Thursday 17 January 2013

A to Z of UK RPG in the 80s: L is for Large Box Games

The 80s was synonymous with excess, in business, there was large hair, large shoulder pads and large mobile phones and in the games industry there were large box games. 

One of the biggest exponents of this were Games Workshop who suddenly went from publishing bookshelf sized boardgames to making huge boxes full of tons of plastic miniatures.  As you can see in the photo below these things were larger in every dimension and made sure that GW games dominated over their rivals for valuable gamestore shelf space.

Large box game vs Bookshelf sized game
Large Box game vs Bookshelf sized game - a storage nightmare
Adeptus Titanicus (1988)

Released in 1988, Adeptus Titanicus, introduced the EPIC 6mm scale to the Warhammer 40K world.  It allowed you to create massive micro-armour legions of Space Marines, Eldar, Orks and Chaos and have them fight it out in traditional miniature wargaming style. 

Games Workshop Adeptus Titanicus
Adeptus Titanicus - buy it on eBay
The big selling point to the game were the ridiculously huge multi-part plastic Titans which dwarfed all the other units on the battlefield.  Each came with a compliment of plastic weapons which you attached to various hardpoints on the miniature allowing a degree of customisation and damage was tracked with a innovation rotating base dial, precursing Heroclix by some years.

Some neat expanded polystyrene apartment block structures were included in attempt to create some line of sight blocking terrain but these were largely redundant.  Also included were infantry and mobile armour which were later supported in the "Epic" range of 6mm miniatures.  This should have been a slam dunk success as you could build huge forces for not a lot of outlay.  Sadly like a lot of the games you are going to see in this list they ulitmately fell out of favour and GW moved on.

Like many of the big box games it came badged with the "3D Roleplay" logo, but there were no roleplay elements in it, nor did it have the finessed boardgame play of the vastly superior Battletech.

Dark Future (1988)

I'd always been a fan of the Mad Max movies and Steve Jackson Car Wars game, so when GW announced that their future release Dark Future was an attempt to upscale the action to 1/72nd "matchbox" scale, I snapped it up.

Games Workshop Dark Future
Games Workshop Dark Future - Buy Dark Future on eBay

The theory was that in the post apocalyptic "Dark Future", vehicular highway battles between the corporate good guys driving sleek "Interceptors" and the highway outlaws driving makeshift "Renegade" buggies would be a daily occurrence.  The game included 2 cars of each variety which you could customise by adding an array of plastic weapons to the models built in hardpoints, in a similar style to Adeptus Titanicus.  The rest of the game game was essentially a series of cardboard curves, straights, tokens and some bikes.

My recollections of the game was that it was a bit of a drag, mostly due to the phase system which although shorter than Car Wars, was still ponderous.  This is something I will be reacquainting myself with in the very near future, thanks to eBay, as I try to find the perfect blend of rules for my post apocalyptic road-racing game project.

Bloodbowl 2nd Edition (1988)

A large box was always going to be necessary to contain the huge three part expanded polystyrene "Astrogranite" playfield and clutch of plastic ork and human player miniatures.  This was a vast improvement on the jigsaw style board and cardboard standees of the original bookshelf game published two years earlier.

Blood Bowl Second Edition
Blood Bowl 2nd Edition - Buy it on eBay
This for me was the definitive version of Blood Bowl and the enhanced rules, artwork and backstory turned an interresting game into an exciting game.  Simple things like the transparent plastic throwing ruler and the cardboard endzone inserts displaying your team name lifted the game into the stratosphere.  The icing on the cake however is the expanded polystyrene foam pitch with the Blood Bowl skulls in the center.

The low cost of putting together a team of maybe a dozen or so starplayers in addition to your plastic blockers compared to that of most other miniature games was a pretty attractive selling point for cash strapped gamers like myself.  Just blogging about it makes me want to play it.  I'm sure I have a Dwarven Deathroller miniature around here somewhere...

Advanced Heroquest (1989)

In 1989 Milton Bradley (in collaboration with Games Workshop) released the dungeon crawl boardgame Heroquest.  It was very successful and Games Workshop almost simultaneously released an advanced version. 

Games Workshop Advanced Heroquest
Advanced Heroquest (cos basic just isn't enough) - Buy it on eBay

This version eschewed the traditional folded board for a modular jigsaw style collection of rooms and corridors which you could connect together in different layouts as you progressed through the various scenarios.  A serviceable set of plastic hero and monster miniatures were included with all the stats necessary to play out your own little dungeon adventure game.

As can be seen from the box art the now familiar "3D Roleplay" is present and for the first time, GW actually delivered a game with a strong roleplay element to it.  Also featured is the "Solo Play" logo which meant that lone gamers could enjoy the Warhammer Fantasy universe as well.  The rules were also a significant step up from the original and allowed simple character progression and monsters were backwards compatible with the MB Boardgame.

