Reinvigorated! Or maybe Reanimated?

 Well I am feeling less burnout this week! But also sometimes more burnout. I did a deep dive into various systems and found that I was definitely starting to sense a pattern in my interests. Here's what I realize now; noting that this isn't a unchanging constant; just what my tastes seem to be running to in the moment:

Verisimilitude Over Abstraction: I prefer somewhat more simulationist systems, which favor verisimilitude over "rule of cool" as a natural recourse. I liken this to the difference between a movie where our hero drops 10-15 feet and seems to take injury or has trouble getting up from such a fall, vs. other movies (Marvel films come to mind) where same hero seems able to drop 30-50 feet and is unphased, even without having super soldier serum to explain his massive invulnerability.

This means systems like BRP, GURPS, Mothership, Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, Cyberpunk Red and Dragonbane are standing out to me because they provide meaningful engagement levels with some sort of baseline "reality" but some other systems....even ones I like....aren't feeling too good to me at the moment because I am not presently "vibing" with the idea that the abstractions on the character sheet and in the system are really just numbers and have more to do with "did this look cool?" than anything else. That rules our D&D 5.5, Cypher System, Fantasy AGE, Tales of the Valiant, and no doubt others.

Pragmatic Character Info: I'm preferring systems which communicate clearly what you rcharacter is about, without a lot of rule-flipping and holistic interpretation. Pathfinder 2E is not a good example of this; it is laden with weird feats, obscure conditionals, and a balanced mechanical process which means skill sets are very "meh" in figuring out how your character looks different from another similar character. Contrast with BRP, which narrows the character generation to a set of common baselines defined by genre expectations for powers (if used), but in general you can look at a character sheet and understand what it means to run that PC without having to crack the book open constantly. 

The System Respects Theater of the Mind: lots of games these days lean in to the popular desire for maps and minis, and I get it; those can be fun (I suppose). But I have run RPGs for most of my life without such gimmicks, and the sorts of stories I want to convey through gaming these days (and most days) work better when the players aren't focused on the ancient wargame element that remains embedded in conventional takes such as D&D. Admittedly GURPS, as an example, supports elaborate hex-based movement and suggests this can be useful; I have played in GURPS games where the GM used this to effect, and I get it. But I have also run (and played) in countless GURPS games where it was all theater of the mind, and the experience was always more creative and superior. So systems which either implicitly or explicitly support TotM play are preferred.

No Authorial Overtones: I won't single anyone out, but if the system has a heavy authorial overtone which tries to tell you how to play, either explicitly or implicitly, that can be a real turnoff. The author does not trust you to play the game the right way for you, the end-user, and that is just not cool. I can be in 100% agreement with the game writer's viewpoint and this will still piss me off because it is an attempt by the author to control the narrative on the end user experience.* 

There are quite a few RPGs on the market today that like to talk about how their source of inspiration was, shall we say, a racist person in his time, and then denigrate his works, even as they then proceed to write an entire system around said works, implying there was still merit to the man's creations, enough for them to exploit for money. Hypocrisy! It makes it very hard to take such works seriously. Either you acknowledge that you are, indeed, inspired by the creative works of said author which means you feel his imaginative developments have merit and inspiration beyond the unpleasant bits you did not like (okay, yeah, I'm talking about Lovecraft here) and will expand upon his vision despite your dislike of his century-old racist attitude, or you maybe should decide that its ethically better for you to go write a different game and leave well enough alone. I'm looking at you, Age of Cthulhu and Arkham Horror. 

Sometimes it feels like these games were written by authors fearful that their audience would get mad at them for not appearing cognizant of these perceived injustices or social issues. The best head-scratching example I can provide is in Liminal Horror, which has a paragraph about how its not cool to play cops, authority figures or people with wealth or means. This, of course, is actual nonsense; part of the point of RPGs is the ability to explore roles beyond most people's grasps....and horror as a medium is excellent at skewering all sorts of professionals and the wealthy with equal aplomb; its not merely the purview of the poor and downtrodden to be murdered by eldritch cults. But if you were writing this game a few years ago when there was a strong push on social media to "strike back at the man" or you are a younger author (spiritually or physically) enmeshed in antiauthoritarian counter cultural values, then this might feel like a sensible paragraph to put in, no matter how utterly stupid and counterfactual to the actual genre of horror it is. 

Important: despite this minor rant, I really like Liminal Horror as a mini-system; it occupies a unique concept space and I look forward to the Kickstarter backed future edition coming out soon. Also, I find that entire rant ironic given that the best module produced for Liminal Horror so far, the Bureau, is entirely about a fictional authority organization inspired by the Bureau of Control from the eponymous video game. So one of the system's first modules directly contradicts this angry little countercultural paragraph that demonstrates a woeful lack of imagination and genre understanding right off the bat. 

Okay, rant off! Tonight I plan to close out the D&D 5.5 game, and am proposing we tackle Dragonbane or Mothership next (because that's what I packed for).

