Retro RPG: Dungeons and Dragons Magenta Box (1981)
The Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set is a set of rulebooks for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. First published in 1977, it saw a handful of revisions and reprintings, of which this is the 1981 Magenta Box version (the original is called the Blue Box)
The Basic Set details the essential concepts of the D&D game. It gives rules for character creation and advancement for player characters at beginning levels. It also includes information on how to play adventures inside dungeons for both players and the Dungeon Master.
Welcome to this episode of RPGGamer Top 5s, and this time we're going to do the top RPG's on the Sega Saturn.
The Sega Saturn was a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994.
A couple of additions to the site today, based on the subject of yesterdays review of, Star Wars Weekly 109: World of Fire! Part 3. Today we've added, Mici Shabandar to the Star Wars D/6 Characters Section, and the Staraker to the Star Wars D/6 Starships Section of the Site.
I'm not 100% confident in either of these stats yet, and and very open to revising them. We're obviously only part of the way through the story, so Mici may display skills and talents that I've not included in her stats, and the Starraker I found extremely hard to balance. Because here's a ship which is apparently tougher than a Imperial Cruiser, is fast enough to challenge the Millenium Falcon, and is piloted by only a single pilot. All of which makes it sound incredibly powerful in games terms.
So, I'll leave it for the moment, and see if any other abilities manifest as the storyline continues, and possibly review the stats later on. My thoughts are, that as the Starraker is a experimental vessel, that I might balance it with some disadvantages such as systems blowing out if it receives any damage.
Keeping to my 2 a day pattern of updates today for the next issue reviewed, Star Wars Weekly 108: World of Fire! Part 2, which should see me right through this story and the next, but I may run into problems with the third segment of this story, but we'll deal with that when we come to it. Today we've added Alashan & Foundry to the Star Wars D/6 Planets Section of the Site.
The Juicer OCC in Rifts is one of the coolest and interesting character classes in the game, individuals who take super steroids and performance enhancing drugs to become superhuman, at the expense of cutting their lifespan to just a few years.
Today I look at this sourcebook/adventure for Rifts, which offers not only a more detailed source of information on the process and the culture which has sprung up around them, but also a number of other versions of Juicers enhanced in various other ways. Finally providing an adventure which uses the material in a new fiendish plot from the evil coalition.
Onto a new story, Star Wars Weekly 107: World of Fire! Part 1, and although there's a bunch that I can add to the site from this one, it's a 9 parter, so I don't want to use everything on the first day, and have to search for the rest of the time. So I'm pacing myself, and today I've added Wadie Firestone & Arlo Tyre to the Star Wars D/6 Characters Section of the Site, the Master Rebel Scouts from the start of the story.
The last couple of additions based on the latest story we're reviewing, Star Wars Weekly 106: The Weapons Master Part 3, maybe tomorrows story will be more fruitful for things to add to the site. Today we've added Giles Durane & Gimlet to the Star Wars D/6 Characters Section of the Site.
Dungeons and Dragons, the biggest tabletop Roleplaying Game in the world, it's an easy game to get into. But the idea of sitting down at a game table and knowing nothing can be a little intimidating, so here's a quick example of how the rules work, so you don't need to feel quite so confused.
So we're onto another story, Star Wars Weekly 104: The Weapons Master Part 1, and it means there's some new additions to the site, which seem to look like two per day for this story. Today we've added General Emir to the Star Wars D/6 Characters Section, and Challon to the Star Wars D/6 Planets Section of the Site.
Cyberpunk V3.0, subtitled, Roleplaying in the Dark Future, and also known as 203X, is the third edition of the popular pen and paper RPG series Cyberpunk by Mike Pondsmith.
After a hiatus in the mid to late 1990s, R.Talsorian Games published a third edition to act as a sequel to Cyberpunk 2020 and the Firestorm series.
The setting has been heavily updated from the event from the Firestorm Series, which covered the opening of the Fourth Corporate War. The aftermath of the Fourth Corporate War has resulted in widespread corruption of the Net and major losses of hardcopied data, to the point that all data is intangible and recent recorded history is in doubt. An example that pops up in Pondsmith's demos at conventions, releases on the Internet, and in the finished game is that knowledge and recorded history has become lost or corrupted. Many people in the world now believe Richard Nixon, instead of resigning over Watergate, committed suicide on camera and that memes such as the moon landing being a hoax become prevalent. The war has also led to the collapse of nations, the world economy, and many of the staple megacorporations. This civil upheaval leads to the rise of the "altcults", alternative cultures similar in vein to the "phyles" from Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age.
Welcome to this episode of RPGGamer Top 5s, and this time we're going to list the top RPG's on the Atari 2600.
The Atari 2600, originally branded as the Atari Video Computer System or Atari VCS for short until November 1982, is a home video game console from Atari, Inc. Released on September 11, 1977, it is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on ROM cartridges (a format first used with the Fairchild Channel F in 1976) instead of dedicated hardware with games physically built into the unit. The 2600 was bundled with two joystick controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a game cartridge: initially Combat, and later Pac-Man.
The Atari VCS launched with nine simple, low-resolution games in 2 KiB cartridges. The system found its killer app with its version of Taito's Space Invaders in 1980 and became widely successful, leading to the creation of Activision and other third-party game developers as well as competition from home console manufacturers Mattel and Coleco. By the end of its primary lifecycle in 1983รขโฌโ84, games for the 2600 were using more than four times the ROM of the launch titles with significantly more advanced visuals and gameplay than the system was designed for, such as Pitfall! and its scrolling sequel Pitfall II: Lost Caverns.