Space Hulk (1989)

Set in the Wharhammer 40K universe, Space Hulk pits space marines in "Terminator" armour against a new enemy, the Genestealers, as they explored massive derelict spaceships.

Games Workshop Space Hulk
Space Hulk - Buy it on eBay

Essentially a sci-fi version of Heroquest with very well executed and very repurposeable jigsaw floortiles.  The miniatures were made of the same brittle type of plastic used in Adeptus Titanicus and Dark Future rather than the slightly more flexible stuff used for minis in Advanced Heroquest and were adequate sculpts.  The game however was slick, fun and immensely challenging.

I like many of my age, I'm sure, totally raided my copy for sci-fi floorplans and the minis which ended up in other boxes never to be seen again.  Ebay, to the rescue perhaps...

Monday 7 January 2013

On the Workbench: Ral Partha Djinn & Efreet Pt 2

A while back I posted some photos of a couple of old Ral Partha D&D miniatures that had made their way on to the workbench.  Sadly I managed to break the Efreet's scimitar in half, either because I'm immensely strong/ham-fisted or more likely because tin/lead alloy becomes quite brittle with age.

Well I'm glad to say he's on the mend as I cobbled together a new sword out of an old credit card and some wire from a mousetrap (who would've thunk it).

Efreet with new plastic sword of +5 Elemental Awesomeness
I know the sword is a bit on the ridiculous size, but what the heck if he's an Elemental and so's his sword!!  It also reminds me a lot of Voss's character mini (Magmar Teufel Schlager) in the RPG romcom Unicorn City.  Which incidentally is currently playing on Netflix.

Magmar Teufel Schlager (please correct me if I got this wrong)

Tune in later for an update on the painting of both the Djinn and Efreet miniatures.

Friday 4 January 2013

2012 Movies

Last year I posted my movie list for 2013 for the first time and I did get round to seeing the majority of them.   

THE HIGHLIGHTS

Underworld Awakening - A welcome update and return to form for the Underworld franchise after a frankly pitiful 3rd film.  I really do like Len Wiseman's dark modern world view of the eternal struggle between the warring clans of Vampires and Werewolves and his missus, Kate Beckinsale, always puts on a good show as the lycra clad Selene.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island - Despite the cast this was a nicely put together amalgum of Vernian adventure, far superior in my view than a lot of the turgid TV movies we've had over the last few years.  It reminded me of those happy Sunday afternoons I spent watching Doug McClure battling prehistoric monsters in The Land that Time Forgot and Lionel Jeffries in his bid to become The First Men in the Moon.

John Carter
- An awesome film let down by a terrible PR campaign making it the biggest box office flop of the year (until Battleship).  If you haven't seen this movie, buy the DVD you will not be disappointed.  Andrew Stanton really deserves credit for bringing Edgar Rice Burroughs hero to a new generation in such an epic way.

John Carter fights two Barsoomian white apes
John Carter fights two Barsoomian white apes

Iron Sky - The hype which preceded this Sci-Fi Nazi comedy was too much for the film to live up to in the end, but there were some really great visual and comedic moments.  How many films have ever seen which feature gigantic space zeppelins discourging Nazi UFOs?

Looper - A really enjoyable dystopian sci-fi movie and probably my favourite film of year, not perfect by any means but a neat idea well executed.  The star of the film had to be Pierce Gagnon who played the supercute but scary Cid and totally stole the show from Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon Levitt whenever he appeared on screen.  I loved the cobbled together tech vision of the near future in particular the café racer inspired jet engined hover bikes.

THE LOWLIGHTS

Prometheus - Ridley Scott's confused Alien prequel (or is it?) could not live up to expectations and I suspect that he shot an amazing film but it just ended up on the cutting room floor.  It was beautiful in every respect other than story so let's hope Prometheus 2 explains what the hell is going on.

Dredd - Although I loved the grim gritty reality of Dredd's interiors, it just failed abysmally to capture the Mega-City I know and love, t was just so flat and 2 dimensional.  Where was the hover  traffic, the suspended train line or the high-level megways which bind the blocks together?  I appreciate that this was most likely a plot device, let's face it you can hardly trap Dredd in a tower block if you have ready access to H-wagons.  It's what results when you rehash the basic premise of the vastly superior Gareth Evans directed martial-arts movie The Raid: Redemption.

Don't get me wrong it's not entirely worthless, it just wasn't as visually rewarding as I expected... damn you expectations!

Total Recall - Although it was a smörgÃ¥sbord of cyberpunk visual effects,  the rehashed storyline was a confused mess stemming from the brave but flawed decision to set it on Earth.  For example, if you had the technology to build an advanced security android why would you then bus thousands of migrant workers through the center of the Earth every day as a sweat-shop labor force to assemble them?  Would you not just have machines which made them?  To then ship them back to the other side of the planet as an invasion force, it just didn't make any sense. 

