Timewaster's Guide Archive
Games => Role-Playing Games => Topic started by: Mad Dr Jeffe on April 21, 2003, 02:43:17 PM
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Thanks to a recent descision at Wizards of the Coast all non Hasboro made rpg's will no longer be sold. This means I was able to pick up a ton of books at a serious 40% or more off discount. Im currently Reseaching these RPG Books for Review and they will be up shortly
Aberrant-
WW does Supers!
Aeon: Collection of assorted stuff
Fvlminata
Rifles for the Glory of rome
Gurps Rome
erm what the Title Says
Gurps Screampunk
Gothic Horror
Gurps WWII
Gurps WWII: Hand of Steel
Gurps Goblins
Parody of 17 century london
Shadowrun 3rd edition
Sci-fi with elves and orcs
Sla Industries
Err almost the same as the above but with aliens.
MetaBarons
Space Oprera for the d6 system
Ninja Burger : Iron Ninja, Burger Monkey
-Ninja Burger in Wuxia times
Teenage Mutant Ninja Burger
-Ninja Burger in the mutated future
Spaceship Zero-
Pulp Sci-Fi Gaming
Pokethulu
Free Comedy Horror Sci Fi
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Neat. I wish we had a WotC store.
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This from the *SHHH!* Don't Tell My Wife! file:
at Game Parolor, got Palladium Fantasy and Monsters and Animals (I said I'd give it a chance). Also picked up Savage Species (the one book I've wanted besides OA that Wizards never sent me), and the wrong issue of InQuest, which is obviously some sort of Clix/Yu-Gi-Oh! fan magazine. I'm looking at buying a used Warhammer Fantasy RPG off Amazon and I'll buy a copy of Tome and Blood since no one in Utah seems to acknowledge that hte free copy roming around their gaming group came from SOMEWHERE. (I'm looking at you 42, Fell, and EUOL).
Oh, and I also bought more Gregory Horror Show minis, both of which the store manager was exceedingly jealous of.
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ERICCCC!!!! did you do something impulsive again!!!!
Well I broke down and bought Hero 5 E after work today so I can look at and review.
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42 has got your tomb and blood
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NOt again. Still. I was in a bad mood. I needed cheering. I went shopping. I feel better. The good outweighs the bad.
and 42 also has my Charlie Brown pillow. I wish he'd tell me how much he wants me to send him to mail those back to me.
I should also pick up Hero. I recently decided that I wanted to collect the best fantasy RPGs (but it'll take a LOT to get me to try anything from WW). So from memory of the virtues I've heard extolled, I figured that was AD&D 1st and 3rd editions, Hackmaster (all of which I own), Palladium Fantasy, Warhammer FRPG, LOTR, and Hero.
Between Easter (got LOTR) and this shopping trip, that leave Hero and Warhammer. Warhammer I've found a realy good price on at Amazon, so I'll probably get that soon. I don't recall ever seeing Hero in an actual store. Where di you get yours?
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On first read Hero is wayyyy better than GURPS.
Its much more comprehensive with detailed sections on making new powers skills talents disadvantages and Perks.
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ElJeffe, I am not much for WoD, but some of those games on the list are ones I've been curious about. In particular, Spaceship Zero (in which you can actually play a talking cat), SLA Industries (I've always wanted to play this game, yet never wanted to invest the money), and Fvulminata (Gladiators with shootin' irons; how can you go wrong). If you get the chance to pick up any of these, let us all know if they are worth a look.
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I already own them all!!!! Muhahahahahahahahahahha.
Er sorry. Yeah Im reading them now. Actually Im gonna play FVLMINATA on saturday
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and at least one of his players refuses to use "v" instead of "u," since the rules are in English, not Latin, and in English those two letters don't make the same sound. ;D
Yeah, I play the Centurian with the legendary speed and the slightly slow wits.
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And as much as I hate to admit it I bought Spaceship Zero for the chance to play "that darn cat" too.
My review of SLA Industries will not be favorable though so don't hold your breath.
