What were your best RPG purchases (or tabletop game or RPG related stuff) from stuff published in 2016 that would be a great present for the holidays?

AKA, what came out this year that you really enjoyed?

And is there a RPG that uses a dreidel as a randomizer?

I'm posting this thread in adverts because we're pimping products, and this would be a prefect thread for a truly wondrous publisher to announce a special holiday deep discount just for theRPGsite members...

Here's some nice holiday specials from Precis Intermedia, including the all-new Bloodshadows 3E, RPGPundit's Lords of Olympus, Tim Kirk's High Valor, Clash's High Strung, and the Amazing 8in1 Dice.

http://rpg.deals/xmas

Very cool Brett!!

I've heard good stuff about High Valor, but I have never played.

Didn't Tim Kirk post here as Silverlion? If so, ask him to pimp High Valor over here again.

Godbound is something I knew was going to be good but totally blew me away. Don't forget Sixteen Sorrows which is a system-free antagonist generator.

Mage: the Awakening 2e is a new edition of a game I already love.

Lairs & Encounters for ACKS is a great resource I'm looking forward to use. Also loved the Auran Empire Primer freebie. And Sinister Stone of Sakkara reads like a more Conanesque take on Keep on the Borderlands.

Savage Rifts I'm holding out on passing judgment on, until it's had its turn at the game table.

Last but not least, Near Space is a brief and affordable supplement that I've wanted for years: a Traveller-style map with Earth at the center and the closest stars strewn around, like a canvas for the consistency-minded enterprising ref.

Quote from: Spinachcat;934977Very cool Brett!!

I've heard good stuff about High Valor, but I have never played.

Didn't Tim Kirk post here as Silverlion? If so, ask him to pimp High Valor over here again.

Tim lived in the deep ass-end of Texas, I think he may have been Bone Tomahawked.

Quote from: Spinachcat;934977Didn't Tim Kirk post here as Silverlion? If so, ask him to pimp High Valor over here again.

I'm sure he'll be around.

Quote from: Spinachcat;934977Very cool Brett!!

I've heard good stuff about High Valor, but I have never played.

Didn't Tim Kirk post here as Silverlion? If so, ask him to pimp High Valor over here again.

Yes. I used to post here regularly, but don't anymore. So what would you like to know? I can start a new thread if you'd like in detail.

The basics are this: High Valor is a fantasy world passing through its own Dark Age, as it approaches the end of that time things sort of begin falling apart threatening the strides they've made. Certain parts of the greater Free Kingdoms, are threatening to break off, monsters (collectively called Fyrlings) have always been there lurking in the dark places. Now however the wall, sometimes misnamed a gate known as Daralgul has fallen.

Behind it are the nations ruled by the Fane-Lords, demons with physical bodies that have ruled their Empire for thousands of years, are free to call up their armies and own dark forces to invade by stealth, or force. Their first attempt failed because of a  tiny force led by a single man, who fell turning back the first coming tide of terrors.

Its a fantasy game built on folklore, where between the precious cities of men there are places you do not go if you want to live. Though mankind (which includes, Elves, Dwarves, Sidhain*, and Fomoradgh*) is rousing to take a stand. Both to hold the Free Kingdoms together and to stop the growing evil that slithers like shadows back into their part of the world.)  

It is a game where your character start out heroic, and reasonably powerful (compared to your average peasant, even if peasant born themselves.) Your characters may grow from there, building heroic legacies in their actions--and some may choose to die to turn back the darkness (the game rewards suffering failures, as well as success with its experience system of Triumphs and Dooms. Though death is final, the legend you make should impact the world.) I didn't want a game that told you here is this world and stuff going on and you can't really add anything because its a 400 page tome where everything is detailed. Its a sleek bit of background GM's are expected to use or toss as needed to create epic play between them and the players.


*Sidhain are humans who suffer a curse due to ancient powerful sorcery channeled through their ancestors to forge Daralgul. They may are considered changelings by some, but they're still human. They just have some strange boon (Like being naturally better at magic, or being long lived) and tend to have terrible banes (like having a misshapen limb that resembles a wolf's paw, or having fangs and a serpent's tongue.)

