RPGnet Newsletter #89

RPGnet Newsletter #89 February 28, 2016 Kickstarter Spotlight This week's Kickstarter Spotlight features a new RPG with an old pedigree but an innovative approach. The folks at Lagging Dice LLC just launched their Kickstarter campaign for [Gatekeepers,]( a classic fantasy RPG with an interesting, card-based character creation system. Rather than reading a description of those mechanics here, a 23-page rules preview is available at the campaign site: even if you don't think you're looking for a new fantasy game, it's worth your time to check them out just to see some new mechanics at issue. As always, we reached out to the campaign creator with a few questions about their game. Ilya Bossov of Lagging Dice LLC was kind enough to answer a few questions. We've lightly edited Mr. Bossov's answers for length and formatting, but they are otherwise untouched. Newsletter: You mention on the campaign page that the game is designed to be very low prep for the GM. Can you give a little insight into how encounter building works? Lagging Dice: There's one page about building encounters because it's dirt simple. By way of example, a low-level campaign party might have 5 players with 6 cards each, for a total of 30. This gives the gamemaster about 30 points worth of enemies to throw at them. Each card is 1 point, each additional mini in a group is 1 point. You draft cards and place minis until you're out of points. You might end up with something like a group of 5 cavalryman fairies riding bears that share 3 cards (7 points) a big bad boss with 7 cards (14 points, he costs double because he has more cards than any of the players), and a pair of support spellcasters worth 4 and 5 points with as many cards. Most of the time, as a game master, you don't even need to count the points, just eyeball as you draft the cards, you draw a few less for less challenging and more for more challenging. The different decks are color-coded: black skill deck contains defensive icons, red strike deck contains martial arts maneuvers and offensive icons, blue spell deck contains spells, yellow item deck contains items that increase range or blast area of attacks, and so on. If the game master wants/needs specific cards (the boss must be human and be an assassin with a crossbow), they can find them easily enough. The whole process take a minute or two. Newsletter: Many gamers prefer to use the 'theater of the mind' for combat encounters instead of minis and maps. From the rules PDF, it seems that minis and maps are required for Gatekeepers. Is that the case? If so, can you comment on that game design decision? Lagging Dice: This is such a huge soap box for me. I love narrative-focused games that came out recently: I backed Night Witches, I played the hell out of Dungeon World, and I even wrote my own Dungeon World hack for Shadowrun. I also bought Apocalypse World 2nd edition yesterday - I'm a sucker for hardcover books. However, my wife didn't like them as much as I did. When questioned, she had a hard time explaining it, but the gist of it is that these games turned out "too theatery" and "not gamy enough". So I took the board game prototype I've been working on with a charming name of 'Feyhaven Tavern Brawl' at the time and turned it into a full on RPG, with game mechanics that can be learned, mastered, and twisted in surprising ways. Years of iterations later, Gatekeepers came out to a kickstarter near you. You don't have to use minis, but you'll want to have at least a map with some coins or gummy bears or what have you. There are alternative rules for using square grids, hex grids or no grids at all, using rulers and templates instead, like war games. Since the rules are fast enough to handle armies, there are optional rules for larger engagements. From a game master's perspective, there's a different philosophy on running this show. There is no fudging or cheating in Gatekeepers. As a game master you have a little bit of leeway in how difficult an encounter is, and you're allowed to make moves that are suboptimal but true to roleplay of a particular NPC, but that's it. There is no game master screen. Players see all the stats on your guys so they can plan their defeat. From the moment you're done generating the encounter, the game plays like a board game. Even our stealth system doesn't let anyone cheat. What's the big deal? It makes it more fun to run as a game master, as it turns out, it's less of a job and more of a game. Players are playing an RPG, you're playing an RTS. You're not just a puppet master, you get to be more of a commander. Also, the combat is fast and deadly, so in a four hour session you'd get to fight a couple encounters that last about 30 min each, and you still have 3 hours to roleplay, scheme and intrigue to everyone's heart's content, building up to the next encounter. Fights in some RPGs tend to drag past the point of boredom and having a "tight" combat system is a cure for that. Newsletter: This is Lagging Dice's first Kickstarter, but you mention that you've had the opportunity to collaborate on others. Can you speak to what Kickstarter campaigns those were? What lessons did you learn from them? Lagging Dice: I did artwork for a kickstarter that had an awesome product (dry-erasable interlocking hex and square grid tiles) from an otherwise unknown company. While the product was great, and the kickstarter succeeded, the company discontinued the product because the shipping cost put them in debt, and they lost money. Nevertheless everyone got their stuff. So yeah, shipping charges bite and are not to be underestimated, esp. for heavy boxes, and it's really hard for an indie company to get noticed out there, even in a tiny market like roleplaying games and their supplements. [Gatekeepers]( may not be for every gamer, but it is the product of a very definitive design philosophy and seems to be a well-considered approach at executing that philosophy. The campaign runs until March 25: head over and check it out. New Columns RPGnet had a busy week on the Columns front, which started with a new Fuzzy Thinking from Christopher Cecil: ["Getting the Band Back Together."]( Next, Jonathan Hicks of Observations From A Gamer's Chair returned with some very useful advice in ["Eight Game Etiquette Tips."]( Fred Furtado of Superseeds continued his re-work of the Wild Cards universe in ["Carioca Cards: Reshuffle, Part 4."]( And, Kirk Johnson-Weider, the Lawful GM discussed how ["Real Life Factors"]( could affect the use of politics in your game. New Reviews All three of last week's reviews were brought to us by prolific RPGnet reviewer Antonios S. Antonios kicked the week off by looking at two products for the Rocket Age RPG line from Cubicle 7 Entertainment. First was the core book itself: ["Rocket Age,"]( which succeeds in its attempt to bring a fun, retro sci-fi environment with abstractions, exaggerations and an unapologetic old-style flair, but unfortunately also comes along with a few mechanical glitches. Next was the sourcebook ["Heroes Of The Solar System,"]( which is a must-have expansion to the material in the core book. Antonios also continued his look at the Freebooter's Fate miniatures line with a review of ["Tales of Longfall #3: BIG Trouble,"]( which introduces rules for larger sized characters and miniatures to the game. Sign Off Have a good week, everyone. - Iustum Newsletter Editor --------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this email for {NAME} @ RPGnet ({EMAIL}). 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