Poking My Head Out of the Shadows

I just haven't been very productive lately, well, at least here on the blog. I have been working on a few projects, and I'm getting myself re-grouped and re-psyched to plunge back into my Mythic Space setting. I've also decided to wait until I have the three main rulebooks for the new D&D in hand before I make my pronouncements about the new direction of the game. However, I will say that the Starter Set along with the (very) Basic pdf rules are more than worth a try. I don't know that I'm completely sold on this new edition, but it does strike more chords with me than 4E ever did.

End of the Week Musings

I'm still writing up my thoughts on the D&D Stater Set and the release of the Basic D&D pdf. It's been a difficult project for me. On one hand, I haven't had a lot of time to just sit and read through everything. On the other, my opinion on the new edition is in a seemingly constant state of flux. There are some things that I really, really like about the new edition. On the other hand, there are some things that I just don't care for. It depends on time of day on which side is getting more play in my mind. I do hope to have something finalized and posted in the next few days.

New Acquisitions

My birthday was yesterday and I headed out on the town flush with birthday cash to stock up on some games I've had my eye on. My first stop was Barnes & Noble to check out the 50% off table. Every now and then there's some RPG or board game items on the table that I pick up. Lately, my trips to B&N have been fruitless, but not so yesterday. They had a copy of Dungeon Command: Blood of Gruumsh, which I promptly snatched up. The Dungeon Command boxes in and off themselves are pretty "meh" for me as a game. However, they have cards to use the figures with the various D&D board games (Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, and Legend of the Drizzt), not to mention cards for outside areas that can be used as well.

After grabbing the lone box of Dungeon Command on the sale table, I headed past the RPG section and didn't see anything that caught my eye. Well, I can't say that'd entirely accurate as I did flip through Age of Rebellion from FFG's new Star Wars line. I've played the basic set adventure for Rise of the Empire, and while I still prefer WotC's Saga System, I do like what FFG is doing as far as the system goes and with the unique dice mechanic that doesn't feel like a gimmicky way to "board game-ize" an RPG...like what they did with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. My big complaint is that they've made the buy in for the new Star Wars system simply too damn high. A core rulebook for each era doesn't sit well with me along with having to rely on homemade rules for playing Jedi (some of said rules are really pretty good and hopefully close to what FFG comes up with when they finally do and era that has Jedi running around in more numbers). If I'm going to shell out $60 for some Star Wars RPG rules, I want them to be more all-encompassing than solely focusing on one era or another. Anyway, I digress.

After putting down Age of Rebellion, I walked over the board game section. Typically, unless something is marked down, I don't tend to buy board games from B&N. If I'm going to pay retail, I prefer to give my FLGS the love. That said, my FLGS didn't have a copy of the base set of the Pathfinder Adventure Card game. In a moment of weakness, I grabbed the base set, the character add-on pack and adventure packs 2 & 3. I haven't ever played this game before, but I've read some great reviews from folks in various communities whose tastes closely align with my own. I didn't get a chance to do much with it other than get everything sorted, but I hope to do so in the coming days.

After checking out at B&N, I headed down to my FLGS. I had every intention of picking up at least one more adventure pack for PACG, but I saw that they had the Starter Set for the new edition of D&D already. I knew several places had gotten their copies in a week or two early, but I wasn't expecting to see it so it was a bit of a shock. I grabbed a box and headed home with my finds.

I've also downloaded the new Basic Rules pdf that WotC has recently put out. I haven't had a lot of time to pour through them yet, but I do think that I'll have some thoughts organized and typed out sometime this week. I don't know if I'll have anything all that poignant to add to the cacophony of people buzzing/yelling/discussing the game right now, but I'm going to add my two cent regardless. That said, after having played in a few beta test games of 5E, if the final cut of the game (even this trimmed down "Basic" version of the game is much like what I played I'll likely end up passing on it. Not that 5E isn't fun or I have something against the system, it just didn't run as fast or as well as what I get out of my hack of Swords & Wizardry. I know that I'll likely end up picking up the Monster Manuals for the game whenever they come out just to have new fodder to either tweak my existing creatures or to add new creations to my growing monster database. All that aside, I do have to say that even in the beta tests, I liked 5E/Next/Whatever more than 4E.

That's how I blew through my "fun-money" after my birthday this year. I'm happy with my acquisitions, though my not wanting to wait on shipping caused me to get less for my money than I normally would have picked up. Now...where the hell will I store all of this stuff? I'm running out of shelf space...