Weekend Roundup: July 30th 2016

imgres

Wow, July is almost finished…already. I’m off to my annual motorcycle trip with Matt, our other brother and our father. Back on August 3rd, but Peter is back from his trip today!

Those Vikings had some weapons. Axe or Sword.

What’s new with I.C.E.? Keep up with the Director’s Briefing.

Shadow World “Longheads”. Ancestors of the Worim?

Short a player from your group? Utilizing NPC’s.

Or, down to just 1 player?

Living it up like Bilbo.

Want an inexpensive, compact game mat? Try Noteboard.

Book pick of the week. Love those armored Greatcoats!

Magic and technology…really the same!

Have a great weekend!

 

Rolemaster Weekend Roundup July 23rd 2016

imgres

Welcome to RolemasterBlog’s first “Weekend Roundup”. Here we will feature interesting links, stories or news items that might be of interest to RPG’ers or curious minds!

The price of fashion. Getting around in ARMOR.

What a bunch of NERDS!

Celebrities aren’t the only ones PLAYING D&D.

What every growing boy needs…the CRATE OF DOOM!

Cryptonomicon…I don’t think so. Try the CODEX SERAPHINIANUS.

Interesting article on PROTO LANGUAGES.

The Gods of Death in Shadow World. RESURRECTION discussion.

You call that a KNIFE?

Till next time!

STRANGER THINGS: A tropey love story to the 80’s.

imgres

I thought I would go a bit off normal topics to discuss Netflix’s most recent series: Stranger Things. The series is a nod (actually more of a trope head-butt) to 80’s science fiction and fantasy and written and directed by brothers steeped in early fantasy gaming. The show starts with a group of boys playing D&D in their basement—the game narrative establishing the plot and structure of the rest of the series.

Unlike E.T., which depicted some type of RPG’ing, the boys in ST are clearly playing D&D and the show references the game several times—plus it contains a few D&D product placements as well. These young boys are the protagonists of the story, and while they are characterized as “brainy nerds that get picked on”, the show clearly frames them in a positive light. The values of trust, loyalty, friendship between the boys is clearly contrasted against the shallow friendships of the bullies and popular kids. In a longer story arc, character redemption is not portrayed as the nerd who triumphs and gets their girl but as the popular rich kid who learns the lessons of friendship and learns humility. (Pretty in Pink?)

Without tackling the technical details of filming, it seems that almost every shot is evocative of an 80’s movie. On the most basic level, the show is an homage to Spielberg, Carpenter, Stephen King and Cameron but tropes and references are so dense and wide ranging that they still keep popping in my head.

Just a few that struck me:

  1. The sheriff driving the “Body” blazer in Jaws.
  2. The Underneath evoking both Pan’s Labyrinth and Legend (the drifting debris/petals in the air)
  3. Every time Jonathan pulled up in his car in front of his house I thought of Ash’s Delta 88 in the Evil Dead.
  4. Will’s cocoon and “facehugger” screamed Alien(s).

There is no doubt that early 80’s gamers have become key players in Hollywood/TV myth making and this show is a love story to that era. I think it was a positive depiction of gaming and just maybe it will spur a few 40-somethings to get back into gaming or teach their kids!

What references did you pick up on?

The Crystal Shard: Bk. 4 (The Legend of Drizzt)

This may be book book four in the legend of Drizzt but this was the first Drizzt book written by R A Salvatore. It is also the first book in the Icewind Dale Trilogy.

The interesting thing about this book is that Salvatore says himself that he was inspired to write having read Lord of the Rings and this book really chronicles the coming together of a fellowship before embarking on their quest just like The Fellowship of the Ring. That though is where the similarities ends.

The thing about Forgotten Realms novels is that they are written, I believe, with a target audience of 14 to 6 year old boys in mind. Reading them now you should not be looking for great literature, all the Drizzt novels are just a damn good read and great fun but they are not deep, meaningful or challenging. If you have read the novels in order then the fact that this was written first is really quite amazing, It really does feel like part of a continuum from the end of Sojourn rather than the first three books being an extended bolt on prequel.

If you are a roleplayer then the thing about these books is the combat, we all like killing things, wading through orcs, goblins, ogres and all the rest of the goblinkind. The combat portrayed in these books is not DnD combat where you are grinding down the hitpoints and D8 of damage at a time. These books are Rolemaster combats where your strike to the back of the knee slashes tendons and muscle and drops your opponent or you slash severs the trolls arm.

