A FATE based DUNE session report.

Last night I took a couple of excellent players through time and space to a desert planet, the desert

planet, Arrakis, also known as DUNE. We were playing an adventure using the FATE rules and the brave heroes were a native Fremen and an Atreides who had escaped the Harkonnen trap. It was set during the Sardaukar pogrom, around a village so insignificant it did not even have a name.

The Fremen troops were temporarily living in a small cave fairly close to the village when the troop's leader came to our heroes and gave them a mission. The Harkonnen overseers of the village had nearly caught some Fremen out on the sand the day before, and he had decided it was time to take that thopter away from them. Thus the PCs had to get that thopter.

They took to the rocky ridge overlooking the village and spent the day in observation. The thopter returned in the evening bringing the workers back from the factories. The Harkonnens kicked the villagers out and one of them slowly opened the big door on the Harkonnen bunker before rolling the thopter inside. A short while later they observed one of the Harkonnens stomp into the village and drag a couple of resisting women back to the bunker.

They hatched a plan.Sneaking into the village they found the people were not happy with their situation but at the same time were scared of reprisals should they do anything. When they found the husband of one of the taken women, they worked on him for a while and managed to solicit his willing help.

Our Atreides had his best roll of the night when he disguised himself as the villager. A Harkonnen walked into the village and blew a horn to summon the workers to their duties.Our hero joined the throng and boarded the thopter before it jumped up out of the village and left for the factories.

Our remaining hero accompanied by the troop's pilot snuck down behind the Harkonnen bunker and settled down to await the return of the thopter. His Fremen nature was challenged part way through the day when one of the Harkonnen troopers walked round the back of the bunker and peed his life's water into the sand!

During the heat of the day when everything was quiet he sneaked around to the front of the bunker and sabotaged the keypad that was used to open the big door. As the time for the return of the thopter came close, the Fremen moved around the bunker to an elevated position  from which they could watch both the main door and smaller door. Then the waiting continued...

The thopter returned, landing in a cloud of sand dust. On board were two Harkonnen guards, the pilot, a bunch of villagers, and our Atreides in disguise. The two guards literally threw the villagers out of the thopter. The small door to the bunker opened and another Harkonnen was coming out. The Fremen pilot fired her mauler pistol and the Harkonnen froze, shocked by the sudden attack. The Fremen PC leaped to the ground and buried his knife in him, then smashed the keypad seizing the smaller door.

In the thopter the disguised Atreides was the last villager about to be kicked off, when he jumped forwards and kicked one of the Harkonnens out onto the ground. The Harkonnen pilot joined the guard in the back and they both engaged our Atreides.

Outside, the Harkonnen on the floor was quickly despatched as the two Fremen rushed to the thopter.

Inside, the Atreides was wounded as he fought two Harkonnens but one of them was taken down and the other two Fremen leaped into the back of the thopter. The last Harkonnen was suddenly surrounded he took a step back, but the Atreides was in a rage and leaped at him knocking him out and down to the ground. The Fremen PC dived out and pinned the Harkonnen and the Atreides quickly finished him off.

The thopter started readying for lift off and they climbed back on board and took off just as the big door of the bunker started opening. They flew up over the ridge and the two PCs were dropped off before the thopter was  flown south.

The PCs took the time to see to their wounds and damaged stillsuits, no point in dehydrating to death! That done, they decided to return to the village, taking the carbine they had liberated from the thopter. They were thinking of protecting the villagers from any Harkonnen repercussions.  As they arrived in the village three Harkonnens were marching into it from the other end. They were blowing horns and summoning the villagers. The villagers were scared, this was unusual and anything unusual the Harkonnens did was always bad for the villagers.

The PCs hatched a plan, the Atreides would take the carbine and shoot a Harkonnen as the Fremen simultaneously attacked from behind. But the Atreides couldn't wait for his pal to get into position (compel) and shot one of the Harkonnens. The other two bad guys flicked on their shields and met the Fremen hand to hand. The Atreides PC threw away the carbine and ran into the combat.

It was bloody, and FATE points were drained from the PCs. It ended with a villager on the Harkonnen's knife, the Atreides bleeding from a serious wound and the last Harkonnen all but beheaded.

There ended the session with the mission a complete success. The thopter was stolen, seven out of ten of the Harkonnen were dead and the remainder cut off from outside help.

The players were great, both thoughtful and inventive. They were not afraid to dive into the action when the time was right. One PC was almost killed in the final fight, but in the end seven for one would have been a good exchange wouldn't it. :)

Scenario and Char-Gen

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Judge Dredd, session report (It Aint Christmas)

On Friday night I ran my second one-shot Judge Dredd session using FATE as the rules system. The scenario was called "It Aint Christmas" and featured an investigation into a murder and a series of related human mutilations.

It always amazes me how players deviate from what I expect them to do. I plan a scenario, a particular scene, and I even work out how they might resolve the issue, and then when play starts, off they go in a different direction!

I started the game by throwing the players into some action. A militia tank driver had gone nuts and started killing people. His tank was in a secure position just in front of a bunker with ferrocrete and fire barriers to either side of it. When the PCs arrived the tank had already blown up another tank and mown down a swath of people on the street. It had also started firing its main gun into the blocks opposite.

When I had thought-up this scene I fully expected the judges to make use of the cannons or lasers on their bikes, but no! They had a much cooler approach. :) One brave judge deliberately rode his bike across in front of the tank drawing its attention while another sneaked up and lobbed a riot-foam grenade at the tank. This immobilized the turret and allowed the judges to move in.

One Judge raced to the main gun and slipped a grenade down its barrel just as another blew the doors off the back. The barrel blew apart as it fired and a Judge dragged out the perp. Nothing whatever like I had imagined. :D

The heroes were then called to a body in a park on the 30th floor of a block. I had this investigative part of the session planned, laying out the investigation step by logical step...but they didn't go the way I expected, of course. They split the party and managed to leap a couple of steps to start questioning one of the guilty parties almost immediately, clever sneaky players!

This lead them down to the sub basements of the block and to the bad guys, a large group of Troggies that had tunneled into the basement. The basement was poorly lit, troggies nipping in between and over the stacks of crates that stretched off into the dimness and the players soon found themselves surrounded. However they were amongst the stacks of war supplies kept by every block. So out came the hardware. RPGs and machines guns. Bullets were sent shooting through the dark while explosives were piled into the tunnel the troggies were using to enter the block. As the Judges blew the explosives and ran for the exit.

There were so many cool moments created by the PCs, the craziness of the yodeling being played over the P.A. in the dim basement was great. The moment of switching to I.R. vision was very Aliens-like. Setting off the fire suppressing gas to suffocate the troggies was an expression of genius.

The final scene had the three Judges standing outside the block discussing what the perp should be charged with. When the explosion they'd set off in the basement had the whole block collapsing behind them. They watched the collapse, adding charges based on what the collapsing building destroyed as it fell. Comic genius.

Players like these make my day.

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It Aint Christmas - a scenario for Judge Dredd

This is a scenario for any Judge Dredd RPG. I played it with FATE and had a very successful session

(its a one-shot). It was played through with 3 Judges but the difficulty can easily be ramped up or down. It features two main combats, one at either end of the session, and a fairly simple investigation.

