Hola all. Massawyrm here.
ROGUE TRADER
One of the longest running, tried and true campaign frameworks in RPGs is the “pirate story”. The idea is a simple one and plays with all the classic tropes, but rather than travelling around on some Tolkienesque quest, the heroes have much more down to earth goals: loot. Sure, their quest for riches takes them from exotic port to exotic port, with any number of monster encounters, vicious warlords and dangerous obstacles to overcome. Peel away the setting on a boat and it would appear to the casual observer to be the same exact campaign as any other. But this campaign has a slightly different flavor to it: profit motive. Decisions are made not based upon a moral compass, but rather a fiscal one. And it makes for some very interesting Role Playing opportunities – not to mention much more interesting resource management.
Well now that classic campaign style has moved from D&D into the year 40,000.
This isn’t Spelljammer. It’s Warhammer 40k. Meaning it is dark, bleak and quite possibly terribly amoral. Just how Games Workshop fans like it. And it doesn’t disappoint. The second in what is now a series, ROGUE TRADER is built upon all the same rules as DARK HERESY (and is thus compatible with the many rulebooks), but comes equipped with new rules to deal with the complicated issues that arise in true interstellar travel.
Probably the coolest thing about this book is the PROFIT FACTOR, a large set of rules for governing how you make and lose money on all manner of profiteering. Make no mistake, you don’t play heroes in this game. You play a Rogue trader – an Imperial sanctioned businessman with your own starship – and his band of advisors and bodyguards. One player plays the Trader, the captain of the ship, while everyone else parties up in the usual manner. But the real goal of the game (aside from having fun of course) is to get that Profit Factor up and deal with all the craziness of Ork Pirates, Eldar raiders, wandering Chaos Space Marines and all sorts of economic disaster.
Lets face it. This game right here is just about as nerdy as you get before crossing over into historical recreations of authentic battles with classic 1970’s rulesets – which of course is why I dig it. This isn’t DARK HERESY dressed up with different characters. You’re adrift in the cosmos trying to build a corporate empire while forcibly crushing rebellions, pirates and whatever dark nasties crawl out of the warp and get in the way of your profit. There’s a section on how to exploit planetary resources including opening up beast trade. Yeah. This ain’t D&D in space. It’s something far more jaded and grim.
It’s not playing Space Pirates. It’s the Galactic East India Trading Company. With boltguns and angry, Cockney Orks. So yeah, I think it’s pretty fucking cool. If you play DARK HERESY, you’ll want to pick this up posthaste. If you haven’t tried out the system yet, this might be a great way to get introduced. The book is everything we’ve come to expect from Fantasy Flight Games/Games Workshop releases: well bound, thick enough to beat someone to death with and loaded with gorgous Gothic art. Give this at least a good thumb through when next you’re at your FLGS.
MOUSEGUARD ROLE PLAYING GAME
To be honest, at first glance I wasn’t entirely impressed with this game. The layout was a bit awkward – 320 large print pages in a book roughly 2/3rds the size of a standard RPG book. To make matters worse the player creation rules were located in the very back of the book and were only a scant 16 pages long. But since it was based on the wonderful MOUSEGUARD comic series (which I’ve read in graphic novel form) and is loaded cover to cover with David Peterson’s wonderful comic art, I sat down and breezed through it in an evening.
As it turns out, it’s kind of brilliant.
The genius of MOUSEGUARD is in its simplicity. Rather than building a complex series of rules around playing a bunch of swashbuckling mice from the year 1152, they instead used the extremely simple BURNING WHEEL rules that take about 5 minutes to learn. But this is MOUSEGUARD, not a game designed for hardcore gamers. It’s designed for gamers to play with their kids, their uninitiated spouses or to run as a beer and pretzel pickup game on nights when the whole group can’t get together.
For those of you unfamiliar with MOUSEGUARD, it is a series of stories about a group of mice rangers who go on patrols and carry out any number of missions for their various mouse cities and towns. Sometimes it is as simple as delivering mail – sometimes as dangerous as hunting and ridding the area of a dangerous predator like a snake, weasel or owl. Along the way they encounter all manner of woodland creature, dispatch foes and overcome terrible obstacles in the wilderness. In otherwords, it is like D&D without the magic. But with mice.
The dice system is practically primitive, which is exactly the kind of thing you’d want when gaming with the family. It’s very reminiscent of the White Wolf World of Darkness dice pool system in which you have a score for any ability you might use and that score translates into the same number of six sided dice (d6). 1-3 on a die is a failure, 4-6 is a success. You tally up your successes and compare them to the target number or your opponents successes. That’s it. Every mechanic is built around a 50% die system. There are some ways to alter rolls and a few actions that add additional dice, but basically you now know enough to begin playing MOUSEGUARD.
