I’ve made plenty of hay over my opinions about D&D. D&D is not a bad game, but it’s such a limited expression of what a role-playing game can look like. The most common counter-argument I get to saying that a gamer should play games other than D&D is somewhere along the lines of “if that’s what they like, that’s what they should play”. This is usually followed by pointing out several more obscure games, which usually look absolutely nothing like D&D, and harping on about how that’s not the play experience they want. And this straw man argument is one of many reasons I’ve decided to sing the praises of the giant middle ground of the hobby, the traditional RPGs.
All posts by Aaron Marks
System Hack: Cyberpunk Chimera Combat
The one subsystem that all traditional RPGs bolt onto their core resolution mechanics is a conflict system and, like it or not, the most popular iteration of a conflict system is one for physical combat. Cyberpunk 2020 had a combat system designed with realism in mind, and, thanks to a statistical basis in actual criminal activity using guns, did very well in terms of combat verisimilitude. This did mean that some of the “imbalance” in the system, namely the overwhelming power of a high initiative roll and the destabilizing impact of armor, were based on reality. Quirks aside, what made ‘realistic’ fun was that the system played quickly and had enough detail to mean that player choices in terms of tactics and weapons mattered. The issue with Cyberpunk’s conflict systems, really, is that combat is much more ‘baked’ than the other conflict system, netrunning, and the only semblance of a social conflict system is the ‘facedown’ mechanic, which is one die roll for one specific situation.
Fate Space Toolkit Review
I’m a fan of Fate Core, and my favorite additions to the Fate Core family have been the purple books, the System Toolkits. What makes Fate so interesting to me is the level of modularity and genericization available in the rules, which both let players run pretty much anything they can imagine in Fate. With all that flexibility, though, comes the simple fact that there are a hundred ways to do anything, including some really inventive ones that any single player probably didn’t think of.
Torchbearer In-Depth
In RPG discussion circles in places like Reddit and Twitter, there has been a fair amount of hay made over the relative absence of ‘critique’ in the RPG realm. As someone who reviews RPGs fairly regularly, this is something which is difficult to parse but ultimately fair. A review aims to go over the traits and writing quality of a game in order to answer whether it is worth buying and worth trying to play. In RPGs (though honestly in all media) reviews skew positive because negative reviews get more negative attention, and because honestly writing 1500 words about something you don’t like simply isn’t fun.
Bargain Bin Gaming: July, 2019
This week is Independence Day in the US, and here are some opportunities to declare independence from cost constraints as you try to build your RPG collection. As usual we have Bundle of Holding and DriveThruRPG sales being highlighted, as well as a free product that’s definitely worth checking out.
Kickstarter Wonk: July, 2019
It’s July, and the Kickstarters are out in force before GenCon! Well, it was actually a fairly sparse list on the publisher front, though it’s worth noting that there’s a new edition of Chivalry and Sorcery, a supplement for the latest edition of Torg, and a new edition of Aberrant, to boot! Still, those are all editions of existing games, and Kickstarter Wonk is about the new stuff. I’ve painstakingly separated the wheat from the chaff and brought you ten games that should all be pretty solid…or at least pretty to look at.
Adventure Log: Dungeons and Dragons, Part 14
The party was invited back to the governor’s estate to help interrogate Paul. The stories of the wizards crafting a gate were corroborated, though it sounded like Paul either didn’t agree with or didn’t believe the reasoning of his compatriots. Either way, it was a spirited argument and too many available teleport artifacts that caused the malfunction, opening the gate maybe a third of the way and casting Paul into the Interface. Paul wasn’t imprisoned, per se, but he was held in an office in the administrative district of Third City for safekeeping.
Continue reading Adventure Log: Dungeons and Dragons, Part 14
System Hack: Cyberpunk Chimera Attributes and Skills
So we’ve stated some design goals, and we’ve set a baseline with an in-depth review of Cyberpunk 2020. Now, it’s time to get into the weeds. As I stated in the design goals, I want to create a game inspired by Cyberpunk 2020. As such, most of these articles will revisit one or more mechanics from that game. That said, after considering the implications of these mechanics, I will more often than not rip them apart. Want to see us journey from nine stats and a d10-based resolution mechanic to three stats and a dice pool? Read on.
Continue reading System Hack: Cyberpunk Chimera Attributes and Skills
Tabletop Gamers: Pay Attention to Cyberpunk 2077
If you’re in and around the gaming space, you’ve probably heard something about Cyberpunk 2077 by now. The game, being developed by CD Projekt Red (CDPR), is the company’s next major release and is based on tabletop RPG intellectual property, specifically Cyberpunk 2020 by R. Talsorian Games. It is also a game receiving a lot of attention, most notably last Sunday (June 9th) when Keanu Reeves took the stage at the E3 conference to announce the game’s release date next April. Now, this is a tabletop RPG blog, but Cyberpunk 2077 is a game that, love it or hate it, you should pay attention to. Extrapolating from the sales success of CDPR’s previous game, The Witcher 3, and assuming that the game is at least good enough to partially live up to the hype, Cyberpunk 2077 will be the largest TTRPG-to-video game crossover to date, and that may have some big impacts on the TTRPG audience in the coming years.
Continue reading Tabletop Gamers: Pay Attention to Cyberpunk 2077
Bargain Bin Gaming: June, 2019
Kickstarter is like placing a bet that a product (like a game) is going to be good. While you can hedge your bets, you never know until your reward arrives whether it’s as good as you wanted or not. Sales are the exact opposite. You know what you’re getting, and you know it’s for less than list price! While I’ve been covering new RPGs coming through Kickstarter, the sources of sales for tabletop RPGs are getting better and deserve some love. I’m taking a look at Bundle of Holding as well as DriveThruRPG to give a sample of some high quality, low price games out there right now.
Cannibal Halfling Gaming 