Looking in the Crystal Ball: Hasbro has another great plan for WoTC

I am just waiting for the bomb to drop on a decision from Hasbro that will hamstring D&D 5e. Let's look into the crystal ball and see what is coming next year:

"Wizards of the Coast, under orders from the geniuses at Hasbro, reveal a new source book for Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition: The Bard's Handbook featuring a first for the RPG hobby:  full karaoke MP3 downloads!

Said Martin Pimpletrout, vice-president of new ideas at Hasbro, "Kids love RPG's. Kids love karaoke. Kids love downloading. Say no more."

Wizards licensed over 100 popular songs and provided the backing tracks as downloads for player's MP3 units. 'Kids love MP3s. Say no more,' exclaimed a very excited Pimpletrout. When the person playing the bard wants to cast a spell or give bonuses to other characters, he whips out his mobile device, plays the track and sings the song. Pimpletrout cannot stop talking, 'The song may be a popular one, but we changed the words to fit with the D&D theme. America Pie becomes Faerunian Pie. When Doves Cry becomes When Orcs Die. We Don't Need Another Hero becomes Waterdeep Needs Another Hero. Say no more.'

The Bard's Handbook comes with a code for four karaoke downloads, with more available using a web code, available in collectible foil blind packs.

The Saga Continues... Again

Not old, it's a fine vintage.

In my last post I talked about the excellent new, fan made, edition of West End's Star Wars RPG. Here is another well done find, a source book for the Old Republic era made famous in a great video game (and its mediocre sequel), the current MMO, and Dark Horse comics. Lots of adventure here in over 400 pages.

Also at the d6 Holocron, books for Star Wars Rebels and more. Star Wars d6 will not die.

Follow this link to the d6 Holocron.

The Saga Continues

I have a place in my heart for two things: West End's Star Wars RPG (the d6 version) and fan productions. So this new release is nothing short of AWESOMESAUCE.

click me to see it BIG!

The REUP team (revised, expanded, updated) has issued an unauthorized update to the second edition, revised and expanded, which was the final release of the game. This updates the game to include a lot of new content from episodes I-III and the legends stories (formerly the expanded universe, now totally non canon). You can play it without the legends material. I hope that they do another edition with information only for canon material (the TV shows, movies, new novels, and Marvel comics). However, this is full of excellent material that will serve Star Wars d6 players for a good while (heck, I just watched a group playing the last West End version at my local FLGS).

The alternate, cool retro cover

It also gathers much of the material from other Star Wars books, making it the most complete versions of the game ever.

Fan materials are often good but unorganized and unappealing. Not here. This looks totally pro, and will look great if you get it printed on-demand. It reads well. It has all the good "teaching you to play" material that the old books were famous for.

I hated all the d20 versions of Star Wars. I think the Fantasy Flight RPG currently available is pretty good, but to me d6 was simple, cinematic fun, and I am glad it is not dying.

You can download it here (its slow, I'll try to find a better link).

Tech Week: The 3D Printing Revolution

For a while now, 3D printing has been, while not affordable, within the budgets of many enthusiasts. This year we have seen the debut of machines as low as $350. This price range put it as a prime gift under the holiday tree this year.

If you do not know, a 3D printer is a device that takes a 3D computer generated image and prints it out bit by bit out of plastic (commercial ones can also do metals). A bit of time (depending on complexity anywhere from 10 minutes to a few hours for a miniature), and voila, you got a nifty thing to add to your game. It also has plenty of other applications, but let's stick to the good stuff.

For gaming you do not need a large unit if you are building 28mm objects, which the lower priced machines tend to be small. You can design the objects yourself in a 3D modelling program, but for those of us lacking the ability there are repositories on the web with plenty of models ready to go, and more being added everyday.  Some cost money, usually not a lot, and there are tons of free models as well. Models can be miniatures for RPG and wargames, markers, terrain, just about anything you can think of. Also, they are easy to resize, so you can print larger or smaller as needed.

