Showing posts sorted by date for query stars without number. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query stars without number. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Redshirts: Race to the Reprieve!

The new Stars Without Number campaign kicked off last Wednesday, with six players showing up at the FLGS to participate.  While Kaye had already used the point buy system to create his AI character, everyone else sat down and generated their PCs from scratch with rolls of the dice, 3d6 straight down the line.  It's not such a big deal since you characters get to put a 14 in one of their class' prime requisites, so they don't completely suck.

I was feeling particularly menace-ful that day, so I had everyone roll their hit points, rather that have them start off at max for first level.  Well, Felipe rolled a 1, so I let him re-roll   He got a 2.  Merwyn got another 2.  Adelaide got a 3.  It just wasn't looking good for anyone.

The game began with the characters groggily waking up from medical experiments in Infirmary 47 aboard Perimeter Station Nine.  They were all in hospital gowns and somewhat disoriented, but remembered that they were the last of the scouts to be going through cold sleep checkups before the mission began.  Doctor Bengani and Nurse Tendai were looking after them.  Their ship was far away in Hangar 18, being prepped for launch.

That's when the explosions happened.

Nurse Tendai stuck her head out into the hall and suddenly slumped to the ground, headless.

"The nurse is dead.  The doctor is freaking out.  You hear more explosions and gunfire.  The draught you feel up the slit in your hospital gown makes you uncomfortably aware that you are bare-assed and weaponless.  What do you do?"
Feel free to click for a bigger picture.

I love my job.

Well, of course they freaked out as well, trying to understand the situation and wanting to know what they needed to do and where they needed to go.

Before the game I had sketched out the space station and decided to give areas names so that it would be easier to describe to the players.  That sketch is over there to the right.  I divided the station up concentrically into the outer ring, the inner ring, and the hub, then sliced the whole thing up into Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta Quadrants.  There were four spars, which were the standard areas for people and freight to move through, as well as four spokes, which were primarily for structural strength  but also acted as conduits for pipes, cables, etc.

I explained the layout and that they were in the outer rim of the Delta Quadrant, mid decks, and needed to get to their ship in Hanger 18.  (I don't think any of them got those references, but that's okay - I'm really just entertaining myself.)  I was rather amazed at how fast they took to the description and how they began using the terminology as they made their battle plans.

Lt. McManus pulled up schematics of the station and found a nearby armory.  Petty Officer Owlicious poked her head out the door (like the ill-fated nurse) and saw rubble and twisted metal down the corridor to the right, with a hole in the ceiling.  Hidden in the rubble was a laser rifle wielding man in armor with scorpions emblazoned on it.

Aha!  A soldier of the Skorpios Empire.  The bad guys must have found out about the Reprieve and had decided to act against it.  Spaceman XC-OM (the android) ran out after the armored soldier, dove at him, and tripped over the rubble.  Oops.

Spaceman Kek rushed out in his beautifully flower patterned hospital gown and grappled the heavily armored Skorpios soldier.  Thus ensued a bizarrely homoerotic wrestling match.

With things getting all Greco-Roman, the rest of the scouts hustled down the hallway to the nearest armory and began to grab weapons.  Another Skorpios soldier from the level began shooting at Spaceman Kek through the hole in the ceiling and hit him.

The newly armed scouts, with Petty Officer Loranzo, then jumped out from the armory and blasted the soldiers to bits.  Lt. McManus dug through the local Net and found the CCTV feeds.  Investigation showed Skorpios soldiers marching down the Alpha Spar towards the Hub, and twisted metal being all that remained of the Delta Spar between the Outer and Inner Rings.

Hacking away, Lt McManus took control over the environmental systems in the Delta Spar and vented the atmosphere   This did not deter the soldier as they were in EVA capable armor.  The party then discussed using the maintenance conduits in the Alpha-Delta spoke, but instead decided to perform their own EVA through what was left of the Delta Spar.

Past a few bulkheads, Petty Officer Owlicious found a Gravitation Propulsion Manned Maneuverability Unit, which I like to call a Grav Ski-Doo.  She mounted it while everyone else connected tether lines, and away they flew through the airless void of twisted metal through what had once been the Delta Spar.  While en route to the Inner Ring, a pair of soldiers having lunch on an exposed beam felt it would be funny to snipe at them.

The return fire from Lt. Five's heavy machine gun make short work of the soldiers, but the recoil in zero G almost smashed the whole party into the incredibly sharp, twisted wreckage - but - yanno - TPKs are just part of the adventure, right?  Well, Petty Officer Owlicious' piloting skills saved the day - but I would have other chances.

While Spaceman XC-OM was using his blowtorch to open up the Inner Ring airlock, the party noticed a sizable enemy fleet battling their own defenses, and saw that a large troop transport was approaching.  Lt. McMannus began to hack the Transport's Wi-Fi in order to take control of the ship.  Regretfully, the ship's crew noticed and fighter squadron was dispatched to bombard the party's position.

Lots of shrapnel later, and Lt. Five's colon was exposed to the vacuum of space and decided to take a little EVA of it's own.  The party busted into the Ring proper, carrying the poor Lt. Five, and got him to Infirmary 34, where a Happy Brand Med-Bot-1000 cheerfully stitched the officer up.

Eventually they made it to the hub and Petty Officer Owlicious hot-wired a fork lift and the party raced off to   Hangar 18.  They went to the control room and found Drago there.  Drago was a big, muscular, mean, cigar smoking vat born Skorpios soldier ready to stomp the PCs into tomorrow evening.

However, much like that scene in Indiana Jones, they all opened fire, shredding him to pieces.  In the control room, they could see down into the hangar.  Twenty soldiers were inside, all around the Reprieve.  They were operating a laser drill, trying to carefully bore their way into the players ride.

Hatching a plan, they secretly contacted the crew of the Reprieve, left Spaceman XC-OM in the control room to coordinate, boarded the forklift, and charged the twenty soldiers.

It was a bloody and short battle, aided by the fact that the crew of the ship ignited their thrusters, charring many of the soldiers to cinders.  However, in order to pull it off, the safety clamps had to be removed and the hanger doors open.  The crew of the ship decided to leave without securing their wayward scouts.  Luckily, the party engaged the forklift's magnet, which slammed and locked it against the outside of the Reprieve.

Spaceman XC-OM tried valiantly to jump from the control room to the ship before it left.  Regretfully, he missed, was hit by the backwash from the engines, and was slammed into the hangar wall, shattering into a million pieces.

So, imagine this - a slightly damaged an wobbly experimental spacecraft racing through the area where two naval fleets are trying to pummel one another, dodging rockets, explosions, shrapnel from blown up spacecraft, and an occasional screaming, spaceshipless fighter pilot on fire.  And image a forklift magnetized to the side of that spacecraft, with five screaming scouts hanging on for dear life, hoping that their tethers are not shredded by the G forces.

That kind of thing makes players really nervous. :)

Eventually they got inside the ship, where Lt. Mcmanus beat the first Lieutenant he saw down to zero hit point.  Then the ship's marines forced the scouts into jump seats, and the Reprieve rode out of Dodge of a metadimensional spike.

In the end, I had killed one character and reduced everyone else to 1 hit point, or had hit them so hard they needed Lazarus patches to stay alive.  So, all in all, a good little short intro adventure, to get the players used to what will be happening on a weekly basis.  Nine people want to play now, so I'll try to accommodate.  Fun - no?

