Pavonis Sector Sessions - Week Two

We left Duke and the Gang trapped in the Ruins on Regari. This state of affairs came about because I decided that the event e84 could happen to any vehicle. The Antelope II entered the ruins, set down and a building collapsed. Amusingly, on the 10th day, the same thing happened. 

How I handled this was everyone got out of the ship and cleared the debris while the Engineers, Ratchet and Hem patched up the ship. Twice. 

For solo play that sucks. It eats resources and time. However, I'm imagining Star Smuggler as a multiplayer game where things like this are moments for character exposition. This scenario would work. 

Now let's dig into week 2 in the ruins. We have run through e84, the second main event here is a room in the ruins. In event e88, 2/3rds of the outcomes are bad. I decided not to bite with my party. 

How I picture traveling the ruins is that the ship moves then I select who will participate in the next roll. Those left behind on the ship are doing RRR tasks. If the event is a surprise, it occurs right outside the ship and involves everyone. If the event is something else, only the selected characters experience it. 

A damaged Utility Suit is no fun.

Day 1: They found a GM bot intact and decided not to participate in e88. 

Day 2: Another building collapsed on the ship ending events for the day. Repairs were made. 

Day 3: They found a boat with 4 points of damage and the ship moved to recover it. They also find an undamaged skimmer. 

Day 4: The crew on the ship began repairs on the damaged boat. Since there are two engineers, they repair one point each. The explorers found a sidearm and an intact skimmer. 

Day 5: The found boat is completely repaired and move it to the empty boat bay. Explorers found a second boat with one point of damage and a bunch of damaged Utility Suits. Hint: the damaged Usuits eat time and resources so they leave them behind. 

Day 6: They find a Utility Suit and then knock down another building onto the Antelope II. Damn. 

On the 7th Day, they find an intact skimmer and cannibalize an RU from a damaged skimmer. The second boat is repaired and moved to the cargo bay. 

On day 8, the stress gets to be too much. They decide to count this as a win and return to the spaceport. The crew has 2 hoppers, a GM bot, a Sidearm TL-1, 3 skimmers, and a Usuit. They expended 7 RU and found one. 

An old but nice skimmer.

Days 8 and 9 are used to purchase some bots and RU. They make a payment of 300 secs. against the grant on the ship and the crew is paid. They have about 1500 secs. to their name. On the last day of the week, the break for orbit and do a double jump to Imperia. This leaves them with 3 hypercharges and just enough money to replace them. 

They enter the Imperia system with little fanfare, e93 results in no contact. At this point, I will do what I call "a bend". They spend the last 4 hours landing. The flexi-bendy bit is, I won't declare where they land. I will do this next week. Their choices are limited to Rough Terrain, Spaceport, or Station if they mean to take the ship. They will probably hit the Spaceport and look around before picking a new location. 

See you later!

Pavonis Sector Sessions - Week One

In my last post, I included some new rules and omitted a few thoughts. In running through a week of play, I have a few items to add. 

My first omission is how to get an advanced hopper, beyond the one that comes with the ship. They are available everywhere regular hoppers are so long as the planet has a tech level 30 or better. Their cost is three times the cost of a regular hopper. There is a twist, you can sell an advanced hopper anywhere regardless of the tech level. 

Second, I did not create improved versions of skimmers or robots. I will correct that now. 

All skimmers are now dual-powered electric vehicles and therefore can be gassed up with a fuel unit OR charged at any location with banking facilities. I am picturing more Car Wars than Teslas. The cost to recharge is the same as a fuel unit. Remember, if you drive into an area that doesn't have banking facilities, you will need a fuel unit for the next day or you are walking.

Robots are trickier. I hate the per-week cost as it adds to tracking so it is now gone. Robots are also electrically powered, run for a week, and can be recharged at night from a starship, hopper, or skimmer for no cost. The robots handle this themselves. If you let them run out of power, they will break down. It costs a repair unit and a fuel unit plus the time of an Engineer to get them going again. Don't let that happen. This seems to be a better tradeoff than a weekly price. 

I have also decided that medics can drive skimmers because they would drive ambulances. Duh. They still can't use guns of any kind. 

Additionally, Ubots can ride on the exterior of any skimmer. That is kind of handy. PS bots are small and can ride on the exterior pack of a utility suit, taking up no space. You still need to carry a life support unit. 

One official rule I would like to point out is r216d. 10 sidearms can be packed into a 2 CU crate in cargo. Since we have this rule, I would add that 5 heavy sidearms can be packed into a 2 CU crate. Makes sense. One modification to this rule is that holstered weapons take no space on a person, but you can only carry 2 regular sidearms like this. A heavy sidearm is twice as big, so you can holster only one. There is zero utility in this unless you play a game where you can lose a sidearm. 

 

Let's run down the first week in a snapshot. Duke started with 5,000 secs. He took 5 days to assemble his crew of 2 medics (Merci and Bill), 2 engineers (Hem and Ratchet), 4 gunners (Zap, Fred, Garrison, and Kal), and 3 pilots (Emily, Zev, and Avery). Emily has the same stats as Duke per the last time I played. She is the second in command. Their weekly pay totals 195, which is a steal. 

