’t see a lot of coverage of early-80s science fiction microgames these days, so I appreciated being able to share the fun.

Outpost Gamma was published by Heritage Models in 1981, under their celebrated Dwarfstar imprint. Dwarfstar, like Metagaming, Steve Jackson, and Task Force Games, produced a rich catalog of microgames aimed at younger players. Well, budget-conscious players anyway. Metagaming, who pioneered the concept of the microgame with their first release, Steve Jackson’s runaway hit Ogre, charged $2.95 for a two-color game in a small baggie. Dwarfstar did away with the baggie and upgraded to a slim box, added full color, and charged a lordly $3.95.

As a business, the Dwarfstar line wasn’t a success. Unlike Metagaming and Task Force, who released dozens of titles over the years, they produced only eight games between 1981-82. But from a creative perspective, they were a magnificent hit. Their titles included Arnold Hendrick’s classic Demonlord, simulating the desperate struggle against the Demon Empire, Lewis Pulsipher’s Dragon Rage, a game of giant monsters attacking a walled medieval city, Dennis Sustare’s Star Smuggler, a marvelous solitaire programmed adventure following the adventures of a star trader on the frontier, and the peak achievement of Western Civilization, Arnold Hendrick’s Barbarian Prince, a solitaire game of heroic action in a forgotten age of sorcery.

Superbly well-designed as they were, Dwarfstar games had one great weakness: they weren’t built to last. Paper-thin boxes and flimsy components helped keep the cost down, but did nothing for their longevity. More than 35 years later these eight games have a nearly mythical reputation among collectors, but there aren’t a lot of copies to be had. And you know what that means: the scarce copies still in good condition are very, very expensive.

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Nioh: Dark Samurai Fantasy

Nioh: Dark Samurai Fantasy

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To the far east lies the land of Zipangu a land brimming with golden palaces and sparkling jewels. Kublai Khan, ruler of the mongol empire, sent a large army there, but the warriors of Zipangu used “miraculou” stones” to put up a strong defense.

The Travels of Marco Polo, Chapter 6 , 174-175

Nioh is a 3rd person Action RPG created by Team Ninja, the famed creators of Ninja Gaiden and the Dead Or Alive series. In Nioh, players are faced with little direction on how to proceed in the game, open areas filled with difficult enemies and bosses, and collectibles that affect the player in many different ways.

On the surface, Nioh seems to borrow some elements from the Dark Souls series of games. Dark foreboding areas populated with enemies waiting to ambush you. Enemies that vary from humans to monsters. Enemies that have varied attacks that you must defend from and counter, forcing you to learn their patterns of attacks.

Even with those similarities, Nioh differs from Dark Souls in many ways. Nioh‘s story adopts Japanese mythology, folklore, and settings as its core. Samurai, Yokai, and many other giant monsters are set in your path. Many are unique, terrifying, and absolutely fun to battle through the use of an interesting fighting mechanic.

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Wargaming with my Twelve-Year-Old

Wargaming with my Twelve-Year-Old

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Outpost Gamma-small Outpost Gamma-back-small

It may be turning into an annual tradition here at the McLachlan-Alonso household–beating the Madrid heat by playing tabletop wargames. I first introduced my son to the concept of wargames with Soldiers 1918, an old Strategy & Tactics game.

This summer it was Outpost Gamma, an old Dwarfstar Games science fiction wargame available free online. Just download it, take it to your local printshop to get the board and chits on suitable card stock, and bingo! Old school fun.

This is a simple game, perfect for a kid who hasn’t done many wargames. The rules are clear and straightforward, and the game is pretty fast moving. Game time took about an hour.

Earthers have placed mining colonies on a distant planet ravaged by electrical storms. The native species isn’t too happy about it and decides to kick the miners and the space marines out. What results is basically a colonial warfare game, with a few heavily armed soldiers trying to beat off a superior force of poorly armed natives.

