Funnybooks with Aron and Paulie: Violent and Awkward

Your Funnybooks hosts attended Fear the Con in Missouri this past weekend.  It was the sixth year for the annual gaming convention coordinated by the hosts of Fear the Boot (a show about table-top roleplaying games and a little bit more).  Fear the Con kicks off with a social event, World Wide Wing Night followed by 24-hours of games over a two day period.

It is always a good time with great people.

This episode features Aron, Paul, Andrew and Thistledown John plus a few others chatting over drinks after the first day of gaming.  Many of the games we played at FtC will be available here on Ideology of Madness.

If you want hear previous year’s FtC con games, check the links below:

We return to our regular format next week.

Give us a call at 972-763-5903 and leave us your thoughts. If we use your voicemail, you’ll win an Ideology of Madness SurPrize!

Knights of Reignsborough Season 2 is coming…!

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Written on May 6th, 2013 , Comics, Conventions, Funny Books with Aron & Paulie, Podcasts, Role Playing Games Tags: , , , , , , ,
DriveThruRPG Reviews: The First Book of Things for Call of Cthulhu

First Book of Things for Call of Cthulhu

There are surprisingly few things from beyond the realms of our reality in The First Book of Things.  For a book which includes monsters to be used in Call of Cthulu games, this is a bit surprising.  That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of things in the book that will horrify players and characters and send the latter beyond the realms of sanity, though.  There just don’t seem to be many linked with the Mythos.

What are very common in the book are monsters who masquerade as people and zombies.  In fact, there are a surprising variety of zombies provided.  A significant number of monsters in the supplement slay people and use their corpses as undead servitors in some way or another.  Just as many kill people then masquerade as their victims so that they can make prey of the victim’s friends and family.  While monsters running around in the skins of people and slowly picking off their friends feels very much like a Lovecraftian plot, the plethora of zombies feel a little like capitalizing on the zompocalypse fad.

There are some creatures that diverge notably from either of these trends though, and they end up being some of the most interesting in the book.  The most interesting in my opinion was the Wrong, a sort of Man-Thing/Swamp Thing mash up.

Increasing the horrific tone of the supplement, all too many of the monsters given require a living person to be sacrificed in some horrific manner to create them.  Often, the victim of these rituals is not even given the peace of travelling on to their final reward when they are killed.  Instead, they are kept in some torturous state until an intrepid adventurer comes along and provides them with the sweet release of death.

Also increasing the bleak tone of the monsters given, many of them seem completely overwhelming.  As already mentioned, a number of the monsters are zombies and there are other undead creatures presented as well and these creatures are invariably difficult to truly kill, despite what The Walking Dead or any of the plethora of other zombie stories floating around now might make you think.  Other creatures are armored or otherwise immune to damage in some way while others still simply have such overwhelming abilities that their opponents are dead before they even get a chance to defend themselves.

The supplement itself pulls no punches.  There is no long introduction or in depth discussion of the uses of these monsters or how to use them in a game.  Instead, by the second page, the reader is faced with the first of these horrific creatures.  Likewise, the monsters, items and spells go right up to the last page, meaning there isn’t much space wasted.

The spells and equipment that are included in The First Book of Things all revolve around the creatures presented in the earlier section of the supplement.  Many of the creatures in the supplement are either summoned or created with a spell and these unique spells and the rules involving them are provided so the creatures can be used properly.

I have not read all the monographs from the Call of Cthulu game, but many of the items in this supplement are reprints from some of the supplements that I have read.  I suspect that all of them have been printed in another supplement.  Still, it is nice to have them all collected in one place and for game masters who are looking for new opponents to throw at their players, it is much better to have them consolidated like this than to force a person to buy all the other supplements.

The First Book of Things is full of useful monsters for any Call of Cthulu game master.  There are all manner of things in this book that will tear apart the bodies of a group of investigators’ and destroy their minds and souls.  And all the spells and equipment needed to support the creatures is provided as well.

Written on February 25th, 2013 , DriveThru RPG Reviews, Role Playing Games Tags: , , ,
Ron Marz and Lee Moder’s Shinku as RPG Setting

EDITOR’S NOTE:

As detailed earlier this week, we love Shinku by Ron Marz and Lee Moder.  In fact we love it so much, we want to enjoy that world a little more.  So we asked IoM contributor James from Black Guard Press to give us some campaign tips for a role playing game set in the Shink-u-niverse.

. . .

Shinku

Our noble name is also our glorious battle cry.