During this 5-day shopping excursion, Duke got creative with buying and selling RU and robots. The GM bots at the spaceport have a 1-in-6 chance of selling for 1.5x. Since the buying price is 120 and the potential sale price could be 1.5x of 100, you could score 30 secs by savvy selling.  

The dice note 20 LSU, 20 FU, 50 RU, white blocks
are crates of sidearms and black are HSA.

That does come in handy, but there is an easier way to make money. RU, LSU, and FU have a buy-and-sell price of 1. If you buy at 1 but sell at 1.5, that is a 50% return each time. You can do this right out of the gate at Regari. Since they are just 1 CU each you can do this quickly and easily. You just need to accept fractional accounting, which I do. 

One warning, I have noticed that you can't sell LSU easily if at all. I will keep an eye out for this event if it exists. 

Back to gameplay. Duke also bought 2 ship guns (TL-3), 2 hopper guns (TL-5), and 12 utility suits. Next, the crew flew to the colony to buy weapons. Surprisingly, this didn't take long and they bought 100 sidearms (TL-4) and 24 heavy sidearms (TL-5). At this point, all of the utility suits were given to the crew, along with 10 sidearms and 6 heavy sidearms. 

In cargo, we have: 20 fuel units, 20 LSU, 50 RU, a hopper with 2 sets of guns, 90 sidearms (TL-4), 18 heavy sidearms (TL-5), one TL-1 sidearm, 10 Ubots, and 1 GM bot. Duke has 2645 secs. 

With a couple of days left, Duke decided to head to the Ruins. This did not go well because of a decision I made. 

You can travel to the Ruins in your ship and the ruins have e084, Building Collapse. Everything is spelled out as if you have only two options, walking or driving a skimmer. Why can't you have a building collapse on the ship or a hopper? I decided this could happen because I watched Robotech many times as a kid. 

You can see it too, can't you? 

Because of this choice, Duke and the gang had very little to show for the remainder of the week. But it was interesting. 

Welcome Back to the Pavonis Sector!

I have set up a permanent space for my Star Smuggler game. This is a single-player game that I have played many, many times. For this run, I have decided to take the advice on page 1 of the rules and adapt this into a campaign. I am captaining a new ship class, the Antelope II. 

When designing this ship, I asked myself what made something better. Fewer dependencies came to mind. Shuttles are now like mini-ships and need no fuel or life support. The Antelope II has dedicated crew spaces and a garage for skimmers and suits. 

I decided not to muck with ANY of the combat rules, with one exception. Crew Quarters and Medical are protected by armor. Simply put, they are harder to destroy than other areas.  

I also took a swipe at some of the not-so-nice aspects of the game. In this run-through, slaves are important. You can rescue them. 

To that end, I need to change several rules starting with e001. 

e001+

The sector is at war. You are the captain of the Antelope II, a new type of privateer vessel. You have received a letter of marque and reprisal from the world of Regari enabling you to act as a privateer within the sector. In addition, you have received a small grant to obtain weapons and a crew. You are authorized to act in every part of the sector, except New Karma and Regari where one must behave like a normal civilian. 

To pay off your grant of the ship, you must make a payment to the Regari system weekly. You may do this at any banking facility anywhere in the sector. The amount per week doesn't matter, but you must pay 1,000,000 secs. within 10 years. The Antelope II is 5 times the ship that an Antelope was, so this is a deal. 

The grant allows for hiring a crew and equipping them. Roll 1d6*1000. You do not have to pay this back. You can keep anything you don't spend. 

In the Regari system, you are not subject to search or seizure. Ignore these events. 

The Antelope II is built to tech level 1 specs and is outfitted with 2 advanced hopper class ships boats, and a single set of tech level one guns and two empty turrets. Advanced hoppers have a fusion power pack built into the hull (e153, item 11) and produce life support like a regular starship. There is a brand-new skimmer in the ship's garage, also tech level 1. The ship has a medical bay/infirmary with a regrowth tank (e153, item 4). There is a suit room and crew airlock for utility suits.  Additionally, there is a ready room for planning. You have 6 hypercharges. This ship does not have secret hiding spaces. 

The letter of marque is your ship's papers. You personally own a utility suit, and a tech level 1 sidearm, plus have 10 repair units, 10 life support units, and 10 fuel units in one of the cargo bays.  

Be on the lookout for slavers, found in r332. If offered slaves, you are obligated to purchase as many as possible, constrained by funds and crew space, for a base price of 100 secs. each. Once they are in your custody, you must do your utmost to protect them until they reach freedom. This means you must make for New Karma or Regari as fast as possible (double jumps are not required). Note: in any other system, you may be mistaken for a slaver. 

If they are returned safely to the Colony on New Karma or the Port on Regari, the government will pay you a base price of 100 secs. per rescued slave and shave off 200 secs. from the amount you owe on your grant. 

You are currently at the sole planet in the Regari system (r207a) of the Pavonis sector, at the spaceport (r205o). You check over your starship guns and personal sidearm and prepare to find targets for Regari. See r203 for the activities available to you. You need to hire a crew immediately. It is suggested that you have 1 engineer, 1 medic, 1 gunner, and 2 pilots, however, the ultimate decisions are yours. 