*Note that I am not talking about games which have advice on "know your audience," sections, or talk about the use of the X card. Those are just practical advice (don't run a game for 9 year olds with Kult, m'kay? or if you are running for a diverse crowd of Gen Z players, an X card may be quite revealing if you are not good at reading a crowd as a GM). Admittedly, if a game tells me to "remove the spiders if a player is offended" my internal advice is: don't run a game with spiders for someone who is scared of imaginary spiders, you know? Maybe find different players?

As the Werewolf Changes

 During last night's game I was surprised to notice that Jackalweres no longer have a problem with silver in the 2025 Monster Manual. So in checking out the other lycanthropes I discovered that hey, it turns out in D&D 5.5 you can harm werewolves with anything, normally, now. They get a few extra HP and a slight AC boost but lose all the mythological flavor of the thing they used to be.

This got me to thinking about how they looked in other systems, so I thought I'd plunge down that rabbit hole a bit to see:

AD&D 1E/2E: Can only be harmed by silver or +1 weapons. So at this stage in the game, low level PCs who have trouble finding magic weapons really need to carry a silvered weapon with them just in case.... In rereading their entries I assume they transform as an action but maybe it was as part of their movement. I seem to recall running AD&D where they could move, transform and attack all in the same combat round, which makes sense in the longer 1E turn cycles.

D&D 3.5: Gain damage reduction 10/silver but only in hybrid and wolf form, interestingly! Shapeshift is an action. Looking at the old format for D&D 3.5 stat blocks on monsters reminded me of how convoluted and information dense they were; how interesting to see that the 2025 MM swung so far to the opposite direction that the current stat blocks feel anemic and drained of all color and flavor.

Pathfinder 1E: Have resistance 10 to all attacks except silvered weapons! Change shape is a move equivalent action, and they induce lycanthropy on a failed saving roll following a bite.

Pathfinder 2E: They have shapeshift as an action, and are vulnerable 5 to silvered weapons. Lycanthropy is induced on a failed save.

D&D 4E: they have regeneration 5, but silver stops their regeneration. They shapshift as a minor action, and they do extra damage against bloodied opponents. Instead of imparting lycnathropy as a disease they induce moon frenzy, which behaves a bit like the confusion spell (but does not end with the inflicted turning into a lycanthrope, interestingly). Diseases and curses in 4E were notoriously weak and ineffectual.

D&D 5E (2014): resistant to nonmagical or silvered weapons, but shapeshift as a standard action. Still have some flavor text that leans into making werewolves interesting in a traditional way. If bitten, on a failed save you just have lycanthropy now.

D&D 2024 (5.5): They gain 13 hit points and get a better AC, but lose any special resistance to ordinary damage, and silver is not even mentioned. They can shapeshift as a bonus action. Lycanthropy if bitten, but you have to reach zero hit points for it to take effect.

Tales of the Valiant: Werewolves are resistant to non-magical damage (silver is not mentioned here either). They induce lycanthropy as a curse after biting someone who fails a save.  

How about some of the other games out there? Let's see:

Swords & Wizardry Complete: mirrors AD&D 1E; so they can probably shapeshift as part of their turn, and are immune to nonmagical, non silvered attacks. Lycanthropy is automatic in an opponent reduced to 50% of their hit points by the werewolf.

Dragonbane: Werewolves hate silver as it deals full damage (along with fire) and messes with their senses. They take half damage from non-magical weapons. taking even 1 point of damage from the werewolf induces both paralysis (potency 9) and lycanthropy, and can only be cured with powerful magic or wolvesbane. And on its monster attacks a 6 induces a berserker frenzy in which your party probably dies!

Basic Roleplaying/Call of Cthulhu: They have regeneration, are immune to most damage (silvered weapons will do full damage and kill them on a serious wound, though), and taking any damage from a bite induces lycanthropy, which can maybe be avoided on a luck role if the bite also severs the limb that was bitten. Nice! The BRP statblock addresses magic and fire doing full damage as well.

Cypher System: they are level 4 creatures, which normally would mean 12 health but they have 24 health. They can cause lycanthropy if you are sufficiently injured to be reduced on the damage track. They take a long time (1D6 rounds) to shapeshift if caught in the act.

Dungeon Fantasy RPG (GURPS): These things are terrifying with damage resistance 15 against all attacks except silver (which does double damage and ignores the DR), and they regenerate 1 HP per second (GURPS combat rounds are 1 second long, so for D&D purposes that's 6 HPs of regeneration for a D&D round). Interestingly Dungeon Fantasy punts on the lycanthropy as a bite-induced curse with some flavor text about how the local temples try to keep that under control, and the rest of the statblock ignores it. GURPS Werewolves from the 3rd edition sourcebook of course does a lot more that I won't belabor here.

Fantasy AGE: They show up in the Bestiary sourcebook, and can induce the lycanthropy curse on a stunt, with the difficulty being based on how many stunt points are applied. The inflicted makes checks each night until the full moon; if they don't kick it before the full moon they go full lycanthrope. There's a section on lycanthrope vulnerabilities, but silver is mentioned as only one possibility, with the GM encouraged to customize for the campaign.

