I gotta run out the door to run my first Prowlers & Paragons: Modern Gods game tonight, so let's get right to it!
Ryuutama : Natural Fantasy Roleplay
We open this week with something oddly wonderful from Japan, a game designed as a gateway into RPGs that invites folks of all ages to enjoy story and wonder in ways very new to the average gamer, I think.
Ryuutama is an RPG developed in Japan by designer Atsuhiro Okada. It is set in a world where the “NPCs” of the village–the bakers, farmers, shopkeepers and healers–set off on a wonderful adventure exploring a fantasy world together. Some people colloquially call it “Hayao Miyazaki’s Oregon Trail“, because of its heartwarming (in Japanese “honobono“) feel of family anime, and its focus on traveling and wonder over combat and treasure.
The characters are travelers in a world without classical fantasy wizards and warriors. Instead, the characters are minstrels, merchants, healers, hunters, artisans, farmers and nobles who decide (or were fated) to leave their towns and explore the world. Using a light rules system based on polyhedral dice where the randomness in results leads to more story development, Ryuutama provides a framework for travel-focused stories fun for adults and enjoyable for all ages.
The game master also creates a special character with its own unique character sheet, called the “Ryuujin“. The half-dragon Ryuujin remains “offscreen” most of the time, but watches over the other characters, and can provide limited spells and abilies to support them. The GM provides adversity that the players have to overcome, but at the same time they protect and nurture the characters.
I am proud to have my name in this one, a rather masterful treatment of transhumanist science fiction for Savage Worlds. This is the Augmented PDF version, something creator Mike McConnell is an expert with. It makes the document very optimized for digital use.
This is a special PDF version of Nova Praxis: Savage Worlds Edition. It is not just a fully bookmarked and linked PDF version of the book. The Augmented PDF has gone through an entirely separate layout process, developed from the ground up to run on widescreen laptop screens and tablets.
The Augmented PDF also features a built in form-fillable character sheet, and a number of navigational aids that allow you to reference the PDF far faster than using bookmarks or text searches.
Nova Praxis is a post-singularity sci-fi setting that explores transhumanism and post-scarcity societies against a backdrop of action, adventure, conspiracy, and intrigue.
Nova Praxis is…
…a tabletop role-playing game featuring the Savage Worlds Role-Playing Game System, tailored specifically for Nova Praxis.
…compatible with, but does not require, the Savage Worlds Science Fiction Companion.
…a relatively “hard sci-fi” setting that takes place during the aftermath of a short-lived technological singularity.
…an exploration of the tropes of transhuman sci-fi: mind uploading, resleeving, artificial intelligence, and augmentation.
…an exploration of the societal impacts of a reputation-based post-scarcity economy.
…a game in which players play characters who slip between the cracks of civilization and perform jobs their patrons would rather keep off the books.
…a setting full of conflict. The Houses wage a secret Shadow War against each other, purist and transhuman ideologies clash violently, and apostates rebel against the oppression of the Coalition government.
…home to railguns, powered armor, starships, security drones, bipedal combat frames, swarms of nanomachines, kill-sats, and the horrors of accelerated evolution gone wrong.
In the Company of Angels
It’s time to get all celestial in your Pathfinder game! Blow the trumpet, take to the skies, and bring on the wrath!
Not a half-celestial, not a plane-touched aasimar, but an ANGEL!
The Grigori, servants of the Heavens, are a race blessed by providence and heavenly gifts and, while immortal, they love the mortal races. They are a race that cares for the fate of every soul, but who don’t necessarily care about saving your life. They can become astral deva, bralani, ghaele, hound archons, lantern archons, lilends, planetars, solars, trumpet archons and so much more, yet many are in exile from Heaven searching for atonement.
Create the angel you want to play in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. This product includes the new celestial race the grigori, racial traits, alternate racial traits, favored class bonuses, the paragon racial class, along with archon and azata archetypes, as well as celestial feats, all so you can play angels alongside any other player character in any high fantasy campaign setting.
Dread Names, Red List
The World of Darkness remains a very rich territory to explore, and this latest book in the V20 line brings a lot of character – literally – to the mix.
There are some threats that transcend a local Prince’s domain and become enemies of every Kindred in the Camarilla. These Anathema become targets of a global Blood Hunt for their crimes. Not just political enemies, the monsters on the Red List have been named enemies of the entire Camarilla by the Justicars.
Dread Names, Red List explores the Camarilla’s “Most Wanted” List, naming those deemed most dangerous by the Justicars and their chosen deputies, the Alastors. Included are details on the Anathema that occupy the Red List, as well as details on those who hunt them. Storytellers are also given a toolkit for running Alastor-focused chronicles.
