All posts in Role-Playing Games

Marvel Heroic Role-playing

By | 21 February 2012 | Role-Playing Games | No comments

Very, very early this morning I picked up a copy of the new Marvel role-playing game. I’m pretty excited about it, and I am interested to see how well their event model works compared to what other super games have done in the past. The book comes with several characters in their premade datasheets which makes sense because in this game you don’t actually create your characters. Instead you play characters as they are depicted within specific events in the Marvel universe.

It also comes with a sample. somewhat mini event, Breakout, which was the feature story in the first volume of the New Avengers. I loaded up comixology and purchased the Breakout trade paperback and read it earlier this afternoon. It was a fairly decent story with an interesting mix of characters. I can see why they chose to include something like this in the base game.

I’ve been talking to a couple of the local game stores trying to get them set up as preferred retailers so that we can run the launch day event a week from Saturday. Unfortunately, the process has not been going as well as I would’ve liked. I am not deterred. We will get it set up, there is no way that I’m going to allow an opportunity like this to slip through my fingers.

Opportunity Cards in RPGs

By | 19 February 2012 | Role-Playing Games | No comments

Came across this idea from John Harper at story-games today, seems really handy:

Opportunity Cards, what are they?
An opportunity card is simply an index card that you put on the game table as a tactile and visual cue for an opportunity that the PCs might pursue in the game. At any given time (especially in a “sandbox” kind of game) there will be many opportunities in play. It’s easy for players to forget about some of them. So, write the opportunities on cards, thrown ‘em on the table, and keep them in front of everyone’s eyeballs.

Depending on the game, an “opportunity” might be a mission, contract, quest, promise, faction goal, debt, etc.

What goes on the card?
The exact details on a card will depend on the specific elements of your game. But in general, this is the template:

- Name of Opportunity
- NPC and/or faction linked to the opportunity
- Location(s) in the game world related to the opportunity
- [Actions involved in addressing the opportunity]
- [Reward for addressing the opportunity]

Those last two are optional, but I like them since they often help players prioritize opportunities and better assess risks and rewards.

Organizing the cards
Since opportunities are written on cards, it’s possible to arrange them how you like. The players might group them into stacks related to factions or locations on the map, by relative challenge, reward offered, or however they please. It’s easy to move cards around as they change status, add details when they learn them, discard them when completed, or save them as a record of what’s been accomplished.

http://story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=15710

D&D XP 2012

By | 11 February 2012 | Role-Playing Games | No comments

It has been a few weeks since I went to Fort Wayne with my brother to the D&D XP. I have written, and rewritten this post a few times due to complications associated with the NDA for the D&D Next play test. Ultimately, I have decided to just say that I played the playtest twice, and I think I like the direction they are going in. I will spend the rest of this post talking about other things.

The trip down, and the returning trip back up were fraught with hazard. Another one of my brothers asked to borrow the highlander for the weekend, so I was using his car. I didn’t think it would be a big deal as we have been having a mild winter and the forecast show clear sailing for the weekend. Unfortunately, things never go so smoothly. There was a nasty winter storm sitting overtop of us the entire way, both ways. It was crazy. And, to make matters worse, my brother’s car stunk pretty bad. I never did figure out what the smell was, and we gutted the car and bombed it with fabreeze. We stayed in the D&D XP block and the Marriot, and it was a pretty decent hotel. It was quite nice being directly across the street from the convention center.

The convention itself was a fairly small affair. The entire thing was in one event hall, things were loosely divided by fencing. There were only a few vendors, and they did not have anything of particular note. Although, I did pick up the original Forgotten Realms box set. As wizards noted they had 363 different playtester for D&D Next, which sounds about right, because I don’t think there were more than 500 people at the convention.

Ultimately, I think it was a pretty positive experience, and I do not know if I would have gone had it not been for the play test. And, with D&D XP being folded into Gen Con next year I am not sure if it would be worth the trip down next year for “Winter Fantasy” or whatever it is they are calling the convention now.

Recommend Dungeon World Hacks

By | 8 February 2012 | Role-Playing Games | No comments

I’ve been running Dungeon World for some nearly exclusively traditional gamers steeped in the fundamentals of D&D / Pathfinder. So I have come up with a few tweaks to DW to help these players feel a little more comfortable. And, the XP hack is primary just to make the game run a little smoother.

BBC XP with a Twist

Using the BBC XP system instead of highlighted stats has been a great success for me. I think it captures a lot of what AW achieves without highlighted stats that doesn’t work in DW. Additionally, I remove XP for bonds and Alignment. Instead, when those are hit I’ve been giving +1 forward.

Dice

Rather than using the standard 2d6, I’ve been having players roll 1d20. If you use 1-8 is a fail, 9-17 is mixed success, and 18+ is success that probabilities are very similar and feel “right” in play for players used to rolling a d20 for almost everything.

Hidden Moves

When I run for a first time group I do not hand out the moves sheets. I like to establish the “if you do it, do it” principle up front. Then, after a couple sessions once the behavior has become the normal I pass out the moves sheets for reference.

Saving Throws

I like that in the new beta 1.1 defying danger has been adjusted to allow for all the stats. I’ve been using this system for a while and I’ve found it works pretty well. I basically have the same move which I have been calling Saving Throw (rather than the original move which has since been removed) which I have players roll when I make an unprompted move against them in support of the fiction.

Cortex+ Dragon Brigade

By | 8 January 2012 | Role-Playing Games | No comments

Yesterday was my first foray into the Cortex+ system. It was a bit of a hot mess, but that is too be expected given that I chose to run Dragon Brigade Opening Salvo. The problem with Dragon Brigade was that it took a lot for granted, and I think having finished reading Leverage, or reading Smallville would have helped immensely. The game includes the basics of Cortex+, which I was somewhat familiar with. But, as we got into things it became painfully clear that I had no idea how to run the game.

My biggest issue was trying to determine what the correct scale for actions was, and whether or not people were supposed to be acting independently or as teams. The biggest issue for the group was catching the exceptions to the rules, the fiddly bits proved to be a little too fiddly, for example that d4 complications are rolled by the player, but d6 complications are rolled by the GM.

After the game we came to a consensus that the game may be worth revisiting once the full version comes out, but we are going to avoid it in the mean time.

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