You may opt not to make contact rolls until you have hired your whole crew. Also, you may skip over rolls of 3, no more rolls during this time due to government intervention. This is a one-time benefit and can be extended for as many days as you deem necessary. You may not leave the spaceport. Once your crew is assembled, you must make contact rolls for the rest of the game.  

Hit locations need an update, too.  

The Antelope II has a modification for hits and hit locations. This appears in many events (like e413 or e113), you may use this list. The ship can take 15 hits. It also has 2 heavily armored areas, medical and crew quarters. 

2. Medical* or suit room (Odd is medical and even is the suit room.)
3. Pilotage
4. One of the turrets - roll 1-2 first turret (top), 3-4 second turret and 5-6 is the last.  
5. Shuttle - 1-3 port side, 4-6 starboard side 
6. Engineering 
7. Garage
8-9. Port Cargo Bay
10-11 Starboard Cargo Bay
12. Crew Quarters* or Ready Room. (Odd is the quarters and even is the ready room.)

*Indicates a 50-50 chance of armor hit. An armor hit prevents damage to the protected section by turning it into a regular hit. 

Radiation does not pass through the armor and does nothing to the crew in these areas, (e413 mostly). 

To accommodate your new Advanced Hoppers, we need to update e214 with e214c. 

Advanced Hopper (e214c) 

The Advanced Hopper is an improved version of the basic Hopper. It is the same size as other Hoppers but has advanced fusion engines. The fusion engines do not require refueling (at least not for decades) and provide life support to the crew while in operation. 

Fusion engines allow the Advanced Hopper to accelerate the same as Starships while also making it possible to escape high-gravity planets. While Advanced Hoppers do not have wings, they make use of a lifting body design and can glide just like a regular Hopper. 

The crew compartment is divided into a 5 CU pilot area and a 6 CU passenger area. Hopper or boat guns can only be mounted in the 14 CU cargo area. Two sets of guns can be mounted. This is standard for military Hoppers. 

The price for an advanced hopper is three times the base price of a regular hopper and is available wherever hoppers are found. 

Since the Antelope II has armored areas, we need to address that with a new rule: r217d. 

Antelope II Damage (r217d)

The Antelope II takes 15 hits to destroy. Sidearms and heavy hand weapons have no effect on starships unless an event paragraph indicates otherwise. Individual points of damage simply increase the risk factor when hyperjumping. 

Some areas of the hull are protected by heavy armor: medical and crew quarters. When these areas are hit, there is a 50-50 chance of striking the armor instead. An armor hit redirects damage to one of the hull points. The armor includes radiation shielding, so characters in those areas are not killed by radiation damage of any kind. 

Due to the changes to the Antelope II, r229d is used for old-school Antelopes while r229e is used for the Antelope II. 

Starship Searches (r229e)

Some events require a search of the starship (by customs officials, a military patrol, quarantine officers, etc.). When this occurs, roll 2d6 and consult the results below to see which parts of the ship are searched. Anything in those compartments will be found. Items within activated stasis units are normally confiscated by authorities unless the event indicates otherwise:

Search Results:

2-false accusation (e058);
3- Ready Room and Suit Suit Room
4- Engineering, all gun turrets, quarters, and pilotage. 
5- Engineering, all gun turrets, and both cargo bays.
6- Quarters only. 
7- Both cargo bays
8- Both cargo bays and both ship's boats. 
9- Both ship's boats and the skimmer garage. 
10- Both boats, pilotage, and quarters. 
11- Medical/Infirmary and skimmer garage. 
12-searcher is an old acquaintance, you have no difficulties, and nothing is searched.

I know, the original book obscured the areas with strange letter codes. I didn't like that much so I just spelled it out. 

Additionally, e002 will be changed.

e002: 

Foreign agents are in your area. Ignore this event in the Regari or New Karma systems. If your crew is off the ship, proceed directly to e018. If the ship is landed, go straight to e003. 

If you are on your ship in space, roll on the following table: 

2. Paletk ships approach. (e108)
3. Ships from Imperia approach. (e114)
4. Byzantium Secret Police. (e189)
5. Imperian customs agents. (e019)*
6. Talitarian Scouts. (e118)
7. Nothing interesting. (e096)
8. Cubro customs shakedown. (e019)*
9. Urushop customs patrol. (e019)* 
10. Mynkurian attack (e095)
11. Nipna wardrone. (e098)
12. Roll again. 

Each event is themed to a particular system and may occur in any system except Regari or New Karma. 

When dealing with the three e019 results (*starred), the customs agents have 3 standard antelope ships with no weapon turrets. Your grant requires you to comply and pay all fines and duties. If you damage or destroy any customs ships or harm the crew, you will lose your grant and be wanted in every system.

As I play through this, I hope to expand the original events with a battle against the slavers and possibly an introduction of a second plot line about robots.  

I expect to post once a week as the last time I did this once a day was too much. 

(EDIT I have forgotten to add a link so you can download the original game.)

A Bit of the Pavonis Sector in My Basement

I have finally set up a permanent area in the basement for my Star Smuggler game. I fired up the laser and etched a ship diagram to use. The ship is creatively called the Antelope II. 

