Kingbeast's Lair

Here is a list of the 2014 ENnie Award winners. If I have a comment you can find it under the entry..

Best Adventure

• Trail of Cthulhu: Eternal Lies – Pelgrane Press *GOLD*
• Razor Coast: Heart of the Razor – Frog God Games *SILVER*

My Take

Eternal Lies is good stuff. 🙂

Best Aid/Accessory

• Numenera Creature Deck – Monte Cook Games, LLC *GOLD*
• Fate Dice – Eldritch Dice – Evil Hat Productions *SILVER*

My Take

I have the FATE dice called Antique. These new FATE dice sets are nice.

Best Art, Interior

• Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Gods – Paizo Publishing *GOLD*
• Numenera Corebook – Monte Cook Games, LLC *SILVER*

Best Art, Cover

• Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Mythic Adventures – Paizo Publishing *GOLD*
• Achtung! Cthulhu – Keeper’s Guide to the Secret War – Modiphius *SILVER*

Best Blog

• Gnome Stew *GOLD*
• AaWBlog (Adventureaweek.com) *SILVER*

My Take

Gnome Stew has kicked tail for a long time. Highly recommended.

Best Cartography

• Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Wrath of the Righteous Poster Map Folio – Paizo Publishing *GOLD*
• Numenera Corebook – Monte Cook Games, LLC *SILVER*

Best Electronic Book

• Player’s Guide to Emerald City – Green Ronin Publishing *GOLD*
• Broken Earth (Savage Worlds) – Sneak Attack Press *SILVER*

Best Family Game

• Fate Accelerated Edition – Evil Hat Productions *GOLD*
• Hobbit Tales from the Green Dragon Inn – Cubicle 7 Entertainment *SILVER*

My Take

I just finished reading FAE a little while ago. It is the first product in a while that has made me react with, “This is really something special.” FATE took several awards this year and they are all well deserved.

I’ll have to look up the Hobbit Tales…never heard of it until this year. 🙂

Best Free Product

• Pathfinder Module: We Be Goblins Too! – Paizo Publishing *GOLD*
• Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Quickstart – Chaosium Inc. *SILVER*

Best Game

• Fate Core System – Evil Hat Productions *GOLD*
• Numenera Corebook – Monte Cook Games, LLC *SILVER*

My Take

Really glad that this category came down with FATE for the gold and Numenera for the silver. I think FATE is a better product that is a LOT more accessible than Numenera. Botha are fantastic but I give the edge to FATE.

Best Miniatures Product

• Pathfinder Battles: Wrath of the Righteous – WizKids Games/NECA *GOLD*
• Pathfinder Battles: Wrath of the Righteous Gargantuan Demon Lord Deskari – WizKids Games/NECA *SILVER*

Best Monster/Adversary

• Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 4 – Paizo Publishing *GOLD*
• The Ninth World Bestiary – Monte Cook, LLC *SILVER*

Best Podcast

• Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff *GOLD*
• Numenera: The Signal *SILVER*

My Take

I just adore Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff. It has quickly emerged as my favorite RPG podcast and I listen to a ton of them. I’ve reviewed several of Ken Hites’ DunDraCon seminars in the past and my opinion of Ken still holds true. Folks should really listen when Ken opens his big trap…I mean mouth. 😀

Best Production Values

• Numenera Corebook – Monte Cook Games, LLC *GOLD*
• Trail of Cthulhu: Eternal Lies – Pelgrane Press *SILVER*

Best RPG Related Product

• Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords Base Set – Paizo Publishing *GOLD*
• Strange Tales of the Century – Evil Hat Productions *SILVER*

Best Rules

• Fate Core System – Evil Hat Productions *GOLD*
• 13th Age – Pelgrane Press *SILVER*

My Take

Two STRONG entries in this list. I already gave my opinion on FATE but I think 13th Age is a GREAT RPG with enough crunch and story driven elements. Very nice RPG.

Best Setting

• Numenera Corebook – Monte Cook Games, LLC *GOLD*
• Deadlands Noir – Pinnacle Entertainment Group *SILVER*

My Take

Right here is the category where Numenera excels. The setting is a wonderful mix of sorcery as science with a dash of post-holocaust goodness. A very complete and detailed setting.

