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Don't know if its good or not, but I picked up Good Guys Finish Last, on Drivethru and used my other gift card to get Mass Effect Legendary edition (which I know is good, just sad the Playstation can't get the modded "Happy Ending."
Is GGFL a semi-narrative supers game with lots of random tables?
 
I recall seeing GGFL and Villains Finish First(?) in a bundle called Avengers of Justice. I thought a lot of the scenario building tools were very cool.
 
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Today's HPB haul:

$35, signed, #309 of 750, and includes the map.

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Also picked up Runequest Pocket Deluxe for $25 and Covert Ops Rules Compilation hardcover (both in excellent condition)for $8. Used a 10% coupon.
I started to get the book, but I'm running out of shelf space and I knew I'd never run it. I should have added it to my stack waiting for me to buy another shelf.
 
I started to get the book, but I'm running out of shelf space and I knew I'd never run it. I should have added it to my stack waiting for me to buy another shelf.
I'm not sure I'll run it either, but I wanted to check out the setting, and if I don't like it, I may be able to sell it for more than what I paid. Though I rarely get rid of games, haha.
 
Bought Talisman Adventures RPG on a whim (which was helped because it was on sale at Zatu games in the UK at £26.99 instead of £49.99 which seems a bit... salty... for my wallets' taste).

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It's a glossy 300pg Hardback in full colour with a sheet of cardboard tokens for fate (light and dark) and a map of the land.

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The too long didn't read version: It's pretty good, might be very good in a play by post format and if you can buy it on sale (like I did) it's good value.

It's best described as a beginners to low crunch RPG in terms of complexity as far as I can tell. Mechanics are roll 3D6 against a target number. A double (two dice the same) means you score a Great result and a triple (all three dice the same) means the result was Extraordinary. The players do all the dice rolling with the GM setting difficulty numbers. I'm thinking this might be a reasonable system to use by post because someone gets whacked every round, be it the bad guy or you. I'm still reading it (skimming over to be honest) but nothing has made my eyes glaze over yet. Font size is reasonable (I've made my thoughts on wanting to love Mythras but unable to read it known elsewhere, but it's an issue for me) and the writing is pretty straightforward.

There are seven races (called ancestries here. You can pick from elf, dwarf, human, ghoul, leywalker, troll, and sprite) and ten classes (assassin, druid, minstrel, priest, prophet, scout, sorcerer, thief, warrior, or wizard) which come from the board game (though that has race as class). Interesting that Ghoul and Troll (traditionally bad guys in Fantasy RPGs) are player choice races.

An accessory pack includes a different coloured die - the 'Kismet' die - which grants light/dark fate or triggers abilities for the good guys (on a 6) or bad guys (rolled 1).

Combat looks straightforward. Roll 3D6 against the Threat level of the bad guy. Failure (roll under) means the bad guy gets a free hit on you. Success means you get a hit on them but they reply with a half damage hit on you. Great success means you thwack them without reply and Extraordinary means that something else - like extra damage or stunning the foe - occurs and helps you in some way.

Because the player rolls all the dice the Monsters technically don't attack in a round in the conventional manner. If a Monster attacks a player who has already acted your 'attack' roll instead becomes a 'defence' test where you must score a Great success or higher to avoid all damage (failure) or half damage (success). To me this avoids much of the whiffing a low level party has in a you go/I go system with their typically crappy stats/low chances of hitting. Damage is pretty basic with unarmed (1pt), small weapon (dagger, small claws) 1D6, medium (sword, axe, mace, large claws) 2D6 and Large weapon (2 handed sword, Great Axe) 3D6. Add strength to damage inflicted, reduce by armour. Psychic combat inflicts 1D6 + Craft damage and ignores armour. Armour reduces by 1 point for every time it reduces damage you would otherwise suffer. Your PCs will be on first name terms with the village Blacksmith to fix it.

Life points cover damage. When they drop to zero you become unconscious and suffer a wound. You must also check to see if you die. This is reasonably easy at first (8+) but increases by +1/round and is checked every round. A roll of 6 on the Kismet die has you springing up on 1 Life Point and ready to go (albeit wobbly and with one or more wounds making life harder with -2 per wound to all checks). Healing spells, potions and special abilities are your friend, as is use of light Fate which might save your skin.

Creating a character starts at page 87 (rules/ancestries/classes/skills fill the pages before then).

