The Doom that Came to Astreas

You know what, I've struggled to open the 5e rule books, as they are just too damn big, but then along comes a 5e product that makes me reconsider. The Doom that Came to Astreas is such a product.  I mean, you only have to look at the cover and if you've ever read a Conan book you'll be immediately hooked like me. Go visit the page at DriveThruRPG and watch the supporting video it shows off some of the cool art.

Its a campaign world ideal for any sword and sorcery gamer with some interesting character races, that go well beyond humans with pointy ears! As well as the mighty human tribe, there are three tribes of humans that have been cursed and mutated into new animalistic races.

The land is being overrun by a red tide of monsters driven by an evil queen. The heroes will have travel beyond their tribal lands, battle the hordes and other nasties and eventually perhaps even face the queen herself.

I've read it cover to cover despite its 192 page length. The Lore is fascinating , and the artwork superb, and that is what kept me reading. I understand the author is planning to include 5e and OSR stats in his next project, so I'm going to be all over that. For now I'll have to OSRify this book myself.

Initiative in RPGs

Imagine your game, everyone's sitting forwards at the table, the standoff off is tense, the rhetoric is passing backwards and forwards between PCs and NPCs, players are fully engaged, it escalates to strong words, then finally to violence as someone draws their sword.

...and the entire game grind to a halt as the mechanisms of "initiative" kick in and everyone sits back starts checking their phones and grabbing snacks. There ladies and gents, you have a failed mechanism. Initiative is just about the least interesting aspect of any combat. It needs to be quick, and it needs to be smooth, it needs to get out of the way.

I first ran into Initiative problems back in the 90s playing Games Workshop's implementation of Judge Dredd (Side note, the latest Mongoose edition of Judge Dredd has fortunately switched to a roll2D6 system which itself is based on Traveller) . In that game turns were broken down into ten phases and your character might act on phases 3 and 8. This meant the referee had to count down through the phases, many of which might not have anyone active, to ensure everyone at the table got to "go" at the right time. But it was worse than that, because two PCs might activate during the same phase, so that you have to determine which of them actually goes first. The result of all this shenaniganing is that rather than assisting the combat, the initiative becomes a slow, divisive, complex problem in itself. Other systems have similar problems, consider that old classic Rune Quest which literally has players comparing the size of their weapon!

The very worst initiative system I've come across, has been repeated in multiple systems and follows this process. Everyone rolls their own initiative then in initiative order you go round the table asking what each PC is going to do this round, then you go around again with every person carrying out the declared action. OMG what a dire slow onerous process. Not only does it destroy any pace the game may have achieved but it ends up with some portion of the players not even being able to do what they want because the situation/environment has changed before play comes round to them!

My question to budding game designers, is what are you trying to achieve with your complex slow-ass initiative system? Is your goal some sort of "realism". Ask yourself, does realism make your game better for the players, and if it does, at what cost? me, I say realism generally destroys play.

Well, that's lots of moaning, but does this moaning ninny have an answer for you? An answer that's quick and easy? Yes I do. Its called "Going clockwise round the table". But I'm not going to explain how that works :)

Lecturing customers in an RPG?

 WTH

A couple of days ago I say the cover image for "Coyote & Crow" on the promoted row of RPGs at DriveThruRPG. That small image peeked my interest, it was cartoony and evocative so I clicked through to read more. Well done marketing department!

The game's listing is full of more evocative and inspiring art and when you read over the description it sounds really imaginative. The America's were never colonised, historic world wide disasters, new technologies that add a sheen of sci fi. I read all that and got more excited. so I clicked the preview.

All my excitement died as I read that sample from the game. 

Was it the rules that peeved me? No. 

Was it the layout? No. 

Was it the internal art? No.

It was the hectoring, the lecturing, the talking down, the horrific, ridiculous, speechifying right there in the introduction. 

"If you do not have heritage native to the America's..."

That was the line that started the paragraph that destroyed my interest in the game. It goes on to tell me what I can and can't do in the game... my game, at my table, in my house, with my friends.