Long ago, our ancestors realized that fighting over the finite land of our island home was foolish.  As such, they set their sights on the larger world beyond the shores of Japan.  The mainlander dogs proved little challenge for the honor, skill and bravery of the noble warriors of the Empire of the Rising Sun.

With our honorable samurai in their lead, our military was able to conquer all who stood in their path.

This inevitable stride to glory did not stutter until we found ourselves in the dreary mountains that served as a border for the lands the primitive local referred to as Europe. Even then, the gaijins’ armies were no match for those of the Empire of the Rising Sun.

But dark, unnatural creatures stalked the night in this barbaric land.  These filthy beasts hungered for the noble blood of our people and were gifted with inhuman strength and abilities by the foul powers that they made their unholy pacts with.

These kyuuketsuki  were incapable of meeting us honorably and in the light of day but became a bane to us in the darkness of the night.  The non-Japanese in our ranks fell to these vampires and they infected many of them with their curse.  The blood of the true sons of the Empire was too pure, however and while the blood drinkers could slay us, they could not corrupt us and turn us into vampires. Read the rest of this entry »

Written on February 21st, 2013 , Comics, Image, Role Playing Games Tags: , , , , ,
Gen Con 2013

The vision statement here at Ideology of Madness is “If we geek about it, we speak about it.” This week my geek-ness has been all about Gen Con. This week saw pre-registration open up on Sunday and the housing block open up on Tuesday and have all the rooms sold out in about an hour.

If you are not a fan of table top roleplaying games, you may be wondering what is Gen Con?

Gen Con is a four day gaming convention held in Indianapolis from August 15th to the 18th.The scope and breadth of gaming available at this convention is large. The many options available make it a challenge just to decided what to do.

If you are a fan of D&D or Pathfinder, there will be a game available for you at almost any time of the day. Wizards of the Coast and Paizo both have  halls dedicated to their organized play. If organized play is not your thing, there are many people who run session of this game from there own world or older editions of the game. This ensures that all D&D geeks can get their fix.

If your tastes run more towards the small or indie style games, there are plenty of options for you as well. Games on Demand has a large presence at the convention. They run a large variety of these games throughout the day. You can drop by at the beginning of any of their two hour slots and see if any of the games on offer are something you might be interested in. Just like the big two these small games have their own adherents who come to Gen Con to run these games giving you the ability to play an indie game you may have not had the chance to try out before.

Roleplaying games aren’t the only thing available at Gen Con either.  Board games, card games, minatures, Larps,and electronic games all are represented here. There is one hall dedicated entirely to board games. It not only houses the games that are scheduled through the convention but has a library where you can  check out any number of board games and just sit down and play. The same is done for card games with the majority of the space taken up by Magic: The Gathering but plenty of smaller card games can be found on offering. I seem to remember even seeing some older out of print games like Highlander being played last year.

Gen Con has also been very proactive in making the convention family friendly. In the past few years they have addeda track for kids and for non-gamers. This makes it so that the whole family can have something to do and no one feels left out. There are also plenty of social events scheduled throughout out. There are meet and greets set up with the myriads of people connected to the industry, seminars on a large varieties of topics, and parties throughout the weekend.

I am excited about Gen Con this year. I have my badge and room all taken care of and am planning on volunteering for Games on Demand. I am going to run in the Orc Stomp 5k and hope to meet up with all the people I finally met last year and get some gaming in with them as well.

Are you going to Gen Con? If so, what are you looking forward to? let me know in the comments.

Written on January 31st, 2013 , Games, Role Playing Games Tags: , , ,
Digital Dilema

Listening to Funnybooks with Aron and Paulie, there is one thing, out of many, that makes are regular appearance. This is a discussion of digital comics. It is always is an interesting discussion because it does a fine job of pushing the red button of rage on Tim. His anger is always entertaining but the reason this subject inspires such ire is something that has eluded me. Why would you get angry at being able to get your comics in a much simpler manner that didn’t take up a metric fuck-ton of space? I never really put much thought into this and merely chuckled each time the discussion would happen and be thankful that I was given another entertaining outburst from Tim.

It was not until recently that I really put some thought into this and found a way to understand, to a certain extent, Tim’s stance. The key to understanding was finding common ground. What was something that I loved that was facing a shift into the digital world and what were my feelings in regards to this?

The answer was table top role playing games. In the past few years, most games companies have began releasing their product in a digital format with some going digital exclusively. In addition, several companies provide you with a free copy of the PDF when you buy the physical copy.