Best Supplement

• Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Campaign – Paizo Publishing *GOLD*
• Fate System Toolkit – Evil Hat Productions *SILVER*

Best Software

• Roll20 – The Orr Group LLC *GOLD*
• Realm Works – Lone Wolf Development *SILVER*

My Take

Interested that Realm Works won here even though it is fairly new. If I was not so hooked on OneNote it might be worth giving it a go.

Best Writing

• Numenera Corebook – Monte Cook Games, LLC *GOLD*
• Achtung! Cthulhu – Keeper’s Guide to the Secret War – Modiphius *SILVER*

Best Website

• RPG Geek *GOLD*
• Fate SRD *SILVER*

My Take

SO glad RPGGeek won here. I am such a fan of their site. I just LOVE having my entire collection and want list managed on their site. Their news entries were “upgraded” recently and they rock. Highly recommended site.

Product of the Year

• Numenera Corebook – Monte Cook Games, LLC *GOLD*
• Fate Core System – Evil Hat Productions *SILVER*

My Take

As I mentioned above I would reverse these but either way these are both wonderful.

2015 Judges

• Annah Madrinan
• Jakub Nowosad
• Kayra Keri Kupcu
• Kurt Wiegel
• Stacy Muth

2014 Judges’ Spotlight Winners

• Hooper: Hobomancer Companion – Hex Games
• Kayra Keri Kupcu:  Deep Magic – Kobold Press
• Stacy Muth: Rocket Age RPG – Cubicle 7 Entertainment
• Jakub Nowosad: The Demolished Ones – Chronicle City/Rite Publishing
• Kurt Wiegel: Weird Wars Rome – Pinnacle Entertainment Group

  My Take

  Weird Wars Rome is super cool. I think this Savage Worlds setting is more creative than Deadlands Noir but again…it is like comparing Mozart and Bach. Both are great in different lights.

  GAME ON! 😀

Summary

I recently introduced my board game loving boys, Josh (11 years old) and Evan (9 years old), to role-playing games. It was a fantastic experience that I wanted to describe in my blog. First I will go through the preparation and setup that I did before the session. Next I will describe how the session ran and what I learned.

Preparation And Setup

The first preparation that I did was to decide which system that I wanted to use. Before I started my search I tried to define all of the characteristics that I wanted in the system. This list included ease of play, very simple math with at MOST single digit addition, and flexibility. The math requirement was important to me as Josh has lots of trouble with math and I was afraid that if I chose something too complicated he would not want to play at all. I then started looking online and purchased several possible options. The one that really jumped out at me was Hero Kids. Hero Kids has several great aspects that I thought would appeal to my boys. First there is VERY little math. For most actions instead of doing addition or subtraction you roll dice and take the highest number. REALLY simple. If you are better at something you roll more dice. I also thought that Hero Kids was very intuitive to pickup but still has a surprising amount of flexibility. I felt that I could EASILY modify the system to play superheroes, science fiction stars, cartoon characters, or anything my boys might want to play. When I asked the boys they decided that they wanted to play heroes like Zelda. That means epic high fantasy…easy. After picking the system and genre I made a simple Hero Kids shield insert that includes all of key rules. This way the rules would always be accessible to the players. Here is a link to the shield insert.

Next I considered who I wanted to invite to the first session. After having taught my cousin’s kids how to play I knew that it worked well having an experienced role-player in the session. Thus I invited my brother Don to play with us. His instructions were simple, “Lead by example and try to solve some of the conflicts WITHOUT combat.” After Don I decided to invite Sermin (aka Mommy). The reason for inviting Mommy to the first session was simple. She can read the boys better than anyone and help me determine if a break is needed, keep the boys in line, or alert me if the boys were getting bored or confused.

Now that the players and system were in place I went about picking a first adventure. Luckily Hero Kids supplies several adventures to choose from and I had purchased several of them. After reading the ones I owned I chose NOT to run the one that they recommend as the introductory adventure (aka Basement O Rats). Instead I used the Hero Kids adventure titled the Mines Of Martek. The reason is that Mines Of Martek has a simple mission goal, several puzzles that do not involve combat, and it starts off with VERY little role-playing. I know my boys so I knew that they would not understand role-playing at first but would definitely appreciate the thrill of combat. The puzzles in Mines Of Martek that I liked included rescuing a miner from a sinkhole, crossing a rickety bridge, and burning giant spider webs.