It's called "It Aint Christmas" because the new craze introduced is "Block Sledding" where citizens use wheeled sleds to race down the outside of blocks.

Basic stats are included for FATE (but the scenario is generic).

Download the scenario

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Skylanders as a boardgame

My son has been collecting the Skylanders figures for quite some time, and I love the look of these

things, I've wanted to come up with a board game for them for the longest time. Well I finally pulled

Sample card

my finger out and started what promises to be a long term project.

The card image on the right is my first stab at creating a character card for the game. What follows are my first thoughts about the game rules. These are not finalised, not even play tested, just the results of a brain-dump.

The playing surface needs to be a 6cm grid to fit the figure bases, perhaps with stand up terrain in some squares to block line of sight and add interest.

• The "Allies" in the top right corner might say anything and indicates some kind of affiliation.
• The 1 in the orange circle is the cost to "buy" the figure into your army, a process done before game play starts, players take alternate turns buying figures up to an agreed amount.
• The text at the bottom is usually flavour text, but may describe a special in-game ability.
• The stats in the blue box are, Melee Attack dice, Defence dice, Range of attacks, Health.
• Melee attack into adjacent boxes, roll 1 D6 for each Melee Attack point, all 5s and 6s count as hits.
• Defence, used when attacked, roll 1 D6 for each Defence point, all 5s and 6s block one incoming attack point.
• Range, this indicates the range over which you may make attacks, Ranged attack are different to Melee. They can not be made into adjacent squares (that would be melee). The Ranged value indicates the number of dice you attack with, but reduces with each square of range between attacker and target.
• The Health number, indicate how many points of damage you can take before the character is killed (removed from the game).
• All figures may move 2 squares.
• Blood tokens will be placed on a characters card to indicate hits.
• The board will be sprinkled with 3D "crates". Moving into a square allows the character to pick up the crate. Each crate may be burned (discarded) when the players wants, to do one of the following things. Heal one point, move two additional spaces, add two to Range, Melee, or Defence score for one turn.
• There may be terrain effects, such as height or cover.

Well that's all my thoughts from a first session of brain storming. There are a lot of possible additions to such a simple system but to be honest, I want it kept simple.

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Rise of the Shoggoths

I had an idea last night for another game. I have too many ideas, and don't have enough time to make all of them into reality. The idea was to base a game around the uprising and rebellion of the Shoggoths against their "Elder Things" masters.  This theme is Lovecraftian and if you google those terms you'll get some interesting images to show you what they look like.

My first thoughts were that this would be an excellent solitaire deck builder, but I'm wise enough to know that the reason I think that, is that I'm working on a solitaire deck builder right now. Thus there may be a better implementation for the theme. If it's to be a two player game it can be asymmetrical powers, with the Elder Things having technology and bio-engineering, and the Shoggoths being sneaky and having brute force.

This theme seems really good to me, strong, with an appeal to Lovecraft fans. I have a bunch of ideas for sub themes and various mechanisms but... At this point I suspect I'll never be able to progress the game because I don't have a ready supply of the required art. :(

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Hospital Corners - a scenario for Judge Dredd

 "Hospital Corners" is a system-generic scenario for use in playing a role playing session in the universe of Judge Dredd. It's designed with a single session in mind, but with a few incidents along the way that can be dropped in to extend the session if you want.

I wrote this scenario for a game of FATE but it has no stats or figures, so it can be used in whatever system you're using to run Judge Dredd.

It's a minor investigation type scenario with a planned battle towards the end. The drop-ins already mentioned can be used to spice up the mid game of things start to lag.

Download the PDF

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Judge Dredd - Mongoose

I've just finished reading the Mongoose "Judge Dredd" RPG book. What they've put in this book is good but I'm left a little disappointed and here's why.

This is a setting-book, you require Mongoose Traveller to actually play the game. I find this so very disappointing. What I really wanted was one book with setting and rules.

There are no rules to play, in here. There are Char' Gen' rules but these refer to the Traveller rules so you end up with two books to look through, which is tedious and a pain the butt. With this book alone you can not fire a gun nor ride a Lawmaster. :( You can gain skills when creating a character that are not explained in this book. :(


There are other omissions too which I found rather galling. Traveller has a wonderful set of subsector rules for mapping space, I'd hoped there would be the equivalent rules in here for mapping a sector of Mega City 1. Nope. In fact there is a section saying you don't need to do this, that you should keep you game versatile and use story rather than maps. Dammit, I wanted to map a sector, build a series of blocks. That was actually what I expected from a Traveller based system. So yes, disappointing.


The book has some great pieces of comic book art. But no maps, not one. It even goes into detail of one sector telling you all about a number of city blocks and characters therein, but again, no maps. I find that puzzling.


I've used the above to waffle on about how disappointed I was, but that is offset by how good this book is as a resource. If you have read one or two Dredd stories and want to run a game set in that world this book is an excellent purchase. You don't need to have read every Dredd story ever, as all the major themes in the background are covered in this book. There is a lot of detail here that will make you salivate. If you want to run a Dredd game using any rules-set I would suggest this book is a must buy.

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How to Play - Wipers Salient

Watch and be amazed how a game designer can get the demo of his own game wrong! :)

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Solitaire Memoir '44 Omaha Beach

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Solitaire Memoir '44 Pointe Du-Hoc

Here's my solo play through of the fourth scenario from the base game.

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Wipers Salient - Released in physical form

My game 'Wipers Salient' is now available pre-printed from Gamecrafter. Get your WWI deck building fix!

Here's a vid of me unboxing the proof copy..

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Basement? What basement?

In the fourth session of our Basic D&D campaign, the PCs completely did not enter the dungeon/basement, it's like they saw the rails and ran the other way!

They returned to the Inn with the captured Mayor (see last session report) and found the usual collection of townspeople inside. There was some discussion about how to put him on trial. They ended up with three judges, a prosecution and a defence, that was what you might expect, their choices for the roles was where it went a little weird. The Prosecution was the PCs, the judges included a drunken priest, the Inn keeper that they were buying the Inn from, and one of the PCs. The Defence was being played by the Mayor's ex-slave (freed by the PCs, the same day).

All of the mayors "crimes" were illiterated. The mayor responded with spiting and anger. Then they called on the Defence to make a statement. The ex-slave put down his pie and his beer, stood up and said "We should hang him!" There was a lot of agreement from the people in the Inn. The PCs hackles went up, this wasn't the defence they had expected! The Cleric (a PC) stepped into the breech and after a short break made a heart felt plea for mercy.This ended up with the mayor being chained to a post in the stables until a permanent solution could be devised.

The PCs didn't want to leave a power vacuum so called an election in the middle of town. By a raising of hands they would vote for a new mayor. The only candidate was the Inn keeper, as everyone else there seemed a little confused by the process. Once he was elected he immediately turned to the other townsfolk and started demanding money from them. The PCs intervened and discovered that demanding money is what the old mayor did so he thought he should do it too. They told him it was no way to behave and packed him off to the mayor's house with a thousand gold coins of their own. He took their money with a sly smile and headed off.

Now they wanted some inspiration, as there were missing people that needed to be found. The pot boy from the inn and the Assay for instance. The cleric asked his god for guidance. He started turning on the spot with mace extended he waited for inspiration. As his eyes were closed he didn't see a new NPC fighter pushing through the crowd. Of course the cleric clonked him on the head as he swung around.

