The Gaming Den

Lago, I've seen some people talking on Google+ about a Walking Dead hack for Torchbearer... https://plus.google.com/112346714622542 ... xTun7Jdd1n

It's very quick and dirty but there are some things to work with there.

I hate with the passion of a thousand fiery suns love that Silva is defending the advancement system in a game by talking about a completely different game with a similar system. Torchbearer deals with the power leveling problem by making rolls a limited resource. Every four times the dice are rolle...

Yeah, in my mind I was imagining more Burning Wheel with TB conflict rules than anything else. You can use traits positively though. A level 1 trait can give you +1D once a session, lvl 2 is +1D every time the trait can apply (which is often), lvl 3 gives you an extra success on tied or successful r...

Are there any games that are doing new or interesting things mechanically? It seems like a lot of the gaming internetosphere is focused on Kickstarters for fan versions of old games (OSR, Onyx path), where are the games that are doing something new? Fate points are at least twelve years old, I've pl...

The BWHQ games intentionally have a lot of meta game elements. For example, early in Burning Wheel they take the time to tell you that your character is controlled by you, not an independent entity, and that saying "my guy would do this" is a cop out. The conflict rules, especially in BW (...

The core problem with ACKS is its need to conform to Basic D&D. I think Alex Macris could probably (60% shot) come up with a better game if he wasn't making an alternate universe AD&D, but would enough people want to play it? ACKS gained an audience by being an OSR game that was not a pure r...

I bounced off of Burning Wheel several times before having a successful game. The key was joining a group that was already experienced with it. It is very crunchy and very fiddly and the books don't actually explain the meat of the game that well. Mouseguard is BW but significantly simplified and fo...

I think making sure negotiations are a two way street would be a good way to preserve agency. Robin Hood's player would choose to take the risk of betraying his comrades because if he won the social exchange he could cause the Sherrif to question his loyalty to Prince John. In the fiction it could b...

I enjoy it when I roll up an adventuring party as a wilderness or dungeon encounter. They give me a way to plant rumors, introduce other parts of the game world ("Their leader appears to be from the deserts of Koth..."), and come up with fun names. So far my players have encountered two. T...

Since I'm doing a pretty blatant D&D riff I'm going to go with D20 for nearly everything with occasional use of the other usual suspects. One of the main things I'm struggling with is how to represent damage to a side. In Torchbearer one of the PCs makes a roll (D6 dicepool, tn 4) to get the &qu...

So I, like a bunch of other people on this board, have been batting around a Fantasy Heartbreaker in my head. In the hopes of making some progress I decided to throw a bunch of shit at the wall and see what sticks. I've been playing OSR games lately (Labyrinth Lord and Adventurer, Conqueror King) an...

I think you'd definitely want the actions of diplomancers to potentially have an effect in the combat phase of the encounter. That way diplomacy isn't an all or nothing gambit and the players might be willing to risk the Lich Kings fear affect to have a chance to cow his lackeys into betraying him (...

They've had 19 kinds of production problems ... while they don't yet have a revised date, it'll likely be at least the first of the year. I got mine on the 5th. As of yet I haven't had a moment to really go through it. My first impressions are that it is physically a great book. Nice art, good bind...

Obviously the gnomes need to be wearing pointy red hats.

Based on what I know about Burning Wheel I would say that the "modern" idea is that there is a connection between the mechanics and roleplay. In BW you are mechanically rewarded for roleplaying your character according to the Beliefs, Instincts and Traits you wrote or chose for him at char...

Frank Trollman wrote:Hint: Cyril and Methodius were Greek. So obviously they started their work in the Balkans, and not in Crimea. Because the Balkans is where they lived, and the Crimean Peninsula is not

You're forgetting that Roman Catholics don't count.

The Compleat Strategist is right by the Empire State Building; they have a huge selection but inconvenient hours. I've heard there's a big playing space in their basement and I know they hosted a wargaming club at one point. The Brooklyn Strategist is in Carroll Gardens; it's smaller and it's busine...

I play at the Brooklyn Strategist in Carroll Gardens. It's a game store/cafe/club. You do have to pay to play (neighborhood rent 'aint cheap) but the price is pretty reasonable. Right now there's some retroclone games and I think a 4E game being run there. There's also Nerd NYC (www.nerdnyc.com), wh...

The color/class/character question has been on my mind for a while now. Would it be viable to make the classes few in number and have the customization come from picking color(s) and abilities? Say you have Robes-guy, Leather-guy and Armor-guy as the class options. They give you the basic chassis of...

In a sandbox style adventure there has generally been an agreement between the DM and the players that the game will play that way. Therefore travel abilities are interesting because they do expand the map in a real way (even if its just from the regional map to the continent map). Expanding the map...

[quote="Lago Paranoia] TSR was so hot-to-trot on a sci-fi property and (understandably) Star Wars wasn't available, why didn't they pick something from, oh: Star Trek: TNG Babylon 5 Battlestar Galactica Dune Doctor Who Macross Gundam Wing Or, hell, even World of Gor? [/quote] The Buck Rogers ga...

In Burning Wheel players write down three "beliefs" on their character sheet. These are basically a short sentence that (ideally) includes both character, plot, and an actionable goal. For example: "Blood is thicker than water, I will bring the Orb of Uz to my father, not Duke Redpant...

[quote="Mr GC]Things are a lot more complex and second, even if a script could do it that doesn't mean anything, that doesn't make it less difficult. [/quote] Well shit! Why didn't you just say "my players don't/can't use a script to defeat my encounters?" Why go on a ridiculous tange...

If you used an Auto It script to play the game then it would be easy. It would, in fact, be boring because you're just watching a script execute. IWTBTG is pressing buttons. Pressing buttons is the entire game. If you're not pressing buttons, if buttons are being pressed on their own, then there is...

Even if you accept the Technocracy's propaganda that they are the ultimate source of scientific advancement it's still possible for technology to be created by other people. Once the Technocracy has caused a certain amount of science to be acceptable to the masses sleeper scientists can create techn...