Zomblandia; A The Game of the Living Dead

The Game

A group of strangers find themselves together at the Roosevelt Mall after the Zombie-Apocalypse. 

The group has gathered in the ill-smelling food court after blocking all(?) the doors into the mall, but those improvised barricades won't last forever as more and more of the undead gather in the press.

 There's a rumor that the government has established a safe compound in Florida, in a fortified Universal Studio theme park. 

Only problem is the PCs are stuck in this Mall, and the Zombie Apocalypse happened a few days ago. The outside world is crawling with ravenous revenants eager to begin a brain binge.

All seems lost. But maybe, just maybe, this hardy band unexpectedly skilled in improvisational armed combat can figure a way between them, from what they each know. 

But each of them has secrets they don't want the world to know. 

And each of them has an agenda they absolutely do not want the world to know. 

And each of them knows that to be bitten by a Zombie is very bad news indeed.

How will these people survive as their personal stress levels begin climbing? Will they keep their cool? Will they be able to stay alive?

The Game World

The game will play out in the familiar territory of Long Island, with action scenes set in various towns along the way.

The Game System

The game uses the popular and easy to learn second edition Alien RPG rules. 

Each PC has four attributes, each linked with three skills. To make a test, the player announces what they want to do, the GM tells them the skill roll needed, the player totals the skill and the associated attribute numbers and rolls that many dice. '6's are successes. One success is all you need, more often (but not always) grant bonuses of some sort.

Stress

As the stress level builds for a character, they add that number of Stress dice to the dice pool when testing. '6's still grant successes, but '1's trigger a stress response. Stress  responses will impose penalties to future rolls, and may cause a player to have to reveal one of their characters' secrets in a role-playing manner.

Secrets and Agendas

Each character will have a number of secrets that will show them in a lesser light to the others. During play, players may be compelled by stress responses to reveal these. The revelation should present a fine RP possibility.

Each character also has a secret agenda which they should not reveal at all, but should guide the player when acting as their character.

Deadlands:Reloaded (Savage Worlds)

What will I need to bring?:

Just you and the desire to have fast, furious fun of a Sunday.

Deadlands:Reloaded (Savage Worlds):

Deadlands:Reloaded is a roleplaying game set in the Postbellum Weird West around 1884. Player characters confront evil and attempt to vanquish it at the local level, and reduce the prevailing level of fear in the larger scale as a result.

The characters may be lightnin' fast gunslingers, magic-wieldin' Hucksters, miracle-workin' Blessed, Mad Scientists wieldin' marvelous inventions or just ordinary cowpokes, tryin' to earn a grubstake but pulled into events beyond their control. 

All these have in common is their courage an' drive to succeed, but all should work together in a posse to beat drygulchers, backshooters, varmints o' legendary size an' so forth.

The Adventure will pit the PCs against an enemy so horrific that ... but I've said too much. A selection of pre-generated characters will be provided, and if you have no dice, those will be provided too.

Characters:

The available character types will be:

Gunslinger - These folks are masters of slappin' leather an' sendin' their targets to hell.

Blessed - These are preacher types, though mebbe y'wouldn't know it from their looks. They can perform miracles, like fixin' that bullet wound, and mebbe a whole lot more.

Hucksters - Gamblers. Well dressed they may be, but rumor has it they're in league with the devil and can cast magic hexes. If these rumors are true, they're headin' for a hemp necktie party in any decent, law-abidin' town.

Hexslingers - Gamblin' types who tote around shootin' irons carved with strange runes. Smacks o' more devil's work if'n you're askin' me.

Mad Scientists - Stand well clear when one o' these fools fires up one o' their "miracles o' science" is all I'll say. Yes, their devices are pretty spectacular, but they're all mad as a jackrabbit on locoweed.

Dice:

As mentioned before, I can provide dice to those in need, but you are welcome to use your own, especially if they are newly acquired from a vendor at the expo. After all, you need to roll the shine off them.

You'll need a D4, D6, D8, D10 and possibly a D12. Having two of each would be a bonus. You'll also need a D6 that can be told apart from all your other D6s. This is quite important, but if you don't have a distinctive D6 I will provide that too.

Deadlands:Reloaded uses the Savage Worlds game engine.

Savage Worlds:

Savage Worlds is just about the easiest RPG system to learn quickly so the players can forget about it and start having fun.

Attributes and skills are represented by die types rather than scores. Characters roll tests against these "traits" using that die and attempting to hit a target number, which is usually 4.

Characters come in two types - Wild Cards and Extras. Wild Cards roll an extra D6 - the so-called "Wild Die" - along with their trait die for tests and take the best result. Wild Cards have three wounds before they are incapacitated (don't worry: Savage Worlds combat is not a "hit point attrition" business and three wounds is plenty). Players will be using Wild Card characters.

Everyone else is an Extra. Extras have no wounds, so they become incapacitated when damaged. Extras do not roll the extra die when testing against traits.

Players will be allocated "Bennies" which can be used for re-rolls and to make wounds "didn't happen".

This has already taken much longer to type than it takes to get into a game. My favorite way to get players into Savage Worlds is to have them jump in and just try stuff, with me (The GM) explaining the mechanics needed as and when. I typically only have to do this once or twice in-game for new players to understand how it all works.

If people have already played Deadlands:Reloaded they should know I propose using the Fate Chip Bennies from the older edition as I think they are more fun than the newer generic type.

Discworld RPG

The Discworld:

The Disc sits like a dinner plate, turning slowly and endlessly spilling water over its rim, on the backs of four giant elephants, which stand more or less stoically on the back of  an humongous turtle, the great A'tuin. The moon and the Sun zoom around the Disc with scant regard for fanciful theories of ball bearings rolling across rubbery space-time dished by heavy globes of rock.

Ankh-Morpork:

Arguably the greatest city on the disc (certainly the most diverse in terms of population), Ankh-Morpork straddles the river Ankh, which flows sluggishly under a crust best not broken by the faint of heart and sensitive of nose. The city has many wonders, chief of which must be the Tower of Art of the Unseen University, which soars into the sky like a giant, soaring thing. The city is host to a number of guilds (a number not easily counted by most citizens, but The Patrician probably has plans to improve the public education system to address this lamentable lack); it will be the Thieves Guild that interests out players the most, as they are fully paid-up members in, if not good standing, at least standing with both legs intact.

