role playing

Ars Magica Role Playing Game

Ars Magica is a role playing game set in Mythic Europe — nominally 1220 AD, but a land inhabited by faeries, daemon and other magical creatures. Its a great game that I’ve enjoyed playing over the years.

Ars Magica set the benchmark for magic in fantasy roleplaying. It pioneered the storytelling style of roleplaying that has become so popular today. Its setting, Mythic Europe, sparked the imaginations of fantasy fans and history enthusiasts alike. The 272-page fourth edition introduced improved systems in several key areas such as combat, character advancement, and covenant generation. This version of the game retained and improved upon Ars Magica’s powerful and flexible magic system – widely regarded as the best rules for magic in all of gaming.

Atlas Games has all sorts for free downloads for the 4th Edition of this marvelous game.

The Dick Tracy Pulp Era Role Playing Game

The Dick Tracy RPG brings the classic comic book detective to life. When I was a kid, my dentist had a couple of books with Chester Gould’s complete Dick Tracy strips, and I used to look forward to going to the dentist twice a year so I could read them.

In this RPG system you create characters eight attributes, skills and advantages / disadvantages. Action is resolved with a 2d6+attribute+skill versus difficulty system. Tasks are rated according to a five point difficulty level. The system also has stats for characters such as BB Eyes, Breathless Mahoney, Flattop, and of course, Dick Tracy.

I’ve often thought that these wonderful characters would make great miniatures.

Dread Roleplaying Game

Dread is a role playing game that uses an innovative mechanic — a Jenga game — to resolve actions and build tension.

There are both free and paid versions.

Seventh Sanctum Random Name Generators

Back in the heady days of first edition D&D, there were a lot of small companies publishing books that essentially were nothing more than lists of names, treasures, monsters, etc. During a game, you used these lists to randomly generate filler for your adventures.

The Seventh Sanctum is essentially a computerized version of these old random generator books. There are random generators here for just about anything you can imagine: pirate ship names, character names for a variety of settings, superhero powers,, equipment lists, dark rituals, several evil sounding name generators, a magical girls, a martial arts move generator, and more!

I spent way too much time playing with this one.

Habitation of The Stone Giant Lord

Habitation of the Stone Giant Lord is a D&D module created by a twelve year old in 1982. Talk about Old School. It has been scanned in all its graph paper and typewriter glory.

It reminds me very much of the large notebook of dungeons I made in my high school years — which I still have today. Perhaps I should scan and post them.