Platonic Solid

Finally Played Dungeon Crawl Classics

2012-01-19T12:47:00.001-05:00

I finally got around to playing Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics last night and I gotta say that it was fun. The first time I read the game I was turned off by some things. No, not the weird dice. I loved that idea. I was instead turned off by the 3rd Edition-isms so I tucked it into my hard drive thinking that DCC would remain a curiosity. For whatever reason the game came up in conversation and we decided to give it time at the table.

Of course we started with the funnel; 4 characters run by a single player, my wife. They are: Thorek the dwarf, Gareth the woodsman, Saul the cobbler and Mithra the alchemist. Hit points ran the full gamut, from 1 to 5.

Gareth the woodsman knows Thorek the dwarf who knows a guy who has a map for sale. Saul the cobbler and Mithra the alchemist are kin who set out to adventure for the legendary wealth that's "out there". They have a meeting set at the road house on the old forest road. Thorek who has known those who have set abroad becomes the impromptu leader of the band. He sets the marching order with himself in the front carrying a forge hammer. Gareth is next with his trusty hand axe and closely following up is Saul with an awl from his workbench clenched in hand like a dagger and Mithra who wields a staff/walking stick.

Gareth sees odd tracks in the mud. I call for him to roll an Intelligence check vs DC 15 to get details. The roll is 21! He can count 3 or 4 individuals in bare feet about the size of a child out in the cold elements. Then Mithra spots something up ahead on the road. It's an object or something lying in the middle. Thorek tells the rest of the group to stay put while he goes and checks it out. Gareth stands in front of Saul and Mithra since he's the burliest of the 3. As it turns out, the thing on the road was a piece of torn material off what looks like a heavy cloak. Attack!

From the high bank of the road two nearly naked, what can be called men in the loosest sense of the word though too small to be, with nearly black skin the color of wet slate leap onto the party. One attacks Thorek the dwarf while the other leaps onto the woodsman sinking his teeth into the man's collarbone. From there the newfound party careens into the chaos of their first bit of action.

Gareth stumbles and smashes his axe into the road's high side rock bank breaking the axe's hickory handle. Thorek, in the excitement, forgot about the lanyard on his heavy headed forge hammer and on a wild swing essentially throws throws the hammer down through the tree tops on the low side of the road. Amazingly, Saul who has 1 hit point throws himself into action to save the dwarf and takes down one of the creatures with a stroke of his awl. And Mithra with her measly 2 hit points steps up and crashes her staff on the head of the thing that is biting the woodsman.

Interesting how that played out. The two tougher characters were saved by those teetering on the edge of death just by setting out.

Thorek tells the rest of the party that the road house is just up the next hill. Scared they break out into a run. I called for a Fort Save to determine condition when they arrive. All fail except for Mithra who is the most scared of what just happened.

As the smoke of the road house's ovens came into view yet again something was seen up ahead on the road. Another of the dark figures was hunched over something. A body! Mithra yelled at it but wasn't going to advance on her own. By the time the rest of the party could catch its breath the thing was long gone. As it turns out the man lying on the road, an old adventurer, was Thorek's contact. Mithra began to bind his wounds like she did Gareth's a scant hour ago but he was well beyond her capabilities. His last raspy words were to take the map hidden in his shirt. It's too important not to.

Thorek declares that they'll take the body to the roadhouse and then determine how to do a proper burial. And that's where the session ended.

After it was over I had each character roll a Will Save. Saul and Mithra failed while Gareth and Thorek both succeeded on the high end. We're using the results to shape the fiction and upcoming role-play.

Quickly I discovered that my bias against the 3rd Edition-isms was wrong. Those "isms" made light made it easy to run fast and loose in ways that I never felt comfortable doing when running full blown 3rd Edition. It felt a lot like Swords & Wizardry with some extra bits to help shape the intended experience. The character funnel makes for a neat experience too. It's more personal and less focused on the game world though I suspect that will change as the survivors grow in power. It got two thumbs up.

The (Swords & Wizardry) Ultimate Christmas 2011 Boxed Set

2011-12-13T20:35:00.001-05:00

With Swords & Wizardry being such a hit with my niece and nephew, my wife and I decided to put something together for them as a Christmas Gift. The result is the Ultimate Christmas 2011 Boxed Set.

D&D With Kids

2011-11-28T17:09:00.001-05:00

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I ran an impromptu game with my niece (7) and nephew (9). I fully expected the 9 year old to get into the game and he did but the 7 year old took it to a different level of sophistication.

When I first explained the concept of an RPG to the kids I told them that it was a fantasy game where you create a character and play in a story. My nephew asked if it was something that you did on the Wii. My niece corrected him. She announced that it's when you create a fairytale and play it out with your character.

Along with the niece and nephew, their mom who used to game with me when we were kids jumped into the game along with my wife who games with me now. I chose Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox for its fast and loose nature based on rulings.

No stock characters here. I wanted the kids to have the ability to craft their characters from the very start. We began with rolling 3D6 for attributes and went right to starting gold and equipment. They loved picking equipment and coordinating with each other to make sure that the party was properly and evenly equipped.

The nephew's character started the game in debt to my wife's character so that he could purchase the base necessities of a Fighting Man. He played it very well from the start which led to fantastic role-play once the game got started.

The niece was all about being a wizard so naturally she chose to be a magic user which included picking her own spells and tracking their use on the back of her index card.

My sister played a halfling thief who picked up gold here and there without telling the rest of the party and even offered to loan some of it to the fighting man if it was of course paid back with interest.

My wife played a paladin, the class taken from WhiteBox Heroes. It's a good thing too. The party needed some mending from time to time.

Overall the game was incredibly fun. Things that we gamers find hackneyed such as goblins and giant ants shock them in ways that I remember from when I first encountered the game. It refreshes the perspective.

We managed to get in a couple of sessions over the jam-packed holiday. Leading up to the second session the kids asked, my wife figures, a couple dozen times when we'd play next. We didn't manage to wrap it up but the story surely won't stop. Since the kids live over a thousand miles away I've got some ideas for a GMless adventure to bring the story to a conclusion. It'll be fun.

Looking At Older Projects

2011-10-30T09:15:00.000-04:00

Now that Firefight! is out I'm looking at projects that have been set aside to pick back up. I'm giving serious consideration to Adventurer.

Firefight!

2011-09-27T10:00:00.001-04:00

It's been quiet here for a while now. On top of renovating an old house It's also been because I've been quite busy writing software for making EPUBs, creating an EPUB for distribution, navigating the (sometimes byzantine) paths to the Apple and Google eBook stores, and creating the website for our game Firefight! The Tactical Roleplay Engine.

It's been a lot of work but so worth it.

[crosspost] The Skinny on Agile Game Design: Part 3 - The Firefight! Board

2011-07-15T06:53:00.004-04:00

In the first article I talked about how we got Agile. The second article covered how to create a basic but useful Kanban board.

This article gives an overview of a Kanban board used specifically for game design. The board is the one that we actually use.

Gave Advanced Fighting Fantasy a whirl

2011-07-02T08:43:00.012-04:00

We ran our test scenario where the heroine wakes to hear the village being attacked by goblins and orcs. The orc chieftain is kidnapping the mayor's son while his warg and warband wait outside. Here's how it went.

Upon being driven awake by a commotion outside, our heroine leaps from her bed and tests her LUCK. Can she don her armor and gather her weapons before being intruded upon by those who are making the martial racket? With ease.

She stands beside the window of her upstairs room and looks across the window to see a gaggle of goblins smashing about and setting torch to thatched roof. Slowly she swings the window open and takes aim. With arrow loosed she reaches for another. The arrow finds its mark and the first goblin falls to his knees. One of the goblin's companions turns to pull him from out of the street in order to preserve a sword swinger for when the archer is found. Another arrow is launched and the second goblin falls victim. Goblin heads swivel to find the source of their woe but to no avail.

Not wanting to press her luck and get trapped in an upstairs loft the heroine dashes downstairs and out the back of the small inn. Where the innkeeper's family has gone is unknown. Reaching the opposite corner of the inn from where she could get a new perspective the ranger shoots another arrow and knocks down one of the goblins that was previously hit. This time for good. Around the building she dashes toward the center of the din and discovers the source.

Outside of the mayor's house a line of 3 orcs stand guard along with a giant warg. Screaming and sounds of battle from inside the house are be heard even over the sounds of the town being torn asunder.

Amazingly the ranger moves into position without being seen. An arrow is knocked, aimed, and launched toward the wickedest beast in view - the warg. She underestimates the distance of the shot. The arrow passes beneath the fel animal and passes through the skin of its far foreleg. With a furious growl that unnerves even the orcs, it leaps into the air like a bucking horse and spins midair. The moment its feet touch the ground it locks eyes with our heroine ranger.

In haste another arrow is fired but it too misses the mark sailing harmlessly into the hazy background.

As the ranger backpedals and draws her longsword the warg falls upon her. The beast grabs her by the armor but even so through its primal strength she feels her STAMINA wane. Then the orcs enter the fray. One of lesser experience would have met their doom in such a circumstance, outnumbered as she was.

As time ticks on the gargantuan wolf tears and rends while the orcs stumble without being able to achieve instant superiority. One of them falls from the point of the ranger's sword as the warg drives her back.

"Ah, he has driven me out of the fray and given me opportunity." she thinks. And she takes it.

Able to put distance between herself and her opponents she huddles amongst the fallen wares of a merchant shop and downs her liquid STAMINA. Refreshed, she climbs to the top of the shop to gain new vantage but realizes that her bow is still on the ground. Cursing her luck she redraws her sword and leaps down upon the now bloody warg. Midair the beast looks up and grabs her and once again throws her to the ground.

Now beyond angry - with a sense of serenity the ranger swings the sword again and again. Warg and orc alike fall to the steel that sings as it finds blood. Upon the last orc the point of the blade is only paused before it finds the thing's wretched heart. A roar erupts from the mayor's house.

A bloodied orc chieftain lumbers onto the covered porch and pauses for a moment in bewilderment. His retinue is gone and so is his mount. As he turns to run away with a young boy slung over his shoulder the heroine sprints in pursuit.

The chieftain attempts to use terrain; tree, rock, and grade to his advantage. Leaping over piles of field stone, around and under great limbs of tree in attempt to shake his pursuer but to no avail he finds himself in a hollow with no easy egress. He fears not because he knows that the human will not shoot while he carries a child. And he believes in his own strength.

Clawing his way up the steepest part of the hollow's sides he begins to put distance between himself and the ranger. The grade was steeper and higher than he thought and the battle inside the house took more out of him than he realized. Breathless he slips and drops the boy.

Absentmindedly the ranger reaches for her bow but it is still on the ground back at the village. With purposeful demeanor she strides forward and falls upon the greater orc with her sword.

With pain and weariness the chieftain turns to fend off the attack with a beautiful short sword obviously plundered from whom and where unknown. While his weapon is beautiful it gives no edge in the battle. He dies and tumbles down the slope of his doom.

Now all that is left here to do is to check for coin, collect the boy and return to the village...

Some notes:

I didn't have stats for a warg so I went with a snow wolf and tweaked from there. It worked very well. The stats for the chieftain too were winged. I just took an orc and put a few points into him. Voila!

The final chase scene was riffed using the chase rules from Spirit of the Century as inspiration. Excellent. More on that in a future post.

Also, we went with the roll-high option for unopposed tests with 15 being the target number instead of rolling SKILL or under.

Advanced Fighting Fantasy Character Sheet

2011-07-01T19:48:00.003-04:00

I like making character sheets so when I got my hands on the new Advanced Fighting Fantasy I had to give it a go. Here it is in PDF.

Memories of The Forest of Doom

2011-06-29T23:39:00.005-04:00

Advanced Fighting Fantasy landed on the doorstep yesterday. I'm only about half way through but I'm absolutely loving it. I played the game books as a kid and extrapolated from them a stand-alone system when I didn't even properly know what an RPG was. The 1989 version never made it to my hands which makes this reading adventure all the more fantastic. More to come.

Bulldogs!

2011-06-28T04:09:00.014-04:00

I just finished reading Bulldogs! and I have to say that it does indeed kick some serious rump. First off, I have to say that I'm a big, big fan of FATE 3.0. Ever since Spirit of the Century landed in my lap I've been running all sorts of games with the engine; everything from Lord of the Rings to Star Wars to Macross.

This is the first FATE release since Diaspora to really grab me. Why? Because it hews back toward Spirit of the Century while bringing a refined sense of, well, sensibility and guidance. The turn back toward SotC tacks closer to my heart. I love that full-wide-open feeling that I get when contemplating and running a game.

While reading Bulldogs! I couldn't help think about mashups with both Diaspora and Starblazer Adventures.

From Diaspora will come clusters as well as the mini-games. I'm not sure how to run social combat without them anymore. And I can easily see going the other way - using Diaspora for the base while pulling over gear and Resources from Bulldogs!

From Starblazer Adventures will come "fractal" mass combat.

But enough about mashups. What kinds of games can be run with just Bulldogs! itself? The built-in setting looks great. You're a crew member on a rickety freight ship run by the TransGalaxy corporation. Times are tough and scratch can be hard to come by. It's very well done and is fleshed out just enough to jumpstart a campaign, providing great opportunity to make it your own. To work with we've got; The Frontier Zone, Empires, Organizations and Corporations, Alien Species, Gear, and Ships - the whole ball of wax tuned for space opera which is implied through the skills and stunts instead of being ultra setting specific which opens up even more play opportunity.

Players create their characters while the group as a whole provide input for creating the captain who is usually run by the GM, and the ship. Players have their choice of alien species but can create their own which is a nice touch. Later in the book are rules for creating gear and ships which extends to vehicles in general. So really you can make just about anything.

Near the end of the book you even get guidance along the lines of advice and game tweaks (e.g. crew creation) for running games with other campaign setups including Free Traders, Explorers, Mercenaries, Espionage, and Pirates.

In short, it's a great time to be a FATE fan.

Old School Response

2011-06-10T08:08:00.004-04:00

I've been reading as many responses to the release of Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG as I could since the game has piqued my interest. A few observations:

More than once the use of Zocchi Dice was described as a gimmick. In 1974 D&D must have been hella-gimmicky. What were they thinking?

And I've noticed a sense of anxiety over following various game approaches and rules. Guys, we're talking about a game that's about OLD SCHOOL gaming. Don't worry about Every-Single-Rule. If something doesn't sit quite right with you then don't use it or change it. If you roll something on a chart that doesn't quite fit then roll again. If you feel like making your changes is too much work and it'd be easier to play what you already have then it's a piece of cake.

Now, to finally check out the game itself.

It's Zooming By

2011-05-19T09:37:00.004-04:00

The month is zooming by and this is the first post for May? Geez.

I haven't played anything at all for the last few months. I have a big home remodeling project coming up which will push the play-less period out a little farther but it won't last forever. The first games in the queue are TechNoir and Dungeon World.

[crosspost] The Skinny on Agile Game Design: Part 2 - I Think I Kanban

2011-04-16T14:53:00.004-04:00

This article is much more practical than the first. It covers how to create and use a basic Kanban board for game design.

[crosspost] The Skinny on Agile Game Design: Part 1

2011-03-14T21:31:00.003-04:00

Over at my technical blog I launched the first article on Agile Game Design.

I figured that some folks who check this corner of the 'net from time to time may find it interesting. If you'd rather leave a comment here that's no problem as I regularly check both sites.

The Castles Keeper Guide is Finally Here

2011-02-17T08:54:00.009-05:00

When I discovered Castles & Crusades back in the neighborhood of 2007 I heard about the mystical Castle Keeper Guide. Intrigued, I placed an order for the C&C Player Handbook and Monsters & Treasure manual. While my books were en route I was hoping that the CKG would soon be available for purchase so as to round out the collection and so that I would have everything that I would need at my fingertips. After the books arrived and I had gotten some table time with them I realized that I didn't really need any more so-called core books. The game simply worked. And heck, I already had a shelf of older material with which I could plug any holes, both real and perceived. I don't have any personal insight but I'm suspecting that this played a big part in why it took as long as it did to get the CKG put together. It couldn't be yet another GM guide.

