XDM X-Treme Dungeon Mastery

I'm going a bit crazy with all of these posts this week. *grin* I've just seen this book  on Old School Gamers on Facebook and "had to share".

I think I want a copy just for the title!  :D

XDM X-Treme Dungeon Mastery
by Tracy Hickman (Author), Curtis Hickman (Author), Sandra Tayler (Editor), Howard Tayler (Illustrator)

The blerb is giggle-worthy too:

The cure for the common game! Throw off your chains! Too long have your role playing games been held in the bonds of substandard gamemasters, bound in needlessly complicated rules sets, and enslaved by players who will avoid doing anything unless it counts toward leveling up! It is time to take a stand!

Learn from the masters the ancient secrets of how to:

• Officially become an XDM and impress dates. (Do-it-yourself secret initiation rites included.)
• Master the secrets of designing adventures that tell stories.
• Create magic illusions that can even make your players disappear!
• Use actual fire in your game properly.
• Hijack the game as a player, and how to deal with a player revolution as an XDM.
• Plus loads more!

If I could go back in time and rewrite Dragonlance, it would be this book...only with more dragons in it. --Tracy Hickman


I can say without any shame or bias, that this is one of the best books ever written and should be in every hotel room next to the bible. --Curtis Hickman


Possessed by the spirits of Da Vinci, Van Gogh, and Jack Fred, I illustrated a book that you should buy two of...one to read and one to hang on your wall.--Howard Tayler

Oh, man. :D

Dungeon layout promo graphic

Cross-posted to Inked Adventures (on blogger).

I'm fairly proud of this - I have the week off and so far I'm been mainly worrying about tax forms (stress-dull-worry-dull-brain hurts), so I'm pleased that my creative juices have been flowing a little, despite my main computer being a bit broken, and it being unusually hot and humid in the UK atm.

Split cava wine on the keyboard as well tonight... sheesh.

....This is seriously overdue!  I realise that there aren’t have enough examples of how sections from the (Inked Adventures Modular Dungeon Cut-Up Sections) Basic Pack can be used.

So here’s a sort of promo-poster thing for your visual enjoyment. :)



Happy dungeoning!

http://bit.ly/IAstore

Too much Mythos revelation in sci-fi games? -Eldritch Skies (Battlefield Press)

My spooky nightime reading at the moment is a perusal of the alternative history background in Eldritch Skies by Battlefield Press -

Versus...?

Eldritch Skies is roleplaying game in it's own right, projecting the Lovecraftian world of horrific monsters into our space travelling future.

I must say I'm finding it hard not to superficially compare this setting to the one in CthulhuTech - which I now know is about as existential as freshly baked muffins in Sunday School (see this post where I claim the opposite).  So far I'm finding Eldritch Skies easier to follow in terms of setting and game mechanics, maybe it just looks more like a more traditional role-playing game.

I'm loving the well thought out background regarding the humanity's unfortunate overlaps with the utterly uncaring cosmos of Cthulhu and other denizens, but there's something missing from the horror and wonder of the original stories or Chaosium games.  Many sci-fi game settings are quintessentially post-apocalyptic or cyperpunk where the human race have adapted to a new world, with modifications or gadgets, in an almost fatalistic but laissez-faire attitude to culture shock.

In CthulhuTech I feel that there's a sense of empowerment in fighting the Mi-Go and other beasties from the safety of mech suits, or charging up with Shadowrun-style occult energies.  It's all a bit of a Manga-meets-Lovecraft mash-up (and the authors admit this).  At least in 1920's Call of Cthulhu, a last resort shotgun firing randomly at shadows in the sewer has a sense of suspense.  Finding a lost forbidden text in a library can be a big deal in CoC, that alone could incapacitate a character with a chronic mental health condition.  Eldritch Skies, at least in the introduction, tries to instil awe and wonder at the human race's  contact with interdimensional horrors.  But I'm beginning to wonder, that apart from character fear in remote space colony settings, that too much of the Mythos has been revealed and mankind is (disappointingly) still relatively sane -if not richer for it by actually exploiting the energies from the dark.

How Eldritch Skies plays as a game, I'm not sure, but like many Cthulhu settings and scenarios, it's a lot of fun to read - but then I reckoned that the Keeper always had the most fun in Call of Cthulhu.  If I come to a useful conclusion on this from reading later chapters, I'll let you know. ;)

It's a cool read so far, though!  No doubt, the fear will come later ... with the knowledge ...

Eldritch Skies
John Snead, Battlefield Press

DTRPG/RPGNow $15

http://bit.ly/eldritchskies

Gamebook Goodness

Friends on Facebook will have noticed my triumphant cheer at finally reaching and killing the infamous Balthus Dire after a thirty year relatively unfocussed comings and goings from my copy of Fighting Fantasy Citadel of Chaos.  On this occasion it involved rapid play and a few cheaty back-tracks on the iPad version of the game.  Finally, not only did I get by the deadly Ganjees but I also knew the code for the tumblers on his door.  Now, Citadel of Chaos is by no means a difficult gamebook to play, and blind luck will allow some players to succeed in one run, but I suspect that when given the choice between left or right, or continue onwards or go down stairs, that I kept choosing "right" and "down" no matter how many times I'd played, so perhaps this time applying some meta-gaming "beat-the-book" logic, like I had to with Deathtrap Dungeon - silly missing gems.  This sort of thing is somehow easier in an electronic medium if there's a "back" button - as with the iPhone/iPad version.  When playing by pencil and dice I can barely remember the page I'm turning to, never mind the page I've just arrived from!  The nice thing about the iPad version is the fact that you can't cheat with the dice in combat and Luck rolls, which makes victory that little bit sweeter, especially if the game has insisted that you start with "Skill 8" and a Luck of "7" - sheesh, with values like that I usually re-roll - I mean, in real world terms, I'd consider my limitations and not start life as a "foolhardy adventurer" and stay on the farm, milking BoviYaks (or some such fantasy equivalent of grazing cattle...  ENRAGED BOVIYAK -SKILL 4, STAMINA 10). 

Well, I had a delightful surprise today!  Upon confessing that I had yet to properly play Destiny Quest The Legion of Shadow (possibly due to my sojourns into the Fabled Lands 1-4 which I procured at the same time), and so, I explained, was hesitant in buying the newer improved edition, Stuart Lloyd (of Lloyd of Gamebooks) had a copy despatched to me via Amazon, clearly because it's very important to own the very latest the solo game book world has to offer in entertainment!  By this I mean actual "paper" books.   Us "old-schoolers" love the smell of a dead tree.  We are living in interesting times with regards to solo game texts, but it's important to let authors and publishes know that short term file format ebooks are not the only way forward (even if print-on-demand one-copy-per-customer is the alternative).  Fabled Lands author Dave Morris discusses the future of series here and to be honest, he sounds like he's turned his back on real books.  

New, improved, with more sections!

Anyhow, here's the new book DestinyQuest The Legion of Shadow by Michael J. Ward, on the right, in "C" format paperback, next to the smaller original - the thickness of which I originally measured with the height of a Lego stormtrooper.  It's a truly mighty tome - and there's an advert in the inside cover for Book II The Heart of Fire, coming out in Winter 2012 - which should be spiffy.  I'd love to tell you more, but at the moment all I can say is that the dice system is very RPG-like and customisable to the player's tastes with regards to equipment, objects, spells and so forth.

A monster of a quest!  Highly collectable.  It is your destiny...

Paperback and hardbacks on Amazon UK and US:



See also the author's site: destiny-quest.com for more information and free downloads.

(Thanks again, Stuart!)