- Ark

Friday, October 5, 2012

Redshirt Roll Call! (and Ranks and Ratings)

I do love a good character creation system.  Recently, we played the HERO system, which takes years to fashion a character with, but they are quite awesome characters.  Then we played Twilight 2000.  Okay, yeah, so it is reminiscent of filling out a 1040-EZ tax form.  But geez - that is no excuse for the players to start sobbing and rush to their calculators.  I swear, kids these days.  How do they do their taxes now?  Magic 8 ball?  I feel old.  But the character that come out of Twilight 2000 are very gritty and realistic.  Apocalypse realistic, that is and I quite like them.

But we are back to Stars Without Number now, and everything is right with the world.  Roll up a D&D character, select a background skill package and a training skill package - and WHAM - you are done.  No multiplication or division even.

Here are the members of the Aquila Scout Service so far:
  • Lieutenant Holt McManus - Lt. McManus shot up the ranks quickly to become a detective in the Aquila Naval Police Corp before being transferred to the Aquila Scout Service.  Played by Merwin.
  • Lieutenant Mark Five - Lt. Five was a hot shot fighter pilot when he was approached about joining the Scouts.  Played by Felipe.
  • Petty Officer 1st Class James Loranzo - PO 1st Class Loranzo is a hard core soldier, having seen action in several backwater ground assaults before he was selected for the Scout Service.  Played by The Boy.
  • Petty Officer 3rd Class Owlicious - PO 3rd Class Owlicious was hand selected for this mission because of her focus in xenoarchaelogy.  Played by Adelaide.
  • Spacer Apprentice Kal Kek - Apprentice Kal Kek is not your ordinary jar head marine, as he has ambitions of being an officer one day.  Played by Seamus.
  • Spacer Apprentice XC-OM - Apprentice XC-OM is a 600 year old artificial intelligence, manufactured before the Scream and interested in exploration.  Played by Kaye.
(Note: these descriptions are mine, based on their class, skills, and ranks.  They never really had much time to delve into their past or motives during the intro session.  Oh, and of course, all players names are Internet pseudonyms that I made up to - and no - no one gets to pick their own pseudonym.  So deal with it, players.)

So, those of you who have played Stars Without Number may be asking yourself where I came up with the ranks.  Well, that's random.  Take the 'Summary of Naval Ranks, Rating and Pay Grades' on page 9 of Skyward Steel: Naval Campaigns for Stars Without Number, and do this:

If you are a Psychic, you are automatically an officer.  If you have at least a 14 in Intelligence or Charisma, you can choose to either be enlisted or officer.  Otherwise, you are enlisted.

If enlisted, roll 2d4-2.  If you have an Intelligence or Charisma adjustment, apply it to the roll:

               Enlisted Chart
Roll Code Rate
1- E-1 Spacer Recruit
2
E-2 Spacer Apprentice
3
E-3 Spacer
4
E-4 Petty Officer Third Class
5
E-5 Petty Officer Second Class
6+ E-6 Petty Officer Third Class

Officers just roll a d6, regardless of Intelligence of Charisma:

               Officer Chart
Roll Code Rank
1-2 O-1 Midshipman
3-4 O-2 Ensign
5-6 O-3 Lieutenant

I had thought this set up would have given a nice spread of ranks and a clear leader.  Of course, we ended up with two Lieutenants.  So, in hindsight, the Officer Chart should go something like this:

              Officer Chart
RollCodeRank
1-3O-1Midshipman
4-5O-2Ensign
6O-3Lieutenant

Regarding class and rating/rank, if you do the math on the attributes, Warriors will almost always end up being enlisted.  Expert will always get the choice of being enlisted or officer (but with bonuses, they'll almost always be a higher rating than the warriors if they choose enlisted, on average.)  And those Psychics will always be officers.  Why?  Because people are scared of Psychics.  Best to put them in charge. 

I had thought about making AIs automatic officers as well, but society doesn't trust them much.  Psychics are feared, yes, but AIs are less feared and more . . . held in contempt.  I mean, the Psychic dude over there can read your mind. Be on your best behavior.  But taking orders from a toaster?  Not gonna happen unless that toaster proves itself.

Now that I think of it, I should probably increase the requirements for becoming an officer.  Ah.  One of their packages must have the Leadership skill in it.  Makes sense.  Otherwise, officers without leadership skills tend to get fragged.

Oh, and one more little rule that we used - if you make a character without an combat ability whatsoever, your rank immediately becomes E-1 Spacer Recruit.  'Nuff said?

I guess that is it for this post.  I was going to do the play report, but looks like I'll do that next post. I blab too much.  :)

- Ark

Thursday, September 27, 2012

The Reprieve

Lasgunpacker and Crazy-Ass Tim have been very helpful with ideas for the upcoming Redshirts Stars Without Number campaign.  I love Lasgunpacker's idea for a crazy captain AI controlling a teleportation machine.

However, as described, it doesn't quite fit into  the SWN technology background - which I'd like to stick with.  Actually, the fact that it doesn't fit makes for a wonderful creative exercise into making it fit.  That's something I've always enjoyed immensely - mental masterba . . . I mean mental gymnastics.

So, if you'll remember from the last post, our intrepid crew of freeze dried scouts were meat-sicles aboard the experimental starship, the Reprieve.  While the Aquilan scientists were experts at stitching together a working starship from ancient parts, their aesthetic sense left something to be desired.  The Reprieve looks remarkably like Rick Moranis' spaghetti strainer hat in Ghostbusters.  Well, not exactly.  It looks like Rick Moranis' spaghetti strainer hat in Ghostbusters, covered with a hairnet.  The inside resembles the cramped, steamy corridors of a German U-boat during World War II.

For those who are familiar with ship statistics in Starts Without Number, here is the Reprieve:

Aquila Union Starship Reprieve (Experimental Deep Space Scout Ship)   Power: 15/3 free     Mass: 15/0 free
Cost: 6,290,000     Hit Points: 40     Crew: 10/40     Speed: 2     Armor: 10     AC: 7
Weaponry None
Defenses None
Fittings Spike Drive-4, Advanced Nav Computer, Armory, Cold Sleep Pods, Emissions Dampers, Fuel Scoops, Precognitive Nav Chamber, Shuttle Bay x2, Ship's Locker

Blue Ghost Reconnaissance Shuttle     Power: 3/0 free     Mass: 5/2 free
Cost: 237,000     Hit Points: 15     Crew: 1/20     Speed: 3     Armor: 0     AC: 9
Weaponry None
Defenses None
Fittings Spike Drive-1, Atmospheric Configuration, Emissions Dampers, Survey Sensor Array, Ship's Locker, 4 tons of cargo space

You may note that neither the Reprieve, nor its two shuttles, have weapons or defenses.  The crew certainly did.  The scientists pointed out that the great big hairnet helps the ship avoid detection, so they should be okay.  The crew really didn't buy that.

The crew also noticed that the Reprieve had a honking big spike drive - faster than any engine that the Aquila Union could produce.  The scientists noticed that too, but had no idea how it worked.  That is where Commodore Halberta Clarke came in.

Commodore Halberta Clarke

Five hundred and thirty five years ago, Commodore Halberta Clarke (who looks remarkably like Nancy Parsons from Porky's, aka Ms. Ballbricker,) was an officer in the Terran Mandate in charge of the operational integrity of the regional psitech Jump Gate network.  A top notch psychic herself, she also assisted in the day to day operation of slinging spacecraft across the universe. (see Anne McCaffrey's The Rowan for a trip down the rabbit hole on that subject.)

