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, October 4, 2012

Stars Without Numbers Skill Matrix

We had our first game of Redshirts last night.  It was great fun and I'll be posting a play report later.  In the meantime, I wanted to share the skill matrix.

In role playing games with skills, I like to create a matrix so I can see where the party's strengths and weaknesses lie.  It's been said that players pick skills that they want to use.  I think also that they pick skills that they fear that they will have to use.  Scaring the shit out of the players before character creation is a great way to make them get strange skills.  "Are you SURE you'll never have to perform an alien autopsy?"

The top skill selected is Tactics, with 5 out of 6 characters getting that skill.  Wow.  Looks like they are expecting the GM to put them in a lot of difficult combat situations.  How odd.

Combat skill are popular as well.  Half of them appear to be convinced that they are going to end up in fighting situations with no weapons.  Hilarious.  I'd NEVER do such a thing.  Much.

Interestingly, 3 of the 6 picked Leadership.  That is a heck of a lot of cooks spoiling the soup there. :)

The players spread out skills pretty well.  I see one horrible, glaring omission.  Tech: Medical

Everyone expects to be in combat.  No one expects to have to apply a band-aid.  They are Redshirts, after all.  Makes sense, I guess.

Other skills that NO ONE picked: Artist, Business, Combat: Psitech, Culture: Alien, Gambling, Instructor, Profession, Religion, Steward, Tech: Maltech, , Tech: Psitech, Vehicle:Air, Vehicle: Water.

So, judging from this list, I should create a scenario where the characters must enter a religious debate while playing Texas Hold-em with a alien millionaire sculptor, on a flying boat about to be eaten by a nano-bot plague.

These adventures just write themselves. :)

Enjoy the MATRIX:


Name
James Loranzo
Mark Five
Kal Kek
Holt McManus
Owlicious
XC-OM
Rank/Rate
E-6 Petty Officer 1st Class
O-3 Lieutenant
E-2 Spacer Apprentice
O-3 Lieutenant
E-4 Petty Officer 3rd Class
E-2 Spacer Apprentice
Class
Warrior
Expert
Warrior
Expert
Expert
AI
Level
1
1
1
1
1
1
Background
Soldier
Midshipman
Naval Marine
Security Crew
Researcher
-
Training
Commando
Aviator (Naval)
Marine Officer
Bounty Hunter
Xeno- archaeologist
-
Artist
-
-
-
-
-
-
Athletics
0
Bureaucracy 0
Business
-
-
-
-
-
-
Combat Energy
1
1
Gunnery
0
Primitive
-
-
-
-
-
1
Projectile
1
1
0
Psitech
-
-
-
-
-
-
Unarmed
0
1
0
Computer
1
Culture Alien
-
-
-
-
-
-
Criminal
0
Spacer
0
0
0
Traveller
-
-
-
-
-
-
World
1
1
1
Exosuit
0
Gambling
-
-
-
-
-
-
History
0
Instructor
-
-
-
-
-
-
Language English
Native
Native
Native
Native
Native
Native
Gaelic
Native
Native
Native
German
Native
Russian
Native
Leadership
0
0
1
Navigation
0
Perception
1
1
Persuade
0
0
Profession
-
-
-
-
-
-
Religion
-
-
-
-
-
-
Science
1
Security
0
Stealth
0
0
Steward
-
-
-
-
-
-
Survival
0
0
Tactics
0
0
1
1
1
Tech Astronautic
0
Maltech
-
-
-
-
-
-
Medical
-
-
-
-
-
-
Postech
1
1
Pretech
-
-
-
-
-
1
Psitech
-
-
-
-
-
-
Vehicle Air
-
-
-
-
-
-
Grav
0
Land
0
Space
0
Water
-
-
-
-
-
-


- 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

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Helltainted HEROs

John Ritter on the Cover of Champions

In preparing for the Helltaint  campaign, I sat down and read through the Hero System Basic Rulebook, a sort of Cliff Notes version of the 800 pages that make up the Hero System Sixth Edition Volumes One and Two.

