Recent content by Jay Murphy1

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Jay Murphy, Vanishing Tower Press, jay@vanishingtowerpress.com First Two Books in Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery RPG Series Deliver Rules-Light Classic Pulp-Fantasy Aspen, CO - Vanishing Tower Press is pleased to announce the release of the first two books for...

VANISHING TOWER PRESS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Jay Murphy, Vanishing Tower Press, jay@vanishingtowerpress.com First Two Books in Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery RPG Series Deliver Rules-Light Classic Pulp-Fantasy Aspen, CO - Vanishing Tower Press is pleased to announce the release of...

I have heard good things about Stars Without Number. Intrigued by the amount of tables promised between its pages.

Go old school and whip out a copy of FGU's Space Opera!

They are the devil. And Ice Cream.

"A base movement rate of 120' in ten minutes may seem slow, but it assumes that the players are mapping carefully searching, and trying to trying to be quiet. It also takes into account the generally 'dark and dingy' conditions of the dungeon in which characters are adventuring." No where is it...

Mapping can't be done while running, agreed. This is regardless if you believe the player or the character is actually doing the mapping. On B19 it says "Maps are drawn to help players visualized the area their characters are exploring and to provide a record of sections of a dungeon they have...

Not in Moldvay B/X. It explicitly says the opposite. Have you read it?

How is it weird? Making a map as you travel through buildings you have never been is weird, and is something no one does. Every exploration I have done in real life has never included stopping every ten minutes and mapping out where I am. I seem to find my brain remembers what I've seen and...

With the rules I use this is not a mechanic so nothing is gutted. The rest of your sentences are putting words in my mouth. Yes, characters can make a map and stick in their backpack and later make a paper hat out of it, whoopee. In DnD basic the map is a tool for the players to better visualize...

One of the reasons I prefer Moldvay Basic DnD. This is an example of 5th edition adding a meaningless mechanic. The "mapper" and mapping is recognized as a useful visual aid for players while, at the same time, characters living in the world don't need to map every ten feet of it to know where...

Mapping is an out of game activity, Basic DnD clearly explains the map is a tool for the PCs to visualize where they are from the DMs description, and the "mapper" is not a character, but a player. So there really is nothing which should be construed by the term "mapping" as something which...

I like the design solutions Chaosium hit on to create a class-less DnD not shortly after DnD was released into the world. For me this is best served by their rules reference tome Magic World and Elric!

I enjoy the life path systems found in Cyberpunk 2020, Traveller, and Warhammer Fantasy RPG. Maybe even more than I like running the game. Now as far as running a game, I really groove on the DC Heroes heartbreaker The Blood of Heroes. The system makes running super hero games fun for me...

Magic Realms, an out of print boardgame from Avalon Hill seemed to be the penultimate attempt at turning the ttrpg experience into a board game. I've only read about it and researched it on boardgamegeek, but that is what it appears to be to me.