Category Archives: Geek Materialism

Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine

So, after all this time, the folks at nuChaosium decided to embrace the concept of a standalone core BRP book after all. Which leads us to BRP: Universal Game Engine. BRPUGE was released in PDF back in the spring and is now available in print. Buy it direct from Chaosium and you get the PDF for free with the print version. My physical edition just arrived, so here are a few thoughts and some pictures.

BRPUGE is nicely bound and:

  • has the now largely obligatory ribbon bookmark
  • is printed on crisp, creamy, uncoated paper
  • has charming new color & b/w art
  • is 99.44% a cleaned up & in-print version of the 2010-era Big Gold Book

All-in-all seems to be worth the money if you’re someone who plays BRP games. Or just wish you were. Or happen to be a BRP completist.

I have read that a few things have been excised from this edition (when compared to the aforementioned BGB), but I haven’t gone hunting to confirm or uncover anything specific. Supposedly Strike Rank rules as well as rules for treating Attack and Parry as two separate skills for melee weapons have been omitted. But I’ve never cared for SRs and splitting Attack/Parry is too fiddly for my tastes. So, meh?

On the whole it looks nice and feels good but it is not, strictly speaking, an essential purchase. However, if BRP interests you and you don’t have the BGB already (or if you want to communicate to nuChaosium with yer scratch that you think BRP is worthy of existing as a standalone book alongside its more integrated flavors like RQ and CoC), well, it becomes an essential purchase then, doesn’t it?

Additionally, I think this edition is covered under one of the post-OGL fiasco licenses so it could in theory be used to publish one’s own materials. But I’m not a lawyer and also not exactly burning it up over here producing RPG material to publish so, ah, do your own research on that, comrades.

My final verdict is that holding the book makes me want to play games with the system. And in the end, that’s enough. Now if I can just dredge up some players. Sigh.

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dT&T: The Voyage of the Panora

Wherein your humble scribe presents a group of noble warriors for Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls. Why? Because his long-awaited hardback from the agonizingly (if moderately understandably) oft-delayed Kickstarter arrived at long last yesterday. Pictures of the book provided for your enjoyment.

Erginius of Autoria’s lost classic, The Panoriad, tells the tale of Alkibiades of Pythos and the journey he undertook to recover the Lyre of Tiros for the glory of Pythos and to win the love of Queen Meliana. The charming and charmed Alkibiades – a brilliant historian and philosopher with a talent for preparing spanakopita so delicious that Hera herself declared it the finest outside of Mount Olympus – recruited a disparate band to join him on his quest. Lasthenes, captain of the Panora. Echephron the beast tamer. Isagoras the tale-teller. Thestor, famed bronzesmith of Xaneira. Philonikos the Giant. And, of course, all of the unnamed Panoranauts who perished as the quest continued.

Among the dangers faced by Alkibiades and his compatriots included the Nacippe – a legendary sea serpent, the Oedes – twin tigers of Tartarus, the Haleclyphes – an army of damned souls risen from the River Styx, and Belemeos, son of Hades.

The tragedy of The Panoriad, of course, is that its ending has been lost to time. Many scholars have their own theories, and many fragments and forgeries have been discovered over the centuries, but none have been accepted by the academic community as definitive.

The Panoranauts

Alkibiades of Pythos / Human / Warrior 3 / 5′ 9″ 160 lbs
STR 16 CON 6 DEX 9 SPD 7 INT 14 WIZ 12 LK 16 CHR 32*
Combat Adds +8 Wt Possible 1,600 WU
Talents Cooking (+3), History (+3), Philosophy (+3)
Mace (5d6), Short Sword (3d6), Target Shield (4)

Lasthenes / Human / Warrior 1 / 5′ 7″ 155 lbs
STR 14 CON 12 DEX 14 SPD 14 INT 6 WIZ 11 LK 9 CHR 11
Combat Adds +6 Wt Possible 1,400 WU
Talents Knot Tying (+3)
Medium Spear (4d6), Short Sword (3d6), Target Shield (4)

Echephron / Human / Warrior 1 / 5′ 10″ 180 lbs
STR 13 CON 6 DEX 10 SPD 12 INT 8 WIZ 16 LK 16 CHR 19*
Combat Adds +5 Wt Possible 1,300 WU
Talents Animal Handling (+3)
Broad Axe (5d6), Short Sword (3d6), Target Shield (4)

