#RPGaDay2015 3: Favorite Game of the last 12 months

Last year we celebrated Autocratik’s #RPGaDay, where we spend a month celebrating RPGs, discussing what we love and what we love about them. Here are the responses of the TRF crew. Be sure to tweet, blog, or post your own with the #RPGaDay2015!

For August 3, What is your favorite new game of the last 12 months?
Aser: Night’s Black Agents: We’ve tried a lot of games this last year and what a number of great ones had in common was the Gumshoe Engine from Pelgrane Press. I point to Night’s Black Agents in particular because of its unique setting and the fact that I’ve had the opportunity to run it for a number of great players. This blend of modern espionage and vampiric horror takes the investigation-based narrative of its predecessors and gives it a techno-thriller shot in the arm that makes every session an absolute blast.
Chuck: The Cypher System Core.
John: The Strange.
Jonn: Firefly Roleplaying
Landan: My friend’s homebrew Pathfinder campaign. I know Pathfinder itself isn’t new but his world is rather unique that he created so I am sticking to my answer.
Megan: The Strange is the game that came out in the last year that I have played and enjoyed the most. I love the recursions and options that come with it. Plus Worlds Numberless and Strange is a fantastic supplement that just came out with so many more recursions to play with.
Patrick: I’d say Iron Kingdoms, but that’s been a bit longer then 12.
Rob: Firefly

Previous #RPGaDay Posts

#RPGaDay2015 2: Kickstarted game that pleased you the most

Last year we celebrated Autocratik’s #RPGaDay, where we spend a month celebrating RPGs, discussing what we love and what we love about them. Here are the responses of the TRF crew. Be sure to tweet, blog, or post your own with the #RPGaDay2015!

For August 2, What is the kickstarted game that pleased you the most?
Aser: Horrors of War. I’m so very happy that it will be coming in PDF format: so happy in fact that I’m happy to endure the delays.
Chuck: The Strange, a gift that keeps giving.
John: FAITH: The Sci Fi RPG. Love that art!
Landan: I missed the original Kickstarter but I jumped on the Deluxe Boxed Set for Numenera. I haven’t gotten my Reliquary boxed yet so hopefully soon since I have seen some amazing images on twitter of people receiving theirs.
Megan: This is hard because I kickstart so many things, there are literally over 25 things for me to choose from. I think I will go with the Exclusive Numenera Boxed set though. And that’s mostly because it was something that fed into a game I already have a lot of love for. The boxes themselves are gorgeous, and then they’re filled with some many books and goodies that are going to be a pleasure to use. I plan on using my new Numenera dice exclusively for my Numenera games, and I really want to put the cloth map up on my wall

Previous #RPGaDay Posts

Unraveling of the Ninth World 3: What Harm Could it Do?

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We finally reach the end of the criminals journey to the center of Hell, and they fight tooth and claw to make it out again.

Featuring Aser, John, Megan, and Shaunna. Music by Kevin MacLeod, “Decisions”

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Continue reading Unraveling of the Ninth World 3: What Harm Could it Do?

#RPGaDay2015 1: Forthcoming game you’re most looking forward to

Last year we celebrated Autocratik’s #RPGaDay, where we spend a month celebrating RPGs, discussing what we love and what we love about them. Here are the responses of the TRF crew. Be sure to tweet, blog, or post your own with the #RPGaDay2015!

For August 1, What is the forthcoming game you’re most looking forward to?

Aser: I’m most looking forward to two very collaborative games on the grittier side of their genres. Blades in the Dark is an industrial fantasy game where your party take on the roles of a street gang trying to make a name for itself, while Scavengers is another team-based outing where you head up a crew of scrappers trying to make a living in the cold void. Both games place emphasis on teamwork and speed of play, so I’m anxious to see how much they can deliver on their promise. As a bonus, Blades was built from the ground up to be endlessly hackable, so we’ll have to see what TRF can do when we get our grubby little hands on it.
Chuck: No Thank You Evil. It is odd that I don’t have kids but I am looking forward to this game.
John: Burning Games’ FAITH: The Sci Fi RPG, and my hardcover Call of Cthulhu 7th ed book…
Jonn: Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition
Landan: I think it would be my friend’s original campaign he is doing using the Pathfinder rules. We are playing Gestalt style characters so it is pretty crazy but his setting is really cool.
Megan: The Horrors of War set of adventures for Call of Cthluhu by Adam Scott Glancy and John H. Crowe that was funded through Kickstarter! This set of adventures is set in WWI and I can’t wait to play/run them.
Patrick: The Witcher RPG. If there is as much story in the fluff for the Table Top version as the PC game, then I’ll be hooked for some time.
Rob: Anything Firefly RPG

