Platonic Solid

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

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

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

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.

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 int...

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.

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?