Sponsors

Here is what you will find at COMIC WORLD Saturday June 21, 2008!
The list below is NOT complete and will be updated accordingly.

GOLD SPONSORS

Countess Games (Heirs to Olympia Intro Booklet)
Flying Buffalo (Tunnels & Trolls Adv. & Quickstart)
Goodman Games (OGL Dungeon Crawl Classics Gazeteer)
Mongoose Publishing (Introduction to Traveller)
Paizo Publishing (GameMastery Module: Revenge of the Kobold King)
Q-Workshop (Unique Elven Dice Giveaway)
Skirmisher Publishing (Cthulhu Live 3rd Edition Light, "Mysteries of the Mythos")
Troll Lord Games (StarSiege Quickstart & Adventure)
White Wolf Publishing (Hunter:The Vigil)
Wizards of the Coast (Three Giveaways:Unique 4th Ed Adventure, unique adventure tile & unique paint miniature)


SILVER SPONSORS

Green Ronin Publishing (Song of Fire & Ice Quickplay)
Otherworld Creations (TBA)


BRONZE SPONSORS

The Cabil (cut-out 3D terrain sampler)
Chessex Manufacturing (Custom "Free RPG Day" Dice)
Columbia Games (Harn Quickstart & Adventure)
Exile Game Studio (Hollow Earth Expedition Quickstart)
Fiery Dragon Productions (Monte Cook's Iron Heroes adventure)
Margaret Weis Productions (TBA)
Pelgrane Press (Trail of Cthulhu Adventure)

   This week 4th Edition D&D comes out.  Previously I had heard a lot of rumors about what it was like, and none of them filled me with much confidence or anticipation.  I’ve found 3rd Ed, and 3.5, to be a flawed improvement over 2nd ed.,.  I liked the skill system and the D20 idea, but found the feat progression to be very stultifying and limiting and the biggest drawback to the system.  The most important question in my mind for 4th ed, is would it fix the various problems I had with 3.5 or not?
   Having read through the Quick Start rules and run two sessions using them (but not the Shadowfell Keep scenario, I prefer my own adventures) and the characters provided, I have to say that I am looking forward to the new edition.

   What did I like?  The higher hit points for first level characters certainly made them less fragile and made them seem like heroes right from the start.  The characters had around mid 20’s to 30s in hits.  That seemed to be a decent amount when also tied to the way healing works.
   I like the new classification of powers or abilities into At Will, Encounter and Daily classifications, based on how often they can be used.  Each of the characters has several of these and this gives them some options and choices.  The most remarkable is the Wizard who has 3 At Will spell like powers that mean no more one or two spells cast and then done.  The Cleric also benefits from the same sort of thing.
   The Warrior, Rogue and Paladin also had various different attacks that gave them some options in combat and made them seem interesting during a fight.  So far, the various choices all seem to have their usefulness and one did not seem to outweigh all others.
   The Healing Surge mechanic is nice.  Basically a character can, once per encounter, take a Second Wind and heal ¼ of their hits.  This means no matte how many you have, you are getting the same ration back.  Several of the healing powers are tied to this as well, making Cure Light Wounds always useful, not matter the level of the characters.  Good, about time.  Each character also has a number of Healing Surges per day (until an extended rest resets them) based on class and probably Con, and that proved an interesting mechanic.  Some of the Cleric’s and Paladin’s powers also granted heals as a secondary effect to an attack.  Now that is very nice.  No longer do they HAVE to sacrifice an active round to heal others.
   Feats seem to be less important and just modify the various powers/abilities.  If this is maintained character progression should be more free form and will not HAVE to be plotted out from 1st to 20th level at the outset, something that I detested greatly in 3.5.
   The spells and powers seemed balanced, with some having minimum automatic effects, a nice change, and some doing extra effects (for example radiant damage doing extra damage to certain creatures) in an easy but nice way.  Various secondary effects like slow, stun, knock back and such are also attached to some powers giving them some nice additions beyond simple damage.
   Spells attack targets like a melee or ranged attack, with Reflex, Fortitude and Willpower being targets similar to Armor Class.  Thus all spells make a D20 attack roll of some sort.  Different, but in practice this seemed to work well and added some nice flavor.  Saving throws are pretty much a set range with no modifiers and take place at the end of a character’s action.  This seemed to work just fine and means that high level is not safeguard against effects that actually do hit you.
   Other small changes I liked were critical hits just do full damage and characters get an opportunity attack each time an opponent moves rather than one per round.  Some monsters take one hit and go down, others have hit points and are just like characters.  This seems to give a more story/cinematic feel to the game and that felt OK.