All human history points towards conquest being driven by the avaliability and exploitation of natural resources.  I'm sure if any of the bean counters had gotten wind of Cohaagen's plan they would have just told him to offshore production to the Colony ready for the invasion at a later date. 

Eclipsing the 90's Paul Verhoeven version was always going to be a tall order, and the film contains some excellent and worthwhile homages, but in this version you never got the feeling that you knew which version of reality Quaid/Hauser was experiencing.      

THE SLEEPERS

There were a few movies I caught this year whose PR managed to totally evaded my consciousness but I enjoyed enough to recommend:

Cockneys vs Zombies - An ensemble cast kicking zombie butt in London's East End and perfect inspiration for a game of Fiasco using the cockney London.

Grabbers - An Irish monster movie in the style of Tremors for which I wrote an earlier more in-depth post.

Headhunters - A gritty Norwegian crime thriller originally penned by Jo Nesbo with more twists in it than a pair of iphone headphones.  Like 2009's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo it has some brief nausea inducing moments in it that are not recommended for those with weak stomachs but the cast, including the very talented Aksel Hennie and Game of Thrones star Nicolaj Coster-Waldau, are convincing giving you a real sense of jeopardy throughout.

Aksel Hennie gets trapped in the privy in Headhunters
 

Coming soon... The 2013 Movie List






  



Thursday 3 January 2013

2012 in Review and Some New Years Resolutions

Happy New Year to one and all. 

It's been a while since my last post here and I'd love to say it's because I've been busy creating new and interesting stuff or that my personal life has been one hectic social engagement after another, but I can't.  So in the spirit of New Year I intend to make some changes round here, but first we need to review 2012.

Mayan CalendarThis Blog

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  10. A Fresh-ish look at Goblins (637pv)
In 2012 I wrote a total of 45 posts (which is pitiful really), and half that of 2011.  Some of this I put down to the shift in my viewing/posting habits from blogs to Google+, but to be honest I've just been so distracted.  New Years Resolution #1  is to go back to Writing at least 2 posts a week.

RGP Logo
Roleplay Geek Publishing 

I managed to publish only 1 additional product this year, bringing the catalogue to a total of 8 products.  In order of popularity these are:
Therefore New Years Resolution #2 is to get some of the things I've been working on out of the pending tray and into the catalogue.
 
Google+

Has become one of the most important sources of gamer news for me over the last 12 months and I see this continuing for the forseeable future.  The addition of communities has also seen an explosion of new contacts in the last few months and has resulted my eye being off the blogosphere.  New Years Resolution #3 is therefore to get my digital channels into some sort of order. 

Gaming Highlights

Fiasco
This years Dragonmeet was my only convention, and I've never seen it so busy.  I don't know if this marks a resurgence in interest in RPGs in the UK or as a reaction to the current economic slowdown, but you could barely move in the tradehalls.  It did give me the chance to play Fiasco for the first time and I absolutely loved it, rushing straight down to the trade hall to snap up my copy.  A big thanks to Fiasco's designer Jason Morningstar and the rest of the Google+ Fiasco community for making this my RPG of the year. 

I first saw Fiasco on Wil Wheaton's excellent boardgaming web TV show Tabletop which has become de rigueur viewing over the last 12 months.  If you like boardgames and haven't seen the show, you're missing out.  If there are any Game Publisher's listening, you need to help Wil and the Geek & Sundry Team to get this show renewed for another season.  I know it's responsible for me buying and recommending featured games as a result of watching.

Saturday 22 September 2012

More D&D Comicstrip Adverts from the 80s

As I discussed in my earlier post, I've been re-reading 2000AD in anticipation of seeing the new Judge Dredd movie and I uncovered some adverts from the TSR UK days back in the 80s

Here are some more comic strip adverts which I've unearthed from 1986 spanning progs 486 to 494. 
Episode 1 - Village of the Dead (Prog 486)
Episode 1 - Village of the Dead (Prog 486)
Episode 2 - The Battle (Prog 487)
Episode 2 - The Battle (Prog 487)
Episode 3 - The Swamp Creature (Prog 488)
Episode 3 - The Swamp Creature (Prog 488)
Episode 4 - Into the Tower (Prog 492)
Episode 4 - Into the Tower (Prog 492)
Episode 5 - Death and Wizardry (Prog 493)
Episode 5 - Death and Wizardry (Prog 493)
Episode 6 - The Final Enemy (Prog 494)

Wednesday 12 September 2012

Dr. Doom's Mark VI Hoberman Chassis - SPOILER

In episode 3 of the new Ultimate Spider-man series, spidey and the rest of the gang lure what they think is Dr Doom onto the SHIELD Hellicarrier only to discover that it is in fact a Mark VI Hoberman Chassis (aka a Matroyshka Doom Bot).  I particularly liked the foetal position each bot is in as it deploys from its parent bot.