The fighter was injured, carrying a bloodied sword with broken shield, and now a bruised head. He revealed that he had staggered here after fighting to free some captives from slavers in the nearby woods. Thinking this might be where the missing people had ended up, the PCs healed the fighter, who was named Garthan. He lead them back to the place where he had fought with the slavers. It looked like he had killed two of them before being driven off.

They followed the slavers trail to a clearing. In the middle of this open area was a raised mound and an iron bound door set into the side. The thief popped the lock and the PCs slipped in finding themselves in a room with two armed sleeping men. Without issuing a challenge they killed them both. Through a door, across a corridor,and opening another door they found themselves in an underground stable. Three men were watering the horses. Without a pause they dropped the buckets and charged. Hacky, slashy, thump. Two of them were killed and the third pounded to the ground. They wanted him alive for questioning. He gave them directions to where the big boss could be found before being knocked out.

Following the directions led them to a large room with a pool in the corner. The floor of the room had buckets all over it collecting water that was dripping from the roof, and the "riddit" sounds coming from the pool advertised the fact that there was a giant frog in here. The pool was by the door  they needed to get through. Of course the frog went for them as they neared that door. Poor silly frog, should have known better, may he rest in pieces.

Through the door along a corridor and they had reached the end of the directions they'd extracted. Our heroic fighter PC tried listening at the door. There was a flash of light (but no sound) and he was thrown to the floor badly hurt. Magical trap! Thinking that perhaps the "J" tattoo that all of these enemies had might help here, they went back to the stable and dragged the unconscious man back to the door and used his hand to open the door. It worked!

Inside they found a big man rising from his bed. They attacked. Maces, swords, arrows and backstabs! The man fought back with with a flaming fist. He put up a good fight and some of his friends turned up starting a second fight at the door as Garthan tried to hold them off. The PCs took some hurt and pretty soon laid out the big guy. The sight of his beheaded corpse set his friends running.

An extensive and detailed search of the room turned up a small chest and a magical scroll. Unfortunately the thief took a very dangerous dart as he opened the chest but did find a horde of 500gp inside.

The very next door they tried led revealed the missing townsfolk chained to the walls of a prison. They quickly freed them and headed for town on the ten ponies from the stables. There was much jubilation and cheering. They had been left with the impression that there may have been more people kept as prisoners in the mound, but before heading back they decided spend the night healing up and buying more healing potions. They cleared out the potion seller and it's likely to be a few weeks before he has any more potions.

A visit to check on the mayor found him hungry and thirsty. It looked like someone had emptied his own slop bucket over him.  Feeling a little sorry for him the Cleric freed him intending to get him food, water, and a wash, but the mayor attacked. His attack was weak and hopeless so he was quickly subdued and returned to his chains.

Karrbo, the mayors ex-slave and ex-defence-lawyer was offered the job of bar tender which he was glad to take. The PCs were hoping to keep the Inn ticking over until they returned to take ownership. So with everything in-hand they headed back to the mound in the woods.

They found the door closed and locked. When the rapped on the door they heard things being piled against the door. It seemed the slavers were not all dead!. The thief popped the lock (again) and they barged in...into a hail of arrows! Five guys were waiting, three with bows and two with swords drawn. The swordsmen attacked but were quickly swatted aside. The bowmen ran through a door but not before one took an arrow in the back.

There ended the session. The players now have two partially explored dungeons within reach of their home. A home I might add, that has had its power structures turned upside down by our friendly murder-hobos.

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Unboxing Wipers Salient

The first pre-printed copy of my game Wipers Salient has just turned up, and here's me unboxing it.. Oooh I was so excited and nervous!

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Solitaire Memoir '44 Sword Beach

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Solitaire Memoir '44 Sainte Mere-Eglise

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Solitaire "Memoir '44" Pegasus Bridge

Here's me playing Memoir '44 by myself and only making half a dozen mistakes.

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What would you do? Memoir 44

Here's a quick video asking a question about Memoir 44. What card would you play and which units would you activate?

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Basement 3: Son of Basement

Last night's game of Basic Dungeons and Dragons was the third installment of a scenario all about clearing the basement beneath the inn. Things did not go according to my plans.

Between sessions I had teased some events and answered a few in character questions. The PCs started by asking around the gathered populous about the daggers and the ladle they had recovered from the basement. Only the local blacksmith had something to say. He examined the rusty knife, and had nothing to say other than being surprised that a rusty knife was still so sharp. He looked over the dagger with the gold inlay, remarked that it was well made, but was not impressed with gold being inlaid. He is far too practical a man for that sort of nonsense. He knew nothing about the ladle. They asked if he thought they were magical, and he knew nothing but suggested they might visit the wizard across town, but to be careful as he was a cantankerous git.

The mayor of the town stuck his oar in too when the PCs emerged from the dungeon. Trying to play to the crowd saying that the fact that the PCs had come out again without clearing the dungeon proved how dangerous the place was, and that "he" who cared so much for the town should be given the Inn to keep it safe and to keep the people safe. It didn't go down to well. However it was the precursor to another play that would come up later.

The session proper started with the players visiting the wizard. They found him in an empty stable sitting on a trunk. After a wee bit of back a forth, which included him demanding presents, he set himself to looking over their daggers and of course the ladle.  The rusty knife he flicked away contemptuously simply saying "Silver dagger". Which left the PCs wondering how a silver dagger could be rusty. The ladle he again dismissed as a Cleric's or Healer's ladle (and indeed it later proved to restore a hit point when used to serve) but he had more to say about the fancy dagger. It was of Elvish origin made probably hundreds of  years ago. It was a made to kill lycanthropes and wouldn't kills elves. They gave the wizard a few coins and left him "reading" his invisible (or at least they couldn't see) book, with a promise to bring him any books they came across.

Back at the Inn They prepared to descend once more into the dungeon basement, when one of the Mayors thugs came over and demanded he come with them, and that they give him 10gp. They declined but he clearly told them that was not an option. Things started to get a bit fruity, words were thrown, and shoulders were pushed and it ended with a thinly veiled threat that they would regret it as "the boss" didn't like to be disobeyed.

Our heroes entered the basement and stayed quiet in order to hear if the thug was going to do any thing. It turned out he WAS doing something, he was nailing the blummin door shut! They set to the door and eventually smashed thorough and found the thug with hammer in hand and nails between his lips. Bish bash bosh they knocked him out and offered the innkeeper 10gp for the repair of his door and asked him to feed the brute when he woke. Very considerate I thought.

Back into the dark they went and consulting their map they found a door they hadn't previously opened. Listening at it they heard a burning fire. Quietly they opened the door onto a little room with a door opposite that had gaps and knot holes. The thief had a bit of a peek and saw four man sitting around a fire of burning barrel staves. They knocked. The door was opened and the men invited them in and to sit by their fire which they duly did. One of the men went to shut the door and as he turned back to them he and his comrades transformed into rat men and attacked the PCs. In the ensuing fight the magic daggers were put to use along with the fighter's silver headed, if jury rigged, spear. The cleric however turned into a crazed flame thrower and he sent bottle after bottle of flaming oil at the beasties. The thief also did that most dastardly of things the backstab!