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Lock and Load with Starfinder Armory … And Beyond

Lock and Load with Starfinder Armory … And Beyond

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StarfinderArmoryOne of my favorite games over the last year has been Starfinder, the “Dungeons & Dragons in space” game from the makers of the Pathfinder RPG. I’ve covered this game since its initial announcement, and was thrilled to begin playing it when it was initially released at Gen Con 2017.

Pathfinder typically releases a torrent of rulebooks and supplements over the course of the year, at least two softcover supplements a month plus an adventure module, but by comparison Starfinder was much more modest in its approach. As a new game, for one thing, they really had no idea exactly what kind of demand there would be. Since the release of the Starfinder Core Rulebook, there was  a quick release of the Starfinder Alien Archive and then the Starfinder Pact Worlds setting book, both welcome additions. And they’ve released their bi-monthly Dead Suns Adventure Path over the course of the first year, providing an extended adventure campaign, setting information, equipment, and adversaries.

While the array of equipment originally offered in the Core Rulebook was impressive, a science fantasy game of flying between worlds in spaceships calls out for cool gadgets and robots and weapons and power armor, not to mention magical items. Some have been dropped here and there among the creatures and setting information, but Gen Con 2018 saw the release of the Starfinder Armory (Amazon, Paizo), which provides ample options for anyone who felt that their character’s inventory was lacking.

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The Games of Gen Con 2018

The Games of Gen Con 2018

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PathfinderPlaytest

As you walk through the convention hall at Gen Con, moving from demo to demo and panel to panel, you can’t help but be overwhelmed by the advertisements everywhere, trying to catch your attention for the latest big game. Usually, there are one or two big new games that just seem to overwhelm the convention, often tied into big properties.

This year, the big new game at Gen Con wasn’t new. Not really. Pathfinder has long had a strong, even overwhelming, presence at Gen Con, so the promotion of the release of the Pathfinder Playtest this year felt pretty natural. Next year, we can anticipate the big release to be the Pathfinder Second Edition RPG, but for now the playtesting has begun.

I’ll cover the details of the Pathfinder Playtest in more depth in the upcoming weeks and months. I played two Pathfinder Society sessions of the playtest, at levels 1 and 5, so got a fair idea of how the bones of the new system operates. Fortunately, you don’t have to, because the Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook along with all other materials needed for play are available for free download at the Paizo website.

These downloads include the Doomsday Dawn campaign, a series of 7 adventures ranging from levels 1 to 17. These adventures aren’t all played with the same group of characters, although the core group of characters created for the level 1 adventure are re-used every couple of adventures at higher levels, so they’re really the “heroes” of the campaign. There are also three Pathfinder Society scenarios built for the playtest, to teach and test various elements of the game. And, of course, the Rulebook contains everything that a Gamemaster needs to create an original homebrew adventure or campaign for their group, to test out the rules in ways of their own devising.

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Modular: Pathfinder Planar Adventures

Modular: Pathfinder Planar Adventures

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Planar_AdventuresFor as long as it has existed, Dungeons & Dragons (and its spin-off game, Pathfinder) have not been about a single world, but a multiverse of different worlds and dimensions. The entities that exist within these realms can be good or evil, or sometimes merely strange and exotic. But regardless of their precise nature, they are distinctly other than us, because these different realms and dimensions are governed by rules different than event he fantasy rules that govern the main adventuring worlds.

As Pathfinder First Edition begins slowing down its cycle of new rules releases, paving the way for the upcoming Pathfinder Playtest starting at GenCon and, ultimately, the release of Pathfinder Second Edition at GenCon 2019, it’s good to see that their final First Edition hardcover rulebook release, Planar Adventures  (Paizo, Amazon), provides a mix of setting material that will be broadly applicable to any game set within the multiverse that contains the Pathfinder world of Golarion.