My son Josh who is mildly autistic handles new things better if he is given advanced notice of what to expect. Thus I decided to get some of the preliminary discussion out of the way the day before the session. Essentially I just started talking with them about what will happen and how RPGs work. When doing this talk I used Zelda as an example whenever possible. For example, I explained that the players play characters like Zelda on a mission that I am directing. I told them that I act kind of like the Nintendo. I then described that I like RPGs better than video games because you can have your character do whatever you want…there are no pesky video game boundaries. I then explained the setting again using Zelda as an example. I told them that their home town is a lot like Ordon Village in Twilight Princess. We also picked out the dice we would use for the session. This turned out to be a very fun exercise. 😀 Doing this session the day before not only got them excited about it but got much of the preliminary information out of the way. It worked great.

The Session

After setting up the battlemat and other accoutrements I presented a brief overview of the setting and the role of the characters. In this case the role of the characters is to solve problems while their adventurous parents are off fighting dragons. I then let the players select which characters they wanted to play. The selection did not surprise me that much at all. Josh took a knight. I knew it would be a warrior and one with armor and a shield is an added bonus. Evan took a healer with a light blast spell. I knew it would be a thinking man’s support character of some type. Don took a more flexible warrior and Sermin took a water mage to round out the group. After selecting the characters I quickly used the character sheet to review the system. I explained the attributes, equipment, and their special abilities. I next explained how you tell how many dice to roll and that you want to keep the highest number (i.e. the Hero Kids system).

Once that was done I handed out three poker chips to each player and explained how these would be used. Poker chips!?! 🙂 I decided early on that one of the things that would frustrate my boys was the fickleness of the dice. It sucks when you really want to hit that big bad master villain or jump the ravine to save the Princess and roll badly. To combat that I added a bennie mechanic taken directly from Savage Worlds or FATE. If the player spends a poker chip they can reroll their dice and try for a better outcome.

Now that the rules were explained we started the adventure. I jumped right in with the local town sheriff asking the PC to help rescue two miners who are trapped. The mission statement is simple. With some brief leading by Don the group entered the mines and started to look around. In the first room they decided to fix a broken mine cart and get some gear. They got a kick out of pushing each other around in the mine cart between each room. The first major combat was with some bats. It went really well for the good guys. I rolled TERRIBLY the entire session! 🙂 During this combat I also noticed another point about Hero Kids that I enjoyed. Hero Kids has group initiative only. Once it is the heroes turn to act the characters can go in any order. This is a subtle but nice touch as it lets different players jump forward if they know what they want their characters to do.

After the first combat Evan started getting a bit distracted by the mine cart and the stuff around the bats. I was VERY pleasantly surprised when Josh’s knight reminded Evan’s healer that they needed to find those miners. This was an awesome time when Josh’s laser focus paid off. 😀

The next room featured a puzzle with a miner caught in a sinkhole. In the first room they had collected a rope. Even though it took some prompting by Don they eventually figures it out and saved the miner. It was a nice little problem to resolve.

One other scene deserves some attention in this blog post. In the third room the group comes across a dark hole where they can hear giant rats starting to emerge. Acting quickly Don’s characters pushes a rock over the hole preventing the rats from escaping. This is EXACTLY what I wanted him to do during the session (i.e. solve a conflict without combat). It showed Evan and Josh that the best way to solve problems is often with your brain not your sword.

Prolog

Overall I know the session went really well. How do I know? After the session Evan asked about the village where the characters live and the underground river that they saw in the mine. He asked if they could investigate these next time. 😉 The next weekend I ran a second session with just Evan and Josh. After the second session Evan started asking about making a potion to return their bennies during the game. Oh yeah and those glowing purple rocks in the basement tunnel…what were those? I also thought it was funny during the second session when he asked if I was making it all up. My response, “Of course! That is what makes role-playing games awesome!” Hook. Line. Sinker. 😀

A couple of months ago I was contacted by my cousin Paul. He wanted to have me teach his two sons, Dave and Andrew, how to play role-playing games. I was delighted to get chance to bring a second generation of gamers into the hobby. When I was very young I actually taught several advanced placement students how to play Champions. Over the years I have taken many people into the fold but it had been a while since I worked with teenagers.

