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NinjaWeasel said:
It was my birthday this week so I've been spending a bit... Today I received a bunch of trade paperback collections (Usagi Yojimbo Saga vol. 4, Robotech The Sentinels archives vols. 1 & 2, and The Terminator: Sector War), some Star Wars novels (the original Thrawn Trilogy), and a good condition copy of ICE's Cyberspace!
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Those last two (Thrawn Trilogy & Cyberspace, which is Spacemaster lite as MERP was Rolemaster lite)are classics, enjoy!
 
I've had the PDF of Cyberspace for quite a while and I very much appreciate it's MERP-like rules. I've been looking for a decent quality physical copy of the first edition (with the Rick Veitch illustration on the cover) for ages now. I'm really pleased to have found one at last!

As for the Thrawn Trilogy... I've avoided Star Wars fiction for 30-odd years but then I was talking to a friend about the Thrawn trilogy (and post RotJ expanded universe stuff in general) and he recommended it. I'd just read, and enjoyed, the Dark Empire trade paperback too. So I was curious and I figured I'd give it a go. Now I have them and I'm 10 chapters into Heir to the Empire. I'm liking it so far!

Reading Terminator: Sector War is making me wish there were more Terminator collections readily available. I have all the individual issues from Dark Horse's original run but I've never read any of the comics pulished before or after that run. I'd like to delve into them now.

One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post: I also pre-ordered the TMNT collection The Last Ronin.
 
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My copy of Vaesen arrived yesterday. A couple of days ago, I also got an order I placed at an online print shop in the UK to print copies of the SRD for an rpg called Push, and It Means Hope, a supers rpg using the Lumen system (same on as in the game NOVA I mentioned a page or two back)
 
Starting in a D&D5E campaign with session 0 coming up Friday, so I went ahead and ordered Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons and Mordenkainan’s Monsters of the Multiverse. Those were the 2 “more core” of the 5E books I didn’t have.
 
NinjaWeasel said:
I've had the PDF of Cyberspace for quite a while and I very much appreciate it's MERP-like rules. I've been looking for a decent quality physical copy of the first edition (with the Rick Veitch illustration on the cover) for ages now. I'm really pleased to have found one at last!
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That was one that I read while working in a game store but never got around to picking up. I don't remember it well, but I remember feeling that it did a good job at being cyberpunk. A lot of RPGs felt like they were just jumping on a bandwagon when they added cyberpunk elements.
 
Speaking of MERP, my print copy of Against the Darkmaster Revised finally came in.
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I'm liking it so far. I'm reminded of the R. Talsorian Witcher TRPG. Which is a good thing since The Witcher is one of my favorite RPGs to come out in the last 10 years.
 
NinjaWeasel said:
I've had the PDF of Cyberspace for quite a while and I very much appreciate it's MERP-like rules. I've been looking for a decent quality physical copy of the first edition (with the Rick Veitch illustration on the cover) for ages now. I'm really pleased to have found one at last!
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My group played MERP and RM, so when it came to Cyberpunk stuff we transitioned to this instead of the Cyberpunk or Shadowrun games (although we later did Shadowrun). Cyberspace was really well done, we loved it, and I still have my original copy in a sealed storage box under the stairs...some great memories with this rpg!
 
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Torque2100 said:
Speaking of MERP, my print copy of Against the Darkmaster Revised finally came in.
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I'm liking it so far. I'm reminded of the R. Talsorian Witcher TRPG. Which is a good thing since The Witcher is one of my favorite RPGs to come out in the last 10 years.
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I was a kickstarter backer of Against The Darkmaster - it's great to see the MERP version of the ICE game engine in print again, and I totally love the classic fantasy vibe of Against The Darkmaster, the art direction is really great!
 
Endless Flight said:
Everything about Against the Darkmaster is great except that it’s named Against the Darkmaster.
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Yes, indeed. It could have perhaps been named in a way to note that it's a game where you play Roles adjudicated by a Game Master, perhaps Master of Roles. I, too, have no idea why they gave it such a silly name.
 