“Poets long ago gave up trying to describe the city. Now the more cunning ones try to excuse it. They say, well, maybe it is smelly, maybe it is overcrowded, maybe it is a bit like Hell would be if they shut the fires off and stabled a herd of incontinent cows there for a year, but you must admit that it is full of sheer, vibrant, dynamic life. And this is true, even though it is poets that are saying it. But people who aren’t poets say, so what? Mattresses tend to be full of life too, and no one writes odes to them. Citizens hate living there and, if they have to move away on business or adventure or, more usually, until some statute of limitations runs out, can’t wait to get back so they can enjoy hating living there some more. They put stickers on the backs of their carts saying “Anhk-Morpork—Loathe It or Leave It.”

The Discworld RPG:

This new offering looks very interesting, and a vast improvement over previous attempts to model the Discworld comedic-with-a-message near chaos of the Terry Pratchett books. 

 The system looks to have lifted ideas for a variety of game systems and stirred them into an very interesting way of "agency negotiation" in a Discworld milieu. 

 The mechanics are simple, but may seem strange to conventional RPG players. A character sheet is a set of statements defining the characters in the most nebulous fashion possible while still nailing the essence of the character in question. (This looks remarkably similar to FATE to these old eyes). 

The GM and players can use these statements to adjudicate those points in an adventure where randomicity might otherwise hold sway, and the way it is done allows players to be as inventive with their "defining" statements as they think they can get away with as justification for the ability to get something done their way. Word play is encouraged, as is a light-hearted approach to the game. 

 The GM's job as far as this goes is to hear out the players vocal shenanigans and determine the difficulty die rating for the task accordingly. Die types that may be assigned are: D4, D6, D10 and D12 for increasing GM buy-in and likelihood of gaining control of the narrative. The GM rolls a D8, and scores are compared. The winner gets control of that part of the narrative. 

 Example: Cheery Littlebottom, forensic alchemist for the Night Watch, wants to use her "Expert Alchemist" trait to allow her to construct an ad-hoc explosive to blow open the door of the dungeon she has been incarcerated in by troll mobsters. The GM says this is a great idea and alows a D12 for the attempt. Said GM rolls a D8. 

  Cheery's player wins the roll: "Your scavenging results in a foul-smelling mixture you *think* will do the trick. Striking one of your boot heels against the flagstones, you hit the stinking pile with a spark. There is a very loud BANG and the door disappears outwards in a hail of wood, red hot nails and sundry bits of the lock, causing some serious damage to the troll standing guard outside. You are flung into a pile of old sacks, your ears ringing but otherwise you are unharmed." 

GM wins the roll: "Your scavenging results in a foul-smelling mixture you *think* will do the trick. Striking one of your boot heels against the flagstones, you hit the stinking pile with a spark. There is a very loud BANG and the ceiling falls in on you as the door disappears outwards in a hail of wood, red hot nails and sundry bits of the lock, causing some serious damage to the troll standing guard outside. Cheery now has the "badly beaned" consequence." 

 This is a poor but reasonable account of an imaginary encounter in this imaginary world.

Dungeon Crawl Classics

Dungeon Crawl Classics is an "old school" style RPG with an interesting way of promoting characters from "villager" to "adventurer": The so-called "funnel".

The idea is that a player will take several level-0 villagers on a coming-of-age adventure, after which (assuming they survive) they will be level-1 adventurers and get to select all kinds of new abilities.

But right now, all characters in the party are villagers, armed with loaves of bread or sacks of grain or ... well you get the picture.

The system uses the familiar D20 for most tests, but introduces a bunch of perhaps unfamiliar dice such as the d16 or d24, which will be supplied, along with paper and pencils, and pre-generated characters.

The Adventure:

The brothers Molan and Felan were two Chaos Lord champions. 

Vicious and cunning beyond measure, and without a scrap of mercy in their war-hardened hearts, they led hordes of bestial humanoids to victory against the armies of good. With the spoils of their bloody campaigns, they raised a mighty keep and rained terror and violence down upon all in their demesne.

In the end, the brothers’ success was their undoing. Disparate forces of men, dwarves, and elves rallied together in a crusade against the wicked chaos lords. For thirty-nine days, the allies laid siege to the foul keep. And on the fortieth day, the captain of the elves dealt Felan a mortal blow.

Realizing that his own end was drawing near, Molan retreated into the ancient caves beneath the keep., never to be heard of again.

Then, as the armies of good laid waste to the keep, Molan gave up his mortal shell, commending his damned soul into the writhing limbs of the gods of Chaos.

Molan made only one request. When ages had passed, and the armies of good fell into disarray once more, he asked to return and lay waste to his ancient foes.

That time has come.

Mutant Crawl Classics

The Mutant Crawl Classics game system is derived from the popular "old school -ish" Dungeon Crawl Classics, and presents the players with an opportunity to game in a fanciful future post-apocalyptic world where the definition of "a person" has, of necessity, been broadened to include mutants and sentient plants.

Similar game settings such as Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World might already be familiar to the prospective player.

The system uses the standard D20 for most tests, but can use more exotic side-counts if required (e.g. 16- or 24-sided dice). Such dice will be provided, along with pre-generated characters, scratch paper and pencils and so forth.

The game we will be playing has the players wielding multiple "level 0" characters, and their objective will be to get at least ONE of these to the scenario's end to be promoted to Level-1 and to return to their village with a prized Old World Artifact.

The Game

Having left their village for their Rite of Passage, the PCs awaken in the midst of a pitched underground battle, only to discover that they have been abducted and enslaved by semi-sentient ant-men.

Trapped in this hellish anthill, they must find a way to escape, to acquire artifacts, and to foil

the schemes of the ant-men.

If they fail, they die—and the ant army will inevitably spread further, enslaving their home village and

perhaps even the world of Terra A.D. itself.

ALIEN RPG - Destroyer of Worlds

The game uses the ALIEN RPG system which provides an exciting player experience exactly in line with expectations from the movies, in this case, especially ALIENS. Players will get the most from the game by "leaning in" to the milieu and scenery chewing a-la Hudson (at the right moments) is of course to be applauded. 

As characters progress through the story they will accumulate stress, which can be beneficial by increasing chances of success when skill rolls are called for, but can trigger panic too. Stress can be relieved by finding a safe place and resting for ten minutes or so. Are there any safe places? Better hope so. 