The Mark VI Hoberman Chassis (aka Dr. Doom's Matroyshka Doom Bots)
The Mark VI Hoberman Chassis (aka Dr. Doom's Matroyshka Doom Bots)

This is a pretty cool idea for a robot and makes a change from the now clichéd transforming or combining robots.  Despite it's cool factor, it does have it's drawbacks in that a 1ft high Doom Bot doesn't represent much of a challenge for a superhero.

Some creative type should definitely come up with a stat block for this puppy.

Tuesday 11 September 2012

Star Shadow - D&D Comic Strip Adverts Circa 1984

Whilst re-reading my old 2000ADs I stumbled across a series of D&D Comic Strips entitled Star Shadow.

Commissioned by TSR UK to advertise the Red-Box basic D&D set, each one page strip charts the continuing adventures of Morwyn Starbrow, an Elven fighter mage, and Matt Greyshadow a Halfling rogue.  The artwork is by Tim Sell and story by Graeme Morris.  Unfortunately there are some gaps in my 2000AD collection and therefore gaps in this series so if anyone has copies of Progs 391 and 392, I'd love to hear from you.
Star Shadow Episode 1 (2000AD, Prog 387) - When The North Wind Blows
Star Shadow Episode 1 (2000AD, Prog 387) - When The North Wind Blows
(click image to embiggen)
Star Shadow Episode 1 (2000AD, Prog 388) - Footsteps in the Snow
(click image to embiggen)
Star Shadow Episode 3 (2000AD, Prog 389) - The Keeper of the Frost Giant
Star Shadow Episode 3 (2000AD, Prog 389) - The Keep of the Frost Giant
(click image to embiggen)

Star Shadow Episode 4 (2000AD, Prog 390) - The Ice Gem
Star Shadow Episode 4 (2000AD, Prog 390) - The Ice Gem
(click image to embiggen)

Star Shadow Episode 7 (2000AD, Prog 393) - Flotsam and Jetsam
Star Shadow Episode 7 (2000AD, Prog 393) - Flotsam and Jetsam
(click image to embiggen)
Star Shadow Episode 8 (2000AD, Prog 394) - Upon the Blasted Heath
Star Shadow Episode 8 (2000AD, Prog 394) - Upon the Blasted Heath
(click image to embiggen)

Star Shadow Episode 9 (2000AD, Prog 395) - The Betrayer Unmasked
Star Shadow Episode 9 (2000AD, Prog 395) - The Betrayer Unmasked
(click image to embiggen)

Star Shadow Episode 10 (2000AD, Prog 396) - Tomb of the King
Star Shadow Episode 10 (2000AD, Prog 396) - Tomb of the King
(click image to embiggen)

Sunday 9 September 2012

Moviewatch: Grabbers

Grabbers is an Irish monster movie, yes you heard right, an Irish monster movie.  Set on the small island of Erin off the Irish coast which unwittingly becomes the new home of a breed of monstrous aliens after a meteor crash lands in the sea.  Alcoholic local policeman Richard Coyle (Coupling) is the unlikely hero who, with the help of straight-laced mainland policewoman Ruth Bradley (Primeval) and a bunch of sozzled locals, uncovers a series of strange deaths and sets about saving the islanders from an unspeakable tentacled horror.

Grabbers - Movie Poster
Grabbers - Movie Poster

Director Jon Wright makes excellent use of the small budge, aided by an ensemble cast including Russell Tovey (Being Human) and Bronagh Gallagher (The Commitments) to create a story which literally sucks you in.  He is of course aided by the fantastically picturesque town of Moville (near Derry) and economic use of a well thought-out and well executed CGI monster.

Essentially an Irish Tremors, Grabbers has its truly funny, if  little stereotypical, moments and there's plenty of shocks.  The monster is also quite scary, in a slimy tentacley way and plenty of craic is thrown in for good measure.

Tuesday 4 September 2012

Awesome Aliens T-Shirt

The guys at fingerfunk.se have produced this awesome Chestburster Augmented Reality T-Shirt. 

Chestburster!!
Download the accompanying ChestBurster app from either the iTunes or Android store (depending on your mobile OS) and then point your smartphone camera at the image on the T-Shirt for a surprise!

You can buy the high quality printed t-shirt from fingerfunk or just do what I did and print it onto iron-on inkjet paper.

Sunday 26 August 2012

Everyone is John

This Friday's game was postponed and a new GM, Thora, stepped up to the plate and offered to run a a one session game called Everyone is John.  I'd never heard of this game but as it was described as a rules light freeform competitive game, it was just up my alley.

John Cleese
John Cleese
The set-up for the game is simple, John is a normal bloke going about his day-to-day existence when he has a schitzophrenic episode and begins to listen to The Voice in his head.  Each player becomes a voice, with their own unique set of skills and obsessions.  However, John can only listen to one voice at a time so the players must bid using willpower to control The Voice and thereby influence what John does.  It's handy if you represent willpower with a bunch of tokens as players can simply reveal how many tokens they have in their hand.  The winning bidder then loses those tokens for the rest of the game.  