Note please, it's not a request, not some friendly guidance, but instructions. This game is so desperate to tell me, the client, the purchaser, how to behave and how to act that they put this rude and impudent instructional right there at the front.

So what's the game actually like, how does it play? Damned if I know, I haven't bought it. I wont buy it now. It seems to be a lecturing document rather than a fun time. Notice I say "seems", I say that because I'm fully aware this is all first-impressions, and the reality of the game may be different, but the marketing people fecked up here. Create a good first impression is a rule of society and marketing, and they seem to have forgotten that.

Waste Runners

Waste Runners is a small 34 page game set in a changed near future, its kind of a post apocalypse setting not not quite. Rather than the entire world being devastated a huge swathe of central Europe was ruined in a flash. Most of the people are gone, those that remain are "changed".  

This devastation, centred on the CERN accelerator loop, certainly includes vast areas that are smashed as if by a fleet of bombers, but other areas look untouched, yet the people are still gone.  There are also the "anomalies", these are areas of strangeness, everything from radiation, to time jumps, and anything else you can come up with.

The PCs come into this game as "Waste Runners" people, agents, soldiers, or operatives tasked with entering the waste and recovering, discovering or investigating.

I find the whole background fascinating, going into this strange waste armed to the teeth and likely to meet almost anything gives you an endless variety of scenarios. "Changed" survivors gives you tons of possibilities, and when you throw in competing waste runners and foreign militaries there is just so much fun to be had. Militaries going in to recover weapons, criminals seeking bullion, scientists needing to study, lots of opportunities. I've even got a couple of scenario ideas in my head that might make it to published products at some date in the future.

The rules are based on the Cowpunchers game system, based around the three stats of Vigor, Finesse, and Smarts. It uses D6s, and skills and penalties add or subtract dice from your roll. Every 5-6 you roll on the dice is a success, and various tasks may require different numbers of successes.

This game is for you if you are a gun-fan, nine pages of guns are listed and stated, so your operative can get truly geared up. A bullet-types,  armor types, vehicles, along with survival rules (food and water) create relatable environments where surviving may easily become the only part of the mission that matters.

In short, as you can likely tell, I like what this game offers, and at the price its a bargain too.

Fancy Dice

 No. Just don't do it!

It seems that every time I hit up Amazon I get adverts or suggestions for "fancy" dice, especially  "Lovecraftian" dice. No doubt the Lovecraft shenanigans is because of my podcast, but it really gets my goat because they are the worst example of dice.

These disgusting dice show the numbers of the faces, sure,  but then do everything with colour and engraved scrollwork to make the dice actually unusable. If you get up close and turn the die round you can even sometimes see what the number is! Cool eh?

No.

As fun to own and show your friends as these fancy dice are they are absolutely awful at the table. When you're roleplaying the dice are there to resolve a question and get the hell outta the way. When some doofus rolls up with his bag of exquisite accurate engraved, multicoloured boulders I know we're in for a session where squinting at dice is going to destroy the ebb and flow of the game.

I'm not a complete Neanderthal when it comes to dice. I don't demand that D6's have pips, I'm even okay with dice having some translucency. But they MUST be legible by people sitting across from you.

There's one more thing. D100. No. Throw that ball of shite in the bin and never let me see it again. Keep your "funny fancy" dice at home.

2up Scarlet Heroes

Here starteth my foray into Scarlet Heroes solo playing 2 PCs. Nerin the Hobbit Halfling Warrior returns to go adventuring but with a new friend!

Nerin the halfling (lvl2) has joined up with Wizard (lvl1) and decided to hit a local dungeon. Before setting off Nerin tried to hire a retainer, but alas his golden voice was not up to convincing anyone to join. As Nerin is the tank he will take the lead in marching order.

Playing "Beneath Brymassen" in "Adventure Anthology 1" for Basic Fantasy.

The mayor of Brymassen offers a mission paying 5gp per goblin ear gathered from the basement of the mill, where the evil ones have invaded. Sounds like a prefect job for Nerin and Wizard.