Mythras: Mythras punts on this one terribly and you need to go dig in the wolf section to get a sense of it. Ostensibly they are emulating older, more archaic notions of shapeshifters rather than more modern takes on lycanthropy, I guess? 

Mork Borg: It's actually a character class, the Cursed Skinwalker (in Feretory). You die, and your body is possessed by an animalistic presence, returning you to life as a cursed skinwalker. a bloody, skinless wolf is only one of your options. Tangentially werewolfish, but it wouldn't be Mork Borg if it was conventional now, would it? 

Okay, it was at this point that I ran out of energy (I was looking at The Fantasy Trip's take, which is to lump werewolves and vampires together as cursed/diseased species when mental fatigue just overwhelmed me). I have to say, if you want a werewolf to be scary, then there are two games that do this exceedingly well: Call of Cthulhu/BRP and Dragonbane (with honorable mention to GURPS/Dungeon Fantasy). The least scary edition of the the werewolf can be found in the current D&D Monster Manual for 2025, which is a real shame; it really lacks any of the color and vibrancy of the mythology it derives from. Curiously, they have done a better job with some other monsters in the book (medusa got a slight improvement imo, for example) so it is a shame to see them drop the ball here just because, apparently, someone might not want to be bothered with finding a silvered weapon? Weird. Very weird. Aside from D&D 2024, the next worst take on werewolves is (imo) Mythras, which puts the least amount of effort into the concept, delegating lycanthropy to a paragraph in the wolf statblock section.

This is making me want to consider Dragonbane for gaming in the very near future now, though. 

Reality Incursion

 Ah what a January! Grim flu ripping through the family (I was out for a whole week), lots of work catch-up, and no shortage of micro emergencies mixed in. The usual fun times.

I got a reprieve from my Wednesday group for a bit. My son ran two sessions of the Alien RPG using the Chariot of the Gods module, and it was pretty dang fun. He is 13, but already appears to be a chip off the old GM block, having acquired his dad's talent for improvisation and storytelling. It was a glorious adventure and everyone died by the end of session two, which is ironic as that mirrors the way many of my early scenarios went when I was the same age. TPKs were just a thing that happened back in the day, and while its arguable that Alien RPG's approach can make those more readily obvious, I would also argue that not having a TPK in The Caves of Chaos was fairly unusual....TPK was the usual default, especially the first round in.

I haven't been away from GMing exactly; I have now run two sessions of a Savage Worlds Supers campaign, using a blend of classic Supers rules with the Horror Companion for a more "Dark Horse/JLA Dark" style campaign, although in truth I found myself feeling less interested in restricting myself thematically in actual play and the scenario ended up feeling more heavily influenced by the likes of The Titans, Suicide Squad, Nemesis and other thematic elements. I'm not really trying to plot too hard on this one, I decided. Better to just let it all go where it will.

For returning to Wednesday I rapidly ploughed through all my dreams and visions of breaking away from D&D and have accepted that Dragonbane and Mythras are both game systems I would like to tackle, but I still don't reside in the right timeline or frame of mind to accomplish this at the moment. To do justice to either I need to find personal time to invest my energy in the systems,* teasing out what is needed to make them comprehensive campaigns catering to each system's strengths, and be ready to act as tutor to the players, and to do battle with the rules lawyer. I just ain't got that sort of energy anymore. Maybe at some point, or with the right sort of group (the nostalgic one I remember having 25 years ago would be a fine set of test subjects for such a game) but today? Today I need the thing that I already know too well. And even that thing, D&D, requires I spend a bit more time with it to learn the new incongruities and alterations to its recent botox treatment. 

Monster Manual 2025 will be out in like 2 weeks, anyway. Going to be interesting to see how or if it is a game changer for the play experience. 

*The problem is, I have some X amount of free time, but I have 25 things vying for control of it. When I sit down these days to use that precious 2-3 hours a night I have to enjoy something, the time ends up going to a mix of book reading, comic reading, maybe a video or two, and more recently some sessions in World of Warcraft Classic or Path of Exile 2 with my wife. The interest I once had in obsessively sitting down and crafting NPCs and materials for a game system like mythras while building out a campaign that leans in to the unique developmental ethos of the game world of the system just no longer grabs me like it once did. I don't believe this is even a case of "other things are easier," anymore, because I can easily spend hours crafting a campaign setting and scenario set for D&D; it's because I no longer crave that sort of synergetic interaction with rules systems anymore, I find it tedious and uninteresting. It is okay for me, I have accepted, to admit that maybe I have done this hobby too much for too long, and some of it now feels a bit old hat to me, a bit less interesting. That could change with time, or not. But my strength of interest lies in the world building and the storytelling, and the game system which lets me do that with the least amount of fuss is what I must roll with for now, even if I do find the "old me" occasionally surfacing and eyeing Mythras of Dragonbane hungrily, even for but a moment.