I must say, it was a lot like happening upon an old girlfriend in the mall that you never quite got over.

I ran into Champions Fourth Edition in the late, late 80's, after a decade of searching for that 'perfect' role playing system that would do everything I wanted it to.  While not a huge fan of Superhero RPGs, I fell in love with the system mechanics.

Champions was like GURPS - a point buy character generation system.  I always liked the *idea* of GURPS, but Champions was actually fun the play.  (Sorry Steve Jackson.)  And by 4th Edition Champions was morphing into HERO, which was pretty much a universal RPG system.

It's funny, I come to the OSR to rediscover simpler, easier game systems, but it leads me back to more complex ones.  Fickle much?

Well, much like all of my ex-girlfriends, HERO is bat shit crazy.  This Saturday I sat down to teach the guys the system.  Two hours for character generation.  Five hours to go through FIFTEEN SECONDS OF COMBAT.

Of course, when you are familiar with the game system, things go a lot faster.  But the fact that it took seven hours of groove in time is no surprise.

Still - I love the system.  Those five hours of combat were very fun.  There is something about the game that brings big, vivid, four-color images to mind while the PCs and NPCs duke it out.  And with the particular players at the table, I think we laughed straight through one of those five hours.

Purestainhuman gets into what the game a bit more here.  I'll just sum up the characters that the players whipped up for now:

Sir James - The Boy created a knight from King Arthur's time that was teleported by Merlon to modern day North Texas to fight the evil demon incursion.  Sir James has magic rings and sword, but also was dipped in magical water (like Achilles) that makes him a power to be reckoned with.  The Boy is finding that a Code of Chivalry is a tough ruleset to follow, though.

The Brain, Jr. - Crazy Ass Tim is playing an baby that looks remarkably like Stewie.  The Brain has off-the-chart psychic powers and uses a mind-slave to pose as his mother and carry him around.  As is typical with Crazy Ass Tim, he has not let the rest of the party know that he exists - he just follows them around and stares at them creepily while breast feeding.

Pyotr - Merwyn's character, Pyotr is an escaped KGB operative that is actually a Frankenstein monster stitched together during Stalinist times from the body parts of patients at an insane asylum, mixed in with a Russian circus bear. Considered a failed experiment, he was frozen in a facility in Siberia until the interdimensional rifts bursts through the fabric of the universe, mutating Pyotr and waking him up with an unquenchable thirst for vodka. Despite being permanently drunk, Pyotr is lighting fast (Speed 12,) and is an expert marksman - a combination that allows him to uses pistols as if they were heavy machine guns.

Hyperion - Kaye made Superman.  Superman; from another dimension that was destroyed by the Helltaint so he came to Earth.  Superman; but no other powers than to punch really hard.  Really hard.  Did I say really hard?  Like, the ability to punch someone and and them flying through fifteen meters of asphalt?  Yeah.  He can punch people too.

Okay, yeah, the players are bat shit crazy too.  If you may have guessed, normal people bore me.

So, Its been fun so far.  The campaign will probably have a limited run, but it should be memorable.

- Ark

Friday, September 14, 2012

How to Freak Out Your Players


from: Studio Arkhein smudioarblein@gsnail.com
to: Merwyn, Kaye, CrazyAssTim, TheBoy
subject: re: HELLTAINT Champions Campaign - not TAINTMEAT

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Okay, so everyone will be there.  Yay!

Oh, btw - this is a superhero LARP - so please dress up as your character.  We'll be moving the game to Grapevine Mills Mall after character creation.  Everyone with flight powers, don't forget to bring your flying rig and a ladder to attach it to the ceiling.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Game Master

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Helltaint - a HERO System Campaign

I'm planning on starting up a supers game using the 6th Edition Hero System Rules.  I'll be using just the Basic Rulebook for simplicity.  I don't know how long it will last, but I promised Kaye a superhero game, so he's going to get one. :)

However, I'm not a huge fan of your standard superhero universe.  And I don't think the players would really fit into one, so I devised a universe where I think they could have fun.  I'm sure there is a comic book or setting that's exactly like this, since it uses so many common tropes, but I haven't seen one.