Combat is deadly, and PCs should strive to only involve themselves in it in a manner that emphasizes their advantages, namely the pulse rifle, the grenade launcher, the incinerator unit and (of course) the smart gun. Lock and load, marine! 

The PCs will be organized (most likely) with a command structure, and best use of game time will be for all players to remember they are pretending to be military personnel with a pounded-in respect for that hierarchy. Mutinous dissent will almost certainly bring disaster down on everyone.

Background:

Located within the Outer Veil, Kruger 60 and 61 Cygni are two colonial systems located very close to the UPP border in an area of UA space called the Advance. The Advance splinters off the American Corridor and juts Spinward into UPP territory. 

The Kruger 60 system has been a key oil supply and military staging post for the United Americas Allied Command (UAAC) and the Colonial Marines for years, and has been strategically important during the so-called Oil Wars. The severe petroleum shortage throughout the colonies has led the United Americas, the Three World Empire, and the Union of Progressive Peoples into a race to secure new sources of crude oil. 

These Oil Wars have created severe border tensions. Stretched too thin, the UAAC and the Colonial Marines maintain an uneasy peace throughout the colonies. Tired of severely rationed supplies and the mega-corporations’ mistreatment of the working class, insurgency groups have cropped up in defiance of their local governments—and the resource poor UPP is poised to take advantage of this development.

Recently, the UPP expanded their borders to engulf 61 Cygni, annexing the colony on LV-038 in the process. Allied Command sent a task force to challenge the claim. The nearest system, Kruger 60—and the moon the PCs are on—is feared to be next. 

(Courtesy Free League, no infringement of copyright intended).

Ariarcus colony is based on a moon in the Kruger-60 system. It is extremely cold and dark, and any colonist that could afford to get offworld has gone, either because the original opportunities for free enterprise have evaporated or because of fears of war, leaving large parts of the town derelict.

Current population is about 2200 colonists, some 400 marines (split between the ground and in orbit) and around 40 military scientists.

Pipes of various diameters, from a few inches to several feet, run overhead in most of the streets to convey the oil form the refinery to the elevator cable, which also serves as a pumping conduit to orbit as well as providing the space elevator with its anchor. The old on-,moon refineries are long closed down and gone cold.

A military lockdown has recently been ordered, grounding all spacecraft and immobilizing the space elevator. This has only fed the already rabid rumor mill and induced panic in some colonists, fatalism in others and rebellion in a select few.

You've been assembled with your regiments, all eager to take it to the UPP and show them some tough love (Marine style), but now you've been pulled off the line and are standing here with a bunch of mostly strangers for some bulls**t "Important Mission".

The Games

ACT 1 - The marines are tasked with finding and capturing a small group of AWOLS with stolen intelligence. They will have to deal with disgruntled colonists, insurgents and possible UPP agents. All materials required will be supplied, including paper, pencils and a pool of the dice needed to play. Pre-generated characters will be supplied.

ACT 2 - The marines have their quarry (hopefully) and must now return them to Fort Nebraska through an increasingly hostile environment. They have their weapons, equipment and a nice cozy APC, but will need their wits to survive this one. All materials required will be supplied, including paper, pencils and a pool of the dice needed to play. Pre-generated characters will be supplied.

It will not be necessary to have played in ACT 1 to take part in ACT 2 - though any who wish to do so may of course join the "fun".

The System

Alien uses a variant of the Year Zero RPG engine. When called upon to test against some challenge, the player rolls a pool of black dice and looks to get one or more '6's - successes or 'hits'. One is all you need usually, but each extra success may grant a 'stunt', some way of improving or augmenting the success, dependent on the skill being used.

Certain events call for the accumulation of STRESS by a PC. This manifests as adding a number of yellow Stress Dice to the pool of dice rolled. Stress dice succeed on a '6', but also can force a panic check is a '1' is rolled. Panic events force PCs into some line of activity (freeze, run, drop some item) until the panic is over.

In addition to Skills, PCs have TALENTS which modify the character's abilities in unique ways - life saving field medicine, turning a panic event into a 'shoot until the bad things go away (probably while screaming a battle challenge)', or being VERY persuasive. Many games have a similar feature, so this should not be new to most players.

West Side Warriors - a Savage Worlds game for 3-12 players and a GM

Think The Warriors, played out in a post-appocalyptic NYC, using the same methods as in West Side Story

New York is a wasteland by night. Vicious gangs run rampant, stealing, vandalising and using unrestrained threatening choreography on each other and any poor bugger who wanders into theater.

The players take the part of members of the mostly unknown gang The Warriors, after gang delegates (the players) have attended a meeting of gangs in The Bronx.

The object is to get back to Coney Island with everyone as undamaged as possible. Unfortunately, unbekownst by The Warriors, they have been framed for the killing of Mr Big, an important member of NY's most powerful gang The Riffs.

The Riffs have put a bounty on The Warriors!

Every gang in NY is looking for The Warriors, and the road back to Coney Island will be a difficult one.

Navigating NYC

The Warriors move across NY using a map broken into zones. Crossing zones takes cinematic amounts of time decided by the GM, but at least one gang must be overcome in every case in order to enter a zone. Gangs can be confronted and overcome by combat, or The Warriors may attempt Stealthy Passage, avoiding contact by EITHER a series of standard group stealth rolls (in which the least stealthy PC determines the outcome) or by Stealth Choreography, which consists of a series of group performance rolls (using the least able performer's skill). Success in either will grant a conflict-free passage into and out of the zone. Choreographed Stealth can also grant bennies.

Confrontation

When confronted by another gang, initiative is determined, and the winner gets to choose the mode of combat:

1. Ultra violence - a vicious no-holds-barred brawl using whatever weapons come to hand (no guns, no-one can afford them). PCs may use a single skill to elaborate on their combat technique, using athletics in conjunction with a descriptive narration, or taunt (with a suitably humiliating descriptive narration) to put opponents on the "back foot" until their next turn. Winners incerease their gang reputation (which affects combat bonuses and penalties) losers lose reputation (as well as getting sliced up a treat). Losing reduces the Warriors's reputation and blocks their way forward on the map, forcing the choice of a new route or a re-match.
2. Choreography - a vicious no-holds-barred dance-off that wll grant the winning gang bennies. (Bennies are used for re-rolls and avoiding damage). Losers slink off or faint away with shame.