Then 'The Scream' happened, killing all psychics, or driving them insane, thus making inoperable the Jump Gates and ending the Golden Age of Man.  Commodore Clarke didn't die - but she did go insane.  An insane master psychic with teleportation, precognition, and telepathy abilities doesn't make a very good neighbor, so the Terran Mandate military took her down and let the research scientists experiment on her to see if they could restore her sanity.

Since no one alive really understood how the psychics did their psychic things, the scientists did the best that they could as civilization collapsed around them.  They took a snapshot of Commodore Clarke's mind, then pasted that image over the pre-existing neural synapse net of a Voltaic 9000 AI brain-cube.  After they had a working simulacrum of Commodore Clarke, they extracted her physical brain, put it into a jar, and hooked it up to the Voltaic 9000.

On paper, the old 'hook an AI up to a psychic brain in a jar to use it as an input/output device' looked like a good idea to reboot mankind's crumbling empire.  It wasn't.  After 2 years of war, leveling much of the planet, the a team of brave soldiers finally shut off the AI, froze the brain in stasis, and the remaining research scientists were put to work in the rice paddies of what had been once the sector capital.

Five hundred and thirty five years later, desperate research scientists from the Aquila Union find a Spike Drive-4 capable engine they don't understand, a dead AI, and a brain in a shoe box - and have an idea.

Adventure!

The crew of the Reprieve live in fear of their commanding officer.  The hologram of Commodore Halberta Clarke stalks the corridors.  She doesn't know she's dead.  She doesn't know her brain in in a jar.  The crew must act as if they are members of the long gone Terran Mandate Fleet - not the Aquilan Navy.

Halberta sleeps most of the time, running the ship's spike drive in REM state.  The captain, the real captain,  can breathe easy then.  But when the Commodore gets up, she is grumpy.  She can read minds.  She can see the future.  And she can teleport a person into the heart of a star.  She is clinically insane.  But no one else knows how to make the ship go but her.

The research scientists who set this nightmare situation up are still sleeping comfortable in their beds back home.  After all, the Fleet Admiral okayed everything.  He's safe in his bed back home too.

The Redshirts, however, are not so lucky.

 Commodore Halberta Clarke adjusting something on the Lido Deck.

Happy gaming.

- Ark



Thursday, September 20, 2012

Redshirts: A Stars Without Number Campaign



This doesn't really have anything to do with Star Trek, or the John Scalzi novel.  It's more of the working title for a campign idea that I had that just . . . kinda . . . stuck.

I wanted to run a Stars Without Number campaign at the local FLGS - open to anyone who dropped by - at random dates and times. To me, the stardard trope of Traveller-esque 'intergalactic tramp steamer' doesn't seem like it would really work.  Each character is pretty vital to the operation of the ship, and having people disappear and reappear - while doable - doesn't tend to make sense.

So, the idea is to have the PCs be freeze-dried scouts.

Let me explain.  No . . . there is too much.  Let me sum up.

For 100 years, the two major powers of the Ptolemy Sector have been waging war.  The Skorpios Empire, a bunch of Russian-speaking vat grown genetic purists, are pretty sure they have discovered the best way for people live, and enjoy enforcing that way at gun-point.  The members of the Aquila Union are not too fond of their neighbors, and have been keeping them at bay for three generations with their powerful navy.  But due to recent events, including secession by several powerful systems, Aquila faces eventual defeat.

In an ancient bunker deep within the crust of an abandoned planet, The Aquilans found a possible solution to their demise - a spacecraft surpassing any existing technology.  Current spike drives allow for passage between systems 3 hyperspace hexes away (see sector map.)  While all of the systems in the Ptolemy Sector are reachable - the density of systems drops off in neighboring sectors, making travel outside impossible.  Until now.

The Aquilan Navy immediately refits the ship for active use, renaming it the AUS Reprieve.  Its mission is to explore the systems of The Void and find whatever can be used to help defeat the Skorpios Empire, be it technology, allies, or something beyond imagining.  The assumption is that since The Void was unreachable with standard technologies, then the Scavanger Fleets would not have stripped the systems bare during the Silence.

The PCs are members of the Void Expeditionary Force.  They are not crew members of the Reprieve itself, but scouts that are put into cold storage until needed.  The Reprieve is too valuable to be put into danger, so the ship will stay on the edge of a target system, thaw out the scouts, and send them by shuttle to perform reconnaissance and do as they see fit for the benefit of the Union.

Each game session would present a new system and a new set of adventures for the PCs to pursue.  Players could come and go from time to time, with those not attending just spending time in the freezer.  They would be given a wide berth in how they handle situations, as the captain and all of the command staff are back on the Reprieve doing long range scans and filling out paperwork on whatever goofy messes that scouts created during the last adventure.

So - those are my thoughts so far.  I think it will be fun - handled right.  I certainly don't want an atmosphere of railroading, and I think making sure that the PCs actions, and the results thereof, impinge upon the decisions of the command staff for the next adventure, will do so.

Of course, they could just kill the captain and become pirates in the fastest ship in the quadrant.  Hmm.

Any suggestions or thought are welcome. :)

- Ark

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Stars Without Number: A Whirlwind Tour of the Last Few Months


I've been horrible at updating readers on the progress of the intrepid crew of the Fat Tuesday.  I'll present a quick summation and bring you close to present time.  Hold your questions till the end of the lecture.

While exploring systems behind the 'Methan Veil', the PCs found a lost planet with medieval level technology named Normandie.  An apparently non-damaged, but not operating, Jump Gate was in orbit, which interested them quite a bit, but they decided to go scout the planet itself at first.

They quickly found a large land-war with six legged reptile horses and knights and shit going on, picked sides, and used their armed spacecraft, a grav tank, and a floating motorcycle to turn the tide and win the war. Well, actually, the Boy popped the enemy king with a sniper rifle from like two miles away and ended the war before it began, but the PCs had to have some fun now, didn't they?  It would have been a complete slaughter fest, but the enemy had teleport ninjas that crashed their spacecraft upside down in a forest full of pine, which promptly caught on fire from the heat of the engines.

Eventually they patched their ship back up and left, but not without the King granting the players each 50 acres of land, peasants to farm the land, and giving Captain Goodnight two squires, a handmaiden, and his youngest daughter's hand in marriage.  Surprisingly, Captain Goodnight got hitched to Princess Evangelyne, who only spoke archaic French, but was a wiz at heraldry, the abacus, and 13th century encryption techniques.

They also fought an 1/8th of a mile wide crazy AI, rescued ancient German engineers from a decaying Battleship, and caused the nuclear annihilation of a medieval city, but that is neither here nor there.

So, the PCs hopped back to Metha and traded their information on the Jump Gate, as well as a map to every jump gate in the known galaxy, and even an entire library of engineering documents on how to recreate much of the lost technological wonders of humanity, to the crazy alien Methans.  I'm still wondering about that, and the campaign ramifications are going to be horrendous.  I mean, um, wonderful.  For me.  The evil GM.

They traded all of that for enough money to replace their aged, broken Patrol Scout class vessel for a brand new Frigate level ship.  But they didn't want to get thr new ship from the Methans.  No sir.  They look upon the Methans (rightly so,) as the Tinker Gnomes of the galaxy - only crazier.

