The Bamfsies Are Announced and You Can Win MORE Prizes!

So, a while back I told you that the Bamfsies were a thing.

Well, the Judges had their say and the people had their say and awards were given to well deserved games. You should totally go check it out.

Hellrazer: Living in Shadows (SAGA/BASH/ICONS)

Here ya go, folks...

Game stats for Rachel Strand, half-vampire hero of HELLRAZER: THE CHRONICLES OF RACHEL STRAND and Tonton Macoute, her first adversary.

Special thanks to Greg Kerner for putting these guys to character sheets. I compiled the PDFs, so if anything got jacked up, you can totally blame me.

Hellrazer BASH version

Hellrazer ICONS version

Hellrazer Marvel SAGA version

Tommy's Top Six and Birthday Blog Giveaway

I reviewed a LOT of games since I opened my blog last year, and I wanted to take a special moment to recognize the six that captured my attention the most, provided that they fit under the following criteria: 1) I had to have reviewed the title on my blog from January 1st through December 17th. Unlike some year end awards, I'm not concerned with actual release dates, but when the books actually made it into my hands. 2) Only one book per company was allowed. This rule came in because one draft of the list had four books by two companies. The Top Six itself is a purely arbitrary number...I like the number six, nothing more.

There were a lot of products that I really enjoyed, that didn't get tagged for a certain reason, and I plan on doing a follow-up with a couple of those, explaining why I didn't choose certain titles.

Without further ado, in alphabetical order:

BASH ULTIMATE EDITION (Basic Action Games)

Why You Should Buy It: I love superheroes. It's part of the reason I write comics...(even though I have yet to do a traditional superhero book, unfortunately). Marvel SAGA is my favorite RPG of all time, flawed though it is...I've read a lot of superhero games since then, but none have captured my imagination in the same way as BASH, and I am hard pressed to think of a superhero game that does as much, with as little work. It has an "equalizer" for characters of multiple power levels on the same team, it provides plenty of options for making characters without the same level of bean counting that you get with Mutants and Masterminds or Champions, and it scales up from gritty to cosmic, all in the main rulebook. It currently holds the distinction of being the only game that I have ever purchased twice, once in PDF format and once in softcover. In fact, if the new version being released through Cubicle 7 is full color, I may go so far as to buy it one more time (and donate my black and white copy to someone). Chris Rutkowsky has made what is, to my mind, one of the best RPGs I have ever read, as it hits pretty much all of my sweet spots without a ton of work. For me, certain other major superhero RPGs are either underwritten, or incredibly overdone to the point of being Too Much Work...but BASH never has that problem. With Vigilance Press and Daring Entertainment coming aboard as third party licensees, I hope that BASH gains the following that I feel it truly deserves.

Buy the PDF at RPGnow, and look for the print version in 2011 from Cubicle 7.

HIGH VALOR (Silverlion Studios/Better Mousetrap Games)

Why You Should Buy It: I love fantasy gaming, but I can't make myself do Dungeons & Dragons anymore. I want epic, high fantasy, not dungeon crawls...and, as you may have guessed, I don't want it to be Too Much Work. High Valor is pretty much rules light, but never goes too far away from being a game. Just because you have three stats (kinda like you do in BASH, actually), and monsters only have one, doesn't mean it's not still a game. I love the mechanic of borrowing back and forth between your pools when you REALLY need to accomplish something, and I really like the fairly freeform nature of Magic and Miracles. I think one thing I love the most is that your experience comes from your Triumphs and Dooms...even epic failures help to define you, as you and your legend grows over time. Be Epic. High Valor wants you to. Don't kill a monster and take its stuff, risk life and limb to destroy an elder troll terrorizing the region, and take its head as a warning to all other foul creatures...and if it happens to rip your eye out? Then your legend is even more epic. The setting is dark, but not TOO dark...providing a growing storm of evil, sure, but you're expected to fight it *and win*. To boot, Tim Kirk seems dead set on making books that stand alone, so if you buy this? All you need is this...plus, the system is incredibly easy to convert to, since the monsters are basically one stat plus flavor text. Now, this isn't a highly tactical combat game...but it is a pretty damn awesome fantasy epic.

Buy the PDF at RPGnow, or the print version at Lulu.