Isagoras / Human / Warrior 1 / 5′ 10″ 170 lbs
STR 13 CON 9 DEX 19* SPD 10 INT 13 WIZ 6 LK 9 CHR 9
Combat Adds +8 Wt Possible 1,300 WU
Talents Storytelling (+3)
Short Sword (3d6), Javelin (3d6), Target Shield (4)

Thestor of Xaneira / Human / Warrior 1 / 5′ 5″ 145 lbs
STR 13 CON 12 DEX 14 SPD 10 INT 12 WIZ 12 LK 8 CHR 7
Combat Adds +3 Wt Possible 1,300 WU
Talents Bronzesmith (+3)
Broad Axe (5d6), Short Sword (3d6), Target Shield (4)

Philonikos / Human / Warrior 1 / 6′ 7″ 250 lbs
STR 14 CON 10 DEX 9 SPD 5 INT 7 WIZ 6 LK 11 CHR 10
Combat Adds +2 Wt Possible 1,400 WU
Talents Merchant (+3)
Medium Spear (4d6), Short Sword (3d6), Target Shield (4)

The Antagonists

Belemeos, Son of Hades
MR 150
Special Damage: 1/2 (double Spite); 5/Dem Bones (MR 50 Skeletons)
Special Abilities: Bone Armor (10)

Belemeos is a demigod, son of Hades and the mortal woman Polytio. He serves as a guardian of treasures that have been consigned to his father’s realm. He wears armor constructed of the bones of dead heroes and stands well over 9′ high.

The Haleclyphes
MR 120 (8 X15)
Special Damage: 1/1 (normal Spite); 4/Curse You (Level 12, Targets CON)
Special Abilities: Impervious to missile damage

Seeming at first like a dense, swirling fog, the individual spirits that comprise the Haleclyphes rise from the Styx to repel any who would cross without the express approval of Charon.

The Oedes
MR 90 (45 X2)
Special Damage: 1/3 (triple Spite);
Special Abilities: Tough Hide (8)

As black as the grave, the twin tigers of Tartarus stalk the shores of the Styx hungry for any living flesh they can devour.

Nacippe
MR 70
Special Damage: 1/1 (normal Spite); 6/Blasting Power (Level 7)
Special Abilities: Tough Hide (15)

Nacippe is a red-hued sea serpent that preys upon smaller vessels across the breadth of the Sea, breathing fire to destroy the ships and deliciously roast their crews.

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Obsolete Simulations Roundup: DROIDS

Obsolete Simulations Roundup!

Background: 1982

Nineteen Eighty-Two was a watershed year for RPG releases. Among the noteworthy games that saw print that year were the Basic Roleplaying Worlds of Wonder box set, Bunnies & Burrows, Daredevils, GangBusters and Star Frontiers, the original FASA Star Trek RPG, and the nicely combined into one package Traveller as found in The Traveller Book. That’s a mighty fine vintage right there, and I’m proud to count a number of those gems in my collection to this day.

Ad for Droids from The Space Gamer #65

Ad for Droids from The Space Gamer #65

Not among the noteworthy releases, but still released in 1982 was a little game called Droids: A Cybernetic Role-Playing Game written by Neil Patrick Moore and published by Integral Games out of Arlington, Texas. I never could get my hands on this slim little book back in the day, despite seeing ads for it in Space Gamer (among other mags of the time). Oh, I tried to get it. I asked constantly at Lone Star Comics. I even begged my mom to drive me to some other store on the outskirts of Dallas who claimed to have a copy. When they didn’t, I gave them a few bucks to special order it, but it never materialized.

My impression of the game from the advertising was that it was set in a world where mankind had managed to destroy itself in a massive nuclear war that these machines had managed to survive (the physics of the electromagnetic pulse didn’t really register with my young brain). So here was the nightmare of every cold war kid made somehow palatable by the continuation of “life” on earth in the form of these sentient robots who were still out there trying to survive.

This impression held through the demo game I either played in at Origins ’84. My memories of the session are sketchy at best, but I think we were out in a desert somewhere and descending on a service depot to try to get more ammunition or something. I do know that the feeling I got from the game was akin to the feeling I got watching the video for Robert Plant’s Big Log – isolation, loneliness, and ennui:

Despite living in essentially the same city as the producers and having been in close proximity to the game at the big con, I still never managed to get a copy. Not long after that I dropped most of my RPG habit in the name of being a rock ‘n’ roll bassist and completely forgot about Droids altogether.

