Cepheus Deluxe Subsector Map

 

Being a Traveller RPG fan, as it was one of the first RPG's I was ever exposed to (the Traveller Book from 1982 was at my local library in the 90's), I couldn't resist getting into some of the other variations of the game that have since hit the market.  Cepheus Engine, based on the Mongoose Traveller version, really caught my eye as it has OGL content available.  Also, some of the best resources are made by Cepheus Engine game developers like Stellagama Publishing.  Their Subsector and Sector maps are some of the nicest PDF files I've found to work with.

Being such clear files, I imported one into GIMP (free open source raster graphics editor) to create the above sub-sector (parts of it pictured).  Took me a while, as I created some of the symbols in Inkscape (free open source vector graphics editor) and then exported them as .png file that contained a transparent background.  Then it was just select, copy/paste, and scale where required.

Anyone with experience using GIMP or Photoshop should have no issues using such a file to fill out a blank subsector they roll up!

Cepheus Deluxe XCF File

Stellagama Publishing Website

23NOV2018 Tossing stones!

Tossing stones with a Wizkids Deepcuts Medium Earth Elemental!

Winged Horror visualized for BFRPG Sword and Board!

Based on the ever valuable opinions of the BFRPG forums and my friendly neighborhood game guild Legion of Myth, as well as my dedicated followers on Deviant Art, the background won!  Here you go folks.  I do have a Creative Commons License on this image, so use as you wish, just credit where its due and let me know if you put in any books or supplements that are going to be published on the web or in print (shoot me a printed copy and I might have to send a drawing...  that and if you are going to print it let me know so I can send you the massive 300 dpi .tiff file instead of this lo res 96 dpi .png).

18FEB12 OGL Rant

So, while the D20 OGL SRD (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srdarchive) this led to:

"When it was published in 2000 along with the 3rd edition of the rules, the OGL sparked unprecedented growth in the RPG industry. The OGL made it so easy to use the rules conventions of D&D like hit points, spells and monsters that hundreds of products - the official signifier of D&D-compatible materials created using the OGL - emblazoned on them made their way to game store shelves."
-Escapist (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/features/9292-The-Ghosts-of-D-D-Past.2)

Why did WotC not do the same with D20 4.0?  After all, they are suffering right now, and I am believing its a result of ending the continued use of an OGL SRD with the newest editions!

The OSR is on the rise, along with other digital media creating a paradigm shift in the world of traditional gaming:

"Changes in how people buy RPGs and the freedom of the OGL combined to make the Old School Renaissance grow across the internet. The rise of digital distribution of PDFs through marketplaces like DriveThruRPG.com have allowed designers to make money selling their work with less overhead. The costs of printing books has also decreased, especially print-on-demand services that allow smaller print runs, so it's easier than ever for amateur designers to publish something gamers can bring to the table and use with any of D&D's older editions or retro-clones."
-Escapist (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/features/9293-The-State-of-D-D-Present.3)

Right now the world of games is going through a paradigm shift.  Board games are still going strong in many respects, but also deal with similar limitations.  What we all enjoy though is an increase in development budget, but we pay for it.  Fantasy Flight Games makes beautiful board games with high quality laminated cardboard components and beautifully sculpted plastic pieces that used to only be the realm of pewter.  However, its around $70 to $150 for these games as opposed to the $20 to $50 the same game concept years ago used to cost (part of that is indeed inflation).  RPGs however, are contracting sharply.

Steve Jackson Games publishes most GURPS supplements electronically, and spends the majority of the printing budget on the biggest cash cow of the company, Munchkin (I enjoy Munchkin myself...).  Other game companies are starting to publish more and more through DriveThru RPG and RPG Now.  Holdouts like WotC are suffering (that 4th Ed. wasn't so well received...).