You can see I paired this with my White Box Set, so I have little dodads to count resources and Meeples for peoples. 

I also have old cardboard-mounted planetary tiles I made a few years back. I GIMP'ed the original files and flipped them so I don't have to mess with upside-down tiles. You can download them on Boardgame Geek. 

Zooming in a bit, you can see this poor man's map in green. Half of the map is for dispersed distances and the second half is for those in contact. The rules are super easy like that. Medics are white, pilots blue, engineers black, and gunners are yellow. The bad guys are red. 

You can see I have already gotten into trouble. 

The orange sheet is for common resource counting. I have fuel units, life support units, repair units, and two different types of robots, GM bots and Utility bots. The third kind of bots are Personal Bots which go on the character's sheets. 

This time through the game, I have a much improved Antelope II which requires changing the rules. A lot of rules. I shall share those tomorrow. 

I feel a disturbance...

I have 6 items on DriveThruRPG and 2 in my Ko-Fi Store. A very interesting thing has happened this week. My newest offering, The Hex Pack is closing the sales numbers for my oldest offering, Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners. Both just crossed 400 downloads. 

These are 2020 and 2018 titles. I'd like to refresh Zero to Hero and make it compliant with OSE. I can't really refresh The Hex Pack unless someone has a need or suggestion. 

Hint, hint, the comments below.

Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D Swashbucklers for D&D and AD&D

Zero to Hero: Uncommon Heroes Zero to Hero

Character Sheet for AD&D Character Sheet for AD&D

Kobold’s Folly Mini Setting Kobold’s Folly

Compass Rose Inn Mini Setting Compass Rose Inn

The Hex Pack The Hex Pack

You can also find 2 of my titles on my store on Ko-Fi.  I posted items that will never change*, my AD&D Character Sheets for Unearthed Arcana and The Hex Pack. 

These items are pay-what-you-want and are IDENTICAL to those offered on DriveThruRPG. There is no need to duplicate your efforts if you have already received them from DTRPG. This is simply a different shopping option.  

As a general statement of why I have two outlets: 

1. People don't like creating accounts. If I give you two options, I double my chances of you simply having one of them.

2. DriveThruRPG is a community-supporting outlet. Every time you buy something here, 35% of your purchase supports DriveThru in all its endeavors. Being a good-sized company, they can run sales, promotions, bundles, and charity options. I can't do any of this as a single content producer. I really love what they offer. 

3. Ko-Fi has different options. I will soon be selling physical goods that are not a good match for DriveThruRPG: Artwork, coasters, maps, etc. that I make myself. You will notice that some of my digital works are on there, only because I can offer the same PWYW terms AND these products are unlikely to ever change*.  

*Yeah, I've made changes to both of these titles in the past. I will give you the reason why I did this in a post later this week. 

The Evil Ones

Back in 1980, Dragon magazine presented an Anti-Palidin. These guys were stereotypical black hat NPCs. The logic behind them was a Palidin pledged themselves to a dark god. The problem with the article was it presented a way to generate an Anti-Palidin. The same idea was repeated a year later with the Drow in Fiend Folio, character stats for monsters. 

The message was "These aren't exactly monsters, they are more like characters." 

People are going to generate evil characters for a lot of reasons. Giving them a tool to do so isn't always a great idea, but the genie is out of the bag. Having evil characters in the party is problematic. How can the party hold together if half the party is trying to kill the other half? 

I never exactly had this issue for a couple of reasons. I would allow mixed-alignment characters in the party. That is the players' problem to sort out. I have found that player characters tend to moderate themselves in a party. Somehow, people find an accord: 

"Out of the goodness of my heart, and 1,000 gold pieces, I can heal you."

"For a dirty thief, you keep good friends."  

The alignment system in D&D is wonky. It doesn't really mean anything. Good player characters can do bad things and evil player characters can do good things in the right circumstances. There aren't any consequences for being good... or evil. If you want to switch, there are even rules for changing alignment that in my opinion, suck. They are geared to a particular campaign in the mind of the author of the books. They don't make sense in every setting. 

I DO have a problem with inherently evil races in D&D and it's a problem you'd never expect. 

I do voices for NPCs. This creates memorable characters, monsters, and scenarios. The downside is it also conveys tone and information that might be a mismatch for players expectations:

Kobold: "I am going to cut your boots off and wear your feet like boots!" 

10th level Paladin: "Snicker. Just you? Or both of you?" 

Kobolds: "Shit." 

Obviously, 2 Kobolds mean nothing to a 10th-level party. Against first-level characters, they represent some sort of threat, but not for battle-hardened characters. This is villain decay large writ. It is inevitable.

In some respects, using voices and tone gives my campaigns a fairytale-like vibe. What was once fearsome has become childish. Kobolds, goblins, orcs, etc. all become not threatening no matter how evil they are. Yes, you can give them some punch by cranking up the number appearing, but that has nothing to do with evil. 1,000 rats, yaks, or kobolds are dangerous to anyone. Plus rats and yaks aren't evil regardless of their numbers. 

