Whilst the Capn’ is fighting the internet trolls with his +2 words, I have a game to review. Obviously, I’m talking about Bully Pulpit’s wonderful game Fiasco, written by Jason Morningstar. The one that @Captcalamitous called “too indie even for me”. Is it very indie? I guess, although I don’t see anything wrong about that. The presentation is sleek and stylish, the quality of the book is amazing, and for twelve pounds I got a physical copy and a PDF download. Can’t go wrong. On top of that, every month there’s a new free playset on the website, complete with a crisp and fresh gorgeous illustration.

Fiasco calls itself a roleplaying game of powerful ambition and poor impulse control. The book presents itself as a “make your own Coen brother’s film in a few minutes and play it out in your living room” kind of thing. Which is exactly what it is, and it works wonderfully. Now, if you’re not a film aficionado then you’re probably wondering who the hell these Coen brothers are. For those of you less film savvy, think of films with criminal ideas gone disastrously wrong, possibly with a lot of black comedy elements. Like Guy Ritchie films or, say, Ocean’s Eleven that end up killing each other for the money they just stole, until there’s nothing but the money left (I’d so watch that).

The way it works is, you choose a playset, which is effectively a list of details styled around a certain theme. The default ones that come with the book are a southern town, a booming town in the wild west, suburban life and a research station in Antarctica. There’s plenty more to choose from on their website, like a rock tour or a group of adventurers who just slew a dragon and want all of the loot for themselves. These give you some ideas for the relationships, needs, objects and locations you’re gonna give to your characters. And then you play out scenes, where you either set up the scene and let the other players resolve it, or give your friends the right to set you up but choose the outcome yourself. You play these scenes till it all comes crashing down. There’s a bit more to it than that, but this forms the bulk of the game.

I’ll be honest with you, the rulebook sat on my shelf for about three months, if not a bit more, without being touched. I read it as soon as it came in the post, which took me about 2-3 hours, very quick for a roleplaying game. But finding a group to play with was not as quick. Admittedly my wife jumped at the idea, and our flat mate was partial to it as well, but we felt like we needed one more person. Now, after having played it, I wish we had been playing it all along. In fact, I enjoyed myself so much that, right after we finished, I wanted to dive in again and play a second game. We picked the ‘Antarctica research station’ playset and slowly progressed through character creation, which took a bit more time than the book suggests. But in the end we had a rag tag group of flawed individuals that were about to face each other in inevitably gruesome fashion. I felt like my character was the catalyst for it all; being the guy who scams the warehouse system, is being investigated for fraud and has an unhealthy obsession with his fire axe.  Why would I create such a psychopath? Well, the beauty of the game is that you’re only responsible for 40% of who your character is and what he does. The rest is decided by the group and the game still feels like you have the right amount of control.

There were a few hiccups I have discovered. The rules for the setup were incredibly vague and hard to read. I had to re-read it a few times. This might just be me but I usually don’t find rulebooks confusing. But this I feel is a minor issue compared to how much everyone in our group preplayed. Instead of playing the scene we would pre-describe what would happen in it, and when it came to actual roleplaying we wouldn’t know what to do since everything’s already been said out loud.  The book addresses this and tells you to avoid it, but it’s very tempting to still do it. Of course this isn’t the game’s fault, but it did taint our session slightly.

The real driving force behind the mechanics however is ‘The Tilt’ and ‘The Aftermath’. The Tilt is a midway point and introduces a car-crash element to your stories. Suddenly my axe-guy, who up to this point was only mildly threatening, had to become a murderer because some of the other players thought that “Greed leads to killing” is a good tilt element to introduce to our game. The aftermath is an exercise in the unexpected. It’s a montage-like summary of the game that wraps things up with three to five sentences per character. Again, because you are not in control of your fate, you never truly know how the game is going to end, even when you think you have it all figured out. I was fairly sure that my axe-man was not coming out of this alive. Not only did he get away with only a minor insignificant head injury, but the final sentence of my montage revealed him in a new warehouse, getting up to no good again.