PROS ENTER THE MARKET

The future of gaming and 3D printing is approaching fast. As you can see, the price is hitting the right mark, models are available, and the pros are beginning to enter the market. The first is Fat Dragon Games, known for their download and print paper terrain has a Kickstarter for their new product: Dragonlock. These are pay once/print all you want terrain pieces for your 3D printer. The models will be available through DriveThruRPG.

Other companies are soon to follow, and I am sure it will include the big boys. Reaper is in a good position to enter the market as they have been 3D modelling their minis for a while. Other companies do as well, and miniatures not is software can be 3D laser scanned with relative ease. Who will be the big breakout company? Reaper? Warlord Games?

There will be holdouts. I cannot see Games Workshop entering the field until it has no choice, and that choice may not be their standard competition. Entering the digital realm means the chance of piracy, and with their price point, GW will be hit hard, IMHO. With 3D scanning, expect to see their miniatures on the web sooner than later as 3D scans.

Note: I am not advocating this. It is just a fact- it will happen. Soon.

It will be hard on these larger companies who have their business model and their resources tied to the physical product. They will be slow to adapt and losses are inevitable. Also in danger are the FLGS, as they are already losing sales to online books. The next few years are going to see some big changes in the gaming industry.

REPOSITORIES

Here are a few places to download 3D models. Some are free, some are paid, all are interesting to peruse.

Time Portal Games ($12 for 75 28mm minatures. Good deal)
Shapeways (mainly a print service, but has models for download as well)
Printable Scenery
Makerbot's Thingiverse

Tech Week: Quick Dice Roller

I have been looking for the best dice rolling app for my Kindle Fire, and finally have found one: Quick Dice Roller from Ohmnibus. 

My search has had me download many dice apps, but it has been hard to find one that handles my needs. Most have been 3d dice programs that let you roll D&D dice by shaking. They look nice, but are slow and frankly if I wanted to roll realistic 3d dice I would roll... actual dice!

Most apps are aimed at the D&D player, offering the polyhedral set, but with no options for other games. You might find a roller that does another system, such as a World of Darkness dice pool app, but nothing else. I play a lot of Savage Worlds and found only one dice roller for it, but it was difficult to use, and kind of ugly to look at. All I want is a flexible roller that has a roll history, and is simple in design and fast. Free would be good as well.

Enter Quick Dice Roller. It handles dice for lots of games. Shadowrun, new and old World of Darkness, D&D, HERO, Dystopian Ward, and a bunch more. It can be adapted to other games. This is because it uses a programmable dice model. You build the die and how it works from a number of functions. Oh, BTW: It's free!

WARNING: THIS IS NOT AS HARD AS IT SOUNDS!

To use it you open up a new dice bag to hold the dice for your game. Next, define a die. To do this you give the die a name and description, and then enter in the function to make it work. Functions can be as easy as:

1d20

That rolls a d20. Want to add a modifier, you can do that in the formula. Perhaps your attack with a longsword is d20+4.

1d20+4

To roll a six-dice pool in New World of Darkness, with a target of 4:

nwod(6,4)

See, easy. It does get a little bit more complicated for other die rolls. I made a dice set for Savage Worlds that rolls a die (such as a d8) and a wild die at the same time, explodes them as necessary, and then tells me the biggest result. The formula is:

max(expup(1d8),expup(1d6))

All of this is explained on their wiki, with plenty of examples. Also, if you join the Google+ group for the app you can get help on how to write a formula, ask questions of the developer, and suggest new features to him. He seems like a good guy.

Get the App from the Google Play Store, or from the Amazon App Store.

Return of Tunnels and Trolls

The new book!

A couple of weeks ago I attended the release party for the new deluxe edition of Tunnels & Trolls, this volume appropriately named Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls. It was held at Game Depot in Tempe, AZ, and it was a packed house.

