It was a busy day with work. A coworker who I earlier pegged as a snake continued to expose themselves (as a snake) in a channel that they must've forgot WE ALL HAVE ACCESS TO. As they have a habit of deleting their comments, I collected screenshots for future reference. But seriously fuck this guy. Working is hard enough, so there is no need to go around bashing other workers when the real enemy is management and owners.
I recently finished reading "Paleomythic," a self-style "stone and sorcery" role playing game. Honestly? I think it rules. They use a trait system for building characters by describing their aptitudes. As someone who heavily larped "Vampire: the Masquerade" throughout the '90s I fell hard for that feature. Besides traits, the rest of character creation is pretty good, where you can customize your character by either gaining more traits at the expense of abilities (i.e. powers), or have more abilities and fewer traits. In addition, you can take up to two flaws to gain more traits. One thing that I like about flaws is that they correspond to a positive trait, so you can't take both.
The world building is pretty nice as well. There are plenty of details to stir the imagination, keeping the game firmly rooted in a world of pre-history. It is a game I'm dying to play, but I don't think I'll ever have the chance to get around to it. Thankfully, this was a library borrow from my local book depository, where the librarian in charge has curated a terrific little selection of RPG and wargaming books.
Lastly, there are some hacks included in the book. My favorite is for advancing the technology of the game so that you can set games during the Hyborian Age. This really made me perk up as I think that's one of the most evocative types of settings for classic roleplay. But then again, I grew up on a steady diet of Howard and his contemporaries.
I also finished "Barbarians of Lemuria." When I saw it in the library, I was stoked to grab it and add it to my armful of books. But once I cracked it open, I was more than a little disappointed. Everything that should have felt visceral and evocative felt tired and trite. The game systems felt underwhelming, as did the art and character options. Would it do a good job of evoking a swords and sorcery atmosphere? Sure. But I don't think I'd have a good time running the system let alone playing in the world.
I also read through "Before the Tavern." It contains 100-character concepts for a bunch of genres, and it's flexible enough (allegedly) to bend then to adjacent spaces. Overall, this book was very disappointing. Maybe it's just because I'm old now, but the character concepts really felt like the gee whiz kind "lol random" character ideas you see in memes on social media. These are RPG shitposts. I was hoping to find mineable concepts to use as a game master, but there wasn't much in there I found useful. Honorable mention to Iguana Girl as a concept I would enjoy playing. She pretty much mirrors a camel expert NPC I used in when running "Pharoah" for my main gaming group.
Dave texted me last night about playing second edition 40K. We've set up a game for this Sunday. After some thought, we settled on 1250 points. I'm debating on what to add to my army as we escalate our forces. I could take all of my Snakebites (a boss, some boyz and a trukk), or I can try to field my looted Leman Russ, "Gork's Fury." I feel that I might be lacking a bit of firepower, but we will see. The orks riding in a trukk would let me reach close combat faster. As it stands, Dave's been playing his Crimson Fists as more of a gunline, so it's been difficult for my infantry to reach hand-to-hand. And if the boyz can tie up a squad for a turn or two, that's a turn or two where rapid firing bolters aren't tearing up gretchen or space orks. I really want to write up a battle report, so I'll try to actually get some good pics of the game this time around, but no promises.
-Daz
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