Quick look: L5R RPG System

I will be putting things up to help promote my love of the Legend of the Five Rings RPG (L5R RPG). One of many questions I often see is, "What type of dice system does the game use?"

Well, mechanically, L5R is a "Roll / Keep" system with "exploding dice". Roll a bunch of d10s, keep some of them and add them together to get your total (modifiers can alter the roll, the keep, or even the final total).
To resolve an action, such as striking a target with your katana, you'd take your skill in it plus your trait add them together and get the total number of d10s you'd roll.

Example:

Let's say your Katana skill Kenjutsu is a 3 and your trait (agility) is 2 that would be 5d10 (2+3=5) to ROLL for your attack. After rolling you get 2, 6, 8, 6, 10... you'd automatically re-roll the 10, and add the new number, of say a 3. Which would make the numbers look like this now: 2, 6, 8, 6, 13 and because your trait of agility is 2, you get to KEEP the two highest rolls of 13 and 8.  Now that you got your two numbers you add them up, getting 21 as your attack value to compare against the target (defense) value of 15, resulting in a hit!

 

Well there you have it, a quick look at the Roll/Keep system from the L5R RPG!

Taking it to the next level..

I enjoy the Oriental Adventures book for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition and have played it quite a bit in my past, to the point my book is falling apart. In the past while running games out of this book, I've stepped it up or taken it to the next level by speaking in Japanese for Non-Player Characters. I've designed custom sheets for the game and even tried to supply the table with props for the game.

When I was living in New York, everytime we played, we ordered Japanese take out to help get in the mood of the game. I'd like to think the players enjoyed themselves as it helped really set the mood of the game that day, and helped them get in the frame of mind for some great roleplaying.

I know quite a few people dislike this book, because of various reasons, but I really enjoyed this book from the first game I played when I was kid, up to this day as a man. I know this game was redesigned for the 3rd Edition D&D, and I never used it, but the best thing came of the game, when it was turned into the Legend of the Five Rings. Great game, with an awesome system still being played by lots of people who enjoy this type of gaming.

Do you smell what the Roc-- Hercules is cooking??

Yes you heard me right, Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson is going to be starring in the new Hercules move due out July 14th, 2014. The movie is titled, "Hercules: The Thracian Wars" and the description is as follows:

"Fourteen hundred years ago, a tormented soul walked the earth that was neither man nor god. Hercules was the powerful son of the god king Zeus, for this he received nothing but suffering his entire life. After twelve arduous labors and the loss of his family, this dark, world-weary soul turned his back on the gods finding his only solace in bloody battle. Over the years he warmed to the company of six similar souls, their only bond being their love of fighting and presence of death. These men and woman never question where they go to fight or why or whom, just how much they will be paid. Now the King of Thrace has hired these mercenaries to train his men to become the greatest army of all time. It is time for this bunch of lost souls to finally have their eyes opened to how far they have fallen when they must train an army to become as ruthless and blood thirsty as their reputation has become."

This film seems to be backed by Radical Comics, a comic book company that launched in 2008 with its first titles Hercules and Caliber as 5-issue mini-series. The company's main goal is quoted as:

".. titles focus on retellings of iconic fictional characters, mythology, science fiction, fantasy, horror, historical fiction, supernatural themes, and genre-based crime.."

Thracian Wars, was their first 5 issue mini-series they launched with a great reception for this company. What more can be said, except this movie looks like it could be awesome. The Rock Dwayne is a very entertaining actor as of late, and I have enjoyed most of the movies he has been in, so I will give this one a fair shake.

What about you, are you planning on seeing this movie?

A funny look at Gamers thoughts about Gamers.

Found this looking round the internet, its a grid picture showing what one gamer thinks about another game of certain types of games. Made me laugh, so I decided to share it with y'all. I've played all these games and I really am not sure I agree with what is here, but I have seen people who play D&D, look at White-Wolf players like this.

Click on it for larger viewing.

Wayback: Tsrinc.com

It's been a while I know. I haven't had much to say, but the spark of wanting to blog has come back to me on this fine day.

Today I was looking around and happened to stumble accross a link for the original TSR website with its products, along with the announcement of Wizards buying TSR. For those that aren't interested in clicking on the link, I will grab the letter and quote it on here. I just thought it would a fun look at what things looked like and see all the references of things that have long since expired, such as seeing American Online as a major presence. The direct link for the site, click here, Enjoy!