Following a general tradition within Pathfinder rulebooks, the first chapter focuses on characters. There are a dozen new planar-related archetypes, such as the Azatariel (Swashbuckler champions of Elysium), the Gloomblade (a Shadow Plane-influenced Fighter), and Progenitors (Druids with powerful bonds to the First World of the fey). Character options include new feats, spells, and magical items related to travel throughout the planes.

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Birthday Reviews: Gary Gygax’s “At Midnight Blackcat Comes”

Birthday Reviews: Gary Gygax’s “At Midnight Blackcat Comes”

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Cover by Dennis Kauth
Cover by Dennis Kauth

Gary Gygax was born Ernest Gary Gygax on July 28, 1938. He died on March 4, 2008. Although Gygax tried his hand writing fiction, he was best known as one of the creators of Dungeons and Dragons.

Gygax was inducted into the Origins Award Hall of Fame in 1980. In addition to Dungeons and Dragons (and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) and various modules and accessories, Gygax also had a hand in creating the role playing games Boot Hill, Cyborg Commando, Dangerous Journeys, and Lejendary Adventure.

Gygax wrote “At Moonset Blackcat Comes” as an introduction to the character Gord the Rogue, about whom he had already written the novel Saga of the Old City, which would be published later. The story appeared first in the 100th issue of Dragon, edited by Kim Mohan. Accompanying the story were the rules to the game Dragonchess, described in the story. Although Gygax published a series of five Gord the Rogue novels, plus the short story collection Night Arrant, “At Moonset Blackcat Comes” was not included in the collection and has not been reprinted elsewhere.

The story introduces the main character and his barbarian companion while also trying to give the reader a feel for the way the City of Greyhawk, alluded to in many of Gygax’s AD&D articles and modules, is set up. Rather than exploring the city, however, Gygax quickly separates Gord from his companion and the city, setting the action, such as it is, in a sporting house, with Chert the barbarian going off to find female companionship while Gord settles in with Rexfelis to learn to play a chess alternative.

While Gygax is clearly trying to make Gord a likable character who is extremely competent and sure of himself, he comes across as arrogant, placing his own amusement and desires above those, like Chert, with whom he has surrounded himself. Although Gord is on guard against being taken in the game of Dragonchess, it is clear that Rexfelis had been playing Gord throughout the evening with the eventual end of using Gord to rob Rigello the arch-mage, a task Gord readily accepts.

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Conjure Puberty: The Sword and The Sorcerer (1982)

Conjure Puberty: The Sword and The Sorcerer (1982)

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The Sword and The Sorcerer (1982)
Dir. Albert Pyun
Starring: Lee Horsely, Kathleen Beller, Simon McCorkindale, et al.

In case it needs to be said — spoilers.

Okay. Let’s go…

The Sword and the Sorcerer is the cinematic equivalent of the first homebrew table-top gaming campaign run by a 13 year old.

I know this because I turned 13 in 1982. I also know this because I likely ran my first homebrew table-top game that year. The step from 12 to 13 seems like nothing to an adult; we forget the power these thresholds hold for children. At 12 you are a child. At 13 you are a teenager. There is, I believe, a biblical injunction that calls for us to put away childish things as we leave childhood — but that never really worked for me.

When he was interviewed before his tragic death, the late, great herpetologist/artist/song stylist/adventurer and man of mystery Dean Ripa was asked to explain happiness. I’m paraphrasing, but his answer was something like “Everything I loved doing at 10 years old, I just kept doing.”

I can get behind that thought. What I loved as child I have kept. What you love is an act of self-creation. What you love reveals part of who you are — at least I believe that. Among the things that I loved enough to bring forward were books. Specifically, fantasy books — and more specifically — sword and sorcery books. Another thing I brought forward was a love of table-top gaming. Both of these things were so central to my childhood that I have carried them with me for the four decades since in one way or another. So as you might imagine, in 1982 I was completely stoked for the release of one movie over all others.

That movie was not The Sword and the Sorcerer.

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