Death Bat's 2025 Gaming Plans: Dragonbane, Mothership, Savage Worlds and the Usual Suspects

Here it is! The short and sweet outline of what I plan to do for 2025....at least in theory:

Part I: The things I am certain to be running this year:

Dragonbane

Starting next week we are going to finally start a campaign in Dragonbane. I am really looking forward to this, as until now if you wanted to play BRP Fantasy, the only real options were: find a copy of the out of print (albeit POD) Magic World, customize Runequest, or finnagle Mythras. Actually those are all good options, but Dragonbane has a astyle, character and odd mix of OSR and modernity that resonates well with me. I am looking forward to this.

Savage Worlds

We started Savage Worlds this weekend, using Supers/Horror mashup for a sort of Planetary/Hellboy/Horror Comics inspired campaign. I think this is going to be a fun, long prospect for a campaign as I get to lean in to my secret obsession I never usually write or talk about: the comic genre and all its quirks! I also plan to offer up more SW genres down the road, and am really looking forward to the new Science Fiction Companion when it ships in February.

Mothership

I plan to run more Mothership intermittently throughout 2025, and may warm up to a short or long campaign again at some point. I realize with Mothership it is as much about the player investment in the experience as anything, so how much Mothership I get to run will depend on the group I assemble.

Part II: The things I expect to run or try to run this year, but there are caveats:

D&D 5.75

The new D&D is on hold until the Monster Manual comes out. I have to see how the final tome in the revised books looks so I can assess my feelings on the new revision, and how it all comes together. Right now, using existing monsters with new characters makes the characters feel a but overpowered and I can't tell if that's by design, or because we're missing the appropriately revamped monsters to accompany them.

Tales of the Valiant

I really want to run this, but I need to detox a bit from having run way too much 5E in 2024. If the final book in the D&D 5.75 set doesn't really live up to expectations, I may just insist that any future 5E in 2025 be via Tales of the Valiant.

GURPS

I would love to get a chance to play GURPS again, but it's thunder may be stolen by Savage Worlds in 2025, which is honestly a better fit for my regulars. I may get to run GURPS with my son and some new players, though, if I can find them.

Mork Borg and Vast Grimm (and Maybe Death In Space)

This is all part of the Mork Borg universe. I anticipate running more one shots and short 2-3 session games here at some point, especially if this year is not monopoloized by protracted D&D campaigns. That said, which flavor and variant (and I also just got Ronin, another Mork Borg spin off that is amazing) depend on mood, I guess.

Part III: The Fever Dreams

I can sum the unlikely candidates up like this: Runequest (because I can't quite invest in Glorantha); Mythras (because as soon as I start diving in to relearn it I remember why I stop); Vaesen (I really want to, but the cute approach to the art is at odds with my ability to convey a horror atmosphere); then there's Pathfinder 2E, which I actually fully expect I may be playing in as a player, but do not think I will get around to GMing this year, but who knows! I often say that then prove myself wrong for at least one session. Also Traveller, which I wouldn't mind running, but I need a shift in my group dynamics before I will consider it (e.g. honest die rollers only please). That last one applies to a lot of these games, actually. 

I didn't mention Cypher System because I can't quite pin down what I want to do with it, but that could change in 2025. I also can't quite bring myself to offer it up right now (despite loving the system) because the die rolls are all player facing, and when you may have one or more suspects in your group who like to cheat on their die rolls, it can be very demoralizing. Yes, I likely need to have a chat with the specific person(s) about this. If you wonder why I don't just kick them, keep in mind I am gaming with a group of players who have in some cases been together as gamers and friends for 18 or more years, so these are not just randos, or people I don't know (or want to know), or pickup gamers. So at some point an honest talk is a better approach. Also, we're all really old now, and so one would think age would make us better people, both on how to approach this and (yes) why on earth would anyone at this stage cheat? It is frustrating....but it is not like 20+ years ago when when the cheating was generally unheard of among those I gamed with, as we all took the experience more earnestly. So yeah, I do need to decide what to do about this and how to approach it, and maybe I am doing so in too nuanced a fashion, but age has a way of doing that to you I guess.

Anyway, See you all on the flip side in 2025! Some predictions to come next. 

Death Bat's review of Last Year's Projections

 Well here we are again! Another year, another review on last year's predictions and projections for the outgoing year. How did my plans and predictions stack up?

Predictions:

D&D 2024 Releases but Beyond Isn't Ready - near as I can tell I am spot on about this; that demo with fully 3D figures that looked like a CRPG? I don't think there's any evidence that exists right now, so far as I can tell...

Tales of the Valiant - I predicted it would be successful and might eat some of Pathfinder's market share but not penetrate the core D&D crowd. I think I am wrong on the first count and right on the second count. Instead, it looks like TotV will be its own niche corner, and won't really eat anyone's market share, instead becoming yet another variant with its own core crowd thanks to Kickstarter.

