Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Let's Put A Throne Into Perspective


Okay - done.  Two hours.  This is why AutoCAD killed conventional drafting. :)

- Ark

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Grand Prize

The Boy made this for me last night on his old Crayola Color Explosion Glow Board.

I am very honored to receive such prestigious award.

For a while now, I think the Boy hasn't been having the best of times gaming.  I mean, he's there and he interacts and he has some fun - but beyond that - not much.  But he's been interacting a lot less than he used to - you know - he's been in that kind of 'spectating' zone.

Our gaming group has some big personalities.  I mean big.  When The Boy was younger, his self awareness was much lower - so he blasted out his personality for all to see.  That pre-pubescent hormone rush stage has gripped him lately, so he's a lot more self-conscious and cautious in social situations.  Trying to find your place in a pack of loud ne'er-do-wells can be difficult.

Add to that the fact that his characters just haven't been working out.  He's been crafting warriors and assassin types, while the group has been moving away from combat-centric play into more cerebral stuff.  Despite his and my efforts, his character concepts haven't meshed will with the other characters or the adventures.

I've tried giving him advice and pep talks.  Nothing I could think of was really helping.   But then I took a look at his shotgun cop Traveller character using the Traveller Skill Matrix.  In comparison with the other characters, none of his abilities stood out except his abilities with a shotgun - and the last session had contained exactly 6 seconds of combat - the session before that 12 seconds.

But the matrix showed that the party was missing things like stealth and recon and generally sneaky kinds of stuff.  I sat down with the Boy and mentioned that if he shelved shotgun cop and made some sort of thief-type, he might enjoy that better.

The Boy was resistant, but I explained my reasoning, and then I think it clicked and he began to smile.  We began rolling up his Traveller thief.  One term, two terms, three terms - his character was looking good and then suddenly - WHAM - he was betrayed and had to leave the thieves' world.  I became somewhat worried, but he changed tact and became a secret service agent.

He was brimming with excitement.  "I'm just like Slippery Jim DiGriz!"  I smiled.  Yup - he was turning out to be quite a stainless steel rat.  But his character dug too deep in the wrong place and was kicked out of the service.  Both of us became worried.  What was he to do?

I thought for a bit.

"Well, he's had quite a run.  Perhaps he should take all of his experience and figure out how to take advantage of it," I said.

"How?" he replied.

"There is a Merchant path called a Broker.  They sell stuff - directly.  If you are running around stealing stuff, knowing how to sell it might not be a bad idea."

He got it and smiled.

Last night, The Boy's new character was a tour de force.  In a sale of illicit anagathics, his character not only rolled well, but Tim, Adelaide, Merwyn, and Kaye taught him how to role play bargaining techniques to squeeze out as much money as he could from me.  He - even with a low computer score - hacked the recipe computer in the kitchen of a mansion and acquired unexpected secret blueprints.  His fast talking to security guards saved half the party from incarceration and torture, and he even convinced the security guards that they were in the wrong for starting trouble.  And he pro-actively swept a concert area for potential dangers, providing security for the group's Legendary Singing Idol.

I think that was the most fun he's had role-playing in a while - and he didn't fire a single shot.

So, I'm very happy with my prize. Not necessarily the flashing glowboard - though that is very nice.  My prize is his ear-to-ear smile.

- Ark

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Traveller Skill Matrix

Below is a skill matrix for the current characters in the Traveller campaign - in the same format as I had set up in the past for Stars Without Number.

There are a lot more skills in Traveller, though, creating quite a list.  That has it's positives and negatives.  But since, typically, the player does not have to agonize over which skills to pick - they come out pretty randomly in character creation - it's not too bad.