Choose Ancestry (Race), Class (which defines your stats). Add one point to Strength or Craft. Strength x2 gives points to split between Brawn, Agility and Mettle (which help with tests or increase life points). Craft x2 gives points to split between Insight, Wits and Resolve, all secondary stats that help with tests. Pick Alignment (Good, Neutral, Evil). You have two points to buy Skills or Focuses or a mix of the two. Strength determines your Encumbrance limit, Agility determines your speed (movement rate). Pick a 'starting kit' of equipment based on Class. name the character.

It reminds me of the Star Wars D6 RPG where you pick a template and spend points to tweak. Very quick and with a little experience you can rattle characters off in a couple of minutes. There are half a dozen pre gens in the back.

The rest of the book covers equipment, spells, magic items, GMs section (monsters, adventuring etc). If you have the 4th edition of the Talisman game or the Computer game you'll recognise one or two pieces of art. Not a bad thing - the art is of a good standard.

Various pics:

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A pregen character...
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At first glance it looks like an easy way into Fantasy RPGs and if you have played the board game much will seem familiar. I'll need to read more about the game to see what role the Talisman of the title plays but I expect that as a low crunch generic Fantasy RPG it might be accessible to new players and play well by post because of the 'somebody always wins the combat round' mechanic. Will I run this for a game online? I don't know. I'd talked myself into running Tunnels and Trolls (another game where 'someone wins' every combat round) but I'm going to read this some more and check out what else is available.

As far as I can tell there is a GMs kit and Accessory Pack (dice and tokens). Not so sure about either but if the GMs kit includes more Classes and rules it may be worth a look. Both on sale at Zatu for any Brits. I suspect shipping will wipe out any savings if it ships further afield.

My not scientific in any way ratings based on a skim through and not a real in depth review:

Presentation - 8/10 nice to look at but I personally aren't a fan of full colour pages which sometimes makes text tricky to pick out from the background
Quality - 9/10 solid looking hardback with glossy pages, the tokens in the front cover, map in the back and an orange ribbon for keeping your page.
Value - 6/10 unless you get it on sale. £50 for this would not have fallen into my usual comfort zone. That said the $49.99 cover price translates into all sorts of prices looking at Google Shopping from £26.99 (which I paid) to £42.95. Get it for the right price and value rises to 8/10 (the GMs kit suggests there may be DLC/add ons that you might feel compelled to buy to avoid missing out).
Ease of use - 8/10 I'm not totally convinced a novice to RPG could pick this up and take it all in on one read. I've been around the block so its easy for me and most of you I would say so I'd say it qualifies as low crunch.
Long term playability - 5/10 I don't know yet, hence the average score. There are rules for advancement but without really digging into the book I suspect the GM will have to cook up adventures and campaigns. It doesn't seem to have generated that much buzz on forums and I don't know if there are any modules/expansions planned beyond the GMs kit and Accessory pack. The website is HERE if you want to check it out.
Overall - 8/10 I'm pretty impressed. The failure/success/great success/extraordinary success of the 3D6 roll and use of Fate to help you along (with re-rolling dice and stepping up a standard to great success amongst other things) suggests there's enough levers and pedals for players to use that will help them rather than simply relying on dice rolls.
Who will make use of this - experienced players who want to introduce newbies to the hobby? Sure. A rules lite easy to get into (template based chargen with no rolls required) system for play by post? This is the part I am most interested in and I will dive into the book more to determine if this is my 'holy grail' of a fast to play doesn't bog down with combat system that doesn't require much in the way of rules knowledge or player cost investment. The GM could buy one book and dole out character sheets then explain stuff as they go I reckon.
 
Bought Talisman Adventures RPG on a whim...


I also got a copy of this one on a whim, which showed up yesterday. Managed to snag the limited edition version off TBP for $30 but I haven't dug into it yet. I appreciate your review since it gives me an idea of what I'm getting into. The same package also contained a hardcover copy of Majimonsters, which I got for $15. My kid is finally getting into gaming thanks to Critical Role (she's even starting a D&D club at her school), and since she's a big Pokemon fan I figured it would be a good second game for her.
 
Pucked up a hardback copy of Wearing the Cape, a FATE-based supers game that spun off some YA novels, as far as I can tell. One of my players has been asking about FATE based supers.
 
Pucked up a hardback copy of Wearing the Cape, a FATE-based supers game that spun off some YA novels, as far as I can tell. One of my players has been asking about FATE based supers.
They're not technically YA novels, though admittedly the first one reads like it (and it does sort of touch the field here and there.)
 