On an intellectual level, I understand the many benefits of digital copies of my favorite role playing games. It makes it quicker for the finished product to get to me. There is a smaller capital outlay on the part of the company that is making the book. This, in turn, makes it easier for companies to put out more books. I can put the PDFs on a tablet and carry it in one hand as opposed to a bag full of books that would strain the back of Hercules. PDFs are, for the most part cheaper than the physical book making room for more purchases.

Despite these numerous benefits, I am still deeply attached to gaming books. They are beautiful pieces of work that I enjoy paging through just even when not playing the game. The book itself is another way that I use to introduce people to new games. When it is their birthday, I tend to give them a game that I am enjoying unless they have specifically requested something else. Giving them a PDF just doesn’t seem the same. There is also the nostalgia factor as well. Each new book acquired conjures up a small part of that feeling of picking up my first book at Waldenbooks so long ago.

I now understand the frustration. There is this tremendous sense of loss as something you enjoy is being replaced. Then add on to this a feeling of being marginalized for actually enjoying something despite this new trend to the contrary. It is very difficult to respond to conversations about digital media without sounding angry and dejected. These feelings are more pronounced for me when I am looking forward to a game book. I want to ask when the book itself will be released but am hesitant to do so. This hesitation arises as I have seen various companies come across as being put-upon when asked about the book and refer to the PDF being available.

Now when this situation arises on Funnybooks, I no longer chuckle. I nod to myself and sympathize with Tim. I may not feel as deeply as him in this regards but I understand the dark pit from where his anger arises.

Rage on good sir, rage on.

Written on January 16th, 2013 , Games, Role Playing Games
Fate Core System

Squee!

Sorry, that had to be said.

You are most probably wondering why I would start a post out with such a joyful noise? Those three simple words at the top of the post is why. Evil Hat Productions has unleashed upon the internet the Kickstarter for the Fate Core System. This is the system that is at the heart of Spirit of the Century, Diaspora, Icons, Bulldogs, and the Dresden Files RPG. It is a great system that has been around for a while now and does an excellent job of bridging the gap between traditional and indie style role playing games.

My first exposure to the Fate system was through the game Spirit of the Century. I played a one shot with a group of friends and had a good time with the game but had an issue with the system and I spoke about it on my blog not long after the game. A few days later, Fred Hicks dropped by and left a comment on my post pointing out where in my problem was coming from and how to fix it. This easily elicited a Squee! I didn’t get another chance to play Spirit again but I kept the information Fred provided in memory for later. I did not get to use the Fate system again until the release of The Dresden files RPG. I bought the both books upon release and devoured them in no time. I was very pleased to note that the advice that Fred had given was something explicitly called on in the Dresden Files. I was overjoyed! I’ve went on to run the game at GenCon and for several groups here at home.  We’ve even taken the fate system and hacked it to try and play a modern Ars Magica game.

Evil Hat has done an excellent job with each iteration of the rules thus far. My expectations for how they are going to further improve these mechanics are pretty high. It is on this idea that they have used the Kickstarter project to turn everything up to 11. Depending on the project, you will sometimes get early access to the project once the kickstarter is successful and be allowed to give input at this time. Evil Hat Productions has allowed access to a digital copy of the book upon backing the project at any level. You can download the book, read it, play it, blog about it, and give them feedback. This is huge! It is part and parcel of Evil Hats commitment to transparency and availability to their fans. Instead of worrying about pirates and such they want to empower the community they already have around their games and are willing to trust them with this information from the outset. It also allows them to get people to support the project that may be new to the system as well because they can see what they are getting before the project ever reaches fruition.

This project also gets major raves from me for the price points involved.  You can back the project at $10 and get the book in digital format or you can back at the $30 and get a physical copy of the book. A good game book tends to run between $30 and $60 and any Kickstarter that gets me a physical copy of the book within that range is awesome. The thing with Evil Hat is that they are big believers in adding value. The project has only been up for about 2 days and if you back at the $10 level you are getting 12 extra things in addition to the core pdf. If you are backing at the $30 level, you are now getting a hardback copy of the book instead of soft cover and all the digital stuff.  With the way things are going, the value of your support can go no other direction but up.

Go check it out, you won’t regret it.

Written on December 6th, 2012 , Games, Role Playing Games Tags: , ,
Drive Thru RPG Review: Night’s Black Agents

A few weeks ago I headed out to my local comic shop for a little retail therapy.  While I picked my few comics I spied an interesting book on the shelf.  It was entitled Night’s Black Agents by Kenneth Hite.  I knew that having Mr. Hite as the author meant that this was going to be something good.  When I read the back cover I was sold.  This was a game that combined the spy thriller with vampiric conspiracy where Bram Stoker’s Dracula meets The Bourne Identity.  It quickly joined my few comics in my trek through the store.