At the mill there's a hole in the wall that the goblins has invaded through. Nerin takes the lead and crawls into the tunnel. It opens into a square room with two open exits. Tunnels head east and west, the east one turns a corner, but there's a door at the end of the west. Nerin decides to go east, after a couple of corners they come across an open pit blocking the way. there's a ledge.

Nerin falls as he tries to get past (7) and hurts his knee as he crashes to the bottom (1HP). He decides to help wizard pass on the ledge by holding up the spear for him to hold (+1). Wizard gets across no problem and they use Nerin's rope to pull him up.  They see a door ahead and head that way but immediately Nerin falls through the floor into a hidden spiked trap - Saving throw 2D8 + lvl(2) + dex(1) vs target of 11, rolls=6 - Nerin hurts the same knee again (1HP). After swearing a lot he discovers the corpse of a past adventurer. A quick search finds 3gp, a key, and a healing potion! They decide to go on, so Wizard carefully lets himself down into the pit. At the other side Nerin lifts Wizard up on his shield, and then Wizard use the rope to pull Nerin up.

There's a awful smell on this side of the pit. Nerin taps the floor ahead with his spear-butt just case there's another trap, and they approach the door at the end. The door looks rotten at the bottom maybe there's water on the other side. Nerin puts his ear to the door but hears nothing. He tentatively pulls on the door, its stuck. Time for muscle, Nerin pulls the door open and finds a room pilled with rotting rubbish. Clearly the goblins have been filling it with their refuse. There's another door opposite so they head across with Nerin checking the floor ahead of them. Suddenly a swarm of (32) centipedes swarm up his spear and dive under his armour.

Nevin shrieks and starts trying to kill the creatures swarming over him, but they keep moving and he can't seem to squish them. Wizard waves his hands and casts sleep at Nerin, Nerin manages to stay awake but the creatures all fall asleep. Wizard grabs Nerin's hand as he's about to smash at one of the beasties, and shakes his head. "They but sleep Nerin. Remove your armour and we can dispatch them, be careful they do not wake." They suit deeds to the word and rapidly dispatch the creatures.

They move to the door opposite and Nerin gives it a listen. Nothing. Door's stuck again, he applies his halfling muscles and cracks the door open. A short corridor leads to another door. Nerin listens again, then slowly pulls open the door. There's an empty octagonal room beyond with doors in the east and west walls. Testing the floor all the way they move to the western door. A quick listen reveals nothing, so Nerin pushes the door open as quietly onto a short corridor ending in another door. Listening once more he hears nothing and again quietly opens the door. A bedroom, a table, four chairs and still no goblins. No one is visible. Nerin slips through the door and a ruddy great axe swings down from above! Nerin dives out the way. Once he gets his nerves back in order he searches the room. He finds 20gp in a bowl on the table.

Wizard comes into the room and rips down the tapestries that cover the back wall. "I'd store my treasure where I sleep. If there is anything its in this empty hole, it will be here." There's nothing to be found, but Wizard carries out a minute search. "Nothing! It makes no sense."

Both disheartened they turn back.

Back in the octagonal room the listen at the untried door, then pass through. Beyond they find a rough tunnel that leads them outside. They know there was another door back beyond the traps and decide not to go past the pits and instead find their way overground and drop back down into the first room.

They head towards the door to the east testing the floor as they go. The door is actually on a corner and the corridor heads south. They listen at the door and then Nerin tries to sneak in but immediately sees a big Hobgoblin, he edges back. Both Nerin and Wizard prepare bows, then Nerin pushes the door wide and they fire. Both arrows go wide.

The Hobgoblin grabs a pillow and stands "Hold friends, what do you seek?"

Nerin is momentarily stunned at a monster talking, and readies another arrow. Wizard replies, "We seek gold and riches, where is your treasure... friend."

"I have no treasure, but I can show you where treasure can be found with my ..." The hobgoblin's hand starts to lift a medallion.

"Magic! Shoot him!" Shouts Wizard. Nerin lets fly and an arrow sinks into the monsters chest.

