Free GM Resource: The System (a "new" RPG)

It is no secret my primary game is HackMaster, but what you don't know is that I generally run & play the game about as by-the-book as I can. I think this is a habit based on my previous position as a tournament manager (and frequent tournament GM).

Even though I generally have no need for another game system I do enjoy reading up on them for a couple of reasons. The 1st is just to see if it might be fun for a one-off or a change of pace (even though I never seem to run one of these). The 2nd reason is because I like to see how other designers handle certain RPG "problems". Every game has to figure out how to handle a simulation of events in a fast, "fair", and gamer-friendly way. Rounding out my reasons are I like looking at layout and I'm always on the lookout for a different way of doing things (even though I seldom deviate from the game rules...I'm kind of oxymoronic that way.)

Today's Free GM Resource is another RPG system simply called....wait for it....The System. Written by +Richard LeBlanc The System is a product of the mid-80's....and Richard's teenage mind.

Now I remember trying to write my own RPG in the mid-80's, and I didn't get much further than a few pages and even then they were just ideas hobbled from multiple systems. I think I latched on to the 4th edition of HackMaster because they were doing everything....and I mean everything from my so-called system, and they did it better.

I highly recommend picking up The System if for no other reason than to transport yourself back to the 80's. You will have to fiddle with it if you want to play (there are no monsters listed), but it is a good read (or at least I thought so).

I loved this dedication, "This book is dedicated to those brave new geeks who embraced RPGs in their earliest days, and gave the moral majority something to worry about."

Instead of linking straight to the download, I'm linking to the page where you can read about The System. The download is at the bottom of the page.

A Cool New Product or Missed Opportunity, Not Sure Which

After a really late night watching fireworks across all of Treasure Valley the Mrs. and I tried to sleep in today. I'm not a big sleeper-inner so when I got up relatively early I hopped online to work up a Free GM Resource post. I tend to try and work a week or two ahead, so I was on the prowl for something to share.

One of the rabbit holes I went down on the interweb was a link to what initially seemed a company called TerraTiles, but that is the name of this "product" by Rainn Studios. I have to put quotes around the word product because you can't actually go out and buy the TerraTiles. Evidently this is pretty much a Kickstarter-only item.

My Thoughts on the Upcoming Reaper Miniatures Kickstarter

I'm a little conflicted with the news about the upcoming Reaper Kickstarter in just a few days.

I love the Reaper Bones line....why wouldn't I? They are cheaper & lighter than "regular" minis and through the Kickstarter they are even cheaper.

It might be because I still have about 23,000 minis to paint, but I think it is much more than that. I think I'm about Kickstarted out on RPG items...."about" being the operative word here. If you like the Reaper Bones line and you'd be buying these minis anyway.....you should really go for it, assuming you'd be buying all those minis anyway.

Frugal GM Review: Winter Eternal

This last week I was asked to review Winter Eternal by Just Insert Imagination. I don't turn down free stuff to review......

1st thing, right off the bat.....I don't play Savage Worlds so I cannot look at Winter Eternal from the viewpoint of suitability for that game. Instead, I'm looking at it from the perspective of tweaking it as a setting for use in a different RPG game.

Frugal GM Review: The Stronghold #2

Normally I don't have a lot of items on my proverbial plate for review, but the last couple of weeks have been good to me, so I'm all for an extra review this week (in other words, I'll have a review tomorrow as well).

I was pleasantly surprised to get a copy of Issue #2 of The Stronghold in the mail this week.

After reading this issue, making some mental remarks, and then re-reading my review of Issue #1, I think Boric did a great job keeping some consistency between the issues.

I'm not a huge fan of the way things are statted out and again one article felt like it was written for my inner 13 year-old, but yet again overall it was a great issue. Several new creatures are presented that with a little work, probably no more than you'd have to do sourcing monsters from anywhere else, would fit right in to a fantasy RPG.

More than anything I love the general ideas presented in issue #2 and I'll be keeping it around to incorporate a little more spice into my games.