D&D-Spin Off Fatigue - I expected this to happen in 2024, and I think to some degree it has happened, as the "alternative to D&D" market has indeed fragmented into something like a dozen different variants from Daggerheart to Tales of the Valiant, Pathfinder, Shadowdark and all the existing D20 variants out there. It's so bad that I think D&D 2024 is effectively succeeding by being an anchor with the most common ground in the middle of it all. 

Fewer new IP and Gaming Properties - I am not sure this is true. It seems like there are a metric ton of new IPs and games out there, or on the way, but what I am missing is where people are collecting their information. I rely largely on ENWorld for my gaming news, and they are only "so so" at things not related to D&D. 

Goals:

Mothership - I wanted to run more Mothership in 2024. I did run a one shot in January and a two parter at the end of the year in December. I did not run another lengthy campaign, however. I forget offhand when the Mothership Boxed set finally arrived, but I recall it was sometime in May. That waiting for the new edition to release proved to be part of why it didn't take off; it finally came out, and as is often tradition for Kickstarters it took me a while to get back in the mood to deal with it. I also realized that my last really successful online Mothership game was a bit of lightning in a bottle; you sort of need the right kind of group to really pull off Mothership. I don't know that I currently have that sort of group right now. Some of my players, sure! But others.....hmmmm not so much.

Dragonbane - Despite wanting to run this, I have not as yet gotten around to it. 2024 was a year where I found little time to mess with new mechanics, and ended up sticking to the "familiar and easy," which is to say, lots of D&D 5E.

Traveller - I did run a short Traveller campaign early on. I stopped running Traveller for one very specific and disappointing reason, about which I won't dive too deeply here, but let's just say that I wish players would let the dice roll and not fudge crap all the time (read: cheat). I am unsure of how to fix this problem other than to run games of somewhat more complexity, making it harder to easily cheat on die rolls, or to take over some dice rolling (which I really prefer not to do). In general I sort of assume that this happens on occasion from certain people, but it was a bit excessive in the last Traveller game I ran, and was substantiated by others. As a result, I really lost my taste for running the game for my group. And honestly....it's impacted me kind of hard ever since, and I am extremely reluctant to run certain game systems with entirely player-facing die roll mechanics as a result. If certain players (and there are only certain ones here, mind you; others in my group are great and honest!) desire to cheat to insure their "victory" then why not just play a video game, watch a movie or read a book? 

Post More - Pssh 'nuff said! I totally slacked off on posting for most of 2024.

Pace Myself - I think I did okay here. I have gamed less often on Saturday, which is often a trouble night for me, especially now that I live a 25 miles south of the city where the gaming locations we meet are at.

Miscellaneous:

I made some offhand comments, and wanted to mention those:

Rivers of London - Chaosium has not done much new with it, but its still there being promoted. In this day and age a game with maybe one sourcebook in a year or two is becoming increasingly common. I did buy the first novel in the series the game is based on, but haven't read it yet. 

Esper Genesis - They actually came through! The print edition of the Technician's Guide arrived a few months back, so kudos to them for getting this out at last. A pity it arrived in the wake of a new edition of D&D and took so long I suspect it will be harder for Alligator Alley to get the trust of Kickstarter backers.

GURPS - I suggested GURPS could have a new edition but won't. In their defense, they did get a good reprint with nice binding. I think, based on my observation of the market and the interesting directions it has gone, that GURPS is probably best off as a niche game system with a core fanbase that can remain ignored by the broader community.

13th Age 2nd Edition - I suggested it won't come out in 2024 and I was right. Another Kickstarter waaaay behind deadline. I am looking forward to this one when it comes out. Will it come out in 2025? Maybe, but it will arrive to a saturated market. Unless WotC releases the new Monster Manual and it turns out to be garbage for some reason, causing a wave of dissatisfied DMs to look elsewhere.

Pathfinder - I suggested maybe Pathfinder's increased costs will lead to a shrink in market share. I have no idea if this is true or not, but I know I have fellow players who have commented on how Paizo's books are getting too expensive to keep up with now. I think the costs are driven by the unionization of their workstaff, which is a good thing, but also a rough spot to be in a largely non-union, low-profit corner of the business. I suspect 2025 could be a make or break year for Paizo. 

Okay, next I'll make some predictions for 2025 and set some goals!

An Old School Feeling I haven't Felt in a Long Time....the Dragonbane Publishing Community

 A brief post, but I just wanted to share that I discovered a metric ton of content brewing on drivethrurpg.com, much of it pay-what-you-want and plenty of it worth money. I've been picking up print on demand versions of some Dragonbane books, but when I started sifting through the total available content I was really pleasantly surprised to see that there is a robust and growing community of enthusiasts for the game sharing all sorts of fun content from new professions and talents to monsters, encounter charts, modules and more. It genuinely reminds me of the old days, when game interest was 90% driven by earnest enthusiasts, and people just having fun....there's no posturing, no profiteering, just cool stuff.