It's called Helltaint:

Helltaint

Next Monday, AD - During the morning commute to school and work, microscopic rifts opened in the very fabric of the universe.  Earth was bathed in varying levels of preternatural energies from another dimension.  Most were not affected by this strange radiation, but in the weeks and the months afterward, creatures exposed to high levels began to develop mutations, changing form or ability.  On rare occasions, inanimate objects began to change as well.

As doctors tried to understand what happened, some victims rapidly changed into vicious, powerful monsters bent on destroying all around them.  Governments worldwide began research projects into the new, inscrutable energies, and formed rapid response teams to deal with the horrific abominations that were commonly referred to as 'devils.'

Within a year it became clear that some of the radiation victims did not become devils, instead developing stable super powers like a hero out of a comic book.  Most tried to hide their powers, fearing a backlash from those who considered them 'tainted.'  Organizations, both legal and otherwise, started to recruit or kidnap victims to further their own ends.

Scientists eventually discovered the microfissures in the space around Earth, and theorized that they could be coaxed open with enough power.  This research culminated in the TORCH Project at CERN, in which a rift was opened, allowing an army of otherworldly, nightmarish monstrosities to ravage the Swiss country side.  While they had no standard form, they were all called 'demons.'

The TORCH Project caused instabilities in microfissures worldwide, allowing one-way traffic to flow at random times from the other dimension that immediately was labeled 'Hell.'  Governments developed methods to close the portals, and built teams to deal with the open gates as soon as possible.  This did not stop the microfissures from randomly emitting preternatural energies, however, creating new devils and Helltainted from the creatures of the Earth.

Ten Years In the Future, Now - The world is a dark place for the victims of the radiation - called  the Helltainted.  When discovered, governments, corporations, or organized crime groups draft, forcibly employ, or enslave them. Those Helltainted who escape detection from humanity don't have it easy, since the devils and demons can sense Helltaint and feast upon it.

Powerful new technologies have been built from extradimensional knowledge, but it remains under control of those in power.   Genetic monstrosities powered by Helltaint have been created in labs, and of course, have escaped into the wild.  Monster sightings reported on television may not have an extradimensional origin.

While humanity tries to ignore the chaos brought on by the Helltaint, it grows.  Monsters fight in gangs on the streets. Wars between nations escalate as new powers are developed.  Hundred foot tall demons march out of rifts and begin to eat skyscrapers.

It’s a perfect time for adventure.

- Ark

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Planetfall


Two Clan Jade Falcon mechwarriors were surprised when they exited the dropship and were met by the combined forces of Middle Earth.

- Ark

Monday, September 3, 2012

Recent Draw-rings


I've been filling up the sketch book.  Enjoy.  Or not.

- Ark

All Battlemechs to Warp Factor 8!


Here I am directing our Battletech forces to victory.  Okay, so no one on my team actually followed my glorious plan, so we all lost miserably.  See?  People should listen to me.

And yes, I always wear my Starfleet uniform while commanding a Battlemech lance.  What?  Don't you? LONG LIVE FASA!

- Ark

Friday, August 31, 2012

Parallels in the History of Operating System Development and Role Playing Game Design in Relation to the Old School Renaissance


(I suppose I could have picked a more boring title for a blog post, but it would have taken a lot of effort.  Hopefully the content will not be.  Well, at least to some.  This post kind of got out of hand and morphed into more of an essay, but is still maintains the style and inaccuracies of a blog post – so forgive the confused and melded style.)

