Holy Crap: Darth Vader and Yoda in Soul Calibur IV
Kotaku reports that Darth Vader will appear as a special character in Soul Calibur IV for PS3, and Yoda will appear in the Xbox 360 version. Soul Calibur is my favorite fighting game franchise, with a history of strange guest starring characters (Spawn and Link, anyone?) I was ready to give the fourth installment a pass, due to some pretty darn excessive cheesecake. However, my nerdy soul probably won’t be able to resist the prospect of Yoda thrashing on Nightmare with a weapon that, well, should easily destroy everyone. It’s lame that you won’t be able to fight Vader and Yoda against each other, but maybe some downloadable characters will fix that later.
After the jump, see the new trailer which introduces them. And the Force Soul still burns… [Read the rest of this article]
What Awaits my Players…
I finished my game prep early enough to drop by here and make another mini-post. This time it’s a preview of what awaits my players and is also a showcase of what you can do with the D&D battlemaps, tiles and miniatures.
First we have our heroes leaving the Styx’ Oarsman, a newly opened inn in Ptolus’ Necropolis (yeah, a graveyard-based inn, imagine the patrons).
In tonight’s performance, our heroes are portrayed by:
- Medium White Dragon in the role of Nogard the half-dragon barbarian
- Air Mephit in the role of Lillie the Pixie Shaper
- Stalwart Paladin in the role of Cruguer the Hellbred Crusader
- Elf Archer in the role of Cixi, the lovely Iron Hero Archer
- Wild-Elf Barbarian in the role of Aravard, the Elven Arcane Archer
Don’t they look heroic, huh?
But what’s this, waiting patiently for our heroes outside?
Could it be a posse of Yugoloth Mercenaries?
By Pelor, it is!
The ambush team is played by:
- Green slaad in the role of Ekreziel the Nycaloth Sergent.
- Carnage Demons 1, 2 and 3 playing the roles of Mezzoloths Mooks.
All right ladies and gentleman, I think we have a confrontation shaping up!
Who will emerge victorious of this battle of Mortals vs Planar Scum? The bookies are waiting for you!
Let’s take our Sky Cam to get a complete glimpse of the battlefield…
That’s a lot of green difficult terrain…
The map is actually the King’s Road from the Field of Ruin Fantastic Location accessory with the addition of the Inn tile from the original Dungeon Tile pack (#1) and a few from the Ruins of the Wild pack added to make it more Graveyard-y.
Tune in Friday night for the fight of the year! Or later next week for Chatty’s summary!
Mini-Link: Iron Heroes Total Fanboi cop-out from an actual post
That title reminds me that I still haven’t received my Pathfinder #4 yet… I need to drop Paizo a line… The US Postal Service is, shall we say, not the swiftest there is.
I already mentioned there might not be a post tonight, well this one is, sort of.
It’s just not as meaty as usual, I have a bunch of encounters to plan and some serious Adventure Hacking-fu (TM) to take my game into Planescape land on Friday.
So here’ s a few Iron Heroes links for those who don’t know much about that great (albeit quirky game).
First the Wikipedia link that explains better than I can what this High Action, Low Magic truly awesome game is all about.
Here’s the best quote ever written about the game’s style:
“You are not your magic weapon and armor. You are not your spell buffs. You are not how much gold you have, or how many times you’ve been raised from the dead. When a Big Bad Demon snaps your sword in two, you do not cry because that was your holy avenger. You leap onto its back, climb up to its head, and punch it in the eye, then get a new damn sword off of the next humanoid you headbutt to death.”
The revised (errata + rules clarification) PDF Core Book, Accessories and adventures can be purchased Here, Here ,Here or Here.
The revised Core Book can be purchased by Print on Demand over at Lulu here.
By the way, Mastering Iron Heroes offers a lot of rules and variants that are very useful in other fantasy d20 games (Action Zones and alternative Experience systems for example).
Now here’s the free stuff (Wee!):
Free Adventures:
- The King must Die (Level 5 Introductory adventure)
- Glacier Keep (Level 4 Gen Con adventure)
Both showcase what Iron Heroes is all about have great ideas even for non Iron Herroes game. Well worth the downloads!