This has me rethinking my priorities on what to play next. Dragonbane's ability to generate such enthusiasm has sparked some very old feelings in me, and reminds me of gaming from many an age ago. Must think about what I can do with this! I had sort of been waiting on the side to see if more rules content came out, to flesh out elements of the magic system and resources that I felt would make the game a bit more robust for my needs....and turns out all of that is sitting here amidst dozens of useful zines and resources the community has put together already, and practically all of it is eminently useful (and often pretty, too). 

The Slow Roll Gaming Show of 2024 - Swords & Chaos, Comae Engine, and More

 This is a remarkably quiet year for a D&D 50th Anniversary. Some stuff is coming out, which is cool, but the key new edition books are all delayed to the end of the year and in the case of the Monster Manual, next year. But luckily I expect to have Tales of the Valiant in my hands in maybe just a few weeks? We shall see!

Part of me acknowledges I am just getting old, but even DriveThruRPG's picking have been....weird....lately. A disproportionate amount of content over on DTRPG seems to have either an intentional or unintentional lack of polish, as if the idea is to throwback the product to a bygone era when your only art resource was you high school buddy who doodled a lot, but meanwhile the rest of the products all have a pristine AI generated polish to them that has that "uncanny valley reality, tinged with anime thematics" look to it that is a grotesque turn-off and an immediate warning that there may have been less actual effort put in to the product. But hey, interesting stuff does slip in the cracks. I am debating ordering the brand new Smoke and Aces BRP book which looks interesting, and I just received my print edition of The Comae Engine, a rather unique reductionist redesign of the BRP/D100 system, and I also ordered a copy of Swords & Chaos RPG, a non-Troll Lord published SIEGE engine RPG heavily flavored for traditional Swords & Sorcery; barbarians only need apply, no pesky hobbits here!

So far, of the two Comae Engine looks a little heavy on the "storytelling mechanics" approach to play which for me is the equivalent of telling me that you can substitute any meat in any meal with an impossible burger patty and it will be just fine. I am not yet decided, and plan to try running it before I make any determination. Some elements such as the skill system approach are pretty cool.....and in terms of trying to make a condensed, modest system that can quickly be skinned for any genre or feel it seems like it might work pretty well in many cases. I think the book could have benefited from about 20 pages or so of examples of how to use it, and example genres/scenarios. 

To contrast, Swords & Chaos RPG from Blackspire Fantasy is a SIEGE engine powered RPG, a sort of updated version of Castles & Crusades which refines the experience to a distinctly classical swords, sorcery and sandals approach to RPGs, with humans as the only species to play, classes that fit Hyboria, Atlantis or Mu, and an excellent roster of monsters that only poaches a handful of classic OGL familiars that best fit the darker S&S vibe (e.g. cloakers, darkmantles), then fleshes the list out with a lot of more traditionally pulp fantasy beasts. No orcs, elves, halflings or dwarves here! 

Put another way, Swords & Chaos is for better or worse more my cup of tea these days, a known quantity my old brain, suffused like a marinade for decades with the swords & sorcery genre, can wrap itself around....like a tasty spinach wrap, maybe. Hmmmm now I'm hungry.

What I like most about S&C is that it is a "all in one" book laden with exactly 100% of what you need to run the game. I am sure you can swap stuff in from Castles & Crusades if you want....but you totally don't need to. This book has it all. I am really big on "one tome to rule it all" lately. I will grant systems where the rules are dispersed over 2 or 3 tomes a pass, so long as those 2 or 3 books combined are 100% complete together.

Despite this, I am still extremely keen to explore the other slightly more traditional yet nonetheless totally cool Dragonbane. I really have too many flavors of classic and pulp fantasy floating around (see also ACKS). I need to wrap up the current D&D campaign so we can get to the other fantasy games all waiting in the wings. Conundrums!

Long Time No Blog! Deathbat Updates

 Man I have fallen off the blog wagon this year....even my efforts to do twice a week quickly fell to the wayside. 2024 may be the year I just learn to blog when I feel like it, rather than try to maintain any schedule. It probably doesn't help that I have been generally more relaxed on my RPG focus lately.

Mainly what I've done so far in the first quarter of this year is: reduce the amount of time I spend in VTT gaming, due to developing a general aversion to wanting to run games in the medium. I just burned out, and I am no longer afraid to admit it. VTT GMing is not as fun for me as live gaming, and I now have managed to get my Wednesday night and every other Saturday game into a live environment which is great. I'm running D&D 5E Wednesdays, and Traveller (MGT2E) on Saturdays. 

I am still playing in some VTTs as a player, though. On off Saturdays a friend of mine started Pathfinder 2E. We are all horrendously rusty at it, and for the first time ever I felt like maybe we were all getting a bit too old for the needless complexity of Pathfinder 2E, but really I am just peeved that they nerfed the PF2E skill system so much.....for god's sake, why does Society and Perception cover everything???? If you aren't going to lean in to skill diversity then just cut them. I really dislike it. I think I may be ready at last to cut the cord on Pathfinder 2E, time away from it has not made it age well (and that includes the revamped edition).