TSR, INC

"Ramifications (on being purchased)?

Right now, we still don't have a whole lot of information. However, there are certain questions that can be answered right now.

What does this mean for AD&D?

AD&D is a valuable commodity for which Wizards is certain to want to continue to produce products.

What about the late products & magazines?

Shipping will resume once the neew management comes up witha revised schedule. The likesy candidates are Dragon Magazine and the AD&D core books (PHB, DMG, MM). All subscriptions will be honored for their full number<> of issues.

What about Gen Con?

Gen Con will take place on schedule in Milwaukee.

What about Gen Con program books & housing forms?

They have been printed and will be being mailed soon.

How come the web site said that TSR wasn't being bought, but it actually was?

Because only upper management of the two companies knew what was going on; everything else was rumor and supposition.

Other than for these questions, we don't have any answers at this time. In other words, if you don't see the answer to your question here, the answer is

"We don't know yet."

When we get answers, they will be posted here (sorry, we won't be making personal replies because the volume of repeat questions is going to be very high). Until then, please don't bombard us with questions we can't answer. We know the most common questions; we'll give answers when we get them.

RFI Podcast's Contest Winner Announced

Well folks the show is finally up announcing the winner of the AD&D 1E Reprint core bundle books. It was a hard decision and a lot of people worked really hard on making some good modules, but only one could win.

The winner is..... A Darkness Under Apple Valley by Morgan Z. Sowell

The winning module can be found right here:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bxv0KPzo1uzIbTA3aWotVzUwNDg

and as promised here is a collection of the entries put together for download and use freely:

 

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bxv0KPzo1uzILUc4aWtLb2FjcUU

For Vol 3 Issue 103, the crew sat down and reviewed the module as special treat for the show, so if you are interested in listening about it before downloading and looking at it, go ahead and click this links below:

MP3 Download

http://traffic.libsyn.com/rollforinitiative/RFI103.mp3

AAC Download

http://traffic.libsyn.com/rollforinitiative/RFI103.m4a


There will more contests to come!

 

Introducing B/X to New Players.

Hiya everyone. I decided to run my face to face group through the custom campaign we are designing here in the OSRGaming community. Adventures take place in the kingdom of the black knight. We are using Moldvay rules as a most of the group was brand new to 1e and now B/X edition!

Recap:

The group of four characters, two Dwarves, a Cleric and a very ugly looking Elf, parted away from their homes to see out adventure, fame and glory. Upon their first night away, a massive storm ripped through the lands, sending hail to come crashing down on the land. The band of adventurers had to seek out shelter in a nearby Tor, in which they discovered that there was a well built room, paved in cobblestone and the walls covered in fancy designs. The room showing of age and dust, told the adventurers that no one has stepped foot inside this place in years. After exploring the night away, the group discovered that a group of goblins and hobgoblins had made their way down inside the place from the top of the mountain through a hole in the ceiling; into what appeared to be a sacrifice chamber. The adventurers cleared out the threat of goblins and killed the reanimated hobgoblin they found. The group rested until the heavy hail and rain let up.

Once the weather was better, the group set out for the nearest town to resupply and see if the local cleric can bring back the life of a fallen comrade. The town was Duvik's Pass, a large community in the kingdom, which recently has fallen under some type of plague that was killing off the town’s folks very quickly. The local cleric, told the party of the recent happenings in town, as he brought their comrade back to life. They found the cleric suspected the water supply coming from the mountains was tainted and promised the group one hundred gold pieces to go investigate, with the possibility of getting more if he could get it from the town's mayor.

The group decided to restock and go right away the next morning, but while at the local magic shop, two of the characters decided that the owner was charging too much to identify their found magical items and decided to threaten the old owner into some "cheap" prices. While the characters were successful, this wasn't the last run in with the old shop owner for them.

At night while they were sleeping, an old man looking much like the shop owner was caught robbing the characters and tied up. While the group was gathering up trying to decide what to do with him, the old man freed himself and was able to slip out the window and down the back alley way, as the characters tried their best to run after him, missing by only inches trying to dive tackle him down to the ground.

The group ran to the magic shop to confront the owner, who claimed he was there the whole time, and called the guards, because the characters kicked in his door to the shop. The guards arrived to the scene and started questioning the characters and suddenly siding with the old shop owner, who stated that if he stole things, he'd have a large sack of all the items and gold. The Sheriff turned to the party and found this sack on one of them. He was instantly arrested and thrown in jail.

