Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Coming to a Tablet Near You

When Paizo Publishing released Rise of the Runelords, the first base set for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, in 2013 they re-invigorated the "Card Based Dungeon Crawl" genre. Mike Selinker's design work on the game combined elements of the classic Dungeoneer card game with innovative mechanics from games like Dominion, We the People, Ascension, and Thunderstone and maybe just a dash of Savage Worlds and Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition.

The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is an entertaining card based simulation of role playing game campaigns. It is engaging to play and can be played in a relatively short period of time.

Now thanks to Obsidian Entertainment, developer of Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and the Kickstarter phenomenon Pillars of Eternity, we will be seeing a version of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game on our tablets. The game has been developed for Apple iOS and Android Tablets, will make its PAX Prime debut in Seattle, August 28 – August 31, 2015.
 
The Obsidian version of game takes advantage of the benefits of computer based play to enhance the player experience by allowing for immediate gameplay, multiple games running simultaneously, and additional downloadable adventures.

As in the table top game, each player will have a unique character composed of a customizable deck of cards and stats, and character classes such as fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric.

Features exclusive to the digital version of the first release include:
 

• Reactive cut-scenes featuring Pathfinder’s iconic characters
• The ability to explore the towns, cities, dungeons, and landscapes of the Rise of the Runelords campaign, including the fiercely independent Sandpoint, and the goblin-infested isle of Thistletop
• Beautifully enhanced and animated backdrops of every locale
• Multiple adventure profiles to enable players to experience the campaign using every character
• Tutorial that distills the rulebook into a mini-adventure
• Single-player and pass-and-play multiplayer gameplay mode

Obsidian’s Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is scheduled for a fall 2015 release.

About Pathfinder
In the world of Pathfinder, players take on the role of brave adventurers fighting to survive in a world beset by magic and evil. The Pathfinder RPG is currently translated into multiple languages, with hundreds of thousands of players worldwide. The Pathfinder brand has also been licensed for comic book series, graphic novels, miniatures, plush toys, and apparel. For additional information, visit Paizo.

About Obsidian Entertainment


Founded in 2003, Obsidian Entertainment is an entertainment software development company based in Irvine, California, passionately dedicated to the creation of high quality role playing games for all personal computer and console platforms. Obsidian is best known for the products Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords, Neverwinter Nights 2, Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and the record breaking crowdfunding through Kickstarter for Pillars of Eternity. Visit Obsidian Entertainment for more information.

Behold! Disney's FrostLanders: A Disney vs. Skylanders Game Inspired by Frostgrave

On July 20th of this year, Osprey Publishing released Frostgrave their most recent set of miniature wargame rules. Starting with Field of Glory in 2008, and continuing with the excellent Bolt Action in 2012 Osprey has published a number of high quality rules for use with miniatures. In 2012, they started a series of paperback digest books that explore a number of interesting wargaming options. This series started with Dux Bellorum and has included a number of excellent games like In Her Majesty's Name and A Fistful of Kung Fu. 

Like many of Osprey's offerings, Frostgrave has an easy to learn system that is highly flexible and moves quickly. The focus of the rules are on casual fun and not on tournament play. In some ways, this is a similar approach to the one that Games Workshop claims is the basis of their recent decision to abandon Warhammer Fantasy. There is one major difference though. Unlike the new Warhammer: Age of Sigmar game, Frostgrave is firmly entrenched in traditional fantasy tropes. Frostgrave shares some thematic elements with Games Workshop's classic Mordheim game, but is much easier to learn is more focused on story than Mordheim was when it was first released. Frostgrave is so easy to learn that it inspired me to begin creating a derivative game that I can use to play with my 7 year old twin daughters History and Mystery. Inspired by +James August Walls, my game is a mashup of Disney Infinity and Skylanders.

As easy as the rules for Frostgrave are to learn, they do have a couple of "fiddley-bits" that might make things a little complex for playing with my daughters. For example, in the Frostgrave rules as written it is possible to hit an opponent and not injure them and most rolls are contested rolls. I want to move away from having contested rules as much as possible and use a Monte Cook and Numenera inspired mechanic where the players to all the rolling. Additionally, Osprey has not published a fan license that states what we as fans are and are not allowed to do with their rules, so I've decided to use a rules set inspired by the actual Frostgrave rules.

So here are my simple rules.

1) All die rolls are made with a d12.
2) Turns follow the following pattern.
            a) Roll for Initiative.
            b) Hero Phase
            c) Ally Phase
            d) Villain Phase
3) Player Characters are rated in the following areas:

MOVEMENT -- Min (4)/Max(10)

MELEE -- Min(-2)/Max(+4)

RANGED -- Min(-2)/Max(+4)

RESISTANCE -- Min(0)/Max(5)

MENTAL RESISTANCE - Min(0)/Max(+4)

 

HEALTH -- Min(8)/Max(20)

4) Villains are rated in the same statistics, but their numbers are 5 higher for all values 
     other than Health and serve as difficulty numbers the players must roll better than.
5) On a player's turn, the player may move and take 1 action. That action may be an
    attack, a power activation, or another movement action.
6) When a player attacks a Villain, the player rolls 1d12 and adds their relevant statistic
    (melee in hand to hand and ranged for ranged attacks). They then add their statistic to
    that value. If that value is greater than the Villain's equivalent statistic, the Villain has
    been hit.
7) On a successful hit, subtract a Villain's Resistance from the total and what remains is
    the amount of Health lost.
8) If a character is "prone" then it takes half of their movement to get up.
9) To activate a power, the player rolls 1d12 and compares it to the activation score of
     the power. If it is higher than the score, the power is activated.
10) When a Villain attacks a Hero or Ally, the Player rolls a Melee or Ranged test. If the
       roll is higher than the Villain's value in that area the attack misses.
11) Villain powers activate in the same manner as Player powers. This is one of the few
      rolls the Game Master will make.