   What didn’t I like?  The ranges and powers are all given in 5 foot squares. Thus you have range 20, burst 2 and such.  This seems to be an attempt to make the game too miniatures based, but it is easy to convert to feet and I only ran one combat out of 6 or so with miniatures.  They do help but aren’t completely necessary.  Still, I would prefer if the system weren’t too tied to that aspect.
   The number of skills has decreased and I do not like all the thief skills being lumped into one:  Thievery.  The standard D20 system seems to be in place for using skills, but I prefer the flavor from a broader range.


   That’s about it.  So far I am much more excited and intrigued by the new edition than I expected to be.  Fights were more interesting, characters at first level felt a bit more complete and competent, and everything seemed to flow pretty well.  Depending on how character progression works, if the balance seems to remain, this could be the best edition of D&D by far.  I can’t wait for Thursday night and a minute past midnight to see the full game.

Garner

 Check this out.

Ain't it cool news ((Warning the language is a little rough)): Massawyrm's 4th Edition review.

I've never really played D&D but I'm getting kinda excited. More as i find it.

~Geo

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Scion: Hero Cover


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 I haven't played alot of White Wolf stuff. Including the game I played this Sunday (29 Apr 2007) it would in fact be two games. The first thing I played was Mage (specifically the new Mage) at the last Nexus. Quite a bit of fun though I think I made the GM's head spin a little with my interpretation of how things worked. Fairly typical for me actually but this GM at least dealt with it pretty well.

Yesterday we had a demo at Comic World of Scion: Hero. It's not set in the World of Darkness, the system is a little different and all in all it was pretty fun. The game specifically rewards clever play and using the environment to your advantage. That said I found the combat system to be clunky. It worked pretty well but there were a lot of cases where you would spend thirty seconds to a minute calculating bonuses, rolling dice, comparing numbers, rolling more dice and when all was said and done there would be no effect. While it might give the proper epic feel I found it a little slow. That said by the second combat we were all getting better at figuring out how things were going to work and, while still a little slow, things went faster.

If you've been looking for a game where you get to play Epic Heroes in the modern age, without going all the way to being spandex clad vigilantes, and you like the White Wolf System then Scion may be just the thing for you.

-Geo
 

What may well be the most important mini-series from Marvel in years: Apocalypse vs Dracula is now available in TPB (Graphic Novel format for you youngsters)  Now I know what your thinking.  

"Is this guy serious?  This sounds like one of the most irrelevant pieces of fluff ever."

I can't blame you for thinking it.  When I saw it on the shelf for the first time my reaction was much the same.  Something like, "Great!  They finally found a way to combine TWO things I think are over rated (Dracula and Apocalypse) into one stupid non-continuity piece of garbage.  Man!  What fanboy wrote this crap."  Well...I hate to admit it but I was wrong.  Now some of you may have already read this mini-series and may not get what I mean when I say that it important.  I'll get there in a second.  

First off the story is a little silly.  It has Dracula fighting Apocalypse, it HAS to be a little silly but the tale hangs together pretty well and I was entertained throughout.  Second the art is quite good.  Both of these things make for a readable and even entertaining comic book but not necessarily an important one.

"So what the heck is so IMPORTANT about this comic already?!"

