For my Birthday a few weeks ago, I grabbed a PDF off of my list of RPG’s that I have been keeping an eye on. I picked up Qin: The Warring States. The game is set in the Warring States period of China, and is a Wuxia style game, with Martial Arts, Taoisms, and Magic.

I am about half-way through reading the rules, and I am enjoying them. The rules have a very Asian feel to them, with a focus on themes like the elements and balance. I won’t do a full review of the game, as there have been a few good reviews that have already been done, and in more depth than I would do in any review.

What I really like about the Qin game is the attention to historical and cultural detail. This game is very much like Sengoku, containing a wealth of information about the setting, including politics, religion, and day to day life. I find that with games that are historical in nature, and that are outside of euro-centric themes, that prevail in most modern RPG’s, a strong section on setting, is key to help the GM create the level of immersion necessary to make the world feel real for the players.

So while I have not finished reading the entire rules yet, I did invite Sargon and Dr. J over to make some characters for the game. It took us a little bit fumbling through the rules, not in the design of the character creation rules, but our lack of experience with the system and the mechanics of the game. In the end we put together a few characters that we will take out in a week or two, to take the combat system through its paces.

So with the reading of Qin, I have also re-awakened my love for Martial Arts movies. I have always enjoyed all flavors of Martial Arts movies, but lately I have been drawn to the high-end Wuxia films like, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, and House of The Flying Daggers. On Friday night, I sat and watched Seven Swords. It was a good film, with some entertaining combat scenes. It was not as good as some of the films I listed above, but it was a entertaining and had several great combat scenes.

This week I have selected a movie called Warriors of Heaven and Earth, to add to my Wuxia collection, and I have made plans to go and see Forbidden Kingdom, with Spenser, and Dr. J, next week. All the while I will continue to read Qin, and feed my current Wuxia interest.

My current plan for Qin is to run some very light sessions of it, and not in any serious campaign. I am still holding true to my Iron Heroes campaign, and my time is too limited to be running two campaigns at the same time. But I cannot resist the images of sword fights in tea houses, or battles that jump from rooftop to rooftop, and from tree to tree.

Hey,

We have hit one of those dry spots, where the posts have not been coming. Things have been busy with home and work, and often that is enough to derail my writing schedule, but I am also feeling a bit dry when it comes to some unique articles. I am trying to come up with some ideas articles.

I think that my issue right now, is that I have not had the time to really ponder GMing and gaming. A few years ago, I had some solid material on the concepts of Metagaming concepts in Role Playing Games, and presented those ideas at a few GenCon talks. It was material that was unique and that came from my own thoughts on how to improve my campaigns. My past series on Writing Cycles was also material from my own striving to improve my own GMing skills.

But as of late, my time to sit and ponder game theory and dynamics, has been in short supply, and thus I do not feel like I am expanding as a GM. I am running my Iron Heroes campaign, and that is going well, but it as if the bulk of my time is spent keeping that game afloat.

Where I want to get to, is to spend some more time looking to expand my own ideas on GMing. I want to look at ways that I can improve my own GMing skills, and then translate that into some techniques that I can share with everyone else. That is going to take some time.

In the meantime, I want to continue to post and continue to generate content, so I will have to give some thought to some of the material that I have not put on this blog yet. I will do some opinion pieces as well as some articles in preparing for GenCon.

So keep my feed listed, and I promise you that the posts will start coming back.