John is quite fickle and so control of The Voice only lasts for about 10 minutes or until a player fails a roll, at which time the bidding process starts again. 

SKILLS AND OBSESSIONS

Jon Bon Jovi
Jon Bon Jovi
Each player is then issued with 6 blank cards upon which they have to write 3 skills and 3 obsessions.  These are then randomly distributed to each player making sure nobody picked their own skills or obsessions.

Skills are used to reduce the difficulty of completing an action and can be actual skills (Boxing, PC Repair, Knowledge: Thermonuclear Devices), special abilities (Hail a cab first time everytime, ) or equipment (Letter Opener, Mobile Phone, Sonic Screwdriver).  Remember, the game is competitive and what you write down goes to your opponents so picking really usefull or powerful skills will most likely work against you.

Obsessions are your victory conditions and are ranked in 3 levels:

Jeanne D'Arc
Level 1 - Easy (pig out on candy, pick your nose on live TV)
Level 2 - Medium (steal a fast car, kiss a celebrity)
Level 3 - Hard (become President of the United States, Go to the Moon)

Each time you complete an obsession you score its Level, the more times you complete them the more points you score.  At the end of the game, the player with the most points is declared the winner.

HOW IT PLAYED FOR US

Our Skills

Can Touch
their Nose
with
Their Tongue
Tune a Guitar Eat Fire Can
Communicate
with a
Single Ant
Sonic Screwdriver Bricklaying Kung Fu Summon a
mode of
Transport by
Smoking
his Last
Cigarette
Can hail a cab
first time,
every time
Fly a plane Literary Criticism Become the
Master of the
Universe
by wearing a
traffic cone  on
his head
and singing
"I've got the Power,
To Pick up a flower"

Our Obsessions

LVL 1 Cook
an Ostrich
Become a
Buddhist
Monk
Pick Nose on
Live TV
Kick an
Authority Figure
up the Bum
and run away
like
Charlie Chaplin
LVL 2 Steal an
Atom Bomb
Stop a
Terrorist Bomb
from destroying
the
Eiffel Tower
Steal a
Waxwork of
Maggie
Thatcher
from
Madame
Tussauds
Draw a
moustache
on a
Traffic Warden
LVL 3 Capture
a Dinosaur
Discover
Australia
Find Evidence
that
Aliens Exist
in Area 51
Make a dog
have a
white poo

What John Did

John Shuttleworth
John Shuttleworth
John began the game walking through Victoria Station, London when he had his first episode.  He then ran outside the station and hailed a cab telling the driver to head for Madame Tussauds Waxwork Museum.  (BID)  He asked the driver to head instead for London Zoo and if he could stop by some road works on the way.  The taxi driver pulled over to the side of the road and John leap out and grabbed a traffic cone, stuck it on his head and started singing "Ive got the Power... To Pick up a Flower".  He then summoned forth all traffic wardens and got back in the taxi. 

As the taxi sped towards London Zoo, traffic wardens were walking out of side roads in a zombie-like trance.  The taxi driver swerved around them and John opened the window and tried to grab one as they passed but failed.  (BID)  John immediately demanded the taxi head to Madame Tussauds and he tried to use his sonic screwdriver to make the taxi go faster, but unfortunately failed.  (BID)  John abandoned the taxi and whilst smoking his last cigarette, summoned the TARDIS.  As it began to materialise he spotted a nearby Lollipop Woman and kicked her up the bum and ran towards the TARDIS (but unfortunately not like Charlie Chaplin).  The Doctor was suprised that the TARDIS had been so easily summoned but when John asked to go back in time to the Jurrasic era to capture a dinosaur, his curiosity got the better of him.

John Belushi
John Belushi
Arriving in the Jurrasic era, The Doctor agreed to wait in the TARDIS for John to return and watched him walk off into the swamp.  (BID)  John used his Literary Criticism to argue with himself that the Doctor was a fictional character and that the TARDIS was a poorly executed plot device and so could not possibly have transported him back through time.  This clearly meant that the swamp he was in was simply a Jurrasic era exhibit in a Natural History Museum somewhere like Sydney, Australia.  He promptly tore the shirt off his back and waved it around in the air and shouted "I claim this land in the name of Queen and Country and hereby name her Australia!!"...

Conclusion

The players got into the swing of things pretty quickly and it was definitely the most hilariously anarchic and inventive game I've played in a long time.  Most RPGs are not wild fights of fantasy for obvious reasons, but it is good to let your hair down every now and then to play something which demands unbridled creativity.  This game would be great in an after convention/party situation or as we found as a filler game if your regular DM hasn't turned up.