So, they went to the nearest human planet with a high-tech ship yard - the bustling planet of White Chapel.  For six months the crew has been putzing around the planet,  attending parties, throwing parties, getting throw in jail, clearing out the occasional genetics laboratory complex 500 miles underground full of 30 feet high, eight legged wolf mutants and horses without heads whose entire bodies are plasma cannons, etc.  Captain Goodnight's Princess wife has been behaving like a princess, draining him of as much wealth as possible on dresses and university mind implant training.  AR-50, the bio-infiltration robot threw a 30,000 credit rave, which caused so much damage that it took 270,000 credits worth of lawyer fees and city fines to get him out of jail.  And so on.

So there we are, with the crew about to get their big, bad new ship, and then the next thing happened.  I'll tell you about all the problems they had later. :)

- Ark

Sunday, June 10, 2012

NTRPG Con 2012 - Day Three


Even more tired - if that is possible. :)

So, The Boy and I arrived back at the con in the morning to play in the finals of Circus Maximus.  Tim Kask refereed the game.  Regretfully, the rest of The Boy's team did not show up, so he was a solo player.  Everyone on the White Team showed up though.  However, it didn't help.  None of my team made it across the finish line.  it was brutal out there, I tell you - BRUTAL.  Great fun, all the same.

Afterwards, The Boy found a Battletech table.  That was lucky, as I'm sure he would have complained about going to do what I wanted to - which was to go sit in a room and listen to people talk. :)

The Artist Panel was great.  It consisted of Erol otus, Jennell Jaquays, Jeff Dee, Diesel LaForce, and Jason Braun.  During the panel, they drew monsters and answered our questions.  I really enjoyed listen to ALL of them complain about things in art that I have a hard time doing - it makes me feel better as an artist. :)

I was soooo happy that Stars Without Number won the Three Castles Award.  I'm a big fan of the role playing game, and I congratulate Kevin Crawford on his victory.

In the evening, we got to play Empire of the Petal Throne with Victor Raymond.  Jeff Dee also played, as well as John Eric  Holmes's son Chris.  I had read about Tekumel, and had wanted to play the game for decades.  I finally got my chance!

We decided to play a group of characters devoted to 'Change' - kind of like Chaotic in D&D.  We had one alien in the group.  I chose a female priestess named Merla, who was a devotee of Dlamelish.  She was sort of a religious courtesan, I think.  Odd for a courtesan to be dungeon delving, but I played her up as a spoiled rich girl who would throw away the lives of her slaves to ensure her own comfort.  She burned through two of her three slaves that way.

i had a blast playing in Tekumel, and Victor Raymond was great.  I know we frustrated him with out antics something fierce.  More the once he physically banged his head against the wall after we did or said something.  But somehow, we all survived.  Well, we did that buy sacrificing slaves to monsters and running.  Pretty effective, if you ask me.

After Tekumel, it was more Battletech for The Boy - whom I had to physically drag away from the table so we could get home.

One more day in the con left . . .


- Ark

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Dungeonspiration: NTRPGCON 2012

From 2011: A jovial Jim Ward planning to kill EVERYONE IN THE UNIVERSE. 
Next week, The Boy and I will be on Hajj to the North Texas Role Playing Game Convention.  Our long, arduous trek will involve us driving across the city.  Yes, indeed, it will be fraught with dangers - especially if the cherry Slurpee machine at the 7-11 on the way is busted.

Last year's Con was very inspiring.  I think the highlight for me was when Jim Ward offed my son's character in a game of Metamorphosis Alpha.  Eaten by a giant plant in one gulp.  I mean, can life get much better than that?

This year, a big bag of guests will be attending - Sandy Petersen, Tim Kask, Jennell Jaquays, Erol Otus, James M. Ward, Frank Mentzer, Jason Braun, Steve Marsh, Steve Winter, Dennis Sustare, Jeff Dee, Peter Kerestan, Zeb Cook, and Diesel Laforce.  Things might get a little awkward around Zeb Cook.  I mean, I did curse his name loudly for two decades because of second edition.  But now, I PLAY second edition, and am thoroughly enjoying it.  So I should probably just dine on a big plate of crow in front of him.

The Three Castles RPG Design Award is going to be judged by Dennis Sustare, Robert Kuntz, Sandy Petersen, Steve Marsh, and Zeb Cook this year.  Up for the award are Anomalous Subsurface EnvironmentRealms of Crawling ChaosStars Without Number, and the Tome of Adventure Design.  I think we all know I am rooting for Stars Without Number, so I'll shut up about it.

So, over the four days of the Con, I have some things scheduled:

  • Thursday: Urutsk with Kyrinn!  Yay!  Last year, The Boy faced Urutsk's strangeness head on - causing bouts of hysterical laughter.  I'm looking forward to another visit.
  • Friday: OD&D with Tim Kask!  I'm dead.  I'm sure he kills people who make bad puns.
  • Saturday Morning: Aliens?  Like in the Movie? With Alan Grohe?  I there!
  • Saturday Evening: Petal Throne with Victor Raymond.  Yes, time to introduce The Boy to the sweet smell of MUSTY CINNAMON.
  • Sunday: Quicksilver with Jeff Dee.  Did I mention Jeff Dee?  I've got, like, piles of his Kickstarter artwork on my desk.

That leaves lots of unscheduled time to shop, hob-nob, and crash other games.  The Boy and I are pumped, and I'm sure we will be very exhausted, and very inspired, at the end of it all.

If you are planning on attending, I hope to see you there!

- Ark

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Stars Without Number: Dramatis Personæ


I just got home and am still basking in the glow of a particularly successful Stars Without Number game.  I've promised some accounts of our gaming sessions on the blog, so I'll start off by introducing the players (even though some of this information is outdated by the sweeping events of tonight's game.):

Reginald Goodnight, 
Captain of the Fat Tuesday
Merwyn plays Captain Goodnight, who started off life as a two-bit computer hacker.  Merwyn's natural sense of initiative tends to have him rushing in where angels fear to tread, and his inborn charisma tends to cause the rest of the party follow him.  When they seized a pirate ship and repurposed it for their own ends, Merwyn was willing to pay the npc crew out of his own pocket, making him defacto captain of the ship.

Jermayne Starace, 
Astrogator Extraordinaire
Ron plays the ship's pilot, Jermayne.  Mr. Starace was a pilot aboard a boring commercial starliner when he ran into the party, who was busy fighting off a bounty hunter/pirate at the time.  Jermayne quit his job and threw in with the ruff and tumble party, never to look back.  He tends to be very lucky, making wild maneuvers in space combat and drilling holes through meta-space that no sane astrogator would ever try.  While Jermayne doesn't have a great deal of statistical charisma, he is also lucky in love as well, finding a warm bed and a soft partner in just about every port.

Darth Nerf, 
Ship's Psychic
Crazy-Ass Tim plays the disgruntled psychic aboard the Fat Tuesday.  Darth Nerf's parents hated him, thus giving him his awful name.  Darth entered a life of crime at an early age, using his skills of persuasion and his psychic abilities to steal, swindle, and coerce.  Having angered law enforcement officials in his home sector, he left and met up with the party en route to greener pastures.  An incident with the strange aliens known as Methans left him with an arm that could turn into a bow and shoot bone fragments at enemies, but with enough chromosomal damage to cut his lifespan in half.