Whoever has Gang Initiative decides the nature of the battle - either Choreography or Ultra-Violence. Th GM plays the NPC gang.

Choreography battles are "Dramatic Challenges" of a random number of rounds with fixed initiative. Whoever wins determines the performance troupe size AND dance formation, which must be matched by the opposing gang as best possible. Non-performers sit out and watch. The gang that wins the most rounds of performance wins the choreography battle. If that is The Warriors, they continue on their way and each PC gets a benny.

How it works:

1. The GM rolls for the challenge length, and determines the NPC Performance "target number" to be beaten by The Warriors' performance.
2. The Warriors' leader makes the group Perform roll using their Perfom skill
3. The leader may elaborate their performance with a skill roll for +1, or +2 for a raise.
4. Each member of the performing troupe within 5 inches of the leader rolls their own Perform and adds +1 to the leader's roll for a success or +2 for a raise.
5. Each member of the performing troupe within 5 inches of the leader MUST then use the same elaboration as the leader, granting an additional +1 or +2 for a raise.
6. An un-bennied failure of the elaboration OR the performance roll of a trouper removes them and any bonuses they may have contributed from the performance AND can run the risk of tripping other adjacent performers of their troupe, forcing an immediate athletics check to recover or be removed from the troupe along with any bonuses the tripped PC may have contributed to the performance roll.
7. The losing team must remove one performer from the stage for the next round due to twisted ankles, hamstring problems or histrionic meltdowns.

Most number of wins after the challenge ends determines victory. Winner sends the other gang skulking away and if the PCs are the winners, each member of The Warriors who performed (including those who were eliminated during the performance) gets a benny, and the Warriors may progress on the map as they wish. Draws are determined by single combat Perform challenges Leader to Leader. At this point player might announce that they are opting for a vocal performance, and could describe the nature of this song and what it is attempting to achieve. Extra bennies or other bonuses might be granted for a clever enough use of this tactic.

Any member of The Warriors may contest the leadership if they feel agrieved. This can be settled amicably, by a gang vote or by the above combat methods, PC on PC. Players might be wise to avoid Ultra-Violence challenges for the good of the gang, but the choice is theirs.

This is a musical. No-one dies.

Characters who take enough damage to kill them faint instead. The wound penalties do accrue though.

Players may at any time "chew the scenery" by announcing they are going to sing. They must say what the theme of their song will be, and what they are hoping to attain by singing it. Examples might be attempts to gain sympathy for imagined (or real) wrongs by other gang members, pleas to reconsider decisions already made and so forth. The other players may take the performance to heart or with a pinch of salt, but a simple success will grant a benny if the technique is not over-used.

Bennies are a feature of the Savage Worlds game system. They enable players to re-roll bad dice results, to soak away damage as though it never happened and to change features of the encounter in minor but possibly important ways.

This scenario uses three different colors of benny.

1. White Bennies are used as described above
2. Red Bennies are used either as White Bennies or to add 1D6 to any single roll. Using one grants the GM a benny
3. Blue Bennies work like Red Bennies but do not grant the GM a draw
4. In-game benny draws are done blind, for a random color

More New Purchases

I obtained a number of old school games made by Parker Brothers and Waddingtons recently.

These games were designed by masters of the form, usually complex enough to hold the attention of an adult while being easy enough to play to allow for children to join in (or possibly the adults post Christmas Dinner c/w copious quantities of alcohol). Waddingtons' Formula One was a purchase that was voted a damn good waste of time at my local friendly game store three months ago, and I just picked up copies of Waddingtons' Blast Off, a Space Race game I had played in the early 1970s which was in excellent condition, and Parker Brothers' Masterpiece which is an art collector game where the object is to collect works of art that are highly prized while dumping your acquired forgeries on the other players. Each artwork card is a reproduction of an actual painting, and gets assigned a random value known only to the owner as it is drawn. A very clever mechanic and a game I've wanted to play since I was an older kid. Never knew anyone who had it though.

I also picked up a copy of Waddingtons' Spy Ring, which I had played at university in the mid-1970s but it turns out there are two different iterations of the game. The one I had played was the original. The one I bought turned out to have a different game-play and objective while using many of the same pieces. Sadly, the one I want to play is the other one. Oh well.

Can't wait to get a crowd together for some old-school gaming.

New Purchases

More new purchases, courtesy of eBay.

I've long been wanting to get a look at the Avalon Hill old chestnut Outdoor Survival, pretty much since it was suggested as a resource in the last few pages of Wilderness Adventures, the third booklet that came in the box that held the original version of Dungeons and Dragons. Gary Gygax suggested using the Outdoor Survival map board as a campaign map for D&D, retasking the various features on the board as castles, baronies etc.

When the chance came to buy the game I jumped at it, and scored a copy that by the looks of it had never been played. I, of course, plan to ruin the collectibility of the thing by punching the counters from the sheet and actually playing the game. It looks to be an odd beast, where the players are actually playing however many simultaneous games but not actually doing much in the way of co-operating. The conceit is that players are lost in the Great American Outdoors and must survive and navigate their way to safety. To simulate being lost in confusing territory while at the same time having a bird's eye view of the whole terrain, the players do not have complete freedom of movement, but must move in straight lines largely in accordance with instructions randomly determined according to how dilapidated the player characters are. If a counter crosses a trail, the player may decide to follow it instead of beating through the bush, but that's about all the discretionary movement one is allowed if my cursory reading of the rules is right.

The different counters show the same characters in steadily decreasing state of health, from striding along confidently to staggering and even crawling desperately. It is all very amusing, in a life-or-death way.

The game came with an actual wilderness survival booklet too, the game having aspirations to be a teaching tool as well as a good way to kill a couple of hours on a rainy day.

Looks like fun.

Own Goal

I recently picked up used copies of Panzerblitz and Panzer Leader, two games from Avalon Hill's golden age of bookcase games, which I somehow managed not to buy despite promising every time I saw them that I would.

For those not in the know, these games "simulate" armoured conflicts in WWII, Panzerblitz between Germany and Soviet Russia and Panzer Leader between the German and Allied armies post D-Day. In their time there were expansions available (if you could find them) that could shift either game into new theaters of war. They remain quite popular with enthusiasts to this day, even though neither game has been available outside of a collector's market since the late 80s.

