Friday, February 28, 2014

Friday Night Firefight - Judge Dredd New Hero

I'm going to attempt to get a Friday Night Firefight going @ AT EASE Games...give people something to do other than play Magic.

So I've been reading some Megazines and my Complete Collections, and I'll be coming up with new Characters occasionally.

First up is Chever Mahone from the Raptaur storyline

Cheever Mahone (Vid Reporter)  200 Credits
Level 4 Infantry  Hero
Move                6"
Agility             +3
Shoot               -
Melee             1
Melee Dice    1D
Will                  +1
Armour          +4
Hits                 5

Talents
AGILE, LUCK OF GRUD, STEALTHY, SILENT ACTION

Special Rules
Exclusive: (see pg 161 of the JDMG rulebook)

I ain't going back to the cubes!
Cheever won't get anywhere within 18" of a Judge. Though his Camdrone can. If a Judge comes within 18" Cheever will move away as fast as he can, even off the battlefield if cornered.

Loyal Audience:
Cheever caught images of the Raptaur case in progress, he spent 10 years in the Iso-Cubes because of it, and still he has a loyal audience. Add +5 to the final Vidscore for the "Story of the Day" (see pg 161 of the JDMG rulebook)

Equipment 
Armoured Trench Coat, Camdrone

Camdrone: Cheever has a state of the art Camdrone, allowing him to get shots of the action from a safe distance. The camdrone can be positioned anywhere within 6" of Cheever in order to get a better view of the action. (+20 credits)

AVAILABLE TO: Any except Justice Department

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Orc Con 2014 (Initial)

First report by Dad!

OK So I'm not going to steal Ian or Sean's thunder by giving away excessive descriptions of the games we played. However, I will say we ended up bringing up one of the boy's friends; for his first convention.

Well we were only able to do one day again this convention, early rise to get to our first game at 9AM. Ian was in, but I was given a spot by another gamer so I could play with Ian, Sean and Connor headed off to play other games (Sean will be reporting on his experience later as well). Running the game was Morgan Ellis, one of the writers for Day After Ragnarok FATE edition. I picked Frank Frazetta as the character to play, yup, That Frank Frazetta. Concept was Young Barbarian. Trouble: "I watched the World Die",
So basically, Conan, or Death Dealer. Which Death Dealer was actually the Victorian Fireman's Axe he carried as his piece of gear. This was an amazingly fun character to play. Morgan ran a great game, and it was over far too quickly for my personal tastes. I will revisit this after Ian posts his experience for the game.






Frank Frazetta - Young Barbarian


Death Dealer



After the game was over, we headed around to check out the convention in its new home. So, the convention covered an additional floor, and had a huge area for open Role-playing. Three rooms were set aside for Roleplaying specifically, everything was organized very well, and Pathfinder, D&D 4e, and 13th Age were in the RPGA area. 


The Dealer Hall was pretty amazing this year, with several new vendors I noted.  Todd VanHooser was there selling his Adventures Under the Laughing Moon RPG, (Which is on sale on Drivethru RPG for the Valentines Day sale.) Comics and related novels as well. I will let Sean speak more about that particular point.

Todd is a very talented person who happens to be a High School teacher, we need more Todd's in this world.




Outside the vendor hall, I noticed an interesting booth. The Maelorum Booth. Maelorum? What's that? Well it's a Gamebook novel in the tradition of the old school Fighting Fantasy Game books. Choose your own adventure with a character. One thing about this particular book, it's 440 pages because you can progress through the book as one of three characters. Written and Illustrated by William Fincher.

Maelorum
Maelorum on DriveThruRPG $9.99

Ian and I went and played Paranoia at a very full table, 8 players, though one didn't have a sheet, as he ended up being a lowly infrared who somehow ended up as the Executive Officer in charge.It was amazing, and as always Paranoia is fun no matter how mandatory the fun is. Do Troubleshooters Dream of Electric Sheep? I'm not really sure, as I went through the most clones, I was on Clone 8 by the end. 

It was as always an amazing convention!!!

I look forward the next one.

Neat Concept on Kickstarter

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2075308648/on-the-backs-of-gods-a-pnp-rpg

If you're read Mortal Engines, this has a similar basis, mobile cities. These cities however are Cyclopean Creatures with cities upon their backs.

3 days left, only $2800 of $8k required for it so far..

Very interesting...


Saturday, February 15, 2014

StrategiCon - Orc Con 2014

Orc Con is already underway, if you live in the Area, you might already know this.

Orc Con has a new location at the Hilton right up the street from the Marriot, which consequently is where Gallilfrey One is this year.

Hilton Los Angeles Airport
5711 West Century Blvd., 
Los Angeles, California 90045

We will be there tomorrow. Hope to see you there! Con report to follow during the week.