As the years reeled by the CKG percolated in the background. Questions were asked and were answered but it seemed like it was just back there bubbling. My personal opinion was that if the book came out then I'd check it out. The problem was that if you didn't visit their forums you wouldn't have a clue. But then the Trolls did something brilliant.

The Troll Lord guys jumped on social media where they opened up their doings and goings-ons on YouTube and Twitter. As a player and a fan I really liked that I could see the state of the project. I really appreciated that the Trolls had to juggle and re-prioritize projects to meet the needs of business reality. I can certainly relate. Their social media engagement kept me, well, engaged. Over the last year we watched their trials, triumphs, and tribulations. I respect them for that.

Now I'm waiting for my CKG to show up.

Lamentations of the Flame Princess Makes Me Happy

2010-10-14T09:48:00.007-04:00

After hearing good things about Lamentations of the Flame Princess (LotFP) I decided to head over to the LotFP blog to see what I could see. I had the vague notion that LotFP was a retro-clone of sorts with a weird treatment. First off, the cover really drew me in. From there I headed over to RPG.net and read a few threads. Tim aka Samwise7 had some great things to say and that sold me. I've met Tim in real life and while I don't think we like all of the same things our gaming sensibilities line up quite often. In short, I trust what he's saying. So, off I went to get my hands on a copy.

I needed another retro-clone like I needed a hole in the head. Up until LotFP the only clones that clicked for me was Swords & Wizardry Core and WhiteBox. Those two variants of OD&D allow me to run games like I used to run AD&D back when I first started in this hobby but with a dash of modern je ne sais quoi. But I'm always open to trying out new games.

I sat down and read straight through the main rulebook. Right away I saw the unique balance not only between classes but also between the classes and the antagonists of the greater world. Only fighters have an ever increasing attack bonus while clerics and magic-users of course gain spell slots. As part of this treatment the cleric's ability to turn undead is not a class ability but is instead a spell. Magic-user spell slots are pared back as well. Immediately I could see that an extra bit of parity was baked into the class design. The game also covers dwarves, elves, and halflings all handled as race as class. I like it. Keeps them separate and unfamiliar.

What about thieves? Technically there isn't a thief class but instead there is the Specialist. The Specialist class is a template of sorts. LotFP codifies a list of abilities that everyone can do such as climbing, searching, find traps, etc. All classes start out with a 1 in 6 chance of success modified by context. The Specialist of course has all of these abilities but starts out with 4 skill points to distribute amongst the abilities as pip increases. As a Specialist goes up in level he gets more skill points. It's an incredibly flexible approach making thief/rogue more of a meta-class. The Specialist class provided the spark for my setting for LotFP. More on that later but first I have to talk about the character sheet.

The character sheet is top notch. It provides an extra bit of ease of use that we really appreciated. Next to each Ability Score modifier there is a short list of things of what the modifier is used for. The Armor Class subsections for Ranged, Without Shield, and Surprised were really useful even for old hand gamers. And most important of all, the list of Common Activities is right on the sheet. These things at first blush may not seem all that important but what it did was put the author's system design intent right there in front of us the entire time. This is a good thing because it meant that we could easily play the game with very, very little page flipping.

Gotta mention the encumbrance system before I forget. It's concise and well done. Encumbrance states and how you got there are all on the second page of the character sheet. A couple of times I hit some difficulty because I was overcomplicating it. Encumbrance is one of those things that as DM I typically handwave but for this game I'm sticking a little closer to the rules as written because the whole notion reinforces the feel of fragile man in the wilderness amongst the unknown.

To me, Lamentations of the Flame Princess feels a lot like Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox with a few more goodies baked in. In my estimation it sits right in between the barer WhiteBox and the more advanced Core rules. That's a good spot to be in.

About that setting that I mentioned. Right now it's just the barest of sketches but enough was put together to run our first session. In a nutshell, the world was a warmer nicer place. It got cold and suddenly colder still. The world's population crashed. Lords still sit atop the social order but they are the faintest reflection of the opulence that once was. Though winter is long and summer is short the woods stand unmolested for the most part because the people fear that which haunts them. Deep into those woods and beyond lie the remnants of a familiar yet distant civilization. It calls to those who would risk a miserable life for riches. There are few but they are ready.

Traveller D6 with Mini Six

2010-08-08T19:54:00.010-04:00

We wanted to see how scale worked in Mini Six from AntiPaladin Games so we sat down and in about 10 minutes had our characters and ship statted up and ready to go.

Our characters are heads of their own small mercenary company. Mitchell Conners is a persuasive guy who has no trouble backing up his mouth with a pistol. Jane O'Hare is slick with a stick. Her piloting is top notch. Everyone wants to be under her wing when the flak is pinging.

Since it's expensive to move a bunch of men around in their battle suits the PCs arrived alone in system to ensure that the sponsor punches the merc ticket and to reconnoiter for the company's arrival.

Planetfall was cake with no problem and was extremely uneventful even though full scale civil war is breaking out. Amazingly the data sphere is still operational on the planet which made it quite easy to update personal navigation systems.

The Rhino's hatch swings down revealing a beautiful sunny day. It's hard to believe that the trip here wasn't for vacation. But there's no traffic. At all. Weird.

Out of the corner of their eyes the PCs see 4 men stepping into the street straight on their left. From under their coats weapons are being raised. Three have heavy pistols and one has a carbine. Mitchell sees Jane caught a bit flat footed so he tries pushing her behind a car for cover but he's not quick enough. She catches a bolt that staggers her backward. Mitchell too is clipped. Cover is so close but everything seems to be moving in slow motion. The PCs draw their weapons and fire but completely miss because of the confusion. The men return fire again hitting Jane pushing her to the Incapacitated wound level. Amazingly she's able to stay on her feet but is already rendered 100% combat ineffective. Luckily Mitchell pulls her to cover behind parked cars. For a few moments the tables are turned. The hit-posse find themselves standing in the middle of an empty street.

We so lucked out that our characters weren't killed in the first or second volley of gunfire. Relatively poor rolling saved our bacon.

Mitchell takes a crack at the bad guys aiming for the guy with the carbine and takes him out!

The damage roll was amazing. It beat the carbine wielder's soak by 19. Out.

There's no time to celebrate because there are still 3 armed men out for blood. The car that the PCs use for cover begins to disintegrate in a hail of gunfire. Mitchell hunches and tows a staggering Jane down the line of parked cars hoping to lose the gunmen before they manage to put together intersecting fire on their position.

What luck! An empty building. The PCs lumber into the building hoping to make it out the back before the bad guys can make it around and cut them off. Mitchell kicks the back door open dragging Jane right into two of the thugs. He pulls up his pistol and with two shots dispatches both of them. Jane stumbles back into the wall so Mitchell helps her to a seat amongst some alley trash where she redraws her pistol and shakily holds it on the doorway. Mitchell looks around for a makeshift weapon and finds a pipe. He stands by the doorway waiting for the 3rd thug to step through. After all there were only two shots fired. Maybe he's curious.

Sure enough the third bad guy steps through the door. Mitchell swings the pipe but being wounded could not generate enough force to knock the bad guy out. Serious confusion reigns in the alleyway for the next 20 seconds.

More than once Mitchell strikes the huge man with the pipe but the impacts barely have an effect. The big man swings his fist and it lands right on the kisser. Mitchell staggers (stunned) back from the blow. He pulls himself together and raises his pistol as his opponent raises his. Both combatants are standing finger tips beyond arm's reach. Someone's fate is about to be sealed.

I rolled Mitchell's initiative and won!

One shot. The big man crashes back into the doorway.

Suddenly not only the alley but the entire city block is surrounded by armed men and military vehicles. Ugh. We're done for.

It's our sponsor!

A medical team rushes to Jane and begins treatment. A medic begins to cut away Mitchell's mesh jacket causing him to wonder if he's got the cash for a new one. Within what seems like seconds they're escorted to a tracked APC. The rear door closes dark with a whine and a clank. So much for the beautiful sunny day.

At the end of the session we checked for healing to see how long it would take. Mostly to determine story line impact but also to see how it works.

Actual game play was right around 50 minutes. From character creation to wrap-up was a whopping 1 hour.

We never did get to test out scale but that's what tomorrow is for. Oh, yea. We also used Mythic.

I was wrong about D6

2010-08-07T08:41:00.016-04:00

A long time ago in a junior high far, far away...

I played WEG Star Wars with my good friend Rick Demnovich. It was a fantastic experience. I still remember the great story lines and my love for the books. Then my family moved. Being unmoored from my first ever group I slowly drifted away from gaming. Twelve years went by.

Every now and then I'd pick up a book and flip through it. Most often it would be an old Palladium Robotech or WEG Star Wars title. I didn't know any gamers and I couldn't manage to really wrangle anyone around me to play. But I couldn't part from those old things.

Renaissance!

I began fencing at the local YMCA and little did I know that it would be chock-full of gamers. Where am I going with all of this? Well, upon introduction to other people who played I quickly became part of a group. I jumped back into gaming head first and discovered all kinds of different games (including LARP) that came out while I wasn't paying attention. Once the landscape was surveyed for what-was I began to to explore the indie game frontier. I had and still have a lot of fun with those discoveries. In fact, I'm still not done standing on my tip-toes trying to take a peek over the gaming horizon.

While doing some reconnoitering I saw that D6 was going to be released under an open license and I shrugged, writing it off as a has-been - just another artifact from my early days of playing roleplaying games. You see, more than once I did try to go back to the games that I loved but I could not reconnect with the experiences that were in my head and my heart. Granted most of these attempts were cursory and the experiences of old likely idealized but I said to myself, "At least I tried." So many games and so little time and all that.

The other day over at RPG.net I ran across Mini Six. I took a peek and was shocked. It contained the system-essence of those fond Star Wars gaming memories but it also fixed many of the things that inhibited my return to D6.

Last night my wife and I sat down and played a session in an ad hoc fantasy setting using the Mythic GM Emulator. The only D6 gaming material used is in the PDF, which by the way is very usable on an iPod. Danged near everything fit into my noggin at the same time. And we had a blast.

I really appreciate how material from varying genres is presented; modern, sci-fi, pulp, fantasy. The mix of brevity and wide applicability is very potent. I also consider it a lesson learned on design and content and the love of a game.

Mecha RPG Bullseye Battlemap

2010-07-29T11:03:00.004-04:00

Here's the Bullseye Battlemap that I whipped up for the Mecha RPG.

I voted. Did you?

2010-07-23T15:35:00.001-04:00

Adventurer: Skills List

2010-06-19T09:46:00.001-04:00

Note that this is compiled from the main Traveller and the Mercenary SRD document with some tweaking. The list is all OGL.

Administration

This skill covers bureaucracies and administration of all sorts, including management and accounting as well as the navigation of bureaucratic obstacles or disasters.

Advocate

Advocate gives a knowledge of common laws and proceedings as well as the proper ways to argue cases in front of courts and nobles.

Animals

This skill, deals with the general care of animals.

Specialties:

Riding: The character knows how to ride an animal who is trained to bear a rider
Training: The character knows how to tame and train animals.
Veterinary: The character is trained in veterinary medicine and animal care.
Teamster: The character knows how to drive a team of animals drawing a wagon or cart.

Art

The character is trained in a type of creative art.

Specialties:

Acting: The character is a trained actor, at home on the stage.
Architecture: Designing structures and monuments.
Calligraphy: The character is trained in writing decoratively.
Dance: The character is a trained dancer and performer.
Instrument: Playing a particular musical instrument, such as a flute, lute or organ.
Painting: Creating pictures, frescos, murals and other forms of pictures.
Sculpting: Making artistic sculptures in a variety of media.
Writing: Composing inspiring or interesting pieces of text

Athletics

The character is a trained athlete and is physically fit.

Specialties:

Coordination: Climbing, juggling, throwing (including thrown weapons).
Endurance: Long-distance running, hiking, marching
Strength: Feats of strength, weight-lifting.
Flying: Creatures that fly gain this skill for free at level 0.

Broker

The Broker skill allows a character to negotiate trades and arrange fair deals.

Carouse

Carousing is the art of socializing; of having fun, but also ensuring that other people have fun, of infectious good humor.

Combat Engineering

Specialties:

Fortifications: The character is trained how to build defenses from trenches to bunkers.

Building a field fortification (trench, sandbag wall, etc.) 1-6 hours, Education or Endurance, Average (+0). Resulting fortification grants maximum cover equal to half effect (round up).
Building a defensive fortification (wall, bunker, etc.): 10-60 days, Education, Difficult (-2). Resulting fortification grants maximum cover equal to effect.
Finding weak point in enemy fortifications: 1-6 minutes, Intelligence, Difficult (-2). Character can ignore the cover DM of targets behind fortification, up to an amount equal to effect.

Deception

Deception allows a character to lie fluently, disguise himself, perform sleight of hand and fool onlookers.

Diplomat

The Diplomat skill is for negotiating deals, establishing peaceful contact and smoothing over social faux pas.

Discipline

The martial Discipline skill covers self-control, ingrained reflexes and training. A character with a high Discipline is adept at following orders and procedures. In game terms, as long as the character is in a situation covered by his training, he may reduce any negative DM by an amount equal to his Discipline skill. This may be done a number of times each day equal to his Discipline skill. This can only be applied skills that the character already has at a skill level of 1 or more.

Discipline cannot turn a negative DM into a positive DM - training allows a character to do the right thing and ignore distractions, but does not give him any extra competence or ability.

Farming

The character can grow and harvest crops and raise livestock.

Gambler

The character is familiar with a wide variety of gambling games, such as card games, dice games, horse-racing, sports betting and so on, and has an excellent grasp of probability.

Heavy Armor

The Heavy Armor skill allows a character to wear heavy suits of armor such as plate mail and fight while wearing them. If the character does not have the requisite Heavy Armor skill for the armor he is wearing, he suffers a -2 DM to all skill checks while wearing that armor for each missing level.

Herbalism

The character knows how to locate, identify and use herbs for various purposes, from medicine to cooking to making poisons.

Instruction

Anyone with the Instruction skill can pass on the basics of their own knowledge to less experienced characters over a period of time. They can, with a successful check, pass skills to other characters up to a maximum level of one less than their Instruction skill or one less than their own skill level in the skill being taught (whichever is lower). Thus, a character with Instruction 4, Admin 4, Explosives 2 and Pilot 5 could teach another character Admin 3 and Explosives 1 (the skill –1) but only Pilot 3 (Instruction level –1).

Teaching the skill requires an Instruction test on the behalf of the teacher, which takes between 1-6 days less than the time it would normally take (depending on Timing – see page 59 of the Traveller main rulebook). The number of students that can benefit from this teaching is equal to the Effect of the check. During the training, the Referee should severely curtail the activities of all characters involved.

At the conclusion of the training, the learning character(s) must then succeed in an Education or Intelligence roll with a Target Number of 8+. Player Characters cannot teach the Instruction skill to other Player Characters. The greatest assets an individual character has is his pool of skills, so we encourage the Referee to exercise great caution in allowing Player Characters to simply hire Non-Player Characters for their Instruction skill.

Interrogation

Specialties:

Doubletalk: The character knows how to talk circles around most people, getting them to say or admit to things they never meant to with pressured conversation. With enough time to grill them properly, the character can get anyone to spill their secrets.

Badgering an admission of guilt out of a captive: 1-6 hours, Intelligence, Difficult (-2). The effect is the DM penalty against the interrogator's inquiries.
Uncovering a secret through focused conversation: 10-60 minutes, Intelligence, Difficult (-2).

Torture: This speciality governs the collection of emotional, physical and psychological methods in which an interrogator can get a victim to break. Through an assortment of unsavory methods, the character can get anyone to say what he needs them to.

Knowing a true confession from a false one: 1-6 seconds, Intelligence, Routine (+2).
Using pain or discomfort to acquire an answer to an inquiry: 1-6 hours, Education or Strength, Average (+0).
Using emotional or psychological response to acquire an answer to an inquiry: 10-60 hours, Education or Intelligence, Average (+0).