Picturing battles to come with opponents I am determined to scare up, I decided to pen my own version of The Panzerlied - the German song of the tankmen as heard in the movie The Battle of the Bulge. Since I don't speak German, and the point was to needle my putative opponent (assuming I get to play Germany) the lyrics were of necessity in English and inflammatory in nature.

If we see an enemy tank we shoot it to bits!
If we see an enemy truck we shoot it to bits!
And if we see a tank hunter we shoot and shoot until it's blown to bits!
If we see an enemy jeep we shoot it to bits!

The enemy hides in camouflage which we shoot to bits!
The enemy hides in houses which we then shoot to bits!
The enemy hides in trenches which we squish and then we shoot them to bits!
The enemy hides in bunkers which we shoot to bits!

The enemy arrives in landing craft which we shoot to bits!
The enemy arrives in gliders which we then shoot to bits!
The enemy arrives at airfields which we overrun and then we shoot to bits!
The enemy arrives in halftracks which we shoot to bits!

Only thing is, since writing it I can't stop it running round and round in my head. It seems I have written an earworm.

So that worked.

Savage Worlds Kickstarter And More

And speaking of Savage Worlds, a new version is being kickstarted.

Funded in 3 minutes. Oversubscription to this level should speak volumes about the quality of the product line to date. I believe Savage Worlds is more fun than a barrel full of monkeys poking one in the eye, and I recommend it to anyone not moving quickly enough to get out of the way. It is simple to riun, easy to teach and fun to play.This is the most entertaining explanation of how it works that I've come across to date.

You can use it to build your own RPG games or you can bolt it onto any of the many available pre-written settings: Deadlands Reloaded, Space 1889:Red Sands, 50 Fathoms, Slipstream, Flash Gordon, Rifts, Necropolis, Realms of Cthulhu, Sundered Skies, Lankhmar, Rippers, Gaslight, High Space, Kerberos Club, Weird War, Mars, High Space and more. Call it a sort of math-light GURPS in concept.

Two self-contained games don't even require a separate purchase of the basic rule books: Solomon Kane and Pirates.

I can personally recommend Pirates and 50 Fathoms to would-be Jack Sparrows , Flash Gordon and Slipstream to 30s SF serial buffs, Rippers, Realms of Cthulhu and Gaslight to the Steampunk and Horror fan bases, Space 1889 to anyone who loved the 60s movies based on Jules Verne and H.G. Wells stories, and Deadlands Reloaded to everyone - even those with no interest in the wild west, as I found it to be exciting and enjoyable after over a decade of avoiding it. Of the stand-alone games, Solomon Kane is a personal favorite.

Coming soon will be a new mashup Fantasy/SF/Horror setting called "Crystal Hearts", set in the world of this webcomic about an RPG campaign, kickstarting in mid-November.

Figure Flats For Wargaming and RPGs

Like every gamer I like having metal or plastic miniatures on the table when doing grid-based combat¹, but am increasing less enthused when it comes to the job of basing them³, prepping them⁴ and painting them, as this takes time I'd rather use to be playing.

So I've fallen back on an old idea, made new again first by Stephen Jackson (or GURPS fame) and later by several others, of cardboard representations of the figures mounted in some sort of base.

The disadvantages boil down to "not a three dimensional figure" and "can easily blow over if clods abound". The advantages are that the artwork is often superb and large collections can be transported with a fraction of the time and trouble three-d minis cause.

Steve Jackson's Cardboard Heroes were assembled as "tents", so the figures resembled upside-down letter Vs with a base that could be stuck to a coin for heft.

Pathfinder sells collections of high quality thick card "Figure Flats" to match their printed products⁵ that are sort of like cardboard tombstones in shape. They are designed to slip into a grooved set of jaws of the special bases they sell. These bases are not cheap either, because they are quite complex mouldings made, unless I miss my guess, by injection moulding. Dies represent a hefty investment - they have to be fabricated using machine tools, which is why small companies don't do plastic injection very often.

Precis Intermedia make a series of figures that can be assembled as triangular prisms, flats and counters, and also sell a rather nice base to take the flats. These are the bases I prefer to use as they are much less expensive than the Pathfinder ones and actually grip the thinner card likely to be used to make them. Precis Intremedia actually sell PDFs of these figures for download and print-at-home..

Pinnacle Entertainment Group, the company that puts out my favorite RPG system Savage Worlds also make a range of settings for the basic system, most of which (but not all) also have an available line of figure flats for purchase. These are intended to be assembled as triangular prisms and so have three faces, one of which is a black silhouette and the other two a full-color depiction of whatever it is.

I have extensive collections of both Pinnacle's and Precis Intermedia's product lines, but I prefer the figures to be presented as simple two-sided flats, with a rear and front depiction. I also prefer the figures to be slightly larger than either company chooses to make them so that the detail prints properly on inexpensive home printers that cannot get anywhere near the resolution of a professional printing press. So, to get a usable figure collection I have to do a bit of work.

Job one is to import a page of figures into a program like Photoshop or GIMP so they can be re-engineered. The Pinnacle figures are usually presented in a tight matrix that makes good use of the card available but is not suitable for flats to be mounted in a clip-base. I pick out the figure I want, and carefully extract two of the three panels from the original (one side image and the rear silhouette).

Using the rulers and guides in the graphics program I carefully scale the image appropriately. With Necessary Evil, for example, the PC Villains were scaled to be larger than the NPC aliens, which in turn were scaled up slightly so they would print cleanly. For Deadlands I made the figures, which started life at about 1.25 inches tall (including whitespace) 1.5 inches tall. I then carefully added a half-inch tab to the bottom of the character. This is what got printed, on high quality matte paper.

The printed figure art was then stuck to card using rubber cement. This is a decent bond for the duration of the preparation, but won't last long in play as the glue gradually loses its grip.

The figure was then carefully cut out using a sharp Xacto knife, the fold line scored and the figure folded and glued into a flat. It was now a two-sided cardboard affair of decent thickness⁶ with a tab. This I wrapped with heavy duty clear Scotch brand wrapping tape. I started about halfway down the tab on the rear side of the flat, wrapping the tape over the back of the figure, across the top, back down the front and cutting enough to fold over the bottom and cover the initial start point of the tape. The sides of the tape wre then trimmed flush with the sides of the flat.