INTERFACE ZERO (Gun Metal Games)

Why You Should Buy It: This is precisely what Savage Worlds settings could (and, IMHO, should) be. I'm not saying that every Savage Setting needs to ape Interface Zero, I'm saying that publishers shouldn't be afraid to make their game. Gun Metal Games does not hesitate to provide you with new Hacking rules, Cyberspace, cybernetics and the single coolest equipment chapter I have read since, well, Pinnacle released a whole book for Deadlands (both the Interface Zero equipment chapter and the Deadlands book - Smith & Robards - are written as catalogs). I'm also a sucker for random tables, as anyone that reads my reviews should know, and so not only does Gun Metal Games provide an adventure generator, but they also provide a random Bounty generator! The crazy part is that as comprehensive as this book is (at 300 pages), there is still a TON of room for development! Psychics will be coming this year, and publisher David Jarvis has been hyping it pretty heavily over on the Savage Worlds forums at www.peginc.com, if you wanna check that out. Also, Gun Metal Games and Silver Gryphon Games have announced that we will be getting an "Interface Zero" version of the latter's Wellstone City...and given the people involved, combined with the Savage Worlds system, I can't feature it not being twelve shades of awesome. In the meantime, get IZ and get acquainted with a world where life is cheap, especially if you were born in a vat (or built from the ground up).

Buy the PDF at RPGNow.

Leverage (Margaret Weis Productions)

Why You Should Buy It: Oh, man, what a year these guys had, and all because of two releases: Smallville and Leverage. Smallville was a GREAT game...but I'm not a fan of the show. Leverage was a GREAT game, and I AM a fan of the show. However, making a faithful adaptation of the show wouldn't have been enough to make the list. And luckily, they did more than that: Sure, you can run the Leverage crew, no problem...and you can build your own crew from the ground up. However, the book walks you through basically every step necessary to set up your world and run your game, including (YES!) random generators for making Jobs for your Crew to take! When I read the quickstart, I was excited, but scared to death: I mean, seriously, how in the heck do you run LEVERAGE as an RPG? For me, it seemed awfully daunting...and then came one of the best GMing chapters I have ever read. At that point, I was mostly just sad not to have the opportunity to run it right now. Great concepts get mangled in translation all the time, but Margaret Weis Productions took this opportunity and knocked it out of the park. Just an amazingly well-written rulebook and a phenomenal translation of the TV show.

Buy the PDF at RPGnow, or order the hardcopy from Margaret Weis Productions.

War of the Dead Chapter One (Daring Entertainment)

Why You Should Buy It: One of the most ambitious projects ever released for Savage Worlds, War of the Dead is a four part, epic campaign beginning on a simple cruise ship and changing the world forever. This is the zombie apocalypse come to Savage Worlds in a way that Zombie Run could never have been. Chapter One is the first thirteen weeks of the campaign, taking your hapless, Novice characters from their life-changing cruise, back to land, including a conflict with a ruthless biker gang and relative safety in one of the remaining refuges left. The world is familiar and filled with inside references to famous zombie creators like George Romero and Robert Kirkman, but most importantly, Lee Szczepanik understands the strengths of the system he is writing for, filling adventures with massive battles against zombie hordes that would have GMs pulling their hair out under many systems. Also, I'm a big fan of how many of the episodes feature random encounter charts, using card draws, specialized for the location and situation. Plus, of the books on this list, the support for War of the Dead absolutely blows the other picks away, with freebie adventures that fill the gap between Chapter One and Chapter Two, as well as one of the coolest sets of paper miniatures I have seen in The Paper Dead, including a printable RV with "anti zombie" attachments! If you like The Walking Dead or Night of the Living Dead, and wanna play something like it, this is it, right here. Chapter Two is in the home stretch now, and has even eclipsed Chapter One in some ways, though it has never failed to live up to the promise of Chapter One, even at its low points, in my opinion. I admit, when this project was first announced, I threw up my shoulders with a resounding "eh"...but going on nearly twenty six installments now (not even counting the free adventures), and Daring Entertainment has produced a Savage Worlds campaign with some amazing promise, as well as a scope rarely seen in this genre (again, The Walking Dead is the closest thing that comes to mind).

Buy the PDF at RPGnow, or order the print version from Cubicle 7.