I don’t remember the specifics but we ran AtDM when it came out shortly after we had run a game with MERP and agreed we preferred MERP to the newcomer. I’ll have to check with the group and see if they remember the details on why we preferred MERP.

On a side note I wish ICE had kept the Rolemaster Express line alive, it seemed to fill the void MERP left, a lighter gateway game, perfectly.
 
sharps54 said:
On a side note I wish ICE had kept the Rolemaster Express line alive, it seemed to fill the void MERP left, a lighter gateway game, perfectly.
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Yeah Rolemaster Express and HARP were great options, still quite crunchy by many standards, but much more compact than Rolemaster.
Certainly not a ICE B/X, but they both were closest thing going.
By that time I actually preferred HARP, but the name 'Rolemaster' had more recognition. Having both game lines competing was a bad commercial decision, it just diluted the fan base.
In addition to this, the art direction with both RMX and HARP was another detractor. They needed to recapture that rich classic fantasy art flavour that adorned the covers of the MERP and RM2E era books, and also have more evocative internal art - this is almost a necessity these days if they want to attract new players.

Against The Darkmaster captures it all pretty well. With the structure and mechanics based off MERP, it still is very crunchy, yet isn't quite as sprawling in it's system as Rolemaster, and it has great vibe and art direction.
I'm really happy I have it, although I had wished they had brought out a two-book hardcover set, rather than the heavy hardcover tome. It looks lovely on the shelf, but it's cumbersome to read.
 
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Torque2100 said:
Speaking of MERP, my print copy of Against the Darkmaster Revised finally came in.
View attachment 47337
I'm liking it so far. I'm reminded of the R. Talsorian Witcher TRPG. Which is a good thing since The Witcher is one of my favorite RPGs to come out in the last 10 years.
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Just go ahead and repackage that and forward it on to me. ;)
 
Got my POD coupon for Tezca Sentai (from the last zine rpg kickstarters) and saw my copy of Planets of Peril was shipping. I did get a print copy of Do Not Approach, a villain book dual statted for Mutants & Masterminds & Capes, Cowls & Villains Foul. I had backed this years ago, and I thought I had a copy already. The downside is the publisher sent it in a bubble wrap mailer with no stiffener, so of course the book is full of creases.
 
Having read VsD I am actually really liking it. The rules are fairly crunchy, but not overwhelmingly so. It seems to be about my comfort level. I love systems that de-emphasize weapon damage or somehow base damage on the skill of the wielder rather than an arbitrary dice roll.

I also appreciate systems that eschew the traditional initiative roll. This is one of the things I liked about Advanced Fighting Fantasy as well.

I have heard that Rolemaster is notorious for having a separate success chart for every single skill. I really prefer VsD's unified success chart.
 
Torque2100 said:
Having read VsD I am actually really liking it. The rules are fairly crunchy, but not overwhelmingly so. It seems to be about my comfort level. I love systems that de-emphasize weapon damage or somehow base damage on the skill of the wielder rather than an arbitrary dice roll.

I also appreciate systems that eschew the traditional initiative roll. This is one of the things I liked about Advanced Fighting Fantasy as well.

I have heard that Rolemaster is notorious for having a separate success chart for every single skill. I really prefer VsD's unified success chart.
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Which is why back in the day many considered MERP, Rolemaster lite. :smile: I knew a few who used it run a non Middle Earth setting.
 
Star•Drive Arms & Equipment Guide. Unfortunately, my copy (again) has someone else's fucking name written on the inside cover, so I ordered a couple more copies and eventually all but one of the copies will be sent back to Noble Knight as part of my next big shelf purge. They try to catch and label all of their incoming products if they have writing-- aside from the quality scan-- but this is two products now and I absolutely do not fucking want someone else's name written on my shit.

I've taken to leaving a special note on my orders with them to please check all of my orders for writing, and just flat fucking cancel anything that's been written in. There's nothing I want from NKG so urgently that I can't wait for a better copy.