John McEnroe
John McEnroe
With slight modification to the pre-amble (Mental Health is a serious issue) and possibly pre-defined skills/goals (to keep the action a little more grounded) this concept could be used quite successfully as an introduction to RPGs for non-gamers.  It encourages problem solving through creativity and imagination and the action is fast paced with only a modicum of dice rolling so should be able to hold most people's attention.

This is definitely going into my GMs Survival Kit and may well get another play quite soon.

Friday 24 August 2012

A Fresh-ish look at Goblins

After a year long hiatus I'm back at work hanging more meat on the bones of my campaign world.  A long time ago I decided to have one of the land masses, Khorngeldte, inhabited by the goblinoid races who were locked in an incessant war with their neighbhours, the teutonic humans of Wulfschlossen.  This has been largely restricted to both sides forming raiding parties which cross the narrow Straits of Desperation.

In my last campaign I hacked an old Dungeon Magazine scenario for the Therran Campaign (The Secrets of the Towers) in order to visit Korngeldte and introduce two new characters, a Wulfschlossian Knight and his enslaved Half-Orc tracker of undetermined orgin.  Essentially the towers became a convenient plot device allowing the PCs to escape numerous pursuers, cheat death and travel great distances quickly, but importantly, it allowed me to break ground on an untravelled section of my campaign world.

Inevitably this caused me to think about the bigger picture and how the goblinoid races fit into the world, and in the best traditions of world building, do something different which the players won't be expecting.

Goblin by Marcus Dublin
Revisiting Goblinoid Stats

When looking at the D20 SRD we find that as stats go goblins are the weakest goblinoid races, but what they lose in physical strength they make up for in cunning and dexterity.  This lead me to the conclusion that if they are to be able to build (and sustain) a kingdom capable of waging war across the straits of desperation then they must rely on either technology or magic.  

A similar concept is seen in the Lord of The Rings movies where the goblins essentially assist Saruman in the construction of his Uruk army as blacksmiths, engineers and medieval geneticists.

Comparing the stat blocks for the major goblin/orc races shows that in every case goblins do not suffer an INT penalty making them far more likely to develop technologies to compensate for their small size and weak nature.

STR INT DEX CON WIS CHA TRIBE SIZE FAV. CLASS
GOBLIN -2 - 2 - - -2 40-400 Rogue
HOB-GOBLIN - - 2 2 - - 30-300 Fighter
BUGBEAR 4 - 2 2 - -2 0-20 Rogue
ORC 4 -2 - - -2 -2 30-100 Barbarian
HALF-ORC 2 -2 - - - -2 - Barbarian

Goblin Blacksmith from
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Goblins only have an improved DEX stat but their Rogue class leanings lends nicely to the idea that they are tinkerers and inventors as well as skulking backstabbers.  This is supported in the Warhammer universe where the goblins are seen to be quite inventive in nature and get all manner of cool, if shoddily constructed, war machines like the Spear Chukka, the Skull Crusher and the Man Mangoler.  One of my favourite depictions of a goblin was in the movie Hellboy II: The Golden Army where the Elf King employed the goblins to manufacture an unstoppable army of robots to wage war on humanity. 

Another popular goblin trope is that of the Warg or Wolf riding goblin which suggests they have become accomplished animal handlers in order to seize a tactical advantage.  Using animals as beasts of burden and ultimately as a power source for machinery is a necessary step upon the ladder of technological evolution.

Hob-Goblins are slightly less numerous and do not suffer the CHA penalty which hints at a possible demi-human connection.  Their Fighter class makes them likely to resolve conflict through arms rather than cunning so I can quite happily see them being turned into some sort of specially bred warrior class.

Bugbears are the rarest of all the goblins and their propensity for living in caves in very small tribes esssentially writes them off for me as a potential leader.

Orcs are basically big, strong, dumb, savage, barbarians and have significantly smaller tribe sizes than goblins which leads me to conclude that an organised goblin leader could control these creatures in small numbers if he found suitable forms of leverage as a reward for loyalty such as an addiction to a psychotropic brew or some other delicacy that the Orcs enjoyed but could not manufacture for themselves... human flesh perhaps?

Half-Orcs occupy an uncomfortable middle ground in my world, they are despised by both Humans and Orcs for not being Human or Orc enough but are an unhappy by-product of Orc raids.  I have already used a Half-Orc PC as an enslaved tracker and suspect that the goblins will have some sort of menial place for those Half-Orcs that escape the clutches of the their trueblood bretheren.

The Goblin King

Putting David Bowie's portrayal of the Goblin King Jhared aside, the concept of a Goblin King features in many myths and legends.  Some etymological research suggests that the word "Gob" or "Ghob" refers specifically to the King of the Gnomes and that Goblings are lesser gnomes.  I need a Goblin King to rule my Goblin Kingdom and see this role being filled by a goblin of unnatural intelligence, cunning and deceit.  A goblin society founded on the meritocrious principle that any goblin could rise to be the ruler through cunning, deceit and backstabbery might also produce a peculiar class of goblin politicians which I find perversely appealing.