The Game In Hand: 2010

Nearly thirty years later, after having wandered my way into and out of RPGs as a hobby more than once (and still playing bass), my wife asked back-into-RPGs me what I wanted for my birthday. I had pretty much everything I needed or wanted in life, but there was something nagging at the back of my mind. Something about… robots? No, not robots. Some other word. Mechs? No. Just ‘bots? No. Droids! That was it. And it turned out that Noble Knight had a copy in their fabulous vaults of out of print games, so she ordered it for me. I really do love that woman.

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I don’t know what I was expecting, physically, but I was a little surprised to discover that the Droids book was a slim 80 page digest (5½” X 8½”). I guess it had loomed large enough in my memory that I was looking for a huge, dusty tome or something. But that’s definitely not what this game is. Physically it fits right in with the Traveller little black books, which is probably appropriate somehow.

The Game Itself

Yeah, yeah. You didn’t come here to read about my childhood or how cool my wife is, I know. You want to know something about this game you’ve (probably) never heard of. Well, let’s get to it, then.

Introduction

The game opens with a bit of background, explaining that man made droid and droid overthrew man because organic life is squishy and inferior. Hmm, that’s not what I’d pictured at all. Weird. Oh well, it’s an interesting concept. Somebody ought to make a movie where humanity is overthrown by its mechanical creations… Anyway, apparently the droids weren’t content to be rid of the humans. Nope, their own internecine wars raged on until “the machine wars left no victory, and threw the world into total anarchy with every droid left to fend for itself.” Mecha-Atlas shrugged, I guess.

After the history lesson, we’re advised to get our manipulating units on some notebook paper, graph paper, and “a pair of differently colored twenty-sided percentile dice,” the rolling of which is explained immediately. We’re also given a quick explanation of the metric system, complete with rough conversion values. That’s handy.

Droid Construction

With that bit of setup out of the way, it’s time to start building droids. To build a droid you need to know that you’ve got 20 Construction Points (CP). CO represent the cost of each unit that is used to build a droid. Apparently some units will be listed that are completely unaffordable and “must be sought out once play begins.” Now we have an idea of what droids consider treasure.

Each unit also has both a Power Consumption (PC) stat and number of Bulk Points (BP). PC ranges from 0 to 6 for most units, but can go quite high (topping out in the rules at 40 for the Omegatron/Dragon Ray laser). It’s worth noting that PC can be zero, but that just means there’s no appreciable draw from a power source, even though the unit must be connected to one. BP indicate a unit’s size and weight, with 1 BP representing approximately an area of 0.1 m³ and a mass of 12 kg.

Droids have brains, too. That’s where the droid’s “personality and decision making circuitry” reside. These are metal cubes 10 cm on a side which have effectively 0 BP. A brain must be attached to a power source, though they can survive for up to 24 hours on internal battery backup. Longer than that w/o power and it’s adios, droid. Droid brains may be located and removed on any droid which is under 10 BP in size. So if you blow a bunch of units off of a big droid, you can pick its brain…

Building a droid is pretty much an exercise in menu selection. Pick some transport units (wheels, legs, VTOL propellers, hydrofoils, helium balloons, tunneling drills, and so on) first, or else you’ll be stuck in one spot. Picks some manipulative units next so you can interact with the world. Choose some power units to provide the juice (power units have negative PC values rather than providing a budget of PC points, FYI).

Pick up a viewing unit or two (cameras, night scopes, etc.), some sensor units (sound sensors, radar and such), and communications units (light communicators are blinking rows of lights, voice communicators let you talk & include listening, radio transmitters let you pump up the volume, etc.) so you’re not Tommy. Be sure to snag some interfaces accessing data and modules for storing programs and data, too.

Once all of the above is handled, it’s time to talk weapons. Because, as you’ll recall, it’s every droid for itself and you’re going to need to resort to violence. See, as a droid you’re superior to those pesky humans who created you, but apparently they built their propensity for conflict into you. Or maybe they released a virus in the waning days of their existence that was meant to cause the droids to fight amongst themselves or something. Who knows? Anyway, weapons.

The armaments available to the discerning droid in whatever year this is include (but are not limited to) machine guns, gauss guns, cannon, rocket launchers, lasers (alpha, beta, gamma and the aforementioned omega ray varieties), ion and plasma cannons, and, of course, mines and flamethrowers and such. Just make sure you load up on the appropriate ammo, too. Happiness may be a warm gun, but and empty gun no bang bang, shoot shoot.