Well the second part of this story, Star Wars Weekly 97: The Day After the Death Star Part 2, and ne real new content to add. So since they're mentioned in the story, even if they don't feature in it, I've added Owen Lars & Beru Whitesun Lars to the Star Wars D/6 Characters Section of the Site.
So next time we'll have the only new character in the story. Yippee.
So we start a new story, Star Wars Weekly 97: The Day After the Death Star Part 1, and this one doesn't have any new content except one solitary character. And he isn't even in the first part, so I've been a bit more creative and added Yavin 4 to the Star Wars D/6 Planets Section of the Site.
What I thought would be a relatively simple addition to the site, turned out to be one of the largest, with over 11 thousand words in it's description. I guess Yavin IV was used a lot more in the EU than I'd ever realised.
Pantheon and Other Roleplaying Games (2000), by Robin Laws, was published by Hogshead Publishing as one of their New Style role-playing games and is a 24-page book that includes five self-contained role-playing games for 3-6 players and designed to be completed in 1รขโฌโ2 hours.
Pantheon and Other Roleplaying Games included a total of five different competitive storytelling games รขโฌโ or five different scenarios, as they all use the same "Narrative Cage Match TM" system. In these games players have characters with which they engage in storytelling. On his turn, a player tells one sentence of a story, during which he must mention his character. Players can challenge sentences using a combination of die-rolling and bidding. When everyone has run out of bidding tokens, players wrap up the story and then see who earned points based on a score sheet.
Pantheon introduced a system called Narrative Cage Match (NCM) that differs from traditional role-playing game systems in that there is no referee or gamemaster. Players control a character that co-operates and competes with other characters to try to steer the course of the story so that their character finishes in a better position than all the others. Players influence the narrative outcomes of the games they are playing using a bidding mechanism that uses beads and traditional six-sided dice.
Well we finish off the current story, Star Wars Weekly 96: Way of the Wookiee Part 3 and there's only one addition to the site left to do from it. So today we've added Hronk to the Star Wars D/6 Characters Section of the Site.
Well only one addition to the site today, because Star Wars Weekly 95: Way of the Wookiee Part 2 seems to just use things already introduced into the universe previously, and therefore I had to leave something for the final part as well. So today we've added N'Mrith to the Star Wars D/6 Characters Section of the Site.
Welcome to this episode of RPGGamer Top 5s, and this time we're going to list the top RPG's on the Sega Master System.
The Sega Master System (SMS)] is a third-generation 8-bit home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was originally a remodeled export version of the Sega Mark III, the third iteration of the SG-1000 series of consoles, which was released in Japan in 1985 and featured enhanced graphical capabilities over its predecessors. The Master System launched in North America in 1986, followed by Europe in 1987, and Brazil in 1989.
And we're onto a fresh story from the comics, one which was actually brand new and unique to the UK, Star Wars Weekly 94: Way of the Wookiee Part 1 and we've got a couple of new additions to the site based on it. So today we've added Colonel Quirt to the Star Wars D/6 Characters Section, and Formos to the Star Wars D/6 Planets Section of the Site.
Welcome back to another Heroes of RPG's, a series not about the heroes we play in RPG's, but the amazing guys who created the games we enjoy so much, and this time we'd like to talk about Michael A Stackpole.
Michael Austin Stackpole was born on November 27, 1957 and was born in Wausau, Wisconsin, but raised in Vermont. He has a BA in history from the University of Vermont. From 1977 on, he worked as a designer of role-playing games for various gaming companies, and wrote dozens of magazine articles with limited distribution within the industry.
Just a little something I found lying around, the FASA Shadowrun Catalog from 1993, which not only has new products, but a story and some NPC's. Which I thought was pretty cool.
Retro RPG: Violence, the Roleplaying Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed
Violence: The Role-Playing Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed is a short, 32-page role-playing game written by Greg Costikyan under the pseudonym "Designer X" and published by Hogshead Publishing in 1999 as part of its New Style line of games.
Violence is a satire of conventional dungeon-bashing games, set in a contemporary metropolis where player characters dash from room to room killing the occupants and stealing their belongings. In a style reminiscent of Mad, it is relentlessly user-hostile and uses a system where the user can buy experience points for cash from the designer or publisher. Despite innovative game design and exhaustive lists of equipment and weapons (including both belt and orbital sanders), monster types and possible scenarios, it is largely and deliberately unplayable because of an exhaustive rule-set. The rule-set provides information on a range of things related to killing. Weapons, combat styles, and the like are intricately detailed, considering the short length of the volume. Violence is a rant against the traditional styles of Dungeons & Dragons, MMORPGs, and the Grand Theft Auto series, written to simultaneously annoy, enrage and challenge the reader. As a game, it is of little value, but is useful as an insight into the mindset of its author and an indictment of an endemic style of role-playing.
Page designed in Notepad, Logo`s done in Personal Paint on the Commodore Amiga
All text, HTML and logos done by FreddyB
Images stolen from an unknown website at some remote time in the past.
Any complaints, writs for copyright abuse, etc should be addressed to the Webmaster FreddyB.