Wu Xing: The Ninja Crusade (Third Eye Games)

Why You Should Buy It: I like superheroes, high fantasy, zombies, Leverage...I'm not BIG into cyberpunk, but I'll try anything in Savage Worlds. I kinda hate most anime, and I'm just not into oriental mysticism/mythology/history, etc. So why is Wu Xing here? Because I am not into those things and this book just stood out as one of the coolest books I have read in recent memory, perhaps ever. I had no real experience with Third Eye Games before this year, though I did get Apocalypse Prevention Inc. in the Haiti Bundle, but it kind of got lost in the shuffle when I was trying to download and read EVERYTHING. After Eloy Lasanta approached me about the game, I gave it an honest go, and really loved what I read there...so I checked out Wu Xing on the strength of API (which is right up my comfort zone, genre-wise)...what I found was a very cool, over the top, albeit westernized (to the annoyance of some, not me) martial arts fantasy epic.  The production is fairly light in this day and age, but that just means the book is filled with content. Plot hooks are all over the thing, and Third Eye Games doesn't truck in metaplots, meaning that if you want to expand something there and run with it, or answering one of the burning questions, there is no wrong answer and you are not likely to find something completely invalidated by a future book. All of the clans just come alive, and what could easily have been a rigid, "not much else to do" setting is instead loaded with intrigue and plot hooks. Any RPG that can take a genre I pretty much can't stand and make me go "oh, crap, I GOTTA play" is a big winner in my book. Wu Xing is just full of "cool".

Buy the PDF at RPGnow (where Wu Xing is also listed as Print on Demand option for those who have it available) or pick up the print version at Beautiful Brains Books & Games.

And now, the cool part:

These six publishers have pledged to give you, dear readers, a chance to win PDFs of these games, as part of the "Thank you" for reading the blog and the reviews of their fine games. Here are the prizes:

- Three (3) PDF copies of BASH Ultimate Edition (awarded separately) -OR- a Basic Action Games PDF of your choice, if you already own BASH.
- A PDF copy of High Valor.
- A PDF copy of Interface Zero plus a poster-sized PDF of the cover.
- Three (3) PDF copies of the Leverage RPG.
- A complete War of the Dead Chapter One PDF bundle, including the entire War of the Dead Chapter One, The Paper Dead and all of the Freebies released to date, everything you need (except for the Savage Worlds rules) in order to jump into Chapter Two.
- A PDF copy of Wu Xing: The Ninja Crusade.

To enter, simply send me an e-mail to tommyb(a)sstelco(dot)com, with the subject (minus the quotes) "Happy Birthday Blog", listing your order of preference for the prize. Once I have closed entries by 11:59 PM Central Time on January 15th, I will use a randomizer to determine the winners...#1 gets their first choice, #2 gets their first available choice (their first choice if it wasn't taken, second if it was, and so on). If you are wanting a BASH PDF that isn't Ultimate Edition, specify it in the e-mail.

Thank you all so much for reading this blog, thanks to Michael Wolf at Stargazer's World, whose shoutout helped spike my blog traffic immensely over the summer, thank you to the Top Six publishers for the prize support for this giveaway, thank you to every publisher who gave me product to review over this last year, and thank you to Sean Patrick Fannon of RPGnow for allowing me in the affiliate program, which literally allowed me to make it to and from work when I started a new job last summer and otherwise had *nothing* to put in my gas tank.

Next up on the slate: A few products that were exceptional, but why I didn't pick them for the Top Six, reviews of the Squawk RPG as well as Dust Devils Revenged, an overall look back on 2010, some WWE thoughts for old times sake, probably a full on review of Smackdown vs Raw, the Legendary installment of Savage Worlds Characters Are All The Same, the new Supers version of it, and a look at RPGnow's new Print on Demand program (as I was apparently one of the last ones in the pilot program to get my book...despite ordering two hours after it launched).

Thank you, have a Happy New Year, and come back soon!

Tommy

Tommy's Take on BASH Ultimate Edition

I literally purchased this book twice this year. Once in PDF and again, used, in hardcopy. Both times, my timing sucked...the PDF purchase came right before BASHMAN announced the Indy Press Revolution Print + PDF bundle, and the second time came right before BASHMAN announced a new printing with errata.

So, yes, my timing absolutely sucks.

Good thing I dig the game.

BASH Ultimate Edition does a nice job of melding many of the things I like from other games into one nice package. While not quite as freewheeling as an ICONS, it is also nowhere near the mind numbing beancounting of a Mutants & Masterminds.

INTRODUCTION

Pretty much a standard intro chapter, this does introduce some of the changes made from the original BASH, for those that are familiar with it. Most notably, the concept of Energy points was (thankfully) dropped. No tracking of points for powers (unless a character is specifically built that way).

Pretty standard stuff here. The basic mechanic is also introduced here: roll 2d6, multiply by your relevant stat or power, apply the result. If you roll doubles, roll a third die and add it...if it's the same number, repeat until you get a different number. This means that you can score a higher result off of a bunch of 3s than off of rolling a 6 and a 5, for instance. Note: I LOVE "exploding" mechanics, especially in superhero games.