Player Tim Adel Merwyn Kaye The Boy
Name Elias Neva John Guenhwyvar Cade
Strength 6 3 4
F
7
Dexterity 6
B
A
6
A
Endurance 6 6 4
C
6
Intelligence 9
E
8 7 9
Education
B
8 6 6 6
Social
D
D
6 6 5
Admin 0 - - 1 -
Advocate 0 - 0 - -
Animals - - - - -
Animals (Farming)  - - - - -
Animals (Riding) - - - - -
Animals (Training)  - - - - -
Animals (Veterinary)  - - - - -
Art 0 - - - -
Art (Acting)  - 1 - - -
Art (Dance)  - 1 - - -
Art (Holography)  - - - - -
Art (Instrument)  - 4 - - -
Art (Sculpting)  - - - - -
Art (Writing)  - - - - -
Astrogation  1 - - - -
Athletics - 0 0 0 -
Athletics (Co-ordination)  - - - - 2
Athletics (Endurance)  - - - - -
Athletics (Flying)  - - - - -
Athletics (Strength)  - - - - -
Battle Dress  - - - 1 -
Broker  - - - - 3
Carouse  3 3 0 - -
Comms  0 0 - 1 -
Computers  - - 0 - 0
Deception 3 1 0 - 0
Diplomat 0 - - - -
Drive - - - 0 -
Drive (Mole)  - - - - -
Drive (Tracked)  - - 1 - -
Drive (Wheeled) - - - - -
Engineer - - - - -
Engineer (Electronics)  - - - - -
Engineer (J-Drive)  - - 1 - -
Engineer (Life Support)  - - - - -
Engineer (M-Drive)  - - - - -
Engineer (Power)  - - - - -
Explosives  - - - - -
Flyer 0 - - - -
Flyer (Grav)  - - - - -
Flyer (Rotor)  - - - - -
Flyer (Wing)  - - - - -
Gambler - - - 0 1
Gun Combat - - - - -
Gun Combat (EnergyPistol)  - - - - -
Gun Combat (Energy Rifle)  - - - 1 -
Gun Combat (Shotgun)  - - - - -
Gun Combat (Slug Pistol)  - - 4 - 1
Gun Combat (Slug Rifle)  - - - 2 -
Gunner - - 0 - -
Gunner (Capital Weapons) - - - - -
Gunner (Ortillery) - - - - -
Gunner (Screens) - - - - -
Gunner (Turrets) - - - - 1
Heavy Weapons - - - 0 -
Heavy Weapons (Field Artillery)  - - - - -
Heavy Weapons (Launchers)  - - - - -
Heavy Weapons (Man Portable Artillery)  - - - - -
Investigate  0 0 1 1 0
Jack of All Trades 1 - - - -
Language 0 - - 0 0
Language (Anglic)  - - - - -
Language (Aslan) - - - - -
Language (Oynprith)  - - - - -
Language (Vilani)  - - - - -
Language (Zdetl)  - - - - -
Leadership - - - 1 -
Life Sciences - - - - -
Life Sciences (Biology) - - - - -
Life Sciences (Cybernetics) - - - - -
Life Sciences (Genetics) - - - - -
Life Sciences (Psionicology) - - - - -
Mechanic  - - 1 - -
Medic  - - - - -
Melee 0 - 0 - 0
Melee (Blade)  - - - - -
Melee (Bludgeon)  - - - - -
Melee (Natural Weapons)  - - - 2 -
Melee (Unarmed Combat)  - - - 1 -
Navigation  - - - - -
Persuade  3 1 1 - 0
Physical Sciences - - - - -
Physical Sciences(Chemistry) - - - - -
Physical Sciences(Electronics) - - - - -
Physical Sciences (Physics)  - - - - -
Pilot - - - - -
Pilot (Capital Ships)  - - - - -
Pilot (Small Craft)  - - - - -
Pilot (Spacecraft)  1 - - - 1
Recon  - - 1 1 2
Remote Operations  - - - - 0
Seafarer - - - - -
Seafarer (Motorboats)  - - - - -
Seafarer (Ocean Ships)  - - - - -
Seafarer (Sail)  - - - - -
Seafarer (Submarine)  - - - - -
Sensors  - - - 1 -
Social Sciences 0 - - - -
Social Sciences (Archeology)  - - - - -
Social Sciences (Economics)  - - - - -
Social Sciences (History)  - - - - -
Social Sciences (Linguistics)  - - - - -
Social Sciences (Philosophy)  - - - - -
Social Sciences (Psychology)  - - - - -
Social Sciences(Sophontology)  - - - - -
Space Sciences - - - - -
Space Sciences (Planetology) - - - - -
Space Sciences (Robotics)  - - - - -
Space Sciences (Xenology)  - - - - -
Stealth  - - 1 - 1
Steward  - 2 1 - -
Streetwise  1 0 1 - 3
Survival  - - - - -
Tactics - - - - -
Tactics (Military Tactics)  - - - - -
Tactics (Naval Tactics)  - - - - -
Trade - - - 0 -
Trade (Biologicals)  - - - - -
Trade (Civil Engineering)  - - - - -
Trade (Hydroponics)  - - - - -
Trade (Polymers)  - - - - -
Trade (Space Construction)  - - - - -
Vacc Suit  - - - 0 -
Zero-G - - - - 0

- Ark

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Death of a Campaign


Redshirts died this week.