The bottom line is: this game is awesome. I can’t think of enough ways to recommend it. Oh and I hear there’s a sourcebook coming out in the near future too.

p.s. Follow me on twitter @banjotheclown

Comments: 1 comment

Tags: #DnD, fiasco, indie, Review, RPG

Asshats

It seems to me that the internet, whilst being a thoroughly useful tool, gets abused by serious dickwads who think it’s their right to target people with bilious and vitriolic comments purely because they have a different opinion to them. I for one have had enough, you know who you are and to be frank I consider all of you to be a waste of sperm and oxygen thieves, the world would be a better place without all of you. Yarrgggh!

Just because there is no real way to police the idiots mentioned in the above paragraph doesn’t mean that we have freedom of speech, for instance, were this article calling for a fatwah or a crusade I could expect to be visited by some of the chaps in blue uniforms and called to account, should I threaten to blow something up it would be much the same. I have always been a big fan of the quote “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” however, when someone devolves to personal attacks, purely because I say I don’t like something then the bets are off. they don’t get to do that and I will not feed the trolls, I will explain where they are mistaken and that will be my final comment on the matter.

I don’t like 4E, it is my opinion that it is turning into a squad level tactical game, the way things are going with it does not appeal to me in the slightest, I will not be using any of the cards, I will also not be running any more of it. For me the rot set in during a game of LFR I was running when the players told me that they didn’t have time for roleplaying they wanted to get to the encounter. Hey asshole! Yes you out there, the angry one with the red face, step away from the pc and go and do something more useful for the world, see if you can win a Darwin award.

There I said it, I don’t like 4E, does that make me a bad person? Does it mean I am consigned to gamer hell? Does it mean that WoTC storm-troopers will come and kick down my door and drag me away? What about me, will I break into homes where they’re playing 4E and kill everyone? Will I demonstrate outside games shops and call anyone playing 4E rude names? Nope, none of the above, I’ll continue on as I am, I’ll play something different and WoTC can no longer sell me every book they produce, I also cancelled my ddi subscription all told they have lost someone who spent a large amount of $ on their products, but hey that’s cool, because I know there are people out there who do like it and will continue playing it.

Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one talking about the elephant in the room or that spanky new set of clothes the Emperor is not wearing, but hey-ho it’s only zeroes and ones at the end of the day.

Now on to something I do like.

Pathfinder Adventure Paths

Just recently I have started running 2 games of Pathfinder, I decided to run their adventure path product – Rise of the Runelords this for me is an extremely well written and produced product, it’s filled with information, excellent scenarios and loads of colourful art, in it Goblins take on a whole new life and seem akin to some of the darker fairy tales. I have run the first part of this campaign  twice now for 2 seperate groups and it was fresh each time, the group dynamics were different, the party makeup was different and the town seemed to come alive for both groups. There have been some memorable moments too, from the Cleric of Cayden Cailean holding a goblin at bay with a rapier until the ranger loped in and sliced it in half to the bumbling sorcerer who tripped over his robes whilst trying to run away.

My players managed to bring their characters to life, they have places to stay, money problems, women problems and they are saving up for their next gadget/toy just like everyone else. The storyline is really good and I expect to have a lot of fun with the 2 groups, I’m well aware that the group is the key to roleplaying goodness, just like I’m well aware that the system does not really dictate the style of play, what I think the system does do is lend itself to a particular playing style and lead the game in a particular direction.

I won’t go into the Rise of the Runelords AP in too much detail, I know at least 2 of my players read this stuff I write, but the story really does build to an excellent end game, if you’re a GM and you haven’t seen this stuff, buy the pdfs and have a read they really are good.

And finally I’d like to welcome Banjo the Clown to the crew, unlike me Banjo likes 4E and NWoD, but then I guess there’s no accounting for taste. *wink*

Seriously Banjo runs a mean 4E game and I’m sure he does the same for the various World of Darkness games he runs too, sniff, not been invited to one of those, I understand he’s running Promethean at the moment and it’s all going to end in tears.

That’s enough from me today and remember if you’re an angry asshat, go and find someone else to pester!