The wrapping was done for several reasons, starting with the fact that rubber cement does not form a durable bond with the card. Wrapping over the top and bottom not only made sure the paper would not come away from the card backing, it formed a durable point at which the base attached - slipping the figure into the base posed no threat that the paper would be torn away from the card by the jaws of the base itself.

The glossy tape also made the card figure durable vs greasy dimwit player fingers, and gave me a nice erasable surface on which to write with wet- or dry-erase pens to indicate special status or wounds or whatever.

So not quick as far as preparation goes, but oodles quicker than painting.

1. In which the RPG sort of strays into board game territory in the name of clarity and fun. Some hate it and prefer Theater of the Mind², but I see useful applications of both techniques↑
2. In which all combat scenarios are enacted in the players' heads and no miniatures a re needed. All RPG combat was like this at first↑
3. i.e. gluing them to a base and then dressing the base to look nice↑
4. An endless process of removing the casting lines and flash, changing out patrs for others in order to make the figure unique, bending or cutting/regluing to change the pose etc↑
5. Bestiaries and Adventure Modules↑
6. Because two layers of card, yes?↑

New Purchases

I just successfully bid on three Avalon Hill boxed wargames from the golden age of games, when people weren't afraid of rulebooks.

The first was an almost complete "Tactics II", arguably the game that jump-started the market for Avalon Hill wargames. I've wanted to try this for years and a copy was available for the Buy it Now price of 20 bux plus postage, so around 35 bux in total. Not bad for a game missing a couple of counters¹.

The second and third came as a single deal in one auction. "Panzer Blitz" and "Panzer Leader" were games I remember seeing and scheduling for my shelves but money wasn't endless and I had other games that were fun and ... well, the time when these were available new passed when Avalon Hill collapsed and became a boutique name for Wizards of the Coast.

These days it is almost impossible to find people in the same locale as me who are willing to invest the time and effort in playing simulation games like these. The games are designed to recreate the actual physics of driving tanks and shooting at things. Things are intuitive once you get the designer's basic take on what is important, and certain standards were used in just about all wargame-type games so picking up a new one wasn't a steep learning curve usually and things were designed to work the way you expected them to.

The rules are also written in what is called the "Case System" which groups rules in increasing amounts of specialty. You look up whatever you want to do in general terms, then the special conditions that apply as and when you need them. It is a sort of hyperlinking. The key concept is that the players are never expected to be "off book" while playing, so the rules ware exhaustive and easy to navigate. ².

I was feeling nostalgic and decided to chance the condition and component count³ but these seemed in good condition.

I expected to get sniped to be honest and placed my bid in such a way to foil the manual snipers, but there's nothing you can do against software designed to up the bids incrementally before a human can type a counter offer. But after a brief flurry of activity by one inexperienced bidder and a halfhearted bid by someone not really interested I took the prize for around 50 bux. Twenty five dollars per game, not bad.

So I'm looking forward to receiving these blasts from the past⁴. Even now I am picturing the Panzer games in the window of Dungeons and Starships on Summer Row, my not-so local friendly game store of choice in 1981.

Now if only I can find an opponent ...

1. Which can be replaced easily enough by printing replacements from counter sheet images on the web↑
2. Contrast this to game rulebooks today which typically adhere to the RPG standard where it is assumed that the players will figure a way of winging it when (not if) things get confusing or they hit something not covered. The result is often a disorganized mess. Fantasy Flight Games, I am looking at you↑
3. the options for both these games were not great and nobody was doing a component count on the various offerings↑
4. The ancient past in the case of Tactics II, which dates from 1958 I think.↑

Intro To Savage Worlds

I came across this excellent primer on the Savage Worlds RPG game engine and think everyone will find it entertaining and informative.

And you can join a game running in the Crystal Heart setting. Well, you can watch the others play.

After reading, bet you wish the writers played your favorite system.

Space 1889:Red Sands Session 1, And Deadlands:Reloaded.

So on Sunday I finally convened the delayed start of Space 1889:Red Sands.

I am glad to report The Curse is alive and well. This game has collapsed twice due to players having conflicting schedules that eventually killed it. These people assure me that the problem isn't my GM style (my first suspicion), just events.

This day there were supposed to be two players, Matt and Chris, but at the last minute Chris had to beg off as he had contracted a bad cold.

Rather than not play - I had had a rotten month and badly needed the break from suckage - I decided to play with only one player and a GM, padding the numbers out with an army column of 25 troopers, a sergeant and an officer. Matt would be a civilian being escorted through the Libyan desert by the army.

Savage Worlds lends itself very well to this sort of kludge because it splits characters into two types:

• Wild Cards like the players and "boss" baddies who have a number of wounds they can suffer before being taken out (the consequences of that can vary according to the setting), several "bennies" that can be spent to re-roll failed trait checks or "soak" wounds (shrugging off attacks cinematically) and access to certain edges (feats/advantages) restricted to Wild Cards, and

• Extras who are downed by a single wound. Think of the enemy soldiers in a Rambo movie or bandits in a western - extras are characters for players to shoot if opposing or to give support if allied. Extras can be made very quickly. In fact, I used templates from the back of the Space 1889:Red Sands setting book.

 The number of allied NPCs meant I could terrify Matt with a huge number of attacking Bedouins as he raced for Fort Oublié.

I gave him a good run for his money and threw in a Lame GM Bone (LGMB) so that he survived with some soldiers to enter the fort and suffered attacks by what waited within.

And he had a ball. I had a ball. Things can only get better when Chris joins next session.

The preparation involved reading the scenario and setting rules to re-familiarize myself with them, and turning text-block clues into first person diary entries for touchy-feely clues a-la Call of Cthulhu.

I think this time we might get all the way through. I might even finish the Globe of Mars I was working on when the last game collapsed in a puff of weddings and postings abroad.

That was in the afternoon. In the evening I stepped into my friend Craig's game slot and ran Deadlands:Reloaded, the Weird West setting for Savage Worlds. I ran Deadlands a few years ago and had a great time doing so, using a module called Coffin Rock. When it was over I calculated we got 18 3 1/2 to 4 hour sessions from that module, and I could have run another 9 without breaking a sweat. Coffin Rock is just about the best value for RPG dollars I've ever bought.