As a result, we've seen the OSR take the OGL and thrive online.  Be it free rules, or low cost .pdf and print on demand, indie development seems to be rising.  Sales wise its harder to track...  Number of downloads would be an interesting figure to find out between the biggest names I've seen from OSRIC, Swords and Wizardry, and Basic Fantasy; along with sales of Labyrinth Lords and others.

Frankly, I think we need to embrace the OSR.  Where D&D 3.0, 3.5, 3.75, and 4.0 to varying degrees seemed to have failed is competing with computers.  Where the OSR takes 3.5 and strips the SRD down to the basics, and gives the GM a lot of story telling and rules adjudication power, it seems to thrive.  Volumes of rules, be it the many GURPS books I've enjoyed over the years, or some of the 3.5 books a friend gave me, only serve to slow down games.  Most of the gruntwork is best done by a computer, and then you wonder why you want to sit at the dinner table with a group of friends (unless you have a good GM who will throw the rules out some of the time anyway, which frankly is how the rules recommend being played anyway...).

That, and I'm a sucker for anything of quality to come out of Open Source.  I have little money to spend and waste on games anymore.  If the rules are free, I'll take em and use them when I feel like dungeon delving.  I'll use my "Descent: Journeys into the Darkness" game board and figures with BFRPG or Microlite 20...  Why the hell not?  To top it off, I like to draw pictures and get my art out there.

So, anyone in the OSR development world working a real job and designing games on the weekend is more than welcome to bug me about drawing up some creature sometime.  So long as the deadline is flexible...  I'll embrace OSR and OGL and use my FOSS image editing software (www.gimp.org and www.inkscape.org) and have some fun with you, for free.

Legion of Myth Game Reviews...

The Guild Legion of Myth has a fairly new format for reviewing tabletop, board, and pen and paper RPG's...

So far I've written several reviews, beginning with my favorite board game, Ogre/GEV.

I'm fortunate that it doesn't matter when the game was published, and in fact most of what we all seem to enjoy is currently out of print at the present time!  Its a wonderful community over there as they embrace all forms of games with a focus on PC MMORPG's with Star Wars: The Old Republic being the current active guild.  At the moment due to computer limitations, I'm now focusing all my efforts in the realm of either older computer games or table top gaming.  Can't say its a bad thing.

Other game games that I've reviewed to date are:

Don Quixote (board)

Stars Without Number (RPG)

GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars (GURPS 4E RPG Sourcebook)

I have several other RPG rules sets and sourcebooks I'll knock out this year as well.  I have the Mongoose Traveller RPG rules which I think I wrote about once before, and the "Hammers Slammers" Sourcebook!  I've also had the opportunity to get a couple play sessions of the WotC D20 Star Wars RPG (Revised Core Rules) with a friend recently.  That one might lead to some interesting cartoons...

Boardgame wise, I'm hoping to get a good meaningful play session of Conan in sometime.  We'll see if that happens...  I certainly don't want it to collect any more dust!

20JUL10 The RPG Tank...

Be very careful what you tell players, in fact, you might want to clarify depending on genre... After all, with a game system like GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System by Steve Jackson Games, www.sjgames.com) you certainly have to. After all, you never know what sourcebook a player might have picked up and what kind of character they slipped into your game world! Yes, I'm such a Munchkin...

Most references to various games are Copyright Steve Jackson Games. "Bolo" is reference to the giant cyber tanks which are the brain child of Keith Laumer (and an inspiration to S.J. and crew) along with "Gottlos" being the cyborg tank idea of Colin Kapp (Analog Collected works Number 8, picked up at a library book sale years ago!). Fans of "Ogre/GEV" will instantly recognize the references to the orignal ideas that inspired Ogre.

What can I say, I find the idea of giant self aware tanks that pack enough firepower to match an armored company pretty fun as a science fiction game concept. My roleplaying game experience is pretty limited, so when I first heard 'tank' in reference to Fantasy RPG's you can imagine the devious thoughts that went through my head. As I've been a GURPS book reader and Ogre player since the age of 12... The fact that I have some friends who might play a GURPS Fantasy module and I have GURPS Ogre on my shelf...

