Tuesday 20 October 2009

News! I'm a Dad, 24 Hour compo gets a People's Choice and 2 lite bite RPGs

In this post, I'll explain why I've been a bit quiet on Twitter recently and why service for the next week or so might be a bit interrupted. The 24 Hour competition I ran with 1KM1KT last May is now accepting votes for a 'People's Choice' (you'll need a forum account for that, sorry) and I spotlight a couple of new games that have appeared from a couple of my favourite authors.

I'm a Dad

Felix Lang, my son, was born last Sunday and as you might expect, I'm terrified, tired and time has taken its leave. He's a lovely screamy little thing and we're going to have some great laughs. As a rather unfortunate side affect, the next two weeks of blogging/tweeting might be a touch sporadic while life settles down. May I thank you in advance for your patience! Next week, I have my guest blogger Jason Kline (Chainsaw Aardvark on 1KM1KT) taking over with a review of the Fallout pencil and paper RPG.

Go and vote 24 Hour RPG Competition People's Choice Award

tygertyger, a 1KM1KTite has organised (entirely indepedently of I) the People Choice Award for the last 24 Hour Competition. It's a splendid idea. The standard of games from the entrants was astronomically high and so more recognition is a good thing. Nominations for five categories were collected from other 1KM1KTites and I've set up polls on behalf of tygertyger. Please do go and show your support by voting for your favourite game and please don't let my reviews taint you. Not that it would, dear reader, you probably look upon my gushing, sycophantic outpourings with healthy cynicism.

Thank you for the Birthday wishes

The comment thread after my lambasting of Icar in my last blog post has had me chortling tears of joy. I particularly liked Jonathan Ridd, who read the review before the introduction and rightly thought I was an utter bar steward. A response I could have only ever dreamed. Thank you to everyone for joining in so whole heartedly.

New games from Great Authors

Only one thing makes me happier than receiving an email from a free RPG author letting me know of a new work - that's a free RPG author emailling me about another new work of theirs. Imagine my frothing joy when two emailled me in a short space of time. For your brunch delectation, may I present two lite bite RPGs worthy of your attention.

Chronicles of the Drenai by Dariel Quiogue

Chronicles of the Drenai is a free fantasy roleplaying game based on David Gemmell's fantasy novels. I'm not familiar with David Gemmell but I discovered that he writes heroic fantasy with a dark edge to it. Dariel's RPG is admittedly lite but has enough roleplay material in there for a Gemmell fan to get a good game out of it. I've been a fan of Dariel's work since
Lost in Smaragdis and although Chronicles of the Drenai contains less of Dariel's fevered imagination (being a fan game, of course) it's still worth a look and has gone in the towering review pile.

The Beast of Limfjord by Nathan Russel

The Beast of Limfjord is a beautifully produced free RPG set in the vikingesque dark ages. It has mythic substance to it, rather than trying to reproduce the dark ages accurately. An unspeakable beast is threatening a village and your heroes have returned from a voyage to deal with it. We've had the pleasure of Nathan's company before. In fact, you're probably sick to death of me blowing sunshine up his bottom in regards to Here Be Gamers and the wonderful steampunk city 24 hour RPG of Verge. When it comes to layout and design in free RPGs, Nathan sits in amongst the elite and The Beast of Limfjord is another excellent example of it. I will review it but I'll probably read and send back some sneaky comments to assist in version 2 - then review that.

14 comments:

Joshua Macy said...

Wow! Congratulations!

OlmanFeelyus said...

Congratulations! Best of luck with your sleep.

artikid said...

Congratulations!

Seth said...

Congratulations on becoming a dad! Enjoy it. It's a wonderful time.

Evyn MacDude said...

Congratulations, your Life is over as you knew it.....

It's not bad, just different from here on out.

Oh and dice heavy games are good for toddlers, they will happily randomize things for you.

Zzarchov said...

Congratulations!

satyre said...

Hope the next few weeks give you some respite and Felix is one of those happy contented and sleepy boys you hear about.

Best of luck!

Rob Lang said...

Thanks for the congrats everyone, it means a lot. :)

@infojunky - I understand that life takes a turn and for many the idea of their perfectly settled lives changing is scarey. I like change. "Without change something sleeps inside us and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken!"

@satyre - I hope so to but at the moment, I'm not convinced. ;-)

Adam Dickstein said...

Congratulations indeed! Rob Lang - What a Guy! A new born baby boy and he still has the time to put up a post containing not one but TWO new free RPGs.

They just don't make guys like him any more. Oh, wait, he did just. Huzzah!

Norman J. Harman Jr. said...

Congratulations on the new hireling!

Endy said...

Hey,

I just wanted to wish you luck with your new addition and offer congratulations.

And to thank you once again for all the work you've done and all the RPGs you've reviewed.

Dariel said...

Congratulations, Rob!

By the way for those who want to take a crack at the Drenai RPG, I posted an updated, corrected version yesterday. Don't know if it's up yet, but the new version clears up a rule, splits the Fear passion into three, and adds a sample adventure.

Nero Grimes said...

Congrats

It's good that you are terrified.
It's a big, real thing you are doing.

Have you made your farewells to a good night's sleep yet?

Rob Lang said...

Thanks to everyone for the best wishes. We're 7 days in and still getting used to it!

@Nero - a good night's sleep is a distant memory.