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Countdown to Free RPG day
Free RPG day is less than two weeks away. Our friendly local gaming shop opened its doors six years ago on Free RPG day, so it is always a double celebration in Asheville. The offerings this year are particularly strong: Starfinder, We be SuperGoblins, Tunnels & Trolls, Kids on Bikes, and both 5th edition D&D and a 2nd level DCC adventures from Goodman Games, amongst others. To reserve a seat at one of the games at The Wyvern’s Tale, check out the warhorn page for the event.
This year I’ll be running the 2nd level DCC adventure included with a revised quickstart rules “Man-bait for the Soul Stealer.” I built some pre-gens I plan on using for the session on purplesorcer.com using the 4d6 power characters and max zero level hit die. Each of these PCs have at least a +1 in their prime stat as well. Call me a soft judge, but it is no fun playing a 6 HP Warrior with a 5 in strength. If you’d like to use these same pre-gens, you can download them here: Thief Cleric Halfling Elf Dwarf Wizard Warrior2 Warrior1
The Sanctum Secorum podcast has put together a list of locations hosting DCC games for Free RPG day as well as a free download of 3rd party DCC sampler that is currently out for approval, but should be available before the event.
A quick search of our site for ‘Free RPG day’ is a fun trip down memory lane. We are extremely fortunate to have a tremendously diverse and vibrant RPG gaming community, especially for the size of this town. In 2012 I ran the DCC offering: The Jeweler who dealt in Stardust. It has been phenomenal to witness the growth of the DCC community in the intervening years. I remember running road crew games for just two or three players, and mostly folks who had never heard of Dungeon Crawl Classics. These days when Mike or I run at the Tale or a convention, we’ve got full tables weeks in advance and can even occasionally sign up for someone else’s table and play a PC!
What an amazing six years it has been for Goodman Games: four printings of the DCC core rulebook, Chained Coffin box set, Purple Planet, 30+ modules, Mutant Crawl Classics, tons of brilliant zines and 3rd party modules, and the forthcoming Lankhmar boxed set. It has been tremendously fun to be a part of the community and help people find the magic of RPGs again through classic mechanics, the weirdest dice, and fantastically creative adventures.
Try and track down a game, or better yet, run one on Saturday, June 16th. If this is your first Free RPG day or your eleventh, have a great time and contribute to this incredible hobby.
Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes – Review
The latest 5E D&D book hit Friendly Local Gaming Stores this week: Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes. I purchased this book thinking it would be essentially a supplementary monster manual along the lines of the classic Fiend Folio. In fact, this book follows the format provided in Volo’s Guide to Monsters.
The first section details classic D&D struggles of Demons vs. Devils, Elves vs. Drow, Dwarves vs. Duergar, Githyanki vs. Githzerai, and… Halflings vs. Gnomes?! Not really, but they wanted to include some new material for the little guys so they threw them together at the end. The second section is a more traditional bestiary with monster stat blocks, as well as stats for NPCs that the DM could use to illustrate the struggles detailed in the first half. There are brief sidebars representing personal notes from Mordenkainen about different sections of the book. Unlike the fun disclaimer in Volo’s or the entertaining condescending disdain in Xanathar’s, the sidebars here add little if anything. This is disappointing as a similar format was followed in one of my favorite 4E supplements, Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium, and those side bars added really cool details and perspective.
There is a great deal of background information and flavor text detailing the various struggles illustrated in the first half of the book. This may provide excellent context for classic rivals like demons vs. devils or elves vs. drow and reasons behind these struggles. There is also quite a bit of detail associated with the pantheon of gods for each race including alignment, province (what they are known for) as well as suggested domains and common holy symbols. Each section spends some time on world-specific variants of races (Gully Dwarves in Dragonlance, cannibal Halflings in Dark Sun), but usually without stats to make them anything more than window dressing.