Kevalt Loranzo, 
Head of Security
The Boy plays Sgt. Loranzo.  Kevalt's father once ran with the party, but was killed in action during a casino heist.  Kevalt found the group and joined it, providing all the heavy fire power needed.  He's a no nonsense warrior, focusing on little else in life.  Over their adventures, Loranzo has assembled a trio of npc marines, all female, that the crew have taken to calling Kevalt's Angels.  They are vicious when fighting space pirates, and very loyal to their Sergeant.

AR-50, 
Alien Robot
Kay runs the ship's robot.  AR-50 is a stealth robot created by the Methans, who can take on various humanoid shapes and pass various biometric tests given enough DNA samples of a subject.  AR-50 is obsessed with upgrading himself, grafting various implements into his system, and pushing his components to the limit.  This has caused quite a few problems for him, and the entire party, as his expansions tend to make him vulnerable to being hacked and taken over by enemies.

Minnie Man, 
Ship's Doctor
Kayette plays Dr. Man, who was encountered by the party on planet Amazon.  Minnie was a maltech researcher on the jungle planet, investigating the Amazon Floral Hive Mind before it went berserk and eradicated all humans there, except her.  Dr. Man now works on the Fat Tuesday, helping to patch up the party when it gets injured, and experimenting with dangerous, forbidden maltech on her off hours.  She also enjoy running over people in a grav tank far more than she probably should.

So, there you have it - the six party members that tend to show up the most.  There have been others that make cameo appearances every so often, but I won't mention them here.

- Ark

Friday, April 27, 2012

Echos and an Awesome New Drawing . . .

. . . that I can't show.  Because . . . you know . . . boobs. Why on Earth would I draw Super Mario Galaxy's Rosalina without any clothes on?  Um . . . better not answer that one.

Anyway, like most of the things I draw, I think this one is the most spiffy to date.  I spat it out in record time - a couple of hours. Tomorrow I'll hate it, for sure. That's a little chunk of it over on the side.  You can go over to my deviantArt gallery to see the nekkified version, if you want.  Pervert.

In other news, An Echo, Resounding showed up in my mailbox yesterday.  Yay!  While I'm not DMing a fantasy game at the moment, I'm interested in running a 'domain game' at some point.  ACKS is all popular right now, but rather than go with a whole new rpg, I decided to first look at An Echo, Resounding which is a domain 'strap on' for Labrynth Lord.

Strap on.  I'm funny.

Anyway, An Echo, Resounding: Lordship and War in Untamed Lands, is by Kevin Crawford of Stars Without Number fame.  It looks pretty damn spiffy, with domain game and mass combat rules.  It looks like you could run it with any pre-3rd edition D&D game with little or no fiddling.  I don't know how it compares to ACKS, but judging from my brief glance, I don't think I'll need any other domainish products.

- Ark

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

SciFiSwag


Two things came in the mail today - a MegaTraveller Referee's Manual and Tomorrow's War.  Yay!

I grabbed the MegaTraveller Ref Guide, not because I want to play it, but for its starship building rules.  I remember using those rules to design ships was the funnest thing about the game itself.  I'm playing Stars Without Number nowadays, and while the abstracted ship building rules are great and simple - they lack some meat.  The players have been wondering about their starship, layouts and stuff, so I think this old book will help me.  It may also give me some ideas for creating a more in-depth ship building system for SWN itself.

Tomorrow's War was kind of a fluke.  I stumbled upon in while on Amazon.  I was very fascinated by the description of it.  It's more of a hard sci-fi wargame, as opposed to the 40K stuff.  It's relatively new, got great reviews, made by Osprey/Ambush Alley, and was only like 23 bucks.  I . . . I impulse bought.  Yeah.  But man, it's in my grubby little hands now and I'm pumped about playing it sometime.  PYOO PYOO!

So I got some reading to do.  Like I have time.  LOL.

- Ark





Thursday, April 19, 2012

Dungeonspiration: Group Gestalt

Player dynamics in role playing games have always fascinated me.  Often, a group is made of individualistic players whose goals and modis operandi don't sync up at all.  But sometimes, a gaggle of gamers morphs into a group with a capital 'G.'  I love those times.

Not like this at all.  Really.
At the beginning of our Stars Without Number campaign, the PCs were a group of loners who just happened to be travelling in the same general direction and had a tendency of taking the same two bit, mostly illegal jobs from various criminal syndicates and interstellar corporations.  Then they became involved with a bizarre alien race called the Methans and took a job from them at a backwater mining space station around a extremely radioactive star in the Hard Light system.

The Hard Light system is the subject of Kevin Crawford's Stars Without Number module Hard Light.  The setting has a great claustrophobic feel to it, with cramped space stations and asteroid exploration.  It really reminds me of what would happen if you crammed Keep on the Borderlands into the Sean Connery movie Outland.

For some reason, the group seemed to change at Hard Light.  The characters were sent there to investigate and deal with a mysterious production issue plaguing the station.  Perhaps it was the focus of the mission, the claustrophobic setting, the fact that the group was basically stranded in the system for four months, or perhaps that EVERYONE but the group members themselves were suspects - but the group began to gain cohesion.  They started acting as a unit, investigating the mystery secretly while they pretended to be ordinary workers.  I was really amazed by how they cooperated and quickly put the pieces of the mystery together while actually taking an interest in the setting and the NPCs.

Another strange, and completely unexpected moment of cohesion happened soon after.  The party was working on infiltrating a small pirate base.  They had met a completely inconsequential pilot for the pirates and had convinced him (with force) to smuggle them into the base.  I decided that the pilot should be a blond Rastafarian with dreadlocks named Kingston who said 'Mon' a lot.  They immediately took a dislike to poor old Kingston.

At the base, they met another blond Rastafarian pirate named Pierre.  This further enraged the group.  I still don't quite understand why.

They started calling the pirates 'Franco Aryan Jamaican Nazi Pirates.'

It was deemed that the Franco Aryan Jamaican Nazi Pirates should not be allowed to live and breath in the same universe in which the PCs existed.  Pirate genocide began seconds after that decision.

"Dere be no reason to be shooting at me with your raggedy laser gun, Mon!"

Eventually, the group got their hands on a pirate ship named the Fat Tuesday and re-purposed it to hunt down and kill pirates.  One of the characters declared himself the captain.  The other players didn't argue with this coup d'état, since the new captain offered to pay the NPC's salaries out of his own pocket.  The group suddenly had a leader - Captain Reginald Goodnight.  Now, I've never seen a leader arise in a group without a lot of trouble - but this one grew organically, and oddly enough, helped to solidify the group even more.

The party still has disagreements about their goals, and exactly how to obtain them.  They can be horribly scattered during combat.  But this group - the crew of the Fat Tuesday, really clicks.  It's a group with a capital 'G,' and it's quite fun to watch the hive mind churn.

Case in point - during the last game the group encountered a starship captain named Biff Thadderson.  I modelled Captain Biff's mannerisms and speech off of Captain Zapp Brannigan from Futurama.  I felt this would be a death knell for Captain Biff, especially since I gave the party the opportunity to kill Biff off without lifting a finger.  I mean, the dude is annoying and I designed him specifically to be annoying.

Um . . . not like this, either.  Really.

But the players fell in LOVE with Captain Biff.  Simultaneously.  Like - WHAM!  I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if they go and marry him as a group or something.  And now I am stuck having to talk in an excited radio announcer's voice half the time.

