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Bundle of Tentacles got extended to last until Monday, Nov. 4th. I know plenty of folks are not entirely happy with the lineup on this one, but there it is.
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Nov 3, 2013 00:15
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Probably a database error, but some amazing deals through WalmartFellis posted:http://www.walmart.com/ip/Carcassonne-Game/24017054
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Nov 6, 2013 14:41
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If a friendly goon wants to ship King of Tokyo to Australia there is totally :tenbux: or more in it for them.
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Nov 6, 2013 15:08
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New Bundle of Holding is up! This one is OSR-themed, and seems to have an incomplete description (they said there was some last-minute additions), but so far includes Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, Adventurer Conqueror King, assorted modules, and an OSR "toolkit" featuring articles and...PDFs of graph paper. Okay! I don't really know anything about OSR or any of the games that came from it. Anyone want to offer some opinions? Spincut fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Nov 6, 2013 |
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Nov 6, 2013 21:21
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That's a pretty good bundle but man. The Quick Primer for Old School Gaming is a document that launched a thousand edition wars. It's so snotty. Sword and Wizardry you can get for free. ACKS is a very good expression of the old school rules. Vornheim is an excellent city supplement. I think it's a good deal, although I kinda wish some of the opinionated grognard crap wasn't there. But that's a very personal opinion.
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Nov 6, 2013 21:35
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I've heard really good things about Vornheim, and Zak Smith, while certainly...opinionated, has a lot of cool D&D ideas. That's the only bit I know anything about.
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Nov 6, 2013 21:35
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ACKS is cool but I'd say wait and see if they add some Sine Nomine stuff. Red Tide is one of the finest things to come out of the OSR.
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Nov 6, 2013 21:38
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Traveller posted:ACKS is cool but I'd say wait and see if they add some Sine Nomine stuff. Red Tide is one of the finest things to come out of the OSR. I agree with you about Red Tide. His Spears of the Dawn RPG was pretty neat as well.
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Nov 7, 2013 00:32
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Libertad! posted:I agree with you about Red Tide. His Spears of the Dawn RPG was pretty neat as well. I have seen Red Tide before and it is pretty spiffy. Spears of the Dawn is the bomb diggity out of stuff he has written, from what I remember. But I might feel differently if I were more science fiction-oriented than fantasy. Considering the fact that some people are becoming repeat features on the Bundle, I think it's possible we might get some Sine Nomine products.
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Nov 7, 2013 07:09
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malkav11 posted:I've heard really good things about Vornheim, and Zak Smith, while certainly...opinionated, has a lot of cool D&D ideas. That's the only bit I know anything about. I guess I wrote this in the other thread, but not everybody reads the same stuff. I really like Vornheim and I wish he'd do more books like that. It's worth getting in wee hardcover, and is absolutely worth getting for cheapz via a humble bundle.
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Nov 7, 2013 19:07
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malkav11 posted:I've heard really good things about Vornheim, and Zak Smith, while certainly...opinionated, has a lot of cool D&D ideas. That's the only bit I know anything about. Despite my history with/feelings about Zak, I will say that Vornheim is a good book with some very cool ideas (like the drop table stuff and how to set up street chases on the fly), and is a hell of a lot more "weird fantasy" than the game it's technically a supplement for.
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Nov 7, 2013 19:18
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Paizo is actually having rather unique sale that is worth mentioning for people who like collecting esoteric random traditional game stuff that they dug out from the wildest of regions of their warehouse like the Planescape card game.
MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Nov 8, 2013 |
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Nov 8, 2013 15:30
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So my Bundle of Holding updates suggest that the OSR Bundle was much more successful than they expected, which means that more OSR-themed bundles are likely to hit in the future. Also, tomorrow (I think) begins Bundle of HERO system.
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Nov 11, 2013 21:08
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The new Bundle of Holding is up featuring the 6th Edition of the Hero system. You get the Champions Complete book, (which is basically the HERO System's core book now, but the extra stuff in it is for Superheroics) the HERO System Equipment Guide (Get spergy for all your bat-gadgets and ten-foot-poles) and Hero System Resource Kit. (Which is made for 5th Edition but there's not much difference between the two, 6th was just smoothing things out for the latest incarnation of Champions) It features a summery of character building rules, a GM Screen and some other useful stuff. So $7 gets you a decent start to playing a Supers game. Supers not to your taste? The Bonuses are Pulp Hero, (a 5th edition guide to running a Pulp game. An entire party of Doc Savages!) Star Hero (6th Edition, guide to playing a Sci-Fi game) and Fantasy Hero (As Star, but Fantasy). Looks pretty good. Anyone had experience with the HERO system?