Investigation

The Investigate skill incorporates keen observation, forensics, and detailed analysis.

Jack of All Trades

The Jack of All Trades skill works different to other skills. It reduces the unskilled penalty a character receives for not having the appropriate skill by one for each level of Jack of All Trades.

Language

There are numerous different Language specialties, each one covering reading and writing a different language. All characters can speak and read their native Language without needing the Language skill.

Having Language 0 implies that the character has a smattering of simple phrases in many languages.

Sample Specialties:

Common: The common trade language spoken by many of the civilized races, chiefly humans.
Goblin: The language of goblins, hobgoblins and their kin.
Dwarfish: The language of dwarves and gnomes. A bastardized version of this language is spoken by orcs.
Elfin: The language of the elves and other faeries.

Leadership

The Leadership skill is for directing, inspiring and rallying allies and comrades.

Conveying orders non-verbally: 1-6 seconds, Social, Average (+0).
Number of words can be conveyed equal to twice effect.

Mechanical Works

The Mechanic skill allows the character to maintain and repair most complex mechanical systems, from windmills to clocks. This skill is also used for picking locks, disarming traps and even building simple mechanical traps.

Medicine

The character is skilled in caring for the sick and wounded. The Medicine skill covers emergency first aid and battlefield triage as well as diagnoses, treatment, surgery, and long-term care.

Triage: 10-60 seconds, Education, Difficult (-2)
Able to prioritize casualties based upon their medical requirements.

Melee

The melee skill covers attacking in hand-to-hand combat.

Specialties:

Axes: Attacking with axes, cleavers and so on.
Blade: Attacking with swords, rapiers, blades and other edged weapons.
Bludgeon: Attacking with maces, clubs, staves and other edged weapons.
Natural Weapons: The favored skill of wild animals, this covers fighting with claws, teeth, and other weapons that are part of you.
Polearms: Attacking with halberds, poleaxes, spears and other long-shafted weapons.
Unarmed Combat: Whether it is trained martial arts or street fighting learned the hard way, this is the skill for using your body as a weapon.

Navigation

This skill covers finding your way over land or at sea using landmarks, the stars, compasses, diaries, maps and so on.

Persuade

Persuade is a more casual, informal version of Diplomacy.

Philosophy

The character has knowledge in a scholarly subject.

Specialties:

Alchemy: The study of materials, substances, reagents and reactions between them. Also covers the use of alchemical apparatuses and methods, as well as the identification of substances.
Astronomy: The study of celestial bodies.
Engineering: The study of machines and structures.
History: The study of past deeds and events.
Logic: The study of methodical thought and reasoning.
Mathematics: The study of numbers, formulae and calculations. Also covers geometry.
Natural History: The study of the natural world - not just plants and animals but also geology and the climate.
Spiritualism: The study of magic, the occult and the spiritual world.
Theology: The study of religions philosophy. While the Religion skill covers the basic tenants and the practical and ritualistic sides of each faith, theology covers deeper philosophical meanings, cosmology and comparison between various faiths.

Professional Trade

A character with a Trade skill is trained in producing some useful goods or services.

Sample Specialties

Armorer: The character is skilled in making and repairing armor.

Forging a bladed weapon: 1-6 Hours, Education, Routine (+2)

Blacksmith: The character knows how to work with hard metals such as iron and steel and could produce weapons.
Carpenter: The character is trained in woodworking.
Fletcher: The character knows how to craft bows and arrows.
Leather-Worker: The character is skilled in leatherworking.
Clockmaker: The character knows how to construct machines such as clocks and complex traps.
Miner: The character is skilled in mining and mine excavation.
Stonemason: The character knows how to construct stone structures.
Tailor: The character is skilled in the production of clothes.

Ranged Combat

The Ranged Combat skill covers a variety of ranged weapons.

Specialties:

Bow: Using long, short and composite bows.
Crossbow: Using crossbows of various sizes.
Sling: Using slings.
Blowpipe: Using blowpipes

Recon

A character trained in Recon is able to scout out dangers and spot threats, unusual objects or out of place people.

Figuring the quantity of recent passers by using ground tracks: 1-6 minutes, Intelligence, Average (+0)

Covering one's own tracks: 1-6 minutes, Intelligence, Average (+0) or Difficult if performed without slowing travel (-2). Covers the tracks for a number of additional allies equal to effects.

Figuring the type of armor worn by a target by its ground tracks: 10-60 seconds, Intelligence, Very Difficult (-4).

Recruiting

Recruiting 0 allows the character to recognize anyone who shares a career path term with him, and the knowledge of what that path is.

Recruiting 1 grants the character the ability to know the average skill level of a character that shares a career path term with him.

Recruiting 2 allows the character the ability to know the highest and lowest skill (and level) of a character that shares a career path with him.

Approaching a possible recruit in an appropriate manner: 10-60 seconds, Social, Routine (+2). The character can approach a number of possible recruits at one time equal to Effect.

Religion

The character is well versed in the believes, practices and ritual of a specific religion.

Seafarer

The Seafarer skill covers all manner of watercraft and sea travel.

Specialties:

Sail: This skill is for wind-driven watercraft.
Oars: For small craft using oars.

Siege Engineer

The various specialties of this skill deal with the construction and operation of siege engines such as catapults, ballistae, trebuchets, battering rams and bombards.

Signals

The character knows how to send and receive signals over distances too far for verbal communication via flags or other visual means.

Stealth

A character trained in the Stealth skill is adept at staying unseen and unheard.

Steward

The Steward skill allows the character to serve and care for nobles and high-class customers.

Streetwise

A character with the Streetwise skill understands the urban environment and the power structures in society.

Survival

The Survival skill is the wilderness counterpart of the urban Streetwise skill - the character is trained to survive in the wild, build shelters, hunt or trap animals, avoid exposure and so forth.

Tactics

This skill covers tactical planning and decision making, from chess games to squad level combat to naval engagements.

Specialties:

Military Tactics: Coordinating the attacks of footmen or horsemen on the ground.
Naval Tactics: Coordinating the attacks of a warship or fleet.

Adventurer: Ranger

2010-06-19T08:40:00.001-04:00

Ranger

Scout

Huntsman

Outrider

Career Progress

Survival

Advancement

Scout

Dex 5+

Int 6+

Huntsman

End 6+

Dex 5+

Outrider

End 7+

Int 5+

Qualification: Int 6+

Per previous career, -1DM

Skills and Training

Personal Development

Service Skills

Advanced Edu

1

+1 Int

Melee(any)

Leadership

2

+1 Dex

Athletics(endurance)

Discipline

3

+1 End

Survival

Medicine

4

+1 Str

Ranged Combat(any)

Language(any)

5

Athletics(any)

Herbalism

Animals(any)

6

Melee(any)

Navigation

Tactics(military)

Scout

Huntsman

Outrider

1

Navigation

Melee(blade)

Survival

2

Recon

Survival

Animals (Riding)

3

Survival

Athletics(co-ordination)

Recon

4

Athletics

Survival

Animals (any)

5

Ranged Combat(any)

Stealth

Navigation

6

Stealth

Ranged Combat (any)

Melee (Blade)

Ranks and Benefits

Rank

Skill or Benefit

0

Initiate

1

Full Ranger

Survival 1

2

Ranged Combat 1

3

Leadership 1

4

Lieutenant

+1 Endurance

5

Tactics 1

6

Captain

+1 Social Standing

Mustering Out Benefits

Cash

Other Benefits

1

10 gold

2

20 gold

3

30 gold

Weapon

4

50 gold

Weapon or Shield

5

100 gold

Armor

6

150 gold

Armor or +1 End

7

200 gold

+1 Soc

Mishaps

Mishap

1

Injured. Roll on the injury table.

2

It is perceived that through your neglect a great swath of forest is destroyed.

3

Ambush! You are captured by enemies and held captive for 2d6 months before escaping. Lose 1 point from Dex, Str, or End from muscle atrophy.

4

Time alone in the wild damages your social skills. Reduce your Social Standing by 1.

5

Tension between you and another Ranger drives you from the career. Gain a Rival.

6

While hunting for food you accidentally kill a sacred animal.

Events

Event

2

Disaster! Roll on the mishap table, but you are not ejected from the career.

3

Spend months guarding a remote outpost. Gain Survival 1 or Signals 1.

4

During a mission to stymie an enemy incursion you learn how to set simple traps. Gain the skill Mechanical Works 1.

5

A mission leaves you stranded behind enemy lines. Gain one level in Survival or Stealth.

6

You are attacked by a wild animal. Roll Melee (any) 8+ or Survival 8+ to avoid a roll on the injury table.

7

Life Event. Roll on the Life Events table.

8

Explore new territory. Gain Recon 1, Survival 1, or Navigation 1.

9

You save the life of a noble. Gain that noble as an ally.

10

You find a young, abandoned, wild animal and raise it. Now it rarely leaves your side. Gain one level in Animals (Training).

11

You take part is a particularly vicious battle. Roll Melee (any) 8+ or Ranged Combat (any) 8+ to avoid a roll on the injury table.

12

You have again and again proven yourself a worthy warden of the forest. You are automatically promoted.

Adventurer: Barbarian

2010-06-19T08:34:00.003-04:00

Barbarian

Horse
Sea
Celt

Career Progress

	Survival	Advancement
Horse	End 6+	Dex 6+
Sea	Dex 7+	Str 5+
Celt	Str 5+	Int 7+

Qualification: Str 5+

Per previous career, -1DM

Skills and Training

	Personal Development	Service Skills
1	+1 Str	Athletics (any)
2	+1 Dex	Tactics (Military)
3	+1 End	Signals
4	Gambler	Discipline
5	Athletics (any)	Melee (any)
6	Melee (Unarmed)	Survival

	Horse	Sea	Celt
1	Athletics (coordination)	Seafarer (oars)	Stealth
2	Animals (Riding)	Navigation	Melee (any)
3	Farming	Athletics (any)	Athletics (Endurance)
4	Animals (any)	Seafarer (any)	Survival
5	Recon	Melee (Axes)	Ranged Combat (any)
6	Ranged Combat (any)	Professional Trade (Shipwright)	Survival

Ranks and Benefits

	Rank	Skill or Benefit
0	Clan Member
1		Survival 1
2	Warrior	Melee (any) 1
3
4	Thegn	Tactics 1
5		Leadership 1
6	Chieftain	Social +1

Mishaps

	Mishap
1	Injured. Roll on the injury table.
2	Disease or Starvation sweeps through your tribe. Reduce Endurance by 1.
3	You are captured by an enemy tribe and live as a thrall. By the time you escape and find your way home, your tribe has moved on.
4	Your reputation makes you a target for rival tribes. Gain Enemy.
5	You challenge another member of your clan, but are defeated. Lose 1 point from Social Standing and gain a Rival.
6	You have been injured either physically or mentally and it grips you in combat. -1 Dex DM for determining initiative.

Events

	Event
2	Disaster! Roll on the mishap table, but you are not ejected from the career.
3	While on patrol you find yourself separated for an extended period of time from your tribe. Gain 1 rank in Survival or Stealth.
4	You plunder something useful or valuable on a raid. Gain +1 DM to one Benefit roll.
5	Win favor with tribe chieftain. Gain +2 to next advancement roll.
6	You are attacked by a wild animal. Roll Melee (any) 8+ or Survival 8+ to avoid a roll on the injury table.
7	Life Event. Roll on the Life Events table.
8	You are instrumental in uniting your tribe with another to fight a common enemy. Gain Persuade 1.
9	You discover an uncontested fertile valley for the expansion of your tribe. Gain an additional benefits roll for this career.
10	You find a young, abandoned, wild animal and raise it. Now it rarely leaves your side. Gain one level in Animals (Training).
11	You have been selected to serve a noble. You automatically qualify for the Fighting Man career.
12	You turn the tide during a clash with a rival clan. You are automatically promoted.

Mythic GM Emulator + Tunnels & Trolls = Great Gaming Experience 2

2010-06-14T08:44:00.008-04:00

Last fall, out of sheer curiosity I picked up Tunnels & Trolls 7.5. The day that I got it we sat down and played. It was good. I was pleasantly surprised by the structure and emergent complexity but I have so many titles on my shelf that cater to fantasy that I wasn't sure if I'd ever get back to T&T.

These days the Mythic GM Emulator is the cornerstone of our gaming experience. My wife likes to game but she's hesitant to push story forward when she's the sole player. Using the emulator we can both play and really ratchet up the story telling. We decided to give Tunnels & Trolls another whirl.

The GM Emulator fits together with Tunnels & Trolls much in the way as it does with Swords & Wizardry. There just aren't a bunch of rules to stuff into the working area of my noggin which eases play making it more enjoyable.

At first I wasn't sure how saving rolls were going to work out but I didn't worry too much and we jumped in with both feet. As it turns out saving rolls are handled with ease and are the best part of the experience. Deciding SR difficulty was quickly settled through negotiation using the in-game fiction and the Mythic chaos factor rating as credibility guidelines. Heck, the previous sentence is actually more complicated than the actual process. As in conventional T&T games you set the stakes and roll.

What I like best about the game was that as a player you are rewarded for taking risks. I hadn't appreciated this aspect of the game while sitting on the other side of the dice.

The PCs tracked a party of goblins to an old run down citadel. It was decided that one of the group would sneak in to take a peek around and then egress back out to report what was seen. My character, Alstan had the highest dexterity so he was the guy. We consulted the body of fiction up to that point and Mythic coming up with a SR Level 2 difficulty (25). My roll was amazing with exploding doubles all over the place beating the difficulty by something like 14. I almost forgot to mention that my character was armed with a boar spear which didn't lend itself to sneaking around so he borrowed a sax from another character.

Once inside the citadel Alstan discovered that the goblin's captive was tied up with only a few guards in the room. After sizing up the opposition he decided that they were too strong to take on by himself but with the rest of the party in the fight it should be no problem. But before sneaking out he decided to climb to the top of the citadel to signal that the group should move in. In doing so he was discovered by 5 goblin guards. Of course conflict ensued. Through the first couple of rounds of combat my character was holding his own with only spite damage making it through his defenses but it was obvious that his luck would hold out only so long. Unless he made his own.

I announced that I was going to try a saving roll to use the stairs as a funnel so that only one goblin at a time could engage in combat. The SR was going to be tough (30) but was overcome with ease by great die rolling. The difficulty was again beaten but this time by 20+. Alstan shoved the lead goblin back into the green skinned pack and maneuvered to the nearby steps. It was determined that he could hold off the goblins in such a way for 5 turns, hopefully enough time for Alstan's comrades to come to the rescue. This kind of risk taking that emerges through the use of saving rolls is really what makes Tunnels & Trolls tick.

By the time the rest of the party made it to the fight Alstan was whittled down to less than half constitution. Bleeding from cuts and scratches on his face, holding a bloody war knife he plunged back into the fight that wiped out the remaining armed goblin resistance.

The day and the session was wrapped up with the party saving a hamlet's apothecary from goblin imprisonment and taking refuge to heal wounds.

We're going to be playing Tunnels & Trolls again.

Atomic Highway Landmate Ponderings

2010-05-29T23:42:00.002-04:00

After tonight's Atomic Highway session I started pondering how to handle Appleseed Landmate type mecha in the game. That might be fun.

Edit:

Instead of Landmates we went ahead and statted up VR-052 Battler Cyclones from MOSPEADA/Robotech. The setting didn't quite jive with Atomic Highway so we decided to abandon the mini project. Not saying that it couldn't be done but too much retooling is necessary, in my opinion, of the core game. V6 is a heck of a system and looks incredibly flexible but there are already a good many irons in the fire.

Wrapped up Atomic Highway Storyline

2010-05-29T22:30:00.005-04:00

Tonight we wrapped up our test run Atomic Highway story line.