Keep it up!

Summary Post for the d30 Challenge Which Ended Yesterday

OK folks...this is it...

My only "real" promoted post on this subject since I announced I'd be taking part in the d30 Challenge as proposed by Mark over at Creative Mountain Games....and subsequently tweaked by me,

As far as I know only three people took up the gauntlet....I could be wrong:
           +Mark CMG Clover
           +Matthew Schmeer
           +Me (duh)

The esteemed +Dyson Logos lightly complained that he didn't care for this themed post a day bit, and while he seems to be a pretty stand-up guy, his opinion probably means jack squat. I thought he did have a good point though, so while I participated in this d30 challenge I did not actively promote it. For me this was an exercise in making more frequent and smaller posts while not necessarily getting to choose the content.

I took this as an opportunity to stretch a small bit and get out of my comfort zone, something I think we all need to do more often I might add. Good content, bad content....doesn't matter as much as the effort.

Below is the question that was asked each day, a TL;DR summation of my answer, and a link to the post if you want to read it for yourself:

June 1st, "How you got started": Cool Uncle Set Example
June 2nd, "Favorite PC Race": Elves?
June 3rd, "Favorite PC Class": Mages, no Fighters
June 4th, "Favorite Game World": Aldrazar
June 5th, "Favorite Die or Dice": d30
June 6th, "Favorite Deity": None, but not apatheistic or anything
June 7th, "Favorite Edition": HackMaster 5th/Current Edition
June 8th, "Favorite PC of Your Own": Yathen Brightblade
June 9th, "Favorite PC You'd Like to Play": Waydol Glendarn
June 10th, "Craziest In-Game Experience": My PC bought the farm
June 11th, "Favorite Adventure You Ran": Little Outhouse on the Prairie
June 12th, "Favorite Dungeon Type/Location": Underground Cavern Crawls
June 13th, "Favorite Trap/Puzzle": Multi-use debilitating trap with well-defined triggers
June 14th, "Favorite NPC": Couldn't narrow this one down
June 15th, "Favorite Undead": Zombie
June 16th, "Favorite Ooze/Aberrant Creature": Customized one-off aberrant variants
June 17th, "Favorite Animal/Insect/Arachnid": Dogs
June 18th, "Favorite Planar Being/Creature": Nefarians
June 19th, "Favorite Elemental/Plant/Construct": Shrieker
June 20th, "Favorite Humanoid/Giant/Fey": Orc
June 21st, "Favorite Dragon (Color/Type/etc.)": Young Dragons
June 22nd, "Favorite Monster Overall": Man
June 23rd, "Least Favorite Monster Overall": Joke Monsters
June 24th, "Favorite Spell": Preemptive Strike
June 25th, "Favorite Magic Item": Libram of Storage
June 26th, "Favorite Mundane Item": Toggle Rope
June 27th, "Favorite Curse of Cursed Item": Random Cursed Sword
June 28th, "PCs you have sworn off playing": Any D&D 3.5
June 29th, "Most frequently rolled # on a d20": All of them
June 30th, "Best Playing/DMing experience": My next one

As part of my tweak to the challenge I put together a d30 NPC generator, which is a free download over at DriveThruRPG.

d30 Challenge Day 30

This is my 30th entry in the d30 Challenge, which is a bastardization of an idea I first saw on Mark "CMG" Clover's feed. Now I'm a sucker for these things and I know some folks aren't so while I'm committed to answering one question about my favorite hobby each day, and putting together a d30 table before the end of the month, I know not everyone is so interested. I'll put the question & answer after the break, posting late in the day, and not promoting this on G+ so those who don't like this kind of thing should be exposed only minimally.

I think this is the best I can do....

Free Frugal GM Product at DriveThruRPG: d30 Quick NPC Personality Generator

It is a day early, but I have my d30 table completed and up on DriveThruRPG for free downloading.

Enjoy....

I'll end up linking to this in tomorrow's summary post for the d30 challenge, but you don't have to wait until then.