It's an evil plot against me, I tell you.

But that's what happens when a group forges together in that peculiar was that seems to only happen around a table with dice clinking and the swilling of mass quantities of Diet Coke.  It's really inspiring.

- Ark

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Dungeonspiration: My RPG is Full of Stars

I've been running Stars Without Number for over half a year now, and so far, it's the best science fiction rpg that I've played.  What am I comparing it to?  Primarily the sci fi games I played in olden times; Star Frontiers, Spacemaster, GURPS: Space, Gama WorldShadowrun, FASA's Star Trek, and Traveller in its myriad of forms.  I could also throw in Star Wars Saga Edition, as I have ample experience with that game as well.

Why is it my favorite?  Well, mainly for what Stars Without Number is not.  It's not an attempt to lay down physics in game form.  It's not an attempt to weave an entire, pre-built universe.  It's not an attempt to create a rule for every conceivable situation.

Stars Without Number is, frankly, a stripped down old style D&D with a science fiction facade nailed up around it.  The game easily provides me the ability to project my view of science fiction to the players - assisted with simple game mechanics that I already enjoy.  There is nothing in the way of telling the story I want to tell.  Traveller was close, but I was really never fond of the rules.

My view of science fiction comes primarily from the stories I read as a child.  Of course, Star Trek was an influence as well, but I was already on the road to being well read in the science fiction realm before Star Wars came to smother the genre.  When I think of science fiction, my mind always drifts to stories such as these:

  • Issac Asimov - Foundation
  • Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles
  • Arthur C. Clarke - 2001, Childhood's End, Rendezvous With Rama
  • Ursula K. Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed
  • Harry Harrison - Stainless Steel Rat, Deathworld
  • Robert Heinlein - Stranger In a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
  • Frank Herbert - Dune
  • Larry Niven - Ringworld, Known Space stories,
  • Larry Niven and  Jerry Pournelle - The Mote in God's Eye, Lucifer's Hammer 
  • Fred Saberhagen - Berserker

That's the core of my science fiction, give or take some books that I've forgotten, and that's the feel I go for when running the game.  I make an effort to steer away from Star Wars and Star Trek.  They are too . . . pop-cultury for me.  It's that same attitude I get when I scream - 'Someone scrape the gosh-darn Tolkein out of D&D.  I can't take it any more!'

Interestingly, in my gaming group, I'm the greybeard.  They haven't had the same diet of science fiction that I've had.  They understand the concepts, but largely from a different source.  They understand FTL travel from Firefly.  They understand cybernetics form Deus Ex.  They understand the concept of a ringworld from Halo.  They understand uplift form Mass Effect.

It really hit me when I was helping a new player make a character.

Me: So we've got three classes.  Warriors.  That's a soldier dude, from swords to guns.  Expert.   That's someone who's good at something besides killing.  Doctors, Pilots, whatnot.  And then their is Psychics.  They have psychic powers.

New Player: (Confused look.)

Me: (Trying hard not to make a Star Wars reference.)  They do stuff with their minds.  Ummmm . .

New Player: (Still confused.)

Me: Like a Biotic in Mass Effect.

New Player: Oh!  That's kinda what I thought you meant.  Gotcha.

With great effort, I did not facepalm.  The new guard and old guard just have different words for thing sometimes.

And that brings the conversation around to Mass Effect series of games.  Rather than just being a game about killing alien invaders, it's a tour of a future chock-full of science fiction tropes from all of my favorite books.  It really carries the torch to a new audience.  Time and time again I find myself explaining concepts to the players couched in Mass Effect terms.  It's kind of a Rosetta Stone.

The ending of the Mass Effect trilogy was a let down for me.  I won't get into it much, but the issue wasn't what happened at the end, rather, how the story was told.  It was, frankly, just bad story telling, in my book.  But I highly recommend the other 99% of the franchise - especially to those old grognards who want to interact with the younguns in an old style science fiction game.

I'll leave you with some Mass Effect 3 concept art by Matt Rhodes.  Again, it's concept art, so it's not exactly what went into the game, but there are spoilers.  It's great stuff for getting in the mood for a Stars Without Numbers game.

Normandy Silent Running by Matt Rhodes

Rogue Sheppard by Matt Rhodes

Taking Back Normandy by Matt Rhodes
Red Hallway by Matt Rhodes

Illusive Office by Matt Rhodes

Presidium Hospital by Matt Rhodes

Crashed On Eden by Matt Rhodes

Enjoy, and go get all spacey.

- Ark

Friday, March 30, 2012

Exposition Without Number


I just wrote a note to the players of my Stars Without Numbers campaign containing some information so I wouldn't have to blab it all out when we start playing on Saturday.  I amused myself quite a bit as I droned on, producing far more exposition that
I had planned.  I'm sure it will bore them to tears.  But I enjoyed it, dammit, so I figure the rest of the world should suffer.

So enjoy.  Or suffer.  Or both. :)

* * *

The party returned to the planet Metha aboard the Fat Tuesday at the end of the last game session.  The Methans were happy with the resolution of the Hard Light novium issue and paid well (except for Dr. Mann, who was paid well for her research on the Amazon Floral Hive Mind.)  The party is not actually on Metha (which looks a lot like Titan, if you remember,) but on one of the thousands of space stations orbiting the planet.  Elysium Station is unlike any of the other stations the party has seen, however, as it has clearly been designed with humans in mind.

In fact, humans are all over Elysium Station. There are living quarters, restaurants, shopping malls, and hydroponic parks bustling with people - families with children even.  Occasionally, Methan hybrids like Ellen-14 shuffle along the walkways in their giant, bloated tick-like bodies without so much as a second look.  It's a lively place, but clearly all of the humans are in the employ of the Blue Methan Hegemony.  There is an unusual amount of human psychics on the station, utilizing their skills out in the open - something not normally done inside of human space.  Centuries of anti-psi bigotry has convinced most psychics to keep a lower profile.

Another odd sight aboard Elysium station is the abundance of Harpathians - perhaps ten percent of the population.  The creatures resemble anthropomorphic, roly-poly, three foot tall baby seals.  Yes, the ones with the poofy white hair and the 'don't hit me with that club, you bastard' stare.  Harpathians are well-known in human space, but mainly as cartoon characters in the holo-vids designed for girls 8-10 years of age.  The most well known is JOLO, the fluffy sidekick of CAPTAIN KENDRA AND THE KOSMOTEERS.  Few humans have ever actually seen a real Harpathian, as the entire race avoids humanity like a plague.  The history of Human-Harpatian relations involves liberal amounts of slavery and being sold as pets, despite the Harpatian's loud, literate, and eloquent protests that they are actually a sentient race with thoughts, feelings, and a desire not to be a cuddle toy for 6 year olds.

The Harpatians appear to have support jobs all over the station, including spacecraft servicing, but they seem to be most prolific in security positions.  Three foot tall baby seals walking around in power armor bristling with plasma projectors is a common sight.  It's unnerving - and doesn't get any better with repeated viewings.

Ellen-14 is eager for the party to accept the currently offered job.  If you remember, this is to track down the source of the Berserker Spider manufacturing box - which  would logically (per the Methan's past experiences,) be a box that makes boxes that make Berserker Spiders.  The Methans are worried that if the Box is not located soon, it could run across an AI, hack it, and un-brake the AI - causing a heap load of trouble for whatever civilization the newly formed Berserker AI ran across.

