Once upon a time, before the onset of the plague years, I ran a Laundry RPG campaign at work. You can read about it here. Since then, one of my players Dr. Noriha has been writing research papers about using games in language learning. She has been using our campaign notes! Along with Dr. Ina, I am also the co-author of a chapter in book entitled “Naratif Dalam ‘Gamifikasi Permainan Penglipur Lara’: Menjana Pemikiran Kreatif Dalam Pengajaran Dan Pembelajaran“. Translation: “Narratives in Tabletop Role-playing Games: Generating Creativity in Teaching and Learning.” The title of the book is Wacana Ilmu dan Kemanusiaan (Knowledge & Humanity Discourse). First of all, I am grateful for the writing team for involving my activity in their research. This tracks with my own research of employing RPGs to improve speaking skills. Secondly, I will be pushing using “Permainan Penglipur Lara” as an official translation of “Tabletop […]
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Dune Adventures in the Imperium RPG
Mushtamal of Classic Science Fiction What nonsense is this? Both the science fiction books I read during my formative years during my teens are both being released as talkies this year? First of all, there’s Apple TV’s Foundation series – based on Isaac Asimov’s classic novels – which I might review after the end of the first season. Then, Denis Villeneuve’s film Dune Part One, adapted from the first half of Frank Herbert’s science fiction novel Dune. Additionally, Modiphius also published a brand new Dune: Adventures in the Imperium role-playing game (RPG) which I bought using some extra teaching earnings. Ming Fang would have a field day. Arrakis. Dune. Desert planet. Dune is a tabletop RPG where gamemasters (GM) and players roleplay within the universe Herbert made, creating their own epic saga as they play. Players could opt from a list of 20 Archetypes such as Analyst, Courtier, Duellist, Envoy, […]
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Alien: The Roleplaying Game
“That’s not even funny, don’t joke about stress dice! “ Will “BilliamBabble” Meddis I admire its purity I have been a fan of the Alien cinematic universe ever since I read the movie novelisation when I was 13. A couple of months later, they showed the movie on television. I remember we as a family slept in the living room (like a sleepover) and I was the only one who stayed way after midnight for the film to end. Then next year, I saw Aliens in a cinema in Ipoh. That cemented my love for the stories that can be told in the setting, as well as the grimy, dirty aesthetic of the future. The Alien RPG was released 2 years ago. I had been trying to save enough money to purchase it for over a year. When I had some extra cash, it was out of stock at the […]
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Cortex Prime Arrives
I had a communique with Miriam Robern for whom I did some work before. She would help get a copy of the Cortex Prime Game Handbook published by Fandom Tabletop and author Cam Banks. This was because I have been running role-playing games for language learning at work. According to Miriam, Cam was happy to contribute to games-in-education initiatives. After a couple of weeks, the Cortex Prime shipment came. There was more than just a few books! The admin office called me to pick it up because there was no way they were stuffing the box into my mailing pigeonhole. I opened up the box at the admin office and some colleagues posed with the books. We even took a photo with our department head as she passed by the office. I will be reading the book to learn about the system. A cursory read of its rules reveal that […]
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Lorn Song of the Bachelor
My friend Zedeck sent me his latest tome. It was a tabletop role-playing adventure inspired by the Bujang Senang myth of the last century from Sarawak. The book is digest-sized but its 48 pages are packed with a plethora of descriptions, creatures, maps and illustrations (wonderfully produced by Nadhir Nor). The prose provides the gamemaster the information needed to referee any such campaigns based on this book. However, Zedeck has crafted a well-balanced text. The information hangs between very evocative and economical. It is dense enough for gamemasters to craft adventures and encounters in a fantasy Bornean riverine campaign. But Gamemasters could also easily inject their own ideas in-between the information given in the text. Here are some photos of the book. What is a wet corpse and why is a catfish there? To find out and forge your own campaign from the book, get it at DriveThruRPG here.
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Genesys Core Rule Book
I saw on Facebook that there was a sale going on back in KL. So I asked for Ivan for help in purchasing and shipping over the Genesys core rule book. Because of my experience in running Fantasy Flight Games’ Star Wars RPG, I think there would be no problems running this system. Although the symbols on the Narrative Dice are different from Star Wars, the mechanics are more or less similar. However, as I do not have the official Genesys dice yet, I could use the Star Wars dice as a substitute. Genesys, like games such as Savage Worlds and Mini Six, is a universal setting system where gamemasters could adapt any setting, fictional or historical, and any genre to run for their players. Although the basic dice pool rules are the same, there are some differences in the general rules between Star Wars and Genesys. For example, instead […]
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Star Trek Adventures RPG
Once upon a time I had a couple of Star Trek RPG books published by FASA. They were both destroyed by termites. They were the Federation Sourcebook I got from The Mind Shop maybe 25 years ago, and the Star Trek The Next Generation First Season Sourcebook. Since then, the Star Trek RPG licence had moved on from FASA to Last Unicorn Games to Decipher and currently it is with Modiphius. Earlier, the core rulebook for Star Trek Adventures arrived by mail, presumably because their transporters were malfunctioning. The book is fully painted. Like the Expanse RPG, there is not one frame from any of the live action media. No complaints from me because the artwork is well-illustrated throughout the book. The inner covers, first and final page of the book is a four-page map of the Alpha and the Beta quadrant. The image above shows only a small part […]
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The Expanse RPG
Something which I have never talked about in the last four years or so is my love for The Expanse novels by James S.A. Corey which I first read even before I left the city. Afterwards, the novels were adapted into a television series. From the articles I read, The Expanse also used to be a play-by-post (PbP) role-playing game (RPG) setting which was played using the d20 Modern rules back in the day by one of the two authors that make up James S.A. Corey. They have come to a full circle, as it were, and the setting has been converted into an official RPG product by Green Ronin, using their AGE System. The rulebook arrived from Book Depository yesterday. It is gorgeous. The book allows gamemasters (GMs) and players to run a game set between the first novel (Leviathan’s Wake) and the second (Caliban’s War) in the 23rd […]
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Robot Cavemen
After the first two covers I made for Patrick F. Murphy, here’s the third cover in his series of young adult adventure books, the Return of the Undead Cavemen! It’s the same character from the first two books. The art order called for three Neanderthals carrying three children into the night. What for? You’ll have to read the book to find out. Watch this space for upcoming product purchase links.