Goblin King by Tristan HaoHao

Technology


In order cross the Straits of Desperation, my goblin war bands would need boats, these could be orc powered in the form of a bireme or longship, but if the goblins have started their own industrial revolution then a more fitting form of transport would be crude steamships.  My background for the goblin capital Tak Mor has this situated between the "Iron Tree Forest" which supplies the ore for smelting and the "Fetid Sea" which the goblins are polluting with their oil waste.

I am particularly enamoured by the Empire Landship models produced by Warhammer Forge.  I'm sure that any Wulfschlossonian villagers would be terrified if they saw one of these monstrosities lurching out of the sea on its paddle-wheels.

Marienburg Class Empire Landship - expertly painted by James Wappel
I know I'm not the first person to suggest the concept of intelligent goblins, but I feel that their current niche in the fantasy bestiary as monster minions just doesn't do them justice.

A to Z of Judge Dredd at Quaequam

In anticipation of the UK cinema release of the new Judge Dredd film on the 7th of September.

I'm highlighting my old chum James Graham who is currently blogging an A to Z of Judge Dredd which is well worth a look.

Keep up the good work Jim.

Saturday 18 August 2012

The Super Secret Happy Birthday Gary Gygax Giveaway Bundle Extravapalooza!

WOTC reprint 1st Edition Players Handbook
WOTC reprint
1st Edition Players Handbook

The Secret DM is running a great contest with an awesome prize...

A complete set of WOTCs recently reprinted 1st edition AD&D books!!


and

The chance to have your submission published in a professionally produced digital edition!!


All you have to do is to come up with a 10 room dungeon which evokes the feeling of 1st edition and submit your entry to thesecretdm@gmail.com with the subject line Gygax Contest.

The contest runs until 27th September 2012, so get your designing pens out... I know I will.


Thursday 16 August 2012

August 2012 RPG Blog Carnival - What's in your Backpack?

The Gassy Gnoll of Game Knight Reviews is hosting this month's RPG Blog Carnival and asks the question "What's in your Backpack?" to which I answer "Item Cards".

A selection of item cards
A sample of item cards - Available as a free PDF from RPG NOW

Now you may think that this is just a piece of blatant self promotion, but in reality this is a question which has plagued some of my (and possible your) games for years...

THE BACKPACK OF HOLDING

These non-magical backpacks, which are entirely indistinguishable from a normal backpack, bestow upon certain players the uncanny ability to pull out exactly the right item with which to execute their plan and save the day in the nick of time.  When challenged these players will often say that they've had the item for ages or that they bought it in that town they visited 6 months ago. 

In the interests of game play it is often best not to argue, but there are times when it can be detrimental to the natural flow of the plot and you need the party to have eaten their last lembas cake, supped their last drop of water or be confronted by the reality that they don't have a rope to their name when they've got a rope type dilemma.

ENCUMBERANCE IS A CHORE

As Berin Kingsman writes, the backpack is "an in-game manifestation of my least-favorite mechanic: encumbrance" and I've got to agree with him.  Maintaining your equipment list as a part of your character sheet is a downright chore but it also presents a few other problems.

1.  Character sheets are a player's preserve not the GM's - When GMing, I'm pretty busy and certainly don't have time to ensure that your equipment is in order and that you've been marking off your rations like a good little player, that's your job!!.  However, this is easily rectified through item cards.  Basically, if you can't produce it when challenged then tough, you simply don't have it.  You can't argue all you want that you left it in your other backpack or it's in the saddlebags on the horse which is currently enjoying a holiday in the dragon's belly, but you'll only look stupid in front of the other players.  This also cures the "infinite spell components" faux pas which affects most spellcaster PCs.

2.  PC thieves steal from other PCs, fact! - How many times has your party contained a kleptomaniac PC who likes to look through everyones gear, well now they can, safe in the knowledge that they won't see any secret annotations on the victim PCs character sheet.  Just hand them the contents of your backpack and let them rifle through to their hearts content.  Better still, do it secretly and the victim PC might not even notice that the item is gone.

3.  PCs lose stuff all the time - If you had a 300 year old heirloom sword you'd look after it right?  Not PCs, they leave these things on inn tables, in slain dragons, on the floor, under pillows, in fact everywhere other than in their scabbard or sword belt.  Now unless these weapons are magical hammers like Mjolnir, most will only return to their owners hand with the assistance of copious amounts of strong elastic, which the last time I looked wasn't in their backpack!! 

Again the item card comes to the rescue, when they lose an item they have to give it up to the GM and it is lost unless they make a concerted effort to find it.  This also goes for those clumsy characters who seem to find every ravine or cliff edge and then fall off it, you break it you lose it.