It gives nothing less than the logical, acceptable and as far as I'm concerned TRUE origin/explanation of where Mutants in the Marvel Universe (at least the earth born ones) come from.

Now, I can't promise that there wont be spoilers in what follows so I'm going to put the rest in a follow up post so it won't be visible here on the front page.


-Geo

So, Civil War #7 has hit the shelves.  If you haven't read it, don't continue reading this as it contains

SPOILERS!!!!!!!

Was the hype and the series worth the time and effort?  I'll give a qualified, "Yes," to that.  First off, I still don't feel that they really gave a balanced viewpoint for each side, the registration forces seemed to make more mistakes, act dumber, and made more questionable moral moves.  However, I liked FF 542 which showed why Reed Richards supported registration.  While I find psychohistory questionable (human society seems too chaotic to model mathematically) if there was ever someone who might be able to do it with any accuracy, Richards would be that person.  When all is said and done, Richards seems to have been correct in supporting the government side, as they do prevail.  I was mildly impressed that this was the outcome, as Captain America's forces seemed to have the more sympathetic presentation. 

But on thinking about it, could there have been any other outcome?  one battle between the heroes really shouldn't end the debate.  Say Cap and his followers win.  What then?  The government recruits more heroes, enlists more villains forcibly, ups the SHIELD budget assigned to detaining the anti-registration side, and the war continues.  Without winning the population over, which would be hard since the people seemed to really favor registration, Captain America was facing a very difficult battle.  And I find it appropriate that the collateral damage of the superhero community fighting it out is what finally brings the Civil War to an end.  Regular Joes jumping Cap and trying to stop him drives home this point and is a good rational for Cap to order a stand down.  While not as cool as having Tony Stark really be Loki, or under his influence, this is an ending that seems more "real world" to me.  The end actually makes sense.

Perhaps most impressive is the willingness of Marvel to allow the Civil War series to make some real changes in their universe.  Two Avengers teams, seemingly neither with Captain America, a superhero team for each state, many heroes remade or recreated?  All that sounds like some serious alterations.  Things really won't be the same.  I even like the idea of the N-zone prison being used for supervillians to help prevent their escape (how many times has the Joker, to use a DC example, escaped from Arkham anyway?  Why do they keep sending him back there?), this seems like a decent idea.  And Tony Stark as head of SHIELD, brilliant!  one of the few complaints I have is the ease and speed with which all these changes seem to be occuring.  Everyone just falls in line, with the exception of some heroes going to Canada.  Still, there are a few issues of fall out left to come, and then the new Initiative crossovers which will be the followup to Civil War in March and April, which may clean up any lingering threads.  While the House of M might have been a tighter and a better story, Civil War was interesting and seems to be having more long term effects.  And for my money, that makes it worthy effort in the end.

And most importantly, Hercules destroys the clone/cyborg Thor.  Yay!

Garner

We ran our first Arkham Horror, the boardgame by FFG, tourament this Saturday past (1/27).  Unfortunately we only had 4 people, though a few more stopped by to see what was being played and how things were being run.  Although the attendance was less than hoped for, we will probably try this again sometime when it is warmer.  For this tourney we used both expansions.  The Ancient One was Abhoth, and players chose investigators randomly.  Victory would be determined by number of Gate Trophies, ties being decided by total Toughness of Monster Trophies, and if still tied, by Clue Tokens.  This is basically the rulesbook version of scoring, but I wanted to reward players who defeated bigger monsters over those who just beat on little ones.  Of course with Abhoth removing all Cultists, mostly larger monsters appeared anyway!  In the end the Old One emerged and defeated the players.  The player with the most gates and monsters lasted longest and was declared the biggest lump going down the Ancient One's gullet, and so "won".  The game lasted about 3 hours, including one new player who was learning the game.  I had decided ahead of time that after 3 1/2 hours the round would be called (in the event of multiple tables and a second round being needed), so that seemed about right, though the time limit obviously wasn't needed.