Previous #RPGaDay Posts

RPG Academy Interview

Caleb and Michael from RPG Academy were kind enough to come talk to us about RPG Academy, their upcoming convention AcadeCon, and their Kickstarter. Look for their Kickstarter on August 6, or you can find them at www.therpgacademy.com, @TheRPGAcademy, @TheCalebG, or @AcadeCon.

Continue reading RPG Academy Interview

What’s Cool on Kickstarter

There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, and here are the coolest ones this week.

Downfall
Aser and I have recently begun looking for some interesting storytelling games to add to our to play list, and this one definitely looks like it will be up our alley. A perfect world that is collapsing due to a fatal flaw while a hero tries to save it? Sounds perfect.

“Downfall is a role-playing game that explores the collapse of a society, a cataclysm brought about by a fatal Flaw at work within it. First you sit down and build your world, then you destroy it. You tell the story of a hero who tries to save their home. But in Downfall, the hero fails.

The game works in any kind of setting, from mythical fantasy to the real world to high-flying science fiction. It’s made to tell a whole story in a single 2-4 hour session and doesn’t require preparation, dice, or a GM. ”

 

Steampunk Militia Miniatures
I really like the look of these miniatures, but we don’t play any steampunk games they’d be relevant for at the moment. You should really give them a look and think about adding them to your collection.

“My name is Andrew May, I have been working as a freelance sculptor of wargaming figures for the last couple of years and now also run my own miniatures business “Meridian Miniatures”. Nearly two years ago I ran my first Kickstarter campaign for a “Steampunk Army” and now comes the follow up “Steampunk Militia” campaign to complement the military figures with their civilian counterparts in the “Steam & Aether” table top setting.

As you can see below the, initial miniatures are already sculpted with the pre production painted masters shown. In each of my previous campaigns I have tried to avoid leaving to much ambiguity between the miniatures promised and the actual product you will receive, where possible I try to avoid relying on renders and “concept art”. Occasionally I will illustrate an idea using either but feel I have built up the reputation for delivering on promises by this stage that you won’t be disappointed.”

 

Dungeons on Demand 2
You can get some nice instant dungeons with traps, monsters and treasure all ready to drop on your players with little to no preparation. Sometimes you just need a dungeon while you plot out the next step, and it’s only $5.

“Dungeons on Demand are instant dungeons you can drop into your campaign, each is designed for 4-5 player parties of specified levels, and each dungeon is complete with a back story, hand drawn maps, traps, puzzles, and reference information to monsters and treasure. You can customize each one to fit in your campaign however you wish, and each one can be played through in one or two gaming sessions (depending upon how long you play!)”

 

Marked for Death: A Comedic Fate module about assassins
I think adding some slap-stick fun into your assassination attempts makes everything a little better when you’re playing Fate.

“Marked For Death is a FATE Module which lets you play as a group of assassins and choose how to eliminate your targets in hilariously unfair situations! Marked For Death’s gameplay is designed to be a challenging experience, where ridiculous things still happen on occasion.

You are a small group of well-trained individuals going up against a much larger force. Guile and planning are your greatest allies; although hiding behind a plant in an otherwise empty hallway is always an option…”

 

Still active!

Blackskull Dice
The Pale Blue Die
Space Roller: Futuristic Dice
Things Could Be Worse Mugs
Microscope Explorer
The 20th HP Lovecraft Film Fest and Cthulhu Con
Starvation Cheap: Planetary Warfare for Stars Without Number
Cardboard Clothing: Apparel for the Modern Board Gamer
Let’s Play Dice
Carbon Fiber and Luminescent Rings

Mysteries of the Ninth World 10: The Impossible Bard

monsters

As they plunge deeper into the tomb, the party finds more traps and even some answers.

