RPG Bloggers Network melt down, or maybe not?

During the week that went by, I was incapacitated with flu. As it always is, that's when things really start to happen. I'm kind of used to that. Life plays those kind of tricks of irony upon you. This last one was more mysterious, though. What did happen? I haven't the foggiest.

So. The RPG Bloggers Network had some kind of seizure. I had to go back to the webpage and resubscribe to the RSS feed for all the updates, but I saw no message indicating anything different than usual.

At the same time I've seen many of the blogs I read refering to how bad something can blowup when you're not careful, always somehow getting through that they really mean RPGBN. It's very clear to me that some big thing have happened, but when and where? The closest I've gotten to an idea of what has happened is that someone else have started a new network, more social like Facebook. Also, there seem to have been arguments some times about the criteria for joining RPGBN. So what? Someone starts an aggregation service and who will then decide what he want to aggregate? Everyone else? I'm thinking it kind of makes sense for the guy who runs the show to call the shots, right? Maybe it's more to it.

God knows what happend, and I'm amazed that I have seen none of it happening, but the talk afterwards. As long as RPGBN provides feeds that people can subscribe to and find my blog, I'm happy. I've found bunches of stuff that way myself.

Edit: Now I found this link which gives some more information. How the hell are you supposed to find it from the frontpage?!

So what does that mean? Business as usual? I'm confused.

Reading T&T 7.5 - Equipment p.41-89

After a lengthy battle with the flu, which is still not finally won, am once again able to think my usual semi-clear thoughts. Since I'm also bored out of my skull I want to blog, talk and feel a bit alive again. Time to read T&T and talk about the next chunk of pages.

Starting on p.41 we gets treated with multiple ways of equiping a character. Personally I like the third method of just giving out some basic stuff and jump into the fray. It sure makes the game going quicker. "Don't get bogged down" is solid advice.

I find it kind of amusing that silver is described as the common currency in most places, and then most of the stuff in this chapter is still priced in gold!
Real nice is that we get a short mention of reselling, lower quality and such stuff.

Regarding selling and buying, we get to know that there are merchants for everything you need for life on Trollworld, but that the Wizards' Guild are the only one dealing in magic items.

I'm very divided about selling and buying of magic items. Treating magic items like any other commodity to be bought and sold is a sure way to devalue their mystery and "magic". The question is of course if the publication of the Greyhawk supplement in 1976 with it's long shopping lists opened a door that can now hardly be closed again. I'm not so much thinking of the idea of selling off some loot, as I am of players taking their characters to the magic shop with a wish list in hand. That feels wrong on many levels. But, even in my own campaign I played it by the book that way. I had inventive players who did something fun with it, so maybe I'm just needlessly wary. But still...

Then start the most thankless part of a rpg publishers work. Long lists and tables which can be so very, very wrong without you noticing. My advice to everyone doing this. Do the layout, and then make a FREE pdf of it you give to ALL the fans to proof! There are no sane reasons what so ever not to let as many people as possible look over your tables. They will crawl with errors.

T&T 7.5 have some oddities, but it could be worse. It was worse in 7.0, I can tell you. Still a few things to wonder about.

• Why are there no descriptions of the first/second aid kits?
• Why are there no descriptions of why there's two values for DEX sometimes, like for Daggers?
• Why isn't there no description of how a bola is used?
• What does all the / separated values for the lance really mean?
• What the heck is "rifing" mentioned in the Gunnes table?

I have found some of it out in conversations with the Trollgod, but it would have been nice to have that in the book. I'm dead sure that would have been caught if 500 persons had seen those tables.

In my campaign we said the first aid kit healed 1 CON, the second one 5 CON (since it hinted at it in the table). I'm pretty sure it screws with the economy of healing, but such is life.

Next we get to armor. It's very cool to have listings of full suits, so you can just buy one of those and pick and choose later. What makes up a full suit? I don't know, it don't say so in the book. Since I'm stingy I said it didn't include a helmet. Also worth noting is that a suit of Plate is 460, but Full Plate for two measly more points will cost you 1300! Almost three times as much money for two points. Ouch! It makes no sense not to buy a suit of Soft Leather, it's dirt cheap and gives almost a third of that Plate for a lot less than a third of 460 gold.

