Kickstarter: Dicecards

While stumbling around Kickstarter, I noticed one for cards with dice on them. I'm all about reducing the need for carrying thing's around. Other than that, it's pretty self-explanatory.

Kickstarter: V20 Hunters Hunted

After successful campaigns to get the 20th edition of Vampire full support, White Wolf is throwing together a new Hunters Hunted.  The original was a core manual for playing with vampire antagonists, rather than protagonists.  This expands on the concept, bringing modern technology to the hunt, and bringing new hunting grounds -- in particular, the internet.

Kickstarter: Beyond the Gates of Antares

Rick Priestly and a few of the other designers of Warhammer, 40,000 are putting together another tabletop science-fiction wargame in the same vein.  He's put it up on Kickstarter.

Mapping Rome

I've given some thought to running a Roman campaign, but for various reasons, it's been a non-starter.  Courtesy of io9, I discovered Stanford's ORBIS project -- essentially mapping various methods of traveling, or as io9 refers to it: Google Maps for the Roman world.

Traveller Mod: Wounds

Too frequently in games, we see our own characters' life as a numerical statistic.  This runs true from video games to tabletop RPGs.  Despite magical full-body healing, or the ready availability of cybernetics and limb replacements, DMs are hesitant to do anything that makes players feel their characters are "crippled."  Yet this is one of the easiest steps to take to show the lethality of combat, while making players at least simulate damage taken.  Traveller's damage is taken from statistics, which is a good start -- but even then, it doesn't feel particularly real.  I want players to think before they get into combat, and consider whether or not a gunfight is particularly worth it.

Crowdsourcing Development

Among the challenges of crowdfunding, developers should not only be managing your projects within financial constraints, but on manpower constraints. The recent Kingdom Death Kickstarter seemed largely a one-man project, for example, but by enlisting assistants for individual sculptures, he managed to create a wide and varied model range. One of the creative ways Brian Fargo has managed the Wasteland 2 project was by outsourcing the building of assets.

Kickstarter I Missed: Dice Rings

In late December, I was pretty much Kickstarter-ed out. I wasn't checking it regularly, and I missed a rather innovative product - Dice Rings.

Why I Don't Like Mandatory Voice Chat

Cyberpunk 2077 Preview

Solution for Secret World Situation Room ARG

Given the amount of hits I'm still getting for my comments on the Secret World End of Days Situation Room ARG, I figured I'd throw up solutions for those who might be looking for them.

Kingdom Death Damage Chart

For those looking to pledge at the last minute, the Kingdom Death page has been updated with a Death Toll so that you can plan your purchase.

Reminder: Kingdom Death Kickstarter

A reminder: the Kingdom Death Kickstarter, with its broad selection of miniatures that can essentially be used to represent an entire arsenal of D&D equipment, ends on Monday.  It's been featured on Wired, and you can get some good background on the team that brings it to you there.

Threat in Tabletop RPGs

I was a bit intrigued when I saw a post on Penny Arcade about the Edge of the Empire beta of Fantasy Flight's new Star Wars title.  Of particular note was the dice mechanic.  It appears that the game is played with the standard polyhedral dice well-known to D&D players, but with a twist -- they are custom dice, in the same way Dragon Dice were.  They're measuring success using a threat mechanic, which is an interesting twist.  I'm not certain I'm particularly sold on custom dice, and I haven't tried the beta, but threat is a mechanic I've been considering implementing in my own games.