Some random thoughts

I'm working on a few things right now.  The first is the ever constant work on building my book of species for Star Wars.  The book draws from not only Star Wars sources, but from Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, Fading Suns, various D20 franchises (D&D, Iron Kingdoms, D20 Modern, etc...), Rifts, HERO, and so on.  I've got 804 species in the monster 272 page tome right now.  Why?  Mostly for the fun of it.  Star Wars for me is the perfect setting.  You can literally fit anything into it.  Plus, I don't tend to stick to canon in my SW games, so having a group of heroes consisting of a Twi'lek, High Elf, Turian, and a Vulcan is just simply cool to me.  Plus it's an interesting creative exercise as well, since I add a blurb with each species on how they fit into the SW universe.  Sadly, this book is going to stay just to my group since there's a LOT of unlicensed IP in it. 

I mentioned Dungeonslayers in my last post.  It's a free download fantasy game that tries to capture that old school dungeon crawling feel without rehashing old school dice mechanics.  The complete game is 10 pages long, but is easily added onto.  I've played a few test encounters just to get the feel of the game, and it's pretty slick.  I'm planning on trying it out with the group at our next game day.  Hopefully they'll like it as much as I do. 

The last game I'm working on that will headline our next game day (I tend to run most of the games) is Mutant Future, another free to download game.  It's essentially Gamma World 1E with all the IP filed off.  I really like it.  I started out with Gamma World with 3E, which was based on the color coded chart system featured in other games like Marvel Super Heroes.  Being a big fan of cartoons like Thundarr the Barbarian, and movies like The Road Warrior and The Omega Man, getting into Gamma World was a lock.  I only got a chance to play 1st edition Gamma World a couple times, which is based off the 1st edition AD&D rules.  Anyway, I'm hooked on Mutant Future and want to get a game going, so I'm working feverishly to get everything ready to roll for the next game day.  

Gamepro this month has an interesting article about the supposed downfall of Japanese style computer RPG's.  I haven't read the entire article yet, but I'll post my opinions when I'm done.  Being a long-time fan of games like the Final Fantasy series, Lost Odyssey, and Wild A.R.M.S., the subject matter is very intriguing to me. 

That's it for now, I'm going back to working on my Mutant Future game.