Platonic Solid

A few weeks ago (finally posting up) my wife and I gave Barbarians of the Aftermath a whirl in the setting we developed for our Live Action Airsoft System so that we could jumpstart the game. I gotta say, BoA is very well done. We used the MythicGM Emulator along with the story generator in the PDF to get things rolling. Equipment selection was a breeze. Instead of the point buy system we just picked what characters typically had in our game. Off we went! First, the PCs: Polly: Polly was an accomplished Actress [1] in local theater but to pay the bills she worked as a Computer Technician [2]. That was before the world went dark. After she became a member of a local Militia [1] with respectable skills. Str 1, Agi, 1, Min 2, App 0 Bra 1, Mel 0, Ran 1, Def 2 Lucky, Determined (to rebuild society), City Dweller Weapon: Remington 870 shotgun Ty Lawson Ty grew up as a Farmer [2] who was known to have a bit of a touch as a Mechanic [0]. After graduating school he became a Police Officer [1]...

Over at RPG.net I was asked how the mechanics worked for the story. I only gave a little glimpse in my writeup so here goes... The mechanics forced the fiction to go the way it did. The PCs absolutely had to sneak up onto every encounter and try to gain absolute surprise. If you gain complete surprise and land your first strike then it's a critical. While a critical may not take them out completely it puts them right at death's door and virtually precludes them swinging back or doing pretty much anything else which was crucial. Neither of the PCs were armored up very heavily. If either one would have taken a hit or two and the alarm sounded then they would have been in big trouble. There was no chance that they could have waded through the outlaws. In a way the game's vibe felt like The Riddle of Steel. Perhaps it was the fact that if you work the combat options to your advantage you really do have an advantage. In combat you declare your intent at the top of the turn. If ...

Tonight we gave Epic a whirl using the Mythic GM Emulator. Holy mother of gaming! My wife's character Elsbith was a rangery agile Leaf Walker. My character Wulfred was a mercenary with intuition as his natural talent. The setup was that we were on recon to find out why our main force didn't come back with the noble's 5 year old son who was being held captive by a group of outlaws. The PCs reconnoiter the area where they suspect the boy is being held. They find a cave entrance amazingly being guarded by a single bandit. They achieve full surprise on the guard and launch two arrows into the poor sap. With it being full surprise each shot is a critical. One arrow to the head and the other to the neck. He goes down without a squeak. Elsbith and Wulfred sneak into the cave entrance to find that it opens up into a large underground complex. Amazingly it is well lit but still shadows lingered on the edges of the natural rock. Up ahead the PCs see bodies - bodies of their men bein...