Ahem and Ehlers the Proper title has a V instead of a U and many of the skills and proper names are in latin, not english.
I would have thought Mr. Classical Language man would have jumped at the opportunity to be snooty.
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I studied Greek, not latin. And no other classical languages.
And I also usually write Wordperfect instead of the proper name WordPerfect. I say Word instead of MS Word or Microsoft Word. Ridiculous predilections for capitalizations usually don't affect me.
Oh, and I split my infinitives (another absurd latinate heritage) and end with prepositions as well. I'm like a language rebel.
changing the 'v' to 'u' IS my way of being snooty about other snootiness.
If you like I can start saying "fivel-minata." this way is just as condescending in my mind :)
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Tomorrow im gonna pick up Nobilis. Reviews on RPG.net seem to indicate it as the best, but most confusing, rpg game of the last few years.
It seems to be described as a cross between amber and mage, on crack.
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I've heard nothing but good things about Nobilis save the fact its system is a tad complicated. A beautiful book though...certainly coffee table quality.
Let us know what you think of it. If its as good as advertised I may expand my Diceless RPG collection from one to two.
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On being snooty and studying Greek instead of Latin:
http://webcomix.keenspace.com/d/20030424.html
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Do you have Amber Mr pleasington?
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Ive been reading Nobilis... my god, what a beautiful book. Fascinating system as well. Not many games allow you to visit heaven. Or to watch a 100 mile long serpent (think a Dune one) traverse the World tree.
There is a couple PDF downloads you can look at.
Introduction chapter (http://www.silveragesentinels.com/pdfs/Nobilis_Introduction_sample.pdf)
Quick Start sheet (http://www.silveragesentinels.com/pdfs/Nobilis_EnNobledflyer_USletter.pdf)
Sample of Play (http://www.silveragesentinels.com/pdfs/Nobilis_exampleofplay_sample.pdf)
Note that due to the unique nature of Nobilis, the sample of play will likely make absolutely no sense to you. It's a good read tho.
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Ok, I stopped in the Game Parlour today to get my mini (and picked up some more GHS figures. So far I've been lucky, I have 6 of the 24 figures and no repeats yet, including some good figures).
Anyway, they actually have Hero 5E on the shelf. Now I'm thinking of getting it. However, I dont' like how light it feels for $40. Yeah, it's a THICK book, but it feels really really light. And yes, I'm aware that's a bizarre reason to hesitate. However, they have several copies of the Usagi Yojimbo game on the shelf. And now I covet that. Someone convince me to buy/not buy said product.
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@ElJeffe: Yup, I own Amber. I love Amber. One of my friends still runs his seven year long campaign. I'd love to start a game, but not enought people around here know enough to play...
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You dont happen to have two copies do you? Im trying to find one, but it seems I have to pry them out of an amber diceless player's cold dead hands.
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email erik wujuck of palladium fame, he wrote the book after all
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Don't have his email address on hand.
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check your forum Instant messages. And no I don't know Eric I just know where to get his e-mail address.
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Errr. I dont have an instant message..... ???
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Just to let you all know, I just picked up the Hellboy rpg (known to retailers at Disney World as the Heckboy rpg) for a whopping five bucks! It looks very cool and I plan to run a pulpish-style game with it at some point. I was just curious if any of you out there have ever played it? It used the GURPS engine and Hellboy himself is an 885 point character, whilst most of the others weigh in at about 150 points.
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sounds very cool, especially since I dont have to buy it now. Give us all a good review.
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The copy of Warhammer FRPG that I bought, like, 3 weeks ago finally arrived today. Wiigii!!!! Of course, I had to track through the receptionist, shipping, and returns to find exactly where it was, but now it's in my desk drawer. I'm happy. Now, I need to just read the 7 rpg books I've purchased but not read....
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Oh, and it came with two 6 page previews for new DC comics. Looks like Black Canary has well,... grown up and joined the 21st century. All I can say is... ROWR! I may have to start buying Birds of Prey now. Too bad Oracle doesn't wear the ol' fighting togs anymore. I'm a sucker for red hair.
