Reflections on High Valor

Six years ago, I had my view on gaming flipped on its head. I was at the end of a two-year 4e D&D campaign; one that saw decks of power cards, miniatures, three different desktop applications, and combat encounters that lasted entire evenings. It was clear that, while we had a blast, that the days of such bloated systems were in need of ending. We needed something lighter, more elegant, and easier to run in the fewer hours we had. Continue reading

Ramblings on Shadowrun: Anarchy

Well, it happened.
Catalyst Game Labs released **Shadowrun: Anarchy, ** an “alternate rules set” that aims at letting players run the shadows of the Sixth World in a more story-driven rules set.

If you’re looking for a solid, full review of Anarchy I highly recommend the Casting Shadows review.  Otherwise, I’m just going to sit here and gush fanboy for a moment…

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Hacking WR&M to Fate’s Wheel

Today’s post isn’t so much an add-on to **CarPG **as it is a brainstorm on a system hack for _Warrior, Rogue & Mage— _converting it to the d10 or Fate’s Wheel mechanic that CarPG uses. The ease of cross-pollination between the two is not a coincidence since most of the games we crank out here at The ChaosGrenade are either based on the WyRM System or grew from it. The goal of this blog post is to present a variant resolution mechanic for WR&M while allowing the character creation process to remain intact with minimal edits or conversions. Continue reading

Using CarPG for Play-By-Post

First off, if you haven’t seen it yet: **CarPG **is a new diceless rules-lite RPG framework written by my buddy Matt Bryant (the guy behind _Main Sequence.) _

While he designed it  as a game to play on road trips with your buds, I’ve found it _incredibly _useful as a mechanic for playing Play By Post rpgs. In my past experience, play-by-posts worked either one of three ways: 1) The dice rolls were either handled completely by the moderator, leaving a sense of control out for the players. 2) The entire game was purely narrative focused, which while fun often felt more like a writing exercise than a game. And then lastly, 3) The die rolls were handled like normal (either on the honor system  or with online dice rollers), and as a result the game system itself really bogged down the pace of the game.

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[WHITE STAR]: 5 Quick & Dirty Supplement Reviews

Today’s post is looking at five different supplements available from RPGNow, each of them no more than a few bucks. I’ve been enjoying the hell out of **White Star. **And one of the solid strengths of it is the amazing community and third-party support that is running with it. Psionics **Author: **Matthew Skail **Cost: **$1.99 **Page Count: **11 (including cover and license) _Psionics _is what it says on the tin: a psionicist class for White Star. Continue reading

WHITE STAR: A Rambling Review

I have a curse where every time I say “I don’t need another OSR game!” I open up my wallet and acquire another one. **White Star **is written by James M. Spahn and released by Barrel Rider Games. The gist of it is they took the rules from Swords & Wizardry Whitebox and hacked it into their own super slick science fiction game. Now, I’m already a rabid fan of Kevin Crawford’s _Stars Without Number, _and I was hesitant to toss $10 at a lighter, simpler game. Continue reading

SHADOW OPS: Street Samurai

Oh man, the Street Samurai. Years before I would know who Molly Millions was, I was a dorky 9 year old kid who laughed when my dad referred to my older brother’s weekend pastime as “Dungeons & Dumbass.” But then one Saturday morning, my brother had left out a book he borrowed from a friend. A book with a hot elf chick on the cover in cut off jeans, a book filled with gritty sci-fi urban landscapes, tribal shamans, and fantasy characters with electrodes plugged into their skull. Continue reading

SHADOW OPS: Elven Adept

So, after playing **Shadowrun Chronicles: Boston Lockdown **a bunch this week with Tim Kirk (of Silverlion Studios), I was inspired to whip-up **SHADOW OPS: Covert Ops in the Sixth World. **It’s a fan tribute to the Shadowrun franchise, inspired by the gameplay of the recent PC games using a mash-up of COVERT OPS and BareBones Fantasy from DwD Studios. I’m pretty happy with what I threw together between studying for finals, and the initial reactions from the BBF Community on G+ have been stellar. Continue reading

Warrior, Rogue & Mage: Now CC-BY + SRD

We here at ChaosGrenade Press want to boost the signal of some really amazing news! Michael Wolf (aka Stargazer) recently gave a big gift to the gaming community: Warrior, Rogue & Mage now has a System Reference Documentand that document is released under the Creative Commons Unported license! In human words, there is now a simple core document of the WyRM system that is completely open for reuse in gaming projects (even commercial ones) as long as proper credit is given (which is more than fair! Continue reading

Campsite Ambush: A BareBones Fantasy Sample Combat

Combat using the BareBones Fantasy Rules can be a bit tricky: overall, it’s a pretty simple system to pick up and run. But it’s deceptive in its simplicity and flexibility — folks who are used to more detailed systems, like D&D, get thrown off by some of the streamlined rules calls. Others probably mistake the BareBones d00Lite system for being, well, lite. I enjoy this system because it falls under what I categorize more as “rules necessary. Continue reading