Comments: 6 comments

Tags: #DnD, 4e, Captain Curmudgeon, Fantasy, Nerd Rage, Pathfinder, roleplaying

Say hello to the newest member of the Buccaneer’s Guild – Banjo the Clown. Because every pirate crew needs one. And without further ado, my first post:

The 7^th edition of Gamma World is now complete. Which is an odd thing to say, because the game in itself was advertised as complete. But this expansion really rounds things up. The things that felt like they were missing from the base game are finally here.

Instead of writing up a list of the things that are inside I thought I’d do an unboxing video instead. I did end up making a few mistakes (on which I’ll elaborate later) and the video quality is a bit grainy but bear with us as this is our first attempt.

It’s hard to review this game without reviewing Gamma World itself. Everything that this expansion adds, feels like it should have been part of the game all along. I imagine this was deliberate WotC strategy targeted at gamers who want to have ‘the entire thing’ without too many purchases. I know this because I am one of these completists (although the disease has not progressed lately and is being kept under check by my wife and student budget). Is this an ideal publishing model? No. I would have preferred that both of these expansions were part of a single boxset bunched up together with the main game and sold in a higher price range. Then later on, after the vocal internet community has expressed what it wants, a new expansion could be released that features these additions. Unfortunately, this publishing and design model is a bit too old. Companies like to preplan everything now; they know what source material is going to come out for a game a year before the game is even out. This, of course, has its ups and downs. But I digress…

I say I digress because Gamma World is still a great game. The only thing that irks me about it is that most players, when creating characters, focus on the quirky too much leaving the rest slightly one-dimensional. This closes off a lot of roleplaying options during game-time. I am guilty of this too. Just ask my Hawkoid-Arachnoid character, Piotr Parker.

The unboxing video says that there are six new origins. There are in fact eight of them. And whilst some feel a bit here and there, they are still great additions to the grand total. The unboxing video also says that there are no feats in Gamma World which is no longer true because it is one of the things that the expansion adds. Every origin gets a set of three feats which you get at levels four, seven and ten. The first question my wife asked was “Are there more levels now?” to which I had to sadly shake my head. This would have been amazing frankly. Finally, the video says that the adventure takes you to the moon, which is true. But there is also an entire chapter devoted to Moon Zone 9, an outer space location that provides rules and useful tips for running adventures outside of Gamma Terra. And let’s not forget the very important moon gear (no ancient moon junk table though).

What did I forget? The forty-five odd pages devoted to new monsters which fill out the higher level monster tier, missing in the base game and the first expansion. I am glad to report that monsters now go all the way up to level fourteen. Finally Piotr will be able to dine on his favorite meal – the space eel.

Banjo out.

Comments: 4 comments

Tags: #DnD, 4e, dungeons and dragons, gamma world, roleplaying, unboxing

WTF?

No seriously, WTF?

I get product extensions, I really do, obviously I get apoplectic over stupid ones like the release of the Dettol No-Touch Soap Dispenser. Do the morons in marketing not understand that the first thing you do after you touch a soap dispenser is wash your freaking hands?

Anyway, I digress, game affecting cards in D&D? For me these are symptomatic of the drift of 4th Ed D&D towards the Squad Level tactical game it reminds me of. I played encounters today and it was a fairly unimaginative scenario that I feel the writers could have done more with, but during this session we actually received the cards posted out to the organisers.

Reading the rules you now have a draw phase at the start of your turn and you can play your card accordingly during your turn, if anything is guaranteed to turn me cold it’s playing rules extensions and revisions during a game because you have a card for it, it’s ridiculous and it’s just NOT role playing.

What do they think they’re doing?

Of course this will mean that there are rares, uncommons and commons that people will simply have to own, which of course is good business for Hasbro, but playing cards to determine battle outcomes?

Really?

D&D as an RPG is dead to me, I’ll turn up and play with the guys at the Encounters sessions because it’s socialising, but I will not be spending any more money on 4th Ed, I will not be running any more games, I will not renew my ddi subscription, from here on in it’s Pathfinder all the way baby, well that’s when I’m not playing SLA Industries, or FATE or any one of a multitude of RPGs.

