Saturday, January 25, 2014

[Adventures in Fantasy] Alternate Character Sheet

I am still working on resources for Adventures in Fantasy among my various projects.  I have come up with an alternate version of my original design; the only difference is the addition of the variable damage table at the bottom of the sheet.  I am not quite happy with the Dragon Record Sheet(s) yet but maybe I will put them up later today...  

The House of BTS

I frequent the Palladium forums from time to time because I enjoy several of their games.  As I was reading the responses to a "sell me on BTS" thread I started, I was given the link to The House of BTS.  Even thought I do not own or play BTS yet, I found the fan site to be extremely well done and should be of use to others; here is what you can expect when you visit.

Home Page
This page has a short introduction, some great quotes, site news, and a list of the following pages.

BTS Books
Descriptions of the official BTS material from the original edition plus the second edition. This section also includes a list of Rifters with BTS material, RIFTS books useful for BTS, and the unreleased source books for BTS. 

Adventure Ideas
Five pages of adventure ideas to keep your campaign moving! These are always a big time saver for me.

Creations
Custom content for BTS such as characters, NPCs, Commissions, The Supernatural, Special Equipment, and skills added by the site author.

House Rules
This is a description of the house rules used by the site author.

Horror RPG Tips
A section of advice for running horror games with topics such as being a good BTS GM, being a good BTS player, when investigative skill rolls fail, and using sewers - think dungeons - in your game.

Inspirational BTS Material
This section covers additional material that might serve as inspiration for your games.  The subjects covered include movies, books, comic books, tv shows, video games, and music. I spend quite some time browsing this section because I am a big time fan of horror movies.  There was an excellent selection of old and new offerings to choose from.  I discovered some books that I had not been previously aware of also.

Links Worth Investigating
Obviously, this is a list of links to other sites that are of interest to people visiting The House of BTS.

Who Am I?
A little bit about the host of The House of BTS.

Contact Me
A form to fill out for rules questions, suggestions, tips, comments, etc.


In short, if you are a fan of horror gaming - probably horror in general would work also - or Beyond the Supernatural specifically then you should check out The House of BTS.  This site is basically what every gaming fan site should strive to be.  I was a little discouraged by the first couple of responses to my sell me thread but after visiting The House of BTS I am sold!    











Friday, January 17, 2014

Adventures in Fantasy - What I Have Planned Next

Over at the Original D&D Discussion forums it was pointed out that I may be the only person producing stuff for Adventures in Fantasy. I never gave it much thought before he mentioned it but that's cool; maybe it will inspire some others that own the game to put something out there for interested people. I have produced a few resources so far but I have more that I am working on currently.  Consider this a list of what I have planned in the coming weeks.

Revised Character Record Sheet
I have a functional character sheet available for download right now.  There will be adjustments made to that sheet whenever it is deemed necessary through play experience.  I have an alternate sheet I am working on that includes the variable weapon damage table from the reference sheets.  Other than minor tweaks - something like an AiF logo - I suspect there will only be one big update of the character sheet.

Dragon Record Sheet
It is suggested that all Dragons should be generated before play since each one is unique in a range of 13 characteristics. This is simply a form to record all of the generation results and any other important notes for the Dragons used by the Referee.

Dragon Hoard Record Sheet
As each Dragon is unique, so is their hoard.  If there is not enough room for the hoard on the Dragon Record Sheet then I am going to do a separate hoard sheet.

House Rules
I am gathering notes for some proposed house rules as I make my way through the rules again.  I am hoping for a short list that would be easy to maintain.  I am shooting for something similar to "The Perrin Conventions" that was used by some groups for early D&D.

New Game
I have not ruled out the possibility of making a new game that is clearly inspired and influenced by AiF.  This new game would be designed in a similar fashion as comparing T&T to D&D.  Honestly, I feel the same way that Ken St. Andre did when he was reading the early D&D rules.  There is a lot of like about AiF but there is also a lot that makes me scratch my head.  Who knows?  Maybe I will...


Saturday, January 4, 2014

[Adventures in Fantasy] Character Sheet (work in progress...)

I have yet to find a character sheet at all for Adventures in Fantasy.  I got the hookup on some character write-ups for AiF from a fellow blogger and decided to make one.  So far, my results are not the greatest BUT at least it is a starting point.  The character sheet is a work in progress; some stuff needs centered up, some needs verified through play test, and some is just not quite ready...lol.  If you have any suggestions then feel free to send them my way.

------------------------

Notes

There is no entry for race because AiF is very human oriented.  The non-human races face great penalties and I do not want to mess with that right now.  They should be special and rare PCs and not the norm as in D&D.

Weapon damage is not listed because it is either: (1) all D6 or (2) variable depending on the results of rolling Hit Location Chart O.

Alignment seems to only be for Magic-Users.  Every magic-user can use neutral spells but lawful & chaotic magic-users are limited in their other selections.




Friday, January 3, 2014

Hakkenslash - The Simple RPG System

I know that a 2D6 fantasy role-playing game seems to be a fairly popular idea at some of the forums I frequent.  If you are interested in that sort of thing, there is the Hakkenslash RPG Google+ Community.  If you are interested in play testing I am sure that S.D. Houston would appreciate all the feedback he can get.   