The Hobgoblin charges whirling the weighted pillow around its head, Nerin readies his spear. But the Hobgoblin is bested by an arrow from Wizard. the heroes move into the room. "Search for gold", says Nerin as he bends to collect the goblin's ear. Wizard kicks the pillows around find a purse containing 20gp. He also finds a book, greedily he opens it, then drops it when he realises it's merely a cook book.

... there we will leave it for now. The adventuring session is not over, out heroes have more ground to cover.

Haggling in RPGs

I'm pretty sure I've never seen an RPG implement haggling as a rule. I've certainly done some in-character haggling with NPCs, but never used a game mechanism. Well, I'm on an OSR kick at the moment so I started wondering how I might implement haggling within that framework.

First thought was to use a stat bonus. INT and CHR which both seem obvious choices possibilities. But then there's WIS too. CHR is all about influencing people, INT is problem solving and memory, and WIS is... well, what is WIS all about. Actual IRL WIS would seem to feed into the haggling process but does it apply in-game? In the end I've decided  to use CHR as that just feels more applicable.

For a core mechanism I feel like DieRoll+Mods >= ShopKeep and I'd like to have various levels of shop keeper.

Assuming a roll of 2D8 + CHR mod

Street vendor    9+

Market stall    10+

Shop keep    11+

Artisan    12+

And I like a variable level of success. 

Beat score gets you 30% off. 

Beat score by 2+ and you get 50% off.

Roll snake eyes and price goes up 10%

There you go a first attempt at a haggling mechanism. Please post in the comments any suggested changes!

There you go, my first cut at haggling. I can see you using this in Basic Fantasy or Scarlet Heroes, or even Fallen Justice. To be honest, any OSR title could use this. Especially for starting poor characters.

Deliberately Breaking Rules

 No, I'm not talking about cheaters, nor am I talking about fudging the dice behind the GM screen.

What I AM talking about is choosing to break the rules as a group. I think anyone who's played RPGs for a while will have played in a game where the players have house ruled some aspect of the game, but I'm not talking about that either.

What I am talking about is breaking the rules in a defined way. I guess the best known game that does this is Magic the Gathering, which has some basic easy to follow rules, but then every other card that gets played introduces a rule breaking change. Another card game that's similar is "Killer Bunnies".

Those are card games but what about RPGs you say?

The first time I heard about this in an RPG was a game of "Heroic Cthulhu" being GMed by Logan Horsford. In that game he had/has a vast deck of cards. Following a few simple rules players get a hand of cards, and through play at the table they play the cards and get given new cards.  This is all in addition to the normal role playing, not a replacement for it.

The card themselves break the rules of the game, or rather allow the players character to break the rules of the game. The simplest of cards would be something a "+10% chance on a skill check." Other cards might grant automatic success on a combat roll, a headshot with a gun, automatic pick pockets, or spotting a weakness. Each card modifies a rule, an action, scenario, plot point, and everyone effectively breaks the accepted rules.

Other cards are even more meta, allowing players to swap cards, or draw a full new hand. The entire concept of playing these cards during a game is meta, and becomes a game within a game. Its a fun thing to do, and once everyone gets used to how to play with the cards the actual playing of them doesn't get in the way of the game. The cards are an empowering thing, as a player you have a way of breaking the rules, getting past the limitations of normal play and do what would otherwise be impossible.

You can knock up a set of cards to use in almost any RPG. If you go for it, don't rush to produce the cards. Its easy to make far too many that are just +1 or +2 as those are easy to come up with. Think about it for a while, try to make as many cards as possible unique, and allowing you to do things you wouldn't normally be able to do.  For instance in D&D you might have a card  saying "You convince your target". or "You hear the trap firing and get out the way."

Now the real pitch. I made a set of cards to use in Cepheus Engine or Traveller games.

 

Going solo with 2 PCs in Scarlet Heroes

I've upped my first character in Scarlet Heroes to level 2, and now its time to create another character in a different class to see how that feels. I wanted to try a wizard, but I'm guessing that a lone wizard is going to be very (too) squishy, so I've opted to run two PCs. This way I can put my level 2 halfling fighter in front and use the wizard for DPS.