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Nov 12, 2013 21:28
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The HERO system is really, really rules heavy, but it does it well. Once you have characters generated, which can take a long while, it's pretty fun to play and, in my opinion, is really, really good at accurately mapping out superhero stuff, like knockback while flying and attacking people with your ability to be square-jawed and dashing, etc. It's a cool system, and I'd recommend it to anyone. It's sort of like GURPS in that you don't really need to do Superheroes, even though it's the HERO system, so you can do basically anything. Our last game had an alien supersoldier, a terran supersoldier, a Hulk knockoff, and, of course, Beowulf. All mapped using different powers and abilities and suggestions from the different books. This is seriously a good deal. I'd recommend it.
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Nov 12, 2013 23:04
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I've played a fair deal of HERO in the past, but it is one of the spergiest games. Do you like numbers? Do you like superheroes? Do you like superheroes with numbers? Having speedsters get three turns for every one turn other characters get? Tracking how much Endurance a punch takes to throw? Or powers! Man, calculating power costs. See, I have the Delicious Spud power (10 CP) and let's say I buy the Mashed Potatoes advantage, a +1 advantage. And then I take the Instant Mix limitation, which is like a -1/2 limitation. So like then that'd be like (1 + 2 - 1/2) = 1 1/2 times the cost, right, for 15 CP? Hahaha no. Instead HERO figures it as [(10 x 2) / 1.5] = 13 1/3 CP! Also you have to know that number without the limitation (20 CP) because that's what figures into endurance costs. And that's a simple power by HERO standards. A lot of people have internalized the system and have a blast with it, but to me it's more fascinating as a historical curiosity (just about every point-build game owes it some small debt) but combat is sluggish even for experienced players in my experience, and balance is all kinds of wonky even after all these years. It's a fascinating as a puzzle box of a system and really, really innovative for a game released in 1981, but I don't have a lot of desire to ever play it again. But it's a good deal if you're interested in it, though, and it's worth a look if you're interested in system design.
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Nov 12, 2013 23:50
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I've played a fair deal of HERO in the past, but it is one of the spergiest games. Do you like numbers? Do you like superheroes? Do you like superheroes with numbers? Having speedsters get three turns for every one turn other characters get? Tracking how much Endurance a punch takes to throw? Or powers! Man, calculating power costs. ...I think my brain is bleeding. Well, it should at least be interesting to take a look at, I think!
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Nov 13, 2013 01:36
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I've played a fair deal of HERO in the past, but it is one of the spergiest games. Do you like numbers? Do you like superheroes? Do you like superheroes with numbers? Having speedsters get three turns for every one turn other characters get? Tracking how much Endurance a punch takes to throw? Or powers! Man, calculating power costs.
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Nov 13, 2013 01:40
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I've got two HERO rulebooks floating around here. The first, from the eighties, is about 120 pages long. The second, from somewhere in the Nineties, is probably three, maybe four times as thick. The last HERO book I read had literally hundreds of pages dedicated to chargen alone, and I remember staring uncomfortably at a Youtube video of the developers using a recent edition to stop a loving rifle bullet. It's absurd. It's a Grand Unified Theory of Character Points, because by default everything from your MP3 player to your bulletproof vest to your doomsday machine is paid for with the same currency. Which is neat, but. Personally, I find it way too cumbersome. The only time I've ever really got anything out of it, is when I've had a systems savant at hand to perform some suspect character optimization. I will admit, for superheroic stuff, Mutants and Masterminds is more my speed. Much as I shake my head at HERO, if you can spare fifteen bucks it's still a hell of a thing to flip through.
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Nov 13, 2013 01:41
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DriveThruRPG has a storm relief bundle going. It's a $25 donation to Doctors Without Borders, and you get a good mix of stuff. The high points are the excellent Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor (a.k.a. "Lemony Snicket: the RPG") and Esoterrorists.
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Nov 13, 2013 01:55
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Evil Mastermind posted:DriveThruRPG has a storm relief bundle going. It's a $25 donation to Doctors Without Borders, and you get a good mix of stuff. The high points are the excellent Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor (a.k.a. "Lemony Snicket: the RPG") and Esoterrorists. The image looks like Esoterrorists 1.0, if that matters. There is a 2nd edition out.
