Another Day of Waiting

We are still waiting for the committee meeting to come. A lot of club members are anxious for it to get here so we can begin gaming in earnest. To give an idea of our club membership thus far we have about twenty enrollments and we had about 15 regular attendees. Pretty good and a 50 percent increase from last year. Hopefully our numbers stay high when we shift gears after the committee meeting.

Next post will be a summary of a new campaign idea for Supers.

See ya soon.

It looks like Champions is Gaining Support

Okay, so we have several options for new games if we move away from D&D for awhile:

1. Champions: THE superhero game, though some have different opnions. Heavy on rules and on character depth. Takes longer to create characters but gives you a lot more leeway in designing the type of character you want. Combat can also get very detailed, but only if you want. I am familiar with the old edition of this game. Champions excels at all supers genres, golden age, silver age, character depth x-men style, modern, dark hero you name it.
2. GURPS Supers: I have the GURPS rule book, Gurps is a realistic rule system and accordingly can be very deadly for foolish characters. This actually works great for some genres, not so great for superhero games. I was thinking a superhero game along the lines of the Hero series--less superpowered, more realistic. GURPS is also a rule heavy system with a lot of options.
3. Mutants and Masterminds: The second superhero game of choice, and for some the only choice. Simpler and more streamlined the Champions. Easier to pick up and play, quicker to learn. I have heard, though, that in M&M you can also die quickly if the dice go bad. The flavor of this game is closer to the golden age of comics.
4. GURPS Conspiracy X: Gurps X-files. You play a secret government agent out to save the world from an uncertain evidently evil alien menace and a host of other supernatural buggers.
5. GURPS Space: This is what Gurps does best--science fiction. This is the principal Gurps sci fi book and can be made to fit about any sci fi genre possible. A few I have considered: Transhuman Space: Realistic sci fi set in our future solar system. Cybernetics and genetic engineering is a reality. There are no aliens per se, but enginered hybrids between humans and animals that are about as alien as it gets. Traveller: Sci fi in grand space opera style. The focus is on gaining power in the Imperium by traversing known space, gaining money, influence and allies until your power outweighs all others. Also does typical "space adventure" style of play well. Star Trek: arguably there are other perhaps better Star Trek games out there, but Gurps does a dang good job of crafting the Star Trek universe and allowing you to go where no one has gone before.
6. Alternity: A TSR version of D&D in space. It's sci fi, but with interesting twists. The game received rave reviews when it first came out, but that was only a year or two before TSR was bought by WoTC. You can still get it though and I'd love to give it a try.
7. Multiverser: This one I looked into for Cory. Though, not a time travel game per se--the game certainly can incorporate that. The basic idea is that you create a character that is as close to you as possible and then take off adventuring. The adventure comes in as you hop from dimension to dimension, differing timelines included. The real kicker is that when you die in one dimension you are automatically transported to another dimension. Interesting concept that has a lot of cool possibilities.
8. Star Frontiers: Another TSR product. Their first space opera based game. Alot like early D&D.
9. Gamma World: a post apocalyptic world of mutants. This was TSR's first published foray into science fiction. The cool thing about this game was the crazy mutations you could come up with for characters.

So what would get your vote? One of the above or something else entirely? So far Champions is gaining in popularity among club members for the next game we play. Or, I should say a supers game of undefined brand. I personally prefer Champions where supers is concerned and have ordered several Champions resources. But please keep in mind that we're presenting D&D as an option to the committee too. If they approve we'll play it as well. Maybe the idea is to not focus on just one game?

THE VJH RPG Club Blog Starts

Well, we've done it! We officially started a club webpage. Okay, not exactly a webpage, but a blog--and that's almost as good and even easier to do. This will be the page where we archive all of the information about the club, extra info for those who are interested, gaming defense articles, gaming website links, etc. It will more importantly be an ongoing log for all of our gaming sessions. Your heroic exploits and fantastic adventures will be recorded here for the whole world to enjoy! And it will be an open forum for gaming members and club fans to discuss current issues and club realted news and items of interest.

We are also preparing for our Community Committee Meeting on Wednesday, October 1st, 4pm in room 43. This meeting is an effort to get build community support and understanding for the RPG club and expand our club offerings to include games from other genres. As some of you may know we received a few concerns from community members about playing D&D at school. Even though the club requires parental permission (parents who do not agree with the game do not have to allow their children to participate) we felt that we owed it to the community to allay concerns about the myths often generated about role-playing games.

So far the principal is in full agreement with us. We have sent the parent letters home to all parents at the junior high and extra info hom to game club members. We are looking for as much support as we can so that we can get underway soon. Hopefully if all goes well, the committee will approve our new club organization and we will start meetings on the following Thursday Oct 2nd.