Zombie Plans and SPEW

YOUR ZOMBIE SURVIVAL PLAN WILL FAIL!

The tagline of Outbreak Undead, and probably truth. We're watching the Walking Dead TV Show right now, and man is it full of failed Zombie Survival Plan...

How would you do during the Zombie Apocalypse?

Play Outbreak Undead and find out...

Also, you can actually play yourself with stats generated from the SPEW-AI program on the website!

Outbreak Undead available in print at your FLGS or in PDF format from Drivethrurpg.com ($19.99 for PDF, $49.99 for print.)

You can peruse the Free Quickstart at Drivethru RPG as well. Free like Zero Dollars...then you'll know what those SPEW stats represent!!!

We got to play this at Gam3rCon last summer, and it was a blast...Sean had Zombie Kill of the Week! It was....EPIC!!

Traveller Elegance of the 2d6 system

The 2d6 system for TRAVELLER seems to be a very simple system, and you would be right, it is. The beauty of it is, that a skill of 1 can make a huge difference on the roll, for example, it makes a normal difficulty action go from 8+ to 7+, which of course is the average roll for 2d6.

Possible Combinations on 2d6

2  1+1  1 in 36 or 2.78%

3  1+2,2+1   2 in 36 or 5.56%

4  1+3, 2+2, 3+1  3 in 36 or 8.33%

5 1+4, 2+3, 3+2, 4+1  4 in 36 or  11.11 %

6  1+5, 2+4, 3+3,4+2,5+1  5 in 36 or 13.89%

7  1+6,2+5,3+4,4+3,5+2,6+1  6 in 36 or 16.67%

8  2+6,3+5,4+4,5+3,6+2  5 in 36 or  13.89%

9  3+6,4+5,5+4,6+3  4 in 36 or 11.11%

10 4+6,5+5,6+4  3 in 36 or 8.33%

11 5+6,6+5  2 in 36 or 5.56%

12 6+6  1 in 36 or 2.78%

So a character with a 0 skill, and 0 stat modifier will succeed a standard difficulty of 8, 15 out of 36 times, or 41% of the time. Bring that character up to +1 modifier in either Skill or Stat and that becomes 21 of 36 successes; or 58.33%. The same character with a skill of 2 and a stat of +1 brings the chance to 30 of 36 chance or 83.33% chance. This system requires very little math, making it very simple, a game that can be learned in one sitting. The system scales well with more difficult or routine tasks. Say, a simple task requires a roll of 4+, most characters will succeed at this roll most of the time as there's only a 16.67% chance of failure (6 in 36), a skilled character will typically only fail under adverse conditions.

Every roll in  TRAVELLER  uses the same mechanics.
a 2d6 roll using positive and negative modifiers against a target number.

Very Simple, Very Elegant; a tried and true method for a role-playing game.

Check out Traveller by buying Book 0: Introduction to Traveller PDF from DrivethruRPG.com only $2.97 at time of posting. This is a 32 page rulebook, that contains the core rules.

The Ubiquitous Tavern Scene

If you've played Role-playing games for any length of time, you've had the Ubiquitous Tavern Scene. The players all meeting in the tavern to learn what the next adventure is. Now there's plenty of other ways to start an adventure. You don't have to railroad the players into the tavern. It's easy to just drop players into the tavern...but what other hooks are there? We can look to MMORPGs for some guidance, as they have taken plenty of RPG tropes.

- There's the jobs board. Now this is about as MMORPG trope as you can get. It's a good place to find adventures, but not to bring a party together.

- A Contact that all the players know, even if the players don't know each other. This doesn't cement the bonds of a group together however.

- Writing the other players into the background of your own character is often the best way to create a solid group. It does require forethought however. I like the way Traveller does it, when you have a joint event, you actually get a bonus skill point. This can easily be transferred to other games like Pathfinder, by granting either a bonus skill point, class skill or even a trait as a reward.

- My favorite system so far is the Dresden Files and the other FATE games. With the Aspect system it really helps tie characters together. I really like that the characters can make the city, the movers and shakers, and the conflicts. This requires the players to actually do some thinking, but really makes for some dynamic characters.

Earthdawn - At Kingdom Con - Peril in Parlainth

If you've been paying attention to the blog, you now I'll be running Earthdawn at Kingdom Con. Now, I'll be running the game at 4th Circle, which is at the top of the Journeyman range, Why am I doing it at this level of play, won't that be confusing to new players? It might, but, 4th circle with when players can weave threads to items, when you get to see the actual brilliance of the game. Personally in home games, I'm moving Thread Weaving for other classes to 2nd circle. 