The party made note that the guards, sheriff and old man all were not affected by the plague and instantly started thinking that they were behind the plague in town, but decided to keep it as a secret while they investigated.

Now the party, negotiated their party member's freedom, by saying they would explore the mountain's spring area for no charge, if the sheriff would allow their comrade out on parole. This was agreed to, and the party headed back to the magic shop, where they tricked a lone guard into allowing them to buy stuff. What started as an innocent, just buy some healing potions, turned into the party trying to see what they can get for almost nothing of a price. One of the party members tricked the guard into selling him, a dusty old oil lamp.

As suspected, the characters found out this to be a genie lamp, and rubbed the lamp. The characters confronted by an annoyed genie who granted the characters one wish. The characters debated after a while and decided to use the wish for good, and wish the town to be cured of the plague that affects them. The genie granted the wish and cured the townsfolk by killing them instantly. The party then rubbed the lamp again, and lawyered up their wish and worded it correctly to bring the townsfolk back to life and curing them of the plague. It worked, as the townsfolk came back to life cured of the plague for the moment. The party realized that they were cured for now, and if they needed to live on, the water supply needed to be cleaned.

End Session

RFI Podcast Contest: Win the core three 1E reprints!

This week on the Roll for Initiative podcast, DM Will announced his contest and the prize is a copy of the AD&D 1E Reprints done by WOTC! Details of the contest are as follows:

 

 

The Prize, the three core reprint books for AD&D 1E! a $100 value!

Submit to: RFIStaff(@)gmail(.)Com with the follow info:
- Full name
- Address
- email address
- Forum name at OSRGaming (if you have).

Rules:
- First Edition Core Rules style only.
- A Halloween theme'd adventure.
- Minimum of 25 rooms with boxed text.
- Pictures optional.
- Full text of monsters.
- At least a hand drawn map, keyed with numbers.
- In word or PDF format

Tips/Guidelines:
http://paizo.com/writersguidelines/dung ... elines.pdf

Due date:
Nov 1st, 2012 -- 11:59PM EST*

*Note: Contest subject to cancellation due to lack of entries. All entries become properity of RFI and WGP, LLC.

Example modules:

B3 - Palace of the Silver Princess
UK2 - The Sentinel
UK3 - The Gauntlet

Monster Box Text Example:

Annis AC: 0, HD: 7+3-12, HP: 61 #Att: 3, DMG: 2-9+7/2-9+7/3-9+7(natural attacks claw/claw/bite), Special Attacks: Grappling, Special Defenses: 100% vs illusion/phantasm magic, iron skin, AL: CE, Experience Points: 1910 XP

Challenger RPG -- Free!

When I was on Amazon looking for some books, this book popped up in my side bar as recommended. It was a kindle edition and it was free, so I decided to give it a look, hey its free.

First off on Amazon the author spouts off this:

#1 in Free Roleplaying and Fantasy Kindle Books "January, February, and March 2012"
#14 in Free Fantasy Kindle Books "January 2012"
Top 50 and under in Free Fantasy Kindle Books "From January 2012 Onwards..."
Outranked "Angry Birds" in Games on Kindle at one point.

This is a pen and paper tabletop roleplaying game, not a computer game. If you're looking for one of those, I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere. I highly recommend the dungeon-crawling German rogue-like "Lost Labyrinth" which is free to download and a purely awesome game.

If you're looking for fiction, you're in luck! You will find the completely free comic fantasy novel "The End of The World" at the very back of this e-book. Enjoy.

Okay, well that is pretty darn good, and it made me really want to grab my kindle and start reading, as the game promises the following:

Free, 20+ Races, 36 Classes, 50+ skills including: specific skills, broad skills, power skills, and special ability skills. GM rolls no dice, completely player-driven approach to gaming with a core mechanic using the d20 and set damage ratings for most weapons so combat is faster and more furious than ever before. 2x faster combat than 4E Dungeons and Dragons.

More than 60 Pages of GM advice useable with any system. New rules on stacking monsters, monster subtypes, magic items, a list of monsters for use with Challenger, traps, and rules on non-combat obstacles complete with TN's.