For people that hate doing math in their games, a handy, color coded chart is provided on the back of the book.

CHARACTER CREATION

Every Character has three stats: Brawn, Agility and Mind, ranked from 0 to 5. The GM doesn't so much set the point totals for the characters as he does the campaign. Characters that come in under budget get Hero Points to use in play...characters that come in over budget get Setbacks for the GM to use. Four campaign scales are given, with point totals for those scales plus recommended Stat-Power point spreads. 20 Points is "Mystery Men"...north of 60 and you get into "Cosmic". Taking a Weakness can give you extra character points.

A full chart of all of the powers is present, complete with page numbers to help you skip around as you need.

Characters get skills, split into Physical and Mental skills, and are based off of your Agility and Mind respectively. They can either Every skill gets a speciality, and you can invest multiple slots into a skill as well.

Advantages and Disadvantages are determined on a one for one basis, with many opptionss present. A Versatile her can perform a Power Stunt once per issue without spending a Hero Die. You can be Immortal, or you may have Dumb Luck, which lets you reroll one roll per issue.

Disadvantages include Arch-Enemy, Freak and the very interesting Hidden Powers - meaning that the Narrator picks your powers for you, and you discover them over time.

Once you are all totaled up, figure out the Hero Points and Setbacks, and finish off your character with the details. They call motivation "Mental Malfunction", which kind of annoys me...call me silly, childish and idealistic, but I don't like to look at superheroes are being "damaged". Just knocks some of the shine off of them for me.

PLAYING THE GAME

And here we get into the details of the rules. First off, the author insists that the GM make all rolls in the open, and nothing behind the scenes.

Time is broken down into Pages and Panels rather than rounds and turns, which is meant to evoke a comic book feel...but I don't care for it, personally. I play a lot of different games and I prefer standardized terminology, for the most part.

We get guidelines on situational modifiers, and the game leans heavily towards using grid maps and minis...used to be, this would have been a COMPLETE turn-off for me...and then Savage Worlds changed my worldview on RPGs.

Damage in combat is handled by attackers rolling damage and defenders rolling Soak. If the attacker rolls higher, the difference is applied to character's Hits. Major Heroes and Villains have 100 Hits (but varying levels of defense, meaning not everyone goes down at the same time), while Minions have a less, depending on the specific type.

Hero Points and Setbacks are detailed here, and are pretty simple: Hero Points can be added to actions, Setbacks can be used to take away from them, and they cannot cancel each other out.

Hero Dice (which cost 5 Hero Points) can be used to perform Power Stunts, restore yourself to 20 Hits or suddenly burst in on a scene and a few other feats.

Common weapons are given rules, such as pistols, machine guns, brass knucks, bazookas and two handed swords. A handy chart even breaks down improvised weapons for you.

We get Fire, Falling and Drowning Underwater rules, plus "Extended Checks", a system to resolve a conflict over time (like chases, or trying to pick a lock while facing a time limit.) You get a target number, a time limit, who all can participant and the Complications. Like failing to hit a total 50 in 4 Pages to disarm a bomb, you get BOOM.

There is a Vehicle system, complete with Advantages and Disadvantages for Super Vehicles, as well as about 18 sets of stats for normal and super vehicles. Advantages include neat tricks like ejector seats...while Disadvantages include Open, meaning that you get very little protection from attacks on the vehicle. Headquarters rules follow, with common powers, plus Advantages and Disadvantages as well, like Heaviily Defended or Publicly Known. Five sample HQs are presented as well.

POWERS

Here we get the powers broken down in detail. They are in broader categories and then broken down into individual descriptions. You can modify them further with Power Limitation and Enhancements that adjust costs up and down allow you to customize. There are many combinations that can be built, such as powers with Limited Charges or that cannot be turned off...while Enhancements like Second Nature makes powers that require maintenance to be kept on with no concentration.

The section on Movement Powers includes sidebars on using momentum from super movement to inflict additional damage, or how to use Super Speed to trump another person in combat.

There is even a category on Intense Training Powers, which are essentially martial arts tricks, like hitting a weak spot or two weapon fighting.

I've modeled several of my characters from other games with little difficulty, so pretty much all of your major power needs will be met with the system. The system is in the process of being expanded with the Awesome Powers book which is supposed to add in a random character generation system as well.

NARRATOR'S SECTION

This chapter provides loose guidelines on making up a setting from scratch, or adapting an existing setting. The author also rightly pimps his own Megapolis setting as well, which is due for an Ultimate Edition upgrade.