There's no major reason to prevent players from having access to thread items until 4th circle. Magicians will retain access at 1st circle, and all other classes will have it moved to the optionals for Journeyman. Durability becomes automatic at 2nd circle, not an optional. 

But keeping with the Rules as Written for the Convention, 4th circle it is, the players will be playing in Parlainth, the Lost City. Peril in Parlainth will pit these journeymen players against one of the most deadly RPG cities ever created, where a dragon named Charcoalgrin isn't the most powerful creature there. Where traps which have been destroyed on one trip by the intrepid adventurers might be magically recreated by minor horrors. Where mock warfare is played out in one of the quarters of the city by leftover constructs. Where Twiceborn rules the dead. Where Therans and Barsaivians live side by side, in the City of Haven, a frontier city of adventurers carved from the ruins of the Lost City.

Come learn a new game at Kingdom Con, come play Earthdawn, Peril in Parlainth.

FLGS Visit...What's New

So Epic Sean, Ian, and I were in Poway this morning and dropped by At Ease Games to see what was new. 

Well first we found Waldo...

                                  

Not a lot on the RPG Front, but Ron just got in a whole slew of Clix games! Star Trek Clix, Street Fighter clix, and some sweet looking accessories. Ron made sure to have plenty of Lord of the Rings Clix too. 

Ron unboxed a bunch of the new Pathfinder minis, so I took some pictures for you to see. Not too bad, I just wish they weren't random...

Nexus Ops is a new board game that came in, haven't seen that one before.

 Ron also got in several sets of the BattleTech introductory box, so if you've been looking for this, At Ease has copies!

Fun Friday - Dungeon Madness IV Standby

Had a cold this week, please standby...Sorry no Fun Friday today...

It will return next week! I will replace the current text with the Fun Friday text

News! - Gamecrafter RPG Challenge

Gamecrafter RPG Challenge

The RPG Challenge is on!

The Game Crafter is pleased to announce the RPG Challenge! We want you to design a role-playing game in the form of a board or card game. It doesn’t matter whether you build a dungeon crawler like Descent, or more of a story telling game like Betrayal at House on the Hill, or a funny little card game like Munchkin; all that matters is that it takes the form of a role-playing game. It also doesn’t matter whether your game requires a game master, or if the adventure is random, or if there are predefined adventures. 


Rules
There are very few rules to this contest, but for your game to be considered, you must stay within them:

1. Each player must control exactly one “character” or “role” within the game. 
2. Each character or role must have some unique attributes that sets it apart from the others in the game.
3. The characters must engage in an adventure or scenario together. This does not mean they necessarily have to work as a team, only that they must be on the same adventure at the same time.
4. The game must be playable in 90 minutes or less, with 4 or less players.
5. Your game must not cost more than $19.99 to manufacture, and the game packaging must be included in the manufacturing cost.
6. Your game need not be published to the shop by the end of the contest, but it must comply with all shop publishing standards so that it is publish ready.
7. This must be an original game created for this contest. You may not use one of your previously published works.
8. You must submit your game to the crafter points submission form no later than April 15, 2012 at 10pm US Central Time.  
9. We reserve the right to reject submissions that infringe upon intellectual property, that are excessively vulgar, or that look like they have been slapped together in an afternoon.

Prizes
There will be many prizes awarded as part of this contest. 

• Grand Prize: 100,000 crafter points (aka 100 days of featured status for your game), and listed in our hall of fame. And you win the right to judge the next contest.
• Optional Grand Prize: Instead of the 100,000 crafter points, you can choose a free half-day slot at our booth at Gen Con. Note that if you want to slot at Gen Con you should pay for it first, and then we’ll refund your money if you win the contest. If you don’t then there might not be any slots left by the time the contest is over.
• Every Valid Submission: 5,000 crafter points.
• Plus the games are yours to sell in the shop afterwards, and any profits are yours to keep.
• We will also be awarding 10,000 bonus crafter points for each of three categories: best artwork, most creative game, and best written rules.

Looks like a pretty cool contest, however you need to be on your game, you have about 3 months to have a product ready to ship out the door! I know I could come up with a game, I just don't think I would be able to get the art all together in time...I'll think about it.