Featuring Aser, Ash, Landan, Megan, and Shaunna. Music by Kevin MacLeod, “Decisions”

Direct Download!

Continue reading Mysteries of the Ninth World 10: The Impossible Bard

News and Advice Round-Up

News and Advice

Pour Over Lovecraft’s notes for At the Mountain’s of Madness
Lovecraft’s notes have been posted by Author Paul Tremblay on Instagram. It looks like you might have to sacrifice some sanity to decipher them. Just don’t stare at it for too long…

NASA Discovers Earth’s Older Cousin
“This particular planet’s combination of factors – including the type of star, the planet’s distance from it and its size – make it the closest analogue to Earth ever found, the scientists said.”

Kepler-452b circles a sun-like star about 1400 light-years away. It’s bigger then earth, but has a similar orbit around it’s sun. They’ve determined it is approximately 6 billion years old, giving it time to develop life if other important factors are present. This is super exciting as a geek, and is it wrong that my first thought went to how to incorporate the aliens that live on Kepler-452b into a game? I don’t think so.

4 Tips for Running Published Adventures
I run a lot of published adventures. I’ve only recently begun feeling comfortable enough to tell my own stories, or even change published adventures to make them my own. The railroad tracks are nice and safe. But I think the advice given here is a great way to let go of the railroad track set down in a published adventure. It’s alright, just let them go and embrace the story that is being developed between you and your players. It doesn’t mean you have to throw the whole story out, it just takes a little more work.

Meet the New Pathfinder Iconics
Pathfinder is releasing Occult Adventures on the 29th, and they’ve begun to introduce their new iconic characters. You can find them on Paizo’s website, or all the links are in the article I linked to. The new classes that will be available are occultist, spiritualist, psychic, medium, mesmerist, and kineticist. I’m interested to see how these new classes work in a game, but I can see them to be a little difficult at first to figure out exactly how to fit them in.

 

New Products

There’s a new expansion pack for Munchkin, which is full of a great evil. Well, it’s full of hipsters. It’s available on ThinkGeek for $9.95

Worlds Numberless and Strange was released this week, a supplement for The Strange. It has over 70 new recursions and great info for your Strange GM. I wrote a review here. You can get a copy on DriveThruRPG and the MCG Store. The PDF is $16.99 and the book is $44.99.

Sales and Bargains

DriveThruRPG is doing their Christmas in July sale, with 25% off thousands (and thousands) of PDFs. There are deals for Numenera, The Strange, Dresden, Achtung! Cthulhu, and more. You should check it out – it lasts for a week.
Lost Lands BundleFrog God’s settings and adventures written for Pathfinder

Looking for a Game?

We’re itching to try the Leverage RPG, and just need a few more players. We’re planning on trying for a Friday night. Interested? Email us at redactedfilespodcast@gmail.com!

Review: Worlds Numberless and Strange

What will you find as you venture into Earth’s shoals?

Witch covens battle in the mammoth city of Halloween. Nazis struggle to master mythological relics in the Eleventh Reich. T. rexes hunt hominids on the tropical island of Mesozoica, while skyships fend off pirates and predators in the tempestuous cloud seas of Seishin Shore.

In The Strange, recursions—limited pocket dimensions with their own laws of reality—are seeded from human fiction and mythology. A recursor might discover Atlantis, Oz, the Victorian London of Sherlock Holmes, or places even more bizarre and perilous. Worlds Numberless and Strange takes you to dozens of new recursions, where supervillains, dinosaurs, space troopers, killer robots, gods, and other dangers guard wonders and treasures few people on Earth have ever seen!

This week has been an awesome time to be a fan of MCG. The PDF of for the Cypher System was sent out to those who pre-ordered, the Numenera Reliquary boxes are being shipped out, and Worlds Numberless and Strange was released. WNS is a supplement for The Strange, a game that we love quite a bit here at TRF. The Strange imagines an Earth with an unimaginable number of recursions that the adventurers can travel to, including the fantasy world Ardeyn, the sci-fi world Ruk, and more including 221B Baker Street, Innsmouth, and Crow Hollow. There are recursions for almost any imagined fictional world, and all you have to do is imagine it.

