Welcome, and well met!

I'm a fan of pen-and-paper RPG's and board games. That's what you are going to find on this site. Sometimes there might be a blurb about the Secret World MMO, my latest DMing project, or a new game that our family has picked up. The focus here is my drifting through Wisconsin's gaming communities. Links will be added as cons are visited, games are played, and authoring is published. Wander around. Grab a tankard. Relax and immerse yourself into polyhedron geekness, Wisconsin style!

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Era V: 2011 Ugh. Gloom and Doom Year.

Like, it is SO the end of the world this year. No zombies though, at least it isn’t 2008’s zombie apocalypse redux. The films Killer Tattoo and Aeon Flux take place in this year.

Both apocalyptic. Go fig.

Z-Man Games is bought out by Filosofia.
Pacesetter Ltd’s Timemaster 2e
SLA Industries, returns fully to Nightfall Games, but continues to use Cubicle 7 Entertainment as their publisher.
ICE licensing is transferred to Guild Companion Publications Ltd. From this point, comprehensive rebranding and recovery of products from the 30 years of ICE publications (including unpublished properties) begins. HARP SF, HARP Xtreme, and the Shadow World RPG are the current releases.
Cheapass Games returns, selling their goods as PDF formats.

Punk / Apocalyptic
Mutant Epoch Hub Rules by Outland Arts. A hardcore post apocalyptic game of an age of rediscovery.
Degenesis by Posthuman Studios / Sighpress. Asteroids, next Ice Age, now a post-apocalyptic dark age.
Remnants by Outrider Studios. Ride your mecha across the Broken Lands of the desolate future.

Sci Fi
Bulldogs! by Galileo Games. The d20 / 3.5 and Fate 3 core rules for the sci fi action game!!!!!
Ashen Stars by Pelgrane Press. A space opera game using the GUMSHOE system.
Stars Without Number by Mongoose Pub. The sci fi PDF put out in 2010 is released in hardcover form this year.

Modern / Last Century
The Tools of Ignorance  by Flying Mice.was released on January 31, 2011. This game is a baseball RPG, centered around a baseball game simulator. Players play baseball player characters and create a team, then play the characters through the team's season. The title refers to the mask and padding worn by the catcher. A very small game, it is about 11% the size of either of the two most recent previous releases.
Hollowpoint by VSCA Publishing. A crime-riddled contemporary single-session game.
Kingdom of Nothing by Galileo Games. Take on the role of a forgotten person; a transient who has fallen through the cracks of life. Now they must confront the memory-chewing Nothing and re-create the intense drama that allowed the Nothing to consume them.
Part-Time Gods by Third Eye Games. Play a modern person gifted with a ‘spark of divinity’.

Horror / thriller
GURPS Horror: Sorry, SJG, if you are going to only release one new core rule, then you must get in the line with the rest. A genre toolkit designed to help folks create horror campaigns, looking at trends and tropes.
Nightmare Kingdom by Rite Publishing. Using diceless mechanics to create a setting based on a realm of pure fear.
Historic-esque
Outremer by Flying Mice. was released on July 1, 2011. Outremer is a game set contemporaneously with On Her Majesty's Arcane Service, the 16th century, but in an alt-historical world where the Crusader States survived into the Renaissance.

Science Fantasy
Black Crusade by FFG. Warhammer 40K’s sci fantasy chaos crew.
Legend Tabletop RPG by Rule of Cool Gaming. This sci-fantasy game of a post-apocalyptic world is where elves live in the hallows created by gigantic constructs that predate the fall of the world.

Fantasy
Chivalry & Sorcery Essence v1.1 by Brittannia Game Designs. This is an ‘unrelated’ C&S game system designed to provide the same flavor as the core C&S system.
Pathfinder Beginner Box by Paizo Publishing. The boxed version of the 3.5 clone!
Concquest of Nerath by WoC. This is a one-off for the D&D 4e world, where war has swept the world!
Chronicles of Arax: Solo Adventure Game by  Crystal Star Games. A sword and sorcery game designed to play SOLO.
Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG by Goodman Games. Inspired by solid, old school D&D but meshes a number of game systems (OGL, Appendix N, 3E…)
The One Ring: Adventures over the Edge of the Wild by Cubicle 7 Entertainment. A Middle Earth fantasy game box set.
Lorefinder by Pelgrane Press. A fantasy game where mystery meets adventure.

Child oriented
DO: Pilgrims of the Floating Temple: A storytelling, text-based game aimed at a younger audience. The game will take 1-2 hours.
   Character creation is simple; each player chooses a helping attribute and a ‘get into trouble’ attribute. The over-arcing goal is bound to these two attributes.
   The mechanic is based upon drawing out of a bag containing 20 black and 20 white stones –and- a ‘trouble token’ that will be placed on the character sheet when trouble affects that character.
The game begins with a letter, which defines plot hook, setting, and the plots victory condition.
   Within this letter are also 10-20 highlighted key words that must be used in the prose accounting of the game to score enough ‘points’ to achieve the Parades Ending (everyone wins). The mechanical challenge comes from the stones themselves. To make a key word count in the prose, 2 stones of the same color must be set upon it. However, the game will end when 1 character gains 8+ stones on their character sheet. Not achieving the letter’s winning condition forces the characters out of the game (the locals show up with pitchforks and chases the characters away).
   Character advancement is defined as well, being based upon growing up, rather than improving stats. This is reflected in choosing a new helping –or- trouble aspect for the character to try out. In the end of a character’s career, they are assumed to have found their fated destiny, and the player is encouraged to write an epilogue about their lives as an adult.

Generic / Non-genre
FU: Free, Universal RPG by Peril Planet. A generic game system for any setting.
Microscope by Lame Mage Productions. A diceless and GM-less generic game

That’s all I got for this go-around.

No comments:

Post a Comment