As our characters screamed back to the 'stead ready to make heads roll they encountered a sole figure sitting on a motorcycle. Dak told Dinah to pull the charging handle on the M4. Turns out that the guy on the motorcycle wasn't an enemy. He was a settlement council member looking for help. He told the bounty hunter and the scavenger that there is unrest in the 'stead but not enough muscle to do anything about it - that the leader of the 'stead is the real strong man in the region. He went on saying that the settlement was established with a legitimate council but has since turned into a cult that has taken on the mission to repopulate the world. He tells them that in the nearby hills there is an old limestone mine converted over to a brood pen. He also tells them that they were sent to the bartertown so that they could be separated so that Dinah could be abducted and forced into the program.

The PCs sneak into the mine where they are stunned to see the extent of the "brood mare" operation. It is immense and sophisticated with midwives and honest to goodness doctors. From the outside it looked like it would be a dank and dirty operation reflecting the minds of those who thought it up. Originally the plan was to crack some skulls and break it up. Dak balked because he wasn't going to shoot old women and they both were unprepared to kill real doctors when living in a world with far too few. So they egressed out of the mine and back to their car to come up with another idea.

They came up with a new plan. Dak was going to use an Optimus Prime voice changer that Dinah found a while back while wearing a disguise. He was going to take Dinah to the cult leader's compound within the settlement as a female prisoner to exchange for a bounty. That would work right? Dak saw something like that in a movie once. But after working out the odds of surviving the plan it was ditched for one that better stacked the odds in their favor.

Their new contact disclosed that the head of the 'stead goes to the bartertown every other day with his entourage of 11 body guards. They travel in two vehicles. An old F-150 goes in the lead as "troop carrier" and an old BMW of unknown model follows. Mr. cult leader rides in the passenger seat of the car.

So, the PCs sneak into the settlement at night right past the posted sentries. Dinah sabotages the thermostat on the beamer so that it will break down.

The roll for the task came up 4 successes! They knew exactly how far the car would travel before being forced to stop.

Dak and Dinah had already scouted possible sniper positions earlier in the day based on a set of estimates that Dinah put together. The plan was coming together. They easily sneak back out of the settlement and to position along the highway.

Just as planned, early in the morning, the two vehicles appear on the dusty highway, steam pouring out from under the hood of the car. It sputters to a stop while the F-150 continues down the road a ways without realizing.

Dak takes a deep breath. It's going to be a tough shot. It's distant and the target is behind cover. There is only a small window of opportunity. Literally. He squeezes the trigger but misses. By now the F-150 is backing up as fast as it can. A second shot is taken but to no avail.

The dice were against me!

The F-150 brakes to a rough stop with men tumbling out of the back fumbling into a security perimeter. Dak takes another breath and flips the rifle to burst. The old man cult leader panics, throws open his door and tries to climb onto the back of the pickup. "He's crazy", the bounty hunter whispers to himself as he exhales and pulls the trigger with his breath. This time luck's on his side and the cult leader twitches in a death throw. His body is roughly hoisted to the bed of the truck as it lurches out of granny gear and into second.

Behind Dak, Dinah stands and fires a whistling signal flare. From her vantage, beneath the rising morning sun she can see the settlement and from the compound rising wisps of smoke. Then flames.

The bounty hunter and the scavenger grab their gear and slide down the obverse side of the hill down to their car and again they're back on the Atomic Highway.

Went out for a spin on the Atomic Highway

2010-05-26T17:05:00.003-04:00

Veeeery cool game. We fired it up along side the Mythic GM Emulator as per our new normal. My character is a bounty hunter and my wife's character is a scavenger. They work together to bring in bounties and to right wrongs along the way. Their car is an armored GTO Judge. Dak the bounty hunter is armed with an M4 with bayonet and an Arkansas toothpick. Dinah the scavenger carries a crossbow and a short sword.

The characters found themselves on the hunt for a weasel who was ratting out a small settlement to the nearest tough guy who runs the nearest bartertown. The settlement elders offer a bounty for the traitor.

Upon nightfall the PCs parked their car and snuck up to the little rathole walled batertown. They found a small entrance but it was locked. Good thing Dak keeps Dinah around. She reached over her shoulder and handed over a crowbar which the bounty hunter put to quick use. He pried the door open with a single stroke of leverage revealing a surprised guard. A bolt zipped past Dak's head, launched from Dinah's crossbow. The projectile disappeared into the mouth of guard slicing his ties to this world. He dropped like a rag doll.

This was our first indicator that the combat system could be deadly. The guard was surprised and he didn't get to act. Dinah's attack roll had multiple exploding 6s and the total damage was around 40 points which will kill a tough character twice over.

They ditched the body and pulled the door shut so as to not attract undue attention. Once inside the PCs did their best to hide their weapons and mingle amongst the inhabitants on the commerce side of town. The streets were lit with a mish-mash of different kinds of Christmas lights.

Dak puts his ear to the criminal ground to see if he could determine where their bounty was. He was pointed in the direction of the town's whorehouse so off they went.

How easy this part was is a reflection of solid character creation rules and the guidelines for the resolution system. My character had the skills that he needed and the notion that 1 success unless noted otherwise means that the story keeps moving forward. Simple but sophisticated enough to be interesting.

The PCs scouted out the whorehouse to see what they could see. Dak noticed that there wasn't a tough guy at the front door. Seemed strange. They also noticed that the place didn't seem big enough nor near busy enough. There wasn't an integral saloon as per usual nor was there one anywhere close. The hair stood up on the back of Dak and Dinah's necks. They know when they're being set up. Hoping not to draw attention they stepped out of the faint glow of the string lights and into the shadows.

Again, the resolution system is easy to use. I created the die pool for the best bad guy lookout and added a die for each helper. Each of the PCs rolled against the bad guy results and we narrated from there. Amazingly both of our rolls beat the bad guy's much bigger pool and our characters made their way back to the door in the town wall.

Once outside Dak and Dinah found two fellas starting to strip their car. Shots rang out from out of the dark. Ambush!

Dinah loosed a crossbow bolt which crippled her first target. Dak lit up the attackers with his M4 and knocked one out of the fight with amazing accuracy. All the while the two car choppers were still trying to break into the Judge.

The only remaining ambusher was armed with a heavy chain and it looked like he knew how to use it. Dinah drew her short sword and waded into the melee. Dak yelled to her that he was going for the car.

On the move Dak ripped off a burst and knocked down one of the carjackers but the other was already inside. The bounty hunter broke into a sprint and made his way to the passenger side of the Judge. Just as he grabbed the door handle the car's engine roared to life and the vehicle started to roll. The carjacker put the hammer down and the car began to take off. Dak ran along side and threw himself into the vehicle finding himself in the back seat leaving Dinah all alone to handle the chain wielding nutcase.

Dak pulled off his web belt and used it as a garrote to choke the driver. With all of his might he pulls back on the belt hoping to knock the driver out but by now they're traveling around 100 mph. Almost, there. The driver began to thrash but he caught Dak by surprise by slamming on the brakes causing the vehicle to slide all over the road. For a moment the bounty hunter felt weightless and then crashed into the front dash collapsing in front of the passenger seat on top of his carbine.

Back and forth Dinah went with the chain wielding thug. Neither could find true advantage. Each rolled enough successes on their respective defense rolls to negate the other's attack. To note, both were very equal stat-wise.

Back in the Judge, the carjacker drew a pistol and pointed it at Dak who was still on the floor. The bounty hunter kicked at the driver's arm hoping to force the shot wide and he did. As he was kicking he struggled to get his weapon out from under him and managed to bring it to bear. Three time he squeezed the trigger at virtual point blank but to no avail. Each time the driver managed to throw off the aim through manipulating pedals and steering wheel.

This part of the fight was incredibly dramatic. My PC should have been able to take the driver out but the NPC driver's rolls were amazing with exploding 6s that overcame my character's much bigger die pool. It was amazing.

Both driver side windows were obliterated by errant shots. Out of ammo, Dak took hold of the carbine like a spear and manage to sink it into the driver who while dying was still trying to pay attention to the road. The car was easily outpacing its headlights.

Somehow Dak was able to ease the car to a stop from the passenger side. I rolled 3 successes!

Dak kicked the now dead driver out onto the road and spun the car around putting the hammer down because he knew that more bad guys showed up Dinah was in big trouble.

Back outside the walled town Dinah deftly dipped under the arcing chain and stuck the attacker in the abdomen with her sword. He fell to his knees and out of the fight.

Suddenly the door slams open and out steps an enormous figure. The head of the corrupt bartertown, a former pit fighter. With him was an entourage fit for an MMA fighter. He intimidated Dinah on the spot and she froze unable to move, locked in fear. A spotlight from the town wall painted on the scene, Dinah enveloped in the pit fighter boss' shadow.

The pit fighter's intimidation roll was simply overwhelming and we went with it. The next few moments would determine whether Dinah would live or die.

Dak rips through the gears and brings the Judge to bear. From out of the darkness the GTO rockets like a guided missile slamming through the large man. The entourage that acted so tough a few moments prior scattered. Dak revved the engine, opened the passenger door and quipped, "Get in!" and the car tore off, tires squealing into the moonless night.

The muscle car does a U-turn and slips back into the spotlight. Dinah jumps out and takes the pit fighter's head. Throws it into the trunk and leaps back into the passenger seat. The two warriors barrel down the atomic highway headed back to the settlement with a score to settle.

We really like the system and the package as a whole. It's light yet detailed enough to be interesting. While playing I caught a whiff of SilCORE and ORE in the V6 vapors. Now, there's nothing explicit about either of those systems in V6 I just caught a bit of their spirit in the system.

We managed to pack in this much game play into an hour.

Hellas Princes of the Universe Kickstart

2010-05-07T21:45:00.005-04:00

If you haven't checked out Hellas before you owe yourself the favor. The setting is extremely cool. Think The 300, The Iliad and the Odyssey and Clash of the Titans in space. That's right. Space. It freaking rocks.

Hellas was my first exposure to the Omni system. Omni is a pretty neat, tight little system and it's a perfect fit for Hellas. With this game you can play heroes on par with Achilles who alter the universe with the awesomeness of their deeds.

Princes of the Universe is an expansion for the core game with additional background info, mass combat, and more. The main book is in full color and it looks great. Khepera Publishing has put the project up on KickStarter.com where if you're interested you can make a monetary pledge to help Princes see full color as well.

Mouse Guard Figs!

2010-04-30T10:25:00.002-04:00

@Amazon

On Carl Macek's Passing

2010-04-20T15:35:00.010-04:00

This past weekend Carl Macek passed away. Oh, man.

Robotech continues to inspired me to this day. The influence can be seen on this site amongst my tinkering and designs. When I was a kid his name was like that of Gary Gygax. Both held a special status and were found on things that I loved, things that made my imagination fire on all cylinders.

While Macek didn't create Macross, Southern Cross, or MOSPEADA he made it possible so that a kid who lived out in the boondocks of southwestern Pennsylvania could see Robotech - on good ole WPTT-22.

Over the years my adult tastes have drifted from Robotech to the "real" components of the saga but without the series that aired so long ago I just might not know that they even exist.

God speed, Carl. Say hi to Fokker and Gloval for me.

Gave Barbarians of the Aftermath a Run

2010-03-31T15:08:00.003-04:00

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] but that didn't last long. After the world got tossed into the hand basked Ty put his skills to use as a Militia [1] member defending the small town where he grew up.

Str 1, Agi 2, Min 1, App 0
Bra 0, Mel 1, Ran 2, Def 1

Passionate (rebuilding society), Determined, Poor Hearing

Weapons: M4, 1911

The PC had to survive bad choices in a house. The foes were rabble and an NPC who was a madman who only wanted to spread suffering and disaster. So, the in-game setup was that the PCs misjudged how long it would take to get to said house in the city. They arrived just before dark. But they figured that they'd be in and out in no time.

Once inside they began rummaging for the professor's notebook but their search was interrupted by sounds of intruders. They snuck upstairs hoping that whoever it was would move on. No such luck. Crouching in the darkness they trained their weapons on the stairs waiting. BLAM! Ty flips on his rail mounted combat light and Polly pulls the trigger on her Remington. The shotgun sent two rabble to their doom; their life gone before their corpses finished tumbling to the foot of the stairs. Ty tugs Polly's shoulder to move to new positions. He knew that they're try another assault. This time they came up the stairs with guns blazing, shooting into black emptiness. Ty flipped his M4 over the railing, flipped on the combat light and sent a few more rabble packing. Their bodies collapsed where they stood on the stairs.

Downstairs the house front door slams shaking the whole place. An angry voice flares up and the sound of someone getting punched could be heard if the PC's ears weren't ringing from all the gunfire.

Taking the commotions and noise downstairs the PCs again take up new positions. Just in time. Two grenades are tossed up into rooms adjacent to the top the stairs and go off. The explosions are incredibly loud but harmless except to the interior decorating.

As suddenly as the violence erupted the house goes quiet. The sound of glass breaking can be heard and the stark blackness of the night is pushed back by the bluish orange smear of flame of molotov cocktails.

Ty finds an ironing board and kicks off the legs. He's got a crazy idea. He's going to surf down the stairs while crouched on the board so that the egress will be faster than running and his profile will be smaller hopefully making him harder to hit. After all, he figures that they've got the front door covered - a sort of funnel of death in reverse. He takes a few deep breaths, holds his M4 against his body and kicks off.

As the former farm boy surfs down the stairs enemy fire riddles the railing and bannister. As he hits the foot of the stairs the board catches on the two guys that Polly smacked with the shotgun sending Ty rolling. He somehow manages to go with the flow and catches himself upright on his haunches, his M4 aimed at the door but he slams his shoulder against the wall that causes a wince.

As Ty lays down cover fire Polly runs down the steps and moves to take position. Ty's M4 goes black. Out of ammo. Polly annihilates the rabble at the door with one more dose of lead and she moves to take a new position.

As Polly was moving and Ty was drawing the 1911 from his chest rig two more figures burst into the great room now partially illuminated by the growing fire upstairs. One of the men had the booming voice heard before. He was a madman blazing away recklessly with a pistol in each hand.

Ty trains his weapon on the madman and squeezes off a round and he sees his target dive behind an overstuffed chair. He almost forgets that Polly too is engaged in mortal combat. Their gunfire sounds like distant thunder.

What looks like a giant figure leaps over the tumbling chair and comes at Ty showing a scarred face filled with inhuman rage. The 1911 barks two more times - the rounds going errant or causing no discomfort could not be told. The madman continued his course and crashed into Ty driving him backwards into a corner and began to pummel.

Polly by now was wounded in her fight against the twilight enemy. She was battling to find advantage.

Ty was seeing stars and relegation to giving up was rising in the back of his mind when a voice told him to get up. Determined, the former police officer turned militia member took a firm grip on his lifeline. He stuck the 1911 into the madman's gut and twice pulled the trigger. Slicked with blood, Ty woozily stumbled to push the massive once angry man off him. He was beaten to within an inch of unconsciousness (1 LB remaining).

Gasping, as he rose from his knees he saw Polly's limbs go awry as she sprawled backwards across the arm of a couch landing in a most unnatural position. (-4 LB)

Ty left out a yell of pure anger but he couldn't hear it over blasts still ringing in his ears. One more blast flares in the room and the rabble himself sprawls backward onto the dining room table.

The fight is over.

Ty tends to Polly discovering that she's still alive. Now he's got to figure out the next step.

That was the end of our session. Nathaniel and Simon. Great, great game design. We loved it.

Epic followup

2010-03-29T10:53:00.004-04:00

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 something in the game environment changes and you want to change your intent you have to drop an action option to do so. In that sense it felt like a few games but Burning Wheel in particular. It doesn't clone BW but carries a bit of that spirit.

Running the NPCs was pretty straight forward. 2D10 + Skill + Modifier > 5 = success in a static style test. When it's versus someone else the winner is he who rolls higher. Back in the cave with the small waterfalls splashing down from the ceiling (with the help of Mythic) we determined that the the difficulty modifier for hearing someone move was +5 or threshold 10. At several points we just figured that our PCs were doomed. The dice were not kind to the outlaw bandits.