Just got credit for my last big batch and immediately spent most of it... this time on RuneQuest and more Starfinder a couple of bits and bobs... Vol 2 of DFRPG as a present for my current umpire, Psionic Power (D&D 4e), so I have all of those books except Martial Power 2. NKG has one copy of the latter available... but guess what.
 
3rik said:
It's probably mentioned somewhere upthread but what is VsD?
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Against the Darkmaster. Abbreviated VsD

Already on with 'Book One' of printing the book out. I'm splitting it up (Bulletstoppers! Pah!) and can't order the book in the UK (even if I could, shipping costs make me :sad: ) and in the 'cover creation stage'. These are just the drafts so far. Going to be tweaked, maybe colours changed,different pictures etc...


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Edit: inspired by Rich H Rich H had a play with the cover again. Might go for the easy route and all black as I do admittedly like the look of those books :thumbsup:

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hmmm. Needs a bit more tweaking. I'll work at it.
 
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Jenx said:
Already on with 'Book One' of printing the book out. I'm splitting it up (Bulletstoppers! Pah!) and can't order the book in the UK (even if I could, shipping costs make me :sad: ) and in the 'cover creation stage'. These are just the drafts so far. Going to be tweaked, maybe colours changed,different pictures etc...
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I feel your pain. I went for using the nice chapter art as covers for my 5-book POD version. They worked pretty well:

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... Nice and stark; quite fitting for the subject!
 
Picked up the Dwarrowdeep pdf off of Drivethru. I'm a huge sucker for Moria, the only megadungeon I ever made myself was a sort of "lonely mountain" rip off. But I've been looking for something that'd really represent a huge labyrinthian Dwarven city over run by evil for years. The LOTR moria was more of a skeleton for you to put flesh on, and stuff like Gunderholfen is cool but not sprawling enough for me.

Dwarrowdeep gets closer, but not all the way imho. But it's good enough that I think my desire for a Moria-dungeon is fulfilled. Each of the 6 entrances are fully detailed, and so are 8 "primary encounter areas". That's 14 large detailed areas...basically the same scale as Gunderholfen. So not great.

But then there is a detailed hex map of the underground, showing every major, secondary, and hidden tunnel in the hold, along with bridges, chasms and fords over underground rivers. Sample maps are provided for random encounters in these various regions. All of the entrances and primary areas are on the map, as well as 40 secondary locations. The secondary locations are for the DM to generate themselves, and a pretty decent random dungeon generator based on geomorphs provided with the books is provided to help with this. If only the random dungeon generator was provided, I'd be annoyed and feel like it had failed. But the detailed hex map will really help to give the feeling of a vast labyrinth with real choices rather than abstracted narrative dungeon exploration. And once a secondary location is made it's fixed in place. Also, some of the locations are in places like the shores of underground lakes or on the edge of huge chasms or hidden at the end of secret tunnels that suggest themes for them. Rather than roll them all randomly, I've picked the interesting ones out to stock up myself as little themed mini dungeons, and then I'll do the rest randomly.

It's a lot of work, of course, but likely a true moria-style dungeon is unpublishable, and between the map and the random generators, this book comes closer than most I've seen when looking for something like this.
 
This arrived today: three smaller supplements for Era: Survival compiled into a hardcover.

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This took quite a long time to get here so I contacted Shades of Vengeance and they decided to send me another copy, with tracking code, assuming this one got "lost". And guess what? That second copy is due to arrive tomorrow afternoon... :quiet:
 
Run of good luck lately. Picked up a box set of the Star Wars Introductory Adventure Game for $47, including shipping. Box in good shape, interior components uncut and pristine. Missing dice. That's a pretty good deal.

Snagged a copy of the Giantlands box set for $42, including shipping. Looks brand new, all components present. Probs gonna resell this one, tbh.

Also grabbed a(nother) sealed copy of Justice, Inc. for $52 including shipping.
 