Of course, if you can have weapons the other droids probably have them, too. Thus, you’ll probably be interested in picking up some general purpose deflector screens or some armor to protect specific units on your droid. Screens protect a set value vs. either projectile or energy weapons. Armor is ablative and protects against either weapon category.

Now that you’re finished out your droi… But wait! There’s more. What kind of game would this be if it didn’t offer up a number of “Miscellaneous Units” to fill up whatever space you might have left on your droid? A terrible one, that’s what kind. So if by some chance you still have CP available (and have enough PC to spare) why not bolt on a spotlight? Or maybe an ECM unit? Or perhaps some waterproofing? Or maybe a power cord to let you transfer power to another willing droid? Ginsu knives are not on this list, but they should be.

Now that you’re actually done building your droid, the book encourages you to give it a name. And since “there are an infinite number of names ranging form random combinations of letters and numbers to various computer and industrial names” you really shouldn’t have a problem coming up with something. Helpful examples include CABLE, GR9, VIDEO III, and CRT.

We close out the droid creation chapter with 8 hints to help you with building your droid:

  • Have a manipulative unit. Without one you cannot effect repairs and will die. Have more than one, really, and armor them.
  • Have a viewing unit. Without one you cannot shoot, repair, or even flee. Make sure it’s armored.
  • Have ample power. Don’t expect to have full power at all times. Armor your power sources.
  • Have a communication unit that can be understood by the other droids in your party. No one likes the illiterate half-orc who doesn’t speak common, after all.
  • Don’t skimp on ammo. You need bullets to survive.
  • Expect your armor to be destroyed. Have plenty or prepare to scavenge.
  • Avoid being vulnerable at night. Don’t depend exclusively on solar cells and have some kind of night vision in the party.
  • Balance is everything. Avoid specialization that will cripple you if “you become detached from the group, expelled, or if an essential member becomes heavily damaged.” Good advice for any game that isn’t too focused on niche protection, really. Plus, if you’re too specialized and are expelled from the group, you’ll never survive long enough to make the rue the day they cast you out.

It might have been helpful if these had come before the big listing of units. But hey. At least they’re here at all. Seriously. This kind of this would be helpful in a lot of games that have you constructing characters from point pools. Especially back in the day, when 12 year old kids were just supposed to have a complete understanding of the game developer’s thought processes.

Movement

I’m not going to dwell on these nearly as much, because they’re not nearly as interesting as droid construction. The bottom line is that there are rules for movement, including speeds for the various propulsion units, percent chances for transport units to break down (hint, avoid swamps if you’re not airborne or waterproofed), and crash landings. It tough out there for a droid.

Combat

Combat in Droids takes place in six second rounds comprised of three phases: Initiative, Combat Movement, and Fire Resolution.

Initiative, which is rolled only once per combat, is determined by a d% roll plus modifiers for additional viewing units and sensors. And if you’re lucky enough to have exceeded an opponent’s initiative by 75 or more, you’ve achieved surprise in the first round and can’t be attacked by that opponent.

Combat Movement is about what one would expect, with adjustments to attack values (q.v.) depending on the mode and direction of movement.

Fire Resolution takes into account range and aiming. Then hit determination, hit location, and damage resolution are handled.

An attack has a percent chance to hit based on a table similar to BRP’s resistance table, where the Attack Value of the weapon is compared against the (total) Bulk Points, thus bigger targets are easier to hit. Certain weapon types can also be aimed, in which case you compare the AV vs. the total BP and the specific unit’s BP to get two numbers, both of which are the targets of a single roll. Beat the lower number and you’ve hit the specific unit. Miss that but beat the higher number and you’ve at least hit the enemy droid. It’s kinda like how the Martial Arts skill works in BRP.

Random hit location is determined by rolling against a table which tells you the BP of the unit hit. Yep, you determine that a unit with (rolls) 7 BP is hit. If there’s no unit with that number of BP, the damage is applied to the unit with the closest BP value. If two or more units have the determined BP, the victim gets to choose which unit was damaged.

The amount of damage done by a hit is determined by a d10 roll against a chart for the specific weapon. These charts give the actual damage value, which ranges from 1 all the way up to 48 for the dreaded Matter Disruptor.

Ramming and Falling are covered in this section as well, but time is short and this piece is long. So let’s agree not to worry about those for now.