Just to round out a bit of the mechanics even though they didn't show up in the session, a natural 2 is a fumble (low critical) and a natural 20 is a critical success (high critical). There is a small chart for each type of critical. The table is enough to give you the big picture of the crit and you fill in the rest. It's not as specifically exhaustive as Rolemaster or The Riddle of Steel. It's a good middle ground design choice. I really liked it.

Just gave Epic Role Playing for a whirl

2010-03-28T22:55:00.004-04:00

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 being looted by 3 hunched figures. Again Elsbith and Wulfred hold the upper hand with full surprise. This time the PCs act with swords drawn. Elsbith's sword strikes true and crumples the hunched figure with a stroke. Wulfred's strike lands on his opponent's arm breaking it. The struck bandit fumbles onto his back stunned by the sudden attack. The third figure looks up with abject horror in his eyes. Wulfred charges toward him hoping that he can strike the man down before the alarm is called. Elsbith brings up the rear with a bit more caution.

Wulfred swings his sword but the bandit evades while drawing a dagger. It's bad but it's all he's got. Before the bandit can take advantage of Wulfred being flat footed after the charge Elsbith runs him through with her long sword and he collapses in death. Elsbith watches down the hall while Wulfred drags the badly wounded bandit with the broken arm back into a crevice where a small waterfall splashes. Wulfred signals for Elsbith to come back where she begins doing some medical treatment to stabilize his wound. Wulfred begins interrogation but the bandit's resolve is strong and he holds firm. He's persuaded to give up information when Elsbith stops first aid. They find out that there's a side entrance to the area where the boy is being held. The main entrance goes through the main living quarters where there are up to 10 bandits.

The wounded bandit is bound and gagged. The plan is to take him along when they egress out of the cave. So, up the PCs climb up a short natural stone wall. They find that it's dark but wide open. By torch light they find an old suspension bridge slack across a chasm. The sound of fast running water boils out of the chasm so they figure that if they fall they are done for. Elsbith listens for bandits while Wulfred examines the bridge. His father was a siege engineer which led to him apprenticing in Siege Engineering for a military noble. He successfully appraises the problem - the main ropes are simply loose and would support two people if tightened up. With Elsbith's help the bridge repair is finished in no time.

Elsbith and Wulfred make their way across the bridge and immediately see a point of light ahead - the illuminated main passage. Taking up position on the edge of light and shadow Elsbith peeks around the corner to see a bandit killing time in the main hall. The PCs dash across the passage to take up a better position. Somehow the bandit didn't see them. It didn't hurt that the sound of churning water was louder here because of a series of small waterfalls plunging down from the ceiling to an unseen underground river. Two arrows dropped the sole bandit like a rag doll. Wulfred rushes out into the light and drags the downed bandit back into the shadows where he and Elsbith check their bearings. They figure that heading left would take them back toward the cave entrance on the way through the main living quarters. So they go right.

The PCs pick their way forward till they hear two voices. Voices of a man and a child. The man is trying to force the boy to eat. Wulfred times his attack with the gesticulations of the bandit who is yelling at the boy. Wulfred swings his sword into the bandit's right hip. The bandit buckles but does not fall from the strike. He spins around swinging his fist but Wulfred steps back from the punch. The next stroke decapitates the stumbling bandit. The headless body stumbles and falls sideways crashing into a bucket of gruel. Wulfred doesn't hesitate and dashes forward to muzzle the whimpering boy. The entire time Elsbith watches the main passage and sweats bullets hearing the noise coming from the back chamber.

Wulfred sneaks out to Elsbith's position revealing to her that the boy is chained but that the key was not on the bandit in the room. While Elsibth keeps watch Wulfred checks the nearest dead bandit. Again no key! They decide to hurry back and check their tied up captive. It's very unlikely that he has the key but it's worth checking. Maybe he can tell them who does. Against the odds he has it! Hmm, he's more important than first thought. Perhaps the leader? The PCs don't have time to dawdle so they head directly back to the boy and remove his shackles. Wulfric gags the him, slings him up over his shoulder and heads back through the side passage - completing extrication along with a prisoner as a prize.

Haven't Gone Into Hibernation for the Winter

2010-01-03T10:26:00.003-05:00

I've been off the blog RADAR for a while. The reason is because we've sold our house, had Thanksgiving, my grandpap died, had Christmas, packed up and moved to another state all within the last 40 days or so. So, now it seems like life will slow down just a bit so I'm looking forward to a new year of game blogging: Old-School & Otherwise.

Happy New Year.

Mythic GM Emulator + Swords & Wizadry = Great Gaming Experience

2009-11-02T11:07:00.003-05:00

Last week we started a little experiment and went GMless with Swords & Wizardry using the Mythic GM Emulator. It may sound crazy but I've got to say that it was absolutely incredible from the first session and continues to be so after 4 sessions so far.

My wife is playing a ranger named Silvia who has already had run-ins with goblins in her wood. My character a paladin named Osric is from a far away order who has come to the area of an ancient battle to discover why evil is once again stirring. This was the entire premise for the start of the game. Through play it has become amazingly complex and intricate.

The joy for me is that it feels incredibly old-school. By that I mean that it feels so much like the way I played role playing games, when the game was the story.

Back to the Mythic GM Emulator for a bit. It may be the best old school GM that money can buy. It's completely merciless in its decision making. For example, from the first session, our PCs walked into an ambush set by 5 goblins. Silvia went down but in a fury Osric swung his blade and chopped the ambushers down but not before he himself was whittled down to 2 HP. Knowing that they'd be jumped again if they stayed in the general area he hoisted the ranger onto his shoulder and started heading back to the settlement. Slowed down to a pace of 3 it was going to take almost 3 days to get back.

On the way, Osric ran into a nasty orc who was just as heavily armed and armored. Both parties stumbled onto one another so there was no surprise. Osric wins the initiative even with Silvia on his shoulder. Still lingering at 2 HP he unceremoniously lowered her to the ground. Tinged with desperate fury he charged and with a single swing of his broadsword he cut the orc down. It was epic. Cheers went up on both sides of the table. From there it was a series of cut scenes of Osric carrying the unconscious ranger, making camp, the paladin meditating and the laying on of hands in attempt to get the ranger ambulatory.

They survived by the skin of their teeth, carrying an intercepted message taken from a goblin courier. The next move was to find out who it was intended for.

It's a different take on what one would expect with a Swords & Wizardry game but I've got to say that S&W actually makes using Mythic easier because there was virtually no rules lookup. The spirit of rulings vs rules still holds and really allowed our collective imaginations to weave the story. And the cool part is that I actually get to play.

Heroquest 2.0 Mecha: Exhaustible Munitions

2009-09-23T21:43:00.004-04:00

For my Heroquest 2.0 mecha conversion I started going down the path of keeping track of ammo. The tracking wasn't strict but it was tracking none the less and it never felt right so I posted up on RPG.net and got some very good replies to my question on the subject.

I attached the flaw Exhaustible 12M to the Veritech's AMM-1 missiles. In action, the narrator asks a player or players to roll against the flaw at an appropriately dramatic moment. If they fail then they are out of AMM-1 missiles. Simple.

I'm thinking that the GU-11 gun pod might get Exhaustible 5M to represent its low ammo capacity. This will require a bit of play testing.

Adventurer: Careers In Progress

2009-09-20T18:36:00.003-04:00

On top of the Fighting Man career we've got several more in the works including Freeman, Ranger, Rogue, and Nobility.

To give a little more info, the Free Man careers include Tradesman, Sailor, and Merchant. Ranger careers are Scout, Huntsman, and Outrider. Rogue careers are Thief, Footpad, and Pirate. Nobility careers are Cavalry/Knight, Diplomat, Castellan, and Rake.

BTW, does anyone know if WordPress handles tables in a sensible manner?

Adventurer: The Fighting Man

2009-09-12T21:02:00.030-04:00

Progress on Adventurer is afoot.

Inspired by The Black Company, White Box Swords & Wizardry, and real life history we have a version of the Fighting Man career hammered out.

Fighting Man

Support

Infantry

Archer

Career Progress

Survival

Advancement

Support

End 5+

Edu 7+

Infantry

Str 7+

Int 5+

Archer

Dex 6+

Int 6+

Qualification: End 5+

If you are aged 30 or more, -2DM

Per previous career, -1DM

Skills and Training

Personal Development

Service Skills

Advanced Education

Officer Skills

(Minimum Rank 2)

1

+1 Str

Athletics (any)

Siege Engineer

Tactics (Military)

2

+1 Dex

Tactics (Military)

Interrogation

Leadership

3

+1 End

Signals

Combat Engineering

Advocate

4

Gambler

Discipline

Recruiting

Diplomat

5

Athletics (any)

Melee (any)

Navigation

Animals (Riding)

6

Melee (Unarmed)

Survival

Recon

Administration

Support

Infantry

Archer

1

Signals

Heavy Armor

Trade (Fletcher)

2

Medicine

Discipline

Ranged Combat (any)

3

Navigation

Athletics (Endurance)

Athletics (any)

4

Mechanical Works

Melee (any)

Discipline

5

Animals (any)

Survival

Survival

6

Melee (any)

Melee (Blade)

Ranged Combat (Bow)

Ranks and Benefits

Rank

Skill or Benefit

0

1

Melee 1

2

Corporal

Discipline 1

3

Sergeant

Leadership 1

4

Lieutenant

Tactics (Military) 1

5

Social Standing 10 or +1 Social, whichever is higher

6

Captain

Social Standing 12 or +1 Social, whichever is higher

Mustering Out Benefits

Cash

Other Benefits

1

20 gold

+1 Str

2

50 gold

+1 Int

3

50 gold

Weapon

4

100 gold

Weapon or Shield

5

200 gold

Armor

6

300 gold

Armor or +1 End

7

400 gold

+2 Soc

Mishaps

Mishap

1

Injured. Roll on the injury table.

2

Your confidence is shaken in a lost battle. Lose one rank in Discipline. (If the result is negative, then the character loses access to the Discipline skill and acts as unskilled.)

3

Arrive too late to assist in a battle when it mattered. Turn an Ally into a Rival or just gain a Rival.

4

An injury either physical or mental grips you in combat. -1 Dex DM for determining initiative.

5

Superiors question your abilities. You may keep your benefit roll for this term, but still leave the career. If not being ejected from the career, take a -2 DM on your next advancement roll.

6

You are sent to the armpit of civilization and just can't take it anymore. Muster out at the end of the term.

Events

Event

2

Disaster! Roll on the mishap table, but you are not ejected from the career.

3

You are assigned to guard an embassy. Gain Diplomat 1 or Language (any) 1.

4

Receive advanced training. Roll Edu 8+ to gain Tactics (military) 1, Combat Engineering 1, or Siege Engineering 1.

5

A commanding officer takes an interest in your career. Gain Tactics (military) 1 or +2 DM to your next Advancement Roll.

6

Gambling helps to pass the time. Gain Gambler 1. If you wish, roll Gambler 8+. If you succeed, gain an additional Benefit roll. If you fail, lose 1 Benefit roll.

7

Life Event. Roll on the Life Events table.

8

Assault an enemy encampment. Roll Melee (any) 8+ or Ranged Combat (any) 8+. If you succeed, gain a rank in the skill you used. If you fail, roll on the injury table.

9

Personal guard for a noble person. Gain +1 Social Standing.

10

You discover a traitor among the troops. Gain an Enemy, as well as a +2 DM to your next Advancement Roll.

11

You found yourself in the heart of action and survived. Gain one level in Discipline.

12

You display heroism in a battle. You are automatically promoted.

We used Golan 2072's OGL Fantasy Equipment List to derive muster out cash amounts. The amounts haven't been thoroughly tested so the figures may need tweaked but I think we're on the right track.

Here's the character I rolled up:

Infantry: Rank 2 Corporal

Str 11
Dex 7
End 8
Int 7
Edu 6
Soc 8

Skills:

Animals 0
Athletics 0
Discipline 2
Farming 0
Heavy Armor 1
Melee (sword) 1
Signals 0
Survival 0
Tactics (Military) 0

Traveller Fantasy: Adventurer?

2009-09-03T13:31:00.004-04:00

For a while now I've had the idea of using Traveller as the foundation for a fantasy game. My preferred style of fantasy tends to have little magic so I'd think that it could be a good fit for the system.

Currently there are multiple similar efforts in the works but I'm chomping at the bit to jump in and see what I can come up with. Typing out loud here, the goal is to put together a lean core that can support pluggable/modular life paths and events to easily represent careers, races, and cultures for both fantasy and historical settings. For all I know, this may already be possible almost out of the box. I also want to explore random hex creation to help facilitate a sandbox style of play.

I own the original LBB reprint and the Mongoose Traveller core book. At this point it looks like the bulk of the work will probably be based on the MGT SRD. The working title is Adventurer.

Ruins & Ronin Multipage Character Sheet

2009-08-22T15:03:00.007-04:00

I whipped up a multi-page character for Mike D's Ruins & Ronin. The images link to the PDF download.

Heroquest 2.0 Mecha: Veritech

2009-08-16T18:18:00.013-04:00

We played a Robotech playtest one-shot last night using Heroquest 2.0. I gotta say it was downright entertaining. The most important part is that it felt right. We were able to do justice to the fiction because it was what drove our common understanding. I'm thinking that Mr. Robin D. Laws is onto something. ;)

Once at the table the decision was made to hew toward the slightly crunchier side of things. We could have made Veritech a keyword and been done but we wanted to bring the mecha a bit more to the forefront. Using the Mecha Game Requirements Doc and the resulting PDQ Robotech Character Sheet as a guide we were able to quickly put together a multi-mode Veritech in HQ 2.0 terms.

Keyword: Veritech

Fighter Mode:

Abilities

Speed 12
Maneuverability 6
Afterburner 15

Flaws

Wide turning radius 10 (-2)

Guardian Mode:

Abilities

Speed 8
Maneuverability 8
Stable 15

Flaws

Non-flight mobility 10 (-2)

Battloid Mode:

Abilities

Speed 6
Maneuverability 12
Hand-to-hand 15

Flaws

Poor flight 15 (-3)

Weapons

Head mounted laser(s) 8
GU-11 Gun Pod: 5 Mastery

The story

The sole player character is in a VT on a routine patrol when a call comes in that a group of Zentraedi in battle pods are battling it out with overmatched local security over a protoculture chamber. It is imperative that the Zentraedi marauders be stopped.

Bearing 010, 21 klicks...

The VT pilot strafes the zentraedi position (minor victory) with the GU-11 blowing a leg off an unaware battle pod and announces that they are to lay down their weapons. The marauders will have none of it. As the veritech changes modes to evade enemy fire a Nousjadeul-Ger male power armor grabs the protoculture chamber and begins heading toward the nearest tree line.

Deciding to ignore the battle pods the intrepid RDF pilot transforms to Guardian mode and skates his way toward the fleeing protoculture chamber thief. The thought that there's an escape ship hidden in the trees zips through the VT pilot's mind.

The battle pods rally on their leader and pursue the enemy while raining down withering cannon fire. For the most part the VT pilot evades but a few blasts strike home. He's starting to feel outmatched and is thinking that it was a tactical error pursuing the power armor without first dealing with the battle pods. On top of all that it turns out that it's too dangerous to take a shot against the power armor because he might hit the chamber. He can't get an angle.

Particle cannon blasts shake the veritech causing its systems to flicker.

The Zentraedi have scored 5 resolution points versus the VT pilot and are ready to strike a parting blow.

The VT pilot keys his radio ready to call in a SITREP and to request backup while disengaging the enemy.

The zentraedi fumble their parting shot while the VT pilot rolls a critical success which gets him back into the game.

The battle pods became too eager in their pursuit and strung themselves out causing problems of position and diminished concentration of fire. Their error presents the VT pilot a small window of opportunity that must be taken in the next moment or it will vanish.

In jet mode the veritech is wheeled around with afterburners lit. Skimming the deck with a wash of dust trailing behind, the VT pilot bears down on the male power armor that has just made its way to the trees.

