Gamer's Rant: New Editons that shouldn't have been

Warning: The following are the opinions of the person running this blog (me) and no one else. If you disagree, good.. you're entitled to your opinion and I've got a right to mine. I sorry if I offend some folks.. but this is a rant.. fueled by several coronas and someone I know using 'logic' to tell me why I'm 'wrong' about several game systems.

1. Cyberpunk 203X: Sorry Mike Pondsmith, but you totally jumped the shark on this one. You had gamers waiting waiting YEARS for a game that was not anything like it's predecessors. Rache Bartmoss destroys the NET? No one knows what year it is? There is NOTHING reliable about any part of history? Everything everywhere has been changed and without books to backstop things, everything is in question in history. Sorry.. I bought the PDF when it came out, spent six hours reading it..and almost cried.

2. D&D 4e: The bad signs, to me, were the way the core book mangled multiclassing, alignments and went straight to the 'MMORP' outlook. (Tank, Healer, Blaster roles; 'enchanting dust' and such). Then the roll back in alignments and the total elimination of the old spell system, which was flawed I will agree, with a 'daily/combat use' talent set up. ("Oh no..shouldn't have used that fireball earlier.. it's only 1/day now")

Granted, I know that as an old school player dating back to the late 70s, I'm not one of the 'core demographics' that Wizards/Hasbro were aiming for. The total destruction of the 'official' DnD content that came before it and the death of Dragon/Dungeon Magazines as a dead tree publication has a lot to do with my ire as well. Almost every other game system that has been updated in the last few years still sells PDFs of their old content. Good luck trying to do that LEGALLY with Dungeon and Dragons Pre-4e. It's all gone.

4. Shadowrun 4e: Mostly I like the history update. The whole 'wireless revolution' is cool but the downgrade of skills and the addition of more attributes is a bit harsh in my opinion. Other than that it's still the rush of the mystic and tech, runaway culture shock and all the crunchy bits of cyberpunk gaming I like.

5. World of Darkness: Okay.. the Old World of Darkness had it's warts, I will be the first to admit it. Crossovers between systems? Not too good. (Vampire: "Die Were!" Were: "Blargh! I Rage, eat aggravated damage and this VW bus.") But on their own, each was good, especially when you had a GM who set the rules, made the calls on what you could and couldn't play, and knew how to play the Xanatos Gambit on the players. I still miss Mage and Vampire Games.

New WoD not so much fun. (Again.. my opinion.. lots of my buds love them, have fun guys, I'm waiting for the 20th anniversary edition of Vamp:Masquerade and pray that it leads to a Mage anniversary editon down the line)

Coming later on when I calm down and think things through a bit..

Games that were unfairly killed by the license owners.

"The bartender is a what?" Part 1

Players have been meeting up for the start of an adventure in taverns, bars, pub and inns for decades in dozens of different game settings. From the gritty fantasy of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, to DnD in all its' incarnations and to the far future of sci-fi games.
I fondly recall one Shadowrun setting where the players had more than a few adventures tied into their favorite club. One being the long running quest to get the owner's truename back (she was a free spirit). One of the fun points my WHFRP GM likes to point out is that an Innkeeper is an advanced career. So they aren't too weak.
In many games I've heard about in campaigns with runaway players, the Bartender is the first to die on the player's whim. I've always thought that any guy (or gal) who runs a bar in an area where there are heavily armed (and armored) folks is not a one-shot one-kill cutaway npc.
So, without further ado, I'm going to start up the 'Bartenders of Glorian' thread over the coming weeks, with alternate notes for my own personal failed game setting of Dragonsgate as an option.

Random Gaming Thingees

Some of the game stuff I use online to game with.

Fantasy Grounds 2: It's run on my PC side of the Mac Pro Desktop. Basically it's a virtual tabletop that you can do games on. I game in Warhammer Fantasy (2nd Edition) on it every sunday we can. Stable, fun, configurable and there is a growing community out there. Add in your favorite flavor of voip (Voice over Internet Protocol) program such as Ventrilo or Skype, and you got everything but sharing the same space with your group.

Hero Lab: The best character generator on the market for supported systems at the moment. You've got Call of Cthlulhu, Pathfinder, Mutants and Masterminds (2nd and 3rd editions), Savage Worlds, World of Darkness (New WoD sadly), 3.5 OGL, Cortex, and 4e DnD (sorta kinda) as well as customizing options. Mac Support coming, as is Shadowrun 4e

Dundjinni: A Mapping program I used in the past, sadly not for sale right now.

Campaign Cartographer: Another mapping program I've used in the past, sadly not supporting the Mac at this time.

Plothook.net: A nice website with an option for online character sheets. Setup an account, and look for them under 'Plothook Tools' on the forums page. You're looking for 'Character Sheet Profiler'. Currently they support: 3/3.5e DnD/OGL, 4e, pathfinder, d20 Modern, Serenity, d20 Star Wars/Star Wars Saga edition and Mutants and Masterminds.

DriveThruRPG: One of the better sources of ebook formats of gaming stuffs. Paizo, and Green Ronin cover their own materials. DTRPG covers EVERYONE. It's a one stop E-RPG download store.