I believe that next time we will use a slightly different scoring system.  The player who takes one for the team and goes about eliminating monsters while the others close Gates should be rewarded.  But not too much.  To that end I think for individual victor the following schedule will be used with highest total points being the winner (and again probably the top two per table would advance).

Gate Trophy:  5 points plus the closing modifier, as a positive value, if negative only.   So closing a Gate to R'lyeh (-3) would give 8 points, Plateau of Leng (-1) 6, Another Time (0) 5, but the Dreamlands (+1) would still only be worth 5, not 6 since it's closing modifier starts out positive.
Monster Trophy:  equal to Toughness.

If two people would be tied, than number of Clue Tokens would settle the tie.

As an alternative to individual victors and advancement, it is also possible to run the game as a team tournament since cooperative play is necessary to win.  If time for only one round is available, this method would still allow some competitive play.  I would suggest tables of 4 players, and judging victory for each table based on the following scheme, which mostly follows that of the rules with a few modifications:

-1 per unpaid/defaulted Bank Loan
-1 per Elder Sign (including Exhibit Item Elder Sign parchment) played successfully during the game
+1 per unspent Gate Trophy held at the end of the game
+1 per 5 Toughness of unspent Monster Trophies held at the end of the game
-1 per Devoured Investigator during the game
-1 per investigator retired during the game
+1 per Task or Mission completed during the game
-1 if the Ancient One awakened

The table with the highest Victory score would be the winners.  The advantage of this method is that the players would be rewarded for working together and winning as a team, and only one round is necessary (though several rounds could be played and the team with the highest cumulative total from all rounds would be the winner.  The advantage here would be one round of bad luck might be cancelled out, though I would eliminate any investigators used by a team in the first round from being available to them in subsequent rounds) and the tourney would be over sooner if time is a factor.  The player with the highest score using the points for Gates and Trophies above might also get a MVP award for the winning table (and again this could be kept track of over multiple rounds as well).  The same Ancient One should be used for each table (with a different one in each round if multiple rounds are being played).  Teams that lose gain no points for that round and the players Devoured at the end would also gain no points.  If we run Arkham Horror at Nexus, our local gaming convention, we'll probably use this team format, unless only enough players for one table entered.

Arkham Horror is a great game and the Dunwich expansion especially adds a lot more challenge.  Tournament play is possible in both a team or individual formats and it deserves to be run at conventions to help expose and introduce more people to this game that will certainly become a classic

Garner
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I don't normally read the Batman titles. I do pick up the occasional issue but nothing regular.  With that perspective in mind, I have to say that the run by John Ostrander (writer) and Tom Mandrake (artist) on issues 659 to 662 are worthy of attention.  Grant Morrison's work stopped abruptly at 658 and Ostrander took over with the Grotesk storyline that has nothing to do with anything Morrison had been doing.  Ostrander's tale is a return to the more detective noir oriented style of Batman that I really like, and which is much rarer now.  His depiction of Gotham is a bit more realistic and has that sort of gritty feel to it that I like.  It reminds me of a 1920s Capone era Chicago updated to modern technology.  The story is a bit more of a mystery than just hunting down the Joker or whatever of Batman's foes has broken out of Arkham recently, and the characters all were pretty well handled.  The art is decent but not great, and the only real down side is that Ostrander's time on the book seems to be over and Morrison is returning with issue 663 (at least that is what the back of the comic says), which is too bad.
 
If you haven't read Batman in a while, or just want a nice 4 issue story that is entertaining and well done, I highly suggest checking these out, they don't deserve to be overlooked.

Garner

Casino Royale was good.  I'm going to be honest I had become so disillusioned by the last...um...OK...basically since Connery left as i think about it.  Don't get me wrong.  There were some good ones after Connery.  I really like "A View to a Kill" but as a rule the movies just kept getting cheesier and fluffier with every new installment.  At any rate.  Casino Royale actually seems to take Bond seriously for the first time in a long time.  Are there one liners?  Yes, but they get used judiciously and thusly actually generate the effect they are going for instead of generating groans.  Gadgets are few and far between and Bond comes off a little less superhuman than we have seen him in a long time.  I won't say any more for fear of ruining it for you.  So go out see Casino Royale and then let us know what you thought of it here.

