The Dawn is Coming!

Cupcake number 2!




This Darkness cannot last forever. The dawn is coming . . . the Dawn of Legends!

Dawn of Legends is a new setting for the popular Savage Worlds license, bringing four-color super-heroic action to Pinnacle Entertainment's award winning role-playing game.
With a new, fully-customizable effects-based powers system designed to remain true to the fast, furious, fun of Savage Worlds, Dawn of Legends lets you don the cape and tights and battle crime wherever it is needed.
Inside the more than 256 pages are:
Over 40 new Edges, 20 new Hindrances, 6 Super-Team Edges, 5 Super-Team Hindrances.
More than 100 Powers, 30 Power Enhancements, 30 Power Drawbacks, 20 Power Boosters, and the complete rules for creating brand new powers using the exact formula used by the Designers.

Check it out at Daring Entertainment or Daring Visions to the left. The last cupcake tomorrow.

The World is Freezing!

There are three releases in the gaming world that I am waiting for like a fat kid at a cupcake store.



The first one is...

An endless winter is coming...
500 years ago: From the frozen far north, beyond the civilized lands with their rolling hills and forests, arose a mighty army of frost giants, ice devils, Hellfrost dragons, and fearsome orcs, servants all of the ice god Thrym. So began the terrible Blizzard War and the downfall of the mighty empires of man
Today: The races of the southern lands may have won the war, but they suffer its legacy still. For five centuries the winters have grown steadily longer and colder. Huge swathes of the land of Rassilon are permanently covered in ice and snow, and even the temperate lands are not spared the misery of failed harvests, deadly winters, and the dreaded Hellfrost wind.
But winter is not the only danger. A mere 30 years ago, magic, once the civilized races’ most potent weapon, suddenly began to fail. The Siphoning, an effect of unknown origin, has made magic an unpredictable ally.
Welcome to the world of Rassilon. Welcome to the Hellfrost!

Interested? Learn more at Triple Ace Games. Link to the left.



Yeah, I shamelessly plugged someone.

Foto Friday

So I really have nothing. I decided to put up some pictures from my years of combing the interweb looking for game inspiration. I do not remember where I got most of them so if you see something familiar, let me know. I will put up a link or remove it.

Life in Miniature

I never liked to use miniatures in my roleplaying games. I always thought they were the tools of tactical gamers who play Battletech and Warhammer for example. I was a roleplayer, not a figure pusher. If I used miniatures, my players would think more about where their figure was on the battlemat and not what was going on in their characters' heads.

After years and years of roleplaying combat however, I noticed something horrible. When fighting broke out in my stories, I was starting to think less about the scene and what was happening. The abstraction of combat started to get very dull for me. There is only so many times a character swings a sword or fires a gun before I start to think of them all as the same moment. It was no longer a tense situation for the characters or myself. Combat was a scene filler until I got back to the drama and not drama itself. I think my combats reflected this also. I saw myself saying dreaded phrases like, "ok, you hit, roll your damage" without considering what was happening in the story.

At some point I started running Deadlands: Reloaded, a game by Pinnacle Entertainment. The company produced paper miniatures for the game and I got the pdf.* I used them a little at the start of the campaign and more as the story progressed. I did not realize what was happening to me because of the miniatures however. My concept of the story and scene was getting a boost. This effect hit me at last game. The characters were fighting a large monster (Mojave Rattler for those in the know) and I could see what was happening through the little pieces of paper. At one point, the monster had two characters at the jaws of death (almost literally) and the characters fought for their lives with six-shooters and knives. Man was it cool. The interesting thing was that I could see it again. Looking at the minis (characters laying on top of the monster mini) I just kept thinking if this was in a movie it would look awesome. The minis kick started my brain into the scene and allowed it take the image to the next level. I could now see the character running for his life with the sweat on his face. His companion firing his rifle and the Huckster blasting the monster with magic became vivid in my mind. It was a great experience.

Using miniatures in a roleplaying game is not for everyone. It wasn't for me. I say try it however if you haven't. Paper minis are pretty cheap to try this out if you are short on cash. If you think your combats are becoming stale, I say try using minis and see if it doesn't kick start your imagination. And let me know what you think.