Included in equipment is also Poisons and Treasure! The former is fun and to the point. Let's talk more about the Random Treasure Generator. The Treasure generator wsn't in 7.0, and since I was using that set as my only T&T solo rules, I did feel that lack. Many solos ask you to use the Treasure Generator to figure out the loot. We also had a lot of fun with it in my own campaign. Nobody could say I screwed my players over with loot. They roll the generator themselves, and might score high.

The procedure it simple, with subtables and the possibility of generating coin, weapons and armor, potions, gems and magic titems. Yes, magic items by random roll. The only part which I feel is broken is when you roll for jewelry, and get 4 on the Jewel table, "Value of item plus value of jewels". What the heck is the value of the item, then?

Finishing off the big chunk of equipment is something sorely needed. A glossary. I haven't mentioned much what's in the weapon tables, but trust me that most any kind of weird stuff is in there. Being able to delve in dungeons with a Bich`wa, Chakram, Estoc or any such kind of odd weapon is a classic of T&T. While I like the choice, I must say I don't think the long list does much for me. I need something sharp to hit people with, on the cheap. Still, some like it. The oportunity for worldbuilding is there, with all elves using weird weapons and dwarves refusing to fight someone using a weapon "without honor" or something like that. But, you'll have to build it yourself.

That was a big chunk, eh?

Next Week: Monsters and Combat!

Reading T&T 7.5 - a pause

No post today, to weak to think. But, the fever seem to have left me so I'm not dying any longer.

Health update

Right now I'm suffering the mother of all autumn colds. Since my brains is tryign to escape through my nose, I wont try to say anything profound the nest few days.

I hate having a cold.

Talislanta - wonderful and weird

Through a veil of blue mist did I first behold Talislanta: dreamlike and surreal, as if suffused in amberglow

That is how Tamerlin begins his travelogue and journal across the fabled lands of Talislanta. I first encountered Tamerlin and the strange lands he travelled, in a booklet, published by Bard Games, called Chronicles of Talislanta. Reading it was a totally new experience for me. It was styled as a collection of manuscripts by someone who had travelled to other worlds and then putting it on thickly while telling of his exploits. Surreal it was, and dreamlike as well.

When I look back in the electronic archives, I realize that since the earliest message I have saved is from 1998, I have been a subscriber to the Talislanta e-mailing list for eleven years. This is a long love story. No wonder I have seen the ups and downs of the line.

After Bard Games it was actually WotC that published the game. Since then it has been through so much it's a wonder it's not dead and buried. But, Stephan Michael Sechi, the creator of Talislanta is correct in that this is the Rasputin of rpgs. Through all the events where publishers dropped it and different other projects never materialized, the fourth edition managed to get published. Not only was it the biggest rpg ever, it was also the first time I saw my name in print. I love that edition.

The love the game and the setting invoke in me is something special. The fact that SMS (as Steve Sechi is known) keeps watch over the game and always communicates with the fans, makes it feel like a very close knit tribe. Talislanta is home to me. Even though I'm not as active any longer, I still keep in touch.

What's so special about this fantasy setting then? I guess some of you have seen the old ads saying "No elves!", right? Even though some people think that the amount of fey creatures with pointy ears kind of invalidates that claim, it's still a signpost saying "this is not your daddy's fantasy rpg". Using the evocative illustrations of P.D Breeding-Black, and the chatty and conversational style of "Tamerlin", the game come across as different more than anything. No cows, no horses and no knights. On the other hand there are avian humanoids, a genetically engineered warrior race, faeries with gossamer wings and other outre things. It's a hallucinogenic feast and marvel, which is both funny and sometimes satirical. It makes fantasy feel fantastic again.

So. Why do I bother to proclaim my love for this setting? Well, apart from just wanting to share some knowledge of an under appreciated and fun setting for adventure, there are things happening with Talislanta. SMS have promised that while he is planning new and interesting stuff, all of the old books are going to be available for free, online! The idea of all that weird and wonderful stuff being shown to the world outside our tribe is exciting. While it might take a while to happen, you can go and bookmark the Talislanta web home so you know where to find it. I don't know about you, but for me it is a setting that always made me want to play a game there right now! We can dream together with Tamerlin.

Tamerlin, evidently anticipating the scepticism of future generations of scholars, had only this to say in defense of his work:

"As to the authenticity or value of my writings, I leave it to the reader to decide. Know only this: Talislanta exists, for I have been there, if only in dreams."