With the monsters dead and the PCs not too well off, they started an exacting and detailed search of the room by firelight. After tripping over it, they discovered an invisible chest filled with coins. A merry and delightful happenstance that lead the PCs to considering the purchase of the Inn above them. Thus they promptly left my Dungeon Masterly rails and headed into the wild blue yonder (eek!).

Back at the Inn, they found the thug and the mayor were gone and tried to purchase the Inn by offering a thousand coins or so, and even offered the Innkeeper the chance to carry on running the place. He asked why if he had all that money he would continue to work as an innkeeper, to which no satisfactory answer could be given.

He was up for the idea but wanted to check that this horde of coin was not fools gold. They suggested he take a random coin or two and check, there was an assay in the town. The Innkeeper was suspicious and didn't want to wander over there with a couple of coins, as the remainder might be swapped in his absence. The PCs didn't want to let him go with the money either.

In the end one of the pot-boys was sent to bring the assay to the Inn. They waited, and waited and waited. Neither the boy nor the assay appeared. With another Inn-boy as guide they went out to the assay's abode and found the front door open, the fire burning down, but no assay and no boy.

As morning came they visited the missing boy's mother suspecting that the little tearaway had simply gone home. She was horrified and ran out to the assay's looking for her lad, then to the Inn but he was not to be found.

With people going missing our heroes decided it was time to visit the Mayor and see what he would do about this matter. The Mayor's house sat within its own hedged grounds and as they passed the hedge they were confronted by two of his guards. "You shall not pass" was their message but the heroes really wanted to pass and so it came to blows. Swords were draw and subduing damage done. In fact one of the guards was subdued to the floor in a bloody pulp. The other broke, and ran for the house. The Cleric whipped out is sling and promptly dropped the runner with a single shot.

They stepped over the runners body and knocked on the front door of the mayors house.A little rat of a man answered and they pushed their way in knocking him to the floor.

The mayor appeared in his dressing gown, was horrified to find armed men entering his house with violence. They asked him what he knew about the disappearances but he claimed not to know and to care less. "Peasants disappear all the time, how should I know what happens to them?"

He promptly shut and barricaded the door leaving our heroes in the hallway. They checked the rest of the house finding plenty of pies which they tried. Then they sent the little man with an armful of pies off to the Inn (and thereby setting the Mayors serf free).

With the door barricaded they went round the outside of the house looking for a window and they soon found the Mayors bedroom. With no Mayor to be found they suspected he'd done a runner via the open window. The thief jumped to the thatch for a looksee and spotted the brave Mayor running like a mad man beyond the hedge. They set out after him. The fighter was the only one able to keep up and out enduranced(CON) the Mayor. They manacled him and dragged him back to the Inn for some kind of trial.

There ended the session. What will happen next time? I haven't a clue, this train aint got no rails.

Edit: Our thief has reached second level!

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Actual Play of Lovecraftian Shorts

"The Redacted Files" podcast published an actual-play recording of themselves playing my game, Lovecraftian Shorts . I'm pretty pumped to hear strangers having such a good time with my game.

They nailed it.

Go to The Redacted Files

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I killed the Alien!

Today was truely my day of days! I played "Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building" game

and I won. Every other play of it up to this point had ended in bloody disaster, twice with the Nostromo blowing up killing everyone. But not today!

I was playing solitaire with four characters. Having tried previously with just two I can now say that four is better. Both times when I've played with four I've had much more control over the game.

I played slightly differently to previously, and let's face it that's how you beat these games. Is this a constantly winning strategy, who knows, but anecdotally it worked during this play.

In my previous plays I paid a lot of attention to trying to give each character matching symbols to unlock the extra abilities. During this game I didn't do this. Instead I tried to simply duplicate cards in a characters hand to do the same thing, and this worked at least three times.

The second difference was not filling my hand with new cards just because I had money to spend. Instead I wasted some money rather than grab 1-attack cards. This actually led to the row of available cards filling with what I considered "junk". This happened twice, but did lead me to get a couple of duplicate-card purchases which helped later.

The final tactic, was minor but made a huge difference. As I drew a new hand of cards I always sorted the "coordinate" cards and placed these face up. This made sure they were always front and center. These were critical to the win. I constantly used other avatar's cards to purchase or attack, there was no thought of reserving a "coordinate" card. If I could use it I did, except on one occasion where I had to leave one attack card to deal with a face-hugger. By always using these cards I increased each individuals purchasing power enabling me to get the better cards sooner.

It so happened that I never deliberately scanned a room, only doing this when I had spare attack value that I couldn't use to actually attack. I always scanned the most expensive room that the cards allowed.

So I have completed the first film. Next time I play it'll be the "Aliens" movie, and I'm looking forward to getting a close look at the cards for that film.


... and I've just heard that a Predator version is coming, I'd better hurry up and get through the next three films!

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Back to the Basement - Basic D&D session report

Last night was a return for the players to the basement beneath the Filter Inn. Their first port of call down there was to the undead zombie creature that they'd left trapped in a barrel last time. They came armed with flasks of oil. The young cleric however wanted give turning it another try. He powered up his holy symbol..PHUT. Nothing, again. So the barrel was dowsed in three, yes three, bottles of oil and lit on fire. Then just to be sure, the burnt remains were dismembered and scattered about the dungeon.

Then is was back to exploring. The first door opened found the Kobolds from last session in a new room hard at work. The floor of the room had been excavated (10 feet of course) except for a pillar in the center, on which stood a golden statue. the kobolds were trying to construct a bridge of planks and rope to reach the statue, but the PCs thought that they themselves should be the owners of said piece of artwork. After some deft rope work and an artful piece of rope-bridge-climbing by the team's Thief they soon recovered the heavy statue and somewhat miffed the kobolds. However! The fighter had brought pie. So he delivered pie unto the kobolds and thereby placated them.

Back to the basement entrance to deposit the statue and then on to explore further. The next door opened to reveal two angry giant fire beetles. These were quickly dispatched and their juices swept into the empty oil flasks for use later.

The next door revealed two more beetles hanging on the ceiling (wandering monster beetles in fact) and these were quickly dispatched.

Into the next room which turned out to be rather empty. A bundle of sticks, perhaps firewood, was in the middle of the floor, but buried in amongst it a well kept ladle. Odd. Perhaps lost/left by the previous heroes who tried to clear this basement.

The next encounter with was a small group of Kobolds bedding down (very sleepy wandering monsters these), the PCs backed slowly out of the room leaving them to their Zs. It seems the PCs wish to find a less violent way of dealing with Kobolds.

Two more corridors led them to another pair of Fire Beetles which were guarding a hole in the floor. They were quickly dispatched and a rusty dagger was found in the rubbish scattered around the room.

When they reached a room where a partial collapse had brought down some of the ceiling they were obviously wary of a collapsing roof trap, but braved the room anyway. A banging against one of the room's doors caught their attention. When they opened the door, a veritable force of nature burst in knocking a couple of PC's to the ground. It was a large wooden trunk running along on hundreds of dear little legs. It ignored the PCs, shot across the room through the opposite open door and disappeared beyond sight. (Farewell Terry).

With the new door open they nipped through it and along the corridor beyond opening a door into what can only be described as a chapel. Bench seating was in disarray  and a large symbol was carved into the end wall. Investigation of the symbol gave the poor Cleric a bad headache (-1 for 20 mins), as it's pure evil could be felt. He set to it with hammer and destroyed this evil manifestation.

