LEGO Lord of the Rings Orcs

Sometimes, the old trope is true -- our orcs are different.  And if you need any proof that this is the case for the Lord of the Rings LEGO orcs, look no further than this sweet video by the Brotherhood Workshop.

It really reminds me that maybe, just maybe, orcs are people too.

Also, to buy more LEGO.

Mantic Games - DreadBall vs Blood Bowl

Just a quickie.

In my first post when DreadBall was announced/teased I incautiously criticised Mantic Games for stealing the idea directly from GW's Blood Bowl.

The RefBot cautions me that any further unfounded accusations will not be looked upon lightly

To be fair, it really did look like Blood Bowl In Space.

But Jake Thornton on his Quirkworthy blog has said the differences are numerous, and DreadBall isn't designed to copy Blood Bowl.  And I can respect that.  And he makes a good case, to boot.

So, I formally retract my accusations of thematic theft*, and I won't speculate further until I've played the game.  And some more Blood Bowl.

* And quietly apologise to Jake, too.  He was always my favourite White Dwarf editor, y'know.

D&D Next / 5th Edition - Sexism and Shadism

I was lucky enough to attend a pretty cool presentation a few months back on the distinction between racism and shadism, and how the latter is insidious in its tendency to affect people regardless of ethnic background.  A week ago, over at the Douchey DM, HyveMind raised a few points about the perceived ethnicity of demi-humans in D&D, specifically as it relates to the D&D Next playtest.

Vulnerability to sunlight comes as standard

As a white male, I'm lucky.  Part of that luck includes always having images I can relate to whenever I flick through my roleplaying books (not to mention when I watch TV or see adverts on billboards or look at the covers of boardgames).  But should I be alone in this?

Josh Fox doesn't think so, and I agree.  He's asking Wizards of the Coast to be more representative of their imagery in the new edition of D&D, showing a larger percentage of non-white and female characters depicted respectfully.  He's also hoping the demi-humans will not be described as an all-white club any longer.

So, dear readers, if you feel similarly, I suggest you pop on over to the online petition here to ask WotC to consider seeing things our way.

Meanwhile, on a more personal note, I'm all set to give that D&D Next playtest a first run tomorrow.  It'll also be my son's first chance to try roleplaying, and not just hear the noisy idiots downstairs whooping and making fools of themselves.  Me nervous?  You betcha.

Ghostbusters International RPG - Character Sheet

Even more presents for my loyal readers.

My ongoing Ghostbusters RPG campaign has taken a break for a couple of weeks, set to resume very soon.  When we started, I handed out character sheets printed off from scans of the rulebook, and looking through them today they look tatty.

So, I've gone ahead and made some fresh ones from scratch.  Here they are, for you, dear readers, should you be able to make use of them (which I heartily encourage -- the Ghostbusters International game is unquestioningly one of the rules-lite classics).

Ghostbusters International RPG PDF character sheet at 1 per page (A4/Letter)

A bit of Google Fu tells me this isn't the first GBI character sheet on the web, so I'm going to give a shout out to the unknown hero who released this in 2007.  Well played, sir or madam.

Mini-teaser: this might not be the last mention of this character sheet here; I've got some plans.

Mantic Games - DreadBall

Something just came and hit me out of left field (do you see what I did there?).  And that's Mantic Games sending out a teaser for their new game DreadBall.

Mantic has already established itself as the Company Not Afraid to Rip-Off Games Workshop (which has a poetic justice to it if you consider how often GW can be accused of intellectual theft).  Where GW were afraid to include Squats in their Warhammer: 40,000 universe, Mantic stepped in with their Forge Fathers.  Where GW didn't want to release Space Hulk again, Mantic stepped in with Project Pandora: Grim Cargo.

Wait, hang on.  GW did re-release Space Hulk, and it was a huge hit for them.

The cargo is grim.  It's rats.

And Studio McVey are doing their own take on it with Sedition Wars.  Meh, what am I complaining about, I like Space Hulk, and welcome all new takes on it.

Back to Blood Bowl being ripped off.

Mantic aren't the first to this, either.  Impact! Miniatures have Elfball, and there's a handful of other companies with other fantasy sports titles to boot.

What makes this one different?  Well, for starters, it's sci-fi not fantasy, so it's more Speedball than Grave Yardage.  From the teaser image, it looks like it'll use Mantic's Marauders from their Warpath game and pit them against the recently released Enforcers, who to my mind look like the lovechild of a Necron and Iron Man.

I can't say I'm 100% sure about all this, but it's quite stimulating news regardless.  Given my cash flow issues at the moment, there's no way I can guarantee I'll even seriously consider a purchase.  But if someone else offered to host a game with their copy... I have to admit, I'd jump at the chance.

D&D Next - Saving the Industry or Killing It?

I'm going to make three contradictory statements in a row.

• The pen and paper roleplaying industry is in decline.  It has been for a long time, since the release of Magic: the Gathering in '93 which thinned the number of people already in the roleplaying scene by providing an alternative, addictive hobby in the form of collectible card games.