The Prep

My first question was what system I would use for the session. After much thought I decided on Savage Worlds from Pinnacle Entertainment Group. To folks who know me this selection may be a surprise. Aren’t you a Hero junkie? 🙂 I decided that Savage Worlds’ ultra-fast learning curve would be perfect. It also uses the funny sided dice and cards which add to the fun for new gamers. I used the free Wizards & Warriors material from Pinnacle as the adventure. (Here is a link to that free material.) This made things easy as they provide sample characters, figure flats, and nearly everything I would need to run the session. Another advantage to Savage Worlds is the price of entry. The Explorer’s Editions are extremely inexpensive at a $10 cover price.

Now that I had the system, adventure, and all of the characters done I started thinking about how I wanted to run the actual session. To this end I created an outline of what I would discuss. Before I started the actual adventure I wanted to discuss a bit about the hobby to give them a feel for where it has been and where it is now. I wanted to make sure this introduction was short and sweet so we could get to the fun stuff (aka the adventure). I also thought my cousin Paul might be interested as he has not gamed in many years.

The Session

When I arrived they has setup a nice table with plenty of food and snacks. To my surprise two of Dave and Andrew’s friends turned them down at the last minute. The good news was that my cousin Paul and his wife Shahrzad decided to play. This gave us a nice number of players (i.e. 4). In the long run I think having Paul in the session really helped. Having role-played in the past he could take the lead at times to show the other how things work.

I started by talking very briefly about the history of the hobby. I made sure to hit only the highlights so I could go quickly through the material. After that I went over the main companies in the market (WOTC, Paizo, White Wolf, etc) and the new indie games that are hitting the market. I ended the intro by going over some basic terms. For example, player, NPC, PC, GM, dice abbreviations, etc.

Having gone through the introduction I briefly reviewed the characters then handed them out. Paul played a necromancer and the thief. Andrew and Dave played a barbarian and an archer. Shahrzad played a dwarven priest. After giving out the PC I went over the various parts of the character sheets carefully. As I went I asked if people had questions on the various sections or on specifics on their sheets. I also highlighted various parts of the sheet and how they pertained to each characters. For example, Agility is how quick the character reacts and represents hand eye coordination. The elven archer has a very high Agility. I also intentionally asked Paul to play one of the characters with magic as they are a bit more involved than the other characters.

At this point I started the session. The opening scene involved the PC returning to a small village after saving it from a hoard of goblins. After entering the town they head towards the inn. Once entering the characters are acknowledged by the bartender. Not being sure where to start the players paused. That is when Paul took the lead and in character as the necromancer talked to the bartender about getting rooms and some food. It worked out really nice having Paul take the lead and throw out advice during the run. Often he might give the other minor advice on different things that they might do. It really helped having him play that inside angle during the session. I definitely plan to keep that in mind if I ever conduct sessions like this in the future. One really great scene happened when a small girl comes into the bar looking for help. When she became scared of the necromancer one of the other players stepped up and did a great job talking with her. I actually changed this lead from one of the junior priests in the village to a little girl to make it more approachable and really drive the PC to help. Who can resist a scared little girl who is looking for help?!? It ended up being a good change.

Initially there is a tiny mystery for the PC to figure out revolving around the little girl’s guardian, a local priest. It is up to the PC to gather clues about what might have happened to him. This worked out really well as it let the characters use some of their skills and helped ease them into the role-playing.

At this point the adventure started rolling until the first fight scene. The adventure has a great opening fight to get the players warmed up. It was against some zombies. Although it started kind of slow it quickly picked up speed. It was not a surprise when Andrew playing the barbarian started flying all over the place with his axe. Leave it to teenage boys to get into the hack-and-slash.

It ended with a climactic fight against a large skeleton and the corrupted priest. The battle was climactic and turned several times. Everyone had fun in the spotlight during this scene.

The adventure closed with the little girl asking the PC who will take care of her. The conversations were great with various players throwing out their thoughts. It allowed me to highlight how it might play out over a longer campaign where one adventure might affect the next.

Overall I consider the afternoon a resounding success. I had tons of fun and I know they did as well. Hec…that is what this amazing hobby is all about…having fun with your friends. 😀