Good Guys Finish Last does have charts, but not so much as some, it seems to be pretty simple game system with just a lot (and I mean a quite well done ones.) Though the art is decent, I see a Chrome Dazzler demi-clone. :grin: (Mask, hair, costume, sort of looked like they drew over it, or used it for heavy inspiration) Edit: Yes its narrative. :grin:
 
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My recent haul. Spy or Die Trying looks OK, it's a spy-fi boardgame of stealth against the clock, and dead cheap on eBay UK, like £10 or less.

The Sci-fi battle mats and Starfinder cardboard terrain is my low-fi way of trying to get Five Parsecs from home and my own spy-fi stealth game going.

I'm still knee deep in work so it's unlikely to bear fruition for a few weeks, but hope springs eternal.
 
These 'buying on a whim' sprees are adding up...

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Can't remember where I found out about this one (maybe here where the Author declared he'd made a game). At £18 and change delivered it seemed worth a punt for the print and pdf bundle.

What is it?

Uses 5e rules squeezed into a B/X skin including race as class and levels up to 10 which is in the expert 4-14 range. I have the 5e core books but haven't cracked them open yet. A bit like the 3e, 3.5 and 4e books which sit pristine and unused on a shelf. I'm hoping this slimmed down old school feeling game will act as a primer for getting into the full fat D&D. I haven't played what I consider to be AD&D since 2e and much prefer BECMI where I spent years at the helm DMing for our group. It does everything that D&D needs to be in my opinion. That said I want to get my youngest son interested in RPGs and 5e seems to be where it's at for time being. We'll see.

This is five pamphlet style books split into Characters/Playing the game/Magic/Running the Game/Monsters. Normally I'd have a problem with small fonts but this doesn't seem too bad. A bonus is that the books are half A4 size (A5 I think) and if I home print the PDFs and fit to page it will be giant size text then I can read more easily (hell, they'll probably be able to read it from the international space station). Probably self bind them into one hardback tome.

Will I play it?

I hope so. The ever present problem of too many books/games and not enough time/people to play with are of course in attendance. I'm more likely to have a stab at this than 5e.

Would I recommend it?

I think so. I bought it on sale here for £18.19 delivered for print + pdf and that's right in my take a look at/buy zone. Note my usual 'buy zone' is anywhere up to about £30. Above that and I have to justify to myself whether I'll be getting any use out of it or the game will be keeping a shelf warm. It's not a full colour, glossy, coffee table tome to impress your friends with. Rather it's a rough and ready 'these are the rules, this is how you play, get on with it' set of books as far as I can tell.
 
These 'buying on a whim' sprees are adding up...



Can't remember where I found out about this one (maybe here where the Author declared he'd made a game). At £18 and change delivered it seemed worth a punt for the print and pdf bundle.

What is it?

Uses 5e rules squeezed into a B/X skin including race as class and levels up to 10 which is in the expert 4-14 range. I have the 5e core books but haven't cracked them open yet. A bit like the 3e, 3.5 and 4e books which sit pristine and unused on a shelf. I'm hoping this slimmed down old school feeling game will act as a primer for getting into the full fat D&D. I haven't played what I consider to be AD&D since 2e and much prefer BECMI where I spent years at the helm DMing for our group. It does everything that D&D needs to be in my opinion. That said I want to get my youngest son interested in RPGs and 5e seems to be where it's at for time being. We'll see.

This is five pamphlet style books split into Characters/Playing the game/Magic/Running the Game/Monsters. Normally I'd have a problem with small fonts but this doesn't seem too bad. A bonus is that the books are half A4 size (A5 I think) and if I home print the PDFs and fit to page it will be giant size text then I can read more easily (hell, they'll probably be able to read it from the international space station). Probably self bind them into one hardback tome.

Will I play it?

I hope so. The ever present problem of too many books/games and not enough time/people to play with are of course in attendance. I'm more likely to have a stab at this than 5e.

Would I recommend it?

I think so. I bought it on sale here for £18.19 delivered for print + pdf and that's right in my take a look at/buy zone. Note my usual 'buy zone' is anywhere up to about £30. Above that and I have to justify to myself whether I'll be getting any use out of it or the game will be keeping a shelf warm. It's not a full colour, glossy, coffee table tome to impress your friends with. Rather it's a rough and ready 'these are the rules, this is how you play, get on with it' set of books as far as I can tell.