After peeking into a frog infested well the final encounter of the night was with a group of Gnomes. Some discussion with the grumpy Gnomes led the PCs to understand that they were not welcome in what the Gnomes considered their home. The PCs backed out of the room and promptly pittoned the door shut.

The PCs left for the night, returning to the upper world and the Inn. They still have a challenge before them. They were tasked with clearing the basement, but now have two groups of Kobolds and a bunch of Gnomes that aren't quite monsters, yet still need to be dealt with, it is after all harder to kill a Kobold you've shared a pie with!

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

D&D - clearing the basement

Last night I DM'ed my first game of actual basic D&D in quite a few years. It was a good mixed

party of first level characters, Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Elf , and surprise of surprises there were no characters deaths. Unthinkable for 1st level adventuring!

In the town of Sift is the Filter Inn, which has an annual event of sorts where young adventurers put themselves forwards for a 100gp bounty. All they have to do is clear the Inn's extensive basement of the "things" that have moved in. There is great honour to be had in achieving this goal, as well as the money, hence our brave PCs volunteered (read that as rail-roaded by the DM).

The Inn-keeper lead them to the basement, cleared the barrels out of the way told them the secret knock (the only way he'd open the door to someone on the other side) and shoved them down the steps.

They lit a torch and examined the first room. There was the body of a man there with shield and sword and even a few gold coins which they promptly liberated. Then commenced a series of door listening rolls that carried on all evening.  With the fighter and cleric leading the way they started  the clearing operation.

After moving through a bunch of empty rooms the only things they'd found was a small chest containing a vial of unidentified liquid and a barrel filled with salted fish. Somewhat disappointing for them, but things were soon to get interesting. The next door revealed another body. When they approached, the obviously dead individual rose to its feet and tried to strangle them. The cleric boldly stood forth and proceeded to not turn the creature. They laid into the corpse with swords, maces, arrows, sling stones and daggers. They managed to knock it to the ground a couple of times but it just wouldn't die. The cleric took a serious hit and risked drinking the vial they'd found earlier which fortunately turned out to be a healing potion.

When they came to the conclusion that the monster just was not going to die the elf came up with plan 2b. Rushing back to the salt fish barrel, he emptied it and dragged it back to the fight. The fighter slammed the beastie to the ground and they stuffed the thrashing dead man head first into the barrel and sat on top, pinning it in place. The only problem being, someone needed to stay on top of the barrel!

Looking around they found the monster had been laying of a sack of copper coins, one thousand of them. So they hoofed that on top of the barrel to hold it in place. reluctantly they left the money to hold the undead thing and moved on.

Their next encounter was a pit-turned-pool that housed two giant frogs. The first arrow fired caused the frogs to leap to the attack, but it was a fly-less effort (that's frog speak for fruitless) as they were soon clobbered into a greasy paste,

The very next door was a wandering monster. HUZZAR! They found themselves facing a man who blinked at their torch light and begged them to lead him out of the dungeon. They offered to take him out but became suspicious when he insisted on wanting to be at the back of the party. Then when they questioned him, he became agitated, then angry and then violent. The man transformed into a man-rat and attacked. He ended up not being too much of a threat and he was soon downed. When dead he transformed into a simple big rat.

Suspicious of the dead end corridor they found themselves in, the elf did his elfy-searchy-thingy and revealed a hidden door. Listening at it told them there were many strange voices beyond. Carefully they opened the door and surprised a horde of kobolds setting up camp. The kobolds tightened their grip on their weapons but did not attack. There was no way to talk with them so the party made conciliatory noises and even offered them hunks of rat and frog meat. That settled it, although not friends they were at least not enemies. The PCs ducked back out of the room and heard the kobolds hammering the door shut.

They examined their map looking for another way round and headed for the next unopened door. What they found was a tiny room with another door and when they listened at that, they again heard kobold voices. When they carefully opened they door they discovered the same kobolds, so backed out of the room. Once again the kobolds started hammering and sealing that door.

Back to the map, back through a few rooms to the next door. Kobold voices again. Peek. yep, it's them again. Irate kobold remonstrations about the disturbance as the PCs backed out. Hammering sounds as the kobolds sealed yet another door.

Onto the next door. It revealed a large room with a raised stone platform at the far end with a coffin on it. Between the PCs and the coffin, eight armed and animate skeletons which turned to attack. Realising the enemy could outflank them the PCs pulled back to the doorway as the elf cast his magical shield spell. The cleric warmed up his magical symbol to turn the skeletons but alas he must have left the key at home as it failed again. The skeletons attacked. Swords proved rather poor for this work but the fighter made up for that by managing to clobber all of the weak enemies. The cleric did his macely duty and the elf and thief sent a hail of missile fire into the foes.

In next to no time the skeletons were dust, and they investigated the coffin. Fearing Dracular himself they opened the box and discovered it empty. When they moved the coffin however they found a recess below and inside that, 600gp and a gold-inlaid dagger.

Here ended the session. The basement was by no means clear of monsters. The kobolds were contained (by themselves), the undead thing was barrelled, the skeletons, frogs and rat-man disposed of. They decided to retire for the night back upstairs and lick their wounds.

Next time, the adventure continues...

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Wipers Salient

After what seems like forever I've finally released my card game ... WIPERS SALIENT.

During WWI, Ypres was the centre of intense and sustained battles between German and Allied forces. In the game of Wipers Salient you play the part of the Allies trying to hold back the massive forces of Germany during a series of incessant attacks.

Wipers Salient is a solitaire deck building game using a deck of 52 specialised cards. You have to gather your resources to maintain your Health and Morale, whilst attacking the enemy to avoid being overwhelmed.

Included in the zipped up package:
The rules in PDF format.
The cards in a printable PDF.
All of the individual card images in a high resolution, so that you can print them using a card printing service (but please refer to the readme.txt file before doing so for licensing information).

You can purchase Wipers Salient from WargameVault

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Dungeon Mapping for players

I've created a video to help players map a dungeon in a way that doesn't lead to arguments and mistakes!

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Progress report...

My work on my WWI deck builder game is progressing nicely. I'm finally working on the rules for the game. This includes not only words but quite a few diagrams to help explain whats what and how. I'd kind of forgotten that the rules would require this. After spend weeks doing all the cards I finished the last card and was pretty darned glad to have got it done and dusted....

Only then I realised I needed some art for a couple of stat-tracks. Then I noticed that I'd done the text wrong on nine of the cards. Then I started the rules and more graphics work is needed.

I can only say, I'm so very glad I'm starting to get a handle on Inkscape. This software makes the kind of work I'm doing here fairly easy, and being SVG based it scales to any size should I need to. So if I want to convert it to use hobbit sized cards or even giant cards, I'm set :)

The problem is, I'm getting pretty worn down, working on this game. I'm so close to the end and the lure of the next game is niggling and trying to drag me away from completing this project. I will overcome!

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Mechs COPS - Session 3

The third session was planned to be the final session. With the heroes having saved the city from a nuclear detonation last time, I was left pondering how to up the pressure. In the end I started teasing the final session by making a series of posts throughout the week, as follows....

 -----

++ ALERT ++
Satellite intel indicate Kargan assault forces may be forming at multiple naval ports.