The rules on Base Skills have been removed and clarified. No more must you roll 75 different base skills to start play. It's as simple as choosing your skills, classes, race, 5 powers, purchasing equipment and calculating your stats and you're done!

New rules on armor, equipment, and improved background powers to further detail your character like never before. Crazy races have been ditched and new races combined to make the rules on races simpler, more flexible, and even more entertaining!

You'll still find the classic traits generator for your character, improved formatting thanks to the masterful Matt Fleming (soon to be included in the game credits) and fantastic artwork by the incomparable L.E.C.D.

Well the first thing I noticed were a bunch of spelling errors, and sentences that should have a question mark on it, have nothing.  I can look past that, as I have be guilty of making the same  mistake (may not as bad as this though). First thing that stood out to me, was there was a novella sized story in the back of the book, set in its own world with many possible interesting characters. The thing that fell flat about it, was the characters didn't seem real, and it was like they were often sharing in some inside joke only the author knew about.

There is a diamond in here, the GM section of the book. It goes into some pretty neat details about creating adventures. Bonus for any person struggling to create something.

The rules and other things are a bit weird.. Here is the races involved:
Human, Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Troll, Horse, Robot, Toad, Catgirl, Ooze, Stickman, Skeleton, Cyclops, Nymph, Centaur, Wraith, Gremlin, Alien, Squirrel, Satyr, Tin soldier, Puppet, Magical orb, T-rex, Narwhal, Immortal, Diety, and Killer chicken

Here is the classes involved:
Warrior, Wizard, Healer, Beastmaster, Bard, Ninja, Rage maniac, Pirate, Body/mind master, Magic Item Maker, Phase-shifter, Shape-shifter, Knifethrower, Diplomat, Loner, Master Cook, Spy, Handsome Dude, Collector, Hunter, Seductress, and Illusionist.

After seeing all this, I couldn't continue reading the book, the rules of the game for combat and other things are written so weird that I had to read them twice to understand how to do something. I see the passion that went into this book, but it needs to be polished up a bit.

You can download the kind edition here for free or you can download the full edition for free at RPGNOW.

Cortex Rules!

Its been out for a long time, and it dates back as far as the Serenity RPG game, expanding into the Battlestar Galactica RPG and finally its own core rules, known as the Cortex Blue book core rules.

You can read up on the Wiki for more details about the system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortex_System#The_Cortex_System

This book is much like the D20 Modern book in a way that there is no real theme to it, its not fantasy, space, or even the world of gangsters. The good news is that you can take this book, or toolkit as I like to call it and make it into any game you want to play that night. Designed by the Margaret Weis productions team, this toolkit was a sure hit.

Some features about the game:

The system is your basic point-buy, skill based system more akin to Vampire than D&D (i.e. no classes). Characters have a series of general attributes (e.g. Strength) and specific skills (e.g. Guns). These are rated by a category of die: d2, d4, d6, d8, d12, d12 +d2 and keeps going.

When you need to make a check, you roll the die corresponding to your attribute, and the die corresponding to your skill and add them together, giving the GM your results. The GM will determine based off the chart in the book what target number you have to score or higher. If you hit the number or over you are successful, if you score 7 points over the target number its considered a critical success. If all 1's come up on the die, its considered a "Botch", much like how it is in Vampire.

For getting hit and taking damage, you do have a hit point type system, which is life points. But there is a few ways of taking damage, Wounds or Stun, in which if either one of the two equal your life points, you are knocked out (stunned) or dead (wounds).

Things that stood out to most people, including myself, was that when you die or fall unconscious you get to make a few "save checks" which start getting harder each round as you struggle to stay awake or alive. It makes me smile, because it makes me think of that over acted William Shatner death.

Another cool thing about the game, is plot points. Often referred to as Drama points in other systems, as these little points you collect can bend the lines the game in your favor. Your friend dies? spend the extra plot points to pull off an amazing round of CPR and save his life.

So that's a basic look at the Core system that of course Margaret Weis Productions, no longer supports (but will sell) as they moved onto a more stream lined system called Cortex Plus. The PDF is going for 4.99 on RPGNOW.com. I highly suggest picking it up and seeing what you can make out of the game. Supernatural is the only game that really came out of the Blue Book Rules, the others were before and helped build the core as we see it today.

There was once a great forum, done by a fan that held some great information about the Core system and what tweaks people did with it. Sadly that forum closed up and the info is lost. Makes me very sad.