Once the player characters hit a certain level, things like "evil" become nuanced. One example is my character, Magarven. He is a Drow PC adapted to be an NPC. He is clearly evil, but he's also an excellent dinner companion. He (probably) won't try to kill you. But he is still evil. He is gunned up like crazy, but the thought of killing isn't the first thing on his mind. 

The same thing happens to the thieves' guild that harrassed the characters at a low level. Compared to a world-ending lich, exactly how evil are they in comparison? They represent a different threat that has nothing to do with what kind of evil they are.  

I think there is an impetus to conflate evil with competence or ability. There are a lot of evil things out there that simply can't be enacted because they are not well thought out. Selfish people sabotage themselves all the time. Sure, he is a go-getter, but what the heck is he go-getting? 

Why do I let "the evil races" like kobolds not behave evilly? Why do I let players play them? 

Really it is a combination of the fairytale aspect of my gaming plus I can't really force the players or the monsters to behave a certain way, despite labels. Honor is nuanced, just because someone does something "good" doesn't mean they are out for the betterment of others. 

The Great and Power Sauron once said, "Don't kill the hobbits! Bring them to me." 

Guess what? Orcs, goblins, and every other minion of his didn't try to kill the hobbits too often. Nice of them, isn't it? No. They are all still evil, no matter how much food and drink they provide Frodo and Sam.

Evil to me means someone isn't honoring the social compact and bonds between living creatures, but it doesn't mean blindly doing so. There is also a component of self-delusion, the idea that doing evil becomes normal and the actor honestly believes that it is totally normal to do evil things. They are going to say they aren't evil at every opportunity. That is yet another violation of the social compact, although this one is oddly internalized. Add in the fact that if the villain sucks at their life and you get a bit of comedy or tragedy. 

That is good storytelling without ramming the PC's into drawing your conclusions or messages. One player might find it funny, a second finds it tragic and the third simply wants to throw dice and fists and sees no problem with whatever these villains are doing so long as justice prevails. The DM has offered a situation to be considered without forcing a particular point of view. 

The same goes for good characters. Are Palidins expected to heal downed enemies because that is what they would do to be kind? Maybe, but probably not. The players may or may not think of it or have another response based on the situation. 

Brainless creatures are much easier to play as straight-up evil. Everyone gets that you shouldn't talk to zombies or skeletons. It's all about agency and the undead have none, but your average creature does have agency. 

If there is an Assassin and a Paladin in the party, and one is good and one is evil, what of it? The players have to decide what to do. It makes no difference if I say Half-Orc and Kobold. The players are in control of their actions, just as much as I am in control of the NPCs and monsters. If I decide to do something engaging and the players decide they don't want to fight, then maybe we have Tea with the Black Dragon. 

Which is a classic, BTW. 

Good Gothic Fun - Do Not Let Us Die In The Dark Night of This Cold Winter Review

Title: Do Not Let Us Die In The Dark Night of This Cold Winter
Publisher: Cone of Negative Energy
Author: Cecil Howe
Editor: Shasta Howe
Year: 2016
Pages: 53+ pages
Rating: 5 of 5 stars

I hope my publication date is wrong, I would hate to think I missed this lovely mini-game for 8 years. It makes me feel like I've been living under a rock in a secluded village in the middle of winter. 

No, wait. This is the premise of the game. 

Your characters arrive and are trapped in a secluded village. Being adventurers, they quickly rise to the level of decision-makers. The rules assume you play some sort of fantasy setting, probably a low-magic setting. 

You can transform your basic characters from D&D into the characters needed for this set with a quick chat with your players. Is your character a fighter, thief, or a magic user? Let the players know fighters provide firewood (fuel), thieves provide food, and magic users medicine. It's ok to get characters cross-type like a ranger counting as a magic user to make medicine or a cleric as a fighter because they do woodcraft. All you need to sort characters into the three types and be clear that these choices can't change during the game.  

Once you take off the sorting hat, you are ready to go with this resource management mini-game by setting up the village. The book or PDF comes with a map base and dozens of excellent pieces of artwork to create your village. The artwork alone is probably worth purchasing just to have as a resource for other games. It is very nice. 

Each village consists of a building per adventurer plus a storehouse. Each building houses 5 villagers and the storehouse contains resources. Place the pieces on the map and you are ready to go. 

With only 3 resources to manage the game mechanics are a snap. You roll 2d6 or 1d3 all game long, then make choices. It is surprising how complex a simple mechanic set can be. 

The number of turns determines how difficult the game will be. 

Each turn is broken down into steps: 

1. Count the dead, and determine the weather. Weather is your main antagonist. Like many games, this entry point is skipped on the first turn. 
2. Ration your supplies. Characters move supplies from the storehouse to the individual buildings: fuel, food, and medicine. You will need to use 1-3 fuel units per building, per turn. Everyone requires food. Sick villagers can be healed with medicine. Again skip this on the first turn. 
   *You have one hidden resource. Livestock can be converted to food. 
3. Gather supplies. In each turn, characters can gather one of the 3 main resources. Your character type determines what sort of bonus you receive to collect these resources. 
4. Occurrences. These are random positive and negative effects. 
5. Illness. Between 1-3 villagers will become sick per turn. 
6. Consolidation. If too many villagers die, you can consulate buildings. This reduces the amount of fuel units you need per turn. 

