For some time, I've been looking at Future Armada's Invictus with a curious eye, but I haven't had actual need for it. A few days ago I run a session of Babylon 5 and went to check what DriveThruRpg has to offer. I had been looking at High Space's Euphoria as I was planning to use it's setting Lantern as a base for the game.
There's a few words I'd like to share with you about using 3d-terrain and/or maps/tiles - what to use and why, and share my experiences about some maps and tiles I've used. And while I love modelling and creating cool terrain setups in my games, I've been moving towards using map tiles in my games instead of 3d props, and there's several reasons for that, which I'm going to tell you more about below. I've also added a few review-ish about tiles/terrains on this post.
The story continues from last session; heroes are in almost hopeless situation!
After all the recent setbacks, we really need a victory - bring me one! With these words from Admiral Ackbar echoing on their minds, the heroes left for planet Duram, where diplomatic negotiations have halted, apparently becausr of fear of fate of Calessia.
Situation continues where the heroes are watching the bridge where they are supposed to give the ransom for Zira, the barmaid. Kylis's player was late, Tereis and Würful moved to the other side of the river (poorer part of the town) while Doris waited on their own side of the bridge for the midnight. Würful spent some time in tavern but made both his smart and vigor check to be at the scene in time and in a good condition. Godzul's and Sonam's players weren't present. Some of the group wondered if not-so-bright -looking Gor could really have devised Zira's kidnapping.
The campaign continues after a half-year party! Falchor's player has left the game and a new player has entered the game. Godzul's player wasn't present and Falchor was looking for Godzul (who apparently was arrested for Drunken hooliganism, just like Doris - together they had somehow become owners of an tavern!). The group met near the marketplace where an execution was about to take place. The heroes weren't very happy as the situation looked like an execution of generally innocent people from Savannah - apparently current Autarch (who didn't appear very sane) had something against people of Savannah.
Second session confirms that this is the right way to do a Star Wars rpg campaign! A good sign of a great rpg session is that you ignore all the snacks in the table and reserved for the game for the whole session... This continues the story started in the first session. A new character, Chass 'Jazz' O'Brien entered the game in reinforcements arriving from Alessia II, flying an X-wing.
So I got Jalizar - City of Thieves(link is external) just before Christmas in July -sales - which is good for you if you're interested in this great urban setting, as I got my review written when there's still little time to buy it on sale if you hurry. I had to finish this review in a hurry, so I apologise if I've forgotten something
And so it begins - the Star Wars campaign done the right way this time! It's more than half a year since the beginning thoughts about a Savage Star Wars campaign, and now the first session is behind. While I wanted to run the campaign more improvising way, I wanted to plan the first session so it would have a lot of different elements the campaign would consist of: Flying in dangerous circumstances, doomsday weapons, darker aspects of war, spies, politicans driving their own agendas, chases, close combat (although this part was quite minimal), dogfights. The session ended to a potential mass combat situation.
May the 4th be with you! This is an excellent day to speak about what makes a great Star Wars roleplaying game. Star Wars as a whole is epic, larger-than-life, heroic, pulpy action, exciting, it has large fleet battles, chases, dogfights, hutts, scoundrels, smugglers, droids, bounty hunters, a large number of aliens, huge beasts and wondrous planets and other locations, usually quite extreme in some way. One big part in the movies are also personal growth stories.
Digging through old stuff, I found something I could use for this year's MayDay party - a mask inspired by Gary Larson's Far Side comics. A 15-year old mask that had gone through a rough party and several migrations was a bit in a bad shape, but usable anyways. But a I was hosting a party and the mask was quite clumsy (especially what come to vision), I couldn't keep the mask on for very long. It seemed to do quite an impression to the kids though, who surrounded me fast, wanting to make me reveal my face :)
I spent this Easter in France - a few days in Paris and a few in La Rochelle. I thought of writing a few words to those visiting these places and in hope of finding interesting game- related stuff.