Peppered throughout the first section are a few player options and sub-races with traits and tables to help provide more character details for PCs, especially if you like playing Tieflings or Elves. Tieflings gain 8 optional sub-races to demonstrate allegiance or infernal origins associated with a particular layer of the nine hells (Asmodeus being the default described in the Player’s Handbook). New elven options include four distinct eladrin variants that correspond with the seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter), as well as a Sea Elf and the goth cousins from the Shadowfell, the Shadar-Kai. The Dwarven section provides the Duergar as a playable race. Githzerai and Githyanki traits and tables are provided as PC options as well. While additional halfling personality/ideal/bond/flaw tables are provided, the only new sub-race in the last chapter of the first section are deep gnomes (aka svirfneblin).
The bestiary second half of the book includes some fantastic dual-page artwork, as well as helpful indexes that sort creatures by type, CR, as well as typical environment.
This book is for DMs looking for inspiration using some of the classic D&D struggles detailed over the 40 years of monster manuals of every edition. It is also for players who may be looking for a particular sub-race they miss from a previous edition or more background details and inspiration for new characters. Should you buy it? Maybe. This one isn’t as essential as Xanathar’s as it isn’t as great a value for the money from a player options perspective. As a DM, if you already own the adventure Into the Abyss, there will be a significant amount of repeated stat blocks as all the demon lords are repeated here. If you’ve always wondered what the story was behind why demons and devils fight, or the origins of the elven diaspora, this is the book for you.
Free RPG Day Preview – TimeWatch Resources
Free RPG Day is this Saturday, and it looks to be one of the best in a long time! The Sanctum Secorum podcast has a list of DCC/MCC games happening around the world, and for a more general listing of stores participating check the Free RPG Day locator. Locally in Asheville at The Wyvern’s Tale, Mike will be running Gnole House, a DCC adventure from Goodman Games and Kevin (me) will be running a TimeWatch adventure called Font of Knowledge from Pelgrane Press. It is also the Tale’s 5th anniversary celebration! There will be swag bags to the first 25 people to show up and a ton of games listed on the warhorn. It is going to be an amazing day!
I also wanted to provide some resources for the TimeWatch offering, should you be running it this weekend. They don’t contain any spoilers you wouldn’t know already by just reading the adventure blurb, but I scanned in the pre-gen characters (not great, but better than nothing) which include a brief description of the character and how they relate to the other pre-gens. Without these printed out beforehand it would be extraordinarily difficult to run on the day itself, and they were not present on the TimeWatch resources page. I also did a bit of google prep, as suggested in the module, to find an actual 13th century illuminated manuscript, and created a comic sans version of the latin version of the bible. Having this visual to illustrate the hilarious concept of what a jarring historical change this would make should be an awesome moment at the table.
I’ve never played or run the GUMSHOE investigative system used in TimeWatch, but it seems to be a nice balance of player resource management, stitches (stitch in time saves nine, works like bennies in Savage Worlds or FATE points), and a healthy amount of GM fiat. Check out this article from Pelgrane Press about the system and download the cheat sheets if you want to know more!
Hope you are looking forward to Free RPG Day, and if you’re at the Wyvern’s Tale we’ll see you there!
Strongholds of Resistance Review – Star Wars Age of Rebellion
The latest addition to the Age of Rebellion line details Rebel strongholds that can be used as adventure locations, and to give Age characters a bit more detail for common home worlds of typical rebel races like Mon Calamari, Gran, and Sullustans. Interestingly it also details a few famous rebel locations from the movies like Echo base, Yavin 4, and the flagship Independence. Beyond this, it details a few new races, gear, ships, and some modular encounters similar to those found in Suns of Fortune, and Lords of Nal Hutta.
The first section of this book is much like the Galaxy chapters of the main core books. Each world described starts with a fact sheet detailing population, languages, major cities, imports/exports, and what the world is generally known for. This book allows for a lot more detail than can be afforded in any entry in a core book. For instance the entry on Chandrila (Mon Mothma’s home planet) has details on the capitol of Hanna City, as well as nine points of interest that could serve as adventure locations. It also provides information about a few lesser cities, and the crystal canyons, as well as a few native peoples and creatures that could be encountered in the cities or the wilds. Sidebars enrich the environments with a few extra details like a hovertrain that connects agricultural communities, and rumors of an ancient Jedi tomb in the crystal canyons.
