Spirit of the Force Part 5: The Dark Side

I wanted the dark side of the force to be tempting and the struggle to remain true to the light side to be ongoing. I'm not a fan of GM fiat being used to determine when the dark side of The Force dominates a character's destiny. Also I did not want to use yet another dark side point system.FATE 3.x's...

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Chronica Feudalis Fantasy Hack: Scaling Beyond The Natural

So far we've statted up ogre chieftans and orcs and they're nasty stuff. But they sit near the top of the scale and do not leave much room for things such as well, dragons.We tried a few different approaches at scaling beyond D20 which is as good as it gets in Chronica Feudalis. D20 perfectly fits...

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Spirit of the Force Part 4: Force Stunts

One of the easiest ways to model the force is by coupling an aspect (Force Sensitive) with a series of stunts.Force StuntsOne With The Force: Requires Force Sensitive aspect.  For a FATE point, can substitute The Force for most any other skill as Theory In Practice from Spirit of...

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Spirit of the Force Part 3: Aspects

Aspects in FATE not only are used  in the definition of characters but they also help define a game's vocabulary.  Of course Star Wars already has so much to draw from...Core Aspect:Force SensitiveSpecialty Aspects:Force Surge: Available only if a trained Force user.Lightsaber Aspects:I Shii-ChoII...

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My print copy of Swords & Wizardry White Box has arrived!

Wow.  I am far more impressed than I thought I'd be.  First of all, before I ever got my hands on the actual book I was impressed by how Lulu packaged it up.  The book arrived in mint condition....

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Spirit of the Force Part 2: Skills

The skill list isn't terribly different from the one presented in Spirit of the Century though there are a few tweaks.Skills:AcademicsAlertnessArtAthleticsBlastersBurglaryClose CombatContactingDeceitEmpathyEnduranceGamblingIntimidationInvestigationLeadershipMedicine: This new skill includes the medical...

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Spirit of the Force Part 1: Health & Composure

This is the conversion that got me to thinking about starting a blog.  I've been sitting on it for about a year so it's about time...Right after I finished reading Spirit of the Century I immediately realized that it would make for running an outstanding Star Wars game for a number of reasons including...

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Chronica Feudalis Fantasy Hack

We started up a side fantasy game using the FATE inspired engine found in Chronica Feudalis.One of our test characters, Jip the gnome teams up with a human named Siggurd on a mission to hunt down an ogre chieftain who has assembled a war host that is about to unleash its wrath on the local human settlements.Ogre...

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Swords & Wizardry Player Handbook

A couple of days ago I mentioned that I was working on a single column layout of Swords & Wizardry for printing booklets.I printed up and assembled a player handbook today just to see what it would...

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Just ordered S&W White Box in print

I just ordered the White Box edition of Swords & Wizardry in print.  Even though I love and am currently playing core, the PDF is working out just fine.  I snagged WB for its stow-and-go pickup-game-ability.FYI: The coupon code MAYCONTEST10 yields 10% o...

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Swords & Wizardry: Working on a single column layout

One of the projects that I'm working on is taking the content of the S&W Word Doc and putting it into a single column layout to make it easier to use when printed as a booklet.I'm not modifying any of the rules in-place. Instead, the house rules are placed beside them. This way the players can...

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Old School. New Premise. A Promise

Old SchoolRecently, I kicked off my first Swords & Wizardry campaign. I wanted dwarves and elves and much of the things that many may consider cliched and trite. But at the same time I didn't want to completely abandon my modern gaming sensibilities. New PremiseSo, I needed a premise. I wanted...

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Chronica Feudalis: Witness

I found a really cool game called Chronica Feudalis by Jeremy Keller. The premise of the game is that it was written in the 12th century and just recently has been translated. This sets an implicit evocative tone of the medieval period that really works. Last night my wife and I gave it a whirl...Walter...

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Swords & Wizardry: Individual Initiative By Weapon Type

I'm going to take a cue from John Harper's Agon and use weapon type to help determine individual initiative timing in an attack round.A rough guideline for weapon categories is: Bow > Spear > Sword > Dagger > FistInitiative is determined for each group in a conflict by rolling 1D6. Starting...

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Multi-Page Swords & Wizardry Character Sheet Sans Parchment

I like options and I know that other people do as well so I whipped up a simpler [than this] version of the multi-page character sheet. It keeps all of the graphic elements except the parchment background. A print test run showed that it used a lot less ink and was much faster. Swords & Wizardry...

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Swords & Wizardry Multi-Page Character Sheet

Note: On my HP C5180 printer the "fast draft" option works great for the sheet and saves a lot of ink while keeping that cool parchment on paper look. Next up: A sheet for my Jaws of the Six Serpents...

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Swords & Wizardry Character Sheet

Here's my latest for Swords & Wizard...

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Swords & Wizardry: I have a good feeling about this.

Earlier, I mentioned that I've had a fantasy game in my head for a long time and that for the last three years I've been actively looking for a system to express it.I kept an eye on the 'net and grabbed anything that looked like it might do the trick. For some reason I couldn't find what I needed to...

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