I love the toned down magic and the playbook chargen.
 
I finally gave Remnants by Outrider Studio a second read. I got it last year and it didn’t click for me. Apparently I’ve a different mindset while waiting for a foot of snow to arrive, as now I like it.



Clearly inspired by 80s and 90s anime with mecha in medieval settings, Battle Remnants is set on a planet centuries after an apocalyptic war. Whether it was tech-fueled or powered by magic is unclear, but no one casts spells and all the Remnants are tech-like, sooo…



Player characters are from a human tribe or a near-human race. The commonality between PCs is that they each possess an Ishi. Scout mecha during whatever apocalypse befell the planet, their self-repair systems keep them going centuries after the war they fought in. They bond to a pilot, and gain in power and special abilities as time passes, resetting to their default abilities once their bonded pilot dies.



The system, for both pilot and Ishi, is a stat+skill roll versus a difficulty number. The points by which you beat a difficulty number is called a Lead, and adds to damage in combat. Combat seems like it lives up to the claim that battles are fast and lethal, but I haven’t played it yet.



I love mech creation. You get basic stats, which you can slightly adjust, then you pick a special ability and combat specialty. You’re done.



Adventure-wise, the PCs will be investigating various mysterious, working for warring kingdoms as dwindling resources force them to battle, and monsters that have bred true after being created to battle in the apocalypse.



The game has its flaws. It contradicts itself on two major rules. Do stats for PCs start at -2 or 0? Can I have a Remnant that is all ranged attack and no melee? That last one is made even more important because the attempt in the rules to give melee versus ranged attacks their own draw can be nearly negated by an attentive player.



There’s also a reference to some advancement being linked to something never mentioned elsewhere, but at least I can guess it’s meant to involve the PCs point pool to boost die rolls.



And only due to a coworker who is fanatical about Dragonball can I tell you there is a rule that is clearly based on that series, and like in that anime there is a major plot hole around it. The game’s author acknowledges this plot hole, and suggests two methods of screwing players who use the plot hole, rather than fixing the rule. Combined with a comment that critical failures “are fun” for players, and I don’t think I’d like to game with the author.



There are two supplements to the game, one of which I own and will be reading shortly. I could see me porting the rules into another setting.
 
Remnants is a great little RPG and the supplements are good IIRC. There was intended to a be a third one to cover the remainder of the map but it has not been released.
 

Rather than share the story of how I’m the avatar of evil to the owner of one of the paintings you’ve posted a print of, I’m going to ask if you happen to know where this one was published. I’m aware of the fellow who owns the painting, and he has no idea where it was published, and got a “I don’t remember” when he asked Elmore about it.
 
Rather than share the story of how I’m the avatar of evil to the owner of one of the paintings you’ve posted a print of, I’m going to ask if you happen to know where this one was published. I’m aware of the fellow who owns the painting, and he has no idea where it was published, and got a “I don’t remember” when he asked Elmore about it.
The party with the green dragon hanging from the tree? That was in the 2e PHB, first printing (not the black cover versions).
 
Sorry, don't mean to be bitchy, but the uneven placement of the picture in the frame is just making me *twitch*.
If it helps, those are just temp until I get black backing to go between the picture and the cardboard. I couldn't find frames with the exact dimensions as the pictures, so I had to improvise. Once I get the black matt, I'll place them exactly.
 
The party with the green dragon hanging from the tree? That was in the 2e PHB, first printing (not the black cover versions).

Ah, that explains why I didn’t know. Back in the day a game store ordered way too many of the 2E PHB when it came out, and they ended up selling them at half-off to get rid of them. I missed the sale, and I never even looked at the 2e PHB after that, as it reminded me of the discount I missed.

Thank you for letting me know. I’ll pass it on so the fellow knows where it was published.
 
Got a bunch of prints I've been meaning to get for a while. Just framed and hung them for my downstairs office.

What size is the Dragons of Winter Night?

I also like how the reflection in the frame makes the painting of the MM2 Firbolg look like it's sitting up in bed ready to stab someone.
 
What size is the Dragons of Winter Night?

I also like how the reflection in the frame makes the painting of the MM2 Firbolg look like it's sitting up in bed ready to stab someone.
24" x26.5" for all three.

sorry for the reflections, I should have waited until nighttime so the window glare wasn't there.
 
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