by aramis

pdzoch wrote:

A question suggested by [user=GrimoireOfJank][/user]

What was your favorite convention to go to? Have any stories related to TTRPG's and conventions?

Denalicon - 1-2 dozen people at a lodge in Denali National Park, doing boardgames for a 4 day weekend. Equally inconvenient from Anchorage and Fairbanks.

by aramis

chuckdee68 wrote:

aramis wrote:

chuckdee68 wrote:

aramis wrote:

chuckdee68 wrote:

In general, I have a system du jour and I adapt everything to it. Not surprisingly, there have been more than a few generic systems in that rotation - GURPS, Fate, Cortex, Fudge, Fuzion, Champions/HERO and others. There's also been more than one house system, i.e. Storyteller. But I've also done it with non-Generic systems, up to and including Rolemaster.

I just find it easier to master one system and use it for everything rather than switch between systems.

Rolemaster's a genre engine more than it is the Shadow World RPG. Never used the official setting when I tried running RM. By simply picking allowed classes, one can readily tweak RM for setting tropes. Assuming, of course, one's gone past just the core rules.

I don't think that anyone would ever mistake it for a truly generic engine though. There's too much baggage to be able to emulate anything without some tweaks. They came closer later with the Black Ops book bringing in modern firearms, but there are still gaps to be filled if you go outside of the strictly siloed genres it supports.

GURPS, EABA, CORPS, Savage Worlds all have at least half as much genre texture built in... and given SpaceMaster is the same mechanics and procedures across the board as RM... it's pretty generic. So many options — more optional rules than GURPS core had — RM/SM are pretty widely tweakable. Far more so than D&D, and look how many assume it's a fully generic game.

We'll just have to agree to disagree. Even ICE never positioned it as generic.

Really?
I think they treated it as a genre engine, a subset of generic games... With setting books for some divergent settings. Sure, they're dual statted with Hero... there is at least one more, but I can't remember the name.
Robin Hood: The Role Playing Campaign
Mythic Greece: The Age of Heroes
Pirates

Those each are different subgenres of fantasy, if not historical fantasy for Robin Hood and for the Pirates; It was not seen by ICE as a single subgenre, much the same way Palladium doesn't.

And when I say RM and SM are the same game, I mean it literally - only the different classes justify them not being the same RPG for RPGG standards... Much of the rules are boilerplated in SM 1e, straight out of Character Law and Spell Law.

Further, crossovers were expected by ICE - the SM 1e boxed set had 2 books (Future Law, Tech Law) and a conversions/interoperation guide, which gave a list of all the RM 1 specific skills' costs for SM characters, and all the SM specific skills' costs for RM characters. That shows an intent for crossover use. It even notes that Psionics are different from Mentalism. Thus 4 spheres of RM/SM magic: Channelling, Mentalism, Essence, and Psionics.
100% interoperability once you have the costs.
Everything works the same.

by aramis

Mountain Lightning (WalMart house brand Mountain Dew-like)

by aramis

An item RPG Item: Destroyer of Worlds has been added to the geeklist 02 March 2026: How did your RPG session(s) go this week?

by ENDERthegamer

An item Board Game Artist: Jacqui Davis has been added to the geeklist '26 Dice Tower West Virtual Flea Market

by ENDERthegamer

An item Board Game Artist: Mihajlo Dimitrievski has been added to the geeklist '26 Dice Tower West Virtual Flea Market

by Bifford

Nosession for me this week, though the others did still meet.

by abolition1

GameCr8zGal wrote:

Thecoder wrote:

So something new happened. 2 months ago I was in a bidding war decided the price got to high and moved on. Well recently (very recently) the other person deleted their bid and it got sold to me out of the blue. I have already allocated my budget and luggage space to other games I bought since i had lost the bidding war. I let the person know this and said sell it to the person who originally outbid me before deleting their bid for the previous price they had bid both on the listing and in a pm. Is this the correct way to handle this?

Usually a bid is a contract unless a cancel is agreed upon with the seller. The seller should have offered the item to you to see if you still wanted it, as a courtesy.

Yes, but as the seller in this situation, I don't keep track of the name and bid of every bidder, and didn't even recognize that the higher bidder deleted their bid, so after the auction time was over I assumed it would be purchased by the highest (undeleted) bidder, who relied on the higher bidder and made other plans. Should the seller assume the buyer who is the highest bidder knows they're the highest bidder? Should the seller merely offer the game to the winning bidder, which they can accept or decline? Not sure there's a great answer to any of this.

I wonder whether there is some technical way on this list to prevent people from deleting their bids after, say, 24 hours of posting. I doubt it is possible but that would prevent at least some of the flakiness...

by TealedFleet

An item RPG: Cosmere Roleplaying Game has been added to the geeklist Character sheets for The First Step (2026 NPI)

by troacctid

An item GeekList: 2026 Challenge: 26 un(der)played in 26 has been added to the geeklist 2026 Challenge: 26 un(der)played in 26

by vestige

I listened to multiple podcasts this week about how fun NYRB are and I bought into it. No more!

Worse, I panicked when Pec got the red card and sent him to the bench with 4 points. Che would surely be at least close to that. Hah! Last time I try to micromanage.

Oh, MLS....

A new episode has been added to the database: 196: Making a Sandbox Campaign, Part 7 (Rapid Fire Questions)