There was another 1 scene Demo I can’t find anymore (Any help is appreciated).
The Iron League is the official Fan Site (It has seen better days but It’s still up)
There’s also a fairly popular series of Hacks to the game found here.
Finally there is a fairly active community discussing about this game here.
And for those wondering what the current owner of Iron Heroes (Adam Windsor) thinks of yesterday’s 4e OGL Announcement, here is his very pragmatic response:
Ask me again when I’ve seen the actual 4e SRD and OGL. Until then, I’m not even thinking about it. Whatever happens, there will continue to be an Iron Heroes game line 
Good for you Adam, and best of luck, I had a ton of fun with that product, pity my campaign crashed but it’s no fault of the system.
Wish me luck on my game prep.
New Search feature being playtested
Following Greywulf’s glowing review, I signed up for Lijit’s search service which offers full blog search as well as for those of my blogroll and other feeds I added to it.
Fell free to play with it and comment on how it turns out. If you prefer the original WordPress one, just tell me (and why) and I’ll consider putting it back there. But so far I like what I see. I’ll tweak with it more during the weekend.
Have a great day!
Review: Freezepop "Future Future Future Perfect"
Freezepop isn’t a household band name, but gamers have a greater chance of recognizing their brand of catchy synthpop. The band has contributed songs to a few video games (most notably for bonus tracks in Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero 2, and Rock Band- one of the members of the band works for Harmonix.) They also have played at the Penny Arcade Expo, a mark of distinction for gamercore.
I first came across their music not through any game, but by being played their 2000 album Freezepop Forever. The first thing that stands out when listening to any Freezepop song is how the beat immediately sticks in your head. The female lead singer lends a chill quality to their songs, but never ventures into the sickly sweet (such as you would find on a synth J-Pop album.)
I missed their second album, but I was sent a review copy of their 2007 release, Future Future Future Perfect. Here’s what I thought. [Read the rest of this article]
(Not so)Mini-Crunch: Magic loot by any other name.
I’m fresh back from the Gym, proud in my willpower to have resisted the pull of World of Warcraft and the Blog to take care of me first….
I’m also quite aware of the WotC announcement about the way they plan to handle the next version of the OGL and it’s associated brand license (the next d20). As I made a point of this before, I’m taking the ‘discreetly optimistic and moderate’ stance about 4e on this blog (i.e I won’t talk about it if I can). If you wish to discuss this and see my opinion on this, see it over Dave and Danny’s blog here.
Monte wrote another of his ‘Just one more thing before I go‘ articles recently in which he ponders on variant magic item crafting and acquiring rules. I find his musings on choosing magic item for characters over 1st level quite interesting and it made me think about possible alternatives.
I share Monte’s opinion that the choice of magic items for characters created after 1st level makes for rather dull characters. The items are basically all bonus items to optimize the character’s build and the rest of the money goes into scrolls, potions and masterwork equipment. A lot of the quirkier but less ‘useful all the time’ items are never purchased.
I’ll let you read what Monte thinks, but here’s a pair of crunchy alternatives I thought up.
Merge Inherent Bonus items in class abilities.
Why not do away with all +x weapons and +Y bonus to abilities items and merge them in the classes/race progression themselves? I have a gut feeling this is one of the ways 4e will go…. (yeah I know I’m talking about 4e… so sue me!)
A lot of people on the net have grumbled about the magic item arms-race economy created by modern D&D since the release of 3e. I feel you can do away with it and maintain play balance with a little work (The use of the Magic Item Compendium helps a lot here because they do most of the work):
1) Classify all bonus giving magical items, based on gp value, in “Item Levels” which represent the level a PC can expect to own the item(table 6-3 of the Magic Item Compendium)
I’ll give you a hint, take the average gp value of a given CR and create a range around this value. All items in that range are at a level equivalent to the CR rating. (Except level 1 which is half of a CR1 average treasure value)
2) Create a table that regroups the abilities of each of these items, per level, and make them into bonus class abilities.
