Tommy's Top Six of 2013 and Birthday Blog Giveaway

As you will recall, my blog very nearly didn't make it through the year after a horrible computer crash last January. Luckily, I was able to acquire a new computer and return to work. Unfortunately, I hit a record low on blog output, though I did have six reviews that particularly stood out to me, and - as is tradition - the first day of the year (and the fourth anniversary of my blog's founding) will be used to recognize those six games.

First, the rules: The Top Six can only feature one product per publisher. Second, my primary exposure, as well as the resulting review, had to have happened over the last year (from December 1st to December 1st). So if I had a product sitting on a my bookshelf that I thumbed through once, put down, and finally realized how great it was later? It qualifies. Actual publication date is irrelevant to me. Finally, I had to have had no involvement in the production of the book.

For those new to the party:
Tommy's Top Six 2010
Tommy's Top Six 2011
Tommy's Top Six 2012

And now, the Top Six, in alphabetical order.

Dragon Age Set 1 (Green Ronin)

Why You should Buy It: A great introductory RPG, I used it for exactly that purpose earlier this year, shortly after watching the now infamous Dragon Age Tabletop video. The boxed set is affordable, with sweet production values and a fast character creation system that provides a good amount of variety in character creation, as well as a cool stunt system that people mention trying to adapt to Savage Worlds about every couple of months. It gets even better when you add in Set 2 (the player aids are a thing of beauty when combined with the stunt system), and set 3 is presumably out later this year (it's been in open playtest for a while, and I kind of imagine that it is being set up now to be released at or near Dragon Age III, for synergy's sake). A fun fantasy RPG with the cinematic swings you get from later versions of D&D, combined with the simplicity on par with Advanced D&D. And if you find that it's been simplified a tad too much, the wonderful blog Dragon Age Oracle has you covered with the Esoterica of Thedas.

Dresden Files: Your Story (Evil Hat Games)

Why You Should Buy It: It is the first Fate RPG that ever SCREAMED "Run me!". This was helped out, noOur World in order to use Your Story, especially if you are going to decouple your game from Dresden's Chicago, though it certainly helps.
doubt, by the fact that I discovered the Dresden Files books last summer and completely and totally fell in love. The magic system covers all of the cool and fun intricacies of Dresden Files magic, and having knowledge of Dresden Files to compare the Fate writeups with did a wonderful job of helping me wrap my head around the intricacies of Fate, which has led to me taking a second look at other Fate books I had dismissed in the past, as well as looking closer at new Fate books. The setting is a great Kitchen Sink urban fantasy setting and, since it's all told from Harry Dresden's perspective, there's a lot of room for flexibility (due to unreliable narrator and lack of knowledge and so forth). The book itself is a thing of beauty, with great production values and the best "informal" writing I've read in an RPG since the Buffy and Angel RPGs. Despite being a two book series, you don't NEED

Heaven's Shadow (Bedroom Wall Press)

Why You Should Buy It: Easily the most unique product in my Top Six, Heaven's Shadow is lean, mean, self-published RPG using a streamlined version of the D6 system to power a game about assassins for Heaven who are waging a war against the demonic Nephilim who are walking amongst humanity. The price has gone up since the game's release, but I still recommend this without reservation...how many RPGs let you play assassins working for God, planning out assassinations against demonic entities wearing human faces...oh, and you can use Faith to enact Miracles (as simple as vanishing from sight, to plunging a building into darkness, to raising the dead). It's cool. Yeah, it's 84 pages, but it's no frills at all, meaning it is all gameable content. As a guy who ISN'T a huge fan of the D6 system (I generally find it to be overrated), this book makes great use of Mini Six. The first two releases on this list are fairly big name items, but products like Heaven's Shadow are a big part of the reason why I keep doing this blog: To make sure you know about the games you are missing out on.

Monster of the Week (Generic Games)

Why You Should Buy It: I have never played or read Apocalypse World, but it brought us tremulus, which
has been a huge hit for me and my group. Monster of the Week is another fruit off of the Apocalypse World tree, emulating things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hellboy, Blade, Supernatural and even X-Files, all in the Apocalypse World "fiction first" style. The Playbooks cover a LOT of ground in the genre, especially with the additional Playbooks that have been released. We've had fun with the World Engine thus far, and Monster of the Week is a pretty kick-ass rendition of that Engine, geared towards...um...kicking monster butt. It can be set up for one shots, but where it is really going to shine is in a campaign, as your Monster Hunter's Luck runs out and his story comes to an end (maybe he hangs up his Hellfire Shotgun once and for all...or maybe he dives through a portal to another dimension in order to seal it from the other side). Can't you just feel the drama now?