The Stars Without Numbers campaign had a pretty good run.  I had designed it as an FLGS episodic drop-in pick-up game with a cast of freeze dried, replaceable PCs scouting the unknown horrors of my mind.  It morphed into something quite different.

The first oddity was PEOPLE KEPT ON COMING.  I finally had to cap the game at nine players.  That's enough people in a room yelling at me.

Second, instead of a pick-up game, our schedule became very specifically timed, rotating around the players INSTEAD of me.

Third - we were kicked out of the FLGS by the Chess Club.

Instead, we played every week at Merwyn's house.  He has a large table.  That table wasn't quite big enough so another table had to be attached.  Something like a kiddie table at Thanksgiving.

So what the hell happened - you ask.

Well, I read Kevin Crawford's Stars Without Number supplement Scavenger Fleets.  It's a great, free supplement detailing the bands of nomadic star-farers who dig through the trash of the previous civilization.

I got to thinking - what if one of these Scavenger Fleets got too big for its britches?  What if they stopped just scavenging dead planets, and began to *harvest* living ones.

Thus, the RECTIFIERS were born.  The Rectifier Fleet was comprised of 70+ ships, their tech level passed any in the area, and their habit of implanting all of their 'recruits' with wi-fi brain pain technology made their sufficiently Borg like to scare anyone who met them.

I figured I had a pretty good bag of villains to harass the freeze-dried scouts.

The Redshirts were passing through a system they used 'space highway' when they stumbled on the fleet.  Sensors indicated that the sleepy little planet they knew as Tunguska was being invaded, and the gas giants in the area were under lock-down.

I figured . . . well - you know what happens.  A DM goes through every thing they could think that would happen and plans accordingly.  Players always figure a way around all of that, though.

I made it clear that these dudes were billy-bad-asses and not to be messed with.  The mission was clear - find a way to refuel, jump the hell away, and warn the boys back home.  Since the CO position was being filled by Crazy-Ass Tim who was playing Professor Ramaputi - a guy who dislikes violence and wants to SCIENCE everything - I figured we were in for some interesting stealth operations.

Yeah, right.

They see a Rectifier Frigate nearby, but are cloaking really well, so it doesn't see them.  Rather than GTFO, they teleport a mirror outside of the ship and start bouncing LIDAR communications off of it, taunting the Frigate.

It went downhill from there.

It their little stealth shuttle they . . . they attacked the frigate.  They had pulled off ship assaults before.  Two - if I remember correctly.  But those assaults had always been against ships with much crappier tech.

Most of the PCs got to the hull of the Rectifier Frigate, while Ramaputi and two psychics did a halfway planned, halfway accidental maneuver where they simultaneously rammed the shuttle into the Frigate at full speed and smashed the hull with Telekenetic Ram.  At the same time, Merwyn's character faked out the ship's AI and nabbed controlled of the jump drive and maneuvering systems.

They blew a hole into the Frigate.  Nice going, yes.  But the other ships in the area were closing fast.  The crew of the Frigate was still alive and not in a great mood, however.

Meryn decided that, since he was in control of the jump drives - that they should jump the Frigate to another star system and deal with the crew later.  However, after a few minutes of paper-shuffling - it became horrible apparent that not a single member of the party had the Navigation skill to jump the ship.

At that point, Merwyn decided to accelerate to ramming speed and slam the Frigate into the nearest Cruiser.

Yeah.

The party found life pods to evacuate.  However, they were easily picked up by the Rectifiers.

Hmm.

Rather than role-play their lives as mind-slaves of the Rectifier Fleet, we decided to leave it there and let the Redshirts campaign sail off into the horizon, smoke billowing from the water-borne funeral pyre.

I would guess that the following events would happen:

  1. Capture.
  2. Torture.
  3. Integration.
  4. And then the Rectifier Fleet - with full knowledge of the Aquila Union now, would commence an invasion and the player characters would be a party to the destruction of their own civilization.

Good times, good times.

The Boy, however, is currently writing a story in which the characters escape the Rectifiers and everybody wins.  I am eagerly waiting to read that story, since it sounds a heck of a lot more upbeat then what I charted out above.

So, I salute the nine players of the Redshirts campaign for valiantly putting up with all of the horrific things that I threw at their poor, ill-equipped characters - and for the most part surviving.    But the campaign was named Redshirts - so it was really just a matter of time. :)

- Ark

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

NSFW Hat Girl


Just a not safe for work cartoon girl in a hat.  Nothing game related.  Move along.

- Ark