This evening I ran "Shootout at the Circle R Corral", an inexpensive pdf I bought from the Drivethru RPG website. We got about halfway through before we had to beak for the evening. During that time much Mad Science was deployed on both sides of the GM screen (actually, the screen was off to one side because I prefer to run "in the round" with open die-rolls. The screen is just an aide-memoir for the various once-in-a-blue-moon rules I normally can remember but have trouble with after running D20 most of the time). Mine was largely ineffective, theirs was devastating, blowing my mighty steam wagon to shrapnel with one shot and taking down my clockwork mech with riflefire. The mech proved delightfully incapable of directing gattling gun fire onto any of the many targets and eventually blew up due to over-the-top damage the likes of which have not been seen since Kirk activated the self destruct on the NCC-1701A while Klingons were rifling it.

It was all great fun and we shall be meeting again in two weeks to do some more.

UPDATE: Future posts concerning the Space 1889:Red Sands campaign will be posted in a purpose-built blog rather than here.

End Of An Era

So last week I sat with the two people who showed up to the (delayed) Delta Green session and we decided that the game wasn't doing it for anyone any more.

It was agreed that if we had more interested people it would still be a going concern, but with only two players the pacing was not as good as it might be, and the mix of player styles wasn't working with our established milieu. We had enjoyed it more when there was a crowd, with all the churning of ideas that brought.

And so, I reluctantly put the campaign to bed, with the players stipulating that if interest should pick up I should run it again, which was kind of them but we are done.

It had a very long run, more than eight years of (mostly) monthly play. I didn't count the sessions but I would be surprised if we hadn't convened the game more than 90 times.

This game brought me into contact with some of the best RP gamers with whom I have ever had the pleasure of playing. Their buy-in and keen participation drove me to the limits of my creativity when trying to devise suitably convoluted plots, schemes and double-crosses. It has been the most enjoyable of all the games I have run.

So I should thank those who made it so much fun, starting with the seven people who sat in the very first scenario, at a small convention called RetCon. I don't know all their names, so they'll all stay anonymous. I learned a lot from devising and running that one session.

Mark, Jay, Melanie, Kevin, Mike, Justin, Chris, Dan, John, Matt, Stephen, Daniel, thank you all.

I shall remember forever Kevin's radio kluge that saved the day, Melanie's cunning "Almanick deception ploy", Justin's tiny hand and later inadvertent bloody sacrifice, Jay's leadership and knowledge (along with his gobsmacked reaction when he found out about Melanie's perfidy and his loud refutation of personal cultism while his character stood naked in a field chanting a spell with a bunch of other naked , blood-soaked "non-cultists"), Mike's re-entry to the game after a short spell away, Chris's telephone pole climbing stunt and his mix tapes, Dan's close encounters with mythos stuff that somehow didn't kill him or drive him insane, Matt for his gleeful playing of insane characters ("The Frogs! Aargh!"), Stephen for his attempt to psychoanalyze someone going mad in a submarine via radio and his love of ridiculously large caliber guns, John for destroying the known universe for no good reason, and Daniel for his powers of deduction and the spaceship incident.

Thanks to all those who participated in single games whose names are too numerous to mention, too.

I hope everyone had fun. I know I did.

We took a vote and decided to switch to a monthly game of Space 1889:Red Sands, which can be played with fewer players owing to the ease of use of NPC "extras" in the Savage Worlds system.

I Can Has Questions

Why do the current crop of RPG rulebook writers insist on hiding the essential information needed to get up to speed as quickly as possible behind pages and pages of waffle?

Used to be the character build process was the first thing in the rulebook and was laid out quickly and in a straightforward manner. But now you have to wade through almost the entire blasted book to find out the most important stuff - i.e. how to build a character for use in the game.

Not that I'm against having a rich character-build process or game world you understand, but it is much easier to understand the bits the author is trying to convey at the start by reference to an actual, you know, character. Writers: don't describe the blasted skill test mechanics to me until you've described how I build the skills.

Case in point: I want to run some players through Planet Mercenary RPG this Saturday and since no-one has any idea of what that entails I need to get up to speed quickly. I flip to the character build section (a good 1/3 of the way into the book) and my immediate question was "How many skill build points do I have?" It took me about 15 minutes to locate the section in which that info was yielded up. Shortly after, I was looking at the Starship build process (part of the initial group character build process). How many resource points do the players get? Another 15 minute search for something that should have been front and center, not buried in a small paragraph at the end. Seriously, are the editors autistic or something?

This isn't a problem restricted to Planet Mercenary RPG either. D&D 5e pulls the same nonsense. Dresden Files RPG did it in spades, requiring reading almost the entire rulebook to get a character built.

Savage Worlds on the other hand presents all the relevant info concisely and up front. GURPS also does the job right, if somewhat less concisely. So it isn't impossible or hard to do. Call of Cthulhu has a two-page spread that explains the whole process diagramatically. It really doesn't get any easier than that.

So game designers and editors: If you want people to play your games, why make it hard to glean how to do so from the rulebooks? If you are going to make people go hunting in YouTube for instructions on how to play, why bother writing a rulebook at all?

Thank You, Ralph.

A shout out to my friend Ralph, who has lived far away from me for Lo! these many years.

We vacationed in the Poconos this year on account of a hurricane wiping out our Florida plans (hence, no reports of an expensive visit to the local friendly game store this summer) and managed to swing by Ralph'n'Cate's place in Pennsylvania before departing for home. They have a beautiful house in a wonderful neighborhood, but that's a subject for a different blog.

What gets a mention here is that Ralph was extremely generous as we left for home, gifting me with two fine game products: the remade Horror on the Orient Express campaign for Call of Cthulhu ¹ and something I hadn't seen before: Gumshoe: Cthulhu Confidential , which is a special rewrite of the Trail of Cthulhu rules for one player and a GM.

These fine gifts shall not go unappreciated, and Cthulhu Confidential is scheduled for a detailed reading in a couple of weeks, after the Planet Mercenary RPG playtest.

So now I need to find a platform that will support Ralph and my long-distance gaming interests. I'm thinking Google hangouts.

1. which I'd seen but steered clear of on account of having the original and not believing Chaosium would ever deliver on the Kickstarter² ↑
2. And in fact they almost didn't but for the intervention of some "angels"↑

You Could Have Knocked Me Down With A Feather, But ...