Sentinels of the Multiverse (Greater Than Games)

Why You Should Buy It: I wrestled long and hard with this one, because it would be the first non-RPG to make this list, but at the end of the day, I would be lying if I didn't put it on here. Why? Because I have logged a ton of hours with this game, I have snapped up the expansions for it, and I will continue to log tons of hours with this game. It is the most fun I have ever had with a card game. It is not uncommon for a rough day at work to be followed up by Netflix and Sentinels of the Multiverse for a little combo I like to call "Geek Solitaire". I only bought it because of the hoopla surrounding the DC Deck Building Game and Marvel Legendary, both of which are fine games in their own right, but both of which pale next to Sentinels of the Multiverse. Just a great, great game, and the expansions (Rook City, Infernal Relics and Shattered Timelines) just make it better. I'm not saying it's not possible to make a better superhero board or card game, but I am saying I haven't seen it yet, and Greater Than Games set a pretty big bar to clear.

Volant - Kingdoms of Air and Stone (Flying Mice Games)

Why You Should Buy It: Like fantasy, but you're tired of the same old, same old? Volant has a solution for
you: It places the entire setting on flying stone kingdoms, with characters riding airships and giant birds as their primary methods of transportation. It gets even better as dogfighting rules are included (not surprising, given some of the author's previous games), and no less than four resolution methods are provided, from gritty to cinematic to turning the game into one of player negotiation. It's not really an "out of the box" game, but Volant includes tools for you to customize your own Volant setting for your adventures. It's the best StarCluster game yet, both in concept and implementation, in my opinion, and it's well worth checking out, especially for "Do It Yourself" gamers and folks who like to play around with fun subsystems (like Volant's Alchemy system).


As is customary, I like to give all of you present for my blog's birthday...as we start the fifth year of this blog's existence, let's get on with the Birthday Blog Giveaway!

Five of the selected publishers were kind enough and generous enough to allow me to offer PDFs of their books as prizes this year, as a way to let me once again say THANK YOU to everyone reading this blog!

From now until 12:01 AM, January 15th, if you email me (tommybrownell(a)gmail(dot)com) with the subject "2013 Top Six" and your choice, in order, of the products you would like to win, you will be entered in the random drawing I'll hold. The first person selected will win their first choice, the second person selected will then win THEIR first choice, unless that choice has already been taken, and so on until all four prizes have been awarded. The winners will be notified via email, and the publishers will be contacted to deliver the electronic prizes to the winners! Here are the prizes:

- One (1) PDF of Dragon Age Set 1
- One (1) PDF of Dresden Files: Our Story.
- One (1) PDF of Heaven's Shadow
- One (1) PDF of Monster of the Week
- One (1) PDF of Volant - Kingdoms of Air and Stone

Good luck to anyone that enters, thank you to the wonderful publishers for providing prize support, and thanks again to everyone that is still reading this blog. Hopefully 2014 is a much bigger and better year for The Most Unread Blog on the Internet. Ever.!

Tommy

Tommy's Take on Monster of the Week

I have no problem with the Apocalypse World-inspired play, as noted by my various tremulus posts. Monster of the Week is an Apocalypse World-inspired RPG designed to emulate Badasses Who Kick Monster Butts, ala Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hellboy, The Winchesters from Supernatural and so on.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: It's 201 pages and only $10 in PDF at RPGNow. It's entirely front-facing, meaning the players do all of the rolling. They have "Moves" that they do, and when doing so, they roll 2d6 plus a stat. A 10 or better is a complete success. 7-9 is a success with a hitch. 6 or less is a failure. As with all "World" type games, everyone selects a Playbook that they then customize, but there is only meant to be one of each Playbook in the game (one Chosen, one Flake, one Mundane, one Spooky, and so on). If one dies, or leaves the game, you move on to another unused Playbook, and so on.

You can put the "team" together, emulating set-ups like Buffy and the Scooby Gang, The Winchesters, government monster hunters and so on.

The basic maneuvers characters get include Act Under Pressure, Kick Some Ass, Protect Someone, Investigate a Mystery and Use Magic. The ratings used are Cool, Tough, Charm, Sharp and Weird, and are generally ranked from -1 to +3. At the start of the mystery, two Ratings are highlighted (one by the player and one by the Keeper)...using those ratings nets you experience points regardless of success or failure.

Once the characters are selected, everyone uses a couple of History tags from their Playbook to make sure they are linked to other characters. For instance, The Chosen and The Monstrous might be rivals who came to a working arrangement, The Monstrous might have lost control and nearly killed The Mundane, but backed off and the Mundane might have been introduced to monsters by The Chosen.

