Recently, I noticed a trend in gamers to switch up their dice.  This would happen for several reasons:  simply finding something shiny & new, old dice were rolling badly, or for the reason I am going to speak of below: changing dice with changing characters or games.

Gemini Dice Sets From Chessex

Many players change their dice with each character they play.  For instance, I while playing a Storm Genasi used  a blue crystal dice set.  Now that I will be playing a Warforged, who is of the Church of the Silver Flame, I purchased a set that is a combination of steel grey and bright metallic blue.

My husband does the same thing.  Perhaps he is where I got the idea from… hmm…  His dice bag is definitely bigger than mine but, of course, he’s been playing for a lot longer.  When playing Werewolf the Forsaken, he had a set of silver-plated dice, an Elven rune set for a LOTR game, and bone dice for HorrorClix.

Not only can dice match a character, they can also match a game.  For instance, with our upcoming Mouse Guard campaign we picked up a pack of d6s colored in forest greens, blues and grays.  Mark once used transparent blue dice to match the color of the Jedi’s lightsabers in a Star Wars game.

Dice on the other hand can be a very personal effect for the gamer.  For instance, a favorite set of dice that goes with the player from game to game, genre to genre or character to character can be just as important.  I have a set of favorite dice.  They were the first set I ever bought for myself.  Not just borrowed dice, but those first ones I picked out and ordered through my FLGS.  For me that was my first step in becoming a true gamer.

I find that changing the dice with the character or game can be good for getting into something new and stretching out a bit.  Picking out a new set of dice can be just another part of character creation.  It rounds out the character and gives a bit of excitement to starting something new.

On the other hand I have seen players who don’t seem to have any attachment to their dice and that other than rolling with them nothing is that special about them.  Variety is good and if one isn’t rolling great then trade them in for another handful.  I like this approach too.  I think as sets grow and pieces are lost over time this is something I will begin to try.

For now, I like the dice to match.  How about you?  Do any of you match your dice?  Do you prefer to go with what you grab first?

It’s been a while since my last “RPITUO” article (catchy, huh?) As such, I’ve decided to make this one a bit more involved.

Bridget, Gabe and I went to see the new Harry Potter film yesterday. One thing I’m glad of: I hadn’t read the book since it came out a few years ago, so I wasn’t disappointed when they left stuff out, or added stuff in, because I couldn’t remember what was put in or taken out. It was a great film, highly entertaining. I would definitely recommend it to absolutely anyone.

So, how would you go about roleplaying in the universe of Harry Potter? Randal at Retro Roleplaying was asking the question a few days back, and got some good response.

You have quite a few options, which is surprising considering that there is no official HP RPG books out there (and don’t go looking for one any time soon. Apparently, J.K. Rowling has no desire to have her books converted into an RPG).

• First up, I’m going to plug the RPG Blogger’s Network here, and in particular, The Nameless Kingdom, a great blog that has recently been putting out, piece by piece, the rules to a Harry Potter RPG. They’ve been pretty good so far, from what I’ve seen. You should definitely check those out.
• Another good option is “Broomstix“, an RPG by Jared A. Sorensen, a very rules-lite HP RPG that has some great rules for backgrounds and even some basic Quidditch rules.
• Witch Girls Adventures is a very good possibility. I downloaded it from RPGNow, and have been steadily going through it. There’s even a section at the beginning saying, “we would prefer if you were to play in the universe of Witch Girls, but if you want to play a game in the universe of that wizard boy, here are some options instead.” It then goes on to list the different Houses at Hogwarts (without saying their names) and tells what rules not to use from the book to make it all fit together. And you don’t have to be a girl to play it, BTW.
• And finally, a plug for my own: A few years back, I began working on my own HP RPG while I was on deployment to the Persian Gulf. In my off time, I typed up and put together my own RPG, originally loosely based on Broomstix, but steadily drifting further away. It’s been sitting on my computer, all alone and forgotten until now. If anyone’s interested, I can email it to them, just let me know in the comments. It’s still missing a few small elements, but if I get any interest, I’ll probably get it finished up and put out there.

And that’s about it! Feel free to leave any comments you have about any of the games, or any that I missed.

In my ongoing mission to like Star Trek more and more, I’ve found quite a few good resources around the webbernets for the RPGs.

Wholesale Gaming is selling all of the books that Decipher came out with for only $35 bucks. A fantastic deal I will have to jump on.

Patrick Goodman has created a support site for the Star Trek Decipher RPG, including rules for playing androids and holograms.