What's nice in Scarlet Heroes is that they can use missile weapons and any melee weapon. However they only ever roll 1D4 for damage. I love this, now I can have my "gandalf" wielding a sword like the man in grey himself! With a bow, this upcoming wizard is entirely capable especially at low level. He only rolls 1D4, true, but that means his hits have a 75% chance of taking out a 1HD creature on one shot. that's pretty powerful especially when safely done from a distance..

As I'm mixing Basic Fantasy and Scarlet Heroes, I'm picking spells from BF. That's not because I dislike the Scarlet Heroes spells, indeed, I haven't even read more than one or two, its because I know the standard BF spells better. As a new wiz I need to pick three spells that my wizard knows at level 1...

My first thought was "Magic Missile", you know for firepower, but then I thought about that bow I plan on using. Magic missile does 1D6+1, meaning a result of  5-6 would mean the wizard could do 2HD of damage. that's good, but it is just one shot. Is that one-shot worth a spell slot? I kept this in my back pocket and looked through the 1st level options. 

In the end I've opted to take "Shield" which gives the PC some protection, especially against missiles, and considering  the Wiz is going to be at distance if at all possible it makes sense. I'm also taking "Sleep" as that can effect more than one target. I pondered Magic Missile again, but in the end that one-use issue ruled it out for me, and I've taken Read Languages. I want to be able to find more spells, so being able to read alien languages in a library seems like something a wizard would want.

Poor old wizard (no names at first level, what's the point) has a horrendous AC of 9 and only 4HP. Eek!

Better at WH40K than WH40K

Space Marines in the WH40K universe are bad ass. They come, they kill, they dominate, and they crush their enemies like bugs beneath their feet. Seven feet tall, hugely strong, wrapped in battle suits that can shrug off cannon rounds and armed with guns that can take out tanks, buildings and anything in the way.

Then you get the official WH40K books, like Deathwatch,

After you've spent an hour building your awesome Space Marine player-character and are ready to start striding across the battlefield laying waste to the Emperors enemies, you get to your first encounter with the enemy and ...

Referee: "Roll to hit the enemies."

You: "So I've got my base to hit chance that's 32%. You said they were grouped together, so I can use my 'hordes bonus', that gets me to 36%. They are the declared enemies of my chapter, so that's anther 2%, so that's um... 38%. I was blessed by the chapters chaplain that puts me on 39%. Rodrick is suppressing them so that gets me to 42%. I roll ... 56. Gosh darn it I missed."

And that's where the official 40K games leave me. I'm looking at the beautiful books filled with glorious details and lore of a universe that is hideous and alluring, a place I want to game, but with a bittersweet taste. The actual game play especially combat, crawls at a snails pace. Instead of wiping swathes of enemies to jelly in an instant, I'm adding up small percentages that if I'm lucky allow me to hit one bad guy and maybe taken him out.

It fails, blocks your might say, the story you are trying tell. Its simply not fit for purpose.

Contrast to the game: Three Sixteen: Carnage Amongst the Stars

After you've spent the full 30 seconds creating your character you dive into the action

Referee: "Roll to hit the enemies."

You: "7 on the D10, that's a hit, rolling 2D8 for kills, I kill 9."

Clearly you see the difference. 

Deathwatch is a traditional detail orientated , methodical, plodding game, where as Three Sixteen is a rapid, rules-as-tool system that's almost entire story focused.

The background of Three Sixteen is almost a null, so combining the rules of it with the lore and background of Deathwatch is the way to go if you want that "feel" of Space Marines". Go ahead, mash them together, two great tastes in one!

Thoughts on D&D5e

I remember being excited for D&D 5th edition. At the time I hadn't D&Ded since AD&D. I'd noticed in passing the 3rd, 3.5th, the Pathfinder eruption that seemed to blow away good old D&D, and even the 4th fourth edition. I'd glanced at the book for 3.5 but that was it, I was playing other things at the time.

So, and I don't know why, 5th ed was all over the social networks, podcasts talking about it, youtubes promoting it, and I caught that old D&D bug once again. I'd heard the complaint that 4th had been too boardgamey and that 5th was going to correct it. But alas money was short, and I couldn't afford to buy the books.