Creation

The bulk of the remaining 25 pages of Droids focuses on referring the game (and yes, Referee is the official term, not Droid Master or CPU or something inane). Three sample NPC droids are provided (PEACE, a 25 CP sniper droid; MULTIPLEX, a 35 CP night scavenger; and MACRON, a 50 CP powerhouse), as are some nifty tables for rolling up random droids.

Some coverage is given to Robots, which “are machines that have a command module as their sole means of decision making. They cannot break away from this direction, as they have no brain of their own.” So basically mooks.

This section also introduces Experimental Units and MEga Units (aka magic items). These are both concepts that are more open to individual referee interpretation, though some guidelines are given.

We close out the Creation section with tidbits about organized droid societies, weather, encounter tables, a sketch of a sample adventure, and an example of play. There’s also an end note that suggests looking to science fiction books, movies and magazines for ideas and inspiration. And, at the end, the promise of “scenarios and additional books which may be used in conjunction with Droids to expand and supplement the game as a whole.” Alas, the world apparently had different plans.

Critical Reaction

I just wanted to note that there were (according to the RPGNet Game Index listing for Droids) two reviews from 1983. The Space Gamer #64 (“fails as an RPG”) and Different Worlds #31 (“If you like hack-and-slash … [or] need some robot design rules”). I’m not aware of any other reviews.

I get what these snippits are saying, even if I think they might be too harsh. As presented Droids is definitely pretty barebones. And it focuses very tightly on combat. “Character growth” basically boils down to adding modules scavenged from other sources (including your “kills”) to your droid, making you actually grow in the process. But still, the system is kinda neat and my own brain still dances little apocalyptic doomsday machines after the holocaust jitterbugs when I think about the setting (such as it is) that Droids delivers. One could take this core and make something truly unique out of it, I believe. So personally I wouldn’t call it a failure so much as a good start.

Availability: Scarce!

Droids: A Cybernetic Role-Playing Game is no easier to get your hands on today than it was when I was trying to snag a copy thirty years ago. NobleKnight is probably your best hope, and they haven’t had a copy in stock since 2010 (I’m pretty sure that was the copy I now hold in my hands). I’ve never seen it anywhere else, in print or PDF. But there have to be other copies out there somewhere.

All The Obsolete Simulations Roundup Posts

For your reading pleasure, consider checking out these other participants in the Obsolete Simulations Roundup:

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OD&Disappointment: Resolved

OD&D Premium Reprint Shipping BoxMy replacement OD&D Premium Reprint box set arrived this morning. It’s a brand new copy of the box set, still in its original shipping box.

I can say that there are no torn pages in any of the books in this copy of the set. I do feel like the overall quality of the books is a little lower, though. They don’t seem as well stapled and there are a couple of pages where the printing isn’t quite straight (like the page was just a tad off when it when through the press) – nothing dire, thankfully, but just not quite right, either.

Of course, after all of the delays and difficulties with this return I’m bound to be hypercritical and prone to being irritated by the tiniest thing, so take my assessment with a grain of salt. At least there’s nothing so wrong with this copy I can’t accept it. I definitely couldn’t take going through the replacement process again.

Speaking of the replacement process, for those who are curious about the “little something extra” to be included to offset the shipping costs, it turned out to be copies of the Urban Underdark dungeon tiles, the Haunted Temples map pack, and the Shattered Keeps map pack. They add up to pretty close to what I paid for shipping, so if you paid more or less I’d expect you’ll get more or less accordingly. I can’t say I’m thrilled with these, but it beats a sharp stick in the eye.

My final assessment of this whole mess still leaves me with a negative opinion of WotC’s customer support (web and direct phone, at least) and I can’t say I’d recommend spending the money on this set if anyone asked me. It’s nice to have, sure, but I don’t think WotC has really put in the effort and quality control to justify the $150 they’re charging for it. A product with this kind of price tag really ought to be produced with more care and attention than has been applied here. And if a problem does turn up with such a product, it really shouldn’t take 25 days, four phone calls (two of them answered with outright rudeness), multiple emails, tweets, and other electronic junk, and three distinct support cases to get resolved.

In the end I’m glad I have the set, but if you’d told me up front how unhappy I was going to be along the way, I’d have saved my money. And now, all these days later, I’m no longer excited by this product or looking forward to enjoying it. Instead, I’m pretty much just going to stick it on my shelf where it will sit gathering dust. And that’s the biggest shame of all.