In a split second the veritech transforms into battloid mode. Still hurtling toward the tree line a short burst from the GU-11 cripples the power armored thief taking his exposed leg out from under him.

Now from the concealment of the forest the VT pilot rocks the GU-11 with deadly accuracy wreaking havoc on those that were once his pursuers. Those that are able to flee do so. Those that cannot are either dead or are in the process of giving up.

The VT pilot has taken the zentraedi to 5 resolution points and succeeds in his parting shot easily kicking the enemy while they're down.

Finally able to take a break a call back to RDF base is made and it is declared that the protoculture chamber has been secured. The enemy is fleeing and support is necessary for pursuit.

From behind the VT pilot's position an obviously salvaged zentraedi troop transport ship bursts from the forest and heads for destination unknown. The VT pilot won't be pursuing today. His orders are to stay put till reinforcements arrive and to return to base for repairs.

FATE/Starblazer Adventures Robotech Character Sheet

2009-08-16T00:28:00.003-04:00

PDQ Robotech Character Sheet

2009-08-15T10:20:00.005-04:00

Resulting from the Mecha Requirements Doc here is the PDQ Robotech character sheet that I whipped up:

Note the bolded abilities. These abilities are common to all mecha modes. If a common ability suffers impairment all modes are affected. For example, while in Fighter mode if the Speed ability is impaired one rank and is reduced to Good [+2] both the Guardian and Battloid modes take one rank of impairment to Speed. Guardian speed is reduced to Average[0] and Battloid Speed is reduced to Poor [-2].

Setting Development Through Gaming

2009-08-10T17:49:00.006-04:00

For the last 9 months we've been hard at work developing 'Solus' a post apocalyptic setting for our live-action airsoft game Firefight! After setting the premise and constraints of the game world much of the process has consisted of creating individual gaming events that fit our vision.

Brainstorming and LEGO-style snapping of ideas together takes the concept of developing "adventures" in a game world only so far. Typically what looks like a complete event outline has holes and leaps of logic that are not only inelegant but also difficult to bridge once the game starts moving. The gaps can be closed on the fly but this isn't an optimal approach because in live action hand-waving an NPC as an agent of change into or out of existence is quite difficult. In attempt to close holes ahead of time we've been using tabletop gaming to jump into the setting to test our outlines. As we have increased utilization of this technique the positive feedback given after game events has gone up.

We started with The Shadow of Yesterday to test the concept and it worked out very well. The system felt neutral enough to allow us to really play in the Solus setting. Next we tried PDQ and it worked great. Both systems are very good games and are flexible enough to accommodate virtually any setting.

I picked up Heroquest 2.0 because I had heard so many good things about it over the years but had never seen it. I had no idea that in time it would become the system that really kicked the setting dev process into high gear.

Heroquest has the qualities of fast and flexible but it also has something else. Keywords. A Keyword is a sort of macro that encompass a broad set of character abilities wrapped up into a single word or phrase. This feature allowed us to not only flex the system for our setting but it also helped us reinforce the setting with the Firefight! system even though they are two different rule sets.

In Firefight! there are 3 main character types; Brains, Jack of all trades, and Action. Each character type has exclusive access to system bits that provides unique abilities in the game space. The beautiful part is that these character types became Keywords. The benefits were myriad. Character creation time was dramatically reduced which allowed us to jump straight to the point of the endeavor - setting development. The amount of material covered in a very short of amount of time went way up. Concentrating on the setting took far less effort. Upon reflection I think the productivity gain is the result of reduced "context switching" between the setting in play on the tabletop and the live action system that will be used out in the field.

The scope of Solus scales up from the struggles of the individual through that of their comrades in arms to the actions of larger entities maneuvering to make life better and/or to snuff out those who get in their way. This too was pleasantly easy to handle.

Don't think that I look at Heroquest 2.0 as just a tool. It's a lot of fun and hope to get a proper campaign off the ground soon. Who know. Maybe it'll be Solus.

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,..."
-W.B. Yeats

Obviously

2009-08-03T12:57:00.004-04:00

It's obvious that I haven't been posting much recently. It's certainly not because I don't have much to say. We're full bore into prime airsoft season and it has taken most of my attention for game development.

At the moment we're running our Firefight! Solus campaign and I'm developing software to manage MILSIM games.

In parallel I'm reading Heroquest 2.0 and am loving it. I could have skimmed the book and started running but I'm taking it slow so that I can absorb the HQ lessons of approach and style. I'm glad for doing so. Much of what I've read reinforces my notions about story telling through gaming. Some of it doesn't but that's okay because everything makes sense. It feels good to be learning something.

Over and out.

I voted. Did you?

2009-07-24T13:06:00.003-04:00

Castles and Crusades: Double Edge System

2009-07-14T08:59:00.006-04:00

A modified FATE aspect system originally put together for Castles & Crusades but could easily be ported to a retro-clone.

Choose 3 Aspects at character creation:

Skill (gem cutting, rock climbing)
Profession (blacksmith, apothecary)
Personal trait (nimble, greedy)

Edge Points:

5 Edge (FATE) points
Refresh when CK/GM says so
1 FATE point gained when a character aspect is invoked by the CK/GM

Spend Edge Points to:

Re-roll 1d20
Invoke character and scene aspects for +2 each
Boost any +2 modifier to +1d4
Boost any +3 modifier to +1d6
Boost any +4 modifier to +1d8
Boost any +5 modifier to +1d10

Hackmaster Basic: Timing Tick Tracking With Poker Chips

2009-07-06T21:52:00.004-04:00

I ordered Hackmaster Basic the first day the pre-order went up. I had never played the game before but I have Aces & Eights so I was intrigued. After the book arrived I dug in and liked what I saw. I loved the idea of the roundless second by second combat time tracking. I started out doing it all on a sheet of paper and found that I kinda lost track of individuals so I moved on to using index cards which was an unintended hybrid of the poker chip idea.

After switching over to poker chips the game started to fly and players became even more engaged. Timing became evident to everyone around the table. The chips become a sort of action meter and players try to bend time to their will because they can see that the goblin or bandit is going to get to act a second or two before their fighter. I love it.

To give you an idea of what's going on in the picture let me explain. The fellow with the stack topped with red chips has failed his Threshold of Pain check after being shot by a long bow by the fighter with the all white stack of chips in the background. The fellow with the all blue stack of chips in the foreground is waiting for his shot at the fighter or paladin who is just now trying to decide where to cross the stream.

The game was a lot of fun. We finally got to test out the skill system and things went a-okay. We're looking forward to more hacking.

Chronica Feudalis: Aspect Cards Download

2009-07-06T17:31:00.005-04:00

Last week I blogged about the some aspect cards that I made for my Chronica Feudalis game. So, without further ado, Here they are in PDF format.

Churning Away On Mecha

2009-07-05T22:30:00.005-04:00

I've been churning away on my Mecha Project. The goal is to evaluate and test the listed systems to see what I can make.

Over the last week I've written up characters/mecha for the following systems:

It doesn't seem like a lot of work but it has been. Deciding how to handle the tri-mode Veritech in each of the systems has been the bulk of the work but I also had to learn how Cartoon Action Hour: Season 2 worked to give the game a fair shake. The good part is that there are a lot of lessons learned from both the process and the documentation that I'm putting together along the way. I plan on posting about each of the systems evaluated to talk a bit about what I've discovered and learned.

The Requirements and Findings doc has been republished with the latest updates.

Chronica Feudalis: Aspect Cards

2009-06-28T13:46:00.007-04:00

In the past I've used index cards for FATE 3.x based games to help everyone keep known aspects straight. Write the aspect on a card and put it out onto the table. Anything that keeps the GM and players from repeating themselves is a good thing.

With Chronica Feudalis the blanket term Aspect is not precise enough so I made cards for Aspects, Injuries, Conditions, and Tools. Each card has a number of ranked checkboxes for indicating rank/severity. The photos are from our first game using the cards.

Mecha Game Requirements

2009-06-26T19:39:00.013-04:00

Introduction:

Off and on (mostly off) for the last year I've been working on a FATE based mecha (Macross) game. Each attempt mostly ended in frustration mostly because I didn't have a clear vision. Instead of continuing to flounder I decided to put together a formal requirements and evaluation document. This is a live Google Docs document so as it evolves the changes will be published to the Platonic Solid blog. Comments and suggestions are very much welcomed.

Requirements:

Provide bonus for transforming/changing modes.
Provide differentiation between mecha modes i.e. Jet, Battroid, Valkyrie.
Support fluid combat in the game space. (freewheeling action)
Support massive missile clouds with light keeping.

Support evading/fighting way out of massive missile clouds.

Provide support for mooks in combat.
Support scaling between personal/mecha/ship levels.
Explicitly support tactical dogfighting.

None of the systems will support this. Instead of a nitty-gritty tactical system I am developing in parallel a "Gs System" where a player voluntarily takes on extra Gs for positioning/bonus. The defender will have the option to also pull more Gs in order to offset the opponent's advantage or to gain advantage for themself. A Gs system requirements doc has not yet been written.
Initial positioning and distance must be determined by the game system's initiative system a la original Traveller. This way Fighter mode is not given short shrift.

Support character development and growth.

Sounds obvious but the system should support growing into a leadership position, etc.

Existing Game System Candidates

PDQ

Requirements

PASS

Flat +2 bonus for narrating a mode change

PASS
PASS

The system allows open narration and does not enforce quantizing time/action.

PASS

HOLD

PASS

Has outstanding support for mooks
Will test damage "overflow" for mooks a la FATE 3.x.

PASS
FAIL

Out of the box PDQ does not provide a tactical framework for dogfighting.

PASS

HOLD

Pros

Very light
Very fun
A lot of good system material to base the conversion on.

Jaws of the Six Serpents
Truth & Justice

Scaling when limited to weapons, armor, speeds worked without a hitch.

Cons

At this time (6/29/2009) explicit character growth seems to be the most difficult problem.

Test Notes

Tactical game play emerged through the damage system.
Mecha felt as if they were whittled away.
Game play was high speed.
Mecha creation was straight forward.

PDQ#

Pros

Very light
Very fun
The swashbuckling rules look like they could be very useful for dogfighting.
The minion rules look like they could be useful for character growth into leadership.

Cons

Same as PDQ

Test Notes

Has not been tested.

OVA

Requirements

PASS
PASS
PASS
HOLD

HOLD

PASS
HOLD
FAIL

Out of the box OVA does not provide a tactical framework for dogfighting.

PASS

HOLD

Pros

Creating mecha was straight forward.
The Ricochet system is fun in of itself.
The book provides a list of abilities that can be used for "building" mecha.
Handles power armor exceptionally well.

Cons

At this time explicit character growth seems to be the most difficult problem.

Test Notes

Played as usual, very well.
Resolution system "felt right".
Out of the box was not as engaging as PDQ.

Cortex

Requirements

PASS

Next action after transforming gets +1 die step.

PASS
PASS
HOLD

HOLD

PASS
PASS

Provides outstanding support for handling scale

FAIL

Out of the box Cortex does not provide a tactical framework for dogfighting.

PASS

HOLD

Pros

Excellent support for scale.
Excellent support for ships.

Cons

It simply comes down to me not being sure that I like the feel of the game. May not feel evocative enough.

Test Notes

Combat was a bit bland out of the box but the experimental "Gs System" could easily be added.
Mecha creation was very straight forward
Character creation felt good.

Starblazer Adventures

Requirements

PASS

+2 to next action. Must be tagged with FATE point.

HOLD

This has been a point of frustration regardless of the system.

PASS
HOLD

HOLD

PASS

Provides outstanding support for mooks

PASS

Provides outstanding support for scaling

FAIL

Does not provide a tactical framework for dogfighting.
Provides a framework for capitol ships.

PASS

HOLD

Pros

Strong support for scale
Strong Organizations support
Fun
Provides a vast amount of "generic" sci-fi material that can be adapted for the game.

Cons

Handling mecha modes has proven cumbersome.

ORE

Requirements

PASS
HOLD
PASS
PASS

PASS

PASS
HOLD
FAIL
PASS

HOLD

N-System

Pros

Not yet fully prototyped and is open to fundamental change.

Cons

Not yet fully prototyped and needs a lot of work.

Chroncia Feudalis Fantasy Hack: Magic

2009-06-26T11:12:00.008-04:00

Last night I ran a mini test session where Jip the gnome goblin slayer and his human friend Siggurd are tracked down a party of goblins that were led by a goblin shaman.

We approached magic the way we did when playing Middle Earth with Spirit of the Century but with some CF specific tweaking.

A magic user's potential casting pool:

Skill: (Command or Perform depending on the spell)
Tool: (i.e. Magic staff)
Aspect: (i.e. Dark Arts D8)

Casting a spell costs a point of Ardor and includes invoking the Aspect: Dark Arts D8.

Casting was handled much like maneuvers and inflicting conditions. Spells are also able to create tools on the fly. A single success creates a D6 tool, double D8 tool, triple D10 pool just like conditions.

As Siggurd's arrows were killing goblins, on the fly the shaman created a magical camouflage cloak D6 that would be crucial for his eventual escape. All the while Jip was sneaking on a flanking maneuver hoping to get close enough to launch an attack on the goblin magic user. The shaman caught Jip's movement out of the corner of his eye and subsequently won initiative for the round. He cast a Disorientation (D8) spell on the gnome that as it turns out would be endured for the entire scene.

As Jip swayed and while Siggurd became bogged down in melee the shaman shot a blast of eldritch energy at Siggurd causing a point of Vigor loss.

Now the shaman is out of Ardor so he turns to run. Jip manages to make chase while Siggurd mops up.

During the chase Jip endures the Disorientation (D8) and the shaman endures his aspect Decrepit D8. Little by little the shaman puts more ground between him and his pursuer. Eventually Jip runs out of Vigor and the old goblin slips behind a massive tree, casts a small spell and flies up out of the forest on a gust of wind.

Magic was resisted by Will or Reflex depending if the magic condition attacked the mind or the body.

We have a conversation going on over at RPG.net on the subject where the CF author mentions the concept of Dark Ardor that can be used to invoke the Dark Arts aspect at its heightened rank.

As of now my intention is to keep the concept of magic as freeform as possible with the guideline of the effect being ranked. This way magic is powerful but not earth shatteringly so. But it would be cool to get a small spell list put together for inspiration.

Caught By Surprise

2009-06-18T14:05:00.005-04:00

I ran a short session of White Box Swords & Wizardry the other night and was caught by surprise.

The oldest and best serving hireling, the map maker was killed during an attack that seemed to be out of the blue. Now the party is wondering how to approach his family about it because they feel terrible. Three or four sessions ago after a bad wilderness encounter the party made their way back to the map maker's house to recover. Once there, while the PCs were strategizing a new approach to the ruins on the hill the map maker himself was out working his connections to plug the gaps in the party's skill set. Now he's gone.

I'm caught by surprise because "the game" is even better than I had remembered it.

Chronica Feudalis: The Print Ready PDF

2009-06-14T10:07:00.007-04:00

Last night I received the the ready for print Chronica Feudalis PDF from its author, Jeremy Keller. Immediately I was struck by the cover.

The first thing that caught my eye was the worn leather look. My eyes then snapped to the mounted knight set off by the red tint of the background. I'd buy it.

The interior art and layout are on par with the cover. The chapter head artwork is by Miguel Santos and the spot illustrations are by the author. There's a peek at the artwork over at the Chronica Feudalis web site.

Mouse Guard: Everything From Small Stuff To Warfare

2009-06-01T07:07:00.012-04:00

Last night I ran the most excellent Mouse Guard hack called Realm Guard and it was incredible. There was only one player so she was running both a recruit and the recruit's mentor. There was also a captain character that both of us played when required.

So much ground was covered and so much story told in such a short amount of time (about 2.5 hours) that it was stunning.

Here's the ground that we covered:

Recruit Gayle is on a simple mission to deliver a sealed letter to a hermit who is known for his eclectic wisdom. It was part of her endeavor to prove herself to the guard. A pathfinder roll is unexpectedly failed so a twist is introduced. A bandit ambushes the recruit within sight of the hermit's abode and demands her cloak. As well as some loot the bandit is out for blood while the recruit simply wants to drive him off.