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Book: Creatures of Near Kingdoms
Wait for the arrival of an envelope. Steal a peek or two a day at your mail slot at work. You will wait a longer than usually needed. When it arrives you are surprised, as if it knows when to spring its existence upon you. It is tightly wrapped in clear plastic. It heaves a sigh of relief as you tear it out of its swaddle. It opens up and reveals its treasure to you. Its treasure are ideas tightly packs in words. It is the CREATURES OF NEAR KINGDOMS book. Clearly, it has evolved into an expert in camouflaging itself in the wild. Its publisher has categorised it as a comic. But it does not look like a comic. Neither does it smell like a novel. To say it tastes like a gaming sourcebook would be unfair to it. When it speaks, it identifies itself. Still its self identification […]
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Some Dungeons and Some Dragons
I spent most of Saturdays this past two semesters teaching extra English classes. This semester after I was paid, I ordered the Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook and Monster Manual from Book Depository. I was told by many that the fifth edition rules handles very well and figured it was time for me to purchase D&D books. Book Depository has free shipping and up to 25% discount on the books! It would cost more for me to grab copies from Kinokuniya. I have not played D&D since AD&D second edition back in the late 80s. The covers are amazing. I love aboleths. I think it was the first major critter I fought back in the day as a Half-Elven Ranger. A beholder is right up there on the cover. I sometimes refer to this as the death salad. I do not believe this monster is a vegetarian though. I believe […]
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New RPG Books
Even with a proper job, I still find it difficult to order RPG books (or any type of books online) because of other obligations (i.e. bills to pay). So I thought I should look to alternatives for them. I had complementary copies of book in pdf form so why not we print some of them so we had dead tree versions to hold, touch and read in meatspace. Mini Six I have had Mini Six printed and bound in a comb binding format for many years. I thought it would great to have one perfect bound which would make it look nicer. On cardstock, the back cover of the book looks pretty even without fancy illustrations. Don’t look now, but there is a hell hound in the interior pages. White Star I also printed out White Star by James Spahn. The cover looks epic. The guy on the cover reminded […]
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FAE Printed and Bound
I downloaded a copy of FATE Accelerated Edition even before I moved up here. But I never got it printed out until today. I had sent it for printing the previous evening and the print shop called me up today as we were getting the car’s tyre replaced. So we picked it up. It did not cost a lot of Republic credits even with perfect binding at A5 sized pages. The output looks and feels amazing. The Needless to say, I might print more stuff I downloaded from DriveThruRPG / RPGNow at the print shop. All I need now is some FATE dice.
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Deep Dive into WEG Lore: Rogue One Ultimate Visual Guide
After receiving it as an early birthday present from Ivan earlier, this month I discovered that DK Publishing’s Rogue One Ultimate Visual Guide (UVG) by Pablo Hidalgo which fills the Star Wars universe as seen in Rogue One with a multitude of world-building details, was also a treasure trove of lore which originated from West End Games. West End Games (WEG) published the Star Wars roleplaying game series of books from 1987 until 1998 or thereabouts after which the licence went to Wizards of the Coast. In that decade or so, the game company had created and populated the Star Wars universe with hundreds (if not thousands) of worldbuilding details enough for gamemasters and players to play in the setting without having to create, for example, the Imperial DMV. Similarly, species, location and technology (and corporations that made these technologies) were named and fleshed out. Which brings us to the […]
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Force and Destiny Core Rulebook
At first Fantasy Flight Games released the Edge of the Empire rulebook which allowed players to be the scoundrels and smugglers of the galaxy. Then they released the Age of Rebellion rulebook for players to play soldiers and military spies. Finally, their final Star Wars role-playing game (RPG) rulebook is in my hands: Force and Destiny, where players are able to choose from a range of Jedi characters to play. It had been released for almost two years now, but I was not able to get my hands on it. I was unable to grab it off Amazon because I possess no credit card. Nor was I able to use Paypal to order it from Book Depository because it has been “out of stock” for many months. On a whim I offered to draw for the book and Erik Jensen on Google Plus accepted. So I drew this for him. […]
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Cover for Deep Space Squadron
Ebb and Folks commissioned a new cover for an upcoming ebook entitled Deep Space Squadron. Originally I designed the cover artwork to show the single multi-kilometre long capital warship Resolution under attack by smaller corvettes or frigates, but then it was decided to have less clutter. Thus, only the Resolution remains in the final artwork. Remember: Port is red. Starboard is green.
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