Whoa, what a blast from the past. My five-year-old daughter was rummaging through an old cabinet and came out with the game that started me on the path to roleplaying when I was a kid. It was a minigame called “Attack Force” that TSR put out in 1982. I even found a pic!
Massawyrm, one of the reviewers on Ain’t It Cool News, the premier geek media review site, was a playtester for 4e. Now that “D&D Experience” has happened, there’s huge amounts of 4e rules info available out there and also the playtesters are released to speak.
The review is maniacally positive. I hate to be negative, but I worry about the subtext in a lot of the bits he talks about. From flavor (is it appropriate to call one of the monster roles “artillery” in a medieval fantasy game?) to too-obvious WoWisms (“elite” monsters?) to game mechanics (at epic levels you rez all the time and have powers like “once per day when you die, you…”)? Well, I hope he’s right I reckon.
Now, no one would be happier than I if Wizards of the Coast put out a piece of D&D software that wasn’t plug-ugly. However, the new screen shots of the D&D 4e character builder, virtual tabletop, etc. indicate that, in the words of Aragorn at the gates of Mordor, “But it is not this day!!!”
So very recently I talked about the news that Games Workshop had closed down their Black Industries RPG bramch, which had been working with Green Ronin to publish great new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay books and the long-awaited Dark Heresy RPG based on Warhammer 40,000.
With barely a pause, Fantasy Flight Games has announced that they now have the Warhammer licenses for board games, card games, and RPGs!
In a new “Ampersand” column on the Wizards site, Bill Slavicsek shows, in its entirety, the new 4e rogue class writeup. Go read it! Now, my thoughts.
1. I don’t like the new PC roles and don’t like their prominent placement as the very first thing in the writeup. You’re class X, therefore you are expected to fill role X. It’s too constraining. Welcome to the “new alignment”, where you’ll be embroiled in endless arguments about “that’s not a striker feat,” “that’s not what a striker would do,” et cetera.
2. I like the fixed hit points and the simplified skills – just trained or untrained, no ranks. My gaming group is using a similar house rule already in 3.5e to minimize fiddliness. Intelligence apparently doesn’t affect your number of skills, which is odd.
In case you haven’t come across them, the “Game Geeks” present very well done video RPG reviews on YouTube. Here’s their latest, on Burning Empires. Very professional, this one hooked me and I’m gunning my way through the older reviews now!
In quite a bit of drama, Lucasfilms is suing Gen Con LLC for not paying them the money due them from the auction at the Star Wars Celebration show in 2007. Shortly after that, Gen Con filed for bankruptcy. Gen Con CEO Peter Adkison claims that this won’t impact Gen Con Indy at all. I hear that besides Lucasfilms, they owe large sums to other folks including the Indiana Department of Revenue.
My thoughts. One, it seems fast for the lawsuit. The con was in May 2007 and the suit was filed by January, which is unusual. Also, it seems unlikely this won’t affect Gen Con Indy – the cost reduction pressure will be immense. Chapter 11’s not a ‘get out of jail free’ card like Adkison seems to think it is. I have been to a couple Gen Cons, and though I haven’t been in a while I was contemplating going this time for the 4e launch since I was at the 3e launch long ago. Should I? Should I bail? Anyone out there with an opinion?
I’ve finished posting our City of Sigil campaign session summaries. Read on up and thrill to the full power of D&D 3.5e unleashed! And be jealous of my bladeling swordsage/rogue, who at long last found a girlfriend with the appropriate level of DR. I call her “Type V.”
Congratulations to Christine Scheider of Neu-Isenburg, Hessen, Germany for emerging victorious in Paizo Publishing’s RPG Superstar contest! It’s well deserved, her entries were all bad ass! Check ’em:
As the winner, she’ll get a GameMastery Module published by Paizo. I’m eager to see it! In fact, they’re already listing it as a product – S1: Clash of the Kingslayers.
Posted in talk
Tagged contest, D&D, gaming resources, RPG, rpg superstar 2008, superstar
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