Then a few months ago, I finally get my hands on the 5th ed PDFs. I literally opened the DMs guide scanned the first 5 or so pages before closing it down. Why'd I do that? Page count. there was simply too much for me. Those books were going to take something like 24 solid hours of reading to get through. I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I realised then that I've lost my will to invest what little time remains to me on reading huge tomes of PDFs. A recent purchase of mine was the newest Dune RPG, and I am a Dune nut, read the books multiple times, watched the films loads too... but the page count for a ... game, felt daunting. I have since got through it and it took a while with breaks to read other things, but that's more because its Dune, than because its an RPG.

I believe there's a strong movement in the RPG industry to push the big expensive hardbacks with notable page counts, the "new" shiny etc, and its not for me. I recently saw the Japanese RPGs that come in the fiction-novel  form factor, and those intrigued me, but then I see page counts in the 500 range...

Conclusion of sorts, I like clever shorter games ( like Cowpunchers ) , and big glassy art is a draw but not needed to get my purchase, and more importantly.to get me to read, I need lower investment of time.

Edit: You know those times you're trying to look up how to do a thing a quick thing, and all you get is 10+ minute videos where they hide the instructions to make you watch longer.... these big flashy RPGs are like that.

OSR rule for Consumables

I was breezing over the rules for The Front today, as I'm thinking of writing another scenario for the

system. Actually I was looking for a mechanism to hang a scenario on (that's a little tip for anyone wanting to get into scenario writing). I found my attention drawn to the "consumables" rule.

This rule is a way of tracking anything that can be "consumed", be that rations, bullets, grenades, or hot water. Its very handy for bullets, as in modern games tracking bullets-left can be terribly burdensome, way worse than arrow counting in your average fantasy game.

The core rule is that a consumable is allocated a die, for our example lets assume the players bullets are assigned a D6. After each round firing, the player rolls the consumable die. If he rolls a 1-2 then the die is reduced to the next smaller die, so in this case it would be exchanged to a D4. If you roll 102 on a D4 then that's it, you've run out of whatever it is. The assigned consumable die can be any of the standard polyhedrals, so the companies ammo supply might start with a D20 consumable. Then each time the company is engaged the referee can roll the die and reduce it through the all the dice 

D20 > D12 > D10 > D8 > D6 > D4

I think you could steal this rule and drag it back into fantasy games too. You could track arrows, oil flasks, food, water. Also if you want to stretch it a bit you could use the same mechanism to track the energy supply of a broken down horse the players are relying on. Its cool for this because everyone can see the die roll and will be bought into watching the bones slide across the table.

OSR has a problem with Levels

So I've had a bit of annoyance with OSR games for quite some while, and nearly all of them are guilty of it! I remember when I was a nipper and looking over the old old Basic D&D rules I ran into the problem that everyone knows. Levels. The word, not the implementation.

Levels is used to describe character progression, and that's all fine and dandy. BUT, its also used to describe spell usage, such as "Magic Missile is a first level spell". This re-use of the same term for two different things in the game confused the heck out me, and I've seen it do the same for every new player I've dragged kicking and flailing into a game.

Its retarded to use the same word for two different things in the same manual. If you came across that in a washing-machine manual you'd be rightly pissed at its lack of clarity. If I came across this confused nonsense in a boardgame rules set I'd get righteously angry over the stupidity of it. Yet in game after game, especially in OSR games the author does the same thing. Pulling out the tired confusing , patently stupid, dual usage of "levels".

No more, I say! Its time to move on. I've got a few options you might consider:

• Circle (sounds nice and magical, and I think they use this in Earthdawn)
• Ring
• Rank
• Grade
• Stack
• Power

Please, authors, especially OSR authors, don't Dual Wield Levels.

Nerin Returns to the Goblin Dungeon

Once again we return to our solo Scarlet Heroes game. This time with the freshly named 2nd level halfling Nefin Tossmeadow. He's been to the dungeon twice and been beaten back twice. here's how it went...

Nerin decides to return to the goblin cave, he concludes that there's only the big goblin left and leaving him alive is leaving an enemy with a grudge. Better to leave no enemies to curse your sleep.