Aside from that I am in a very infrequent D&D game, I got an invite to another which I am considering, and we may start another online Call of Cthulhu game tomorrow. I'm a player in each, which is fine with me.....I need a prolonged break from GMing in VTT. Maybe I can pick up the mantle again next time we have a major pandemic. I kid! But not really. 

I am, of course, putting all my eggs in one basket....a Kobold Basket, to be precise: Tales of the Valiant is what I am talking about. Nice to know it will be out before the 50th anniversary D&D totall-not-6th-edition, too! I am looking forward to playing this.

I am also planning to run Dragonbane, which I have grown even more fond of with the new hardcover core rules and Bestiary. This book does for me what I wished Magic World would have done.

So for 2024, I have very few plans to buy in to new books or expand. I have a collection which is quite robust and --honestly?-- probably needs to shrink. I was in talks with a gentleman las year about handing some of my collection off before I lost track with him, need to see if I can find his email. Indeed if you're reading this and still interested drop me an email!

Anyway, maybe I can get more on track with posting, but no promises....who knows!

Scrutinizing Systems for 2024 - or "What to Play While Waiting for D&D Totally-Not-6E" - Dragonbane, Traveller, Cypher System, Tales of the Valiant and More

 I guess Wizards of the Coast is A: not selling to Tencent (good), and B: not releasing their books in May, which seems like a good time to do it, but apparently they said they will still be working on them in May so now the holidays seem like a stretch too. This is good news, though! It means we should all be trying other things while cooling our jets on trad D&D experiences so we can be ready for whatever the new thing is going to be.

For me, it sort of boils down to a handful of games which have my attention, and not all of them are "unlike D&D" since Tales of the Valiant is in the mix, but hey, you know what is coming out in May? Tales of the Valiant, that's what! So yeah, going to be playing some of that for sure.

I have in my hands Dragonbane Core Rules and Bestiary, the expanded books that will nicely replace or compliment their initial Boxed Starter Set from last year. The Starter Set was a fine product on its own merits, but there is additional content in the new Core Rules for GMs to make it worth checking out, and the Bestiary is a no-brainer whether you stick to the Starter Set or get the Core Rules, it's full of good stuff that is all new content. Dragonbane manages to sit in a hard to achieve sweet spot for me. I like to call this zone the "point at which a game can work to power one or more of my campaign worlds without requiring me to simply ditch said worlds and revise them to match the game's setting and rules expectations." Secondarily, it also fits the category of "alternative fantasy systems which are unique or interesting enough to explore on their own merits, but close enough to D&D in terms of content and accessibility to be an easy sell to players." 

I could go on and on about Dragonbane like this, but it boils down to some simple facts: the game provides a robust system with enough content that you won't find yourself wishing something was in the game that isn't; it offers a setting but does not demand you use it; it provides enough content that you feel like it could substantively replace D&D for a protracted campaign without you feeling like you wish you had access to all the D&D stuff when running or playing. For me, Dragonbane accomplishes all of this, and in the smallest form factor in terms of content for a "robust fantasy RPG" that one could imagine and still fit it in to a single carry bag. 

A lot of other fantasy games out there fail at these requisites I set. Some of my demands are more specific to my tastes; for example I like the Dragonbane skill system (and I also like the D&D skill mechanics, especially once you get back to 3rd edition), but I dislike game systems that eschew skills entirely without good reason. I can forgive an OSR emulator like Swords & Wizardry Complete for this, as skills weren't a thing in the 0E era of D&D, but it means that the S&W experience will forever be limited to merely emulating that style of play, afterwhich there will be no further modifications to the game system. I was modding skill systems in to Tunnels & Trolls and AD&D back in 1982 after experiencing Runequest, so for my experience in a hobby that was at the time a venerable 8 years old I will forever see skills as OSR and necessary to a proper gaming experience. 

Anyway, aside from Dragonbane, which looks to hit the sweet spot in a unique way few other systems have come close to, we have Traveller, which is getting a renaissance of upgraded rulebook editions as well as more content of a general sort of use beyond running Imperium Campaigns. I have a real keen interest in more Traveller soon, tempered only by the fact that I know Mothership will finally be released soon as well, and Mothership is the very genre-specific Traveller counterpart.

Monte Cook's Cypher System is also about to finally release more books, too. Rust & Redemption is the one I am specifically keen on, their Cypher sourcebook for post-apocalyptic tales. I feel that Cypher System works best when you can have weird settings that cater to improvisation, and I expect their post-apoc genre book will prove to be well worth it. 

I should also mention Pathfinder 2E v2. They have more tomes on the way, including the ever important revision to their Bestiary series, and the Player Core 2 to complete the class range my group is used to dealing with. Although my group understands that the backwards compatibility is 99.5% they still seemed more interested in waiting for the rest of these core books to release so we haven't done anything with Pathfinder 2E yet. I personally am more interested in playing it at the game table; Pathfinder, along with D&D 5E and others, can easily devolve into "Find a battle map, populate with virtual tokens, watch encounter turn in to fight because the players have hammers and see nails all over the map" kind of experiences. I guess what I am trying to say is that VTTs work really well on average when you are focused on a map and minis, and are at times terrible when trying to just enjoy the game for its more exploratory and discovery/role play based elements.

