Bookgasm

This summer vacation is nearly over, and what a great holiday it has been. I have had leasure time on home, been on summer cottage on Eastern Finland, swam repeatedly on Finnish fresh water lake, been on Doghill with children, and tomorrow leaving to a history filled bus tourney into Åland. It has been years, when I was there last time. However, the best thing has been the time spent reading my evergrowing piled stash of books.

On Monday the pile went even higher as more books arrived. One for Rogue Trader for planetary world building, the new Star Wars new Core book and it’s Game Master’s kit. And not forgetting the almost complete set of ElfQuest comics on a flea market, costing only 5 euros!

Premium Magic Item Compendium 3.5The first on the pile is Premium Magic Item Compendium book for D&D 3.5, and oh my what goodness it contains! It is a must have for games where you don’t want to use the Complete XXX series, or any other books full of overpowered prestige classes, and just stick to the Vanilla 3.5 Dungeons & Dragons, which I prefer.

So much goodness to read and use. And when the August arrives, the long waited Numenera stuff starts rolling in based on people’s kickstarter pledge. I am waiting my dead wood copy, and while doing that anyone can pledge on this new Kickstarter project for Numenera. Many bookgasms coming, I see in the future…

FFG’s Star Wars reconsidered

Been now re-reading the Beginner Game set on sunny rainy day in the Eastern Finland. Electricity is still out, after one hour of waiting. It is vacation time…

Still unsure about the special dice, but starting to see the good roleplaying practices it might bring on the table. Must gather a playtest group, as I did order, at whim, the first part of the actual game from Adlibris, when it became available.

P.S. Felt bad about it afterwards, tried to cancel it, but they had sent it already. Neverthless the listed price was really cheap, so no harm done.

FFG’s Star Wars Roleplaying game

Bought it yesterday, and quickly skimmed it through today. Nice big pictures, with ffgswbbproduction values in place (price 30€ here in Finland). It feels like Star Wars, which is good. Clear instructions what to read and when – good again. Easily craspable concepts, superb!

However, the game uses special game dices of various sizes without numbers. Instead those have special Star Wars “language?” symbols on colored dice. Nothing wrong there, because mechanics should be easy and no calculation skills required by the player, and should promote the story driven methodology, than minmaxer’s wet dream of accounting.

But how on Earth to get players to invest 12€ to dice, which can be used only with this game? Most people I know it is not actually issue of money, but a principle. And how the,  heck gamemaster (or the one who runs the game) can differentiate easily the dice in his/her own adventure notes? Beginner’s Game itself uses colored images in the middle of text to tell what dice to throw. This remains to be seen.

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This game needs really to be playtested.