With the stakes set we enter into a conflict. The recruit successfully drives off the bandit (losing only 1 die from her disposition) and immediately heads toward the hermit's home. She knocks and gets no answer. She looks through a window and sees someone lying on the floor. The cottage has been ransacked. So she rushes in with tender foot abandon. Luckily there was no immediate danger lurking inside.

Gayle kneels to perform aid the best aid she can but it is obvious that her abilities are inadequate. The hermit points and whispers "The lamp." Under the lamp is a hidden compartment with a map and other intel including a list of names some of which are known rangers. She packs the intel and carries through a wicked spring thunderstorm to the her mentor Merrick who was busy resolving a livestock dispute between not two but three farmers.

Merrick looks at the map and list of names and locations and correctly deduces that a war host is on its way into ranger territory, most likely led by current and former rangers. The closest ranger group that could possibly deal with this is less than a day away on a construction/repair project. Luckily.

Merrick and his recruit Gayle dodge enemy outriders. The encounter reinforces the imperative nature of their mission but luckily for them they don't run into any other potential trouble on the way and in time they find Captain Ulfric's group. Immediately they make their way to the captain and present the evidence of danger.

Ulfric takes one look at the list of names and denies that it could be a possibility. This is our second conflict of the session. Both sides roll for disposition. While Captain Ulfric is more geared for this kind of conflict he only rolls one higher than Merrick for disposition. Back and forth they argue. Verbal feint and maneuver. Gayle steps in and declares on her ranger oath that what she saw was real. At the same time Merrick thrusts forth the map and the list as evidence.

Reality sets in and cracks Ulfric's denial. His eyes well up with tears as he calls for his men to break camp and to prepare for war.

Merrick lost a disposition die but gained it back during the conflict while Ulfric went all the way to zero.

Ulfric and his command look over the intelligence delivered by Merrick and Gayle and form a battle plan. Ulfric will ride in the front while Merrick organizes the archers. Gayle runs as messenger.

Using foreknowledge of the enemy's intent Ulfric positions his forces. He uses the map to prepare so the rangers' disposition was quite high. I as GM rolled for the enemy, an ad-hoc bunch of hillmen tribes with rangers acting as unit commanders. At the head of the enemy host riding in black armor is Ulfric's best friend. The enemy's disposition is also as high but falls a few dice short.

Battle is met and the sides clash like two tides smashing into the other. The impact of the Rangers of the North causes a bulge in the enemy's lines and the momentum surges through to the enemy's rear units causing confusion. The man in the black armor raises his sword and works to rally his men into order. Just as he begins to regain control, waves of arrows from the high ground flurry into hillmen flank. They begin to break.

Ulfric calls his men forward for victory.

The peal of battle is replaced with the soft cacophny of the dying. Ulfric walks over to the man in the black armor who is now lying dead crushed beneath his own horse and orders the body to be burned.

Merrick is happy to survive another one. Gayle rejoices in surviving her first.

The dice rolling for the rangers was incredibly good. I was rolling poorly for the enemy. I also have to note that timing is everything. Just as I was getting the bad guys back into order and ready to deliver a giant blow I got out maneuvered and on the next action got utterly annihilated as I tried to feint.

All in all, I am highly impressed by both the Ranger Guard hack and Mouse Guard itself. I ran 3 conflicts all of differing types with the same resolution system. I must declare Mouse Guard to be elegant gaming genius.

Oh, I almost forgot. This was the first session where I used the Mouse Guard conflict cards. They are a great addition to the game.

Spirit of the Force Part 5: The Dark Side

2009-05-26T07:02:00.006-04:00

I wanted the dark side of the force to be tempting and the struggle to remain true to the light side to be ongoing. I'm not a fan of GM fiat being used to determine when the dark side of The Force dominates a character's destiny. Also I did not want to use yet another dark side point system.

FATE 3.x's composure track becomes The Force track:

Resolve lengthens the track as normal.
Gain a free FATE point or +3 shifts per tick.
If a character takes a dark side consequence they get two free FATE points per tick for the scene.
Taken Out equals full and total conversion to the dark side.
May only carry three consequences at a time.
Consequences may be compelled!

Dark side consequences do not just go away after a conflict. They are a burden to the Jedi and must be atoned by ritual or through conversation with a master.

It's interesting to see Jedi characters being challenged by Sith who jeer and taunt their very way of life causing stress to the Jedi's composure track. Little by little the Jedi players become more and more tempted to tap into the power contained within the composure track so they can strike down their enemy out of hatred or to simply survive the encounter.

And that's it!

Chronica Feudalis Fantasy Hack: Scaling Beyond The Natural

2009-05-24T18:28:00.016-04:00

So far we've statted up ogre chieftans and orcs and they're nasty stuff. But they sit near the top of the scale and do not leave much room for things such as well, dragons.

We tried a few different approaches at scaling beyond D20 which is as good as it gets in Chronica Feudalis. D20 perfectly fits the natural world but like I said we're modeling fire breathing creatures here.

We tried rolling an extra die with multiple ways of influencing the skills/tools/traits but it didn't feel right so we ditched it for a couple of reasons. First it always felt like we didn't have enough dice. Second and most important, it hurt the clean elegance of the core system. Keeping track of the different types of dice caused undue confusion. What was a fast clean resolution system became cluttered. The next idea was to add flat bonus to anything that was higher in scale than D20. This is what we went with.

The next step was to determine how large the bonuses should be. Bonus equal to the highest die face: +4, +6, +8, +10, +12, +20? Or the means for each die: +2, +3, +4, +5, +6, +10? After some play testing we decided to go with +1 through +5. This decision was reached because of the way the system works. A very powerful ability equates to a single die which translates into at best a single success. This means that increasingly higher bonuses give diminishing returns. Succeed by 1 or by 20 it's a single success. Something to keep in mind is that depending on the style of game any of these bonus patterns could be used and the wheels won't fly off the CF cart.

Okay, now we had the bonus pattern that felt right but we didn't want to just say D20+1. Not that it wouldn't work. It was just a matter of feel and congruity with the rest of the game. Instead went with D21, D22, and so on:

D21 = D20+1
D22 = D20+2
D23 = D20+3
D24 = D20+4
D25 = D20+5

This approach helps keep the "rule space" clean and folks from wondering why they can't get D4+1 in Riding.

For play test we didn't go with a pure agent nor a pure antagonist when writing up the dragon. Instead we went with a hybrid to get the right amount of knobs to tweak for the design phase. Here's what we came up with:

Dragon

Vigor: 4
Ardor: 3

Skills:

Chase D20
Combat D12
Parley D12
Subterfuge D12

Tools:

Ultra-Vision D21
Scales (Armor) D21
Claws D12
Breath D23
Maw D20

Aspects:

Ancient
Wily
Winged

More than once the small +1 to +3 bonus seriously gave the dragon great advantage. The bonuses were most effective when setting conditions. I knew that I could spend an action setting up a maneuver condition because of his scale.

Ticking up the D20 a couple of points after rolling really tests the bravest would-be dragon killer's resolve.

Spirit of the Force Part 4: Force Stunts

2009-05-24T16:11:00.006-04:00

One of the easiest ways to model the force is by coupling an aspect (Force Sensitive) with a series of stunts.

Force Stunts

One With The Force: Requires Force Sensitive aspect. For a FATE point, can substitute The Force for most any other skill as Theory In Practice from Spirit of the Century. The character should have an aspect related to the task.
The Tree, The Rock: Requires Force Sensitive aspect. Use The Force as ranged Might.
Force Strike: Requires The Tree, The Rock. Use The Force as Guns but of course requires no tools.
Jedi Mindtrick: Requires One With The Force. Use as per Hypnotic Speech from Spirit of the Century.
Transfer Force: Requires The Tree, The Rock. Use as per Medic from Spirit of the Century. Also allows the use of The Force skill as Science on medicine rolls.
Negate Energy: Requires One With The Force. For a FATE point a Force user may attempt to absorb an energy attack, i.e. Blasters with The Force skill.
An Elegant weapon (for a more civilized age): Requires a customized lightsaber aspect. Use as Weapon of Destiny from Spirit of the Century.

Next up: The Darkside

Spirit of the Force Part 3: Aspects

2009-05-24T00:03:00.005-04:00

Aspects in FATE not only are used in the definition of characters but they also help define a game's vocabulary. Of course Star Wars already has so much to draw from...

Core Aspect:

Force Sensitive

Specialty Aspects:

Force Surge: Available only if a trained Force user.

Lightsaber Aspects:

I Shii-Cho
II Makashi
III Soresu: Defensive. Best for deflecting blaster fire
IV Ataru: Strong and powerful. Best against single opponents
V - a Shien: Best for redirecting blaster fire
V - b Djem So: Focus on domination, strength, power.

Required Aspects If a Jedi:

Padawan: Maximum Force skill level: Average
Jedi Knight: Maximum Force skill level: Good
Jedi Master: Maximum Force skill level: Superb

Everything else related to aspects is full wide open and is handled exactly as in Spirit of the Century.

Up next: Force Stunts

My print copy of Swords & Wizardry White Box has arrived!

2009-05-23T14:00:00.003-04:00

Wow. I am far more impressed than I thought I'd be. First of all, before I ever got my hands on the actual book I was impressed by how Lulu packaged it up. The book arrived in mint condition.

I've never seen such care put into securing a book inside of a shipping box before. The book was packed inside of a foam "slipcase" shrink wrapped to a sheet of cardboard cut to the size of the box's inside area. There was no way it was going to rattle around inside getting the corners all beat up as happens far too often. This heartens me as someone who has a PDF up on Lulu and plans on eventually offering a print product through them.

Now, for White Box itself. The quality jumped right out at me. The cover is very glossy which really helps project the cover art. Visually it is very impressive inside and out. The printed page is very clear with high contrast. How about the content?

I skimmed through the White Box PDF but that's about it. Nothing yelled, "Run me! Run me!" But now, as soon as I'm done writing this I'm going to run it and may even switch my current S&W Core game over to White Box.

Spirit of the Force Part 2: Skills

2009-05-23T10:47:00.006-04:00

The skill list isn't terribly different from the one presented in Spirit of the Century though there are a few tweaks.

Skills:

Academics
Alertness
Art
Athletics
Blasters
Burglary
Close Combat
Contacting
Deceit
Empathy
Endurance
Gambling
Intimidation
Investigation
Leadership
Medicine: This new skill includes the medical trapping that used to be in Science. The Lab Work and Science! trappings can also be used, but only for medical, biological and cybernetic purposes.
Might
Mysteries: The Arcane Lore trapping can be used by anyone.
Pilot
Rapport
Resolve
Resources
Science: This skill no longer includes medicine, so the Medical Attention trapping is removed and purely medical knowledge is now part of the skill Medicine. However, it can still be used for academic/non-medical biological and cybernetic knowledge, so there is still some overlap.
Sleight of Hand
Stealth
Survival

There is one skill that stands out a bit:

The Force: Requires the Core Aspect: Force Sensitive. Specifically the skill can be used for: Sixth Sense, Telekinesis (simple task), Fortune Telling, and Telepathy.

Next up: Aspects

Spirit of the Force Part 1: Health & Composure

2009-05-22T23:58:00.008-04:00

This is the conversion that got me to thinking about starting a blog. I've been sitting on it for about a year so it's about time...

Right after I finished reading Spirit of the Century I immediately realized that it would make for running an outstanding Star Wars game for a number of reasons including the free-wheeling ability to narrate both direct character interactions as well as vehicle chases that are so much part of the setting. So, I jumped on RPG.net and saw that others were thinking the same thing.

This is the start of what I cobbled together from conversations there and independent work done tinkering at the gaming table.

The first thing that needed tweaked to fit the SW universe was Health & Composure. Even though 30s pulp movies were big influences for the movie series I didn't feel as though the default damage track system quite fit. Here's what we came up with:

Physical Stress

5 boxes
Treat as hit points

Composure Stress

5 boxes
Treat as hit points
Each box may be tagged (burned) for +3. This is considered a Dark Side action. More on this later.

Consequences

Buy off stress with Consequences:

Minor -2 stress
Medium -4 stress
Severe -6 stress

Next up: Skills

Chronica Feudalis Fantasy Hack

2009-05-21T21:27:00.008-04:00

We started up a side fantasy game using the FATE inspired engine found in Chronica Feudalis.

One of our test characters, Jip the gnome teams up with a human named Siggurd on a mission to hunt down an ogre chieftain who has assembled a war host that is about to unleash its wrath on the local human settlements.

Ogre Chieftain

Vigor: 4

Ardor: 3

Skills:

Brawl D20
Fitness D20
Strike D10
Command D8
Sense D6
Everything else D4

Tools:

Club D10
Hide armor D6

Aspects:

Massively strong D8
Proven by challenge D8
Lumbering D8

We decided that he should have an entourage (Agents in CF parlance) of orcs. We decided to make the appearance of orcs something that is frightening in the setting and not at all common so they always appear as either agents or antagonists.

Orc Agent

Vigor: 2

Skills:

Chase D6
Combat D6
Parley D4
Subterfuge D8

Tools:

Orc scimitar D6
Orc bow D8
Quiver D6
Orc armor D8
Club D6
Hobnailed boots D6
Night vision D6

To facilitate writing up an orc protagonist we put together an orc racial package that is used in place of a mentor selection.

Orc racial package

Skills:

Strike
Fitness
Brawl

Tools:

Night vision d6
Hobnailed boots d6

Simple opponents such as goblins and kobolds are easily represented as having D4 in all skills/abilities.

So far the game has gone very well and we plan on expanding the fantasy hack. I've got some ideas on how to scale past D20 but they need more testing before posting.

Swords & Wizardry Player Handbook

2009-05-16T13:58:00.008-04:00

A couple of days ago I mentioned that I was working on a single column layout of Swords & Wizardry for printing booklets.

I printed up and assembled a player handbook today just to see what it would look like:

I used the free OS X app CocoaBooklet to do the imposition for me. Printing was a bit tricky since I don't have a duplex printer at home but once I got that figured out the process was pretty easy.

Update:

I got the urge to tweak the prototype booklet a bit more and trimmed the top and bottom with a paper cutter. The edges didn't come out as clean as I had hoped so I'm going to try printing a faint trim line so that they can trimming can be done before folding.

Here are the pics:

Just ordered S&W White Box in print

2009-05-15T19:22:00.002-04:00

I just ordered the White Box edition of Swords & Wizardry in print. Even though I love and am currently playing core, the PDF is working out just fine. I snagged WB for its stow-and-go pickup-game-ability.

FYI: The coupon code MAYCONTEST10 yields 10% off.

Swords & Wizardry: Working on a single column layout

2009-05-14T08:05:00.004-04:00

One of the projects that I'm working on is taking the content of the S&W Word Doc and putting it into a single column layout to make it easier to use when printed as a booklet.

I'm not modifying any of the rules in-place. Instead, the house rules are placed beside them. This way the players can see the how, where, and why of the changes. And if they so choose they can take the document and play the original game.

In order to proceed much farther I've got to decide where to break the document up for the physical "books" because it's getting a bit thick for a single booklet. I'm thinking booklet 1 will be everything necessary for character creation and playing the game sans spells. Booklet 2 will be the spell listings for both clerics and magic-users. Booklet 3 will be the rest of everything else for use primarily by the GM.

Old School. New Premise. A Promise

2009-05-12T11:11:00.028-04:00

Old School
Recently, I kicked off my first Swords & Wizardry campaign. I wanted dwarves and elves and much of the things that many may consider cliched and trite. But at the same time I didn't want to completely abandon my modern gaming sensibilities.

New Premise
So, I needed a premise. I wanted an explanation in place for why the world is littered with ruins filled with treasure awaiting the intrepid adventurer. At the same time I didn't want to build a large overarching meta-plot that often becomes an unproductive exercise. Too often I don't actually run the game at hand because I grow weary from the novel-esque preparation. It's back to old school so none of that.

