Game Night with my Kids: Wushu Actual Play

My kids have been begging me to run  one of the roleplaying games that their mother and I play, and after they did their chores and homework, we sat down to make some characters for the setting of their choice. They chose the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender for the setting, loving the idea of being able to control the elements and i chose Wushu for the system. I am been interested in Wushu for the past year or so, but have yet to find a game or players to test it out on. Lucky for me, my kids would be willing to even suffer through the hours long combats that the Palladium system enjoys (that last bit was sarcasm, if you didn't notice).

Going with the basic 5/4/3 for attributes a 1 weakness, here is the cast of characters:

Game Review for Spycraft 2.0

My game review from RPG.net:

Spycraft 2.0. I was asked by one of the players in my gamimg group if I would purchase and check this game out due to his desire to possibly run a game with it in a few weeks and felt that there were a few aspects of its rules that I would like. So I did what any good friend would do, I purchased it on that recommendation alone. When the .pdf download was finally finished, and I opened it up, I was shocked to see the amount of pages that this game had: 497. I was not excepting this game to be so large, I was expecting something with a hundred or so pages to get through the rules and setting stuff. Mind you, I had never even heard of Spycraft before this point and still did not know what type of system it would use. I’m a good friend, what can I say?

Game Review for Gunslingers and Gamblers

Yet another RPG.net review that I posted there, and I have to say, i love this game. Especially for any sort of game in the western genre.

Appearance

When you purchase this game, you receive a normal copy of the book with the background on each page which is very evocative of the paper that is used for Wanted posters that you see in Westerns and can even purchase. It works for the game and helps to keep you in the mindset that this is a western game. It also doesn't increase load times from the second copy of the book that you get, which has no background. While I like the mindset that the colored background gives, I much prefer the print version. Not only is it easier to print it, but the black text on a white background is much more crisp and easier to read than black text on a colored background.

Game Review for Alpha Omega

Another review I posted to RPG.net and I gave it a 5 for Style and a 4 for Substance due to a few things that were missing. However, it is an excellent game that I cannot wait to play again.

Disclaimer: While I received the pdf and print copy for free, it was not for me to review them, it was due to a give-a-way that was going on in the rpg.net forums around a year ago.

Game Review for Apocalypse Prevention, Inc.

I originally posted this review to RPG.net, but felt the need to re-post it over here due to quality of this game and the number of sourcebooks that are coming out, on schedule. Unfortunately, since this review was written, I have yet to have been able to play or run a game using this system and setting. I hope to rectify this in the near future. However, what I said in this review still stands.

The cover touts the game as "An Action, Horror RPG... with a twist of Humor", and it gives some humor already in just the Disclaimer, though it is slightly lacking in the rest of the book. Starting off, there is summary of the setting, the mood of the game, playable races, and of the system that is used. I rather like a page full of short and sweet summaries of what the book is planning on giving you.

The End of West End Games (WEG) Is Nigh

Eric Gibson, the owner and writer for West End Games (WEG), is selling TORG according to an interview given to the Wild Die blog. Accordingly, TORG is still in the process of being sold and not even Mr. Gibson knows what the new owners of TORG plan on doing with it. What makes me really happy about this is that he is giving Bill Coffin back the rights to his Sci-Fi/Space-Opera d6 game, Septimus.

Also, he is going to give to the gaming community Open D6. As he stated in this forum post at the WEG Fansite, he wants to make changes to the OGL that allows the community to make use of the D6 system text copyrights, as well as the Open D6 trademark.

According to what he said in the interview, WEG will be closed when all the properties have been sold off.

I really have no love for Eric Gibson due to the way he mangled WEG and the d6 system... but I am glad that he is finally washing his hands free of it. And while I have nothing but love for Bill Coffin's work with Palladium (even though I have some SERIOUS issues with the owner and other personnel at Palladium Books, as well as their fanbase), as well as having less respect for the man due to some of the more recent things that he has said and done, I am happy for him that he is able to get back the rights to Septimus. The poor guy was screwed over by Kevin Siembieda and then he was screwed over by Eric Gibson just as he decided to get back into RPG writing after nursing the wounds Kevin Siembieda and Palladium Books gave him.

Dresden Files RPG - Preorder and Impressions

According to the Dresden Files twitter account,

Incredible first-day response to the preorder (and it's not over yet) -- 240+ copies of Your Story, 230+ of Our World preordered already.

I, unfortunately, have not yet pre-ordered the books, but I want to oh so very much. I have read all of the Dresden Files books and am trying to get my wife to read them as well, after all, I will need to have at least one player to play the Dresden Files RPG with me once it gets here. I am in love with the tv show, even though it had a short duration, and am naively hoping that the interest for the RPG will help to bring the show back to life with at least a second season or a movie in the same vein that Firefly had Serenity.

So, what is someone without the actual pdf's to do? Live vicariously. There is an excellent thread at rpg.net detailing the impressions of those who have already pre-ordered the RPG and have digested the pdf's as much as possible. What is nice is that Fred Hicks is involved in the thread as well, offering answers to many of the questions.

And where to pre-order this wonderful Dresden Files RPG book duo? Why at Evil Hat of course.

Here's the lowdown about this preorder:
You will get a nearly-complete version of the PDF of each book you order as soon as your payment is confirmed by the website software. Instant gratification!
Updated PDFs will be made available once a final version is achieved.
The actual books will not ship out until late June/early July.
You'll be paying up front.
If you place an order of $79 or more, you'll get free shipping in the USA. So if you get one of each book, or two copies of one, you'll qualify.
For our international customers, we've dropped the estimated weight on the books by 20%. This should save you close to $10 on the shipping costs, but they're still going to be steep. Our apologies, but that matter's out of our hands. Make sure you're aware of the customs issues you may face if ordering internationally!
We're only able to take payment via Paypal. Sorry about that if you're unable or unwilling to use that service!
For those of you who want to order locally but still get the PDFs...
We are partnering with retail game stores to make the "instant content preorder" possible through their stores. This option may be particularly cost-effective for international customers if there is a game store in their country (or in the EU) able to handle the preorder. If you'd like your store to sign on board for this, please contact them, let them know about the possibility, and point them to the Evil Hat contact page to let us know about their interest.
Right now we have the following stores on board with our instant content preorder program:
USA - Endgame (Oakland, CA); North Coast Role Playing (Eureka, CA); Black Diamond Games (Concord, CA); Gameopolis (Idaho Falls, ID); Comic Book World (Florence, KY); Myriad Games (Salem, NH); Rainy Day Games (Aloha, OR); The Dreaming (Seattle, WA)
Internationally - Leisure Games (UK); Sphaerenmeisters Spiele (Germany); Mark One Comics & Games (New Zealand)