Winning is survival. The number of turns you play determines the difficulty of the game. Chapter 4 includes many ideas to change the difficulty and intensity of the game. 

Seeded throughout the book is descriptive text for the game master to read. This is just as good as the artwork and is excellent for those who don't like to improvise lines. I love the tone of these sections of text. With very little adaption they fit perfectly with the presentation of the game to new characters. The short duration of the game plus the copious amount of text and rule changes from Chapter Four allows for several games before players start hearing the same thing. 

The combination of simplistic yet integrated rules and great artwork for constructing villages gives this game some serious replayability. If you reskin food to water, cold for heat, etc. you could plug this into almost any scenario like a desert. 

You can pick this up at DriveThruRPG in either hardcover or PDF. 

I Think Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game Taught Me To Play D&D e5

I am having a failure to campaign. I wanted to do a Star Wars campaign, but my potential players spotted the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game on my shelf and dove into a rabbit hole of Super Heroes. I wanted to playtest some ideas for my module POP-001 Reverants of Revenants of the Lost Temple but got sidetracked by prototyping a new RPG. Add in the new laser, the tablesaw, and the 3d printer and I am at a loss for what to do first or now. 

So back to basics. I am going to review the games I have acquired over the last year to 18 months. I just need to pick a good one to start on. 

To get this game design bug out of my head, I want to talk about the Marvel game. 

Marvel... it is inescapable right now. We have a couple of movies and TV shows coming out at the same time that the company is kicking out all kinds of new comic books. That's a mighty big rabbit hole to live in. When my kids and friends saw the Marvel RPG, instead of playing the game we ended up watching 3 movies while digging through a box of comics and perusing the rules. 

Friends, I have wasted a day. 

I'll review the Marvel rules eventually, but I THINK I understand what changed between my D&D of the 1970s and 1980s and e5 thanks to this Marvel ruleset. 

The social purpose changed. As a historian, I like this concept. In history, historical people wanted to focus on the ills of the world, but could not effectively mesh the current massive problem with underlying social issues which were also occurring. It usually results in half measures and more problems. The idea the gaming changed on the social side is neat. 

D&D started as a tactical game; it evolved from wargaming. I have X guys and you have Y guys, let's throw some dice to see what happens. Ok? 

D&D adds special abilities and roleplay to a tabletop game, which changes that random dice dynamic. Individuals become heroes, it is important for them to have a past, present, and future and now we have Player Characters.   

When I think of a classic movie, it will be from the 40s, 50s, or 60s. Many of these were big-budget affairs that depicted massive set-piece battles but also had an undercurrent where a gang of scrappy heroes would be the solution. Or they were low-budget and had to have a gang of oddball heroes to compete with big-budget movie spectaculars. This humanized the story and was a satisfying use of characters. Nobody saw the oddball scrappies coming.  

It doesn't even have to be a war movie. Flight of the Phoenix is a movie about people literally building a plane in flight. Just like war movies, it elevates individual characters to heroes or solution-maker status.

Even though there were far fewer character choices in OD&D, Basic D&D, and e1, not all of the rules were harmonized in the mechanics. Because the mechanics were often unique to the class or monster, it was hard for the DM to determine if a scenario was a real challenge. Add in wily player characters, and really strange things happen. This mirrors the movies of the day. No one saw the ending coming and DMs didn't try to adapt to the players. They just rolled with whatever happened because as long as the players were willing to play, there were always new bad guys and challenges.   

Today, if you ask someone about a "classic movie", the answers are very different. It's Star Wars, Batman, Harry Potter, Kill Bill, The Usual Suspects, etc. 

What is different about these films from older classics? Usually, the viewer has awareness of the heroes from the get-go and the bad guy has the advantage of knowing the heroes just as well as the viewer while the heroes are unaware of their opposites' goals. 

Back in the day, D&D didn't have a Session 0. The DM designed his campaign or story in a vacuum and the players subvert this by building the plane in flight. Session 0 was a vague idea when the DM told the players about the world their characters lived in as they rolled up characters, but it occurred at the same time as Session 1. The players are adapting to the DM's world, without the DM thinking about what the characters were all about. Sure there were minor questions to be answered, but those were usually no big deal: 

"Sure you can be a paladin, an assassin, or a cleric! Any class you like is available."
"Yes, you can have full-plate armor, everyone does. It's all the rage, you are cool."
"You want a pseudo-dragon as a familiar? Awesome!" 

It was almost unseemly for the DM to try to negate a character's abilities by reshaping the previously written materials. Yeah, we have all played those games where clerics can't heal, paladins are evil, or wizards are hampered by widespread anti-magic. Those results are really horrible and DM's usually learn not to do those things. 

An excellent modern movie that depicts this idea is Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. The DM created a scenario in a vacuum and has no idea that zero players have thieving characters. The antagonists think they know what is going on, but usually, they are wrong. The PC's subvert expectations, just like classic D&D. The link above is a post all about the idea where the PC's subvert the basic tenets of the scenario. 