Mankcam said:
My group played MERP and RM, so when it came to Cyberpunk stuff we transitioned to this instead of the Cyberpunk or Shadowrun games (although we later did Shadowrun). Cyberspace was really well done, we loved it, and I still have my original copy in a sealed storage box under the stairs...some great memories with this rpg!
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Yes, Cyberspace is a really cool game. It's not a big, thick book and yet it feels fairly complete still. It also has a pretty unique vibe in my opinion. I've been toying with adapting a lot of the material over to Against the Darkmaster as that's just a tiny, wee bit slicker than ICE's rules were.

Torque2100 said:
Having read VsD I am actually really liking it. The rules are fairly crunchy, but not overwhelmingly so. It seems to be about my comfort level. I love systems that de-emphasize weapon damage or somehow base damage on the skill of the wielder rather than an arbitrary dice roll.

I also appreciate systems that eschew the traditional initiative roll. This is one of the things I liked about Advanced Fighting Fantasy as well.

I have heard that Rolemaster is notorious for having a separate success chart for every single skill. I really prefer VsD's unified success chart.
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What I find with Against the Darkmaster is that while the game's quite crunchy, made more noticeable with it's granularity, it's actually relatively simple for most people to get their heads around the rules. I think character creation is a perhaps a bit trickier than most medium crunch games but ther rest is easy to learn and explain. I think it's a much simpler game than D&D 3.X or 4 in practice.

Also, I've been buying a bunch more graphic novels... today I got 5 volumes of Deadworld. I've wanted to read that for around 30 years, or so, since I first saw it in Diamond Previews. Sadly the few comic stores near me always got very few copies in back in the day and they sold out fast. Looking forward to getting stuck in!
 
Mankcam said:
I love my Against The Darkmaster book, but I would much rather having a set of slim hardcovers in a slipcase, as opposed to trying to read it in it's current one-volume tome form. Great stuff!
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I wish there was an option of the humongous tome or two smaller books. I've got the tome already, and aesthetically I love it, but I'd probably pick up two slimmer volumes for table use too.
 
NinjaWeasel said:
Yes, Cyberspace is a really cool game. It's not a big, thick book and yet it feels fairly complete still. It also has a pretty unique vibe in my opinion. I've been toying with adapting a lot of the material over to Against the Darkmaster as that's just a tiny, wee bit slicker than ICE's rules were.



What I find with Against the Darkmaster is that while the game's quite crunchy, made more noticeable with it's granularity, it's actually relatively simple for most people to get their heads around the rules. I think character creation is a perhaps a bit trickier than most medium crunch games but ther rest is easy to learn and explain. I think it's a much simpler game than D&D 3.X or 4 in practice.

Also, I've been buying a bunch more graphic novels... today I got 5 volumes of Deadworld. I've wanted to read that for around 30 years, or so, since I first saw it in Diamond Previews. Sadly the few comic stores near me always got very few copies in back in the day and they sold out fast. Looking forward to getting stuck in!
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Deadworld is freakin' GREAT
 
NinjaWeasel said:
I wish there was an option of the humongous tome or two smaller books. I've got the tome already, and aesthetically I love it, but I'd probably pick up two slimmer volumes for table use too.
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I failed my saving throw today and tried to order the AtDM bundle but their website failed. Tried three different times and then gave up. Put in a not to them about the error I was seeing but haven't heard back yet. Shitty websites have cost companies quite a bit I bet. I turned off blockers etc and had no luck at the final stage each time.
 
3rik said:
This took quite a long time to get here so I contacted Shades of Vengeance and they decided to send me another copy, with tracking code, assuming this one got "lost". And guess what? That second copy is due to arrive tomorrow afternoon... :quiet:
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Well, the second copy arrived yesterday... Fortunately, a friend who I knew also owns Era: Survival is interested in it so at least it will find a purpose.
 
Acmegamer said:
I failed my saving throw today and tried to order the AtDM bundle but their website failed. Tried three different times and then gave up. Put in a not to them about the error I was seeing but haven't heard back yet. Shitty websites have cost companies quite a bit I bet. I turned off blockers etc and had no luck at the final stage each time.
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Did they get this sorted out for you? They've always been super responsive any time I've reached out to them.

Side note - I was able to order mine yesterday afternoon, but I kept having to log in to the cart.
 
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