What won me over for good and for all was the character creation system. It’s about the simplest, most ingenious PC generation system I’ve ever seen. 16 pages makes you a character. How you do it is you simply answer a series of questions about the character you want to play. Each decision alters your stats. Do you save food for the winter or do you live each day as it comes? Do you prefer to fight or run? Are you afraid of snakes, weasels and wolves? Where were you born? What were your parents jobs? Each of these questions will give you different stats and skills. In other words the game master can hand out character sheets and scratch paper, then read the questions aloud to the whole group, and once he’s done, everyone in the room has a complete character complete with background, personality to role play and stats.
See? Kind of fucking brilliant. Once the game master has read the book, he can walk anyone through the game and explain the slightly more complex rules as they go along. I had never played a BURNING WHEEL game until this, and I’m unsure if the other games get much more complicated – but they apparently have a Feudal Japan game I’ll have to check out. This isn’t a game for anyone who likes complex rule systems or is into statistical probability. It’s entirely about the role playing and really is a game best suited for families – especially for parents who want to introduce their younger kids to RPGs.
This has been out since late last year, but only recently came my way, so it should be readily available at or to your FLGS and is well worth your time if you’ve enjoyed the comic series or have kids interested in role playing. I’m probably going to put a campaign together with my wife and some friends here shortly and give it a full go. Really does look like a nice change of pace.
Alright, more gaming goodness coming your way next week!
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
Got something for the Wyrm? Mail it here.
Or follow my further zany adventures on Twitter.
MOUSEGUARD ROLE PLAYING GAME
To be honest, at first glance I wasn’t entirely impressed with this game. The layout was a bit awkward – 320 large print pages in a book roughly 2/3rds the size of a standard RPG book. To make matters worse the player creation rules were located in the very back of the book and were only a scant 16 pages long. But since it was based on the wonderful MOUSEGUARD comic series (which I’ve read in graphic novel form) and is loaded cover to cover with David Peterson’s wonderful comic art, I sat down and breezed through it in an evening.
As it turns out, it’s kind of brilliant.
The genius of MOUSEGUARD is in its simplicity. Rather than building a complex series of rules around playing a bunch of swashbuckling mice from the year 1152, they instead used the extremely simple BURNING WHEEL rules that take about 5 minutes to learn. But this is MOUSEGUARD, not a game designed for hardcore gamers. It’s designed for gamers to play with their kids, their uninitiated spouses or to run as a beer and pretzel pickup game on nights when the whole group can’t get together.
For those of you unfamiliar with MOUSEGUARD, it is a series of stories about a group of mice rangers who go on patrols and carry out any number of missions for their various mouse cities and towns. Sometimes it is as simple as delivering mail – sometimes as dangerous as hunting and ridding the area of a dangerous predator like a snake, weasel or owl. Along the way they encounter all manner of woodland creature, dispatch foes and overcome terrible obstacles in the wilderness. In otherwords, it is like D&D without the magic. But with mice.
The dice system is practically primitive, which is exactly the kind of thing you’d want when gaming with the family. It’s very reminiscent of the White Wolf World of Darkness dice pool system in which you have a score for any ability you might use and that score translates into the same number of six sided dice (d6). 1-3 on a die is a failure, 4-6 is a success. You tally up your successes and compare them to the target number or your opponents successes. That’s it. Every mechanic is built around a 50% die system. There are some ways to alter rolls and a few actions that add additional dice, but basically you now know enough to begin playing MOUSEGUARD.
What won me over for good and for all was the character creation system. It’s about the simplest, most ingenious PC generation system I’ve ever seen. 16 pages makes you a character. How you do it is you simply answer a series of questions about the character you want to play. Each decision alters your stats. Do you save food for the winter or do you live each day as it comes? Do you prefer to fight or run? Are you afraid of snakes, weasels and wolves? Where were you born? What were your parents jobs? Each of these questions will give you different stats and skills. In other words the game master can hand out character sheets and scratch paper, then read the questions aloud to the whole group, and once he’s done, everyone in the room has a complete character complete with background, personality to role play and stats.
See? Kind of fucking brilliant. Once the game master has read the book, he can walk anyone through the game and explain the slightly more complex rules as they go along. I had never played a BURNING WHEEL game until this, and I’m unsure if the other games get much more complicated – but they apparently have a Feudal Japan game I’ll have to check out. This isn’t a game for anyone who likes complex rule systems or is into statistical probability. It’s entirely about the role playing and really is a game best suited for families – especially for parents who want to introduce their younger kids to RPGs.
This has been out since late last year, but only recently came my way, so it should be readily available at or to your FLGS and is well worth your time if you’ve enjoyed the comic series or have kids interested in role playing. I’m probably going to put a campaign together with my wife and some friends here shortly and give it a full go. Really does look like a nice change of pace.
Alright, more gaming goodness coming your way next week!
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
Got something for the Wyrm? Mail it here.