Some good general adventure advice is provided for setting mysteries (including being prepared for players missing the obvious) as well as putting some thought into framing brawls. Subplots are also encouraged, with a list of common types, as well as suggested rewards for every issue in which a PC deals with their subplots.

This is the part about how I mention that I love random tables. You roll 2d6 on the appropriate table (slums, Downtown/Midtown, Uptown/Suburbs). This gives you a second table to roll on to get a situation.

Some examples: I roll snake eyes on Slums. This means I need to roll a third die, and I get a two, for a total of four for "Routine". Rolling on that chart, I get a seven or "Serious traffic violation"...for the sake of a superhero game, let's call it Road Rage. And there you go, a quick little incident to resolve.

A four on Downtown/Midtown gets Violent Crime. Roll again, get a seven - Mugging. Now we're talking.

Seven on Suburbs is Routine...I roll and get two fives, so I roll again and get a four for fourteen...a cat in a tree!

It's not a full blown adventure generator, but it's not meant to be, either...more of a "crap, now what" kind of thing.

Guidelines on Villians include Villain motivations, Advantages and Disadvantages, as well as Villain Dice which can be used to perform Important Villain Feats like faking their own death.

Minion rules are basically mook rules, which can be abstracted down to allow Heroes to fight whole groups on a single action. Nearly 25 minions are present, not counting the list of animals also provided!

SETTINGS

Ten settings (in broad strokes - Fantasy, Super Teens, Sci-Fi, Iron Age, Cosmic), broken down with recommended reading material, recommended point scale and the like. Some pretty much begin and end there. Others have additional material. Golden Age, for instance, covers WWII vehicles and such (and is getting covered in more detail thanks to Vigilance Press converting their WWII material - which I HIGHLY recommend - to BASH). Fantasy adds some new monsters, as well as Advantages and Disadvantages...and Cosmic adds a whole new slate of Cosmic Powers and a handful of rules tweaks to scale your game up into universe shaking events!

Most impressively is the section on mixing scale...that is, how you take your Street and World Class heroes and have them taking on the Purple Bumpy Chin Guy With The All Powerful Glove without breaking anything.

APPENDIX: HERO & VILLAIN ARCHETYPES BY SCALE

45 pre-built spread out at every scale, from Mystery Men to Street-Level to World Class to Cosmic. And yeah, with many of these, you can look pretty close and see the serial numbers. Mystery Men has Barbarian Warriors and Twin Pistoliers while Street-Level has a Swing Line Skulk and a Brawler. World Class has the Champion of Justice and the Master Crimefighter and Cosmic has The Cosmic Herald and the Harbinger of Doom.

Every single entry includes recommended Advantages and Disadvantages, plus Variations on a Theme - advice on tweaking the powers and stats to stay within the archetype and produce different results. A very useful resource when trying to figure out how to stat out your own guys.

APPENDIX: ALTERNATE GAME MECHANICS

Don't like the 2d6 mechanics? Use cards...or a d12 die pool...or a d10 or d6 die pool...or even Fudge dice. All mechanics that are covered in this section.

Don't like square grids and minis? Here's how to use Hex Maps, Measuring Tape or even "Cinematic Scale" (no maps or minis).

Other optional rules including buying Advantages or Disadvantages instead of doing a one for one with them...a Fame system that harkens back to Marvel FASERIP's Popularity system...and an experience point system (the game, by default, uses no advancement).

It is worth noting: None of these options are just glossed over...in fact, some of them (especially Fame) are incredibly detailed.

Lastly, it is worth noting that the book has an index and table of contents, while the PDF is bookmarked as well as searchable. Finding something should not prove difficult at all. The layout is clear and easy to read, and the present art is a cartoony, DCU Animated-ish style.

A character sheet is included in the back, as well as a "Quick Build Sheet" and the back cover is the handy color coded table that does all of the math for you in the default game mechanic.

CONCLUSION

BASH Ultimate Edition is probably the best superhero rulebook I have ever read. It's scaleable, flexible, provides options without handwaving, is clearly written, easy to look rules up in, and isn't as anal about the points as some games. I own every BASH product in some form or another right now, and I bought this in two formats, as noted in the beginning. The rules cover just about every common issue without becoming bogged down and there are just so many examples, especially in the settings and archetypes chapter.

I got the original BASH in the Haiti bundle and it looked promising, but had some issues (rules wise and layout wise)...you can look at the chronology of the BASH releases and see how Chris Rutkowsky has improved by leaps and bounds with each release.

BASH UE is the closest I have come to considering mothballing Marvel SAGA, and for those that know me, I'm not sure I can give a higher compliment.