Og: Unearthed Edition

"You bang hairy food thing!" said Ug.
Uk shook his head.  "Hairy thing bang me!  Me food!"
Ug frowned.  "Go food!  Me bang you!"*

It's tough being a caveman.  Particularly when there are only 18 words in your entire language and you probably don't know all of them.  Welcome to the world of Og, a simple comedic caveman roleplaying game.  My son was perusing my game shelf, saw it, read it and we played a very brief session with it.

It uses a simple system that only requires one d6.  You choose your type of caveman:  Banging, Fast, Tough, etc.  There are four stats:  Attack, Ungggghh Points (hit points), Damage (done to others) and Dodge/Evade.  In addition to stats you have your Words.  You choose between four and eight words from the list of 18.  You get more if you are an Eloquent caveman.  Choose a few skills and you are off.

I played with just my son and it was fun and funny.  I think it would work better with more people though because the players can only communicate with each other using only the words their caveman knows.

Check it out if you want a fun game that probably work best as a filler.

*Translation:
"I'm hungry.  Go kill that elk!" said Ug
Uk shook his head.  "No way dude, that sabertooth will kill me and eat me!"
Ug frowned.  "Go kill the elk or I'll kick your ass from here til tomorrow!"

Ok.  Roughly translated.

Gamer ADD

Like father like son.  My son has inherited my gamer ADD.  I didn't even know it was genetic.  He bounces from one system to another more quickly than I do.  Although I purchase a lot of game rules I still prefer a select few.  He looks at the mass on the bookshelf (I print out a lot of games and put them into binders) and wants to play them all.  He's actually stated that out loud.  Right now it's Hollow Earth Expedition (which I'm a little torqued at.  It's one of the few games I've have in hardback.  Had it for years.  It chooses now to cough up pages from both front and back).  We are watching the television show Primeval and I mentioned that HEX has dinosaurs in it and he was off to the bookshelf.

Yep, gamer ADD.

Urge to Travell

Pao at Strange Stones posted a group of characters he created for Traveller.  Our subsequent
conversation in the comments has made me want to break out my LLBs and roll up a few characters and play a few sessions.  Wonder if my son would be interested?

Hercules

Check out this post over at Heroes and Other Worlds.  Mr. Brandon discusses a Hercules comic series I had never heard of.  And it sounds very cool.  A grim sword & sorcery version of the hero.  I'll have to find this series and read it.

Savage Worlds and Redshirts

Wow, I can't believe it's been a month since I posted anything.  Not much going on so not much to write.

I bought the Savage World Deluxe Explorer's Edition.  My son saw it and started reading it and liked it.  We had some practice combats and just last night I started running him through a programed adventure that I picked up for free from Dark City Games.  It's called the Sorcerer's Manor and so far we're having fun.  Dark City even has a conversion guide for their Legends of the Ancient World system (a Fantasy Trip clone) to Savage Worlds.  So if you like their other programed adventures but prefer Savage Worlds you can switch them over.

I am currently reading the novel Redshirts by John Scalzi.  For those of you who don't know, the novel is set in a pseudo-Star Trek universe.  It's about the titular redshirts, those poor, unfortunate, nearly anonymous crew members dressed in red who seem to die with disturbing frequency in the original series.  In the book, they start noticing the high mortality rate and try to figure out what the hell is going on while avoiding death.  I am finding it amusing and entertaining.  I also, as a result, want to play a Trek game.  I'm thinking of picking up Starships & Spacemen 2e or trying out Fenway5's Far Trek.  Not only do I like Mr. Brandon's other games but Far Trek has the added advantage that it is free.  I'd be open to other suggestions though as long as the cost was minimal.

InSpectres Movie

I've thought about getting the rpg InSpectres.  I've read reviews and such and it sounds interesting.  But what really surprised me is that they are apparently making or have made a movie based on the game.  The IMDb entry is here.  Maybe I'd better get it soon before it becomes a fad!

Barbarians of Lemuria Preferences

I'm curious, which version of BoL do you prefer?  The Legendary Edition, the Revised Edition, Legends of Steel version or even the free version?  And why?

I actually prefer a mixture of the versions.  I like the Lemuria setting that Mr. Washbourne presents but prefer the somewhat less exotic Legends of Steel setting.  Despite reading some of the original Thongor stories, I still have trouble imagining the heroes of the story riding lizards or birds.  My mind still steers me in the direction of the hero riding a snorting, rearing horse.  It might be fun to have an isolated culture be bird riders but not everyone!

I prefer the static armor values from the Revised Edition.  Although the variable armor values from the Legendary Edition may be more "realistic" I think the extra roll slows down the game just a bit.

On the other hand, I prefer the priest rules from the Legendary Edition.  In my mind, the mystical powers that the evil priests weilded in the stories were from studying sorcery or from pacts with the terrible creatures from the beyond.  So the evil priests need levels in the Sorcerer career to perform such magics.

How about you?