*I think it helps I didn't have to buy hundreds of dollars worth of plastic minis.

Top 5 - Road Killer

Wow, I should have challenged myself to once a week. These blogs may get really dumb. Especially since I haven't had time to game a lot recently.

But in the tradition of one of my favorite movies, High Fidelity, here comes the Top 5 list. I will try to make the list a regular feature. Maybe on Wednesday I will try and come out with a new one. So here goes...

TOP 5 GAMES TO RUN AFTER HITTING AN ANIMAL IN THE STREET.

5) Any Superhero Game (Mutants and Masterminds would be my pick): Just create a team of animal and plant inspired heroes. It works great for Aquaman with all the respect and power he gets. Someone must have hit a dolphin in their Pinto.

4) Werewolf: the Apocalypse: War of Rage baby! Make them all road kill and let Gaia sort them out.

3) Car Wars: WOOOOOO! Deer 5 points. Man 10! Kick me another brew dude! BUUURRRRRP!

2) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: You are an irradiated, pissed off chipmunk who's dad just got aced by a jerk off in a Pinto... and go.

1) Ironclaw: The world of vehicular animal slaughter sucks. Lets live in a more comforting world of foxes and bunnies stabbing each other for power and glory.

To All the Games I've Loved Before...

I have recently had a space problem. I am moving my stuff from my parents/storage house to one I share with two roommates and a child. Anyway, I needed to trim the fat so to speak. I have a lot of books and the most prevalent are game books. Now fast forward to a new Half-Price Books Store opening in my hometown. These two events have created a recipe for making some cash for my Gen Con trip since money will be pretty tight this year.

This is where the narration takes a sad turn however. Now I have to go though my collect and decide what books stay and what books go. How do I choose? How would you choose? At first I decided if I was not planning on playing a game in the next year, the books had to go. With so many settings however, I just couldn't do it. Then I thought I will keep the best game for each genre (SciFi, Fantasy etc.). But who can pick? Can you honestly tell me the better game between Transhuman Space and AEON or Blood of Heroes and Mutants and Masterminds? You can? Pass me that cup filled with water from the fountain of knowledge.

You see, I have a healthy imagination for my age. Most gamers do I think. When I look at and read game books, I see the scenes, the adventures, they can create. For example, when I look at Legend of the Five Rings, the words fall from my mind and are replaced with impressions of trying to keep my Lion mantle in place as I and my honor guard race over a grassy hill to destroy the vile Crane beyond. Feeling the wind. Hearing the horses hooves. The texture of my gloved hand holding my father's weapon. What about Chill and the knowledge that just beyond the worn, stained apartment door in front of you are creatures man was not meant to know? To feel the glorious anger being released as my body cracks and elongates into that same creature in Werewolf: the Forsaken. How do you say goodbye to those feelings?

Well in the end I did say farewell to some. All in all I think I sold about 75 books. And to all those games I've loved before, thank you. Thank you for helping me feel larger than life and no smaller than my imagination could dream. I hope someone sees you on the store shelf and looks past the illusion. Sees your words for what they are, dreams of adventure. For me, I still have many favorites and worlds to explore.

The challenge!

So I have this blog I never use. There are many reasons I guess, a new job, over-eating, TVs that record shows, extreme laziness. Well after thinking about it, I have decided to challenge myself. I will post something on this blog everyday until my birthday in May! Only until May because I am directing a summer Shakespeare play and when that hits full steam, I will probably have a hard time gaming let alone blogging.

Now even though I have challenged myself, I do not expect this blog to be the creme on top of Rooty-Tooty Fresh and Fruity pancakes. I may go a week with only typing "I like cake and dice." I do not know. I will try however to post topics that are interesting to me. If they are interesting to me, they may be interesting to other gamers. That reminds me. I will try to stay the course of this blog being game related. That is why I started it and that is where I want it to stay. Gaming is my number one hobby and this is my best outlet to express it outside of actually playing. So with that said, I will see you tomorrow!