I have other games, too. Vast Grimm still commands my attention and several new books released for it, making the world of Vast Grimm a more comprehensive and interesting place to explore. Mork Borg continues to fascinate me, and I think a live campaign should be in order; I am intrigued to experience t least one deliberate attempt to play the game for multiple sessions to see how it works for long hauls. Finally, I still have a shelf full of Free League Titles I need to explore in actual play, especially and in particular Alien RPG, Blade Runner RPG, Forbidden Lands and both CY_Borg and Pirate Borg. 

Don't even get me started on the brilliant 5E reimagining of D20 Modern in the form of Everyday Heroes! Ever since I snagged it last October I've been obsessing about what to do with it, and the array of weird cinematic properties they have congealed around the game to provide support is impressive. That I would even contemplate a campaign in the universe of Universal Soldier, Rambo or Escape from New York is a testament to how engaging and interesting the EH team has been with these sourcebooks. It does crack me up, though, that each sourcebook seems to start with a "I never even heard of or watched the movie this book is based on until I was hired to write it," followed by a thoughtful and engaging approach to taking a wildly dated action film from thirty years ago and turning it in to a must-play setting. 

As always, the problem is too many cool games and not nearly enough time! 

Five Game Systems I Plan to Visit in Lieu of The Big Two (D&D and Pathfinder 2E)

 Okay, there's nothing wrong with either Pathfinder 2E or Dungeons & Dragons as rule systems....well, there may be issues,* obviously, but this is the year that I really want to do something different, other than play these two systems. Last year I enjoyed Call of Cthulhu (always a good staple), and Mothership reared its head. OSE was fun for a couple mini campaigns, and there are no doubt other games I ran in 2022 that I can't remember at the moment.

For 2023, I may wish to enjoy some fantasy gaming that's not the two top dogs. Here's the list I've compiled (akin to my SF list I posted a week or so back):

Forbidden Lands - first up, the Free League Year Zero Engine powered fantasy boxed set was once really hard to track down. I now have the core and all the supplements, as well as a couple sets of the lovely dice (you don't need special dice to run this, but I like having them anyway). I feel very comfortable with the system mechanically; it's got a nice reductionist approach to skills and talents with an elegant and distinct method of dice resolution. It's focus makes characters both pragmatic and effective but also fragile and always at risk. You are practically expected to engage with the world; building fortresses and settlements and finding mentors makes improvement through experience much easier, so there's an active mechanic for players to want to forge their own path in the world. The default setting is interesting enough for me to consider using it as-is, something that is honestly very hard for me to do with all of my own game worlds I like advancing in storyline.....but the good news is its written in a manner that lets me use it as I wish, with my own setting if I so desire. And it has a lot of fan support on Free League's page on Drivethrurpg.com. 

 Savage Worlds Using the Pathfinder Expansions or Fantasy Companion - The as yet soon-to-be-printed Fantasy Companion is a revision that takes a queue from the Pathfinder for Savage Worlds books. Its also compatible with those books, which means that you can run a lot of fantasy now with Savage Worlds, and itr finally can be said to have a lot of easy to use support for fantasy gaming. Savage Worlds' SWADE edition is a great mechanical update and restatement of an already fine game system, and I know my group is interesting in trying this all out....so I should probably prioritize this one.

Dragonbane (Drakar och Demoner) - This lovely kickstarter is a reimagining/revision to a classic era Swedish RPG that spawned out of a translated edition of the 1982 Magic World from Chaosium. Free League is in charge, and you can tell fom the design, but given I love their stuff so much its a small wonder I am keen on this. The print edition is not coming out until late in the year, but the working draft/playtest copy is quite functional and I definitely want to run this for a short test game soon. Plus, playable mallards that aren't from Glorantha!!!! I secretly hope this spawns more content and turns in to the spiritual Magic World successor we all deserve.

Those are the big three. I have contemplated to varying degrees the possibility of Mythras, but for various reasons I am stymied by the possibility, chiefly with the weird character sheet on Roll20. I then look to BRP's Magic World, but while I know we could have some fun with MW, it is am imperfect tome with a lot of errata (which did get in to the PDF, I think, but still). 

There is  a strong fourth contender, although I know the initial learning curve (mostly in PC generation) is steep: Dungeon Fantasy RPG (powered by GURPS)! I might indeed propose this last option, I have a deep and abiding love for GURPS and have gone far too long without running it. It is possible I might instead propose some GURPS historical gaming finally....I was working a lot on some GURPS Egypt campaign ideas last year, and those are still lurking in my files, waiting to be unleashd. 

*Okay yeah I am playing in a Pathfinder 2E game right now that reminded me in a hard way of why I don't want to run it anymore again.