January 25

Kickstarter: Darkraven Soundscapes:Redux + Cthulhu-Fantasy & Horror Music

In my post Gaming with an iPad I mentioned before that using a tablet has many advantages to tabletop gaming but I was reminded that I had forgotten one; music and ambience.  While this is within the realms of using an iPad to play atmospheric music the inability to multi-task may hinder the smooth running of a game.

I’m not against using music to create atmosphere and improve the ambience at the table and I have done so in the past using sound effect or soundtrack CDs and even went as far as to purchase a set of sounds designed for gamemasters.

That’s where I had been in the past, left with a CD on loop which didn’t really help as there would be a second or two until the track restarted.

This was until Jay Nunes contacted me about his Kickstarter, Darkraven Soundscapes:Redux + Cthulhu-Fantasy & Horror Music .

So I finally got my act together and had a listen to the video on the page and was very impressed by what I heard; so much so I went and backed it.  I’d love for this to become a reality so pop over and listen for yourself.

I feel I should also make it clear that apart from the initial email I haven’t received anything in the way of compensation from him.

Category: RPG | LEAVE A COMMENT
January 24

RPG Blog Carnival January 2015 – A New Year, A New World

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This months carnival topic is  A New Year, A New World hosted by ContactLight and is about new worlds.  It seems like a perfect opportunity to do some more work on the on hiatus Star Trek Colony game I wrote about a few months ago.  Based upon the blog stats, the Colony idea seems to be a popular one with the people who stop by and read it.

The World.

I spent a long time trying to come up with a name for this world and the ones I selected had already been used in the Trek canon so in the end I just gave it a numerical designation and left it at that.  I mentioned before the problems I had trying to generate a world that wasn’t too Earth like but not too hostile an environment for the players to explore.

I planned on giving them the maps I had generated and ask them where they wanted to situate the main colony site. It was also a nice way for the players to do away missions to likely landing sites once they had completed an orbital survey.

With away missions I could reveal little by little the secrets that this world had, give the players clues and let them write the adventures for me based not only upon what they found but by listening in to their table chatter.  Give them the ability to create the sort of things they wanted to do and also weave them into the over arcing meta-plot I had devised.

We’re not alone.

The campaign was going to touch upon a couple of important points; firstly that the characters weren’t alone on this world, there was a civilization here before them a race of reptiles that had been in suspended animation and that these terrible lizards would be awoken by the second event.

Lizards.

Why use lizards?  Mainly because they are an adaptable species and are suitably alien to make nasty opponents.  Yes, I could have used something arachnid like but I didn’t think they were as cool as lizards to use, what looks cooler?  A giant spider the size of a house or a dinosaur?

War.

Technically this should be the first major campaign event but the reptiles are listed first because this is the main thrust of the campaign.  The war would be a second thread, where a peaceful planet would be devastated by an invading force of Cardassians as the war with the Federation intensified.  At first there would be a series of guerilla actions against the colony before things heated up.

Endgame.

There would be a number of scenarios that could be used to end the campaign, I would play it by ear and see which ones the players would prefer.

Conclusion.

I hope you found this an interesting idea for a game.  If you want me to devote more time to fleshing out this world, leave me a note in the comments.

 

 

 

Category: FATE, RPG, sf | LEAVE A COMMENT
January 10

Bundle of Holding – Torg

When I was writing my top 10 list of games I mentioned the excellent cross-genre game Torg.

Now for a limited time you can get a selection of Torg books including the players guide which greatly expands upon character creation and the revised edition of Torg from the good people at Bundle of holding

So if you have ever wondered what is so good about this game you can pick them up for a steal.