• The pen and paper roleplaying industry is in decline.  It has been since the popularity of the internet spiked, and anyone with a scanner could upload an electronic version of a book, sharing it with the world, thus decimating book sales.

• The pen and paper roleplaying industry is in decline.  It has been since massively multiplayer online roleplaying games came on to the scene, and stole the hearts and minds of kids who find their monster-slaying needs more than fulfilled by a monthly subscription.

Which of those three is true?  To an extent, each of them.  Yet the roleplaying industry persists.

In understanding why that should be so, we're faced with an underlying truth of marketing and economics.  No matter how perfect a model we create to understand a market, it will still be innately less complex than the reality of a given situation.  There are multiple caveats and addendums to the above three statements, for example, and counters to all of them.

• The CCG market isn't what it used to be, and can be considered a complimentary element to the roleplaying hobby not an opposition.

• E-publishing is bringing fresh ideas into the hobby by allowing indie products to come to prominence as never before.

• MMORPGs are sparking an interest in fantasy gaming bringing it further into the mainstream and attracting an audience that the roleplaying industry alone never could have.

So, there we have put a different take on each of the three causes of decline in the industry.  Maybe you agree with one statement more than another, maybe you disagree with me entirely.  Hey, feel free, the comments are just down below all this text, all views are welcome and nothing will be deleted.

But, despite how each of us feels about the above, I think we can all pretty much agree with the following two statements.

• We need people buying roleplaying products, or there is no roleplaying industry.

• We need need people playing roleplaying games, or there is no roleplaying hobby.

With that in mind, I find it difficult to dislike what Wizards are currently doing with D&D Next.  Let me explain.

When Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition came out, opinion was divided, to say the least.  But it was clear that WotC were attempting to open up D&D, making it more accessible to a new generation of players who were more comfortable with the wargaming and MMORPG-like elements.  And that new generation of players is important to the industry, because nobody is immortal, and those of us who intend to roleplay and buy roleplaying products for the rest of our lives are not the only ones in the hobby.  It's true, people drop out of the hobby.  Sometimes to return later, sometimes not.  Real life gets in the way, people decide it's not the best use of their time or will never be as engaging as when they were young.  It's all very sad, but it's a fact, and we can't pretend otherwise.

So, did Wizards mess up by making 4th Edition something D&D wasn't?  Opinions are very divided.

Will Wizards mess up by making D&D Next different again?  All signs point to them not wanting to.  Whether or not crusty old grognards will loosen their steely grip on their Tunnels and Trolls First Edition, and nervously reach towards the new D&D book, eyes bright and alive like they haven't been since the mid-70s, the industry will plod on without them.  It pretty much has to.

Personally, I see the Forgotten Realms Sundering to be an attempt to make it so new people can get into that setting without reading eleventy-billion books (although the cynic in me does notice that Wizards are releasing eleventy-billion fiction books to get people up to speed on the new setting...).

It's a fine line, walking between pleasing the old crowd, and attracting a new one.

This post here is just the tip of the iceberg.  I could write about this at greater length*.  Instead, let's wrap up with a little slice of what the rest of the internet is saying about all this.

Erik Tenkar of Tenkar's Tavern suggests that D&D Next is shaping the way for the whole industry.
http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2012/08/where-d-goes-so-goes-hobby-so-whats-next.html

Andrew of the Iron-Bound Tome contends that changes to D&D would be more readily accepted if not done as part of a continuation of the editions (and that it's kind of sad).
http://ironboundtome.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/if-dnd-next-was-branded-as-a-new-game-would-it-sell-better/

Timothy Brannan of The Other Side played the whole gamut of D&D editions with his family at Gen Con, and loved it.
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/08/gen-con-recap-name-of-game-is-d.html

Share your thoughts below.

* But won't.  Breathe a sigh of relief, dear readers.

Advanced Heroquest - Character Sheet

Click above if you're happy using a PNG file, look below for the PDFs

Not quite a board game, not quite a roleplaying game, definitely a miniatures game but entirely unlike a wargame, Advanced Heroquest is somewhat of a forgotten gem, in my mind.  Preceded by Milton Bradley's Hero Quest and succeeded by Games Workshop's Warhammer Quest, it has the difficulties of the middle child, but it's somehow always been my favourite of this type of game.

And, arguably, the internet's least.

A good few years ago, I ran AHQ regularly for a group, and we had a blast.  As a result of that, I made up loads of my own houserules, and supporting miscellanea -- like this character sheet I'm posting today.

The character sheets that came with the game were printed on the back of the rulebook, and occupied one half of a page of A4 -- the other being given up to graph paper that dungeons would be mapped out on by the players themselves.  My players always found that to be insufficient cartography room by far, so I always handed out full sheets of A4 graph paper for them to map away to their hearts' content.

The character sheets I'm posting today have been updated just a bit to be suitable for the outside world.  It's 100% my own creation based off the original design, but otherwise this is a product from an age that has passed.  It's my fond hope that at least a few of you will get some use from it.

Advanced Heroquest PDF character sheet at 1 per page (A4/Letter)

Advanced Heroquest PDF character sheet at 2 per page (A4/Letter)