-----

++ ACTION ALERT ++
Satellite intel confirms heat blooms in the all ships and submarines along the Kargan coast.
++ ACTION ++
All military forces engage DEFCON 3 readiness protocols.
++ ACTION ++
All civil authorities prepare coastline evacuation plans.

-----

++ MISSILE LAUNCH WARNING ++
SET STATUS DEFCON-1
ACTIVATE MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEMS.
MILITARY UNITS TO COASTAL DEFENCE STATIONS.
CIVILIAN LEADERSHIP TO BUNKERS.
MARTIAL LAW DECLARED.
CIVILIAN TRAFFIC FORBIDDEN WITHIN 100 MILES OF COAST.
CIVIL DEFENSE UNITS ACTIVATED.

-----

 ++ CONTACT REPORT ++

MISSILE DEFENC[]S 96% EFFECTIVE.
MOYKO BA[]E. NO CONTACT.
HONOR[]TO BASE. NO CONTA[]T.
JINO NAVAL []ASE. CARRIER SU[]K. SABOTAGE. INFIL[]RATORS.

-----

++ CONTACT REPORT ++
KARGAN INF[]NTRY ON THE GROUND: KIANNA AI[]BASE.
KIANNA CITY MILITIA  CLOSE ON BASE.

-----

"Thanks, John. I'm standing one mile from Jino naval base. As you can see I'm wearing a rad suit, and the scene behind me makes it obvious why. The thousands of destroyed homes that previously occupied this rubble strewn landscape were owned by navy personnel and civilian naval workers.

"I'm told that the Kargan nuclear missile that struck at Jino was one of ten aimed at the docks. This reporter supposes the Kargans targeted Jino because of the military vessels docked there. But as you can see, the collateral damage is extensive.

"How many people perished here? Certainly thousands. Most I hope, are safe in the shelters and will survive this unmitigated and  unnecessary attack.I...I...I for one, will be joining the militia right after I terminate this broadcast. I'm close to tears right now...They dare to call it a war of liberation! Liberation!...I swear to you all, I will kill the first Kargan bastard I see.

"Back to the studio. Miko Yasuki, channel three seven five."

-----

++ CONTACT REPORT ++
AIR RAID APP[]OACHING JINO COAST.
ESTIMATE 600 AIRCRAFT.
ALL AIR []NITS INTERCEPT, TARGET TRANSPORTS FIRST.

-----

The aid held out the radio-phone for Major General Hoata White, but the General hesitated. His mind was a whirl of despair-level decisions and he was almost afraid to talk to phone.

It didn't matter who was on the other end of the line, he knew what they wanted. They wanted help, something he couldn't give them. As he paused he felt a shaking fear rising from the pit of his stomach. He remembered when this had started, shit, only sixteen hours ago! Back then, he'd had three complete divisions under his command, plus a mecha air wing, and a battalion of front line combat mecha.

Now what did he have? Nothing. He was left pushing around the crumbs of his forces. No strike unit, no reserves. What could he offer the man on the other end of line. Hope? Was that it, was he reduced to giving his men hope?

The General blinked, twice. Hope. There was, Hope.

He snapped the phone from his aid's hand, covered the pick up with a gnarled hand and whispered to the aid. "Get me the District 6 police bunker. Now!"

He cleared his throat and spoke calmly into the radio-phone.

Police Lt Hope

"Report soldier. How can I help?"

-----

So the session proper started. With the military devastated, the militia gone, they turned to the COPS. Lt Hope answered his army-uncle's call and loaded his mekton unit up onto the road-train. Each PC's mekton was issued a heavy duty shield which snapped onto their backs.

All the PCs knew was that they were wanted out at Jino navy base. The road train rushed them out of the city and onto the interstate. The train rolled to a standstill on an elevated road that crossed an extensive marsh. A couple of hundred meters of the road was missing leaving a marshy gap.

After puzzling about a way to get across, they convinced the train driver to uncouple the tractor unit and reattach at the other end and push the first few cars over the edge to form a ladder down to the marsh. When he was in position Tanaka climbed down the cars to the marsh where he started sinking. Yamamoto jumped his mekton down from the road and immediately sunk to his chest. Tanaka slipped the shield off his mekton's back and used it to spread his weight. He was then able to help pull Yamamoto free. When Tylor descended down the "ladder" they found themselves stuck.

It didn't take long for Tanaka to start knocking up some mekton-marsh-skis from the now wrecked road-train. With the skis fitted they were able to cross the gap in the road and reach the first road-support pillar on the other side of the break. The first two to attempt the climb up to the road failed, sliding back to earth, but the third PC made the climb and punched a a hole through the road so they could climb up. The other two made it through and they turned to say farewell to the rest of the COPS unit who were just starting to make their way down the opposite end of the break.

In the outskirts of the city, or rather the wreck of a now-radio-active city, they found  a mech hand twitching and sticking out from underneath the huge piece of masonry. Between them they managed to free the mech, which turned out to be the sole survivor of a military unit. Getting crushed beneath the rock must have saved his life. His mech was a wreck but Tanaka managed to do some field repairs that got him running.

Round about now they realised they didn't know the purpose of the mission! A quick radio call back to Lt Hope revealed what they needed to do. Vital launch codes were unsecured and still on the sunken aircraft carrier in Jino. The PCs needed to recover the suitcase full of codes.

They could see a flying mech in the distance running figure eights over where the navy port was supposed to be and making occasional strafing runs. They didn't fancy taking it on, so looked for a subterranean route to the navy base. The metro system proved to be closed and locked down behind blast doors, as it was used by the populous as a bomb shelter.

Scouting around revealed storm drains running below the surface, so they dung their way in and started shuffling along the drain system.  After some time they reached the end of the drains, and dug their way upwards , ending up sheltering in a crater.

It was time to do something with that enemy flying mech. Tanaka decided to try one of his strike missiles. In what can only be called phenomenal luck, he not only hit it, but got a head strike that took it out in a single hit. The enemy mech spiraled into the ground.

From the crater they could see the aircraft carrier, laying on it side on the far side of the bay. Enemy mechs were moving in the distance to either side so they opted for the submerged option. Sprinting for the water they sealed up and dived beneath the surface. They waded across the floor of the bay, even at one point feeling a vessel move above them, until they reached the carrier. Here they were a bit nonplussed and unsure how to proceed.

In the end they moved (still underwater) to the rear of the ship and found one of the screws. It was a matter of minutes to disconnect the screw from the shaft. It whooshed to the muddy bottom leaving the hollow shaft open to the water. In they went, crawling to the end of the shaft and melting their way out with liberal use of plasma guns.

In the engine room they wondered where the codes would be and decided they would be in CIC. A little investigation soon found a map stuck to the wall. Unfortunately the insides of the aircraft carrier was not designed for mechs so they had to start kicking and tearing their way through the ship, spelunking their way to a soggy CIC.

When they found it, they realised it was the armoured heart of the ship and they couldn't tear a way in. As they moved around to the doorway vibrations and noise indicated the enemy were here too.

In a rush the tore through the final wall to find themselves in a shaft. The enemy had cut their way into the ship from its upturned side, effectively driving a shaft down to the CIC. A large energy drill was working on cutting it way through the wall of CIC (which was the scene's floor as the ship was on its side) and was being operated by a big enemy mech.

I should remind you, at this point, that this is still all underwater (in the ship).

