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. 

Minigame Tryout Compartments

This game is designed to be as simple as possible. There are limited number of systems and compartments on each ship. 

In the last post, I mentioned 6 different hit "locations" for criticals. Each type of ship has a list of six hit locations, all of which are different.  

You will notice that some ships are compromised by different types of criticals while others are not. A commercial ship doesn't have the same abilities as warships or auxiliaries, so they cannot lose these systems. Warships are hardened against many attacks, so they cannot lose particular abilities. 

A commercial vessel has the following critical hit locations: 

1. Life Support,
2. Communications, 
3. Hyperdrive, 
4. Sublight Drive, 
5. Compartment breech,
6. and Cargo Hold.  

The Auxiliary ship has a different list: 

1. Life Support,
2. Communications, 
3. Hyperdrive, 
4. Sublight Drive, 
5. Compartment breech,
6. and ECM. 

The Military Ship has the following: 

1. Communications, 
2. Hyperdrive, 
3. Sublight Drive, 
4. Auxiliary Drive,
5. Compartment breech,
6. ECCM. 

What effect do each of these things have on a ship? 

Life Support keeps the crew alive. If it is damaged, it must be repaired at the end of combat. If it isn't the ship must be abandoned at the end of combat. 

Communications are the ship's radio and other systems. If the ship loses it, it may not surrender, coordinate attacks with other ships, combine fire (and die rolls) of two or more weapons. It's not really critical, but more of a nuisance if it is damaged or destroyed. 

Hyperdrive, Sublight Drives and Auxiliary Drives are pretty explanatory. Without Sublight drives, you can't manuouver. Without a Hyperdrive, you can't flee combat. An Auxillary Drive is a backup system for both sublight or hyperdrives. It can either maneuver a ship or allow you to escape battle via a jump. Once the choice is made, the other is ceases to be an option. 

ECM is Electronic Counter Measures. It screws with an enemy's targeting of your ship. Losing it reduces the effectiveness of you defensive systems. If an Auxiliary loses this equipment, they are hit has often as a commercial ship would be, except criticals remain the same. Commercial ships don't have ECM, so can't lose it and it is deeply buried in a warship, it can't be lost. 

ECCM is Electronic Counter-Counter Measures or the ability to fine target another ship. Warships have them as an extra part in their design. Losing it reduces your effectiveness in combat. ECCM covers an array of combat situations. For example, ECCM allows a ship to target multiple ships with one weapon. Neither Auxiliaries or Commercial ships can have ECCM as a standard part. There are a few exceptions. 

Compartment breech and Hold hits damage specific areas on the ship. For the commercial ship, it represents a large area that is easy to hit on a Commercial ship. It appears twice on the critical tables, once at the top level and second time on the compartment table. Other types of ships have holds, they are relatively small and don't appear on the critical table until specific compartments are hit. 

If Compartment breech is rolled, you have lost the use of one item on your ship and any crewmen in that area are killed either by the impact or being spaced. They can be replaced from other sections of the ship. Some items can take more than one hit. 

Here are a list of all possible compartments, not every ship will have every type of compartment: 

1. Bridge, 
2. Shield Generator.
3. Emergency Station. 
4. Turrets
5. Weapons Bay, 
6. Engineering, 
7. Cargo Hold, 
8. Shuttle or Fighter Bay/Hanger, 
9. Magazine, 
10. Armory,
11. Medical, 
12. Vehicle Bay, 
13. Vault, 
14. Barracks
15. Medical
16. Quarters.  

Once a compartment is destroyed, the next item on this list is hit in subsequent rolls. The bridge is always item 1, shield generator and emergency station is always 2 and 3. Barracks, medical and crew quarters are always last. 

Players arrange their critical list as they see fit, using the rules above. Commercial ships and Auxiliaries are at a disadvantage as they typically don't have all 16 items available to them. 

An example layout of a ship could be: 

1. Bridge,
2. Weapons Bay, 
3. Engineering, 
4. Cargo Hold, 
5. Shuttle Bay,
6. Vehicle Bay,
   Vault,
   Medical
   Quarters.  

The first six items are subject to hits all the time, while the items with no numbers cannot be hit until something is crossed off the list. If the ship lost engineering, the vault would replace it on the list. After vault is destroyed, medical is next. If the fighting was intense, the ship could be destroyed before anything else moves up the list. In any case, quarters would be the last compartment destroyed.  

Some items that can take more than one hit are as follows: 

1. Turrets,
2. Weapons Bay, 
3. Cargo Hold, 
4. Shuttle or Fighter Bay/Hanger, 
5. Magazine, 
6. Armory,
7. Vehicle Bay, 
8. Vault. 

The weapons bay and turrets can take up to three hits each and hits may be distributed at the captain sees fit. The first hit degrades the weapon or turret dropping it a tech level. The second hit knocks it out and third blows it off the ship. A vault can take three hits. The first two damage it and the third destroys it and its contents. 

The magazine and armory can take two hits each, but are non-functional after the first and blown away on the second. The armory stores weapons for ground combat, it has no meaning in a fight unless boarding occurs. The magazine feeds some weapons. When it is damaged, those weapons can only shoot with the ammo they have at the ready. For commercial ships, this one one more shot, for auxiliaries it's two and for military ships it is three. 

The hanger or vehicle bays can take one hit for the space and one additional hit for each vehicle stored there. Once hit, they may not launch shuttles or deploy vehicles until repaired. 

In each of these cases, the ability to be hit multiple times does not increase the number of hits a ship can take. If a commercial ship takes 5 and 5 criticals, it is destroyed. Usually. 