It's great! Everything goes sideways for the DM because they have to cope with the fact zero people are conforming to their original idea. The plane is going down. That is ok because everyone is out there working on the wings. 

In Star Wars and in the MCU, the bad guys know exactly who the heroes are. The author/DM is now creating a checklist of tasks that are measured against the known. The prevalence of Session 0 is almost universal. The harmonized mechanics of D&D e5 make it so simple for the DM to swap out specific antagonists or scenarios to counter the heroes in a way that makes sense... at least in terms of what the DM desires. 

I personally don't like this tactic, but I see the appeal. It makes the game more superhero-like or like a video game while avoiding the trope of simply taking away the hero's abilities, tools, and gear. It is almost fair and just barely dodges railroading. Anything is preferable to taking stuff from the players or railroading, but I dislike this option of plug-and-play gaming. But I understand it.  

I think this is where the idea of DM as a storyteller became overpowering and all-consuming. It's like you are playing against the DM, which is not fun. I have always been a storytelling DM. I create a unique world for the players. BUT I am not "storytelling" in a way to prevent or pervert the player's intentions and goals. There is a difference. 

For example, pawnshops are just as common in my world as magic item shops. New players may not have thought they could find such a thing, but I am not making them shop there. They just know. Horses are also common, the players won't have trouble obtaining one but they don't have to do it. I will tell the players if they are in a kingdom or a republic or something else, which changes a lot of the dynamics of society. I will also let them know if there is a town guard, a marketplace, a city hall, a bank, and whatnot and populate them appropriately. This is the storytelling I do for them. It makes them react if they so choose, it doesn't force them to make specific choices or force them to be something.  

I think I understand e5 better now. What do you think? 

Game Scale - Down the Rabbit Hole - Part 1

As mentioned last time, I am prototyping a science fiction game. 

Before I get to the fun of developing characters and equipment, I like to think about scales. Usually, the first scale I like to work with is "How big is it?" I have always hated the D&D weight and encumbrance scale but in certain ways it makes sense. 

A gold coin is heavy, this is sort of appealing from a DM's point of view. "How big?" is connected to "How much money?". It's not perfect but it does make sense. 

Since I am doing Sci-Fi, I want to leverage SI units. So meters and kilograms are usually what the players encounter. I don't have to come up with my own units. Made-up units nearly always sound silly. How much damage can the words like "Parsec" or "Cubits" do?

Don't answer that.  

The rabbit is out of the
hole.

In thinking about this, I wanted to go down the economic rabbit hole first. It was surprisingly, easy but also comes with its own problems: 

1. Cost doesn't equate to size or weight. 
2. What do I call space money? 
3. Space money sucks as a name. 
4. Will I use creeping capitals: "Space Money" vs. "space money"? 
5. What color is it?  

I decided to name the unit of money "Credits". It is a classic and doesn't suck like "Space Money". Credits are used to buy average, daily stuff. A loaf of bread, a bullet, a comb are all right around one credit each. 

Players won't want any of that, they want lasers, robots, aircars, fighters, and spaceships. One of the wacky things with letting characters have all of these things is that the scale rapidly gets into the millions or even billions of Space mone... er, credits. I hate math that gets out of control.  

The first issue I need to address is that credits are "shiney". It's sort of a color. (There is a whole different rabbit hole about most cultures not wanting to call the sky "blue", but "bright" or "shiny", like bronze. Feel free to climb into that rabbit hole on your own time. Here is a link to get you started.) 

Next, we need a scale to prevent players from yanking their hair out jumping from "How do I buy lunch?" to "How do I buy a spaceship?". 

SI units to the rescue. Will just use credits, kilo credits, mega credits (starting to sound silly..._ giga credits (somehow less silly), and so on:

• Credits (Cr) = Base unit
• Kilo Credits (kCr) = 1,000 Cr
• Mega Credits (MCr) = 1,000,000 Cr (1 million)
• Giga Credits (GCr) = 1,000,000,000 Cr (1 billion)
• Tera Credits (TCr) = 1,000,000,000,000 Cr (1 trillion)
• Peta Credits (PCr) = 1,000,000,000,000,000 Cr (1 quadrillion)

I haven't used AI chats to create content, but I decided to be lazy today and leverage it. ChatGPT did the chart above so I didn't have to do math. Even better, I didn't even sanity-check it. I have no one to blame but my lazy ass self. 

Anyway, I asked GTP Chat to compare that scale to a couple of different real things. A 60,000,000 credit vehicle is best measured in mega credits: 60 mcr. A space shuttle is 1.7 gcr. A motorcycle is 12 kcr. 

This chart gives a base of credits and 5 different scaling factors. That isn't much more difficult than D&D's copper, electrum, silver, gold, and platinum conversions. That will allow me to use 6 different colored tokens to scale things. Yes, I am ignoring that I need 1000 of one colored token to get to the next step in the scale. 

The nice bit about this scale is it is based on reality. The GDP of planet Earth is around 0.1 pcr. We aren't at most science fiction levels of technology so we don't produce a whole peta credit worth of stuff in a year. 

