The Gaming Den

Year's ending.

Did anything good come of 2012 for RPGs?

Can we just talk about the good boardgames that sorta play like RPGs, because this is the year I've pretty much written off new stuff for RPGs and believe that people are just going to keep on using the old materials for their games.

Well, the utter failure that 5e is shaping up to be might lead to Mearls and co. finally getting fired and never being allowed to touch an RPG again.

This is a good exercise, trying to think positively. There where a few retroclones that I was interested in get released, Dungeon Crawl Classics and Myth and Magic. I bought both and regretted neither.

WotC not continuing essentials and just working on 5e in secret is a good thing, compared to a possible Osborne effect. Paizo keeps printing what it's printing, which is good for Paizo fans. Anything that keeps people playing TTRPGs this year is probably a good thing.

Legend raised 13 thousand dollars for charity. And it had the best multiclassing idea I've seen in a classed RPG so far. Shame it is so limited by the treasure system and lack of material on stuff that can be done out of combat.

Dungeon World and Apocalypse World exist, Tenra Bansho Zero got funded, Fate Core made stupid money (over 1000% funded in a day and a half), Golden Sky Stories might get translated, JComi has Japanese TTRPGS up on online for free, and a WoF concept class was finally finished.

There's a lot of interesting shit out there the Den doesn't normally focus on.

The Legend RPG came out, got a lot of charity for kids. Quite possibly the best thing to have happened.

WotC produced Elminster's Forgotten Realms. It's a very good read, and systemless as well (hooray for not focusing on the Spellplague!)

Kickstarter's making it easy for people outside the industry to get their product off the ground. There were a lot of crappy RPGs funded, but Kickstarter got us Dungeon World (which I hear a lot of good stuff about).

Monte Cook doing a successful Kickstarter for an RPG is pretty positive since it says that RPG players are willing to fund new games outside of the big publishers.

What's the Legend multiclassing system?

K wrote:Monte Cook doing a successful Kickstarter for an RPG is pretty positive since it says that RPG players are willing to fund new games outside of the big publishers.

Has the game been published yet?

fectin wrote:What's the Legend multiclassing system?

Three track modularity; every class and subclass is made up of three tracks, which you can switch out with any other class's track, as long as they grant abilities at the same rate as your old track. You can buy out your magic item schedule for another track for a feat.

Can't we have someone doing a (drunken(or armed review if you think that is safer)) review of Legend?

ishy wrote:Can't we have someone doing a (drunken(or armed review if you think that is safer)) review of Legend?

I promise no entertainment value whatsoever would come from that.

ishy wrote:Can't we have someone doing a (drunken(or armed review if you think that is safer)) review of Legend?

Last I checked, it doesn't have a monster manual. So it's not really a game, so much as a series of spit-balled ideas for an upcoming fantasy heartbreaker. As far as I know it's still basically as vaporious as E20.

-Username17

From what monster material they did post, it looks like the Monster Manual was going to be new tracks and prefab character builds rather than traditional monster writeups. Legend monsters are supposed to be built entirely out of PC-playable class tracks (unless they're minions). They've already published the tracks for dragons, giants, elementals, undead, constructs, and a few others.

Legend has a single published adventure, which has monsters written up in it. There are a couple of reasons I dislike it, but it is perfectly playable.

The game would be full of stuff like...

A: "I want to make a castle"
MC: "I have no damn clue how to even start that."
A: "How much does it cost?"
MC: "Uhh wealth doesn't exist."
A: "So can I have a castle?"
MC: "I... don't know?"

ah, the tracks...

Hahah, I had a similar idea (or maybe the same idea with different wording), but I haven't gone anything near making a finished work so kudos to Legend for going out and doing it.


Yeah, what boardgame/RPG hybrids are the ones to look for?

Zombicide is looking promising if you're into the whole zombie craze. It's got a levelling system, lots of scenarios for a campaign, and zombie movement is pre-programmed so there's no real need for an MC.

Descent 2nd Ed came out, which is at least faster than the old game and comes with the campaign system out of the box now.

Everyone also seems to love Mice and Mystics for some reason, but I've yet to try it.

last GOOD thing for RPGs i saw was Paizo taking the WotC D&D players away from D&D for the most part and over to Pathfinder.

sadly WotC doesnt understand that the group of customers that went to PF, are NOT interested in D&D anymore, and still trying to gain them back with gimmicks like 3rd had, and trying to please everyone rather than weed out ideas that jsut dont belong being forced on everyone that intends to play.

Mask_De_H wrote:Dungeon World and Apocalypse World exist, Tenra Bansho Zero got funded, Fate Core made stupid money (over 1000% funded in a day and a half), Golden Sky Stories might get translated, JComi has Japanese TTRPGS up on online for free, and a WoF concept class was finally finished.

There's a lot of interesting shit out there the Den doesn't normally focus on.

I suppose when people speak of it being boring around here, then it's the fault of them not doing something about it eh?

Anyway, I've heard it being referenced multiple times on here in the past, character packs do seem interesting. Though "interesting" as that may be, and good to always have more material to keep RPG's going, does bring the question of its quality, or if it's any "Good".

While I'm interested in these things you've introduced me to, I wonder concern to "Tenra Bansho Zero" rules lite approach and bonuses to describing things (as I've heard it doesn't really work out, such as exalted doing it poorly). I've no clue what Fate Core does exactly, is it a game for Modern shootouts (like Shadowrun), collection of superpowers (M&M), awesome sounding dudes that get punked by housecats and their mongol archers (dumb D&D experiences, FantasyCraft, 4th edition).

So as for the other things of interest, may I inquire further what those be, as well how one might go about finding about these new things (good site for RPG news or what have you). Possible idea is that, not we don't look for interesting things, but what moreso seems to stick out or have potential. Not going to reference every time a AD&D clone comes out (though den has mentioned a few...), forum might get mucked down by "new game, same issues" that crops up.

Aryxbez wrote:I've no clue what Fate Core does exactly, is it a game for Modern shootouts (like Shadowrun), collection of superpowers (M&M), awesome sounding dudes that get punked by housecats and their mongol archers (dumb D&D experiences, FantasyCraft, 4th edition).

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/evilhat/fate-core

PM if you are curious what the rules look like.

There is a "stonepunk" cave man RPG out:

Cavemaster

http://www.prismnet.com/unigames/cm/cavemaster.html

It looks pretty interesting.

If I click on the cavemaster FAQ I get the FAQ for a different game.
Where can you actually see anything about it?

Here is some info

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jef ... master-rpg

http://agamemag.com/archives/3931

http://www.geeknative.com/32358/a-look- ... avemaster/