Back to the book though, it is a good read, on Amazon amazon there are second hand copies sellig for 70p and it makes you feel like a 14yr old again. It is almost a guilty pleasure. What more reason do you need to give it a go?

RMU Creature Law First Impressions

Copyright; 2002-2014 by Aurigas Aldbaron LLC. All rights reserved. No reproductions without permission.

RMU-Creature-Law
The new public playtest editions of RMU are monsters. Creature Law weighs in at 898 pages (Spell Law is now 475 pages) and to do them any justice is going to require time to really read them. That said I thought I would share some first impressions and first up is Creature Law.

I am really pleased to see the inclusion of the genric NPC tables. In old versions of Character Law there was always a table that gave you each profession and typical stats and skills at 1st, 3rd, 5th level and so on so if you needed a quick NPC you could just lift one off the page. Well this is now back and it is better than ever before. They are now called Archetypes and they have been developed for every level from 1st to 50th. Rather than having a list of Magicians from 1st to 50th and then Thieves 1st to 50th now you have generic descriptions such as Offensive, Defensive, Skilled, Semi Spell User and so on. The advantage to this method seems to be that however many new professions* the powers that be decide to add to the game these tables should continue to hold true.

Staying with the Archetype tables this gives me something else that is valuable. When you are creating new PCs for the first time with a new ruleset, having a benchmark you can measure your creation against is a useful tool.

You are not going to buy Creature Law just for a list of generic NPCs. You want monsters and lots of them. This leads me on to a negative point. Creature Law does not look or feel like a second beta version. What if feel like is something any one of us would cobble together in word if you were making a load of new monsters for a particular game. The tables of stats are all over the place. It just feels like a mess. Worst of all the terrible terse enviornmental codes still exist. I do not know anyone who likes these and these days they serve no purpose except to make the book hard to read, understand and use.

All in all I would say I am disappointed at first glance. This book simply is not of the same quality as the other RMU works to date and feels like someone was ruhing to get their homework in on time.

To sum up, great ideas but terrible execution.

* I get the impression that the intention is after the initial release of RMU core rules is to release companion after companion. I understand that the percieved wisdom is that every company has a need to continue to generate new sales but the main criticisms of Rolemaster has been that it is too complicated, has too many optional rules and too many charts and tables. Following the same route again that taking a new set of rules and then adding in more and more options, complications and charts just seems to be repeating the mistakes of the past.

Book Review The Loremaster Legacy

It seems like a lot of the fantasy fiction I have been reading lately has been more about relationships against a fantasy background that the hack and slash of yesteryear. In the same way that Trudi Canavan explores relationships against the backdrop of the magicians guild in The Black Magician Trilogy and other works so it is with Terry K Amthor’s Shadowstone Chronicles Book One The Loremaster Legacy.

The work itself is a coming of age story of two young nobles who get caught up in events beyond anything they had imagined. As the first book, in an ongoing chronicle, this book is very much about their beginnings, finding their feet in the world and discovering their talents all while events threaten to over take them.

The fantasy world setting for the novel is of course Shadow World and as readers of this blog many of you will be somewhat familiar with the setting. From that point of view I think the Loremaster Legacy brings that world to life wonderfully. You get to meet or at least see at work many of the great figures of Shadow World as well as glimpses of the technology that lurks constantly in the background. In many ways this book is as much science fiction as it is epic fantasy.

As a novel it is easy to read and is engaging and as the first instalment of a series it leaves a great many hanging threads and unanswered questions. You do get to meet the Loremasters, Priest of Arnak, Dragon Lords as well as characters from off world which goes to demonstrate both how rich a world setting Shadow World is and the scope of the chronicles to come.

I have read the book twice now and I am impatient for the second part. My only criticism is that the book introduces a substantial cast of characters and at times it can be confusing as to who is who, Jad and Tad were the two that had me confused for a page or two) and a few of those characters leave little lasting impression. That aside this is a damn fine book.

If you are a gamer in Shadow World then I would say this is a must read book.

If you are a roleplayer of any genre then you will certainly identify with the central characters as they start their careers.

If you are neither then why are you reading this blog, although you are welcome of course.

Terry K Amthor’s The Loremaster Legacy is available on Amazon here as well other online sites.