Wednesday 29 April 2009

Dungeons and Dragons edition changes

I was wondering why 3.0 changed to 3.5. Was it a marketing thing? Was it because they wanted to power up some things and power down others? Was it something else? I remember reading something about balance issues, but I can't remember. Does someone know?

It might help me understand why I abandoned 3.5 after a while.

Saturday 25 April 2009

Game options for people stuck in 3.5

If (like many people) you refuse to go to 4E D&D, but look at what is available for 3.5 and see a logical endpoint because there is no support for it anymore the you can always try Pathfinder

Not that I am going to play it, but I downloaded the free beta copy (over 400 pages of goodies) and already found a few ideas to adapt to my other games.

Thursday 23 April 2009

Role Playing games and so on

I am starting this blog to chronicle my experiences with and thoughts on Pen and Paper Role Playing Games or RPGs* and even though I have another gaming blog, I have found that it was being taken over by Table Top Wargames.

What games am I involved with?
Currently I am running a fantasy game for the 9th to 12th graders at my school. There are seven kids in the group and they have really been enjoying hunting down an ancient evil that had found its way back to earth. They recently manage to kill it, or at least they thought they had; they just found out its not dead. For the system I used Mutants and Masterminds and it worked very well.

I am leaving the country for a new job in July, so I have been giving the kids a chance to run games to get used to it so that someone can take my place next year and so soon one of them is going to do a Super hero game using Necessary Evil, one of the world books from Savage Worlds. I'm looking forward to it because it is fun to play alongside the kids and I love Supers games.

I am running a fantasy game for a bunch of my mates using the Song of Ice and Fire Role Playing Game or SIFRP. It took a bit of adapting to get it to work (I had to invent a system for magic) but the mechanics of the system work well and diminish that all too common moment where the character falls flat in an area he is a specialist in because the player rolled badly.
My group are currently hunting a Wizard and had tracked him to a trading town (where he had become quite influential) and confronted him. That was where last session ended; well Alex did kick the door in as Mike was climbing one of the walls as Derek looked on aghast.

Lastly, Derek has been running a Supers game that has been an on and off thing for years. 'Off' because he did spend a year and a half mostly living in the USA and we also had a complete change of players at one point; I am the only original player from 2005. Colin moved back to the States and Paul moved to Switzerland. At the moment I am finishing off my new character, as my last character died saving the world at the end of the last story arc.

In other recent RPG developments i bought the player's guide to Hellfrost today and am very impressed with it. I would love to run it or play in it and I can just imagine a person in Sydney who it would suit right down to the ground. Derek had a look at it today and made appreciative noises as he flipped through it.

*I make that clear so I can link back to it when a certain person decides to make jokes about Rocket Propelled Grenades.