www.gamingtavern.eu

[First Age]

Diaspora

A nice little 6x9 270 page hardback book bursting with Fate gaming goodness. Not much art (lovely cover), just very good text. Works for me. I am only part way through so bear with me, I'll update as I work my way through, but already I must say that this is the cleanest and most uncluttered iteration of the Fate gaming engine I have seen. Concise, clear and gets you into the Fate mindset early.

The game uses the standard(ish) Fate ladder but dispenses with the text labels and uses the ladder numbers throughout, only using the descriptive text to describe measure of comparative success. Makes sense, and will work more easily round my table. Fudge dice throughout thank goodness.

This is a flavoursome toolkit game. The setting is hardish SF (in contrast to, and therefore complimentary with, Starblazers). Some limited FTL technology is put in to allow multi world play but otherwise it's hard burn all the way baby.

You design the setting collaboratively, a Cluster of worlds, with each player taking a couple of worlds to develop. Some randomisation with 4DF, some flavour grabbing Aspects, a paragraph of text, world FTL linkages built up and you are good to go. Cluster development is great. As a tool you could use it for fantasy kingdoms, magic inter-relationships, political structures, just about anything. Grab the tool (can you tell I am getting excited?) and apply to whichever setting you want and off you go.

Characters are then made together around the table using the Cluster just generated. Links are made during generation between the player characters. Everywhere there is a sensible distillation of Fate concepts such as the skill pyramid, generic stunts, Damage tracks (set at 3 but increasable with certain skills) and a solid manageable skill list (not too many skills).

It's all clean and good news.

The game has a straightforward section on how to play the game and an example first session to give you a real sense of how it all fits together.

Then we are into the mini games. Diaspora deals with conflict as a series of mini games that share a number of generic concepts. I am about to get into these: personal, social, platoon and space combat each get their own section. They look to be fun, highly playable and player centred. These toolkits look to have a whole range of steal-able generic concepts that you can plonk into anything.

So far so very good indeed.
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First Age

[Spirit]

Just bought and have been reading A Song Of Ice and Fire and the A Song Of Ice and Fire Narrators Kit. Just need to get a bunch of people together to play now

[dr_mitch]

[Halfjack]

Thank you for this wonderful review of our little project! I have two things to say beyond the expected gushing and fawning I give to anyone who looks like they like me:

1. The book is 270 total pages including Table of Contents, lead pages, and other unnumbered material.

2. The fact that you, in the UK, got your copy before I did is proof of a vast and uncaring universe, so at least the Diaspora theme is reinforced. Or one of the themes. Or a theme you could use.

Anyway, thanks again!

Brad Murray (speaking for C.W. Marshall, Tim Dyke, and Byron Kerr)

[d(sqrt(-1))]

I hadn't heard of Diaspora before - well, I knew there was a FATE/Traveller version around, but that was all. I've just been off to lulu to order a copy.

thanks,

Mark

[Smiorgan]

Just ordered:
- Open Quest for...Open Quest
- In search of the Trollslayer for BRP
- Dream Realms for Mongoose RuneQuest Elric

Recently acquired:
-Rome for BRP
-Questworld boxed set for RQ2
- Ashes to Ashes for BRP
- BRP Quick Start (printed version)

Smiorgan
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Smiorgan
Balding Count of Menii & BRP grognard

[Dom]

John Wick's latest CoC project: Curse of the Yellow Sign, Part 2 - great idea with shades of the Shining. Looks harder to run in some ways than part 1, but lovely all the same.
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"We live in a nuclear powered universe. We're the oddballs by getting energy from burning carbon."
James Lovelock

[dr_mitch]

[Guvnor]

It's Furnace.

Why not have a DomCon?

Although I wanted that to be ColumbiaGamesCon..

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/435076/TomCons%202009.xls
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neither god nor master

[Arkat]

I'd certainly love to play some Call Of Cthulhu, I haven't done any as a player since last Furnace.

Personally I've been buying Exalted. It's a long time since anything inspired me to buy not just the game but a bunch of supplements as well. I just love the setting though, and I like the way the game is designed to leave a lot to the GM. Indeed, there is an assumption that GMs will have players who rampage across the map taking over large swathes of it, destroying major landmarks, and so on.

It is very more-ish though. While you certainly could run the game with just the core rules if you so wished, I find there are just enough references to the other books to make me curious. Then I find myself reading something interesting and realising that if I just bought that other book, I could do a load more with it. So I buy that book, and it makes me realise that if I just bought that next book, it would add still more, and so on. Since none of the books I've bought has yet disappointed me, it makes it that much more tempting.

My only criticism of the thing is that the first chapter of the core rules is an overview of the world and its history, which really gives away some huge secrets. Things that as a ref I would really have preferred to keep secret to drop on my players as part of a campaign, and probably late on in a campaign at that. But that's a small criticism compared to the huge sprawling glory of the the project as a whole. All I've got to do now is work out how to do it justice.

[Guvnor]

You've been 'White Wolfed'..

I have to say I understand. I resisted after reading young Louis' copy because I could see the way it would go.

Love to play it with you. Nice short one-off as a trial run for you and us. pre-gens and all.
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neither god nor master

[Arkat]

I would certainly be happy to do a one-off, although I'm not sure it would necessarily show the game in its best light. For me its strength lies in its suitability for epic campaigns. Those are the kind of games which appeal to me most anyway, which is one of the reasons I've taken to it so much.

[Guvnor]

Indeed. Difficult to run an epic campaign as a taster. But of course epic campaigns have to have chapters and arcs and so I'd happily invest in a proper character gen session. As long as the campaign is designed to have chapters so I can be in for a while, then maybe my character wanders off and then comes bacl later. Like me in real life.

I am very keen to play Exalted and over a long period of time.

It's time we stopped the dual track on Tuesday nights anyway. But we will need 2 strands so we have backups.
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neither god nor master

[Dom]

diaspora was bought for me and is sitting tempting me to abandon the current novel...
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"We live in a nuclear powered universe. We're the oddballs by getting energy from burning carbon."
James Lovelock

[dpmcalister]

Duty & Honour. Bought after playing a game last week and, aside from a few places where I had to re-read it, clear and simple rules
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