For example, gauntlets of Ogre Power become an inherent +2 Str bonus. Since they and are worth 4000 gp, they become either a level 8 (CR 8 treasure = 3400 gp ) or level 9 (4500 gp) item depending on how you break it down.
3) Once a character reaches a new level, give them the choice of one (or two) bonuses as class (or race) abilities from your nifty list of all these “dull items turned into abilites”
4) Do away with 50-75% of monetary treasures to make up for that but leave some for potions, scrolls and cool items weapon/armour abilities.
So that means that there are no more +1 swords, and +4 cloaks of charisma.
But Phil, you ask me, what about Holy, Keen and all other cool weapon and armour abilities? Simple, they still exist as magical weapon, and can be found (or bought, as you see fit) but only come alive in the hands of those who took the +1 to hit/dmg to (chosen) weapon or to (chosen) armour bonus ability. (If you feel generous, make the +x bonus applicable to any weapon and any armour respectively).
I’m open to any comments or ideas to make this concept more solid. But I feel it’s workable… and makes leveling up a bit cooler!
Starting Magic gear
(Or Fan-created Web enhancement bonus for owners of the MIC)
You want your players to start with more interesting magic items? You can use the Magic Item Compendium’s quick and dirty way of equipping PCs to help you there. It says that a PC should have 2 items of each item level per character level (ex: a 3th level character gets 2 of each level 3, 2 and 1 items). If you are using the inherent bonus variant above, cut it to one at each level.
However, instead of letting players choose the item, have them roll for each on the MIC’s Item level tables. I would make these rolls before a player chooses his class and race to help shape the character’s flavour.
If you want to give a bit more control on player gear, you could allow switching of any one item for any other one of the same level (or less) of the player’s choice. Additionally, or alternatively, you could allow one or 2 rerolls of item the players would rather not have (or trading them at 50-75% value for other stuff). Any expendable magic item (Scrolls, Wands, Potions, etc) should be of the level-equivalent (or lower) spell of the player’s choice.
You then would have players with more varied magic items.
Thoughts and comments always welcome.
I might skip tomorrow’s post as I have a game to prep for and I’m a bit behind. We’ll see out it turns out.
Today's 4e Announcement and What It Means For You
Pretty big announcement from WotC, as covered by ENWorld, about the future of the licensing agreement formerly known as the d20 License. Most of it won’t matter to the casual D&D player. But here’s some tidbits that might be important (and keep in mind, everything is subject to change, this is all interpretation):
- Until 2009, only the bigger third party publishers will be releasing products for 4th edition. (And not all the big third parties will sign up, either.) Expect way fewer third party products, at least this year.
- Instead of there being a d20 logo, there will be text that says “4th Edition Compatible” or something similar.
- Stuff like Spycraft and Mutants & Masterminds won’t come out of this new agreement, since it’s must more strict in the “you need the PHB to use supplements.” They do hint that a new d20 Modern license will be released in 2009, which may open the door to those types of games.
- The system reference document will not have as much information. Indications are that the SRD will only contain a rough index to areas in the PHB. This may be the end of the online rules reference.
These announcements certainly leave me with mixed feelings. Really, only time will tell if this is good for players or bad. I know in my current game I only allow official WotC products, so the compatibility parts don’t have a big impact, but I will be very sad if this means that we won’t see anything new along the lines of Iron Heroes or Arcana Unearthed.
YouTube of the Week: Gonna Set This Straight Edition
Proof that great minds think alike: Conan shows off his Rock Band skills, and his favorite song to sing is the same as mine.
Robin's Laws Revisited: Part 1, The Rule 0 of DMing
At the eve of my 25th RPG/GMing birthday, I’m actually reading something I told myself I’d read but never did up till now: The award winning Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering. (Copyright 2002 by Steve Jackson Games Inc).
To say that it’s a good read for all DM/GM is an understatement and is well worth the 8$ it costs to download from Steve Jackson Games’ PDF store.
As I read this, I realize that it was heavily influenced by the late 1990′s RPG market (it was published in 2002) and I thought that I’d discuss some key concepts here and explore how I read it in light of my recent development as a DM and current thought on the RPG sites I read.