Oh yeah, while I’m here, did I mention there’s a new forum for SLA Industries?

Go there, check it out, it’s cool.

Comments: 13 comments

Tags: #DnD, 4e, Captain Curmudgeon, RPG

Battle’s End

Postmortem Studios

What is it? It’s something Postmortem are calling a “6-Pack Adventure” and to quote from the book itself;

“6-Pack Adventures are ‘pick-up and play’ adventures. They have pregenerated characters, battlemats, tokens, all that just need to be printed out or, in the case of the print version – have the cover taken off to use as the mat and the tokens cut out.”

How much does it cost? The download will cost you the princely sum of £1.75 the print copy will set you back £3.50

What system is it for? Pathfinder.

My thoughts:

This public review of role playing products is a little new for me, we all like to read products and then declaim or evangelise wildly to our friends, but to actually go on record and state your thoughts in a public manner? That’s a totally different container of Pisceans. This brings me to the package of RPG goodness I have in front of me, it comes as an electronic download from RPGNow and there’s a print version out there too, available from LULU, I cannot review the actual print edition as it’s a little hard to get it to travel along the broadband link I have.

The story starts in an inn, but let me assure you now, even though there’s a ‘Mysterious Stranger’ in residence it is not that old hackneyed hook that awaits the valorous traveller, the characters are all taking refuge from the cold night in the inn and plan to move on in the morning. The shenanigans continue from there but I won’t go into further details to avoid spoilers.

I like it, it reads like something I might have put together and I think it could generate a reasonable amount of further adventures for a party who run through it. It’s playable with only the core rulebook knowledge of Pathfinder needed over and above the actual 6-Pack. There are a couple of areas that, knowing my players, I’d have to fill in but this will not present a problem to any but the newest of GMs.

No characters ready? No problem the ones at the back of the pack have enough characterisation to get your teeth into, my only complaint with these is I’d like to see the character art all done in the same style, it’s a personal preference more than a real dislike.

A good colour printer will provide the maps and tokens, if you need them.

This pack really does contain everything you need to play a shortish game of Pathfinder; I suspect my group would play through this in about 2 to 3 hours.

I’ve attached one of the pre-generated characters to this post, Torvel Darvassa - Level 3 Human Fighter (388), that should give you some idea of the characterisation in this module.

The overall rating I’m going to give it is 4.5 Buccaneers out of 5, losing 0.5 of a Buccaneer to my personal preference for a single art style in a module.

Comments: Leave a comment

Tags: #DnD, GMing, Pathfinder, Review, Scenario

For anyone who’s been playing with the two new web-services that the online version of WotC’s Character Builder uses, you may have tried remotely logging in, but wondered how the password needs to be encrypted?

Well I’ve cracked the way passwords are encrypted and have been able to login remotely and do simple actions such as, get a list of all my characters and export the XML for an old style DnD4e file.

Here’s a simple bit of C# showing how to encode a password.

public static byte[] SimpleEncrypt(string value, string key)
{
    byte[] buffer2;
    ICryptoTransform transform = GetSimpleAlgorithm(key).CreateEncryptor();
    using (MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream())
    {
        using (CryptoStream stream2 = new CryptoStream(stream, transform, CryptoStreamMode.Write))
        {
            byte[] bytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(value);
            stream2.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
            stream2.Flush();
            stream2.FlushFinalBlock();
            stream.Position = 0L;
            buffer2 = stream.ToArray();
        }
    }
    return buffer2;
}

private static SymmetricAlgorithm GetSimpleAlgorithm(string key)
{
    AesManaged aes = new AesManaged();
    byte[] source = new SHA256Managed().ComputeHash(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(key));
    return new AesManaged { Key = source, IV = source.Take<byte>((aes.BlockSize / 8)).ToArray<byte>() };
}

As you can see this takes the username and password as inputs, if you’ve built a nice client wrapper around the SOAP webservice, something that Visual Studio does for me, then logging in is as simple as calling the login method on either of the web services.

contentClient.Login(username, SimpleEncrypt(password, username));

If we then use the GetAvailableContent() method of the ContentVault service, we can return and enumerate a list of characters.