Back when I was a kid, people were pretty unsure about what D&D was - much less all of the rest of TSR's products that revolved around the game.  I'd explain simply that D&D was a game with rules and procedures on how things worked, much like an operating system.  A module like Keep of the Borderlands was like a software package, or program, you'd run on the OS.  I, as Dungeon Master, was like the CPU of a Commodore 64, interpreting the rules and providing feedback to the users, or players.

Nobody understood.  It was 1982, for Pete's sake.  Pre-Macintosh – if you can imagine such a thing.

The Past is Prologue

Step back a decade to the swinging 70's.  About the same time that Gygax and Arneson were designing the first iteration of Dungeons and Dragons, researchers at Bell Labs were developing an operating system called UNIX for a honking big computer called the PDP-11/20.  Like the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons, UNIX was cryptic, spooky, and not for newbs.  You really needed to know what the hell you were doing to make it work, but if you did - wow - you never saw your wife again.

Bell Labs was a part of American Telephone & Telegraph, and as a behemothic monopoly, AT&T was subject to all sorts of governmental regulation.  One rule was that AT&T was forbidden from entering the computer business.  So, AT&T gave copies of UNIX away freely to whatever business or university that asked.  UNIX proved to be very popular since it gave system administrators a much easier interface to control how a computer ran, and provided a common platform for programers to write their programs.

Times, They are a-Changing

Then, in 1983, the U.S. government broke up AT&T into smaller companies and removed many of the regulations that controlled the giant.  Bell Labs decided to monetize UNIX.

Complete and utter chaos reigned as everyone tried to make their own UNIX, sell it, and sue competitors off the map.  Some lawsuits are still going on to this day.  To many businesses, UNIX was a hot potato.  Upstarts like Microsoft and Apple stepped in and succeeded in business where UNIX should have more logically reigned.

Microsoft and Apple had something going for them, though.  They concentrated on the USER, not the system administrators, with graphical interfaces and a click-drag mentality.  In fact, the Windows and Macintosh operating systems, in an attempt to simplify maintenance, took power and capabilities away from the admins, infuriating power-hungry computer science students everywhere.

In this same era, role playing games were undergoing a shift away from a kit mentality.  Role playing games once had more of a open point of view, where the game master took the rules only as a suggestion and borrowed ideas from other sources.  A large part of running a successful game was up to the game master’s ability to come up with new rules on the fly.

Newer games supplied more rules and attempted to be a ‘complete package’ for a game master, so that less preparation was involved, as well as on-the-fly making up of rules.

Furthermore, games like GURPS and Champions provided rules for creating exactly the character a player wanted to run in a game, while games like Vampire: The Masquerade seemed to shift RPGs from a gauntlet one had to survive into a cooperative social gathering where turmoils of the inner psyche were examined.  The person running the game became a ‘storyteller,’ rather than a ‘master’ of the game.

Free as in Speech, Not Free as in Beer

There was a backlash to the user-friendliness of graphical operating systems and the corporate greed that suffocated UNIX.  Hippie nerds at the University of California, Berkeley kept the old, free version of UNIX alive, writing additional features and increasing the types of computers their version of UNIX, the Berkeley Software Distribution, would work on.   At the same time, a computer anarchist named Richard Stallman created the Free Software Foundation, an organization bent on allowing software, and its source code, to be freely available to everyone.

These two movements gained steam in the 1990’s.  The Berkely UNIX, or BSD, was carried over into a multitude of projects, including FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD, each with different goals.  And a Finnish man named Linus Torvalds began to reverse engineer UNIX and make it his own in a form he called Linux.

Linux was developed under the Free Software Foundation’s GNU Public License, or GPL.  Software written under the GPL had to be distributed with the full source code.  That way, no company could take Linux, alter it, and sell as their own.  Everyone would always ‘own’ Linux, and no one could steal it and make a profit.

BSD’s license was slightly different.  BSD was free to everyone, but corporations could take it and use it in whatever way they wanted, changing it and reselling it however they wanted.