The creator of the game, Ken St. Andre was there, and he even ran an adventure which I participated in, and died early in; nine spears through the chest. That is what happens on an important critical failure, but I was happy to die because it was such an old school death. I love to play in games ran by creators, because you get to see how they envisioned their game to be played, which may differ to the way you play it (who is right: both of you).

Ken is a legend in RPGs. He wrote the first real competitor to D&D (T&T was published in 1975), but took a radically different approach. Instead of lots of rules, he made his simple and based on the idea is that the players are at the table to have fun. It also allows a wide variety of character types. In my group there was a dwarf, human, faerie (who was very small), Minotaur, elf, and a couple of gnomes.  Other races in the book cover just about everything, including FREAKIN DRAGONS!

The spell system is also different from the fire and forget D&D style. This one is based on power points and a large selection of spells, many with strange and funny names. Spells include "Poor Baby" for healing, "Glue-You" to stick opponents in place, and "Breaker Breaker" which has nothing to do with CB radio; it is a spell to break ordinary weapons.

That is Ken St. Andre. The one with the hat.

While continuing to refine the T&T game (without complicating it), Ken also wrote one of the first sci-fi games, Stormbringer for Chaosium, and even a few novels. All this while being a librarian, a job from which he recently retired after thirty-six years of service.

What is cool about this game is that it is really an old school game. It is not a game that plays like we think old school games played (like Dungeon Crawl Classics, which is a hoot in itself, or D&D 5e, which they say is old school but it is nothing like the old D&D), it is the same game from 1975 but with added coolness. So if you are looking for old school, check out the new book at your FLGS.

For more information, see the Tunnels and Trolls page.

Off Topic: Pillars of Eternity, the next best thing to actual role laying

Feel the awesomeness!

I have been busy on an important project the past week: finding out why babies are being born without souls. As I investigate the mystery of the hollowborn a conspiracy is unearthed that is both complex and strewn with tragedy. I am talking about a computer game called Pillars of Eternity.

Now, I would normally not talk about CRPGs, but I will make an exception here because it is so full of character and story it is almost as good as playing on a tabletop, minus the social interaction. There have been few computer games that have come this close to capturing that feeling, perhaps only the series from BioWare from 1998 to 2002 did that during four of the best years ever in CRPG history. This series included these classics: Baldur's Gate I & II, Icewind Dale I & II, and Planescape Torment. In these games you lead a party of up to six adventurers made up a D&D characters on a quest with a strong main story and hundreds of side quests.

Wizard casting in the midst of battle.

That is exactly what Pillars of Eternity is, a clone of the look and feel of those old games (with sharper graphics) mixed with a fantastic story. While it is not based on D&D rules (it has its own original system), if you played the old games you are going to master it in a half hour. What is better about it is that the creators fixed a lot of annoying little things in the old game, such as the old inventory systems that made sharing items harder among characters, inventory not big enough, and stores that return items that you accidentally sold without a massive markup. It also adds crafting of potions and enchantment of armor and weapons in the least convoluted system yet in these games. Bravo! Also included is a stronghold for you to capture, clear out a multi-level dungeon, and rebuild to give you advantages in game.

The inventory screen.

The best new feature is reputation. Your choices in game affect how different groups look at you. Decide not to kill a person one group wants killed, you may drop in reputation with that group, but get a good reputation with the person's group. You reputation affects the game, closing some choices, opening others. For instance, I needed to get one of three groups to assist me in getting to a conference so I can warn the Duc (sic). Two of the groups was shaky with, the other I am a hero to. Because I am a hero they offered to help me for the honor of my representing them, instead of having to do something to cajole the other groups. An interesting point is that you can get a real negative reputation in a group, and that will be noticed by their rivals.

The World of Eora (click to make big)

It is out now for Windows, OS X, and Linux, with an XBOX One release coming later. Also, the first expansion was just released. It looks big and it is only part one of a two part story. Yum.

You can get it for Windows from Steam.

Now, for me, I must return for a secret meeting in Defiance Bay.