Dread Names, Red List includes:
Orc Warfare
Talk about your immersion! Globally-revered game designer and wargame enthusiast, Green Ronin’s own Chris Pramas, brings you a look at orc military structure and warfare in a way that lets you totally suspend disbelief and really get into the nitty-gritty of this ubiquitous fantasy race. Orc Warfare is not a game manual, but a treatise that reads like a historian’s colorful review and analysis.
Born and bred for war, orcs are a nasty, brutish, violent race and, despite their propensity for infighting and backstabbing, their horde armies remain a dire threat to all races.
This book compiles all of the information known about these vicious killers and how they practice war. From an initial examination of the fighting methods of the individual orc warrior, it expands to look at how they do battle in both small warbands and in vast armies.
It covers all of their forces from lightly armed archers and heavily armored shock troops to their wolf cavalry and siege engines, making note of regional variations and highly specialized fighters such as berserkers and charioteers.
Also covered are the various allied contingents that often march to war with orcs such as trolls and human mercenaries. Finally, the book examines a few specific battles in great detail in order to fully demonstrate the orc way of war.
~~~~~
Now it's time to print off character sheets, etc.! I've been working on a revision to the Prowlers and Paragons rules with my friend Len Pimentel, for what we plan to be the core of my Modern Gods superhero setting. Tonight is the first at-the-table run for the new rules, so wish me luck!
Tomorrow, I am running a special Savage Rifts demo for Wombatcon here in Denver; it's an effort to raise money for the Gamers Giving charity, which I am very proud to support.
Sunday, Carinn runs her awesome Savage Worlds setting, The Crew - supernaturally-empowered special ops agents against supernatural horrors in the modern world.
Hope you have some great gaming ahead, and as always...
The Adventure Continues!
~SPF
Ryuutama : Natural Fantasy Roleplay
We open this week with something oddly wonderful from Japan, a game designed as a gateway into RPGs that invites folks of all ages to enjoy story and wonder in ways very new to the average gamer, I think.
Ryuutama is an RPG developed in Japan by designer Atsuhiro Okada. It is set in a world where the “NPCs” of the village–the bakers, farmers, shopkeepers and healers–set off on a wonderful adventure exploring a fantasy world together. Some people colloquially call it “Hayao Miyazaki’s Oregon Trail“, because of its heartwarming (in Japanese “honobono“) feel of family anime, and its focus on traveling and wonder over combat and treasure.
The characters are travelers in a world without classical fantasy wizards and warriors. Instead, the characters are minstrels, merchants, healers, hunters, artisans, farmers and nobles who decide (or were fated) to leave their towns and explore the world. Using a light rules system based on polyhedral dice where the randomness in results leads to more story development, Ryuutama provides a framework for travel-focused stories fun for adults and enjoyable for all ages.
The game master also creates a special character with its own unique character sheet, called the “Ryuujin“. The half-dragon Ryuujin remains “offscreen” most of the time, but watches over the other characters, and can provide limited spells and abilies to support them. The GM provides adversity that the players have to overcome, but at the same time they protect and nurture the characters.
- Experience is gained in Ryuutama primarily by making difficult journeys to new places, far more than monster slaying.
- Magic is based on seasonal essenses, and focuses on the classic creative use of magic to overcome problems, over combat-themed spells.
- Combat is simple and fun, featuring a classic console style “Front/Back Line Battle Mat”
- The players at the table have a hand in creating the towns that their characters visit together, so that everyone has an interest in the next leg of the journel!
- Critical fumbles (rolling 1s on both dice) hurt, but all the characters at the table get a bonus to a future roll in return.
- The game was produced as a flagship project in Japan to easily get people into playing and GMing RPGs; to that end there’s a lot of advice for brand new GMs, including scenario creation. There are lots of sheets and templates to help brand new or novice GMs develop great Ryuutama-worthy scenarios.
I am proud to have my name in this one, a rather masterful treatment of transhumanist science fiction for Savage Worlds. This is the Augmented PDF version, something creator Mike McConnell is an expert with. It makes the document very optimized for digital use.
This is a special PDF version of Nova Praxis: Savage Worlds Edition. It is not just a fully bookmarked and linked PDF version of the book. The Augmented PDF has gone through an entirely separate layout process, developed from the ground up to run on widescreen laptop screens and tablets.
The Augmented PDF also features a built in form-fillable character sheet, and a number of navigational aids that allow you to reference the PDF far faster than using bookmarks or text searches.
Nova Praxis is a post-singularity sci-fi setting that explores transhumanism and post-scarcity societies against a backdrop of action, adventure, conspiracy, and intrigue.