Medieval Flint and Steel
A Medieval Flint and Steel
4.  Finding stuff is fun and rewarding - Finding shiny stuff is a pleasure that can often become dull with time.  But you should see your players eyes light up when you give them a new card with a picture of a diamond necklace, or a +1 magic spoon of dining.  It's like watching a bunch of kids opening pokemon boosters, all their birthdays and christmasses have come at once. 

But seriously, having a representation of an item can also be incredibly useful and educational.  A fact I discovered Whilst researching the images for my item cards.  My preconceptions about what an item looked like or how it was used were frequently challenged.  Just take the common or garden flint and steel, for years I imagined a piece of flint and a knurled steel rod (just like I used when I was a boy scout), but the medieval version was actually hoop shaped and held in the fist like a knuckle duster.

Likewise, I find players treat their loot differently when they can visualise it with a jewellery card or a gemstone card.  You can even make items critical to your plot in the form of a key or the parts of a puzzle.  When I last ran "Challenge of Champions" I created item cards for each of items provided in each challenge which was an immense help to my players (who are not all card carrying D&D geeks) when they tried to solve the puzzles in real time.

5.  50' of hemp rope is pretty large and heavy - This is the bit of encumberance which is frankly a cludge, as it's usually interpreted  as a function of weight and not a factor of bulk.  Other items aren't easily stowed such as a 10 foot pole.  It only takes up one slot on an equipment list but it doesn't fit in a backpack which means it has to be either put together in sections or you have to hold it.  Which leads on to the next problem...

6.  PCs only have one pair of hands, usually - The classic faux pas of most players is that they're so busy fighting with a two-handed weapon they forget that they're still taking the AC bonus from their shield.  Item cards come in handy (pardon the pun) as a visual reminder of what their PC is holding at any one time, a concept familiar to Legend of Zelda players the world over.  The logical extension of this is for players to arrange their cards in a series of stacks as a visual reminder, I normally define this as the BACK (carried on your back) RIGHT (hand), LEFT (hand), WORN (on a belt or on your head) and STOWED (on a horse or in a backpack) stacks. 

This is a particularly useful mechanic when either entering or engaged in combat,  as player will need to decide what they are going to attack with before hand.  If they lose a weapon through a fumbled roll they may need to draw a different one.  Spellcasters and other non-combat specialists may become embroiled and have to use up combat rounds fishing about in a backpack for that wand or pot of greek fire that they want to use.  It really does make a difference to how your party treats combat.



Thanks of course go to Of Dice and Dragons for continuing to promote the RPG Blog Carnival.  This is my 3rd entry and you can read the rest by clicking the RPG Blog Carnival tag below.


Wednesday 15 August 2012

The Stainless Steel Rat is no more, RIP Harry Harrison

Stainless Steel Rat author Harry Harrison has passed away aged 87.  He will be sorely missed.

Stainless Steel Rat for President
2000AD Prog 393

Sunday 12 August 2012

Make: iPhone Dice Tower

iPhone 3G box - nicely sized for use  as a dice tower or dice box
iPhone 3G box - nicely sized for use
as a dice tower or dice box
iPhone dice tower: Prepare to decouple
Prepare to decouple
iPhone dice tower: Decoupled!
Decoupled!
iPhone dice tower: ready to nest
Ready to nest
iPhone dice tower: Nested and ready for action!
Nested and ready for action!!
Okay, so it's not a dice tower made out of actual iphones, rather just the extremely sturdy boxy it came in.  I stumbled on this instructable the other day and knocked this out in a lull between olympic events last night.   

My iphone 3G got stolen a couple of years ago and I still had the box, so i decided to put the box to good use.  The 3G box is considerably larger than either the 3GS or the iphone 4 boxes (as used in the instructable) and makes a more practicle dice tower and also doubles as a capacious dice box. 

I followed the general guide in the instructable, but as I wasn't using exactly the same box, I needed to fiddle with the dimensions of the opening hole.  I also elected to just go with one baffle which throws the dice forwards onto the cradle and then down onto the 45 degree baffle at the bottom.  I think that the second baffle's job is to slow down the dice, lessening bounce-out, so I would reccommend that you stick with the instructable and put 2 baffles in if you try this yourself. 

After construction I discovered that my hand was just a bit too podgy to comfortably retrieve the dice and the visibility from an observers point of view was also quite poor.

It was a trivial matter to trim the edges of the lid at a angle to rectify this whilst maintaining its function as a lid.  I also discovered during modification that there is enough material in the off-cuts to make your baffles.  It is entirely possible to construct the dice tower solely from the contents of the iphone box with no need to resort to scraps of foam board.  Of course you will still need the glue to hold the whole thing together.


The other advantage of the using an iphone 3G box is that it comes with foam pre-glued into the lid already, which dramtically reduces the chance of dice bouncing out.