Nationals Swag

The Nationals were here again this year, and despite the fact they I only decided to go as a player on Friday night, rather than booking months in advance, I played in the D&D 3.5 category which included Pathfinder. I didn't win. Leicester Sabres did however, which makes next year's commute (assuming I'm not doing a UCAS Day or some such) more manageable than the 7am dash to Sheffield both days.

It was my first ever game of Pathfinder, and the setting was a kind of Wild West Arctic wasteland. Overall I like a lot of the changes they made to the D&D 3.5 system but they seemed relatively 'minor' to justify buying another rulebook (I have the Pathfinder Core Rulebook but have struggled to see any significant differences from 3.5 in the core game). An example of the minor changes I liked included having a Perception skill instead of Search, Spot and Listen. This makes more sense as smell is an often overlooked skill in RPGs.

The other game was D&D 3.5 and was also fun. However perhaps it was the characters I played (Half-El.f Bard on day 1, Halfling Expert on day 2) but I found I seemed to derail the plot a lot and get creative with the characters skills. For example in Pathfinder I used Summon Instrument to create a wind-shield by summoning a pipe-organ to block a doorway. I also charmed a giant worm and if it didn't do flame damage on touch I'd have happily re-enacted Dune. However having a massive worm sidekick made up for the fact I perhaps wasn't the most min/maxed Pathfinder bard.

I also had the chance to pick up some indie RPGs from Patriot Games in Sheffield, who seem to specialise in that sort of thing. I'll be going back there. I was hoping to get a copy of Once Upon a Time by the Great and Powerful James Wallis and other decent chaps but they only brought 1 copy with them! So I ended up spending more money than I should on some cheap Warhammer novels and the following beauties:-

The Committe for the Exploration of Mysteries. I just liked the cover. Haven't read it, it's a Victoriana type game.

Forsooth is a Shakespearean roleplaying game where you all make up a Shakespeare play by playing the actors. It sounds a bit like Baron Munchausen with more rules but looks silly enough.

Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies looks like a 7th Sea clone, but I'm assured it has its own identity. It's about Musketeers and skyships, so it must therefore be awesome.

I hope to inflict these games on people in the future.