There’s a fan-made Forum devoted to multiple types of Star Trek RPGs, and they look pretty busy. I’m definitely going to be checking them out frequently.

And finally, but definitely not least, there’s the Marvellous Mechanical Miniature Maker, a site that allows you to make Star Trek crewmembers from any era. Mind you, it does require Internet Explorer (trust me, it doesn’t work with Firefox or Safari), so you may have to suffer and use that to make your character. It’s a very nifty little program. In fact, I made this Vulcan crewmember from the Nemesis era!

I realized after my last “Roleplaying in the Universe of” article went live that I hadn’t come up with this idea in a vacuum. In my subconscious I drew the idea from elsewhere. Vulcan Stev has been doing a shockingly similar type of article consistently for a while. You should check it out. So let’s give credit where credit is due.

For years, I’ve bashed Star Trek. I would criticize the “pointy ears or bumpy forehead” aliens, the lame costumes, and the “treknobabble.” I would talk about the merits of Star Wars, its superior universe, cool heroes and awesome aliens.

Now, mind you, my family would sit down every week when I was younger and watch “The Next Generation”, and I drank it in. I watched “Deep Space 9″, and eagerly anticipated
Voyager”. But around season 2 of “Voyager”, I began to lose interest. The universe began to bore me, and I didn’t find it made any sense.

There was plenty of other Sci-Fi I enjoyed, of course. Blade Runner, Battlestar Galactica, etc. But not Star Trek. Trekkies annoyed me, and any time Star Trek was brought up in conversation, I’d just shake my head.

Now, primarily thanks to my wife, a huge Trekkie, I am finding that I actually don’t hate Star Trek like I thought. I’m finding myself stopping whenever I see it on TV on Spike or Sci-Fi (SyFy). I go to Wikipedia and look up “Borg” because I want to know their origin.

In short, I think I may actually like Star Trek again.

In fact, I’ve been doing some research to find the right Star Trek RPG, because I would love to run a game.

I’ve found a couple:

There’s the FASA Star Trek, which the boys over at Fear The Boot swear by. Apparently, there’s a cool mechanic that involves everyone getting their own board to symbolize their job on the ship once the action starts, which intrigues me. I can find most of the FASA books on Amazon for only about 5 bucks, but the core rulebook is a bit harder to come by.

There’s the Decipher Star Trek RPG, which I’ve heard is like d20 but with d10s. The books are also cheap on Amazon, due to Decipher going out of business. The advantage to this one is that it has more recent information (TNG, DS9, Voyager).

Also, on 1km1kt.net, I found Bridge Crew, a “simple, narrativist style RPG” depicting the crew of a ship, heavily based on Star Trek. Each person has a job to do, and different rules for how that’s accomplished. It’s supposed to be kind of campy, but I’m sure it wouldn’t require much work to adapt it into a serious RPG.

What do you all think? What system would be the best for a Star Trek RPG?

When I was around 13, I discovered RPGs. After playing Star Wars (WEG) for a while, I didn’t have the ability to get my hands on any RPGs, and I didn’t have any books. What I did have was a lot of six-sided dice, the internet, and a printer. So what did I do?

I went online and looked up character sheets, I downloaded them, printed them, and then deduced how the rules worked based on the sheet. Then, my brother and I would make characters and play in a world we made up. There wasn’t even a DM. We were both the DM and the players. We had some great games, primarily with two knights known as Sigusmund and Magnus.

So I’d like to put out a challenge: Find a character sheet online of an obscure RPG and make a brand new, simple game based on it. You could even print out enough sheets for everyone in your group, and in one night, make your characters and come up with the rules as you go. That’s what we did.

Have any of you ever done this? Or were we just two crazy youngsters who didn’t know what they were doing?

I sold off my WH40k Space Marine Army the other day, or, as is probably the case, I got robbed. I sold off my army on Craig’s List for about $100, including some of the game books. The guy practically ran when he handed me the money and got the army, since it was probably worth around $500. But I haven’t played in three years, so it was time to give it up.

What did I do with said $100? Simple. I went down to the FLGS. I knew I was going to be purchasing the Rogue and Wizard power cards for Bridget, who is playing both a rogue and wizard, which would cost around $20; but I was sure when I arrived that I would be able to find something I wanted with the remaining money.

Not so. 

Now, most of you have seen my gaming shelf. It’s big. You should also derive from that that I’m not one to shirk on spending money. But there simply wasn’t anything I saw that really grabbed me. I own every 4e book out right now (Manual of the Planes is in the mail), I haven’t gotten anything new for 3e in a long while. Perhaps a board game? I like Munchkin, how about Munchkin Quest? Nope, I’m not sure how often I’d actually use it. What about the Battlestar Galactica board game? Again, not sure how often I’d play, though I’ve heard incredible things about it.

