By Scott
October 26th, 2008 Avatars Available
If you take a look at comments on the site, you’ll see avatars are now enabled!
Archive for October, 2008
By josh
October 24th, 2008 Shadowrun: The Logic of Dissing Logic
A few weeks ago my Shadowrun group had a short discussion about the usefulness of Logic for a Hacker. For those unfamilier with the system, Hackers (once called Deckers) are basically what they sound like: computer geeks who break the law for a profit. It came up that most hacking-related rolls in the game involve adding your skill plus program rather than using your Logic stat and after a closer look it generally appeared that Logic was almost useless for a Hacker to have at all since most everything was based on a composite of skill + program with your actual brain power hardly fitting in at all.
By josh
October 22nd, 2008 Dragon Magazine Articles: What I Would Like to See
So far I think the articles for Dragon Magazine on D&DI have been pretty good. They have covered topics from traps to treasures including new player options as well as new DM options like new monster types. It got me thinking about what else I hope to see released online.
By josh
October 21st, 2008 D&DI – Brief Review of the Bonus Tools
Currently individuals willing to pay for a D&DI subscription have access to three “Bonus Tools” with the promise of more online tools, not called Bonus Tools but still tools of a sort, to come. Obviously the most dynamic of these eventual tools is the Game Table but for now all we have is The Encounter Builder, The Ability Generator and The Monster Building which are the three tools called Bonus Tools. I had played around with the first two already and finally took some time to check out The Monster Builder, so far I’m very unimpressed.
By josh
October 17th, 2008 D&DI – Time to Pay the Piper
Dungeons and Dragons Insider stopped being a “free action” on October 15th. You can find the article about their launch here. I know a lot of people, myself included were dreading this day but after only a couple of days of hemming an hawing I broke down and payed up.
By josh
October 15th, 2008 Further Blurring of the Lines – Halo Interactive Strategy Game
I noted last week on the blurring of the lines between gamer games and non-gamer games. Some people commented on the site and others told me in person that they agree that things are changing and for the most part it’s a good thing.
By josh
October 10th, 2008 My Reaction to Immediate Reactions in D&D 4.0
One of the things our group missed when we first started playing Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition was that players could only perform one Immediate Action per round. The rule that defines this is not all that hard to locate, being found plainly under the explanation of what an Immediate Action is it states, “You can take only one immediate action per round”. Mostly, we just overlooked it.
By josh
October 9th, 2008 Mindset – Games they are a Changing
If you haven’t heard about this device, Mindset, check out this article. The device, from what I understand, allows you to play games (the games designed to be played this way of course) using your thoughts.
By josh
October 9th, 2008 Blurring the Lines – Gamer Games vs… That Other Kind
I find it interesting that games these days don’t seem to fit as snugly into the gamer or non-gamer types. For a while now you could find Magic: The Gathering at stores that didn’t carry games of the more complex sort but often that was the exception to the rule. As things have gone along however more stores are beginning to carry games that they would not have carried five or ten years ago.
By josh
October 7th, 2008 I Don’t Usually Post This Kind of Thing But…
At this point I am sure that most of you who care to know, know that a film version of The Watchman is coming out. If you click here you can learn a bit more about the nearly three hour feature that will apparently have additional footage added for the DVD release (as they claim it is animated I have to assume that the added footage will be the comic book being read through the Watchman story but it did not say specifically).
By josh
October 6th, 2008 Thoughts on Stealth and Perception in Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition
I have always had a bit of a problem with perception in role playing games. One issue is the fact that, with so many players (five or six for most games I have run), one player will inevitably roll high and thus find whatever it is they are looking for, even if they have a low score in perception. The RAW for D&D 4th Edition tries to avoid some of this by using Passive Perception Checks.
By josh
October 6th, 2008 Barbarian Preview Up
For those fans of the Barbarian class in D&D the preview is up at the official site.
Because it is a preview article you do not get all the options and some of what is listed might change before the official release in 2009 (as part of the Player’s Handbook 2), however we do get to see some of what we’re in for.
By josh
October 2nd, 2008 Praise for Battleshop
I mentioned in my last post that I had not yet received my pulped tree format of the Shadowrun Companion.
By josh
October 2nd, 2008 Cthulutech – Wacky New Offering from Catalyst
Heading over to the Shadowrun site to try and figure out why my pulped tree version of the Runner’s Companion wasn’t in yet I discovered Catalyst’s newest product with an apparent street date of October 14th: Cthulhutech.
By josh
October 2nd, 2008 Say Anything Review – Simple and Fun but Maybe Missing the Pop
I’ve discussed and reviewed a lot of party games over the past year and this is another game that falls in that category. Say Anything is the newest game from North Star Games, the company that brought you Wits and Wagers, discussed briefly in my Life is a Four Letter Word post. While the game doesn’t really play the same, Wits and Wagers is a trivia game where Say Anything is not, you can certainly see the similarities.
