Rogue Trader: Review (Part 2 of 2)

Imperial Navy vessels engage an enemy. Artist: Zach Graves

Picking up where I left off in my previous post, I recently bought the Rogue Trader core rulebook on DriveThruRPG. I have spent the past several days reading through it and absorbing the rules, and while I have not yet had a chance to play the game, I can conclude that the book looks great and the game looks fun.

My previous post dealt mostly with how cool it is to be a Rogue Trader and his/her crew. This post will provide more of a review of Rogue Trader, both as a rulebook and as a system.

Rogue Trader: Gothic Baroque Space Piracy for Fun and Profit (Part 1 of 2)

Rogue Trader cover, from the Fantasy Flight Games site. Artist: Andrea Uderzo

I love the Warhammer 40,000 universe. I really dig the epic scale of it, the grim feel of constant danger, the unabashedly gothic design of everything. But I always thought that, given a chance to play a Warhammer 40,000 pen-and-paper RPG, I would jump at the chance to be an Inquisitor. Playing as a badass religious fanatic who hunts down the demonic enemies of mankind sounds right up my alley. But when I decided to buy one of Fantasy Flight's Warhammer 40,000 RPGs, I ended up choosing Rogue Trader over the Inquisitor game, Dark Heresy.

The reason for that has a lot to do with the image above. Before I saw that image, I had always thought of Rogue Traders as reckless fortune seekers who explore beyond the borders of the Imperium, only to inevitably uncover something that should have been left buried, get wiped out, and need the Inquisition and/or the Space Marines to come clean up the mess.

But then I saw the image above and something clicked.

Elves: More than pointy ears and long lifespans

Look up 'elf' in a fantasy dictionary and you are likely to see Legolas, from the Lord of the Rings trilogy

If someone were to ask you to picture an elf, there's a good chance you would picture someone like the gentleman above: green clothing, pointy ears, nice hair, and a bow. Bonus points if you picture that elf in a forest. Elves have been a part of the fantasy genre for so long now that fantasy fans know what to expect from elves, so fantasy settings tend to gloss over them. Magic, trees, bows, ears, done. If a fantasy settings wants to create a race that will make fans sit up and take notice, they create something completely different, like D&D's Dragonborn or the Elder Scrolls' Khajiit and Argonians. World of Warcraft doesn't even have regular elves, perhaps because they thought that nobody would want to play an elf unless it was a "dark" elf or a "blood" elf.

I think that's a shame, because if you stop and think about elves for a moment, you might remember what made them so interesting in the first place. Creators should spend less time trying to come up with new and increasingly ridiculous races and perhaps spend some time thinking about how to make the classic races interesting again.

The time I took a telemarketer on a dungeon crawl

Image from iStockphoto (obv)

Image from Detras de la Pantalla

Recently, I was telling a good friend of mine about the time a telemarketer called me and I took her on an impromptu dungeon crawl. I have spent a lot of time thinking about ways I could have done a better job of it, so when my friend suggested that I blog about it, I decided it was time to revisit this geeky moment in my past.

Uncaged: Faces of Sigil is exactly the kind of RPG rulebook I love to read

While most of the art in Uncaged is incorporated with the text, there are some full-page illustrations

Wizards of the Coast recently launched www.dndclassics.com, a site that allows players to purchase PDF versions of classic D&D rulebooks. I immediately fell in love with Uncaged: Faces of Sigil, and bought it for ten dollars. Though I have no chance of actually playing in a D&D campaign in the Planescape setting, I don't regret that purchase for a moment. The book is packed with colorful descriptions of a host of interesting characters, topped off with some great illustrations by Tony DiTerlizzi.

Where do your characters keep their gear?

Adventure Needs from Marian Churchland's wonderful blog

If I ran a sword-and-sorcery RPG, and if I had the guts, I would insist that my players write out exactly where each of their items are on their bodies, in their packs, or on their cart/horse/riding bird. Though it may seem like a chore, writing out or sketching everything your character is carrying and how the character is carrying it can make a huge difference in changing the way players think about their characters.

Goblins just wanna have fun

Last week, Evan Dahm drew a picture of a goblin every day on his tumblr, declaring it to be 'Goblin Week.' It got me thinking about goblins, and specifically, why I like those nasty little monsters so much. Goblins are as necessary to a good fantasy setting as dragons, elves, and dwarves. After all, those are the races that made up The Hobbit, besides hobbits and humans. But, while dragons, elves, and dwarves frequently feature on the covers of fantasy games and novels, goblins are treated as set dressing. Usually, they serve as Baby's First Monster: a stepping stone for first-level adventurers to cut their teeth on before moving on to tougher enemies. I think that's a waste of their potential, and a good goblin can make a campaign more memorable.

PnP RPG Confession: I have a lot of theory, not much experience

All of the art in today's post is by the insanely talented Jason Chan

I love to write about Pen-and-Paper Roleplaying Games, but there is something you may want to keep in mind when you're reading what I write: I may be full of ideas and opinions about PnP RPGs, but when it comes down to it, the majority of the campaigns I have played in have fizzled out after only a handful of meetings. This has led me to a couple of realizations: first, PnP RPGs have a lot of amazing qualities, but not every player is interested in the same qualities; and, perhaps more importantly, it is very difficult to put together and continue a campaign over the weeks and months that it takes to tell a satisfying story.

All great settings deserve a pen-and-paper roleplaying game

A map of the Avatar: The Last Airbender world, from AlisaChristopher's DeviantArt

Whenever I really get into a novel, a comic book, a TV series, a movie, or a computer game, I always want there to be a pen-and-paper roleplaying game set in the same world. I want to see maps of the world, stats for the various people and monsters that live there, descriptions of the roles my character can fill, and suggestions for what adventures I can have there. I already have a tendency to watch TV shows as if the main characters were PCs in a roleplaying game, so it's a small jump to imagining myself participating in another game in the same setting.

RPG Items with real-life components

I once sat in on a session of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign where the Dungeon Master had created an innovative way to get his players into the game. When he gave some of his player characters magical items, he gave the players a real-life item that corresponded with the in-game item. The one that I thought was especially clever was a chess set that, in game, one of the characters was playing against a ghost. The character would move a piece, and then the ghost would move a piece. In real life, the DM used a small magnetic chess set to represent the magical chessboard. The DM would make the ghost's moves, and the player would make his character's moves.

Another item in this campaign was a magical deck of cards, and each card did something different. This is similar to the famous D&D item, the Deck of Many Things. In this particular version, the deck was for a D&D card game, but other DMs may want to experiment with tarot decks, 52-card playing card decks, and any other decks they may have.

This inspired me to try my hand at creating some D&D items that could have real-life components. This seems like a great way to get the player into character, while also offering a unique memento of the RPG campaign. The idea is to come up with something that any DM can make without having to be an artist or spend a lot of money.