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I've owned WFRP for a while. It's worth it for The Enemy Within mega-campaign. One of the best campaigns to ever be put to paper. I only own the first two books "Shadows over Bogenhofen" and "Death on the Reik" but I've read the rest. Great stuff.
As for Amber... No, no one may have my book as I'm taking it with me to the grave. It's not terribly hard to find one online though. Several online stores sell it and its sole supplement "Shadow Knight." The supplement is crap. The main book has the best advice for running politics and intrigue ever. Period.
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What's the basic engine for Amber?
I withdraw the question, seeing it on Amazon as "Diceless Role Playing."
So, how does it work?
Jeff, if you're looking for it, you might want to try ebay (http://cq-search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&ht=1&SortProperty=MetaEndSort&query=("amber+diceless")). A search turned up only a few hits, but some that were very moderately priced.
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I think Amber might have been the first Diceless Engine. Basically there are four attributes: Wafare, Strength, Psyche, and Endurance. Character creation is the most fun, most interesting, and the most similar to the source material system I have ever participated in. There is an auction for attributes. If you're ranked first in an attribute no one can ever be better than you in that attribute...which is just like in the books. All character advancement is done in secret so everyone only has a general idea of what everyone is good at (again, just like in the books). The more secrets you keep, the less vulnerable you are.
There are no skills since an Amberite could just travel to any world where time moves more quickly and master any skill they want while mere hours pass in Amber itself.
There are abilities like Sorcery, Shapeshifting, Trump, Pattern, Logrus, etc. and you can spend your remaining points on special weapons or your own worlds. Great stuff this.
The actualy system itself is really simple...it's completely the GM's call. He'll compare the stats and the situation and let the players know what happened. You need to have a GM you can trust for this game.
There's really no game better for a group that can't get together much since it's likely you'll split up. My friend's seven year campaign started out as tabletop but now exists almost solely as PBEM and IRC. They do meet about once a year though.
Man, I love Amber!
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I suppose I should think about getting around to reading the actual source books eventually. I don't know how excited I am about it. Should I try to be convinced?
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I'd love to get my hands on the WFRPG again. I played through the "Shadows over Bogenhafen" adventure in high school and had some great fun with my little halfling wizard. That game had the coolest character advancement system I've ever run across, I think, but I can only remember vague impressions of it.
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The guys at Critical Miss like it a lot too, having played a Loooong campaign and I having whined at the designer in person. CM is cool.
I promised them I'd write a review sometime a few months ago and post it on TWG. I should probably get to that.
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The advancement system is cool on paper, but it doesn't make sense a lot in roleplaying terms a lot of the time. Sometimes a character would take a new profession and never perform any of its duties while still getting the benefits. Like being a Mercenary Captain and not leading any mercenaries (unless you include the party). It's tough to get adventurers to actually play careers unless there is a lot of downtime. That's the only drawback.
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That just takes some judicious gming. I'm looking forward to reading it. Like I said, CM is really excited about it, and I really want ot learn it. But first I need to finish reading Palladium (I ended up learning 3 other systems before finishing Palladium, so I have a lot to do)
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Dang! Now that you made Amber sound so appealing I will have to haunt game stores to find a copy. Actually I know where I can get an old (but unused) copy for only a few bucks, so I might just pick it up. I am not a big fan of all of the Amber books, but I enjoy the concept well enough to actually pick up the game, especially since the system sounds so cool. I will probably end up pirating the system for another game at some point.
Fell, I just saw a new minature of a halflking mage complete with funky coat, pince nez glasses, and a bunny familiar (or maybe it was a fox; I just took a quick peek at it). It might fit your character to a T.
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"Unused"? that might be hard. But search around on google and ebay, you might find something
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Actually you can still get one new because it's not completely OOP. Phage Press still produces a number of copies a year. I saw a new copy of both books not but sixth months ago. So there's a chance at least.
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I will pass on the amber game i think... if i really want to play it i can just take the spanner to Nobilis and change that. It's diceless, but has a very different system.
4 stats.
