19th Level

I've been digesting the Dresden Files Accelerated RPG off and on over the past several weeks - an activity balanced by family, work, finishing my graduate class, and running my Fate Accelerated Star Wars game. Reading through Dresden Files I've been giving a fair amount of thought to the type of campaign I'd run. I lean pretty heavily towards the urban jungle environment like the Chicago of the Butcher's Dresden Files series of novels - Chicago plus trips to Aztec pyramids, the Nevernever, and other places in our world and others. I've been eyeing re-purposing my homebrew superhero city Port Henry for that purpose. With the 20th anniversary of Buffy the Vampire Slayer  upon us and trailers for It , based upon Stephen King's novel, I've also been thinking of adventures in a smaller town. Buffy  was set in the fictional California town of Sunnydale while It is set in the likewise fictional town of Derry, Maine. You've also got Stranger Things tak...

With the Dresden Files Accelerated RPG in preview release, I decided to take a break from the rather lengthy Alexander Hamilton audiobook to re-listen to Storm Front , the first novel of Jim Butcher's urban fantasy Dresden Files . I've heard people suggest that the series really picks up in the third and fourth novel, with some people outright disliking Storm Front . I'll agree that the series greatly improves with time but to be honest, I really enjoyed the first book. In audiobook form the entire series is narrated by James Marsters, best known as Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer . He does a splendid job as the first person narrator.  I'm not a major urban fantasy reader - I enjoy the genre but most of my reading is in other genres. In the 1990s I was a big fan of Charles de Lint's Newford  series and I tend to enjoy most of Tim Powers' works (such as Declare , Last Call). So with all that out of the way, what can you expect from Storm Fron...

Much to my surprise I received a Kickstarter update for the Fate Core Kickstarter, completed and delivered years ago. It was a link to the near-final draft of Dresden Files Accelerated . The Dresden Files RPG was, to the best of my knowledge, the final Evil Hat Fate release prior to Fate Core . After having read Fate Core  I was, in some ways, a bit disappointed that Dresden Files came first - it is an awesome game but very much on the crunchy side. Fate Core simplified things greatly and Fate Accelerated  even more so. I had initially questioned whether Fate Accelerated  would work as a full game but the Young Centurions RPG  showed what an amazing system it could be. I've only just begun digesting Dresden Files Accelerated but my early impression is this the Fate game I've been waiting for. One of my favorite settings with a much lighter rules system than the original Dresden Files RPG . Don't misunderstand me on the original Dresden Files RPG - it is ...

Actually I've had this happen to me recently... Given my group has some folks younger than me, I've gamed with people who have never seen Star Trek  in any incarnation. That's not too shocking once I gave it some thought. Star Trek: Enterprise  debuted in fall of 2001, some fifteen years ago. And it was not a particularly popular Star Trek. Someone who is thirty now would have been around fifteen then. And Voyager debuted in January of 1995, so you're talking being under the age of ten for that! There's certainly a things I've not read or seen that are on other people's "I can't believe you've not read/seen that" so I've no judgment. With that caveat, there's a few other things I'd be surprised a gaming friend hadn't seen - Butcher's Dresden Files , the classic Star Wars trilogy (I know a number of people who swore off the prequels), Lord of the Rings (whether in film or novel form), and A Song of Ice and Fire (...

He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him. I'll chase him round the Moons of Nibia and round the Antares Maelstrom and round Perdition's flames before I give him up!  One thing I've learned about my own gaming style is for me, simpler seems to be better. I talked about that yesterday  in a non-#RPGaDay post. While that's been a trend, that's not to say it'll always be the case. Some day I'll master Champions . That said my current white whale is the Fate system of RPGs. Truthfully the rules aren't that complicated - Fate Accelerated is a glorified pamphlet. But the application of those rules represent a bit of a shift in thinking that I'm still working on. It reminds me a little bit of when I had to learn the Lisp programming language back in college. It was so different from the other languages I knew that in many ways I had to start anew - it was almost as if my previous knowledge was a hindrance. I feel that way about Fate - I'...

Let's see... We'll want someone who is not supremely intense - able to have a laugh while gaming. But not someone who is a total goofball. (Hey spellcheck accepted the word "goofball". Good to know.) No hateful beliefs. Someone who isn't shy but also doesn't need to dominate everything. Plus if he or she is already a gamer... I'm thinking for my first choice I'm going to go with Harry Copperfield Dresden of The Dresden Files . Dude is a gamer already. Despite being a supremely talented wizard in "real life" he is perfectly comfortable playing a barbarian. And I'd love to try some of the brew from McAnally's Pub. The only caveat is he is remote. Chicago is only an hour behind us so in theory Roll20 would be an option but in actuality, he seems to have a negative effect on any technology much beyond that of the mid-20th century. I'm guessing he and a virtual tabletop would not get along very well.. I suppose if he couldn...

When I was in middle school I saw the movie E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial . One neat scene was a bunch of the older kids playing a D&D game (or something a whole lot like D&D). Though in my neck of the world (Connecticut) didn't have the massive "D&D is satanic" scare that other parts of the country did, it was really neat seeing a D&D game presented as something a bunch of people did to have a good time - unlike Mazes & Monsters which seemed to posit you'd lose your mind, go exploring in the caves or steam tunnels and finally try to jump off one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Tom Hanks making the mistake that clerics get flying spells.... I've grown to enjoy some more tongue and cheek gaming references. My favorite is probably the reference to Trogdor the Burninator in "Chosen", the series finale to Buffy the Vampire Slayer . I can't find any video of it online but I did find the script: GIL...

I've had a little time to brainstorm a little as we've skipped a session of our ACKS campaign with the start of the school year and the beginning of organized insanity as the kids and my wife go back to school. One thing I've discovered in our ACKS campaign is how over time a non-plotted campaign begins to write itself. Right now our band of adventurers has two dungeons it has visited (and may return to either) as well as a third dungeon they are aware of. They've also developed two bases, one an outpost near the dungeons and the other the capital city of the region with better access to equipment, healers, and the like. Having put things in motion I can honestly say I really don't know where the adventurers will go in our next session. Will they finish cleaning out the kobold lair - with its rumored green dragon? Will they return to the dungeon beneath Skull Hill? Or will they venture to the Tomb of the Goblin King - now having a few magic items and possibly h...