They laid into the mech. Yamamoto went in with mecha-claws acting s as a kind of distraction while the others started plinking it with plasma rifles. The improved Military Grade armour proved very effective against their police weapons. The plasma beams seemed to just be pock marking its surface. Fortunately for them the barrage of shots kept the enemy mech staggered and thrashing about unable to retaliate.

A Strike missile was fired and burnt through the leg armour and Tanaka took advatage of this. While the mech was still fighting and reeling with the others, he slipped in behind it and with some quick moves disconnected the leg and proceeded to beat the mech with the dismembered limb!

In the end though, the three PCs and their NPC army buddy wore the Kargan mech down and left it in pieces.

Yamamoto set the drill back into position, it had been knocked during the fight, and burnt his way  through the wall of CIC. A man sized hole was made.

At this point one of the PCs was supposed to de-mech in this watery radio-active hell hole and go get the brief case with the codes. Dying a heroes death while saving the nation. Of course, PCs will be PCs so it didn't go down that way.

The drill, which had a massive internal power source, was slipped from its braces, pushed through the hole into CIC and detonated with a Strike missile. Everything in the room was vapourised, including the codes. - Darned PCs, ruining my bittersweet endings!

Knowing there were more Kargans topside, they elected to leave the ship the way they came it, only this time ensuring the nuclear engines would overheat and explode, thereby ridding the world of more Kargans.

So ended the mini campaign.

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Mecha COPS - Session 2

We ended our last session with our heroes half way up the stairs of the Herego building about to start trading shots with heavily armed and armoured bud guys across the atrium.

I opened the session with a bit of a cut scene. Simultaneously the PCs heard screams from the floor above and noise below. Above them and across the atrium a man in a business suit was fighting for his life as a pistol armed bad guy was trying to push him over the glass banister.

The noise from below turned out to be another bad guy, but this one seated in a strange looking mekton. Unlike most mektons which are enclosed this one was open fronted. It was also armed with a strange very large gun that was discharged towards the heroes. It appeared to be a sonic weapon as it made all of the PCs feel sick but otherwise did not hurt them. In these same few seconds their lieutenant spoke over the radio informing them that he was unsure if they had declared a nuclear emergency or not so he was dispatching a road-train with their mektons (the full size mecha, and not the puny road-striker-mecha they had been in so far.).

This was the end of the cut scene, but it allowed me to present the players with a dilemma. People above in trouble and a threat below. I then threw them each a personal flash back to reinforce the split decision thing.

Tanaka was a child walking through a park his dog on its lead, his older cousin holding his hand. Then two large bully-boys slapped the lead from his hand. The dog ran for the lake and the ducks. It jumped into the water but couldn't get out because of the concrete ledge around the water. He ran to the water's edge just as the bullies started slapping his cousin around. He ran back to the bullies and attacked them, and was slapped to the ground for his trouble. The bullies turned on Tanaka and he shouted for his cousin to save the dog...

Yamamoto was in his early mekton training on a road patrol when a burning building caught his eye and he ran that way. At the building he found a woman leaning out of a window screaming for help. She was out of reach of the mekton so our hero piled up some civilian cars and climbed onto them. He could see the room behind the woman was about to collapse, but the woman was shouting to Yamamoto to rescue her daughter, another floor up and another window over. He couldn't reach the girl and the woman's room was about to collapse. He shouted for the girl to jump into his mekton's arms. She jumped...short...

Tylor's flashback took her back a year or two before she joined the mekton squad.She was a sniper on overwatch at a hostage scene. She was watching through a scope as a bad guy threw a civilian against the buildings window and started to swing a knife into his throat...just as her radio alerted her to the fact that the negotiation had gone bad and the villians were going to set off a bomb. In the next window over she could see a bad guy about to press a detonating button. She switched target to the guy with the detonator and fired...

Then the session proper started.

Tylor and Yamamoto took the fight upwards, climbing the stairs and shooting down both the heavily armed men. Tanaka still in his bear-form striker-mekton decided to take on the bad guy down below. He leaped from the stairs plummeting fours floors to pound the mekton below through the wooden floor.

As Tylor and Yamamoto climbed the stairs they discovered the company employees under the guns of a five bad guys. As they took them out Tanaka mauled the mekton driver and used his bear's energy gun to decapitate the last bad guy on the ground floor.

When it was over, ten bad guys and one civilian were dead. Our heroes followed the surviving and handcuffed bad guy to the hospital and put the virtual thumb screws on him. They soon discovered that when they left the Herego building they'd left a nuclear bomb behind! They finally called the boss and declared the nuclear emergency.

They raced back to the Herego building as the population headed for the shelters. At the scene of the previous battle, only the police tape and rubble was left to show that anything had happened. They raced down into the basement.

18

They smashed through the doors.

17

They smashed through the inner doors.

16

Tanaka de-meched and edged into the first room.

15

Then he saw the corpses in the side rooms.

14

...and edged into the control room.

13

After a sharp breath Tanaka burst through the door, bullets blasted all around.

12

Yamamoto and Tylor took out the two bad guys.

11

Tanaka took a look at the bomb with its ticking-down counter.

10

Red wire...or blue

9

Blue.

8

The countdown stopped.

Our heroes returned to ground level but there were no cheering crowds, only Lieutenant Hope on the radio telling them there was a "real" emergency to deal with. One of the planets mega-fauna had broken through the defensive protection and was in the park. They quickly jumped into the police mektons which were sitting on the road train and set off towards the park.

When they reached the park there was a large hole in the wall, but no sight of the mega fauna. They moved carefully into the park and discovered movement under the water of the river. A plasma cannon soon got this winkle out of his shell. A massive snake-like creature erupted from the water and towered over them. They opened fire. The creature flailed smashing one of our heroes across the park into a number of cars. Another thrash opened up a massive hole in the ground as the massive beast collapsed the roof of an underground metro system. The heroes poured in the fire burning up the beast little step by little step until they finally brought it down.

And there ended the session. The PCs have saved the city from terrorists, a nuclear device and a massive mega fauna capable of crushing buildings with a flick of its tail.

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

P.A.G. Space Battles - published

P.A.G. Space Battles is two player wargame played with cards laid on a tabletop, each card represents one space ship or piece of terrain.

The Pink Empire and the Green Conglomerate have been at war for centuries with no end in sight. You take control of one these factions, play out your space ships onto the tabletop and seek to DESTROY the opposing force with laser cannons and manoeuvre.

Using a comic art style and an easy-to-learn system P.A.G Space Battles will appeal to the younger player, or the older player just looking for a beer and pretzel game. Games can last anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes depending of the selected scenario and the size of the forces involved.

Five scenarios are included, but you're not limited to just those games. Select your fleets, place down some terrain and battle away in the vacuum!

P.A.G. Space Battles is a print and play game. 7 page rules PDF. 1 page counter sheet PDF. 5 page ship-cards PDF (2 pages of ships, 2.5 pages of terrain, 1 page of card backs)

Currently available from

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Card design for a deck builder

I'm working on a deck builder card game, and have just completed the play testing phase. I've been dickering around with the design of the card for much of the day, and I'm finally narrowing down the final format. As it's a deck-builder game the cards do not have to be used in-the-hand so I haven't had to worry too much about sticking information in the corners of the cards.