ContentInfo[] content = contentClient.GetAvailableContent(0);

for (int i = 0; i < content.Length; i++)
{
    XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse(content[i].CommittedContent.Details.ToString());
    var name = doc.Element("CharacterDetails").Element("Name").Value;
    Console.WriteLine("{0} : {1}", i, name);
}

Then using the GetData() method of the same service we can grab the DnD4e XML file.

DataWithVersion data = contentClient.GetData(
    new ContentVault.ContentIdentifier { ContentID = content[0].CommittedContent.Identifier.ContentID },
    null
    );

RawContentBlob blob = data.Data as RawContentBlob;

String charFile = new UTF8Encoding().GetString(blob.RawData, 0, blob.RawData.Length);

File.WriteAllBytes("d:\\temp.dnd4e", blob.RawData);

There you go just a brief window into some of the things the ContentVault service can do.

No word from WotC on whether or not we’re allowed to do this though. I did ask, but never got a response.

One last note, if you’re doing this in Visual Studio then make sure the bindings for the web services have allowCookies set to true, then the login will be remembered for the subsequent calls to the service.

If you’re consuming the SOAP in some other not Microsoft way, then obviously you’ll need to do the same thing, save the cookie from the login response and send it on with any following requests.

Comments: 37 comments

Tags: #DnD, 4e, D&D, DDI, Programming

I’ve just discovered a really cool combat tracker. I’ve very fond of iPlay4e, and use it for all my characters and players PCs.

Now today I found inCombat (http://laughterforever.com/inCombat/) a fine combat tracker that incorporates characters from iPlay4e nicely. As well as the ability to add monsters from the compendium or monster builder.

It just works to be frank, and it runs in a browser, as well as off-line through Adobe AIR.

Nothing bad to be said about it so far, can’t wait to start using it in anger.

Comments: Leave a comment

Tags: #DnD, 4e, Resource

And the results are in. Our guest judge, Greg Bilsland, has chosen a winner.

(This also came in in level 13, 18, 23 and 28 varieties with suitable increases)

Here’s what Greg had to say about the winner:

There aren’t a lot of low-level items that let you escape death like this, so I like that this item gives you a way to do it, but at a cost. It also is well balanced, because even though the power is unlikely to come up very often, the property still gives it a benefit that any undead-slaying hero can appreciate.

Putting the item at level 3, 8, etc. is exactly where I would place it. I’d probably keep the range on the ongoing necrotic damage static rather than allowing it to increase. I like that the designer included some story. I’d like to see the story text as a separate section (like in Adventurer’s Vault 2) so the flavor text can give me a description of the item.

Overall, a good job, though. The designer has an eye for balancing mechanics, usability, and creativity.

So congratulations go to Granger44! Who had this to say:

Hey, thanks!   As a side note, I just had a daughter born at the end of last month myself, so I’ll claim her as my inspiration to which I added the evil twist.

Steve’s necklace of death deserves a mention as Greg it as the most creative item:

I liked the necklace actually being a garotte. Shows thinking outside of the box. The item would need a little adjustment on the property’s damage output and on the automatic death in the daily power. Also, bringing down the level would be good so more players would have access to it.

Congratulations to the overall winner, and thanks to all those that took part. And finally thanks to Greg for being our guest judge. For more from Greg check out his new shiny blog, http://gregbilsland.wordpress.com/.

Comments: 1 comment

Tags: #DnD, 4e

Thanks to everyone who entered the PH3 competition. Entries are now closed. All entries have been packaged up and are ready to be sent to Greg Bilsland. Now you’ll just have to wait.

Comments: Leave a comment

Tags: #DnD, 4e

You’ve got until 23.59 GMT today to enter the PH3 competition.

http://buccaneersguild.com/players-handbook-3-giveaway-2/

Judged by our guest judge, WotC’s Greg Bilsland.

Comments: Leave a comment

Tags: #DnD, 4e