Basically everything is done by performing moves. If you Act Under Pressure, for instance, on a 10 or better, you succeed at what you are doing, and on a 6 or worse, you fail. 7-9, you either pay a cost, make a hard choice or accept a worse outcome. If you are trying to kick ass, on a 6 or less, you get your ass kicked. On a 7-9, you swap damage with the opponent and on a 10 or better, you inflict damage and pick an additional effect (like taking less harm). Characters can even be raised from the dead using "Big Magic".

The Playbooks include:

The Chosen - Who has a destiny and will encounter it. The Chosen can also be a combat beast.

The Expert - Isn't the frontline fighter, but the one that knows about the things the group's going to fight.

The Flake - Kind of like a Mulder.

The Initiate - Part of an order pledged to fight evil.

The Monstrous - A Monster fighting for the good guys, like a vampire or a werewolf or a demon.

The Mundane - A Xander-type that serves as the pillar for the Big Damn Heroes and occasionally lucks into stuff.

The Professional - The 9 to 5, badass monster hunters.

The Spooky - Like psychics and witches.

The Wronged - Think Dean Winchester. Someone with something to avenge.

As Hunters run out of Luck, they start to reach the end of their story, either because they die or because they bow out.

You can advance your characters as you go, like gaining a move from your Playbook, gaining a move from ANOTHER Playbook, gaining an Ally, gaining a Haven or taking a Rating improvement from your Playbook. Every five advances, however, give you bigger options, like removing spent Luck, adding a second Hunter (that you can play alongside your first, or you can swap around troupe-style), or even change your Hunter to a new type! (Maybe your Spooky loses her powers and becomes Mundane, or your Expert has his true love murdered and becomes Wronged.)

The GM section does a nice job of helping you set up the villain arcs, whether you want to do a "Rising Evil" type story, hunting a nemesis, the looming apocalypse, etc. That sorta thing. There's also advice on setting up your smaller mysteries (it IS "Monster of the Week"), and even one shot games (give them less Luck and an extra advance or two). One thing you shouldn't do is be an antagonistic "Killer GM". The advice in the book specifically says to "Be a fan of the hunters"...which doesn't mean it all has to be hunky-dory and they succeed at everything all the time, it just means that you don't set out to completely hose them. Let them be awesome at what they do, let failure happen when it happens.

A handful of generic monster types are included, but a bigger bestiary would have been appreciated. The *World games are utterly hackable, so there's a chapter on making your own Playbooks in case your favorite monster hunting archetype isn't represented, or maybe you're not a fan of The Flake representing a Mulder.

WHAT WORKS: The game closest to this that I have played is tremulus, and readers of the blog know I'm a big fan of that game (and I became a bigger fan after playing it with a group of three). The "Monster of the Week" genre is awesome (I love me some Buffy, Angel, Sleepy Hollow, Supernatural, etc), and this game does a nice job of tackling the "Kick the Monsters in the Teeth" approach that tremulus does not (by design). Most of your major archetypes are covered in the initial Playbooks, and other books since then have been released (like The Exile, which is spot on for Sleepy Hollow's Ichabod Crane, or Summoned, which does a fine Hellboy).

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: I would have liked a few more monsters, maybe, though monsters are defined as much by their motivations as they are their stats, and the three monster examples are probably broad enough to give you an idea how to make your own. The "no prep" approach can be exhausting at times, if you aren't used to thinking on your feet (though players who are on board with the genre conventions and narrative flow can help that immensely). Games like this always seem like they could extra clarity, as well. I'm not a big booster of the idea of "limited edition Playbooks", which is a movement that has gained traction in the World Engine community (though I believe I have been lucky enough to get all of the available playbooks for MotW). Lastly, I am really not a big fan of the art. Just doesn't work for me.

CONCLUSION: This is actually on top of the "Would Love To Run" list for me, especially after my two games of tremulus. We tend to fall into "Action Hero" mode in our games, and Monster of the Week is less likely to punish you for that, so I think it would be a good fit for that. Clarity is an issue in the book (when everyone is naming a history tag for the other Hunters, I wasn't 100% sure how you reconcile them - do both apply? Do the players pick the one they like best? Do you just work it out? Because it's pretty easy to get conflicting results, or seems like it would be...the author clarified that you do, in fact, take both options and work it out). In short, the game engine is a blast, especially if your players are bought in on the "Fiction First" approach, and it does a good, if not perfect, job of genre emulation (Angel and Oz, for instance, would both fall under The Monstrous, making it impossible to have them both in a group at the same time). If you wanna do a Buffy/Blade/Hellboy/Sleepy Hollow/Supernatural/X-Files mash-up and you haven't decided on a system yet, this would be a very good choice.