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OD&Disappointment

The “customer service” mooks at WotC haven’t even processed my damned return of the defective OD&D boxed set. Never mind the fact that I sent it back priority mail and they’ve had it since last Monday (12/2). The goon I spoke to this morning mumbled something about them only processing mail once a week and that if my package got there after processing time on 12/2 then they wouldn’t even have seen it until yesterday (12/9). And then he brushed me off the phone without so much as a “have a nice day.”

To say I’m more than a bit pissed off would be an understatement, I’m afraid. A huge chunk of my enthusiasm for this reprint has eroded and I’m also pretty damned sure I won’t be inclined to give WotC another dime anytime soon.

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OD&D Premium Box Set

The item referenced above has been acquired by yours truly. In general, I’m pretty impressed with the overall quality, and hopefully the pix below communicate some of that.

The only real downside to this purchase is that there’s a ripped page in the Greyhawk book and to get it replaced I have to send the whole damned box set back to WotC. Which I will obviously do, since this wasn’t exactly a cheap purchase. I’m just glad I decided to take pictures right after getting this, since I might have missed that for a long time.

Anyway, enjoy the pix and may they guide you to the right choice if you’re still trying to decide about picking this thing up. And yes, any new readers, those are original books I’m showing in the comparison photos. They’re not from 1974 or anything, but they are from the Original Collector’s Edition I picked up at Origins ’84*.

Oh, and while they did indeed put new cover art on all of the books (which some folks seem to be very up in arms about, but doesn’t bother me at all), they left all of the original internal art alone as near as I can tell. I’ve tried to reflect that in the pix, hence the gratuitous focus on the topless pieces 🙂

*But Venomous Pao, why would you buy this reprint when you already had an OCE?

Because the OCE doesn’t have any of the supplements, of course. Those things fetch some pretty absurd prices if you want ’em. And while I do have those in PDF from way back when they were legally available, having print copies is a lovely thing indeed.

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Echo Chamber Newsflash: Heroes of Hellas Now Available

Heroes of Hellas coverJust in case you haven’t heard it elsewhere, this seems like a good time to note that Heroes of Hellas, the Barbarians of Lemuria “ancient Greece” supplement, is now available.

I haven’t picked this up yet, so I can’t tell you anything about it. But if you’re itching to do some crazy Jason & the Argonauts stuff using BoL, I presume this will be worth your time and money to download. If I get around to checking it out I’ll be sure to let everyone know what I think. Meanwhile, I’m headed back to melting in the 103ºF heat here in fabulous Austin.

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Echo Chamber News Flash: Astounding Adventures Available!

ASTOUNDING ADVENTURES Front CoverAstounding Adventures, the BRP Pulp supplement, is apparently now available for ordering from the Chaosium website. As their ad copy says:

Welcome to the heart-pounding, two-fisted, action-filled world of the Pulps! Throughout this book you will find Basic Roleplaying rules for new character types, skills, combat, magic, mad science, and a plethora of villains, henchmen and monsters.

Accompanying the text are several sidebars containing special, optional rules to help jack up the pulpiness of your campaign, and rules aimed specifically towards those who enjoy using miniatures and map grids in their games. How far you want to push the envelope is up to you—and you’ll find all the tools you need within these pages.

So strap on a rocket-pack, load up your .45, and get ready to take on a dozen Nazis single-handedly, while standing atop the ruins of a lost Aztec temple! Once you open up the Pulps you are in for the adventure of a lifetime!

I’ll no doubt be picking this up soon. At $20.95 it seems like a steal, and I do so very much love pulpy RPG goodness.

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Happy GM’s Day

Today, March 4th, is the sad anniversary of the passing of Gary Gygax. But it is also the day we celebrate GMs everywhere. So it’s a bittersweet thing, I reckon.

RPGNow is having a big 25% off sale all week in honor of GM’s Day, including a veritable boatload of stuff from Chaosium, Goodman Games, Goblinoid Games, and a whole bunch of other publishers who produce stuff I (and presumably the folks who read this blog) care about. So treat yerself to something purty & digital this week as we pause to remember one of the giants of our hobby.

Oh, and Mongoose’s Classic Moorcock BRP titles (Stormbringer & Elric! stuff) are on sale, too. As are the GDW Classic Traveller books (though GDW didn’t seem to be listed in the publisher dropdown on the sale page). That compilation of the Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society issues looks pretty tempting…

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