Aspect - everything physical and mental that a human can, or could, do.
Domain - the idea the PC has contol over. The PC is elemental, lord, guardian and master of this idea. IT can be anything, from love, hate, blood, cats, the english language... anything.
Realm - the amount of control over the PC's homebase the character has (since the characters are always at war in a nobilis game, this is more important than you would think)
Spirit - The PC's ability to defend againsts miracle, and other stuff like flower rites and binding humans.
Each of these ratings can be bought up from level 0 up to level 5. You also get a pool of miracle points - think like willpower from white wolf game. Each attribute has its own pool.
In game, there are 9 levels of miracles for each attribute. If your rating in that attribute is equal to or greater, you do it automatically. If your rating is lower, you have to increase it with your miracle points. these only regain at the start of a story.
Example. Say you have aspect level 4. Somebody shoots a uzi at you. Checking the table, you see that parrying an uzi's spray of bullets is level 6 aspect (impossible for normal human). You need to spend 2 miracle points to do so.
There are also gifts, like flight, immortality, turn to stone (like medusa), shapechange. There are guidelines for making your own gifts, using the rules for domain. Interestingly, the flaws do not give character creation points. Instead they give you miracle points in a pool of your choosing. The flaws are divided into two sections : general ones that apply all the time (blindness) and those that only cause a problem at specific times (cannot enter a house without permission). The general ones give miracle points at the start of each story, the specific ones only when they become a problem.
From what i have seen on the Nobilis mailing list, there seems to be a migration of amber players to Nobilis.
Im currently thinking of using Nobilis for the matrix...
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I think you'll like WFRP Eric, especially since characters can only be so good on their career path,
It's tough to get anyone above an 80 in WS (weapons skill) for instance. Plus giving the characters careers as opposed to classes is a cool in depth background thing that works well.
Combats fun and fast, but frighteningly deadly especially at lower levers where you only hit your opponent about 30 percent of the time characters with more than a handful of wounds are rare and likliest to survive. The only thing not well developed is Magic, but I hear there is a second book for that so that might change.
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I must say that I love the combat in WFRP. It's quick, deadly and detailed. Those critical hit tables are just nasty! They strike a good balance between the abstractness of D&D and the overly complex detail of a Rolemaster.
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Ok! ok! I'm convinced guys! I just feel like I need to finish Palladium because I started that first.
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Today i picked up WHFRP. I figured that, since hogshead have gone tits up, i need to get a copy while i still can. If i like it and get the money in time, i can buy Realms of Sorcery and the campaign pack and the location (middenheim) book - my FLGS have all of them in stock. I have not read it yet, since i was reading Baron Munchausen, also by HH. I did a review of Baron so i wont bother commenting on it here.
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WFRPG is still pretty easy to find on the used searches on Amazon.
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I prefer to buy new. I prefer to get as good quality as i can. I distrust ebay and its ilk, and i can't be bothered with mailordering when i can get a bus into town instead.
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1) ebay and Amazon aren't remotely the same thing, except that both use web sites to sell things.
2) "used" on amazon can often mean "new, but not ever entered our warehouse." Which is how I got my WFRPG. It's worth checking out.
3) I can't be bothered bussing into town when I can order Online and my butt never leaves my chair.
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I got my copy of Inquisitor from Ebay, as mentioned. It was marked as new and true to word, it was. Hadn't even been opened before. For $10. Now there's some GW prices I can deal with!
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Well, i just looked on amazon. They sell it new for £19, and used for £17.
Seeing as how i bought it new for £20, and i would have to pay P&p, i think i will stick with the FLGS.
And i refuse to go anywhere near Ebay.
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Eh. Win some, lose some I suppose. I got WFRPG on amazon for $18 (think the cover is closer to twice that, but I have the book at work, so I couldn't tell ya.
I got the three core GURPS books for ~$30, which for three books isn't bad at all.
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Yeah. They do not seem to have Realm of sorcery, which is poo since i really want that now. The magic in warhammer is rather more deadly to the user than is usual for magic systems, so i am interested to see how it works in RoS.