The Philosopher's Stone
I've been searching for the "Philosopher's Stone" of role playing for years -- a role playing system that combines traditional role playing with the collaborative story telling of Universalis. I think the Blood Red Sands system might allow this. By replacing the coins of Universalis with dice, BRS introduces relative differences between traits, an element of risk into contesting for narrative control, and a competitive framework for play. I think this difference can allow it to support traditional role playing better than Universalis. That's how the document for the new game I'm working on starts. I found Ralph Mazza's Blood Red Sands about 5 weeks ago, when I checked out the Ramshead Publishing site, to see if there was anything new going on. Wow, was there ever! Blood Red Sands is a highly stylized, competitive role playing/story telling game about heroes and their ordeals as they strive to confront the evil, despotic Witch King in a blasted land c...