Can't beat the Classics!

Yesterday's trip to the local game/comic shop, The Comic Shop (on the corner of 3rd Street and Steese in Fairbanks AK) resulted in some solid gold finds, both of which are either as old or based on material older than myself.

First off, I finally picked up Steve Jackson's classic card game of conspiracy, Illuminati, which was published about the time I was born in 1982. I can understand why its remained an off and on classic that has been through so many printings. Its good, silly, paranoid fun! My wife and I played a game last night, and I was surprised by how much she enjoyed the game!

As always, it started off slow with us both referencing and arguing about the rules (especially about how many money transfers you get within a turn...). We drew our cards, and she was playing "The Network" and I played the "Bavarian Illuminati". Her goal was to amass a total of 25 points of 'transferable' power (to include The Network's 7 points...) while my Bavarian Illuminati had only to collect a grand total of 35 points of power total (including my 10 points for my Illuminati). Game play is simple, each player starts out with just their Illuminati group, which attacks and takes over un-controlled groups drawn from the deck at the beginning of the players turn. Each group you take over has the ability to use its power to take over other groups (some have none and remain dead ends however...). Each group also has its own Power, Resistance (how well they resist take-over by other groups), and Income. Taking over groups with groups is a matter of using the Power of the attacker, subtracting the resistance, and then rolling equal to or under that number (say a Power 10 group attacks a Resistance 5 group, they must roll a 5 or less to do so...). Some groups, like the Illuminati you start with, can transfer a few points (or all) of their power to assist other groups; this along with spending Mega-Bucks will result in better die rolls. However, rolling a 11 or 12 results in an automatic failure, which is great as that leaves a chance of failure no matter how much money you spend and how hard you try...

Last nights game resulted in the Bavarian Illuminati taking over the world through conquest of "Multi-National Oil Companies", "TV-Preachers", "The Tri-Liberal Council", "Democratic Party", and a few others I've since forgotten. However, these combined with my Illuminati's power resulting in a "Special Goal" victory of 35 points of amassed power! The only other way to win is through knocking off the other player by ensuring they don't take any group over for three turns in a row (and just have their Illuminati card)...

Overall, it was fun, now we are going to play again tonight!!

Now, the best part was finding a Traveller RPG supplement for David Drake's 'Hammers Slammers' series! Folks who have glanced at my blog the last year or so will remember when I posted the Black Five interview with David Drake with great glee! While not a lot of games have been made officially, Drake's military SF has had a massive influence on the hobby of wargaming and SF roleplaying games. Mostly, I described the influence seen in 'Stargrunt II' and 'Dirtside II' along with some rules and models by Old Crow and Pireme Press. Now, Mongoose Press has released a "Hammer's Slammers" Traveller supplement for their edition of the classic Traveller RPG rules! While I don't have the current Traveller book by MGP, I have read an original 1977 1st ed. of the Traveller Book years ago from the Security Public Library in my home town, many, many, many times. Even if I'd lacked that familiarity, I'd have still enjoyed reading the detailed information in this book about David Drake's 'Hammers Slammers' universe! Now, I need to hit the library and find more in this series to read...

I do however take issue with some of the artwork; gratuitous use of photos and just using clone brushes in Photoshop hardly does this book justice. I enjoyed the technique when it involved the Old Crow models, however, they went way too far when they used DoD photos... Way to recognizable as today's equipment and men, with little real effort to paint a picture of the Drake equipment... In my opinion. However, the cover is one of the finest pieces of art (go figure!), and there are some fantastic portraits of the Hammer's personnel that were clearly done from just about scratch. I strongly suspect, time was running out and deadlines were close on this project, and some of the art seems to reflect that... MGP really needs to give that particular part of the book a good overhaul, other than that, fantastic!