More Loot: the T&T Delver's Pack

As I was cruising through the old posts at Vin's T&T Trollbridge when I found a nearly month old post titled Got A Delver's Pack Up For Grabs with only a few replies.  I had no idea what was included in this Delver's Pack - I am a fan of T&T but I do not have an active group so I do not keep track of accessory products - but I was sure that it was already gone. 

I got lucky because no one had come forward so I replied that I would like it.  A few PMs later and the information was exchanged.  I still had no idea what exactly this Delver's Pack was but it was on the way to me.  When I picked up the mail my package was waiting there for me already. I hurried back inside the house and sat down to investigate further. I opened the package to find a small box resembling the picture to the right.

I still had no clear idea of what exactly was contained in this product so I opened up the box and found items similar to the manuals in the 7th Edition set by Fiery Dragon.  The following items were in the box:

Dice: A set of small D6 dice.  

Monstrum Codex II:  A 46 page booklet of additional T&T monsters with entries such as Chemeleorc, Gremlin, Ratman, and Wendigo.  Most of the entries take up only half of a page and each one is illustrated.

Codex Incantatem II:  A 32 page booklet of additional T&T spells for levels 6 - 20.

Trollgod's Exciting Random Rooms of Ruination:  A 34 page solo adventure designed for "really tough" characters.

Hunting Party: A 21 page GM-moderated adventure.

Character Sheets: A pad of half page T&T character sheets.

As you can see, I hit the jackpot!  The MSRP on this item was $30 and "smokestack jones" just gave it to me; I did not even have to pay the postage.  I have to give a shout out and a big thank you to smokestack right here; I also need to come up with some sort of payback or something.  Not because he asked for it but because it is the right thing to do.  

I have yet to play T&T with a group but this product has me highly interested in doing so. Maybe I can make a few phone calls...



   







   

Warage Card Game Kickstarter

I just ran across the Warage card game kickstarter and thought some of you guys might find it interesting. Warage is billed as a "role-playing card game with deck building" so it is not another trading card game. I have been looking for a fantasy themed card game and this just may be what I would like.  Warage was originally a European release that is crossing the waters to come to the United States.  The kickstarter here funded in 48 hours and it is approaching a stretch goal.  Might be worth a look...

[Adventures in Fantasy] Reference Sheets Reproduction

I know from reading a few forums that there are people that have incomplete sets of Adventures in Fantasy role-playing game.  The reference sheets seem to be one of the most commonly missing items.  I decided to scan mine in and make them available for those that needed them.  The results of the scanning were pretty horrid and I have no experience with document cleanup so I decided to make new pdf copies that were as close to the originals as I could make them; these pdf versions are probably somewhere close to a 90% reproduction.  I changed from 3 double-sided pages to 6 single page versions. If you need a replacement copy or want to look at them out of curiosity, there are links to the sheets below. 






Thursday, January 2, 2014

Trollbridge & Trollzine

I have been a fan of Tunnels & Trolls for quite some time.  I have always wanted to devote some more time to the game but I have been unsuccessful in my attempts to get a group together but I have played through several of the solos.  The only issue I have ever had with the game - I am sure to get some heat on this - comes with spell names such as "Yassa Massa".  Yes, I know it's just a game but I have lightened up as I have gotten older so it's really no issue at all. 
 
I have the old Corgi print of the rules and several solos that I picked up years ago.  I also have the booklet that was available during free rpg day several years back.  I recently did some trading and got rid of the Fiery Dragon version.  I like the fast playing aspect of the game system and I really think it deserves more credit than it seems to get.  Maybe that will come about with the release of the Deluxe T&T that recently had a successful kickstarter campaign.  
 
I still have several days left on my Christmas break and I have spent a lot of my spare time browsing  gaming sites. I have been aware of Vin's T&T TrollBridge for a while and have even browsed through the forums a time or two. I decided to do some serious delving through those forums and I am glad that I did.  There is a nice community of folks there discussing T&T and other roleplaying games.  They are not uptight about old threads being brought back to life.  I did so with several threads and got serious answers to my inquiries. 
 
I also discovered Trollzine magazine from the forums.  It is a free fan-made magazine full of material for Tunnels & Trolls.  I have just started going through the magazines but they are a top shelf labor of love and I would highly recommend them to anyone interested in additional content for their campaigns.  Of course, there are many interesting links and other goodness to find while visiting so go take a look sometime.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Latest Loot: Munchkin

We were at Target yesterday and I ran across the Munchkin card game.  I had seen it there months ago and passed on it with the intention of getting it "next time".  I never saw it again for the next several months until yesterday. As I picked it up I noticed the price was only $12.48 because it was on the clearance aisle.  I immediately threw it in our cart and we continued our shopping.
 
I have not played it yet but I have read through the rules.  My impression is that this game can be a lot of fun.  I have also visited the web site and downloaded all of the free support documents available.  I also noticed that there are many expansion sets, boosters, game sets in other genres and licenses, a board game, and even a set of role-playing game books based on Munchkin.
 
I figured there has to be some other people out there in the blogosphere that have experience with the Munchkin line of games.  I have a few questions for anyone that has the inclination to answer them:
 
Are the other sets like Star Munchkin,  Munchkin Fu, Munchkin Conan, Munchkin Pathfinder, etc. just the same game ever so slightly tweaked or do they offer any new content/options?
 
Are there any sets that you would recommend?
 
Would you recommend the Munchkin Quest board game?
 
Would you recommend the Munchkin RPG?
 
Thanks to any and all who take the time to answer.