I've only done stats for a couple of characters, but I have a feeling that this will be fun.

All icons used in this post were made by Lorc. Available on http://game-icons.net

LEGO Dimensions: New Scooby Doo Set Trailer

By everything that I've seen LEGO Dimensions is a combination of everything I love about Skylanders and Disney Infinity, but with LEGOs. That sounds like a family funday fantasy to me and the new Scooby Doo playset trailer, which includes gameplay footage, only adds to my desire to buy this new game. Now that my twin daughters History and Mystery are 7 years old, I've begun playing a video and table top games with them. This last weekend, we played Minecraft and Mice & Mystics. I'm also planning on using +James August Walls' mash up of Disney Infinity and Skylanders using the Savage Worlds rules as a way to introduce miniatures gaming to the girls.

The more LEGO Dimensions offerings I see, the more certain I am that these characters will be added to my miniatures and roleplaying sessions with the twins.

Lou Zocchi Has a Special Way of Talking About Dice

On November of 2013, there was a post on Reddit that Gamescience Precision Dice were no longer being manufactured, but that was only part of the story. A few years back, Lou Zocchi sold Gamescience to Gamestation and allowed them to continue his tradition of manufacturing high quality "unpolished" dice. The company produced the dice for a couple of years, but were not able to sustain it as a business and ownership returned to Lou Zocchi.

For those who don't know, Lou is one of the foundational figures in the Hobby Gaming field. He was an early editor of the wargaming magazine The General, that was published by Avalon Hill, designed some high quality airplane wargames and a couple of cool starship wargames, and was one of the first hobby distributors. If you wanted to buy role playing games back in the day, Lou Zocchi's catalog was a great place to order from.

From the dawn of the hobby Zocchi has had strong opinions about the importance of dice being as truly random in their results as possible and claims that his dice are the most random. Whether this is true or not has been rarely tested, but his presentations are legendary.

Favorite New Games, Most Surprising Game, and Other #RPGaDay2015 Catch Up on Prompts 3 through 11

I've already posted answers to the first two #RPGaDay2015 prompts by +Autocratik, but I wanted to catch up before focusing on longer posts for some of the future answers. I'll be answering the prompts between 3 and 11 today. Some of these deserve longer posts, and I will likely do some later, but I don't want to drop the ball like I did last year and not answer all the prompts.

You can find my answers to Prompt 1 (Most Anticipated Pending Product) and Prompt 2 (Kickstarter Project Most Pleased to Have Backed) at the appropriate links.

3)  Favorite New Game in the Past 12 Months -- The Strange from Monte Cook Games.

 

4) Most Surprising Game -- James Bond RPG from Victory Games. This is quite simply one of the best espionage role playing games ever designed and given the poor state of licensed games at the time it was quite a feat. You can get the retroclone Classified here.

5) Most Recent RPG Purchase -- Fantasy AGE by Green Ronin Publishing. I also ordered their TitansGrave campaign sourcebook.

6) Most Recent RPG Played -- Savage Worlds by Pinnacle Entertainment Group. I love the game and it gives my players a break from all of their 5th Edition D&D games.

7) Favorite Free RPG -- Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules by Wizards of the Coast. There is enough there for years of gaming. There are other free rules I enjoy, but when Wizards offers most of 5e for free it's a big deal.

8) Favorite Appearance of RPGs in the Media -- The Big Bang Theory.  I know that this show has gotten a lot of hate from the gaming community because "They are playing it wrong," but it's my favorite appearance for two reasons. First, David Goetsch and Maria Ferrarri - writers on the show - have been kind enough to visit my podcast twice (First TBBT Visit and Second TBBT Visit) in which they demonstrate how geeky they are. Second, and more importantly, they show players having fun. Everyone is having a good time when they play, and that makes it a good appearance.

I'd like to give special recognition to TitansGrave and True Detective Season 2. I almost gave it to True Detective because Ray's son was playing at recess on a DIY grid-map made from a cardboard box and with random action figures as miniatures, but I opted for TBBT.

 

9) Favorite Media You Wish was an RPG -- Thundarr the Barbarian. This was an extremely difficult question because it seems like this year is the year when all my RPG wishes are coming true. Modiphius is releasing a John Carter role playing game. Flash Gordon is being released by Pinnacle Entertainment Group. There was an official Sherlock Holmes game produced this year. It really seems like all my favorite stuff is getting made with official adaptations. That leaves Thundarr. There are several unofficial mockups, but I'd like to see what could happen if someone did a professional version. Ideally, I'd like a version based on the 4e adapted Gamma World, but that would be impossible.