We're looking forward to trying to get into FATE Day after Ragnarok, Paranoia, and 13th Age. Hopefully we'll be able to get in them all...we shall see.


Wednesday, February 12, 2014

EARTHDAWN KICKSTARTER - FINAL PUSH

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/783548120/earthdawn-4th-edition/posts

With around 3 hours remaining, you can still jump in on this Kickstarter!! The final secret goals were revealed including a Kickstarter only adventure!!!

First, the big news: We crossed $100,000. I am awestruck. You are awesome. This means that the final stretch goal is unlocked. Everyone who has pledged for $50 or more of hardcopy books gets all the PDFs - Players Guide, GM's Guide, Companion, Travar, Elven Nations, Questors, and the GM Screen. 

We're tossing in a couple of extra goodies for the physical-books backers as well. People who pledged for either softcover or hardcover books will receive an art preview PDF, multiple pages of art slated for appearance in the books. You get to see this art well before the books are published. Hardcover backers will also receive a PDF adventure written specifically for the KS, that will not be sold or released otherwise.

You can still upgrade your pledge and get any of these rewards in the next four hours. We'll send out a survey when the KS closes for address and reward verification, and that'll give you another chance to upgrade and grab the extra goodies,. We'll also send out a notification right before we ship your pledge items, giving you one last chance to add stuff to your order.

Now, as for international shipping: AstralWanderer pointed out a clause in Kickstarter and Customs law that allows us to declare the value of the books at their manufacturing cost rather than their cover price. This means our EU backers can get softcover or hardcover books, and the stretch goal goodies, without getting soaked for massive VAT and customs duties. We'll be working with this for all EU shipping, not just the low end pledges, but bear in mind that if you have a large order, even with the value declared at manufacturing cost it may still put you over the VAT threshold. We'll have more on this as we work out the details country by country.

Thank you again for your faith and your trust. Together, we can make Earthdawn the absolute best it can be. May the Passions be with you!

Monday, February 10, 2014

Kickstarter Earthdawn - 4th edition

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/783548120/earthdawn-4th-edition

Coming down the stretch, the Companion is funded, and I'm projecting that the Elven Nations book will be funded as well.

I'm really proud to be part of the team bringing a new Earthdawn back to the states under the FASA Flag. 

791
Backers
$77,283
pledged of $10,000 goal
50
hours to go
 
$2,717 to go!!!  
 that's only $4 more per backer...
 
GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOOOOOOO 

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Development of Unleashed

As you all know, my brain jumps through 800 tangents every 32.8 seconds. I have ideas galore and am easily derailed from personal projects, but when I get a project from someone else, I hit my deadlines and can focus, because it's not personal.

That being said, I'm going to start working on my Unleashed Campaign World and Rule Set more in earnest after the Earthdawn 4e work is done.

So here's the inspiration for my campaign world. The Aelfarrin came to Arydd, through space (or the aether if you want a more magical setting.) They came to mine gold, there are only 13 Aelfarrin that came to Arydd, and they understand magic/technology beyond the keen of the current era of the races of Arydd. They created many constructs to work the mines at first, but the constructs were too single minded in their pursuit at times, unthinking, and many were lost. Thus the experiments began.

The race which inhabited Arydd when the Aelfarrin arrived are long since extinct, though they were the base stock from which the Aelfarrin created all the other races of Arydd. (The inspiration for the Aelfarrin is the Annunaki of course.)

The Aelfarrin are an immortal race. They are extremely jealous of each other, and very lazy. They are all supra-genius intellect and wield eldritch power of unimaginable intensity. After a thousand years experimenting on the savage native race, they Aelfarrin finally decided to use part of themselves to create the first 'true' servant race, the dain-Aelf. These dain-Aelf, were created in the image of the Aelfarrin, tall and beautiful, like their masters, intelligent and well-versed in the pleasurable past-times. However the dain'Aelf were also just as power hungry and manipulative as their masters. They were thought to be too much like themselves to work the mines, but they were taught to create and maintain the constructs.

The second true servant race were the Dowar'Farrin,  The replacement for the original constructs, the Dowar'farrin were short and powerful, stubborn, and given the phobia of the wide open spaces, so the ugly brutes would be unseen by the Aelfarrin.

The Aelfarrin grew bored with life on Arydd. Though they would never attack each other outright, alliances and fueds between brothers and sisters were the norm, through proxy.

After the second millennium on Arydd, the Aelfarrin decided to separate, sick of the sight of each other, and they spread to the corners of the Five Continents, to scheme and plot against each other in their madness. Another millennium passed before the First War erupted on the Veklan Continent, a war of golem versus chimera....

More on this to come.