Planet Mercenary RPG delivered.

About a year and a half late, but it delivered, and nice it is too.

The conceit is that players are NCOs and officers in a mercenary company in the far future, in the universe of the Schlock Mercenary webcomic. Notable mechanical goodies are that each player gets a gang of three NPC grunts to order about, a card-mediated "mayhem" mechanism that purports to put role-playing opportunities back into dice-fest combats and skill blitzes. Looks good on paper.

I Kicked in for a deluxe package containing the hardcover rulebook, a pdf copy of same, A distressed copy of The Seventy Maxims Of Maximally Effective Mercenaries¹ and a pdf of same, a GM screen depicting ships of the universe on the player side, some themed dice, the cards (of course), a dice bag, a challenge coin D2 flipper and some lapel pins. All very nice.

The delays in delivery were mainly caused by overthinking the artwork on the Maxims book and the rulebook as I understand it. This was unfortunate, especially as I would have kicked in without the "ultra realistic" artwork, gussied up from the webcomic. I rather like the webcomic art. No matter, though much of the momentum and expectation I'd built for the game in my pool of players has evaporated in the interim.

I'm taking it out for a test-drive next weekend, so I'll report in on the experience then. if it goes well I may try and convene a regularly occurring game of Planet Mercenary RPG.

I also Kicked into a separate project by the same team for three copies of their plastic "handbrain" things. These are basically frames that can hold a half sheet of legal pad paper created to look like the PDA "handbrains" used by everyone in the comic. They are intended as small gm shields or handout dressing. Once properly distressed and painted up they should look nice, and may be useful for handing out building plans, space station layouts or briefings. Who knows?

They ran a month late too, though that was because of manufacturing problems that pushed into the schedule for Gencon.

At least they honoured their promise to not hold the Planet Mercenary RPG release up until Gencon. I hate Kicking into a game that then delivers at Gencon first instead of to the early-bird supporters that got the game made.

1. An in-universe artifact made famous in the webcomic↑

All Good Things Must Come To An End

"So what happened with Beauregard Tucks and Co?" I hear you ask¹.

Surprisingly, he didn't get killed, at least, not for a good, long time. He survived the deaths of just about everyone else in the game, ending up in the final confrontation as the only PC to have witnessed the demise of The Earps.

Stone ² was killed twice (he didn't stay dead for reasons I won't spoil). The first time in mano-y-mano duel between Stone and a character played with gusto by Matt, using magic bullets it took a couple of PC lives to recover from their resting place, and the second in a bloody drawn-out slugfest ³ that ended up with two more PCs dead before Stone engaged, and the final death of Tucks when he decided that the epicness of the situation called for an all-out effort, shot at Stone, missed and was backshot to instant death by Stone's posse.

This behavior of Tucks' was so at odds with his usual "go invisible and fly over the enemy, blasting them with a shotgun and/or magic attacks for the quick kill" tactic that he had used so effectively in the past (while Matt's character was dealing with Stone's challenge, Tucks was dealing very effectively with the twenty or so henchmen trying to add their voice to things for example) that the others might have been forgiven for thinking that Tucks was simply trying to steal the show.

That wasn't what was going on.

First, Tucks was hamstrung by a dearth of magic resources to hand. He could have borrowed the resources needed from demonic forces, maybe, but with Stone out and about he thought that might be a foolish thing to try. Long explanation short, Tucks could not afford the resources to go invisible.

Second, Tucks had opted to cast a spell with a cheesy "get two moves for the price of one" effect, which I interpreted as "you only have three seconds instead of the usual six in which to think and act in each move". This was entirely subjective and I discussed it with no-one, but it seemed immersively right from my seat, and I refused to pause for long decisions and discussions with the other players as I made Tuck's moves. This probably didn't go over well with the other players but I had broadly hinted at what was going on and some of them were role playing their own parts well.

Third, Tucks was the only character in play by then who had seen the horrible deaths of the Earp family, and was carting Wyatt Earp's marshal's badge. That badge was magic and had save Tucks's hide several times, but I (as a player) honestly thought our party had over-reached and were doomed, and decided that Tucks, realizing how bad the situation was, would decide that the time was come for playing out the hand as dealt and living up to the totem he carried by trying his damn' best to take down that Son of a Gun Stone as quickly as possible, with a shade less thought for his own skin than had been the norm before, so that the others could have time enough to flee for their lives if they so chose.

In other words, an epic scene from an epic campaign required epic participation. Tucks was, after all, a Legendary character⁴ by this time.

Had Tucks had one more round and ten more magic points, perhaps he would have made different tactical choices. But you play the cards you are dealt, as Tucks might have said.

In the end Tucks managed to find the one weapon that could kill Stone, but flubbed the shot and was killed for his failure. Appropriately epic in my estimation. I'd have liked him to survive, but I was happy the way it went down.

Until he rose from the dead as a Harrowed character⁵ that is.

Should the opportunity to play Tucks arise again, he will be constantly fighting the same horror Jim Dandy ended up losing his battle to - permanent demonic absorption.

The other players were magnificent.

Matt - Died once, then got smart and survived until the end

James - Died several times, but always from chance critical hits while doing the right thing.

Sam - Died once but couldn't make many of the sessions, including the last one.

Ali - Missed many sessions, but her portrayal of Dr Honeydew as she slid ever deeper into madness was brilliant

Jeff - Died three times. Became Harrowed and lost the dominion battle once. A martyr to ambushes and multiple critical hits.

Craig - Our GM who threw us Lame GM Bones when required and did his very best to keep it unreal.

I haven't had so much fun in years. I looked forward to the games and dressed-up as Tucks faithfully each time to maintain the image. By the end I had the black hat, dress shirt, studs, Poker Hand Cuff-Links, a smart waistcoat, a monogram bolo tie and a fob watch. I've never done at-table cosplay before⁶, but it will become part of my RPG kit-out whenever opportunity knocks.

1. When I put those words into your mouth, dear reader↑
2. the personification of Death in Deadlands:Reloaded↑
3. in every sense of the word↑
4. A game term for the experience level the character had earned that also carries repercussions in-game↑
5. I suspect a cheesy GM finesse used as some sort of comedic come-uppance here, but them's the breaks.↑
6. A lie: I wore a robe to A Song Of Ice and Fire once↑