My schedule kept me from being able to put any time into the book until I went out of town for a conference.  It was in the evenings after events wound down that I was able to dig into the book.  I couldn’t believe that I had not picked up this book when it was first released as it fired on all cylinders and dealt with the topics that I love, Vampires and Spies.

Night’s Black Agent’s uses the Gumshoe system.  It is a very simple system requiring only a single D6.  Outcomes are determined by the roll of a D6 compared to a difficulty number ranging from 2 to 8 with the ability to spend points from your skill to affect the roll.  A very simple system where the complexity lies within the skills themselves.

The system has Investigative skills and general skills.  Investigative skills are somewhat self-explanatory.  They provide the information that is necessary to move forward with a spy operation.  Information is the engine that drives the story and for this reason investigative skills always succeed.  In addition to keeping the game moving, it also allows for multiple was of communicating this information to the players.  The Director can have a list of the character skills and tell them the important info when they enter the scene or allow the players to choose what skills they would like to try and deliver the info through the lens of their choice if possible.  Players may also spend points from their investigative skill to get more information if it is available or provide a future benefit from a more thorough investigation at this juncture.  Once the intelligence has been gathered, general skills come into play.  These are the skills that allow your character to pull off the feats of daring do that you see on the big screen.  These differ from investigative skills in that there is always the chance of failure.  These skills range from the standard combat skills you have come to expect from an rpg to the network skill that reflects your connectedness to the shadowy espionage community.  The ability to spend points from your general skill allows for the character to grab the spotlight and succeed when the odds seemed stacked against them.

Night’s Black Agents also has a mechanic for choosing the type of spy thriller you would like to play.  This called the mode of play and consists of Default, Burn, Stakes, Dust, and Mirror.  The mechanics for these types of games are appropriately marked throughout the game.  The Default mode of the game is a cinematic thriller.  This is what the rules as written are set up for and require no special changes to maintain.  Dust mode is a grittier and more realistic style in line with Three Days of the Condor. Mirror mode is based on movies like Spy Games and Mission Impossible.  The landscape is one of ever shifting loyalties and the inability to ever fully trust anyone you are working with as they may be using you to further there own personal agenda. If  the Bourne Identity is more to your liking, then Burn mode is what you are looking for.  This mode highlights the emotional damage inherent in the business of espionage.  Finally, there is the Stakes mode.  This style of play is more in line with Bond films and novels wherein the protagonist is driven by higher ideals and is willing to sacrifice themselves for those same ideals.  This ability to dial the style of play to fit the mood of the table is something that I appreciate being supported mechanically.

As one would expect, the book has a section devoted to the Vampire conspiracy as well.  It breaks the idea down into manageable chunks making it very simple to go through and create a vampire that should be enjoyable and fresh to everyone at the table.  There are sidebars throughout this section dealing with different issues that present themselves while designing your vampire.  These can be anything from how many vampires is a good number to use to the problem of a player that wants be a vampire.  Each of which has valuable advice for how to handle these issues within the game and pointing out issues you may have based on your choices.

The book itself is a beautiful 232 pages in full color.  The art is sparse throughout the book but this is more than made up for by the great layout.  The writing is excellent and sprinkled liberally with historical and cinematic references making for an enjoyable read.   I was highly impressed and look forward to getting the chance to run this game for my group soon.  If you are a fan of the spy genre, this is a game for you.

Written on November 9th, 2012 , Columns, DriveThru RPG Reviews, Games, Role Playing Games Tags: , ,
DriveThruRPG Review: The Abbey for Cthulhu Dark Ages

It’s all too easy to write off the Dark Ages as a time of superstition and ignorance. It is much harder to try to get into the mindset of the people of that time and try to understand why they believed what they believed. While things like bleeding people to rebalance their humors seem the height of stupidity these days, there are no doubt beliefs we have now that will seem just as silly to people in another 500 years. The task of understanding the people of this era is made all the harder by the fact that we live in a time when freedom, independence and the thirst for knowledge are lauded whereas the people of that era were expected to know their place and stay in it. The life of most people in the Dark Ages was a span of unremitting drudgery generally ended by a painful death. The religions of the era, while sometimes giving hope, were often nothing more than another method for people with power to oppress the general populace. Can it be any surprise then that this time provides an almost perfect backdrop for the lurking terror, horrifying unknown and slow insanity that is part and parcel of a Call of Cthulu game?

