Daily Archives: 2017-08-17

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I made an attempt previously, to try and do this on tumblr. It’s not a bad social network, but it works for certain types of blogs better than others. Anyhow, I will slowly be dusting off my old posts and putting theme here.

GREEN RONIN TO PUBLISH THE EXPANSE RPG

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Covers of books from the Expanse setting by James S.A. Corey

James S.A. Corey’s Sci-Fi Epic Comes to the Tabletop

August 17, 2017—SEATTLE, WA: Green Ronin Publishing announced today that it has signed a licensing agreement with James S.A. Corey to adapt The Expanse series of novels as a tabletop roleplaying game.

“The Expanse is the most exciting thing to happen in science fiction in the last decade,” said Green Ronin President Chris Pramas. “It’s not just that they are cracking good stories—which of course, they are—but like all of the best science fiction they reflect the issues of today. We could not be more delighted to bring the Expanse to roleplaying games.”

“The Expanse began as a gaming concept nearly two decades ago, and was played as a home brewed RPG for years before becoming a book series,” said Ty Franck. “To have Green Ronin taking the universe of The Expanse back to its roots is very exciting. I’ve loved their game adaptations of other literary works, and I couldn’t be happier to be partnering with them on this project.”

“I came to the story first as a RPG, and clearly I had a great time with it,” added Daniel Abraham. “I’m delighted to have other gamers get the chance to make their own stories in this setting.”

Green Ronin will run a crowdfunding campaign for The Expanse RPG next year and publish the game in August, 2018. The Expanse RPG will use Green Ronin’s popular Adventure Game Engine, which powers its Blue Rose, Fantasy AGE, and Modern AGE RPGs. More information about The Expanse RPG will appear on greenronin.com in the coming months. Read Full Post…

Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters trailer

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STORY

The final summer of the 20th century… when mankind learns it is no longer the sole ruler of planet Earth.

The planet is beset by the emergence of colossal creatures that roam the Earth, and king among them is “Godzilla”. For a half a century, these beasts engage in ferocious battle with each other and mankind. Ultimately humanity, unable to compete, prepares for exile from its home planet. In the year 2048, a select few humans are chosen by the central government’s artificial intelligence to set out on an interstellar emigration vessel, the Aratrum, on an 11.9-light-year journey for the planet Tau Ceti e. But when they arrive after 20 years of space travel, the remnants of mankind find the environmental conditions on Tau-e to be much worse than expected, and uninhabitable by humans.

On board the vessel is a young man, Haruo. When he was four years old, he saw his parents killed by Godzilla before his eyes, and in the 20 years since he has thought about nothing but returning to Earth and defeating Godzilla. With their chance for escape to another world closed, and living conditions on the ship deteriorating, Haruo spearheads a movement to return to Earth despite the dangers of such a long return trip.

Somehow, the Aratrum makes the return journey in one piece, but the home they return to has become an alien planet. 20,000 years have elapsed, and a new ecosystem has emerged with Godzilla at its apex. Can mankind take back its native planet? Will Haruo get his revenge?

Starfinder RPG, First Thoughts

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image of Starfinder cover
Starfinder RPG

Unlike many of my tribe, I am NOT attending GenCon 50. I have attended in the past, but I am not a fan of huge conventions these days.

However, I did pre-order Paizo’s new RPG, Starfinder, based on my experience at PaizoCon earlier this year. Thanks to said pre-order, I have a copy of the RPG in hand.

Starfinder is, in my opinion, not Spelljammer for Pathfinder. It is not D&D in space, but rather space opera with magic. Closer, thematically, to say Star Wars or perhaps Shadowrun in a space setting. As such, this is pretty much right in my wheelhouse.

While I have not yet read the book cover to cover (I’m not THAT fast of a reader), I’ve managed a decent scan through what’s needed for character creation so far.

As I understand it, and if someone in the know wants to comment in more details please feel free, two of the major design goals were to:

  • Make the game more accessible for less experiences gamers, and
  • Ensure that they did not obsolete previously published materials, most specifically, the Bestiaries.

My personal opinion, is that in many ways it is essentially a Pathfinder 2.0 fork. Not wanting to repeat the mistake of how D&D 4th was handled, they did this with a new game and setting, rather than just declaring a new edition and waiting for the edition wars to die down.

At this point, the core mechanics behind Pathfinder are 17 years old, and it is a crunchy game that encourages system mastery, and there is a lot of published material for it.

That’s all well and good if you’ve been gaming as long as I have been, but I would never call Pathfinder ‘friendly’ when it comes to new gamers.

So, coming back to the first point, character generation does appear to be less complicated than Pathfinder, and one of the more common min-max exploits has been removed.

Effectively, to create a character you select a race (human, android, etc.) , a theme (Ace Pilot, Outlaw, etc.), and then your class (soldier, technomancer, etc.). Once all of this is complete, you may spend 10 points (1 to 1) to raise your stats. You  are allowed to lower stats as well, but you do not get points for this. No stat can be higher than 18 at start, and in general, you may only have one stat as low as an 8 due to racial stat modifications.

I’m still looking through skills and feats, so I will be posting again. I also hope to be posting a sample character, but Paizo has not yet updated their Community Use document. I assume that should happen shortly.