There is a time component to asking how long it takes to build a spaceship without starving everyone on the planet. You can build the Deathstar, but it takes a couple of years or more. This is why they aren't left sitting on a used spaceship lot but the Serenity is available at your local used spaceship lot. 

This time component is nice and I want to reuse this concept in my next post about combat scale. This is another headache for sci-fi: "What happens when a spaceship snipes individuals on the ground?" This will be my next post. 

The bad part is I thought I would be talking "game scale" like distances and weights, and this doesn't do it. A million-dollar diamond ring and a million-dollar airplane are wildly different sizes. An acre of desert could be less than an acre of farmland. A bag of feathers and a bag of lead are wildly different to lift. Nothing matches or scales nicely. I'll have to work on that bit. 

Anyway, thank you for climbing into this rabbit hole with me. I plan on having a whole series of posts as I develop this game. 

Prototyping and Fun

Back in 2021, I reviewed Atlas Game's The White Box Set. This is the handiest game set I've ever owned. The primary part is a 100+ book of essays that every game producer needs to read. It is loaded with a lot of research, details, and facts. I love it for that alone. 

The bits and bobs are perfect for role-playing and board games, even if you are not a content producer. They are so useful, I have five sets. 

Each box comes with:

3 counter sheets with 71 pre-printed and 49 blank counters,

150 small wooden cubes in 6 colors,

36 wooden meeples in 6 colors, 

6 large cubes in 6 colors, 

12 1d6 dice, again in 6 colors, 

110 bingo disks in 8 colors, 

Several clear bags for storage, 

102 page book of essays. 

These little bits and bobs are perfect for resource management in RPGS, replacing lost pieces from board games like dice, highlighting areas on maps without marking them up, etc. You have so many options. 

It's extremely useful. 

But now I have 5 copies of the same book. Well, 4 of those will be going up on my Ko-Fi store. I'll let you know when I have that done. I am on-call this week making a bad time for monitoring orders. 

If you must have this book now, I suggest the Atlas Game store as it's on clearance for $22.00 for the whole set. 

If you need it faster than physical shipping would allow, I suggest DriveThru RPG. Driverthu has two different products: a PDF and an Audiobook. 

Each of these products are LESS than the 10 bucks I plan to sell used copies on Ko-Fi. I want to see what sort of costs are associated with selling physical goods on Ko-Fi. Esty is a non-starter due to the terms and fees. The $10 dollar price point is to make the math easy. These books will be clearly marked with a warning that you are helping me with an order and there are better options out there. 

#MiniMonday

Here are two of my least favorite things about minis: storage and bases. 

Why do I keep my models in a terrarium? My cats are dicks. There isn't much I can do about that, if Youtube is any indicator, all cats are dicks. 

Anyway, my second least favorite thing about models is doing the bases. 

Why? 

Because if you don't straight-up paint them, you end up with materials that are a completely different palette than the paint you used. 

The best you can do is hit the grass and sand with some paint or ink to try and get it close. Sometimes, that works. The other downside is, that sometimes your grass-like material is "sticky". Either actually sticky or it has a static-magnetic effect.

There is some irony that the grass tends to stick to metal models more than plastic models, despite the metal being completely non-magnetic. 

The last un-fun part of doing bases is, let's say you get this looking great, where the tones match your models and the table you use. It isn't long before you show up at a friend's house, or a comic book store with nice tables, and your bases look bad again. 

I suppose it's just like painting, I guess I need to practice. 

February Update - Catching Up

Since Christmas, I have been alternating between Football and illness, either me or someone in the house. Football is over, but this new ick still has me. Last week, 1-3 people were out of the office daily with one thing or another. It was a rough week.  

Let's start with the fun part of the update: Rabbits. 

Fiver has a new house. It's a Snoopy house for a small dog or cat. Fiver barely fits, but he likes it. He shares with the cats, but not at the same time. He'd squish them. He is rapidly approaching 30 lbs. 

Now to the dog, Tori. She has been very sick since Christmas week. More than a few times we thought we'd lose her. She was on a ridiculous amount of pills. As of now, she is down to just 2. Unfortunately, one of these is a steroid. She is packing on the weight and is very unpredictable. 

When I say, unpredictable, I mean really it. Sometimes she lays on her side like a stuffed animal with all four paws poking straight out. If something bothers her in this position, she barks like Cujo. It is surreal because she doesn't move at all. Just barks like a crazy thing.  

Once she recovers, the two of us are going walking each night. Between her lovely weight gain and my diabetes, we need it. If this lasts 'til spring, she will be out there with me re-doing the garden. I don't need to expand, I need to clean up.  

This post wouldn't be complete without circling back to rabbits. We have a family of bunnies in the backyard. Sometimes, I go out there and see 2-3 of them hiding in plain sight. Tori never notices them, or if she does, she ignores them. 

I expect to do battle with them over my garden. I don't mind, I sort of count on it. I have an area under a tree where I can plant strawberries for the rabbits. I might try carrots and radishes, too. I want to kill off the grass there so I don't have to mow that space. My real gardening spaces are fenced, so the rabbits can't do too much damage. 

I'll share pictures as the cleanup begins. Right now, I have a picture as a hint for the next post. I'm planning more than gardening: