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I had the chance to pick up Barbarians of Lemuria: Legendary Edition recently and I have to admit I was quite pleased. The game was not at all what I expected it to be. Well...the setting and the tone was, the mechanics were not. This is the best combination really.
Ok, so tone. Barbarians of Lemuria is what I expected in that it is a fantasy game of mighty barbarians, evil warlocks, sly thieves and semi-naked women. Very much the stereotype of the Pulp Age of fantasy I expected it to be. Except it plays it with an honesty and earnestness that I really want to play a big, dumb barbarian with might thews and a giant axe.
The game is full of sorts of great background that I could adapt it to any old-school fantasy game with no issues and run with it. I mean honestly look at the cover. Barbarian standing in a pit surrounded by vaguely eldritch horrors as a tribal shaman gorilla prepares to sacrifice a slave girl. If you think the next scene is the girl's spilled blood and horrors unleashed over the land, then go play a horror game. If you think the next scene is that sword cleaving through the bodies of the horrors and the barbarian killing the shaman and saving the girl. Then this is the game you want.
The system I have to admit took me aback, in a good way.
I was expecting another OGL-based or D&D-clone, but instead we get a very nice, very simple system. Character creation is all point-buy, and not dozens of points, but 4. The real joy here is being able to create a character is minutes and get going.
The underlying mechanic is a simple 2d6+mods vs target number of 9. This makes it very, very similar to Unisystem and also to Spellcraft & Swordplay. I suppose that if you wanted a more flat game then you could use a d12. But d6s are great and they give us boons and flaws. Boons and Flaws are a neat mechanic. In either case you roll 3d6 instead of 2d6. If you have a boon, drop the lowest d6. If you have a flaw, drop the highest. Each character gets a boon or two boons and a flaw.
There is plenty for everyone to do in combat since fighting style can vary. I like that the emphasis here is that everyone has a chance to be the hero. Sure you might be a lowly thief or slave, but you still have something to contribute.
The careers are nice touch and helps give your character some background on what they were or did, or what they can do now. Frankly I enjoy how it is all put together.
The art is good, not up to the level one expects from say Pathfinder, but perfect for the tone and the feel of this game. And I liked it, so that is great for me.
The magic system is very open and reminds me a lot of magic from the time period. These are sorcerers that gained their power through evil pacts or forbidden knowledge. There are no Hogwarts grads here.
It really is a lot of fun and the rules-lightness of it is a huge benefit.
Even if I didn't like the rules I could use this for my own fantasy games since the background information is so great.
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So tonight the Protectors of New York (PONY) campaign tried a different system than the clunky homebrew I was using, called Supers! by Beyond Belief Games.
You may know them as the makers of Barbarians of Lemuria. The owner/writer of BBG is Simon Washbourne and let me tell you he has made one hell of a little super hero game here!
Caveat number one, if you like crunch of say Mutants & Masterminds, or even BASH levels, this game will not be for you. If you love a more creative and narrative game, tied around a solid core mechanic and room to house rule, well then I urge you to check this game out.
I won't go into a long description of how the game works, or review the rules, I will instead simply say it has no statistics in the traditional sense, uses pools of d6s and makes for a very enjoyable and fast paced evening of superheroic gaming.
I ran a session tonight with 6 players and 2 allied NPCs squaring off against 8 villain NPCs and it went smoothly, fast and furious with plenty of awesome fun and excitement! I couldn't have asked for a more enjoyable time to say the least.
Did I house rule it? Natch'... but that's just how I roll in any game. I cannot think of a single game I have run over the decades that didn't have at least one house rule in it.
So pick up this fantastically fun game, you will not be disappointed!
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An absolute steal at this price.
For under 3 bucks you get 3 complete games for kids.
Tales from the Wood where you play creatures from The Wood. Think Watership Down.
Lashings of Ginger Beer is about playing a kid in Idyllic England, so it might actually work best for adults. Most similar to kids adventure tales.
It's a Dog's LIfe is the best of the three where you play a Prairie Dog out on the American Plains with heavy American Indian/Native American influences.
All three games are simple to learn and easy to play.
These games require a bit more abstraction to play than some other kid games, but nothing a little kid with a great imagination couldn't handle.
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This system is a fantastic engine for skipping past dry mechanics right into the meat of the story. In fact, I only got this game as the baseline for Barbarians of the Aftermath, a book which hits exactly the right crunch level for my upcoming After the Bomb campaign (TMNT crossed with Fallout). Even so, reading it made me excited to run a Conan-esque story.
The resolution mechanic is simple, unified for combat or skill checks, and incredibly easy to tinker with. Roll 2d6 + attribute + (relevant career or offensive skill) + situational modifiers. Meet or beat a 9. A roll of 2 or 12 means either calamitous failure or mighty/legendary success. Hero points allow players to flex narrative muscle over dice rolls.
Character creation in a nutshell:
*You have four attributes: Spread 4 points between Strength, Agility, Mind, and Appeal.
*Next you have combat points: Spread 4 points between Brawl, Melee, Ranged, or Defense (the latter subtracts from your opponent's hit roll). This is an excellent way to ensure everyone can be relevant in a fight.
*Next, you spread 4 points into 4 careers, such as thief, barbarian, merchant, alchemist, assassin, etc. Instead of a skill system, players negotiate with the GM when their careers are relevant to a challenge. If they are, add your career rank to the given challenge. This is either a weak or strong point of the system, depending on your players. If everyone is congenial and familiar with the tropes of the genre, it should flow smoothly.
*Pick Boons and Flaws for your character. The first boon is free, and the rest require an equal number of flaws. Roll an extra die under relevant circumstances, and take the 2 highest dice for Boons or the 2 lowest for Flaws. Boons and Flaws change success chance by about 10%.
And that's it for character creation! It's fast, easy, and newbie-friendly.
Combat also flows rather well. Damage is rolled separately from hits, with the defender rolling armor to soak damage. 2-handed weapons do slightly more damage, heavier armor protects better at the expense of agility, and a handful of other fiddly bits keep things interesting. Hit points are rather low in this game: it's a baseline 10, with swords doing 1d6 damage before accounting for armor (d6-1 for medium armor). Health also only increases with Strength, so even a big bad barbarian has a chance of going down from a well-placed blow. I like this--experienced characters are big heroes but not invulnerable.
I won't spend much time on the magic system; suffice to say it's very free-form, with a handful of rules and examples to guide players. I would have liked a bit more detail on what's possible, but that wouldn't be much in keeping with the crunch level of the rest of the game. It gets the job done, though, with probably the same amount of handwavium as careers.
A couple of quibbles, though: Epic tales of heroism demand challenging encounters, and BoL provides no advice for balancing combats with heroes. A few concise pointers toward adjusting NPC stats would have been helpful.
Also, some very common combat tactics are completely missing. Perhaps this was intentional, in keeping with the rules-lite theme, but feinting, disarming and grappling are perennial maneuvers that deserve a little attention. This is particularly important given the combat-heavy nature of stereotypical sword-and-sorcery games. I can see combat getting a bit stale without meaningful mechanical options beyond I-swing-you-swing-I-swing-...But again, the system is simple enough that house rules would be easy.
Lastly, it becomes impossible for characters to lose once they hit +7 in modifiers (unless they roll a 2, which is auto failure without using hero points). A relevant skill check or to-hit roll with min-maxing players is already +6 with a starting character, so players quickly become demigods in their realm of expertise. Perhaps intentional, and perhaps a GM just needs to scale up situational modifiers or enemy defenses to compensate, but I like a default rate of failure to be a little higher than 3% (about the chance of rolling 2). This is countered rather well by changing the dice mechanic to 2d8 (meet or beat 12), or 2d6 (meet or beat 14).\
Overall an excellent product. Great work.
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A nice collection of material for Tombs & Terrors that includes a variety of new classes for the game. The text is clear, the art ranges from fair to very good, and the price is right.
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Anotehr great game from Simon Washburne.
If you want to get a quick superhero game going right now, this is the game.
Easy to learn, easy to play, and easy to adapt to and from all those other games out there.
And its fun to read..
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I loved its a Dogs Life and Tales from the Wood. To get both of those along with Lashings of Ginger Beer (schoolboy/ schoolgirl adventures) is a great bundle.
You get three kid-fiendly games at once. Worth the price.
And where else do you get to play native american spell wielding prarie dogs?
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This adds some nice classes and other material to the T&T game system.
And you can't beat the price.
Take a look and see. Then buy the full T&T game...
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Another great game. Is a hefty (109 page) RPG for only $1.00!
It's mechanics should be pretty familair to many RPGers, similar to d20 and older RPGs.
Overall, its a fun romp that allows for some interesting gaming and role playing, something along the lines of a link from old school D&D to the more modern Pathfinder Rules. in addition to running the game as is, it would be easy to adapt the 100's of other D&D books you already have to fit this game system.
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Another fun little game from Simon Washburne.
This will allow you to play stories like Redwall or Mouse Guard with relative ease. The game mechanics will be familiar to most RPGers and easy to pick up.
And its fun to read.
all in all, a great value for $5.00.
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Prarie Dogs, Guns, and other Woodland Warriors fun. This was a great supplement adding another twist to the Woodland Warriors game.
Fun to read and fun to play. Worth the price.
(And if you want rules on how the Kind get across the sea...now there are other supplements...)
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Another great Woodland Warriors Supplement.
The new races and classes are a fun addition and the setting is a great read.
Well worth the price.
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Another great supplement for Woodland Warriors. Adding seafaring adventures to the Woodland Warriors world.
Lots of fun. Worth the price for the read alone.
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A great value pack for Simon Washburne's Woodland Warriors. All the furry adventure you could want with a decent game system and game world.
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Another great game from Simon Washburne.
GFYG is a quick, d20 style Western Game that allows for some great, old school meets modern RPG style gaming.
Get it now and have a blast.
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