Rollin' around the 'sphere

Image (cc) Igor Esaulov

Having been away a long time I wasn't sure what was left of the blogosphere but it's great to see all these marvellous things already:

Library of Attnam has a handy list of d101 Sci-Fi gadgets, for when the players need to find something interesting out there...

Someone recommend Trilemma Adventures for one sheet (well, two page) dungeons and I'm glad they did.  The site has a Kickstarter for an adventure compendium which looks well worth backing and closes at the end of May.

I stumbled across d4 Caltrops' ongoing list of interesting forest hexes which is well worth checking out if you're a hexcrawler - or just looking for things to fill in the blanks!

I was intrigued by Roleplaying Tips' d6 ways to spice up next session as it made me think I must be doing something right; this sounds like business as usual at my group's table and if it's not the DM doing it to the players the players are doing it to themselves!

Charisma over at Stuffer Shack makes a very good point about ruling with players in conflicts - and it's great to see one of my old favourite blogs still running.

It's been great to see that the RPG Blog Carnival is still going strong too.  Drop by Roll4 and see what's going on before it moves on next month.

It's clear I need to update my blogrolls but I'm looking forward to exploring and finding new favourites and hidden gems, recommendations in the comments would be very much appreciated!

What's been a'happening in the Polyhedral Tower...

It's been a while - insanely busy at work, I'm afraid - but although I've been too busy to post, I've not been too busy to game!  See photographic evidence below:

Our group's been working on our own near-future / SF skirmish rules, although some of the factions are expanding way beyond "skirmish" size!  Pretty cool-ly, the rules still hold for larger forces too... hopefully we'll post a beta soonish ... if anyone's interested in playing.

Getting into 15mm gaming...

Image (cc) Kaptain Kobold via FlickrIt's been a while... sorry!

I have been busy - after trying out a few free SF wargames rules, our group is working on our own 15mm near-future skirmish rules, so we can use modern and sci-fi minis.  Which means I finally get to make some terrain!

Current projects:

• 15mm modular city table
• 15mm Hordes of the Things fantasy scenery & armies

Updates will be posted as they come, Peter Pig pirate minis and samurai have already been purchased, along with Dixon Minis ninjas for my Ninjago-obsessed son...

Hopefully we'll all be getting some 15mm SF minis from Ground Zero Games when the shop's back online too.  Keep 'em peeled!

Holy bundles of RPG stuff Batman!

Essentially: free product when you donate $20 (£12 ish) to the Red Cross via RPGNow... I had to grab this one after missing out on the Haiti bundle - in the fact that when I clicked the link, it was available no more, so I donated otherwise instead - click here to see just what you get for your generosity! (Not an affiliate link!)

What to read first... PFRPG bits or CthuluTech?

...and the Supernatural RPG is a chance to get a look at Cortex for free on top...

RPG / Boardgame System Scan

Taking a breather from Pathfinder has got my mind wandering again - I guess my love of the crunch and my desire to tell compelling stories leave me lost in the no-man's land between rules-light and GURPS... I'm still looking for The Perfect System folks!

Science Fiction, Sextuple Feature! Surge buffer overload...

I was just sitting thinking about how to redesign my "bombers" for Starmada - I was hoping to use some of the nifty NSL strikeboats from Ground Zero Games to differentiate them from my corvettes - when I thought I'd slide by FireBroadside to see how the StarBlazers fleet was coming along...

Yet another awesome game moving under my radar, in the form of the very intriguing-looking Earth Reborn.

Under the radar - MONSTERPOCALYPSE!

It's been a while since I played the frankly amazing Monsterpocalypse, and attempts to get my gaming group to buy into it fizzled out because of the "collectible" random packing thing... which didn't stop me collecting two whole armies!

Having not thought about it for a year or so, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Privateer Press have not only released a compatible Voltron game - and PP are very good at maintaining balance in their games - but a whole new 2 player box set that gives you two (still random) armies without the crazy collectible buying...

Summer Projects

The main project for development over the summer is VIRUS (Variable Index Roll Under System) as an RPG system. I've found I like d% roll-under systems, but have always had a dislike for the arbitrary +/- modifiers - attributed to the fact that I'm terrible at mental arithmetic so it tends to make my head hurt, even under d20.

VIRUS is an expansion of THOGS that I developed... last year? It was fun to play, and worked the way I wanted it to, which was surprising! Sadly, it was overly complex and ruined by cheating, and VIRUS is being designed to counter those flaws. I'll be attempting to combine the (random) primary and secondary stats I loved from HarnMaster, DnD style "powers" or techniques, wound tracks as opposed to hit points, tiered skill trees and defaults for untrained skills, and intuitive difficulty scaling. Wish me luck!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...

Well, I've been playing around with the layout last night until I finally got one I liked (ish) and am hoping to do some tag-weeding later on as there are s few with only one post...

Have also signed up a couple of my gaming group as authors, hope to hear more from them too!

Getting it (back) together

It's been a while - sorry, but not much to report back on.

Plenty to be reading though - Tourq's got me thinking about modifying DnD to make it more like the epic fantasy we know and love, great ideas for zombies in Savage Worlds in Wrath Of Zombie by... um... WrathOfZombie, and this has got me all fired up for more Deadlands - when anyone turns up, that is...

Fleet's almost assembled, ready to play Starmada - just need to get some ships statted up.

And the main reason...

...that there's been little activity: I've started making my own games properly - not just the ever-in-development VIRUS RPG, the first off the press is Loop. I'm building the site for my stuff now, so it's not going to pollute this page after this.

Next project: critical hit / failure cards for d20 / GURPS / Savage Worlds / and of course, VIRUS...

Wars of the Roses

Just found out via BGG that Z-Man games are releasing Wars of the Roses: Lancaster vs York soon - and it looks like my old favourite Kingmaker with the Play In Teams But Actually Be Out For Yourself element of Krakow thrown in to boot. Excellent!

Due "winter," which hopefully means the winter at the start of 2010, rather than the one at the end... [EDIT: Apparently due February...]

Rules & info here.