Kinyen, the Gran home world is given similar treatment, as is the aquatic planet of the Mon Calamari and the Quarren, Mon Cala, and the volcanic, industrial world of Sullust, home to the Sorosuub corporation, and Sullustans. Ord Gimmel is included as well. It is apparently a chief provider of hyperdrives, but has a weird history in that it was forgotten by the republic and cut off from the galaxy for a period of time. Its not clearly explained how this could have happened. Seems like an odd choice. The Roche Asteroid field is the home of the Verpine which are also provided as a playable race in this book. They are technologically-minded, and had a lot to do with project Shantipole and the development of the B-Wing fighter. There are creature stats for both mynocks and an “enormous space slug” that has vehicle stats rather than typical creature stats and is silhouette 7! That is no cave! Other planets include Thyferra, home of bacta production, Yavin 4, the former rebel base, and the rebel flagship Independence, home of the rebel high command. There are also a few paragraphs on minor locations like Barkhesh, Chardaan, Contruum, Hoth, and Kolaador.
The second section of the book goes in-depth about rebel bases, large and small. These can serve as templates for the PCs’ own base of operations, or serve as adventure locales for different missions. It starts big with Echo base on Hoth, and provides suggestions for participating in the evacuation, should the GM want to recreate the famous scene from Empire Strikes Back. The next is an asteroid base on Polis Massa that mainly serves as an archaeology research station. Interestingly, it does detail a secret rebel base, but none of the elements are pictured in the diagram; another odd choice.
The Tierfon Outpost is a nice example of a smaller base that could be encountered. It has a barracks, command center, medical suite and hanger, as well as 8 fighters (Y or X-wings) and shuttle or freighters for deliveries, as well as a few speeders for ground transport.
The final base provided is the Defiant Core base, which is formed from a clone wars era wreck of a Separatist destroyer, that carved a valley into the planet’s surface and ended up in a cave. Interestingly, it is provided in several stages, which represent the development of the base over time, with more assets and staff.
The third section is about player options with new races, gear, and ships. The Quarren we have already seen in Fly Casual, but the Polis Massans are new, along with the Verpine. The Polis Massans lack vocal cords and are mainly concerned with archaeological and xenological research. They start with a rank in medicine and a 3 in intellect and willpower, as well as a form of short range telepathy to communicate. Not my cup of tea, but could make an interesting intellectual type. The Verpine is known to excel with technology. They start with a rank in mechanics and a 3 in agility and intellect, as well as compound eyes that allow for a boost die on perception checks when examining something up close, and can produce radio-waves to communicate to other Verpine and specially tuned comlinks. This would definitely be my choice for a PC out of the three.
Notable gear includes a droid disruptor, that fries circuits rather than just overloading them like an ion gun. Also the Spore/B stun grenade which relies on spores to stun targets, but if you roll a despair on a challenge die, you suffer 6 strain and begin to suffocate. A hard medicine check is required to restore regular breathing. Powerful Mon Cala Leviathon power armor provides not only protection but built-in weaponry like a mini torpedo launcher and deadly duo-flechette rifle. Don’t pick a fight with the squids! Other cool new entries include jump boots, that operate similar to a jetpack, but for limited jumps up to 35 meters, and the Verpine Headband which allows PCs to exceed their strain threshold, and just take wounds instead, while suffering from the disoriented condition.
The last section describes a few encounters that can serve as a side-quest or solid game session worth a material each. The first one includes battling TIE phantoms in an asteroid field, as well as the stats for the deadly ships and a few very talented imperial pilots. Another deals with diplomatic negotiations between Mon Calamari and Quarren on Mon Cala, which was definitely an episode of Clone Wars, but could still be fun. The third is supporting the Sullustan resistance on Sullust, and the last describes a plot to wipe out Imperial Intelligence operations on Ord Gimmel.
Overall this is a great resource for both players and GMs alike, especially for rebel campaigns looking for mission ideas, or base schematics. It can also provide a lot of backstory and detail to rebel characters from these planets, and serve as a well of inspiration for unique adventure locations.