A Purifier of the Crab, dedicated to hunting down Mahō-tsukai and forcing others to give his clan the respect they are due. A Shrine Keeper of the Phoenix, a perfectionist who strives to both prove herself to her clan and show them what true loyalty means. A Wardmaster of the Scorpion tasked with keeping dark artifacts safe who scoffs at the curse of the Yogo. An Investigator of the Dragon, unwilling to remain isolated in the mountains, looking for justice and a home in the wider Empire. A Smuggler of the Tortoise, tracking illicit goods of a particularly dire nature, longing for the respect of others. Meet the Party returns to a now-finished land where honor is stronger than steel, with ready-to-play characters for Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying from Fantasy Flight Games!
A Captain who finds profit in intangible ways and sees everyone as a potential asset.. A helmsman who pilots a Miranda-class like an attack fighter, and who learned all the wrong lessons from human engineers. An Operations Manager determined to make her mark and willing to shred the manual to do so. A Security Chief with a mostly-repaired chip on her shoulder trying to adjust to peace. A Ship Counselor who helps his patients face their issues head on – sometimes with a well-placed strike of the head ridges. We’re boldly going where no Meet the Party has gone before, with the ready-to-play crew of the U.S.S. Crimea (along with the ship herself) for Star Trek Adventures from Modiphius Entertainment!
Now, safely back onboard the Albatross after the adventure with the Chimax, the crew was able to interrogate Krrsh. It didn’t take too much prompting to get him to spill the whole story: he had been the Captain of one of the ships that attacked Clarke, onboard an S-class Scout ship. He wasn’t part of the job on Toprol, so he had decided to stray off to make a bit of side money. On his trip he had stumbled across a merchant vessel, one that he thought would have been an easy kill. As it turned out, he was mistaken in his assumption: the trader held a set of concealed guns, and when Krrsh had ordered the ship to cut thrust and prepare for boarding, the merchant ship and opened up a broadside at almost point blank range. Krrsh had managed to get the ship out of the firefight and held it together long enough to make a jump to the next rendezvous point. However, the other two captains, Ferrik Redthane and Miria Silverhand were none to happy at his misadventure, which had rendered the Scout ship useless for pirating and as a punishment had marooned him on the ancient station as a warning to the others.
It was time to take the training wheels off. My previous attempts at GMing have, up to this point, been drawn from modules and published campaigns, or had been drawn up using notes provided to me when I stepped in to guest GM. Now, there is nothing wrong with running from a module, and it is required for something like D&D’s Adventurers League. However, with an upcoming gaming marathon on the horizon (As Aaron, Seamus and were running the planned scenarios, it was dubbed CHGCon) I found myself preparing to run a session of Blades in the Dark, something I had been looking to do for a while. The problem, however, was that the first time everyone would be able to sit at the same table would be gametime. There wouldn’t be time to weave together the backstories of characters without making them myself. I would have zero idea of team dynamic, or what kind of gang they would be, and that would prevent them from having access to team benefits. While I could have made characters in advance, I didn’t want to take away from the character creation process for them, especially with a system with fairly streamlined and boilerplate mechanics for character creation. Continue reading The Noob GM: My First Original Scenario→
Welcome to Kickstarter Wonk for October! This month, as the leaves turn and the days grow shorter, many designers, from the US and Italy and Sweden and other far-off places, are all ready to bring you autumn light in the form of new RPGs! Like most months, there were far too many games to cover all sufficiently, so here is my top ten; nine games and one collection of indie gaming material that (in my opinion) is too good to pass up. Whether you’re looking for Autumn leaves in The Forest Hymn and Picnic or something spooky in Things from the Flood, this crop is a perfect harvest for October.
High above the Earth in a slingshot orbit that was taking him from Tokyo back to Halcyon City, Sabot received a message from CryptoHertz: Spitfire taken by Plague Hack, need to rally the team. Muttering a few curses in Japanese about the repairs that had mandated his absence in the first place, Sabot redlined the thrusters of his newly-acquired ‘kirbycraft’. In a back alley in Halcyon City itself, Morgan was once again cleaning house at an illegal card game, the best way they’d found to support themselves while living on the street. Things might have turned ugly, the thugs around the table glaring at Morgan, but they all scampered when The Lawman sauntered out of the shadows. “Deal me in?”Continue reading Adventure Log: Masks: High Impact Heroics Pt. 4→
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise- grim and gritty is fun. Since 1986, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay has built off of the setting of the Warhammer Fantasy Battle miniatures game to offer adventures and untimely deaths in the Old World, a “Europe with the serial numbers filed off” beset by both feudal politicking and chaos beasts from beyond. Now, in 2018, the Fourth Edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) has recently hit stores, ready to introduce a new generation of gamers to “A Grim World of Perilous Adventure”. But like so many grim and perilous things, WFRP has had a difficult quest to get to this point. Before we dive into the game, let’s talk about WFRP’s 32 year history and why Fourth Edition is so pivotal.
We’re trying something a little bit different this week. Previous installments for The Independents have covered a couple of free to play or “pay what you will” games, such as The Agency and the Ennie nominees for Best Free Game, and I’ve found these to be really insightful. A lot of time and effort goes into making these games, and it is really a wonder that it’s possible that they can be distributed free of charge. It was to my surprise to find that there really is so much out there available to prospective gamers. They are sometimes expansions, or skins of a preexisting system, but with a preponderance of SRDs available on the internet it’s quite possible to get a game going, and free games have a way of just kicking off an idea that helps get people around the table. It is in this vein that I would like to check out free (or very cheap) games that can be easily acquired for a quick game night! And it just so happens that our good friends at Evil Hat have some really nice Pay What You Will and Free games!
Pick a card, any card, any card at all . . . and that card might help you build your character, overcome challenges, and even tell you something about the world you’re playing in! All you’ll need is a deck of cards and a copy ofSuited from Escape Box Games! After this little book and its first expansion landed in the Independents in-box, I took a look and found a game that can adapt to any genre, get started right quick, and provide a session that doesn’t get bogged down in minutiae while providing exciting stories with some unique mechanics. Want to know more? Read on!Continue reading The Independents: Suited→
Kickstarter is a wild frontier of new games and new gaming ideas; the wide range of what’s out there is one reason I try to write about it every month. Every once in a while, though, an idea emerges that keys into something and gets people excited. While the Kickstarter for Something Is Wrong Here showed up too late for Kickstarter Wonk this month, I backed the game after seeing friends recommend it. As soon as I shared the campaign to my Facebook page, more of my friends lit up. “Twin Peaks RPG” and “David Lynch RPG” were pushing all the right buttons for many people I knew.
Cannibal Halfling Gaming 