The future sure is filled with history!

Today I feel far from great, with the great autumn cold coming on, so I hope I'm not to rambling or to unfocused today. It will pass. I hope.

If you have read what I've written lately, you know that I have gotten back into Battletech again. I have, due to that, been looking a lot at the official Classic Battletech site for information on the game, and on the setting.

Back in the days I never got the impression there was a world. You and a friend had 12 meter tall robots throwing hot lead and plasma at each other. Do you need anything more? Apparently those hints in my 2nd ed rulebook about some futuristic power blocs or whatnot, had been developed further in sourcebooks. I never saw anything except a myriad of Techical Readouts, which meant even more mechs. I never felt the need for more mechs, since I did have rules for creating more on my own. Why would I buy a book of mechs when I could design them myself? That was part of the fun, right?

Now when I browse the BT site, my eyes almost glaze over from the information overload. While it's extremely generous of Catalyst game labs to provide so much goodies from the OOP back catalog for free, I don't know if I want it! But, I still want to give them a pat on the back for being so forthcoming with previews, outtakes and whole OOP books online. Even someone who just want to browse around, or find inspiration for personal futuristic campaigns can go nuts and enjoy.

So why wouldn't you want to read the background books? Well, I always feel a bit daunted by the challenge if I see that I need to read a huge pile of imagined (future) history textbook to "get" a setting. Game settings with a very rich backstory are nice, in a way. You know that a game book will feel like a meaty piece of entertainment even if you don't get to play much. For those of us that get to play less than we want, it's nice to have some other use of the game books we buy. But, on the other hand it's sometimes a little bit to much. Where do I start? What do I need to start? How much do I need to know to be able to play in tournaments? You get the picture.

Battletech sure is fun, and the setting have some good drama and amazing scenes with excellent special effects and stunning visuals. Will I drown in it? Time will tell.

The Entourage Approach

I was reading Fight On! issue #2 today, and came across an article with the same title as this post, by David Bowman. This is not the first time I've encountered the idea, but I at once got to think about something I'd read in my T&T 5th ed rulebook.

This is what Ken writes about how many players you need:

two or three players with up to four characters a piece is ideal. When it is necessary for a GM to try to cope with more than three players, it may be necessary to limit the number of characters they can use at one time

From my perspective it's kind of amusing that the idea to start with one character per player and add characters if you're short of players, seem to be far from Ken's experience. Apparently the norm was to have more than one character!

David writes a very interesting article about how to have one PC as your main guy, and then a Loyal Follower to take over when the big guy dies. It's a neat and workable way to have a bigger choice of what to play, but also to keep continuity when some calamity strikes the party.

I have been talking about troupe style play before, and it struck me as kind of amusing that when that idea was introduced with Ars Magica, that style of play was already way old. The new way was the old way. Nobody knew Ars Magica was that "old school", right?

When I ran my Dungeon of Voorand campaign, I used the "stable" approach with three characters per player. That was my attempt to play it like I'd read they did in Phoenix when the game was invented.

So, if you want to play your game the way they did it "back then". Break out Ars Magica, or read that article in Fight On! Or roll up a stable and play T&T. The more the merrier. I guess they knew it already during the seventies.

Battletech, still fun ten years later

I'm sorry I haven't been posting as frequently as I would have wished. With no gaming happening regularly in real life I get lot less food for though. Hopefully it will pick up somewhat soonish, though.

Now for a fun game night yesterday! I bought Battletech 2nd ed some day back in the late eighties, and played one game with a friend. It was very slow and we found it very cumbersome. Today I wonder how we managed to get that impression! Thanks to some talk about the Battletech universe lately (check out microMechWarrior!), I dug out my old box and started reading.

God knows I find all kinds of anime or manga with mecha boring. I really can't understand what's so cool about those robots. But, for some reason the setting of Battletech seem less silly to me. I sure am strange. Fire up about those big robots, I decided to bring the game to games night at the club.

I decided to build two teams of exactly the same mechs, since I could find an opponent who wanted to play but didn't want the fiddly bits like choosing a mech and filling out the form. In the end we had one 20 ton Stinger, a 55 ton Shadow Hawk and a 65 ton Crusader each. Putting down the two maps from the Battletech box, we started from one side each and without a scenario we just tried to beat the living daylights out of each other. It was quite enjoyable!

