Other Systems
The Shab-al-Hiri Roach Review
The Shab-al-Hiri Roach is a Lovecraftian game of academic satire, designed for a single session of play. Players take on the role of professors at Pemberton University, a New England institute of higher education, in the year 1919. These professors, like those at any other university, jockey with one another for prestige and tenure. The catch? An ancient Sumerian roach-god with telepathic powers is running about, crawling inside heads and using you to wreak chaos and destruction upon the human race.
Getting Personal 4: Ninja Ninja Bo Binja
In my last column I covered eight personality archetypes, aligned along piratical lines. As one might expect, the followup to that discussion involves the age-old enemy of the pirates. Introducing the ninja.
Getting Personal 3: Piratically Speaking
In my previous column I explored the various letter codes that you can combine to help define a personality for your character. Along the way, I intimated that there are two major divisions (P and N) as well as a total of 16 subdivisions. This column explores the first half in more depth.
Getting Personal 2: Archetypal Stereotypes
In my previous column I proposed a new system to describe characters via pairings of well-known archetypes. In this column, I explain how to interpret those pairings. If you have not read the first column you will probably not understand this one. Then again, maybe you won't understand it anyway. It's pretty complicated. Are you sure you're ready for this?
Getting Personal 1: Characterizing Characters
Throughout the centuries, attempts have been made to classify types of people in order to better understand them. For example, in antiquity there were humours and astrological signs, and even today people still ask "What's Your Sign?" Role-playing games, of course, also classify people - into classes and races. But they do a poor job with personality.
Dead Inside: A Review
Sometimes the independent role-playing industry releases some real gems, and Dead Inside is definitely one of them. It has enough storyline for any player who focuses on character development and the ease of play allows newcomers and veterans alike to enter into the game quickly, without spending hours scrutinizing on character archetypes and the crunchy mechanics.
PORTAL: A Spankin' New Roleplaying System
Welcome to PORTAL (Player Oriented Roleplaying: Timing, Action & Lucidity), a universal roleplaying system ready to be adapted to whatever your imagination can come up with. It's a system which strives to strike a balance between roleplaying and gaming.
Running with the Demon
Shadowrun is a game filled with imagination set in the postmodernist dystopia of the bleak near-future. Shadowrun is also one of the biggies, a game created by one of the roleplaying giants that generated video games, action figures (well, all right, they were like giant mage knight figures) and a novel series. Because of this, why is it so underground?
GNOMECHA - S*d this, lets fight!
This is a war that lets you strap yourself into a 20 foot tall lumbering mass of metal, gears, steam pipes and pistons built around a high pressure explosive engine core and then go and pound the living crap out of a Gnome who richly deserves it.
A Useful Appendix
An appendix is a sometimes used portion near the back of a book. It is also an organ which has no apparent use or function. This article is about the second kind.
Monographs and Call of Cthulhu
One of the most interesting aspects of the new Chaosium line-up is the monographs, freelance tape-bound splatbooks detailing a very specific setting within a game. But do they help or hinder the actual creative development of the game itself?
Steampunk Musha Revisited
Steampunk Musha is an alternate setting for Iron Gauntlets by Precis Intermedia Gaming (formerly Politically Incorrect Games) and uses the Impresa Express gaming system. Steampunk Musha combines asian-flavored fantasy with Victorian technology in a setting where the old and new ways are clashing, where generations are fighting for their beliefs and traditions, and the world of Rosuto-Shima is changing.
Steampunk Musha Review
Steam implies the age of steam say late 1800s, punk indicates the inclusion of weird science, and Musha meaning Stir-fried (OK, I made that up) gives an indication of oriental flavor. Taking this we get an Oriental game with Western flavor and a willingness to combine with traditional fantasy. This is pretty much what you get with Steampunk Musha, a worldbook for the Iron Gauntlets RPG.
Iron Gauntlets Review
In the late 1970s and early 80’s there was a profusion of RPGs unmatched until the dawn of D20 OGL. The difference being that in the earlier renaissance each game came with an entirely new mechanic. Many of these games were amalgams of other systems where authors stuck things together that probably shouldn’t have gone. During that bygone era, this game would have rocked.
A Chat with Rick Hershey of Empty Room Studios
Empty Room Studios does more than just role-playing. While they are the guys behind PIG's Steampunk Musha (an alternate setting for Iron Gauntlets), they're also a full service art studio, with over 17 members. We talked with Rick Hershey about what they're up to and what's on the horizon.