The Fat Tuesday's Chief Engineer and back-up pilot, Sophia Lucullo, expresses concerns about the Methans.  She's never seen them before, and is clearly frightened.  She also reiterates the story from the Kingpin of Blue Saturn (whom Captain Goodnight met with in the Tigris System,) who said that the Methans had exterminated almost all of his race and were not to be trusted.  The ship's marine compliment - Alice, Bethany, and Carmen (Kevalt's Angels,) have a completely different attitude toward Ellen-14 and her kind - and have been buying as much military hardware as they can afford from the giant space-ticks.

If the party chooses not to accept the mission, Ellen-14 says that she and her brood understands, and they will gladly program the navicomp aboard the Fat Tuesday to the destination of your choice.

Um, anyway, I've gone overboard with interlude - but there you are. :)

See you on Saturday!

- Ark

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Campaign Timelines

For years now, I've had every intention of taking good notes when I run a campaign.  Typically what I'm left with is piles of papers with rows of descending hit point totals, hastily scribbled npc names, and chicken scratching that I'm not exactly sure what are.  Campaign journaling rarely works out for me.  But I do gather up my notes on occasion and try to stitch them together to see what has happened.  Luckily, I have a pretty good memory for imaginary happenings, so usually everything adds up.

At the simplest level, I like to create timelines - like the one below.  This is for my Stars Without Number campaign.  Such a list is handy because I create it in excel and can do odd date math on the fly - which is especially nice since now spreadsheets can handle dates into the far future.  With an autosum, I can see that the campaign has lasted 311 days - Earth days, that is.  

Little titles and notes keep everything straight in my head, and I can remember if an NPC was planning on hunting down and killing the party - and how long that npc has been formulating the plan and stalking them - waiting for the time to be ripe.  You know, typical stuff to make the players paranoid. ;)

So that's why I like to do.  How are YOU at note taking?

Place/Event Duration Start Date Events of Note
Travel/Stay
Halal System 1 1-Jan-2300 Ship assaulted by Captian Kaylah Tabari.
Interstellar Travel 6 7-Jan-2300 On the Edmund Fitzgerald (Methan owned.)
Interplanetary Travel 2 9-Jan-2300 ''
Jaisalmar System 2 11-Jan-2300 Hijacked ore shipment on ice world.
Interplanetary Travel 2 13-Jan-2300 On the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Interstellar Travel 5 18-Jan-2300 ''
Interplanetary Travel 2 20-Jan-2300 ''
Hephaestus System 87 17-Apr-2300 Meet Methans, destoyed casino, Sgt. & Adam KIA.
Interplanetary Travel 2 19-Apr-2300 On the Konjiki Yasha (Methan bio ship.)
Interstellar Travel 6 25-Apr-2300 ''
Interplanetary Travel 2 27-Apr-2300 ''
Metha System 1 28-Apr-2300 Accepted by Methans.  
Interstellar Travel 5 3-May-2300 On the Fort Knox (Methan accountant transport.)
Interplanetary Travel 2 5-May-2300 ''
Perdurabo - Hard Light 2 7-May-2300 Begin clandestine criminal investigation.
Travel to Comet 2 9-May-2300 On the Leadbelly with Captain Ranse Hardlee
Stay in Comet 4 13-May-2300 Exploring tomb of the Ushans (asparagusheads)
Travel to Hard Light 3 16-May-2300 On the Leadbelly with Captain Ranse Hardlee
Perdurabo - Hard Light 15 31-May-2300 Foil evil plot on Hard Light
Travel to Colony 2 2-Jun-2300 On the shuttle Bon Grunj with pilot Kingston
Stay in Colony 62 3-Aug-2300 Fight pirates and capture pirate ship
Travel to Hard Light 2 5-Aug-2300 Aboard the Fat Tuesday.
Perdurabo - Hard Light 2 7-Aug-2300 Fuel up and say goodbyes.
Interplanetary Travel 2 9-Aug-2300 Aboard the Fat Tuesday.
Interstellar Travel 6 15-Aug-2300 ''
Interplanetary Travel 2 17-Aug-2300 ''
Euphrates System 1 18-Aug-2300 Refuel at mining asteroid.
Interplanetary Travel 2 20-Aug-2300 Aboard the Fat Tuesday.
Interstellar Travel 6 26-Aug-2300 ''
Interplanetary Travel 2 28-Aug-2300 ''
Tigris - Blue Saturn 49 16-Oct-2300 Destroy 2 pirate ships, meet the Kingpin.
Interplanetary Travel 2 18-Oct-2300 Aboard the Fat Tuesday.
Interstellar Travel 6 24-Oct-2300 ''
Interplanetary Travel 2 26-Oct-2300 ''
Nile System 1 27-Oct-2300 Return Thad, meet Captain Zarkon of White Chapel.
Interplanetary Travel 2 29-Oct-2300 Aboard the Fat Tuesday.
Interstellar Travel 6 4-Nov-2300 Aboard the Fat Tuesday.
Interplanetary Travel 2 6-Nov-2300 Aboard the Fat Tuesday.
Amazon System 1 7-Nov-2300 Arrive at Kyroth Colony. PLANT ATTACK!

- Ark

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Dungeonspiration: Contact Sheets

This will be my last Dungeonspiration column for the foreseeable future.   I'll get into why after this week's installment . . .

I've been running a Stars Without Number campaign, which has been going fine with it's automagically generated sector sandbox.  But I got a hankering to try out a published adventure, so I went out and grabbed Kevin Crawford's Hard Light.  It's basically The Keep on the Borderlands for a science fiction campaign - a sort of mini-sandbox inside a great big sandbox.  The thing reads great, and has been playing great as well.

One avenue the referee and players can explore in Hard Light is in solving a mystery.  There are about ten important players in the mystery.  In planning the game, I became worried that the players would not be able to keep up with all the people involved.  How could they remember all of the people if I was having a hard time keeping track myself? Then I thought of a trick I used to use in my old Top Secret days - contact sheets.


I whipped up this contact sheet of contacts (from page 6 of Hard Light, for those following along at home) in less than an hour using deviantArt.com's search function and the freebie graphics program Paint.Net (which I use when I don't want to spend the time waiting for Photoshop to load.)  As the PCs meet the denizens of Hard Light, I pull out the sheet and point.  Not only do the players seem to enjoy looking at the pictures - they seem to be remembering them better than they would just with a auditory description.

There was an unforeseen problem.  The character in the lower right-hand cell - see him?  When I snagged the pic, I noticed that it was labelled 'Old Man Logan.'  Having read X-Men back in the 80s, I knew who Logan was, and just assumed that someone had drawn him old, and that the players would never think to associate him with Wolverine.

As soon as I brought out the sheet, two of the players pointed and said 'Hey, it's Old Man Logan!.'  I had no clue that there had been some sort of very popular 'What If?' kind of series based on good old Wolverine in the future.  The players seemed to immediately like the guy before I said a word about him.

So, if you are snagging art for a game, give some thought about the impact a particular image will create.  Players already bring a lot of baggage with them into a game, so try to use it to your advantage. :)

Now . . . as to why Dungeonspiration column is going into hiatus, or perhaps retirement:

1) Focus - The intent of the column was to inspire DMs (and as an afterthought, players) about gaming.  I have a hard time writing about just that.  I'm all over the place - as this particular column illustrates nicely.  It really has nothing to do with the concept of 'Dungeonspiration.'