The only problem we had with the rules were that we missed that LRMs should be rolled for in packs of five, and how many missiles were really fired in a salvo. The former problem just meant we had to roll less dice when we noticed it, but the latter was only resolved by looking at examples, as it wasn't explained well in the rules. We checked the newest quick start rules and strangely enough they were not very informative on this subject.

It was cool to see a critical success on my Crusader. Soon I had to adapt to the fact that I had an reactor which was leaking and helped heat my mech 5 pts every turn! Ouch. Then my Shadow Hawk got pummeled by LRM fire from the opponent Crusader and looked kind of beat up. Revenge was sweet though, when I managed to shoot off one leg and totally maim the other on my opponet's Stinger. If someone can tell me how to use, and survive in, light mechs please do!

After we had been fighting a while one guy came over and admitted that he and his old friends had been playing MechWarrior quite a lot when they where younger. This game have been everywhere.

Now I feel tempted to start a Battletech campaign!

Reading T&T 7.5 - Levels

A friend of mine was very vary of games with classes and levels. He felt they were unrealistic and the characters were to static. He did manage, oddly enough, to gather quite a few games of that kind, though. Some of them are now in my collection and I wonder everytime I see them about his problematic relation to games with levels. T&T is a game with levels, but compared to D&D they mean fairly little. This Friday I'll take a closer look at levels in T&T.

On page 36 the section on levels start. A sure sign of the importance of levels is the page count alloted to this subject. All in all it ends on page 39. Got that? Now, let's see what it's all about.

Levels have never been a big thing in T&T. Actually, while some adventures have been written for "level 1 or 2" characters, it often meant next to nothing. increasing stats have always been the effect of experience in T&T, and back in earlier editions different stats increased quicker than others, so it was very nebulous what a certain level meant. Often Combat Adds was a much better gauge. Now in the 7th ed Ken has changed all this a bit.

A Type now has a list of stats that are "level attributes". The rating of the best of those determine what level your character is. Simple, eh? Well. A have a small complaint. How about listing those in the descriptions of the Types, much earlier in the book? That would help you when you have rolled your stats and wan to choose a fitting Type.

So what are the benefits of having a high level then? Well, here's where it becomes clear that T&T is not a game where level matters much. When you have failed a Saving Roll, you can add your level and hope that it help you reach your target number. For some odd reason the example talks about "level  attributes" here, which obviously is a remnant of an earlier rule, since that's never mentioned anywhere else and obviously wrong. That's it! Well, at least if you only read the section on levels, anyway.

If you, like me, thumbed through the descriptions of the character Types in hope of finding the level attributes listed there, you would have noticed that Warriors get to add their level to their combat damage! Also, Wizards get a redution in cost for spell casting when having a higher level than the spell being cast. Taking a peek at a chapter further ahead in the book I also noted that your Wizard can't invent new spells until reaching level 5, or level 10 for a Paragon. Why on earth is the list of benefits of levels limited to just mentioning the SR bonus?! Obviously it's used for more things. Still, I see why the importance of levels is played down, especially compared to D&D where your level determines the extent of almost all of your abilities.

Would me dear friend have accepted T&T even though it's a game with levels? I would have hoped so. My experience tells me that the most intense dislike for levels is usually when they determine a lot about your abilities.

Personally I wonder about the usefulness of levels in T&T. Maybe it could instead be that your SR bonus would be 1/10 of any of your level attributes (which would then be called something else) could be added to those saves? Maybe a limit where the level of spells you can invent be 1+(INT/10) and keep doing stuff based on your stats? It sure feels like the stats is the traits or general abilities whereupon everything is built in T&T. Why not get rid of that D&D artifact and skip the "level" thing?

Next up! Equipment!

Thanks Pinnacle/Studio 2 Publishing!

I bought Savage World: Explorer Edition a short while ago. Some of you might have noticed that the second printing was not holding up to normal wear, and had pages fall out. I contacted PEG, and was very pleased to hear that they would replace my book!

Today it showed up, and not only had they sent me a replacement for free, they had also included a freebie and a catalog with all the products carried by S2P. That's a sure way to get me to become very positive to a game company. I'm going to look hard and that catalog now, and will feel very tempted. Goodwill, how sweet its taste!

Guess if I want to play Savage Worlds after this experience?

Thanks Pinnacle!