Fomoradgh: Basically Fyrlings who changed sides centuries ago. They're related to Trolls, but tend to be more at home in wetlands (marshes, swamps, lakesides.) They're beastmen of a sort.  



The game is inspired by older folklore, Celtic, Norse, Frankish, and Saxon myths. Beowulf for example is one of its chief inspirations as is Charlemagne's history.

A friend saw Skyrim from the Elder Scrolls game, and basically freaked because in his opinion it very much looks and feels (in tone not mechanics) like High Valor.

Now mechanically the game uses three dice pools (small roll-and-keep the best style pools) representing your characters resources in Will, Faith, or Valor. Feats (big tasks) are rolled from the most appropriate pool for the action, and then two traits (players can create these or use the many examples I provided) who have values from Lesser (+2) to Mythic (+10) are added together and then to the die roll. Beat the target number required and you succeed, and it can be small: I cut that guys arm deeply to slow him down) to big "I weave my way through the five bandits before me slashing the first through the throat, stabbing the second, then..... and so on, but the bigger and wider the task the higher the difficulty (a short chart is included on the PC sheet) The game doesn't fiddle with those Feat numbers either--the GM sets how hard he wants it to be once, taking into account whatever he thinks matters to determine that, but no endless modifiers to stack. Just pick the closest and go. Ties to the target number have special rules, but I am trying to keep this short.

The game also lets you use pep talks ( "You have to do this, your the only one who can take down that troll!") Prayers: "I ask the Martyr to aid you." and other similar things to let other players lend you dice from their pools, shifting the odds upwards in your favor if you accept the die.

Magic exists and takes time and strange rituals and components or very bad things happen. Alternately, you can weaken the fallout from casting by making up your own spell rhyme, or dramatic prose for the spell--and there is always at least some small fallout. Milk curdles, your food turns to stone, up to major things like magic consuming your body in a pillar of flame.

Faith, allows prayers above, but also Blessings and Miracles. You can ask divine forces for aid. (The game uses a somewhat splintered early analog to Christianity because I wanted it to. )


That's the short form.


The revised edition fixes some editing mistakes, adds some new art, and makes all the fonts readable. (The original fonts were my choice, filtered to the layout person and they turned out to be less readable than I thought. Totally my mistake.)

Are the ideas in it new? No. Are they my ideas for fantasy gaming? Yes. (Hey I like BECMI D&D and a few dozen other fantasy games) its just I wanted my take on fantasy to be out there.

Its also a game whose lore and mechanics aren't so heavy they're going to get in the way of creating something that is hopefully fun and epic for those who pick it up.

Damn. Tim, can I use that post for my blog (guest poster )?

Quote from: brettmb;935129Damn. Tim, can I use that post for my blog (guest poster )?

Sure. Its long and rambling like most of my blog stuff anyway

Do you have any links to sample characters or examples of play for High Valor?

Also, did you publish any adventures for it?

Hi Spinachcat!

I've released this year eight StarCluster 4 games. Four older games re-released with the new system - SC4 - Cold Space, SC4 - FTL Now, SC4 - Sweet Chariot, and SC4 - the Necklace; and four brand new games - SC4 - Zero Stage (Reviewed this last weekend by Pundit), SC4 - Dark Orbital, SC4 - Free, and SC4 - Out of the Ruins. I've also released a lot of supplemental material for the game - five Toolboxes - focused collections of tools to do certain things - two Magazines - collections of short articles and essays of in-game subjects - and two Classic Setting books - the old StarCluster 2 setting and the aliens from that setting.

-clash

Quote from: Spinachcat;935143Do you have any links to sample characters or examples of play for High Valor?

Also, did you publish any adventures for it?

I did have an example of play but its gotten lost in attempted web page redesign (needed badly.) As for adventures, sadly no. I never got around to doing any. I've got notes for two or three, but really have a hard time writing these days (I juggle multiple projects badly it seems.)

Ah here it is--the unedited version though so forgive me my mistakes.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X3lP2Xa5OA7q5CQ9ceUwJwqmHym6WOEfjJoSwqkTklY/edit?usp=sharing