The operating systems of the Open Source movement caught on like wildfire amongst software developers.  Students devoted huge amounts of their free time to make the operating systems better and better.

Linux itself became so popular that it began to threaten Window’s dominance in the field.  Microsoft’s competitors, such as IBM, pumped huge amounts of money and the time of their own software developers to improve Linux and help bring Microsoft down a notch or two.

Free as in Games

The desire to create a more open environment for intellectual property spread to the gaming world as well.  One of the earliest was Fuzion, which had an open-source type licensing, which basically allowed others to use the Fuzion game system in their own product.

In a strange move in 2000, Wizard of the Coast, who had recently bought TSR, open-sourced the bulk  of Dungeons and Dragons via its Open Game License.  The OGL was very similar to the Free Software Foundation’s GPL, allowing free distribution of the core System Reference Document – and derivatives, as long as a copy of the OGL was included, and due credit was given.  That doesn’t exactly seem to be WOTC’s intention with the OGL, but that’s what happened.

Thus, the Old School Renaissance was born.

Very quickly, people began to reverse engineer the earlier editions of Dungeons and Dragons and legally distribute the ‘new’ rules.   The earlier versions of D&D had not been in print for decades so and those who wished to play them had a difficult time.

While some have argued that the rewrites of D&D could have been done anyway, since rules cannot be copyrighted, only text, the OGL gave publishers the legal ‘safety net’ to do so.  Game distributions such as Swords and Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord take advantage of the license.

Open Source – Old School

The open sourcing of UNIX as Linux and the BSDs caused ripples and waves in mainstream computing.  Linux and OpenBSD’s focus on security forced Microsoft to address security issues with Windows.  Many ideas brought to Linux and the BSD’s by volunteers made their way to Window’s as well.  Apple completely tossed their original Macintosh operating system and replaced it with a BSD derivative, still in use today and known as MasOSX.  The Android phone operating system uses Linux as it’s core.

To put it in simple terms, a relatively small group of people with some free time, and a desire to keep operating systems and software open to the public, changed the face of computing.

Similarly, the Old School Revolution, taking open and available components of Dungeons and Dragons, reversed engineered the game, making it available to all.  Hobbyists and game companies can now publish content for the game, and even different versions of the game, as they see fit.

The somewhat nebulous goal of the somewhat nebulous Old School Renaissance was to bring back an older style of gaming.  The OSR succeeded in that.  But like Linux and the BSDs, the OSR caught the attention of the big boys.  WOTC, owners of Dungeons and Dragons, is currently redesigning the game to be more like its earlier versions.

I find some gratification in being there, at least in a tiny way, for both of these revolutions – both as a software developer and a old school game player.  It’s nice to see grass-roots, heart-felt movements be successful.

- Ark

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

OSR is Dying


It is official; Netcraft WOTC now confirms: *BSD OSR is dying.

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered  *BSD OSR community when IDC Dragon Magazine confirmed that  *BSD OSR market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers tables. Coming close on the heels of a recent  Netcraft WOTC survey which plainly states that  *BSD OSR has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along.  *BSD OSR is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin Game Master comprehensive networking play test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict  *BSD's OSR's  future. The hand writing is on the wall:  *BSD OSR faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for  *BSD OSR because  *BSD OSR is dying. Things are looking very bad for  *BSD OSR. As many of us are already aware,  *BSD OSR continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

All major surveys show that  *BSD OSR has steadily declined in market share.  *BSD OSR is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If  *BSD OSR is to survive at all it will be among OS RPG dilettante dabblers. *BSD OSR continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save  *BSD OSR  from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes,  *BSD OSR is dead.

Fact: *BSD OSR is dying.

[ okay, if you recognize this ancient USENET and Slashdot troll, then you are an old, decrepid uber-nerd with a penchant for obscure alternate operating systems. ;) ]

- Ark