Worlds Numberless and Strange provides 70 new recursions to add to your game. Seventeen of these are very well fleshed out with detailed information, history, cthulhuindividuals you might encounter, and artifacts that are present within that recursion. The others are just seeds that the GM can use as a starting point for their own ideas. I really love the table at the beginning of the chapter that the GM can roll on to determine which recursion they might accidentally translate into. I think the recursion seed Aser and I were both the most excited for was R’lyeh, which you can get shot by your superiors for visiting. If you survive that is. No one wants Cthulhu gain the spark and become able to translate.

The new recursion I was most excited about is Microcosmica, which I microdescribed as those episodes of Magic School Bus where they go inside various students to learn the inner workings of the human body. Aser likened it to Fantastic Voyage, and since they used a quote from the movie at the beginning of the listing, that might be the more accurate representation. But if you think there won’t be a yellow school bus zooming around if I have players show up in Microcosmica you are sorely mistaken. Plus there’s the new descriptor “Becomes Bacterial” which I want with every bit of my biochemist’s heart.

Aser really enjoyed the Rebel Galaxy recursion, inspired by all of your favorite space operas. Since we just encountered Darth Vader in our Strange game, and have recently decided we need a Star Wars game in the Cypher System this recursion is full of some pretty helpful ideas in setting that up. One of the most valuable set of rules provided was those for ship to ship combat, which included ways to take out the enemies ship without necessarily shooting them down.

rebelOther recursions include an alternate reality where the Nazis won, a steampunk Camelot, Atlantis, Zombies, Superheroes, and Dinosaurs. There are plenty more, but I don’t want to give away all of the awesomeness included. Besides this, there’s more information about regions and organizations within Ardeyn and Ruk, as well as new artifacts for those worlds. There are a handful of new descriptors that are tied to the new recursions, including Becomes Bacterial, and some new creatures.

If you’re looking for some new places to take your group, or just some inspiration for your game you should pick up Worlds Numberless and Strange. It’s a beautiful, informative book with lots of plot hooks, individuals to encounter, and worlds to explore. I can’t wait to head to some of those recursions in our own game. It is available from DriveThruRPG and the MCG Store. The PDF is $16.99 and the book is $44.99.

What’s Cool on Kickstarter

There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, and here are the coolest ones this week.

Starvation Cheap: Planetary Warfare for Stars Without Number
We haven’t tried Stars Without Number yet, but adding new rules for military campaigns sounds pretty awesome.

“Starvation Cheap is a military campaign supplement for the free Stars Without Number sci-fi tabletop role-playing game. It’s written to provide the reader with all the tools they need for building a sandbox-style military campaign focused on planetary armies and mercenary legions. Everything from the construction of wars and vital military objectives down to the gritty details of building a battlefield adventure is provided in this 100+ page book.

While written for Stars Without Number, the great majority of the tools in this book are system-neutral, perfectly usable with the sci-fi game of your choice.”

 

Cardboard Clothing: Apparel for the Modern Board Gamer
This is a neat collection of shirts that reference some of the more popular board games out there.

“Cardboard Clothing was founded to provide a way for boardgamers to express themselves and their love of the boardgaming hobby.

All of our designs are created by us and based on modern boardgame staples as well as some of our current favorite games.”

 

Let’s Play Dice
The pips on these dice are different, but it’s supposed to be completely balanced. That’s not the most important thing for me for dice, but they’re pretty awesome looking.

“The challenge was to create a perfectly balanced design for each side: they all have the same volume (mass) removed one every surface, so no side is heavier than others. Our concept was use a shape that can be divided up into 6 parts, with always the same surface occupied: Rectangle and Round shapes offer the most attractive look!”

 

Carbon Fiber and Luminescent Rings
So pretty! So glowing! There’s others with inlays that I think are pretty cool looking as well.

 

Still active!

Blackskull Dice
At the Mountains of Madness
World War Cthulhu: Cold War
Wyrmwood Magnetic Dice Tower
The Pale Blue Die
Treasure Chest
Space Roller: Futuristic Dice
Things Could Be Worse Mugs
Microscope Explorer
Reaper Miniatures: Bones 3
The 20th HP Lovecraft Film Fest and Cthulhu Con