Harkening back to my halcyon days of gaming there was no need for any stinking premise. Anything and everything I could get my hands on became a potential ingredient for the upcoming adventure. Implicitly the world was what it was because I as GM said it was. Or because it was that way in the current module being run. I can't go all the way back to the "style of no style" no matter how much fun it was at the time.

From the perspective of deep campaign prep it took discipline to come up with a mere basis on which reasoning proceeds but I came up with...

A promise.

Kingdoms of man sprawl across the world. These kingdoms not only define high culture but also great riches. They drive back the dark things that in time become the subject of legend and scary bedtime stories.

Then the world is turning upside down.

The civilizations of man begin to crumble. The things of legend again go bump in the night.

Standing together at the brink, the peoples of the elves and the dwarves each make a promise to the men of the high age whose flame is quickly flickering out.

Then it is dark.

Elves become the machiavellian political masters of the orc tribes in attempt to keep the population of "low" man where he is so that the promise can be fulfilled. The elves believe that the original men will return to once again take their place and that the men who now huddle in round houses and hill forts must be kept where they are.

The dwarves believe that great men will rise above their peers to retake the original high place. The promise compels the dwarves to do what they must to assist the communities of man to make this happen.

Now I have the germ of a game world ready for adventuring.

Chronica Feudalis: Witness

2009-05-09T11:08:00.001-04:00

I found a really cool game called Chronica Feudalis by Jeremy Keller. The premise of the game is that it was written in the 12th century and just recently has been translated. This sets an implicit evocative tone of the medieval period that really works. Last night my wife and I gave it a whirl...

Walter Atwell a town guard was sent to a local village to escort the witness to a crime, a little boy to the magistrate for an upcoming trial. A local outlaw knight doesn't want that happening so he hit the village with his goons and attempted to take the witness hostage if not outright kill him.

Awoken from his slumber before the crow of the cock, Walter peers out the window and sees men attempting to set fire to thatched roofs. It's a dreary morning with the swirl of fog and a slight drizzle.

Walter slowly opens his window and grabs his long bow. He takes aim at the nearest torch bearer and looses an arrow killing the man instantly. He lays back into the room waiting to see if his position has been discovered. Not yet anyways.

He lines up another shot and another bandit falls from a mortal strike. But this time the bandit lieutenant discovers what is going on and orders his men to the house where Walter is now hiding.

Before he can be pinned down Walter takes action and uses his bow and athleticism to keep his distance from the goon squad.

Little by little it seemed as if the noose was closing on Walter as the lieutenant starts to gain control and musters his men into cohesive action. Mechanically the lieutenant places a condition of "surrounded" on Walter.

Before the bandits could inflict much harm, Walter breaks out of the encirclement and again goes back to work picking off bandits one at a time. Each side maneuvers trying to gain the tactical upper hand and it is the lieutenant who screws up first. He is distracted talking to some of his men when Walter finds him directly in his line of sight. Whoosh! The arrow strikes home and drops the lieutenant into the muddy street with a vicious wound.

Without taking time to relish the shot Walter dashes for cover. From this new vantage, up the street he sees the epicenter of the ruckus. A knight mounted on a restless horse waiting outside of a house. The house of the witness!

Here's where something that I appreciated as GM came up. I set the difficulty of the shot and it was simply too high for Walter to roll. Implicitly out of range! Very cool.

Evaluating the new situation Walter doubles back and picks up a spear and shield from a downed bandit. He decides to get in close to take out the knight since the shield made it more likely that he could survive the encounter. It wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility that the mounted knight could maneuver in and place the condition of "too close to shoot". If this happened then Walter would likely take a blow that could cripple him for life.

So, again, sheer athleticism allows Walter to close the distance. He tagged "the din of the ruckus" to help set a rush ambush and launched his attack. Gerald De Bois never heard nor saw the guard before the first strike was sprung.

The spear struck home but the knight's armor absorbed the blow. Before the knight could act Walter swung his spear flat against the horse's rump forcing a condition of "going out of control" on the horse and rider.

Gerald is a decent rider and with relative ease brings the horse back under reign but the next blow of the spear knocks him to the ground where he will remain for much of the remainder of combat.

Blow after blow rains down on the knight but his toughness and armor absorbed most of what Walter can dish out.

Running low on Vigor Gerald stands up and swings his sword at Walter, tagging his aspect "Merciless Bastard (literally)" which gave him quite an intimidating pool resulting in two successes. Amazingly Walter's shield stays intact and turns the blow.

Walter lowers his shield and simply charges the knight who slips in the mud and again finds himself on his back. This time he would not regain his feet. A flurry of blows strike the knight with the last of which takes his life. But not before Gerald was able to bellow his last order, a call to rally on him. In just a flash the rest of his retinue begin to close in on Walter's position.

I could have played Gerald smarter if I gamed the system a bit more. I would have used Ride with his horse as a tool and tagged his aspect "Wounded little boy" to get away.

Walter realizes that there's no where to go except inside the house. He discovers that the dwelling is empty and that the back door is hanging wide open. He runs to the open door and sees a large man running off with his witness slung over his shoulder.

The chase is afoot down a windy shambling road and immediately the goon twists his knee (rolls 1s). Street after street no one gains the upper hand. Finally the chase breaks out of the village into a field before hitting the woods. Now the difficulty rises which makes it almost assured that Walter will catch the guard and recover his witness. But he has to make it so.

Down into a gully they go and the ruffian stumbles but catches his balance as he scrambles up over the crest of a hill. Down over the other side is a stream with a steep bank on the opposite side. Walter figures that here is where he'll catch his quarry and he was right.

Quarry and pursuer splash across the stream. The large man collapses on the bank unable to move let alone catch his breath. In agony he looses the little boy. Walter stands in the cold water wondering who else wants the boy and how he will transport him to the magistrate.

Swords & Wizardry: Individual Initiative By Weapon Type

2009-05-07T20:16:00.007-04:00

I'm going to take a cue from John Harper's Agon and use weapon type to help determine individual initiative timing in an attack round.

A rough guideline for weapon categories is: Bow > Spear > Sword > Dagger > Fist

Initiative is determined for each group in a conflict by rolling 1D6. Starting with the highest group initiative, all individuals within a group with the longest weapon type make their attack. Continue with the next lower group initiative and so on. Once all attacks are made with the longest weapon type start again with the group who rolled the highest but this time with the next shorter weapon type. Continue till everyone who can make can attack has.

This gives some mechanical benefit for having a spear, for example, without altering to-hit modifiers for weapon length, etc.

Update:

After some feedback over at the Swords & Wizardry forum:

When two groups are considered to be corps-a-corps (body to body) flip the order: Fist > Dagger > Sword > Spear > Bow

Multi-Page Swords & Wizardry Character Sheet Sans Parchment

2009-05-06T07:11:00.007-04:00

I like options and I know that other people do as well so I whipped up a simpler [than this] version of the multi-page character sheet. It keeps all of the graphic elements except the parchment background. A print test run showed that it used a lot less ink and was much faster.

Swords & Wizardry Simpler Multi-Page Character Sheet

Swords & Wizardry Multi-Page Character Sheet

2009-05-05T21:08:00.008-04:00

Note: On my HP C5180 printer the "fast draft" option works great for the sheet and saves a lot of ink while keeping that cool parchment on paper look.

Next up: A sheet for my Jaws of the Six Serpents game.

Swords & Wizardry Character Sheet

2009-05-04T20:44:00.006-04:00

Here's my latest for Swords & Wizardry.

Swords & Wizardry: I have a good feeling about this.

2009-05-01T09:18:00.041-04:00

Earlier, I mentioned that I've had a fantasy game in my head for a long time and that for the last three years I've been actively looking for a system to express it.

I kept an eye on the 'net and grabbed anything that looked like it might do the trick. For some reason I couldn't find what I needed to scratch the itch. It seemed as if the vehicle to help evoke the game that only I knew about would not be found. I began to think that the game was was less a figment of my imagination and more an unplayable figment of nostalgia that at best could be propped up by mementos. The notion seemed more and more real because it was evident that most of the games I tried were fantastic in their own right and were not the precise problem. Through the evaluation process I found some gems that became favorites.

What I didn't realize was that I lost the frame of mind and perspective that helped mold that fantasy game whose origins lie at the nexus of my maturing imagination and my introduction to gaming. During those primordial days of structured story telling I had the tools and perspective but not the maturity to actually run the game that I had in my noggin. Looking back, that era was really about the wonder of possibilities punctuated by more than one Dragon Magazine cover that made me pause and say, "There! That's my game!" I never did manage to pull it off but boy did I have a lot of fun trying.

At some point it became obvious that I should just walk over to the book shelf, pick up AD&D 2nd Ed. and go to town. So I did. I hadn't seriously looked at the books in a decade but in the end I couldn't bring myself to use them. Still they remained at least in spirit the model.

When I saw the OSRIC announcement I thought, "Oh, cool" as memories stirred of my grandfather taking me to the only local hobby shop to look at the modules that lined the shelf. But that's about where it ended. OSRIC contained most of the bits that made me put away my AD&D books. So I filed the PDF away in my gaming folder where I soon lumped other games such as Basic Fantasy and Labyrinth Lord.

So, the process continued until another retro-clone caught my eye. Firstly the cover evoked the right feeling and drew me in. Secondly the rules were well served by the cover as they were of a similar style. I was amazed by what I saw. It was a simple rule set full of implicit flavor that felt wide open taking me back to the feeling of wonder of possibility. I didn't even pause to think that it could be too good to be true. I was too busy reading the book and looking for any and all Swords & Wizardry material that I could get my mitts on. I loved what I was seeing; a game like the one I started this hobby with but simpler!

Looking through the lens of S&W's simplicity I realized that I was framing my gaming approach in a way that fundamentally diminished the possibility of attaining my goal i.e. too much preparation that predetermined large swaths of the setting and thus the direction of the game. I found new appreciation for the other retro-clones as well. All of them bring something to the table beyond a common approach - rules options and tweaks that can easily be plugged into a highly playable lightweight framework.

In the spirit of the retro-clones I put together a light game world premise and set out to see what we could see. The kickoff session was incredibly fun.

I have a good feeling about this.

	Survival	Advancement
Scout	Dex 5+	Int 6+
Huntsman	End 6+	Dex 5+
Outrider	End 7+	Int 5+

	Personal Development	Service Skills	Advanced Edu
1	+1 Int	Melee(any)	Leadership
2	+1 Dex	Athletics(endurance)	Discipline
3	+1 End	Survival	Medicine
4	+1 Str	Ranged Combat(any)	Language(any)
5	Athletics(any)	Herbalism	Animals(any)
6	Melee(any)	Navigation	Tactics(military)

	Scout	Huntsman	Outrider
1	Navigation	Melee(blade)	Survival
2	Recon	Survival	Animals (Riding)
3	Survival	Athletics(co-ordination)	Recon
4	Athletics	Survival	Animals (any)
5	Ranged Combat(any)	Stealth	Navigation
6	Stealth	Ranged Combat (any)	Melee (Blade)

	Rank	Skill or Benefit
0	Initiate
1	Full Ranger	Survival 1
2		Ranged Combat 1
3		Leadership 1
4	Lieutenant	+1 Endurance
5		Tactics 1
6	Captain	+1 Social Standing

	Cash	Other Benefits
1	10 gold
2	20 gold
3	30 gold	Weapon
4	50 gold	Weapon or Shield
5	100 gold	Armor
6	150 gold	Armor or +1 End
7	200 gold	+1 Soc

	Mishap
1	Injured. Roll on the injury table.
2	It is perceived that through your neglect a great swath of forest is destroyed.
3	Ambush! You are captured by enemies and held captive for 2d6 months before escaping. Lose 1 point from Dex, Str, or End from muscle atrophy.
4	Time alone in the wild damages your social skills. Reduce your Social Standing by 1.
5	Tension between you and another Ranger drives you from the career. Gain a Rival.
6	While hunting for food you accidentally kill a sacred animal.

	Event
2	Disaster! Roll on the mishap table, but you are not ejected from the career.
3	Spend months guarding a remote outpost. Gain Survival 1 or Signals 1.
4	During a mission to stymie an enemy incursion you learn how to set simple traps. Gain the skill Mechanical Works 1.
5	A mission leaves you stranded behind enemy lines. Gain one level in Survival or Stealth.
6	You are attacked by a wild animal. Roll Melee (any) 8+ or Survival 8+ to avoid a roll on the injury table.
7	Life Event. Roll on the Life Events table.
8	Explore new territory. Gain Recon 1, Survival 1, or Navigation 1.
9	You save the life of a noble. Gain that noble as an ally.
10	You find a young, abandoned, wild animal and raise it. Now it rarely leaves your side. Gain one level in Animals (Training).
11	You take part is a particularly vicious battle. Roll Melee (any) 8+ or Ranged Combat (any) 8+ to avoid a roll on the injury table.
12	You have again and again proven yourself a worthy warden of the forest. You are automatically promoted.

	Survival	Advancement
Support	End 5+	Edu 7+
Infantry	Str 7+	Int 5+
Archer	Dex 6+	Int 6+

	Personal Development	Service Skills	Advanced Education	Officer Skills (Minimum Rank 2)
1	+1 Str	Athletics (any)	Siege Engineer	Tactics (Military)
2	+1 Dex	Tactics (Military)	Interrogation	Leadership
3	+1 End	Signals	Combat Engineering	Advocate
4	Gambler	Discipline	Recruiting	Diplomat
5	Athletics (any)	Melee (any)	Navigation	Animals (Riding)
6	Melee (Unarmed)	Survival	Recon	Administration

	Support	Infantry	Archer
1	Signals	Heavy Armor	Trade (Fletcher)
2	Medicine	Discipline	Ranged Combat (any)
3	Navigation	Athletics (Endurance)	Athletics (any)
4	Mechanical Works	Melee (any)	Discipline
5	Animals (any)	Survival	Survival
6	Melee (any)	Melee (Blade)	Ranged Combat (Bow)

	Rank	Skill or Benefit
0
1		Melee 1
2	Corporal	Discipline 1
3	Sergeant	Leadership 1
4	Lieutenant	Tactics (Military) 1
5		Social Standing 10 or +1 Social, whichever is higher
6	Captain	Social Standing 12 or +1 Social, whichever is higher

	Mishap
1	Injured. Roll on the injury table.
2	Your confidence is shaken in a lost battle. Lose one rank in Discipline. (If the result is negative, then the character loses access to the Discipline skill and acts as unskilled.)
3	Arrive too late to assist in a battle when it mattered. Turn an Ally into a Rival or just gain a Rival.
4	An injury either physical or mental grips you in combat. -1 Dex DM for determining initiative.
5	Superiors question your abilities. You may keep your benefit roll for this term, but still leave the career. If not being ejected from the career, take a -2 DM on your next advancement roll.
6	You are sent to the armpit of civilization and just can't take it anymore. Muster out at the end of the term.

	Event
2	Disaster! Roll on the mishap table, but you are not ejected from the career.
3	You are assigned to guard an embassy. Gain Diplomat 1 or Language (any) 1.
4	Receive advanced training. Roll Edu 8+ to gain Tactics (military) 1, Combat Engineering 1, or Siege Engineering 1.
5	A commanding officer takes an interest in your career. Gain Tactics (military) 1 or +2 DM to your next Advancement Roll.
6	Gambling helps to pass the time. Gain Gambler 1. If you wish, roll Gambler 8+. If you succeed, gain an additional Benefit roll. If you fail, lose 1 Benefit roll.
7	Life Event. Roll on the Life Events table.
8	Assault an enemy encampment. Roll Melee (any) 8+ or Ranged Combat (any) 8+. If you succeed, gain a rank in the skill you used. If you fail, roll on the injury table.
9	Personal guard for a noble person. Gain +1 Social Standing.
10	You discover a traitor among the troops. Gain an Enemy, as well as a +2 DM to your next Advancement Roll.
11	You found yourself in the heart of action and survived. Gain one level in Discipline.
12	You display heroism in a battle. You are automatically promoted.