2) Need - Do the readers in the OSR blogosphere really need to be inspired?  From what I read on other blogs - no.  People are chock full of awesome ideas all over the place.  I think that what people seem to need above all else is time.  If I could somehow bottle time and distribute in via the Internet, that would satisfy a lot more people's need.

3) Self-Discipline - Another reason for the Dungeonspiration column was to provide me with a weekly reminder to write blog post - at lest one a week.  While I think it has helped, I also think that I would have done it anyway - crazy holiday weeks not withstanding.

4) Other Projects - I've got some other projects in queue for 2012.  Those projects have to do with gaming and providing additional blog content - so it's not like loosing Dungeonspiration would be reducing content on the blog itself, I just need to juggle my time wisely.  I still have a lot to juggle and decide what I want to tackle - so some meditation time is in order.

So thougts are my thoughts on the Dungeonspiration column and it's future.  But perhaps I have missed something.  If the column is doing something else for you that I haven't thought of, please let me know.  There may be a reason to keep it around longer that I'm not aware of.  Maybe it warrants a monthly column or something.  I don't know.  If you have any input, feel free to leave it below. :)

Have a Happy New Year - and don't go driving drunk or nothing.  Boozing away and passing out on someone's sofa is far better etiquette than wrapping your car around a telephone pole.

- Ark

Friday, December 9, 2011

Ellen-14

Ellen-14 is a non-player character in our Stars Without Number campaign.  The picture doesn't do her justice - but it is similar enough to her appearance to get the point across.

The lady is ten feet high, twenty feet wide, and thirty feet long.  She is somewhat rock shaped, and her tough skin is a gray and black color - the kind you find on certain bloated ticks found in the foothills of Arkansas.  She has a human head emerging from the gray skin a bit over five feet up from the floor, and underneath it hang two human arms.  Having no feet, she moves around like a horta.

Ellen-14 is a human-alien hybrid.  Actually, Ellen-14 isn't just one entity - the name is a signifier for an entire brood of approximately 100 individuals - the 14th generation since initial hybridization.  All of the individual Ellen-14s are pretty much the same, and they keep in contact with one another to avoid drifting apart mentally.

The aliens who designed Ellen-14 (and the many other hybrid variants,) are known as the Metha.  The Metha look pretty much like Ellen-14, but without the human head and the human arms.  They have been sentient for half a million years, and have spent most of that time doing bioengineering work - redesigning themselves - and their biosphere - countless times.  Currently, their bodies house 15 to17 brains - some genetic copies of other alien species that they met in the past.

The Metha fit into the Stars Without Number alien classification of 'Other' - alien beings that are too different from human beings to communicate with or understand.  After a series of brutal wars after first contact, the Metha created the human-metha hybrids as an attempt to understand humanity and communicate with them.  The Metha are completely oblivious to the fact that the mere sight of Ellen-14 and her various sisters and brother causes most humans to run in abject fear.

Ellen-14 does, however, bridge the gap between humans and methans.  She has 18 brains inside of her - one of them human, and they all chat with one other through bizarre chemical interactions, radio waves, and pulsing light.  She is well aware of how she looks, as well.  "Oh my," she will often say, "You think I look hideous.  I do.  I cannot argue.  But I couldn't find a thing to wear today that didn't make me look bloated!"

Ellen-14 is also a smart-ass.

The player characters have - strangely - taken a shine to Ellen-14 and her brood sisters. I'm not sure why.  She is their 'Mr. Johnson," in Shadow-run speak.  They are still very nervous about the pure methans, though.  It might have something to do with the aliens engaging in thermonuclear war as a sport.  But who knows.

- Ark

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Dungeonspiration: Epic Death


Sergeant Loronzo by The Boy -

When I was but a wee role player, I really didn't like the whole character death thing.  It was something to be seriously avoided - going so far as to sit behind a DM screen and never risk a PC by never having one.

But when you come down to it, some of the most memorable moments in role playing are the deaths.  Case in point - The Boy.  While initially horrified by the concept, he is getting quite good at them.

In my Stars Without Number campaign, the characters were contracted by some shady underworld types to shut down a casino.  Not forever, mind you - just for a bit.  Actually, the party never asked - or even seemed to wonder - as to WHY someone would shut down a casino for a bit.  It just enough that they got to cause some chaos - and get paid for it.

The session turned out to be one of those long-ass planning ones.  You know those types.  The players get so interested in the planning aspect that it seems like they never get to the execution.  But several hours later, they had their plan and went ahead.

The plan was to blow up an intra-building sewer main in the casino's hotel and have millions of gallons of raw sewage flood the casino proper.  Actually, the plan was not a bad one at all.  The big problem was that the party's hacker was AWOL (an actual date with his girlfriend!) and so they had to hire a retainer.

The hacker henchman screwed the pooch on his computer and security rolls.  Badly.  Worse than bad. The hacker was particularly nice about the whole thing, calling the party up and letting them know he had miserably failed and had not only NOT prevented the security systems from detecting their activities, but had actually helped the casino security zero in on their nefarious activities.

Ron and Crazy-ass Tim were in the getaway car.  The second they heard the alarm go off, they were out of there.  Completely.  Utterly.  Gone.  Not even a post card.

The Boy, playing Sergeant Loronzo, and Kaye (yeah - the guy who plays Torvalds in the 2e game) were on the third floor, attaching explosives to the sewer pipes when the first security guard arrived, gun in hand.

Sergeant Loronzo picked up a huge plumber's wrench, swung it the guy, and grabbed his Order of the d30 Brand d30, choosing to use it at that moment.  The massive wrench did so much damage it cut the guard in half, showering everything in the room with blood.  They finished setting the charges and high-tailed it out of the plumbing room, racing to get to their long-gone getaway car.

They ran down the hotel hallway to the elevators, but they were too late.  Three security guards stepped out of the elevator firing.  Kaye was hit and died like a punk at zero hit points even.  Sergeant Loronzo wasn't having any of that, so he pulled out his stash of Lazarus Patches. The patches help dead character's come back to life.  Well, very recently dead characters.  And it takes a medic to really apply them well.  Sergeant Loronzo was not a medic.

But damned if he didn't try.  He slapped patch after patch onto his dead buddy, trying to shock him back into life, all the while dodging a hail of bullets.  The other players began a count down to when the timer would kick off the sewage explosives.  Eventually Sergeant Loronzo ran out of patches and the guards - none too happy with all the missing going on - ran up and began to pummel him.

Sergeant Loronzo ran out of patches.  He was very upset that his buddy has died for good.  He mowed down the security guards and proceeded to leave - but more security guards were coming out of the elevators.

The count down to sewage explosion was getting woefully close - like about one round.  Then the boy had an idea. He busted down the door of a hotel room, dove onto the bed, snatched a pillow, shot the glass out of the window with his laser, and leapt out of the building.

The explosives detonated.

Sergeant Loronzo had some hope that the pillow would soften the impact into the ground, but when the true gravity of the situation hit him, The Boy turned, fired his bright blue laser pistol in the air, yelled 'Sayonara,' and made his peace with the universe.

We all thought it was a very epic death - a very inspiring end - and one which should be remembered in the annals of RPGdom forever.

So if you know your character is going to die - think for a second.  What can you do to make the Valkyries sing loudly of that death in their meady halls until Ragnarok comes?  Do something cool - and inspiring.  The skalds will appreciate it.

- Ark