The Abbey is a game supplement for this very game and setting. It revolves around a remote monastery dedicated to the Order of St. Jerome. This monastery is no doubt like countless others, including having a relic that is the last physical remnant of a saint. In this case, this relic is a piece of skin from the saint that is covered in words written with his own blood. While this is disturbing enough, it is even more disturbing that the writing was done voluntarily by the saint himself. Of course, given the predilection of various churches and monasteries for keeping severed fingers, eyes and other, less savory, body parts this is not exceptionally out of the norm. Read the rest of this entry »

Written on November 6th, 2012 , DriveThru RPG Reviews, Role Playing Games Tags:
DriveThruRPG Review: Raising Up for Call of Cthulhu

It can be very hard for a GM to surprise the players in a Call of Cthulu game. After all paranoia is the name of the game. (Actually, Paranoia is the name of a different game, but you know what I mean.) The whole point of most Call of Cthulu games is that there are dangers hiding just beneath the surface that are just waiting to devour the characters’ bodies, souls or sanities. Trying to find surprises before they happen and find some way to avoid them is vital for any character in a Call of Cthulu campaign. Nonetheless, the Call of Cthulu adventure Raising Up does a good job of throwing a curve at the characters at the end of the story.

In truth, Raising Up is not a single adventure but rather a short campaign of 5 interrelated adventures. These adventures do not have a theme but rather a single linking feature and a clever GM could easily downplay this aspect so that the players do not realize that the adventures are related or that there is anything significant about the link that unites them. For that matter, a GM could just as easily use one or two of the adventures in their own game without feeling constrained to play through the entire campaign.

Each individual adventure in the mini-campaign also does a good job of keeping the characters off balance without depending on the overarching uncertainty of the game. None of the adventures feature straightforward problems, but each one require the characters to delve deeper and even pay attention to clues that are not obvious. Read the rest of this entry »

Written on November 5th, 2012 , DriveThru RPG Reviews, Role Playing Games Tags: ,
Mutants & Masterminds 10th Anniversary Edition

I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time on Kickstarter as of late.  It has become an incubator for new games and allows creators and fans another avenue for connecting.  It has become the first place I check when I am looking for a new game to buy or for something unique to support.  It was during one of my recent perusals that I discovered the 10th Anniversary edition of Mutants & Masterminds.

Mutants & Masterminds is a super hero role playing game which is currently on a third edition.  The system is fairly simple to master as it is a heavily modified version of D20.  Actions are resolved with a single roll of a D20.  You take the result of the die roll and add it to your skill, power, or attribute and compare it to the defense value  or difficulty level.  If your value is higher you succeed with and increase in degrees of success for every 5 points you are above the required number.  It is an easily mastered system and uses a point buy system for character creation to maintain balance among the players at the table.  It has a large list of skills, talents, feats, and powers that allows players to create almost any character from comics that they would like to play as well whatever their fevered imaginations can conjure.  The only character I have not been able to create has been a variant of Jamie Madrox, but this is because duplicators are easily over powered in role playing games.

There are several reasons that I was attracted to this project.  First and foremost is my love of the super hero genre.  I began reading comics at an early age and the X-Men and Dr Strange have occupied a large portion of my imagination since that point and the ability to take on those roles in gaming is very powerful for me.  On top of this love of super heroes, I am a big fan of hardback copies of my game books.   I saw that the book would be hardback and I was filled with happiness.  The current version of the game is a trade paperback.  I love the book but I have an abiding need for my game books to be hardback.  When I play a game I tend to be one of the few that has the book which leads to it getting passed around a lot.  My OCD kicks in while this occurs and is much more manageable when the book is a hardback.  I know that may sound odd, but it is what it is.  It was the price point that was the final deciding point for me.  For this project, the $60 backer tier is where you get a physical copy of this book as well as the pdf  and a pdf of the gamemaster’s guide.  This is within the range of what I normally spend on a game book and the addition of the gamemaster’s guide is a nice little extra that I appreciate.  With the stretch goals that Green Ronin has set up, I look forward to the book getting better as the Kickstarter winds down.

If you are a fan of super hero roleplaying, I recommend checking out this Kickstarter.  The book itself will be gorgeous.  The price point for the physical copy is reasonable, and Green Ronin has an excellent track record for getting out books so the worry of backing the project and not getting anything is minimal.

Written on October 31st, 2012 , Games, Role Playing Games Tags: ,
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