Haste – Episode 14: Drama Cards, Unhallowed Metropolis, Dungeon Painter.

You mentioned a cyberpunk campaign, look at Cyberpunk from R. Talsorian or even Ex Machina from Guardians of Order. I think there’s a cool setting for Savage Worlds called Interface Zero which might warrant some research. Good luck on that and great podcast!

I downloaded the drama cards and the MSE files so I could edit them to fit my 3.5 and I’m super-stoked to use them in my upcoming campaign. I still haven’t decided on _how_ to use them, but I’ll let you know how they play . Great podcast, guys! Keep it up ^.^v

Just tried out Dungeon Painter while listening to the podcast. Fantastic little Flash App. Even if you decent in Photoshop, it’s nice to have an quick-and-easy map drawing app on hand. Managed to make a decent map and labeled it in Photoshop in about 8 minutes:

http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/map_images/549594/dungeon2.jpg

Very cool little application that’s now at the top of my D&D bookmarks. Good find.

It’s interesting that you mention Technoir. It’s intended to reflect something along the lines of a Bladerunner or even Deus Ex environment. There’s not a lot of crunch to it (if that’s what you’re looking for) but its also rather specifically designed to fit the Noir genre which works rather well for Human Revolution. The protagonists aren’t supposed to be ‘villainous’ so much as ‘making the best of a bad lot’ in a distopian future. I got a chance to play it with the creator (and run it twice myself) at GenCon and while it might not be exactly what you’re looking for its probably still worth checking out.

I second Justin’s recommendation of the Dungeon Painter! Great find, really quick & easy. Thanks guys, and get well Jerry!

Great episode, as usual! The Dungeon Painter app is pretty fantastic, especially for free! The Scene Creator is pretty fantastic as well.

Thanks for the Drama Card mention – I have a PDF of the generic versions kickin’ around, just been a little trying to sit down to fix ‘em up proper. Great ‘cast.

Unhallowed Metropolis has been out for a while now. (Unless this is a new edition or revised edition.) It originally came out in 2007 from Eos Press. It is a fantastic setting, very grim and very well written.

-Ben.

And RE: Harry Potter, the RPG.

We have it already. It’s called Ars Magica.

-Ben.

I can’t believe neither of you thought of The Matrix! I think that would be a great RPG system. You’d have different stats and skills for inside and outside the Matrix, plus there’s danger whether you’re in or out of it. Could be very fun.

If you’re looking for just the immediate future for a mostly pure Scifi game then I second the idea of “Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. The Second Edition, Version 2.01 From R. Talsorian Games Inc.”. I’ve not played it myself but it was one of the first games to come out of the early years of our actual Internet age and used that as a springboard for the ideas in the game.

Just throwing another option for the cyberpunk game but I’d highly recommend Corporation by Brutal Games. While it does include rules for some psionics they’re rare enough that its common and easy to run games without them.

As to the cyberpunk system, you may want to look at Eclipse Phase (http://eclipsephase.com). It seems to be praised for it’s rules set in regards to transhuman augmentation. While it is far future space sci-fi, you can always tone it down and pull out what you need.

Since Micah invited corrections to his opinion of GURPS, I thought I’d jump on here and let one fly. I think the biggest problem people have with GURPS is that it’s a very rules-heavy system by design. SJ Games takes the “generic” and “universal” parts of the title very seriously, so GURPS has rules for nearly any conceivable situation, which can be daunting for people just trying to learn the system. When you play GURPS, you leave behind the comfortable notions of experience points and levels and classes and just build whatever you can with the points you have. And that’s a big jump for people used to those RPG conventions.

Personally, I really enjoy the flexibility of the system and the way it’s set up to handle any character in any setting. One of my prospective players in my modern fantasy play-by-post game wants to play a three-headed hydra where each head has a distinct personality, and they fight over who gets to control the body. Try doing that in D&D.

Again, though, GURPS is very crunchy and isn’t for everyone, but I wouldn’t say that it’s a “terrible” system. It just takes some getting used to.

Another suggestion for a near future RPG would be Blue Planet. Its set on a frontier world but could be adapted with an alternative setting.