I’ll also draw parallels with what he wrote in the Dungeon Master Guide II, which seems to me to be more recent re-write of the same concepts but in a D&D centric way.
I’ll tackle my thoughts in the order Robin wrote them in the original text, starting with chapter 1 of 9. If this inspires me enough, and garners significant interest, I’ll tackle the other chapters in later posts.
The Rule 0 of DMing (or The Great Immutable Ironclad Law)
“Roleplaying games are entertainment; your goal as GM is to make your games as entertaining as possible for all participants.”
This has been my my main driving factor (I bet all GMs say that) for the last year.
Aside: While some say that Rule 0 is the DM’s right to chose any rules and discard any he/she dislikes, I think Robin’s should comes first in my book.
Thing is, I used to believe that my players liked playing RPGs just for the empirical joy brought by the game’s mix of Crunch and Fluff. I didn’t think I had to do anything more than prep a game based on how I felt like on any given week and put my trust on my narrative, enthusiasm and people skills to bring on the awesome (and surprisingly enough, I did quite often).
In fact, I have yet to see anyone ever disagree about that rule… (It’s hard to disagree with Virtue). More realistically, I think that what GMs define as entertainment varies widely. And when that definition clashes with the gaming group (even in part), that’s when the sparks fly.
It’s only when I finally integrated that Rule Zero of DMing that my games started performing. By integrated I mean actually spending significant amounts of time thinking about what brings my players around the table and makes them stick around in spite of their busy schedules.
Then Robin finishes that short chapter with another excellent question for when a GM finds himself having lost control of rule 0. It’s so good that that it is worth risking reprinting here (Buy the book! Don’t sue me Robin or Steve, fair use, fair use!!!!):
“What would be the most entertaining thing that could possibly happen, right now?”
If this means fast forwarding a whole wilderness trek you had meticulously planned, killing the 7th wave of orcs by a freakish cave in or just having Gandalf choke on his own spit during a stirring speech, so be it.
Getting those players back in the game is paramount. And if it’s not possible, admitting defeat and calling the game off for the week is a wise move.
That being said, I think next time I feel my game slipping (and it will, because no one is THAT awesome, all the time) I think I’ll actually ask the question out loud and apply the best answer I get.
I hope it’s going to be Ninja Dragons!!!!
Up next, the fabled Player Types, updated!
Mini-Link: Non-RPG geekiness
Since I actually posted today’s article yesterday morning, here’s a very short something about my non-RPG interests.
Like a lot of tabletop RPG aficionados, I like geeky stuff. My favorites are about technology, vintage video games, movies, cool TV series and doing stuff with kids.
So far my blog list for those is rather limited. I haven’t seriously checked BoingBoing or Lifehacker, the top movers and shakers of the geek blog food-chain yet… and I just gave each one a rank boost on Technorati. Sigh.
I currently get my geeky news from 3 blogs:
- Critical Hits from my web buddies Dave, Bartoneous and friend. A great source of gaming (RPG and video), geeky youtube and just general cool stuff. They feature a weekly poll that is always interesting.
- Geeknews.net: Andy and Patrick give us the skinny on DIY projects, Vintage video game clothing, and all things enviro/techno/cool. A word of warning, Andy has a strange pirate fetish
- Geekdad: Another collective blog (geeks seem to aggregate) I’ve discovered only last week when I stumbled on a series on some old D&D modules they found in the basement and other RPG goodness. Has a very strong ‘do cool stuff with your kids’ theme to which I subscribe 100%. I found that particular post about letting your kids do dangerous things very interesting. Maybe I should apply to become a contributor to talk about non-RPG things.
Speaking of playing with kids, here’s another group of children friendly webgames:
Miniclip’s E-rated category of flash game. I like Raft Wars a lot.
Oh and on the topic of playing with kids, the Wii’s most excellent Super Mario Galaxy might be too hard for 4-6 year olds, but the cooperative mode where your child catches starpieces with the Wii mote while an adult plays the game makes for a very nice interactive activity.
Have a nice week.
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