10) Favorite RPG Publisher -- Pinnacle Entertainment Group. Good people, creative ideas, and focus on fun. Savage Worlds, Necessary Evil, Rippers, Flash Gordon, Deadlands, Weird War II, Slipstream, Solomon Kane... Oh, and I've written something that they'll be publishing later this year.

11) Favorite RPG Writer -- Greg Gorden. He has been a part of most of my favorite role playing games. He worked on James Bond, DC Heroes, Torg, Deadlands, and so many more. His design sensibilities add cinematic qualities to everything he works on.

Achievement Unlocked: A Personal Savage Worlds Announcement

The other day, I vaguebooked on The Facebook that I had worked on a project that I might be able to talk about. Well, I'm now officially allowed to talk about it. At this year's GenCon, Pinnacle Entertainment announced a number of exciting products and it just so happens that I worked on one of them.

The project is called Savage Tales of Horror and it's an anthology of horror themed adventures for your enjoyment. The adventures are all playable with just the core rules and the Horror Companion.

I can't say a lot about my adventure, and to be honest I wouldn't want to drop a lot of spoilers anyway, but I can tell you this much:

1. My adventure is called Blood on Ice.

2. The adventure only requires the Core Rule and the Horror Companion, but it does use some rules that people often overlook.

3. The adventure was designed as a perfect pick up/one shot adventure, but I hope you will want to use it to create a campaign.

The adventure anthology includes a number of excellent authors like Shane Hensley (you know...the creator of Savage Worlds), John Dunn (the guy behind the excellent Accursed setting), and fantasy author Howard Andrew Jones. There are a number of other excellent participants in this project, but I want to leave some stuff for future posts as we come closer to the release date.

Sorry Gaming Paper, But The Game I'm Most Pleased I Backed on Kickstarter Is...#RPGaDAY2015 [Day 2]

The first "patron" project I ever backed was Wolfgang Baur's first  Kobold Publishing product. There was a time that I backed every one of Baur's projects, but as he continued to publish primarily for D&D 3.x and Pathfinder at the same time that my bookshelves overflowed with material for those games I moved on to supporting other projects. I missed out on some excellent products, but I'm only going to play those games -x- times and I have more material then I will ever need.

I backed my first Kickstarter project in 2010 and in doing so began a fandom journey of directly supporting projects that I believe in before they are published. I became a non-profitsharing venture capitalist. I decided to be more than a consumer and to support the companies and creators I admire by backing their projects. Note the word I used there, backing. I didn't say "pre-order" their games because that isn't what Kickstarter really is. Yes, that is often what it ends up being for some companies, but that isn't the only thing a backer is. I'd have backed some of the projects I did solely for a T-Shirt or button that proclaimed I was a backer. That first Kickstarter project that I backed was Erik Bauer's Gaming Paper Adventures project. With it Eric left the realm of selling gaming accessories and entered the realm of game designer. Erik is one of the nicest guys in the industry and a natural salesman. I've called him a gaming huckster in the past, and I meant it in the nicest and most William Castle way. In addition to being a great salesman, Erik is a great guy. I'm proud to have supported his project. It's probably the "product" I'm most pleased to have backed, but since it's a supplement it isn't technically a game . So it isn't the game I'm most pleased I backed.

The game that I'm most pleased to have backed is Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls. There are so many reasons that I'm pleased to have backed this game. First and foremost is that Tunnels and Trolls, along with various Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf game books, was the vast majority of role playing game play that I participated in as a kid. Without those and Bard's Tale, I likely would have stopped playing games after my first session. My first experience had been with a "killer DM" and it hadn't been much fun, then I encountered a Ken St. Andre solo module and it was salve to my wound.

Don't get me wrong, Ken St. Andre is a "killer DM," his adventures don't suffer fools and they don't suffer the wise either. They are brutal, but they are never cruel and never seem unfair. When Ken kills one of your characters in a horrific fashion, you end up laughing with him at the absurdity of the situation. The worlds of Ken St. Andre, and his fellow Trolls, are imaginative to the point of psychedelia. They are a patchwork of everything wonderful in fantasy. They are Michael Moorcock meets Disney meets Harryhausen. They are creations of pure joy and excitement.

Add to Ken's literary patchwork the wonderful artwork of Liz Danforth and you have a perfect example of why role playing games caught on in the first place.

For a long time, the 5th edition had been my "go to" version of the game. There had been a 7th edition published by Fiery Dragon that updated some rules, and had a nice packaging, but it lacked a little of what made the original so magical. That little bit was the touch of Ken St. Andre's imagination and Danforth's editing and artwork. Liz Danforth edited the classic 5th edition and was brought back for the new Deluxe version of the game. It's taken a few years for this version of the game to be fully developed, but what I have experienced so far captures that early magic.

Tunnels and Trolls was the second role playing game to be published and it laid the foundation for today's OSR movement. Whenever I buy a new OSR product, I'm reminded of Tunnels & Trolls and that's a good thing.