So I left the store with nothing but the power cards for my wife.

That’s right. I walked away.

In the end, I ended up getting Spore, which I’ve wanted for some time, and it’s something I’ll actually play often.

This is a very long winded story that’s getting me to the true purpose of this entry: While I was at the game store, I perused their old D&D books, and saw they were selling the DMG, PHB and MM for 2^nd edition AD&D for around 10 bucks each. I was half tempted to pick them up.

I’ve never played 2e, but the prospect of getting them all was intriguing. I mentioned it to my wife, and she too was interested.

So my question is this: Am I a sick, sick man for wanting to try out THAC0? I kind of just want to own the books to own the books, you know?

I’ve always liked the idea of giant mecha, ever since I was a kid. Getting inside a robot and piloting it around just sounds awesome to me. However, I don’t like Anime (and yes, I’ve tried), so I’m not able to get my fix there, and I haven’t liked Power Rangers since 6^th Grade.

For a while I played MechWarrior: Dark Age by WizKids Games and enjoyed it immensely, but fell out of it when it became a hugely competitive game in my home town, and I couldn’t keep up.

I’ve tried doing research into Both Mechwarrior the RPG and Battletech, but the history is so long and complex I feel like I could never get a handle on all of that history.

So what’s a guy to do?

Are there any other games out there that feature good Mech stuff?

Here’s a new Character for all of you to take a gander at.

Name: Wall

Age: 37

Birthplace: St. Petersburg, Russia

Hair: Red          Eyes: Yellow

Height: 8           Weight: 280 lbs

Lvl 7

Str                    30         20       

Dex                  15           5         

Con                  18           8

Int                    6            -4

Wis                  6            -4

Cha                  12           2

                                                                   Total Cost

                                                                                30

Tough               7            7

Fort                  7             7

Reflex               3            3

Will                  3             3                                       

                                                                  Total Cost

                                                                              20

Skills                                                          Cost

                Climb               8                             2         

Intimidate         44                         11

Swim                12                          3         

                                                                       Total Cost

                                                                                    16

Powers                                                            Cost

            Super Strength

                        Ranks   5                                    10

            Strike

                        Rank    5                                      5

            Leap

                        Rank 10                                      10

            Immovable

                        Rank    5                                       5

                                                                       Total Cost

                                                   30 

Feats

            Chokehold                                       1

Improved Grapple                       1

Improved Grab                            1

Improved Pin                               1

Power Attack                               1

            Wrestling

Die Hard                                       1

                                                                               Total Cost

                                                                                             6

Attack/defense/Initiative            7/5/4                                                   

                                                                                 Total Cost

                                                                                             16                                           

Flaws:

