tcpip | RPG Review 8, Fox Magic and Other Gaming Events

Being a old-school tabletop RPG gamer is not very cool. It's rather like admitting you're an ELO fan. It is not, of course, wrong as such, but it is going to have you marked as rather seriously nerdy and perhaps lacking in refined taste. It is possible of course to redeem oneself depending on other expressions of taste, in which case such aesthetics is treated with a nod and smile.

So this said I think that Time is one of the best LPs ever released; a rather appropriate way to announce the release of RPG Review Issue 8 (after two very late nights finishing it off), which has a strong (but not exclusive) science fiction orientation. I am rather happy with the range of games this issue covers, but as the editorial states, I pretty mcuh had to exclude the entire transhumanist orientation; traditional science fiction is now a literary genre, transhumanism has become the mythology and I just didn't have space to include both.

I have also been delighted to receive my copy of

tashiro's game, Fox Magic. I reviewed this some months ago and noted some style and substance issues. Almost immediately after the review, the author pulled the product and the new version has been revised with much better layout and extra text, including my own chapter on using Nihon as a setting. My densely written material covers geography, history, politics, religion & etc and is about as exciting as reading Talcott Parsons. Nevertheless I am quite proud to have so much included in the book.

In the past several days I've several good actual gaming experiences; on Monday night I introduced some people to HeroQuest using the Flying Kites scenario. The players grasped the rules quickly and enjoyed the unified, simple and yet adaptable mechanics. On Sunday I ran a session of RuneQuest, the beginnings of the Haunted Ruins setting. Finally on Thursday I GMed a session of Mouse Guard using The Enemy Within story from Warhammer.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Warhammer... now there's a world I'm happy not to live in.

*nods* That's why I thought it would be a good fit for Mouse Guard, which is pretty grim anyway. Just turnin' up the volume a little bit.

A Great issue of RPGR. I was happy to see the Terran Trade Authority RPG competently reviewed. I really enjoyed your retrospective of Traveller. As a veteran of the game I liked taking the trip down memory lane, it was the first game I purchased as a teen gamer, I acquired the set in 1982 and still have it. I recently re-read Asimov's Foundation series and it dawned on me how much to the Traveller official milieu seems sourced from that series, right down to the Imperial sunburst. Well if being a PnP RPG gamer is uncool then brand me uncool, especially after that Asimov comment. Good work.

Thanks MOB, you love for Traveller is certainly notable and the game deserves its muchly, and I really appreciate the praise for this issue. I do feel that there is something quite special about it (even if there was nada on Star Wars or Star Trek... Another time!)

And yes about Asimov. It's been decades since I've read Asimov's works... But something did always strike me about Traveller.. Where are the robots? There's so few of them! Given how central they were to Isaac...

For some reason, Asimov didn't put robots in his galactic-scale story series. The attempt to fix up the Foundation books with the Robot books practically gets tennis elbow reaching for a contrived explanation, though nowadays we would just say "smart" robots were discarded because it was too easy to rules-lawyer them into bad failure behaviors, like facilitating but not actually committing crimes or taking over human governments.

Traveller also borrowed just as much from robotless sources like Anderson's Nicholas Flandy stories and Piper's Space Viking et al, with some Niven and Pournelle.

Robots (by the catodon)
I have the Robots book for classic traveller. THey retcon three reasons for robot sparcity. First AI is difficult to do requiring a good TL, second cultural bias, and third the robots have actually always been there but a member of a high tech society would no more note them than we would spend pay much attention to a toaster.

I think all those points are a bit of a furphy.. Firstly, robots don't need good AI, secondly cultural biases just don't last that long and nor are they so homogenous and as for the third, they certainly gave plenty of time to other technologies...

Your ELO analogy is priceless!

I thought of it about 24 hours and I'm trying to work out whether I can make into a full article in it's own right.

I think ELO-fancying in particular got some rehab from being the recreation of choice by the Doctor Watchers in the Tenth Doctor's first season.

D&D at least has some cred in the US from gamer celebs like Stephen Colbert and Wil Wheaton.

Ah yes, that rather silly "Turn To Stone" episode.

Do you think that that Colbert and Wheaton was behind the remark about the 'pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd'.

I think Wehaton might be pro-O but he not very high profile outside of geek circles anymore - I think Colbert is too canny to openly commit.

Supposedly Vin Diesel is a gamer, and there's a lot of gamery set decoration in big budget films (Harry Potter's roomies have polyhedra dice, the kids who get caught in the Haunted Mansion apparently play Magic the Gathering). Robin Williams is supposed be into Warhammer minis, and Squad Leader is kept in print by some MLB player I can't remember.

Dude, you might want to correct the date and issue number on the page footer.

That's what I get for finishing it at 1am in the morning.

I owe you a beer. :)

i am an ELO fan :-)
my 22 year old son loves tabletop rpg. started when he was about 12, and still plays to this day. i thought it was excellent and fully supported it... all the imagination and writing in the preparation and game was fantastic. games would go non stop for days at a time. really wonderful.

really over "cool" people. who cares! you are either nice or not nice, (to put it simply). i have a girl friend who always gives me a hard time for my "lack" of fashion sense. so boring to be judged on clothes... or playing rpg tabletop style... i reckon that kind of attitude is oldschool, and not in the cool way, its really stupid!!

lol, on a bit of a rant aren't i! sorry. :-)

all the imagination and writing in the preparation and game was fantastic

World and story construction in pre-game activities, socialisation and expressiveness during the game. *nods* Yeah, it's a great hobby.

you are either nice or not nice, (to put it simply)

Well, yes, that is the appropriate moral judgement. One can be a big dag and still an excellent person, I don't think anyone (well, anyone worth knowing) would disagree with that.

Excellent - Foresight and 3:16 two games of which I've been interested in quite recently!

A note on 3:16 - I recently posted a comment on the website "Carnage Amongst the Web" (http://316carnage.com/) - a good resource for the game and includes fantasy variants (and Star Wars etc). I've made some quick and dirty maps for anyone running the campaign variant mentioned ono that site.
http://316carnage.com/2009/10/21/campaign-rules-by-madcow/comment-page-1/#comment-93

Good DWAITAS review - it may be worth mentioning that Cubicle 7 is republishing the game with the new Doctor as artwork. We're in the dark currently as to what other changes there will be - but this republishing has pushed back the dates for some supplements to come out which has some players annoyed.

You weren't able to use the PHP script for random generation of races I put on scribd? I thought it'd be more accessible there, just cut and paste.

Excellent - Foresight and 3:16 two games of which I've been interested in quite recently!

I'll be interested in seeing how Foresight develops. I think 3:16 has potential, but at the moment there simply isn't enough in terms of game system to be a good S&T game, and there isn't enough setting to make it a good roleplaying game. Resource management is OK, tho...

You weren't able to use the PHP script for random generation of races I put on scribd?

That will be for the next issue... :)

I see 3:16 as basically Roughnecks: The RPG. It's ideal for GMs who have a fair bit of military knowledge - either actual or just fans of war movies. Just because you need to bluff with authority in order to GM 3:16, and need to make up missions that sound plausible.

RPG Review 8, Fox Magic and Other Gaming Events

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Nerds Of The World Unite! We Have Nothing To Lose Except our D20!

Re: Nerds Of The World Unite! We Have Nothing To Lose Except our D20!

Re: Nerds Of The World Unite! We Have Nothing To Lose Except our D20!

Re: Nerds Of The World Unite! We Have Nothing To Lose Except our D20!

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