::: signing off
Geo

White Wolf has been sold to CCP-an Icelandic company that owns the MMORPG "Eve" as well as the recently released ccg of the same.  White Wolf of course has the popular World of Darkness system.

White Wolf will be creating an RPG based on the popular MMORPG and CCP will create an on-line version of World of Darkness.

And the mergings continue......

This last Sunday (10/29) the good folks from Tabletop Games, an honest to goodness Nebraska game company, came to the store and ran a demo of their RPG, Against the Darkness.  It’s a modern supernatural-horror game centered around a Vatican conspiracy theme.  The scenario was fun and well run, a nice trip to a haunted house in North Carolina and gave a good overview of the system.

Characters are very quick to create, we made ours in about fifteen minutes.  First you either assign points to one of the four Attributes:  Corpus, Mentus, Spiritus, and Fidelis, or roll a D6 for each.  You then assign Resolution Die to each Attribute.  These are a D4, D6, D6, and a D8.  After that you distribute points amongst the skills and miracles, or even the Attributes, though only the Attribute that has the D8 Resolution Die can have points put into Miracles.  Everything ranges from 1 to 7.

The system is very simple, roll the Resolution Die appropriate for the Attribute that governs the skill or miracle (all of which are listed under a specific Attribute) and add the Attribute value and the skill or miracle value.  Higher is better, with target ranges Easy: 8-11, Moderate: 12-14, Hard: 15-17 and Wondrous 18+

The systems is fast, has some nuances due to the Resolution Die, and definitely puts the emphasis on flexibility and roleplaying.  One can easily mix which Attribute you are rolling with a particular skill depending on how the player rationalizes the use of that skill.  The miracles add some flavor to the characters and grant them various divine powers.

Overall, the system is good and a nice basis for an RPG.  The few complaints I might raise were that perhaps the list of skills is too limited.  There isn’t a Stealth skill per se, nor Perception.  In fact there are more miracles than skills.  While trying to keep things open and flexible is nice, a few more ala Eden Studios Cinematic UniSystem might not hurt.  I suggested maybe including Advantages and Disadvantages to characters, working it so that you bought an Advantage with a Disadvantage rather than getting more general character points.  I think that might give players a way to make their character seem a bit more unique and aid in roleplaying.

Combat is quick, with any weapon basically doing one point of Corpus damage.  While not overly realistic, at this level of detail it works well enough and keeps things focused on the situation and the characters rather than complex battle rules.  Maybe averaging a character’s Corpus and Spiritus for hits would make mental based characters a tad more survivable, as a 1 or 2 Corpus character seems awfully fragile.  As written anything less than 3 in Corpus seems awfully dangerous.

The game book is a tad sparse on world background and it would be nice to have some information on how prevalent the supernatural is, the church’s relationship and attitude towards various aspects of it, their attitude towards other religions and governments, how much the characters are likely to know at the outset about the paranormal, and some idea of what equipment exists or is normal for church operatives would help.  If there is going to be a focus on Vatican Conspiracy, I would like to see information on church hierarchy, structure, politics and how these affect the character.  There is some nice information on HOW to run a horror game, and other GM tips, but a bit more on the setting would help inexperienced GMs.

My impression is that this is a decent system, fast moving, fairly well balanced, and a nice entry into the current minimalist rules style game.  The book is only $16 and is pretty affordable compared to the normal offering these days, but it seems like this is more a starting point or basis than a full RPG.  A bit too much background is left out for my taste to distinguish it from the other horror style games that abound.  Fortunately, the company seems pretty willing to modify things and expand the rules a bit or have plans for some supplements that might answer these problems.  It is a promising game and I would recommend playing in one of their demos being run at Nexus.

Garner