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Nov 13, 2013 02:37
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I played in a Champions game (a Marvel-flavored Minneapolis setting) for several months years ago and enjoyed it a great deal, but six hour combat sessions were not as uncommon as one might wish. It's super flexible and I think makes for really fun superhero building. I can't imagine dealing with it for other genres where IMHO that level of customization simply isn't necessary. I'd imagine there are probably significantly better takes on the genre by now (I've yet to run Wild Talents, but that seems very promising to me, or perhaps a superhero flavor of Fate like Strange Fate) but I'm pretty sure I'd still pick it over Mutants and Masterminds, which has a lot of design decisions I find deeply flawed.
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Nov 13, 2013 03:52
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Honestly I think Slasher Flick is the bigger thing for me in that bundle. But there are many cool things there.
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Nov 13, 2013 05:29
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homullus posted:The image looks like Esoterrorists 1.0, if that matters. There is a 2nd edition out. It looks like only version 1.0 is on DriveThru, but they may have put the updated PDF up in its place and not updated the version number. Unfortunately, I wouldn't know which is which.
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Nov 13, 2013 05:32
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I was in one of the original Champions playtest groups and ran it for years and year. HERO is a special demonic snowflake when it come to character creation but my god battles can be insane. I love the system. GURPS does low power well, but HERO lets you throw an aircraft carrier.
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Nov 13, 2013 06:17
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malkav11 posted:I played in a Champions game (a Marvel-flavored Minneapolis setting) for several months years ago and enjoyed it a great deal, but six hour combat sessions were not as uncommon as one might wish. It's super flexible and I think makes for really fun superhero building. I can't imagine dealing with it for other genres where IMHO that level of customization simply isn't necessary. Honestly I think, like GURPS, it actually works better as a fantasy system or the like, since a lot of the things that bog it down (high Speed, layered defenses, complicated power sets) are greatly reduced. If you limit the scope it becomes a lot more functional, though it's still more complex than it needs to be for most games.
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Nov 13, 2013 07:58
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Honestly I think, like GURPS, it actually works better as a fantasy system or the like, since a lot of the things that bog it down (high Speed, layered defenses, complicated power sets) are greatly reduced. If you limit the scope it becomes a lot more functional, though it's still more complex than it needs to be for most games. Bite your tongue, complexity is fun! (for some of us)
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Nov 13, 2013 18:09
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Honestly I think, like GURPS, it actually works better as a fantasy system or the like, since a lot of the things that bog it down (high Speed, layered defenses, complicated power sets) are greatly reduced. If you limit the scope it becomes a lot more functional, though it's still more complex than it needs to be for most games. But the thing is, you need that complexity (or at least, that scope and flexibility) for supers and for fantasy you really, really don't.
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Nov 14, 2013 07:16
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I don't think you don't really need it for supers, it's just RPG tradition, set by games like Champions. There are plenty of simple superhero systems that work just fine. Having really detailed superhero stats strikes me as more of an aesthetic choice, for folks who want to know exactly how many tons their character could lift or exactly how many minds you can fry or whatever, and tweaking everything from their psychology to their salary. But it's not like comic superheroes were ever so tightly defined in the comics themselves, even when Mark Gruenwald & co. were trying to nail down the exact bench capacity of Rom the Space-Knight.
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Nov 14, 2013 15:19
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I don't think you don't really need it for supers, it's just RPG tradition, set by games like Champions. There are plenty of simple superhero systems that work just fine. Having really detailed superhero stats strikes me as more of an aesthetic choice, for folks who want to know exactly how many tons their character could lift or exactly how many minds you can fry or whatever, and tweaking everything from their psychology to their salary. But it's not like comic superheroes were ever so tightly defined in the comics themselves, even when Mark Gruenwald & co. were trying to nail down the exact bench capacity of Rom the Space-Knight. I started with Superhero:2044 then moved to Villains and Vigilantes (which really needs an F&F actually), then Champions, Superworld (Call of Cth-superhero), Marvel Superheroes, GURPS, Golden Heroes, Brave New World, DC Heroes (all editions including Underground and Blood of Heroes), Mutants and Masterminds, and probably a couple I can't remember off the top of my head...I may have a genre compulsion. Anyway, of all of those, I like Champs/HERO the best, followed by M&M, Brave New World, and scarily enough, Villains and Vigilantes 2nd edition (That's mainly nostalgia talking on V&V however). I enjoy complex rulesets a great deal, but for some reason I can not stand GURPS except as reference material. Granted, I am an engineer by training (chemical not railroad) so fiddly rules must be calming to me.
