Big fan of Lego Heroica

Walking past the games section of Target for the last few years, we
had seen the Lego Heroica games and wondered how good they are. For
the longest time if we were going to spend money on Lego sets, they
would be for the Star Wars or Bionicle figures. Recently my youngest
son has been sick and typical guilt-ridden parents that we are catered
to his every whim. When he asked for the Lego Heroica sets I
reluctantly gave in, still wondering how good could they be.

Well I have blown the dust off of my blog to tell you that the Lego
Heroica sets are fantastic. They are a very approachable way to get
your child interested in Role Playing Games. It is like a classic
dungeon crawl but with tiny Lego figures. The rules are very basic
and fun. I hope to post more about this later, but I'd say that if
you have kids and wanted to have a little Lego-RPG fun then you should
get these games.

Offline Games

Each summer my family goes up to stay with my in-laws for about a month. I don't have that kind of vacation so I usually go up for a week or so and then work the rest of the time.

This time my kids took their favorite stuffed Pokemon and the latest Pokedex book from Prima publishing ( http://amzn.to/p3Dqdf ). When they were not actually playing Pokemon on their Gameboys, they came up with a way to play it with their stuffed animals.

The Pokedex book is very complete and contains the stats from the game for each pokemon as well as the possible moves and the chances each would be successful. My kids took the dice out of a Monopoly game and were rolling for initative and the whole deal. It was a proud moment when my daughter described their game to me on the phone.

I always am afraid that future generations will never look for games beyond the nearest "app store". For the first time I see that there is less of a distinction for them between video game, board game or RPG -- they are all just fun games. So game designers out there, take heart! The next generation loves games, and a RPG can compete for the attention of even the most connected young mind!

The big game on sunday: Battletech

So, my oldest son and his friends have discovered Warhammer 40k.  I have dished out a lot more money than I care to think about to support his 40k habit.  He has an army of Dark Eldar which I have helped him assemble and paint.  I am glad for him to have a hobby that involves real people over his previous addiction to Modern Warfare on the XBox.

The problem is that the younger kids would like to relate to their big brother and want to bond with him over his new game.  The costs involved with the prospect of my youngest getting an army of Tau and my daughter to start buying Chaos Marines is more than my bank account can bear at this moment.

So I offered them an alternative, BattleTech.  I have an old basic set from 1993 in the basement.  We blew off the dust and started playing.  When the superbowl was on in the other room my youngest said "I don't even like football, those people could get hurt." and kept playing.

Now I have to track down where to buy the miniatures and hope they are less than Warhammer.

Did you have any alternative plans over superbowl weekend? 

Simplified RPG: Example Character Creation.

So this game is intended to be for kids. Now this is after RPG Kids and not intended to copy from the work of NewbieDM (http://newbiedm.com/).  I encourage you to run out and buy RPG Kids (and save some money for my game when it is done).

This is an example of creating a character in the system.  The idea is to have the bare minimum elements to support standard combat in a RPG.  My RPG style includes much more use of skills than pure crunchy combat, but this game is supposed to be a gateway for a parent or reluctant RPG player to enjoy a game without fully becoming a nerd.

Example Character Creation:
As an example, there once was an adventurer named Yorik.  He was the orphaned farmhand in Berkshireby.  He tended the cows but dreamed of traveling to distant lands and becoming a famous adventurer.  Each day he would save his wages and practice fighting moves in the fields.  He grew stronger each summer until one day he decided to leave the farm in Berkshireby.  He had his life savings with him as he went to town and bought an old wooden buckler shield and a long knife.  With shield and knife in hand he was ready to see where the road would take him.
Yorik had started with a Move of 5, Attack of 0, and Defend of 0.  He rolled a 3 (1d6) in Character Points points to customize his character.  Yorik focused on fighting moves, he did not spend as much time working on his defensive moves or even getting much exercise.  Yorik moves 2 from Move and 1 from Defend to give him +3 in Attack and -1 Defend and 3 Move.

Yorik bought the wooden shield and knife with the 3 cp.  The shield gives him +2 Defend.  The knife might be nearly a sword, but it is old and dull.  The knife has a D of 1.  His character sheet looks like this:

Name: Yorik the farmhand of Berkshireby	Description: Tall, red hair and freckles. Likes to tell stories which start with "One time there was this cow.."
Attack:  +3	Current:  +3
Defend:  -1	Current:  +1
Move:  3	Current:  3
Equipment: Wooden Buckler Shield: +2 Defend Long knife:  D:1

As you can tell, the characters are very, very underpowered.  This is so that even someone min/maxing a starting character, they still can have a fun time playing the game.

I have most of the rules in place at this point and actually am working on getting art for the game.  Once I have the art and layout finalized I hope to make a PDF and post it here.