                                                                                   Cost

       Noticeable                                                                               

              Very High/High Intensity                                              

              (Natural Armor Plating Red in Color)                -5

            Power Loss

                        Weakness to Adamantium

                                    (Uncommon/Moderate)                 -2

            Vulnerable

                        Psychic Attack

                                    (Common/Moderate)                      -3

                                                      Total Cost

                                                                                                 -10  

105/105 points

Many Superheroes and Super Villains are born; some are even made, but made is a word the Soviet Union used when creating Wall.  True he was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, but more accurately he was “grown” in a laboratory in the 1970s.  During their expensive “Cold War” with the United States, the Soviet Union was attempting several different projects in order to compete with the massive American Space Program.  Having failed to reach the moon in time, the Soviet’s then proceeded to create a genetically superior human being, capable defending itself against cannon blasts, small arms fire, and questionably a nuclear explosion.  With massive amounts of money being poured into the project, Soviet scientist found several mutant candidates with different sets of abilities, and began to break down their genetic code in order to create Wall.  After several failed attempts, they began to understand the differences in genetic code that allows certain abilities to appear.  After several attempts with several different embryos one specimen showed great promise.  Several months of proper cultivation a fertilized embryo was placed in the womb of a mutant woman, and eventually Yuri Petrov was born and later dubbed Wall.  To mark him as a servant to the United Soviet Socialists Republic (U.S.S.R.), they permanently tattooed a sickle and hammer to his left cheek.  Born, with the appearance of an every day child, he was allowed to attend schools where ever he was located.  It was imperative to the Soviet leadership that he be instilled with strong Soviet Nationalism.  Several years of testing, moving from place to place, eventually landed Wall in the Ukraine, in a secret laboratory under the town of Pripyat.  On a routine testing of his powers, something within him fluctuated.  The scientists took note of the irregularity, but nothing noticeable.  After several months, the irregularity became a constant thing, until apparitions in Wall’s appearance began to form.  One of which was what appeared to be armor plating, nearly similar to that of an ancient triceratops.  His strength nearly tripled.  His eyes lost all pupil color and began to change almost yellow in color.  His hair fell out, but re-grew in a much darker red color.  The change was so immensely painful that it caused Wall to temporarily lose control.  On the morning of April 26, 1986, Wall escaped the secret laboratory compound killing several scientists and eventually causing the nuclear meltdown of Chernobyl, which was quickly covered up by the Soviet government as an accident to keep Wall’s existence hidden.  On the run, Wall ran to the four corners of the Soviet Union, looking for a place to hide.  In late August of 1990, Wall was found in Siberia living on whatever passed by.  Stories of a “beast” traveling to small villages and raiding them for supplies spread quickly to the Kremlin, where Premier Mikhail Gorbachev was neck deep in the tattered finances of the Soviet Union.  His idea was to use Wall to spearhead his armies’ march back into Afghanistan.  This, of course, would never happen as the Soviet Union finally collapsed in 1991.  After much military training, and much personal destruction, Wall was left alone.  Anyone whom even knew of his existence was either dead or dying, because of the Chernobyl incident, the documentation of creation, and even his parent’s location was lost.  He hated the Soviet Union, but much more than that, he hated the Capitalist Americans and much of their European Allies, for even in his eyes, he saw them to blame for the fall of his people.  Bitter, and without a home, Wall took up mercenary jobs whenever they popped up, and became an amazing ally to have during any battle.  War, however would take its toll on the beast, twisting his heart and mind to the numbness of death.  He begun to shun humanity, watching over and over again the people of many different nations die at his hands until March of 2003, when fighting for the Allied forces he snapped.  Losing his mind he starting killing several soldiers and disappeared…  The year is now 2008, and stories have been cropping up all over the world about a beastly looking man with red hair and yellow eyes and a tattoo of the sickle and hammer on his face.  It is rumored that he’s working with a few other mutants from different parts of the world to eventually destroy the American government.  In tow he is said to legitimately work with a mutant named Deathfall, and another named Dark Angel.  Though considered terrifying, and extremely powerful, he is not one S.H.E.I.L.D.s most wanted, but is quickly climbing up the ranks.

You know how you play some games and they’re good for all the right reasons: epic, great rules, fun to play, directions actually make sense…  Well you know those other times when you play the simplest of games and they are fantastic just because they are so much fun?

That game for me is Munchkin.  All the varieties are great but I think my favorite is still the original game.  Cards like, “Tequila Mockingbird”: Horrible drunken signing very much like that of a bard. +5 vs. Bards.  Bad Stuff: You ate the worm! Discard 2 of your cards  bring so much laughter.

The game has nice clear and simple rules.  First you draw a ‘door’ card.  You go busting down doors looking for monsters, gear, powers and so on.  You can battle a monster and if your level isn’t high enough then let the bidding begin from other players to let them help you.  Of course they are going to want a share of your treasure.  When a monster is defeated or you help someone else and have conned them out of their treasures then you can draw a card form that pile.  Sometimes the stuff is pretty cool including cards that let you automatically level up.

It’s really a great game and if you like the world of role playing but don’t have more than 30 minutes then this is definitely the game for you.  (Well unless of course you don’t like to laugh… then it’s not for you)

With the latest blogs on Dice Monkey being about Star Wars, I thought that I would provide a service to all those out there that are playing Star Wars, or thinking about playing Star Wars, whether it be D6 Star Wars, D20 Star Wars, or Saga Edition.

SWAG : This is a phenomenal site for you to go and find character ideas for any type of creature you can imagine. A lot of the artists are production-level quality (and some really, really aren’t). I love this site, even when I’m not running a Star Wars game. I could just spend hours looking at all the lovely pictures.

Star Wars Deckplans Alliance : This is a great site for your starship deckplan needs. There’s not a ton of ships here, but there’s a nice selection for you to check out. Another great site is Colonial Chrome  which has a bunch of great deckplans as well.

Saga-Edition: I love this site as well. It’s got a ton of fan-made ships, vehicles, races and characters for you to use in your Saga Edition games. Check it out today!

That’s all for this week! Keep rolling 20s!