Tommy's Take on Army of Darkness

So I recently started watching Ash vs Evil Dead thanks to Netflix DVD, and it took my mind back to another older RPG: Army of Darkness by Eden Studios, powered by the Cinematic Unisystem.

Hail to the King, baby.

Tommy's Take on Buffy the Vampire Slayer Revised Corebook

No, a new Buffy RPG didn't come out. This is the one that came out...holy crap...eleven years ago, from Eden Studios. This is not an old review, though. Yes, this is a brand new review of an eleven year old RPG that I got when it was brand new.

Why?

Because it's badass, and you can still get copies for cover price on Amazon even though it's out of print. You can also get the PDF for $20 at RPGNow. (Disclaimer: That last one was an Affiliate link.)

#RPGaDay Day 7: Favorite Free RPG

Day 7 of #RPGaDay is "Favorite Free RPG". Now, my favorite free RPG is one I bought twice, actually, once in softcover and once in hardcover. While there are some great free (and that includes Pay What You Want) RPGs out there, I have to give the nod to CJ Carella's WitchCraft, which had a short stint as my favorite game until the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG came along with the Cinematic Unisystem.

Witchcraft (especially with the Mystery and Abomination codices) was just about everything I liked about The World of Darkness with none of the stuff that I hated. While I can't really get excited about Classic Unisystem now (Cinematic Unisystem ruined Classic for me), there is still an amazing amount of content in those three books. Fun fact: I pitched a faction book for The Fellowship of Judas, but was turned down (mostly because I had no idea what the Hell I was doing at the time).

Witchcraft is available for free at RPGNow, so check it out.

While you are there, get Heaven's Shadow and Fate Core, which would be the other two games on my list (mostly trumped by Witchcraft because I have actually ran Witchcraft before).

Mass Combat for D&D 5th Edition

So, I like D&D 5th Edition. Quite a bit, actually. However, it's not perfect, and it does have one glaring hole that I love to put in my games these days: Mass combat.

I love Mass Combat. I love the idea of big army fights, but abstracted down to manageable levels, rather than putting the RPG session on hold to play a miniatures wargame. I love this concept so much that I managed to work mass combat scenes into my last two campaigns (Necessary Evil and Deadlands Reloaded). Mass Combat rules were one of those things I really hoped would be in the 5e DMG, but was not present, unfortunately...so when I was staring at a scenario that could easily break out into mass combat (Episode 6 of Hoard of the Dragon Queen), and the DMG wasn't a huge amount of help in this case, I put my thinking cap on...and went back to what had worked so well in the past:

I dug out Savage Worlds.

No, I didn't suddenly convert the game over to Savage Worlds. I love Savage Worlds, and I'll get back to it soon enough, but there's more than a few things that it does that has, and can, help me in D&D5e.

Like Mass Combat.

Unfortunately, Wounds and Bennies and Knowledge (Battle) don't immediately get along with D&D. I was looking at a potentially uphill battle...until I remembered that Shane Hensley had applied those same rules to a system that didn't have a leadership-style tactical skill, and the system also had a hit point system.

And so I dug out Army of Darkness from Eden Studios, written by Shane Hensley and featuring an adapted Savage Worlds Mass Combat system...and I went to work with the two books in hand, as well as the D&D books, and kitbashed in the following system (which got a playthrough Saturday night, and went pretty well):

D&D 5e Mass Combat Rules

Adapted from Savage Worlds and Army of Darkness rules by Shane Hensley

AetherCon - You Going?

Grab your virtual dice bags folks and mark down November 16-18, 2012 on your calendar, as the AetherCon Online RPG Convention is coming to your computer! Best of all, it’s FREE!

We will be featuring tabletop RPGs of all types throughout the weekend, highlighted by four three-day tournaments of Pathfinder Call of Cthulhu, Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, and Shadowrun. Game tables will be run on the powerful, yet easy to use, Roll20 browser-based virtual tabletop. Learn more with the Roll20 tutorials and the Roll20 Live Stream.

Grab your virtual dice bags folks and mark down November 16-18, 2012 on your calendar, the AetherCon Online RPG Convention is coming to your computer. 

We will be featuring tabletop RPGs of all types throughout the weekend highlighted by four three day tournaments of Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, Savage Worlds, and Shadowrun.

Additionally vendors, industry guests, and artists are also in our plans. We will be releasing free downloadable wallpapers throughout the months leading up to the con. 

Members of the Artists Enclave currently include Paul Abrams (TSR, Shadowrun); Alex E. Alonso Bravo (DC Comics, Pixar, AEG); Brent Chumley (AEG); John L Kaufmann (Shadowrun); Eric Lofgren; (Paizo, White Wolf, Mongoose Publishing), Chris Malidore (Fantasy Flight Games, PEG), Patrick McAvoy (WotC, AEG, Fantasy Flight Games), Brad McDevitt (Chaosium, CGL, Battlefield Press), Jesse Mead (Fantasy Flight Games), Aaron B. Miller (WotC, AEG, Open Design), and Stanley Morrison (AEG) among others.

Additionally, to date game publishers confirmed as taking part in AetherCon either through prize support, supplying guests, or taking a vendors booth include: 

Battlefield Press, Catalyst Game Labs, Chaosium, Chronicles of the Void, Flying Buffalo Inc., Immersion Studios, Imperfekt Industrees, Kenzer and Company, Paizo, Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Stardust Publications, Sundered Epoch and The Design Mechanism.

Confirmed guests to date are Wedge Smith and Doug Bush (Chronicles of the Void), James Sutter (Paizo),  Steven ‘Bull’ Ratkovich (CGL), and Lawrence Whittaker and Pete Nash (The Design Mechanism).

Confirmed games to date include:

All Flesh Must Be Eaten

A Thousand and One Nights

Atomic Highway

Call of Cthulhu

Castles & Crusades

Dark Heresy

Dragon Age

Eclipse Phase

Fantasy Craft

Labyrinth Lord

Legend of the Five Rings

Leverage

Mouse Guard

Mutants & Masterminds

Paranoia

Pathfinder

Pathfinder Society

RIFTs

Savage Worlds

Serenity

Shadowrun

Time Lord

Star Wars WEG D6

Swords and Wizardry

and more are on the way.

If you’d like to play in a game use our Player Pre-Registration Tool.

If you’d like to run a game use our  GM Pre-Registration Tool.

If  you don’t see your game in our lineup, would like to lend a hand, or need to inquire for any other reason, feel free to use our Contact Us page to do so.

Be sure to visit our websites and show your support for AetherCon via Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.

Website:  http://www.aethercon.com/

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/AetherConRPG

Twitter:  http://twitter.com/#!/AetherCon

Google+:  http://www.gplus.to/aethercon

I don't know for sure how much participation I'll personally be able to have with AetherCon, but I've been playing around with Roll20 and it seems pretty great...and, for someone like me who lives in the middle of nowhere, this just sounds like an awesome idea, and I hope it turns out to be huge.