Cargo holds are an exception to the rule. A unit of cargo destroyed DOES absorb a hit above and beyond what a ship can take. The last hit guts the cargo bay. A commercial ship with 10 units cargo could absorb 10 additional hits to the cargo bay on top of the 10 needed to destroy the ship. Hangers and shuttles do not have this property as the items stored there tend to explode, burn or become heavy projectiles when hit. 

I haven't explained what every item is for, which will be the next post and subsequent posts will cover fighters, shuttles, boats and combat modifiers. 

Minigame Tryout

There is something liberating about a blank piece of paper. I have better tools, but paper and pencil is the best for ideation. After looking long and hard at Star Smuggler, I decided to create a mini-game based off of it. This is probably very derivative of many sci-fi games. 

Combat rules are simple. Roll one six sided die for each tech level of your guns. If multiple guns are available, they are either fired singly or grouped together. This will impact the number of critical hits you can do. If the opposing ship is a commercial vessel, you hit on a 1-3. If the opposing ship is an auxiliary ship you need a 1 or 2. If the opposing ship is a military vessel, only a one hits.

A Commercial ship is anything that is not designed by the military. A critical will be scored on two 1's or two 2's sequentially. Two criticals will be score on sequential rolls a 1 and a 2. These must be sequential rolls. For example a roll of 1, 1, 2, 3, is just one critical and four hits, while a roll of 1, 2, 1, 2 is four hits and four criticals. 

An Auxillary is a commercial ship designed with military tech and refits in mind. It is not a war vessel, but has some defenses. It is hit on a score of 1 or 2. A critical will be scored on two 1's, sequentially. Two criticals will be score on sequential rolls 1 and a 2. For example a roll of 1, 1, 2, 3, is just one critical and three hits, while a roll of 1, 2, 1, 2 is four hits and four criticals. 

A warship or military ship is designed specifically for combat. A critical will be scored on a sequential rolls of 1 and 1. Military ships do not take double criticals. For example a roll of 1, 1, 2, 3, is just one critical and two hits while a roll of 1, 2, 1, 2 is only two hits and no criticals.

A ship can take a number of hits depending on type not size. A commercial ship can take 10 hits, a Auxiliary can take 15 and a warship can take 20. Warships are designed to shed fire. 

Critical hits score a point of damage and damage a specific part of the ship. Critical hits are scored against certain parts of the ship: Life Support, Communications, Engines, Warp Drives, Shields and specific compartments. While each of the first 5 can be damaged only once, specific compartments can be hit multiple times. Think of it as trying to destroy a garbage can with a sledgehammer. It just keeps taking ugly hit after hit. Enough hits and it stops being a garbage can or in this case, a ship.  

Next post, compartments, shuttles and fighters plus roll modifiers. 

The Movement Game

In AD&D, movement is not real clear. On page 39, of the PHB distance is covered. 1" is 10 yards outside or 10 feet inside. Ah, easy. Next it says: "Your referee will have information which will enable him or her to adjust the movement rate to the applicable time scale for any situation".

Actually, that's not true. The information is on 101 and 102 of the PHB. Characters move 12" per round or 120 feet per minute. Outside, the rate changes to 12" = 12 miles per half day of travel, where "day" is defined as "daylight hours". Encumbered characters move less.

It is all very reasonable, so long as one doesn't ask "how fast can I move?". If you can run an 8 and half minute mile, you're moving at 62" in game terms or 621 feet per minute. An Olympic runner would be much faster. That is totally nuts.

But why break the math like this? This is AD&D, not a running simulator.

Last session, my players got in a dice heavy combat that came dangerously close to killing several of them and as the DM, I didn't realize how bad it was. 8 NPCs were actually killed, in some cases over-killed.

In this session, I wanted that fun without the element of danger and without railroading the characters with imaginary danger. The players realized the scenario was good fun without too much danger.

Here are the rules:

1. A character can move 12" per segment, or 6 seconds. Encumbered characters move less fast.   
2. At these speeds, no weapons can be used. 
3. Turning 45 degrees costs 1" of forward movement. 


1. Diagonal movement on the ground has no penalty other than the loss of distance covered, as the character moving parkour style. 
2. Diagonal movement for flying creatures is doubled. One unit at a 45 degree angle counts double as they need to avoid things to stay airborne. 
3. Turning 90 degrees costs 3" of forward movement.
4. To stop, one must roll a 1d4 to see how many inches they will travel before stopping. 
4. You can hit people with things in the environment, such as tree limbs, baskets, boxes, etc. 
5. Everyone is AC 10 to these attacks, less Dex bonus and magical item bonus.
6. These attacks don't do damage, they change the target's facing. 
7. Roll to hit vs. AC 10, then roll a 6 sided die for effect. Consult the following table: 
1. Turned 90 degrees to the left for free, but returning to your previous course costs 3".
2.  As above, but to the right. 
3. Turned 45 degrees to the right for free, but returning to your previous course costs 1". 
4. As above, except to the left. 
5. You hurtled the object and moved one 1" forward for free. 
6. You are knocked down. You are motionless for the remainder of the segment. 
8. Repeat as long as the fun allows. 

What is great about this system, is everyone can participate with little danger of death. Of course, wiley characters will invent ways to kill each other like this.

As near as I can tell, there is no good way to implement normal combat with this set of mini rules. Some rules of thumb. Bow fire could come once every 5 segments, twice per round and always comes last in the order above. Crossbows can fire immediately on segment 1, but then have to reload over the next ten segments. The interesting effect of bow fire and crossbow fire, is the environment itself. In a crowded city street, even a slow character can step around a corner preventing a shot from landing or even being fired.

As far as melee weapons go, even a lowly magic user or urchin should be able to stay one jump ahead...