Nova Praxis is…
…a tabletop role-playing game featuring the Savage Worlds Role-Playing Game System, tailored specifically for Nova Praxis.
…compatible with, but does not require, the Savage Worlds Science Fiction Companion.
…a relatively “hard sci-fi” setting that takes place during the aftermath of a short-lived technological singularity.
…an exploration of the tropes of transhuman sci-fi: mind uploading, resleeving, artificial intelligence, and augmentation.
…an exploration of the societal impacts of a reputation-based post-scarcity economy.
…a game in which players play characters who slip between the cracks of civilization and perform jobs their patrons would rather keep off the books.
…a setting full of conflict. The Houses wage a secret Shadow War against each other, purist and transhuman ideologies clash violently, and apostates rebel against the oppression of the Coalition government.
…home to railguns, powered armor, starships, security drones, bipedal combat frames, swarms of nanomachines, kill-sats, and the horrors of accelerated evolution gone wrong.
In the Company of Angels
It’s time to get all celestial in your Pathfinder game! Blow the trumpet, take to the skies, and bring on the wrath!
Not a half-celestial, not a plane-touched aasimar, but an ANGEL!
The Grigori, servants of the Heavens, are a race blessed by providence and heavenly gifts and, while immortal, they love the mortal races. They are a race that cares for the fate of every soul, but who don’t necessarily care about saving your life. They can become astral deva, bralani, ghaele, hound archons, lantern archons, lilends, planetars, solars, trumpet archons and so much more, yet many are in exile from Heaven searching for atonement.
Create the angel you want to play in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. This product includes the new celestial race the grigori, racial traits, alternate racial traits, favored class bonuses, the paragon racial class, along with archon and azata archetypes, as well as celestial feats, all so you can play angels alongside any other player character in any high fantasy campaign setting.
Dread Names, Red List
The World of Darkness remains a very rich territory to explore, and this latest book in the V20 line brings a lot of character – literally – to the mix.
There are some threats that transcend a local Prince’s domain and become enemies of every Kindred in the Camarilla. These Anathema become targets of a global Blood Hunt for their crimes. Not just political enemies, the monsters on the Red List have been named enemies of the entire Camarilla by the Justicars.
Dread Names, Red List explores the Camarilla’s “Most Wanted” List, naming those deemed most dangerous by the Justicars and their chosen deputies, the Alastors. Included are details on the Anathema that occupy the Red List, as well as details on those who hunt them. Storytellers are also given a toolkit for running Alastor-focused chronicles.
Dread Names, Red List includes:
- An in depth look at the 13 beings named Anathema by the Camarilla’s Justicars.
- A history of the Red List from the earliest nights of the Sect to the present.
- Advice on creating Alastor characters and running Alastor Chronicles.
- New systems including the Path of Evil Revelations and Dark Thaumaturgy Rituals.
Orc Warfare
Talk about your immersion! Globally-revered game designer and wargame enthusiast, Green Ronin’s own Chris Pramas, brings you a look at orc military structure and warfare in a way that lets you totally suspend disbelief and really get into the nitty-gritty of this ubiquitous fantasy race. Orc Warfare is not a game manual, but a treatise that reads like a historian’s colorful review and analysis.
Born and bred for war, orcs are a nasty, brutish, violent race and, despite their propensity for infighting and backstabbing, their horde armies remain a dire threat to all races.
This book compiles all of the information known about these vicious killers and how they practice war. From an initial examination of the fighting methods of the individual orc warrior, it expands to look at how they do battle in both small warbands and in vast armies.
It covers all of their forces from lightly armed archers and heavily armored shock troops to their wolf cavalry and siege engines, making note of regional variations and highly specialized fighters such as berserkers and charioteers.
Also covered are the various allied contingents that often march to war with orcs such as trolls and human mercenaries. Finally, the book examines a few specific battles in great detail in order to fully demonstrate the orc way of war.
~~~~~
Now it's time to print off character sheets, etc.! I've been working on a revision to the Prowlers and Paragons rules with my friend Len Pimentel, for what we plan to be the core of my Modern Gods superhero setting. Tonight is the first at-the-table run for the new rules, so wish me luck!
Tomorrow, I am running a special Savage Rifts demo for Wombatcon here in Denver; it's an effort to raise money for the Gamers Giving charity, which I am very proud to support.
Sunday, Carinn runs her awesome Savage Worlds setting, The Crew - supernaturally-empowered special ops agents against supernatural horrors in the modern world.
Hope you have some great gaming ahead, and as always...
The Adventure Continues!
~SPF