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Nov 14, 2013 16:48
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I don't think you don't really need it for supers, it's just RPG tradition, set by games like Champions. There are plenty of simple superhero systems that work just fine. Having really detailed superhero stats strikes me as more of an aesthetic choice, for folks who want to know exactly how many tons their character could lift or exactly how many minds you can fry or whatever, and tweaking everything from their psychology to their salary. But it's not like comic superheroes were ever so tightly defined in the comics themselves, even when Mark Gruenwald & co. were trying to nail down the exact bench capacity of Rom the Space-Knight. This is basically my take on it too. There's nothing wrong with simulation and wanting precision, and god knows the comic book nerd quoting issue 12 of Fantastic Foods to explain why Superman couldn't possibly resist a Kryptonite-laced sandwich made from the Bread of Wonder's body is a common parody figure. There's decades worth of Who's Who manuals filled with breathless details, that certainly support that kind of approach too. Rogue's Gallery as Jane's Superhuman Recognition Guide. And on the other hand you've got flurries of retcons, rewrites, character capabilities changing to better suit the dramatic tension of a scene... those breathless descriptions of superhuman abilities are maybe a step up from playground cops-and-robbers play. Simpler or more abstract systems that offer broad-strokes balance and power definitions, and a framework to prevent schoolyard one-upsmanship, work better if you're playing more for the biff and the pow than the crunch. I don't think there's anything qualitatively better about either approach. Sometimes you want to know how long Ultimate Spider-Man is going to be laid up with a broken leg. Sometimes you want to knock a mook out with a clever quip instead.
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Nov 14, 2013 17:20
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The Bundle of Holding just added LUCHA LIBRE HERO today. Pack it in, best bundle, all years. Also they didn't announce it, but they added Hero System Skills (The Ultimate Skill updated for 6e) yesterday.
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Nov 14, 2013 19:00
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I don't think you don't really need it for supers, it's just RPG tradition, set by games like Champions. There are plenty of simple superhero systems that work just fine. Having really detailed superhero stats strikes me as more of an aesthetic choice, for folks who want to know exactly how many tons their character could lift or exactly how many minds you can fry or whatever, and tweaking everything from their psychology to their salary. But it's not like comic superheroes were ever so tightly defined in the comics themselves, even when Mark Gruenwald & co. were trying to nail down the exact bench capacity of Rom the Space-Knight. Well, I certainly think there are lighter games than Champions that capture superheroes well. But there's a much, much broader spectrum of character abilities and archetypes in a supers game than in traditional fantasy or even SF, and being able to customize that is, imho, key. Other settings, not so much. I don't know if Hero's worth dealing with at all (I won't be buying this Bundle of Holding, certainly), but if I were going to it'd be to play supers, because that's where its complexity pays off.
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Nov 15, 2013 03:31
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I'm such a sucker. I let myself get sold on this by buzz from people talking about it, even though I'm probably going to use it as a reference more than anything else. My one experience playing HERO system was not terribly positive, for various reasons, and my last few supers games that went better were on the much lighter end of things (BASH and then more recently Fate Accelerated). Even so, I keep hearing that HERO is a well-designed system, if you can get through the complexity. I guess I hope to learn something from it.
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Nov 15, 2013 11:04
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I do like the Champions Universe, and they were really good at adopting electronic RPG aid benefits before many others - in the San Angelo supplement, for example, you can click a button on the PDF and all the stats change from Champions to Mutants & Masterminds. It's pretty cool.
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Nov 15, 2013 15:58
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Well, the HERO Bundle at Bundle of Holding has ended. They've teased an Audio-based bundle next, one with ambient background noises, sounds and music to play to immerse your players into the idea of being in a dungeon, or roaming the countryside or such. I've a bit of a collection of this myself, I hope they have people I haven't already have the album from.
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Nov 18, 2013 20:16
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In theory, it sounds intriguing, but I don't think I could get it to work with my group. Also, I have bought damned near every bundle for the past couple months or so and I need a break from forking out that kind of cash!
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Nov 19, 2013 11:20
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Yeah, I love the idea of ambient music and background noise, but it's never really worked out for any of my groups. I might get this bundle anyway and give it another shot.
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Nov 19, 2013 15:26
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Bieeardo posted:Yeah, I love the idea of ambient music and background noise, but it's never really worked out for any of my groups. I might get this bundle anyway and give it another shot. The only time I was ever able to get background music to work in a game was the Champions campaign where I played a heavy metal frontman who was the half-mortal son of a storm god, channeling his divine lightning through his electric guitar and smiting enemies with the power of metal. (That was a good campaign.)
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Nov 19, 2013 15:37
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Latest Bundle of Holding is up. It's about worldbuilding/design. There seems to be a vague OSR undercurrent to it, but I don't know if that's intentional or not. I guess we'll see as stuff gets added. With the current number of books, I expect there will be some additions, if history is any indicator.
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Nov 23, 2013 00:58
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