It's tricky because I want the art to show through, but still make the cards easy to see and read. A classic design problem. I'm aware that the edges should really be white to avoid the wear issue, but I am otherwise quite happy with where I've got to.

 

I'm an author, I write adventure game books.

Mecha COPS - Session 1

Mekton II cover

Last night we played our first session of a mini campaign of Mekton II, a mecha themed game from 1987. I've had this game for about 10 years and it was way overdue for a dusting off.

As a theme I opted to have the player's be Mecha COPS, an "elite" segment of the force who operate in ... mecha. Each character was given a Road Striker (that's a small transformer) for personal use but also had access to a full size mecha (Mekton) when the situation would call for it.

All the characters had recently transferred to the Mecha COPS and their new Captain was not happy about the transfers, so he gave them the crappy jobs. I started the session with each PC getting a little spotlight scene in which to shine.

Bruce Yamamoto had been sent off to do a rolling road patrol downtown, where nothing much happened. He was pulling his mecha-car into a fast food drive thru when a young lad driving driving a buggy screeched into the area, bounced over a path making pedestrians flee to safety, and skidded his car directly into line in-front of Yamamoto. A small sign in the rear of the car lit up saying "you lose",  played la cucaracha and belched a thick black cloud of smoke out the exhaust all over Yamamoto's mecha-car.

Bruce transformed and stepped round the front of the car. The open mouthed driver shoved his car into reverse. Yamamoto grabbed the front of the car and lifted. Through the mech's P.A. he demanded the driver put up his hands and get out his paperwork. The driver tried to comply, keeping his hands up and trying to grab his paper work in his teeth.

Yamamoto's radio blared with an urgent call...

Emiko Tylor's mecha-bike was parked beside the road on which she played the roll of replacement traffic-light at a four way intersection. Blaring horns alerted her to trouble on the uphill road. Turning she saw a school bus careening downhill in her direction with the driver slumped over the wheel. she ran for her mecha bike.

The kids on the bus were screaming (as you might expect) and one was even trying to climb out the back window. Emiko dived onto her mech-bike, transformed and ran back into the road.

Realising her mecha didn't have the weight to stand in front of the bus she let it pass and grabbed onto the rear as it whizzed by. With her mech's heels digging furrows in the tarmac she brought the bus to a halt and the kid that had been climbing out the back window dropped into her mech's arms.

Tylor's radio blared with an urgent call...

Jimmy Tanaka had been detailed to do foot patrol in Popsi park. That suited him as his beast-mecha had a feature that allowed it to follow him under its own steam. At an intersection ahead he saw an altercation between a man and a woman.

As he got closer the altercation got worse, the man grabbed the woman's child and held a knife to its throat, the screaming started. Tanaka used his bespoke mecha-remote to have his mecha ( in bear form ) growl and tower over the man. He flipped out, dropped the knife (and the kid) and ran for it.

Before Tanaka could follow, his radio blared with an urgent call...

[As an aside, I was unhappy with the above scene, it wasn't dynamic enough I should have come up with something with more action - sorry Brian]

The radio call summoned the players to the scene of a police incident, where terrorists had taken

Cutaway view of the Herego building

control of the Herego building. Police had tried to storm the building, and twenty of them had been shot down in a storm of fire, they needed mecha support!

Tylor on the speedy mecha-bike screeched to a halt outside the line of cops and ambulances and liased with the sergeant on the scene. He explained what had happened in a stressed voice and demanded the Mecha COPS do something.

Transformed Tylor crossed the road and went up the steps to the glass doors. In her imagination she could hear the Captain screaming at her about damage to the building, so she carefully reached for the door handles. Just at that moment grenades dropped all around her from the roof top shattering the door anyway. She edged into the lobby and stalled looking at the next set of glass doors.

Having carefully negotiated these she was in the security entrance. Through the security window she could see that the guard had been killed. The next doors were wooden. She peeked through the portholes into the atrium beyond and then proceeded to try and open the doors. Unfortunately the mecha hands punched through the door and knocked it off its hinges. Doh!

Yamamoto arrived at the scene, transformed and spotted movement on the roof of the Herego building. Bullets started spattering  across his front and off the tarmac all around him. He whipped round his beam weapon and blasted a hole in the wall around the roof.

Fearing more damage to the building Tylor de-meched (is that a word?) and stepped into the foyer, but found herself under fire from a doorway. She traded fire using her rifle and brought down her man. He was wearing torso armor and instead of killing him, her shot felled him. It was the work of a few moments to have him in cuffs.

Yamamoto moved away from the police, hoping to draw enemy fire away from the unarmoured normal cops.

Tanaka trotted onto the scene riding on top of his beast mecha but on seeing the scene of carnage transformed into an upright bear with himself inside its armoured hull.

A bad guy appeared  on the roof holding a rocket launcher. Yamamoto took his shot and vapourised the man and setting off his rocket in a secondary explosion.

Tylor started up the central stairwell and was a level up when Tanaka crashed through the remains of the doors into the atrium and started following her up the stairs. His mech leaving a trail of destruction on the wooden floor and stairs. A grenade was rolled down the stairs towards our heroes.

Outside Yamamoto traded fire with another roof top villain, this time removing his target's head. The body fell over the parapet to crash onto the stairs out front. Bruce ran for the building's entrance de-meched (that word again) and sprinted for the stairs.

Tanaka wrapped Tylor in his mech's arms and raced over the grenade where it exploded harmlessly behind, the shrapnel bouncing off his mech's armour. They rounded the next turn in the stairs and found themselves facing three bad guys.

Tylor took a shot, blowing a leg off of one gentlemen. Her next shot knocked another to the ground, then she ducked behind Tanaka. Bullets bounced all around and off the mech as they returned fire. One of the bad guys had a weird large-muzzled weapon which appeared to fire ...fire, in a lance...so it was maybe a fire lance? Whatever it was, it missed and set fire to a few inspirational posters of cats.

Tanaka used a huge paw to swipe at the bad guys but they easily ducked aside. Yamamoto arrived in time to see Tylor blast the arm off of a second criminal. Tanaka pinned down the remaining obstreperous  bad guy until they had them cuffed/bound/incapacitated, and then he moved further up, fortunately only squashing the severed limbs and not the bad guys, and demolishing more stairs as he went.

Yamamoto and Tylor stayed behind a moment when they spotted a "device" hanging out the coat of one of the villains. they examined it but couldn't make it out. Realising Tanaka was the expert they took it to him for identification. When they dropped it into his mech-paw he soon recognised it as a remote detonator for a nuke. A hurried call to the police outside left everyone confused as the sergeant out there asked if they were declaring a nuclear emergency and they wouldn't confirm or deny the emergency status.

Yamamoto had seen people on the top floor of the building when outside, so the players decided to keep heading up. At the next turn in the stairs they spotted two individuals across the atrium opposite them. These men were armed with BIG rifles, and unlike the other bad guys who only had torso armor, these guys also had helmets.

There ended session 1.

As stated above, I was disapointed in myself for Tanaka's opening scene, but otherwise I think it went well. It's been a while since I've played a game with such a detailed combat system and I was surprised at how long it took to actually do the fighting. I thought we would have blown through the scenes I had planned at the Herego building, but fighting is rather drawn out. Mind you, the detail in the system stopped it from becoming boring, as the results helped the narration.

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