Roleplay Life

Need to name a character? Do what I do… start a blog and pick names from spam comments you get.

One product I’ve used is Gary Gygax’s Extraordinary Book of Names by Troll Lord Games. I picked it up a couple of Dundracons ago (time to register folks, I have) from the Troll Lord Games guys. They cut me a good deal on a set of books. It has lists of names grouped by origin, and gives ideas for naming groups or towns.

There are name generating sites online as well. I usually just google for random name generators, and search through the results.

A tip for GMs, keep a list of random names with you during your game for NPCs. This is helpful for when players start talking to random NPCs. The act of looking at your notes for the name can give the impression that the person they’re talking to is someone important. It can also turn a random NPC into an interesting recurring extra. Most of my favorite extras in my Buffy game came from random NPCs.

I’ve received my digital copy and physical copy of the Maid RPG. Haven’t had a chance or time to run it yet. I should just show up at my friends’ house (yes I have a bunch of friends who game who live together) and run it. With the right group it could be a blast.

In other news, I’m waiting on Amazon for my copy of Anima. Either they sold out or didn’t get any copies.

Fantasy Flight Games sold copies of Anima Beyond Fantasy at GenCon, and have announced that the game will be out this month. It’s now available for preorder at Amazon.com for a pretty good discount (and it’s actually being sold by Amazon). I’ve taken a chance and put my order in.

One of my two biggest search terms is Maid RPG. My only experience with it has been rolling up a character, but that was a lot of fun. Now that they’ve enabled ordering on their site, I’ve gone ahead and ordered a copy. I’ll review it once I get my copy (physical or PDF, doesn’t matter). I probably won’t be able to talk my usual D&D group to give it a whirl, so no play testing for me.

Looks like Heavy Gear is going 4th edition. No they’re not putting out a GSL version of the game, they’re actually releasing a new edition of their game. Steve Jackson Games and Dream Pod 9 will be selling the new version primarily as pdfs through e23. I’ve purchased some ebooks through them, they’re pretty good. If they were to also Print On Demand (POD) books, I definitely order a few.

More news to follow at Heavy Gear RPG.

Mike S commented on my last post on Anima Beyond Fantasy is on sale at GenCon (if it hasn’t sold out yet). I expect that after GenCon (Aug 20), Fantasy Flight Games will be posting more information on their site. You can read Mike S’s comment here (at the top of the list) for more information. Thanks Mike!

A game I was hot for a year or two ago was Anima, Beyond Fantasy. I’d played the card game, and I’ve picked up some of the mini, and the art looked great. They’ve pushed the release date back (again) from this Summer to September . I hope they don’t pull what Palladium did by releasing the book, only to follow it up with a Special Edition right after that.

Well, better to let the date slip than release a crap product

Earlier I posted an article on making your own counters for games. Since then I’ve used them in my Dungeons & Dragons game, and tried different things, and here’s some things I’ve found:

•  It’s a good idea to give the players their own color tokens, or write their names on them. If you have a whole bunch of tokens, players may start forgeting that token B is a party member and D is a goblin.
• Avoid putting too much information about the enemy on their token. Players will start trying to get an edge by guessing what HR means.
• Blank tokens are great. Put them out and pencil in information. Use a soft lead pencil, since hard lead may be hard to read.
• I have not found a good 2″ hole punch yet. The Marvy 1″ is the only one I’ve found to punch through a comic book board.
• Laminating a token is not good for wet erase. Still have to try dry erase and grease pencil.

I’ve also found I spend too much time drawing maps and wiping them off the Battlemat. I’m going to try Dungeon Tiles next, and also make my own tiles for Keep on the Shadowfell.

My copy of Rifter #43 arrived on Saturday (complain and you will received). It’s the swimsuit issue. Some of the art is good. There are some re-published Larry Elmore works as well (my apologizes if it’s new).

On July 15th, Rifter #43 supposedly shipped from Palladium Books. I have not received my copy yet. I have seen it at my “local” game store. Well, at least I got my free copy of Splicer.