Nerin sneaks up to the goblin cave hoping to spy out but trips and falls out of cover into view of anyone in the cave entrance. (1-2 Goblin is there,5 no goblin). Fortunately the goblin is not there.

Moving into the entrance with his bow out and ready  Nerin moves up to edge of the pit trap. He's concerned that the goblin might appear as he edges past the trap, but sees no option except to grimace and bare it. He puts the bow up and edges past the trap.

Spear at the ready he edges up to the T-junction, (1-2 Goblin is there,3 nope) its clear and so he moves up to the doors. He listens at the door's crack (1-2 Goblin is there, 2 yes) and hears knocking or banging. he sneaks through the door and spots the big goblin using a mace to smash at the constructs in a destructive rage.

Nerin quietly edges out his bow lines up the shot and lets fly but arrow misses and cracks into the wall. The goblin looks up, grabs his halberd and charges!

Nerin stands his spear against the charge but the goblin sweeps it aside with a blow that sends our hero bowling across the cave floor.

Rising to his feet Nerin meets the goblins next charge only be sent tumbling across the floor but fortunate in not being further injured. 

The goblin comes in, over confident and Nerin takes advantage with jab into it arm pit.

The goblin is wary now and they circle each other, and then with a swiftness unlooked for, the goblin jabs with the halberd and smashes Nerin into the wall. It screams its delight!

Nerin levels his spear quickly to keep the beast at bey, and they circle each other again.

The goblin jabs again but Nerin has seen that before and knocks the thrust aside with his shield.

Nerin reverses the circling movement and gets his back to the doorway. The change in direction causes the goblin to misstep and Nerin thrust his spear in under the goblin's chin, it drops dead.

With a sigh, he drops to the ground and tries to staunch the bleeding (+2HP).

He thinks the place is empty but isn't sure, so he edges into the next room where he first encountered the big goblin. Fortunately the place is empty of foes, but the bodies of the goblins he killed last week are laying around partially consumed.

Nerin looks around the room and sees an interesting chest. He ponders if it might be trapped, goblin are evil like that. He nips back to the big goblin,  grabbing its halberd and comes back and starts using the halberds great weight to smash the chest from a distance. 

With it splintered apart he find it contains 400gp, 326cp, 168sp and two glass bottles (smashed on 1-3, 5,1) one of which is smashed. He pops the lid to sniff one and it smells foul. It may be magical. He takes the gp and sp and the bottle. Back at the body of the big goblin Nerin removes an engraved golden ring from its finger and returns to town.

Cowpunchers, Western RPG

Cowpunchers is a straight Western themed RPG. With a PDF running to only 25 pages its clearly on the RPG-lite end of the game spectrum. This base game is entirely "straight" that is to say, there's no "weird", there's no Cthulhu lurking in a cave.

The system itself is quick and easy to get into, I see it as perfect for a one-shot game, or for anyone that doesn't want to be looking up rules for every situation. Generating a PC is quick and easy with only 3 characteristics  Vigor, Finesse, and Smarts which are each rolled on 3D6.  That covers the physical and mental aspects of the character. As with most OSR type games the value of each stat is associated with  a bonus. In most OSR games that would be a +1, or +2 to a die roll, but as Cowpunchers is D6 based, the bonus effects the number of D6's you get to roll when making a check against the stats. 

There are a number of skills in the game, and starting characters buy skills and they're about ready to go.

Skill and Stat checks are all rolled by trying to roll a number of successes, with each 5 or 6 on a die being a success. This simple straight forward system is again an appear to new players or those who just want the system to get out of the way.

I mentioned one-shots, but Cowpunchers provides character advancement, by gaining levels the character gains new or improved skills. Its worth noting here too that each level gets the PC an extra Hit Point. That's important as it means that characters stay squishy. These PCs are not becoming super heroes but they will become crack shots on a par with "The Man with no Name". And talking of shots, there are enough gun stats in this book to keep the gear heads happy too.

The end of the book includes a scenario to get you started, but I have published the first supporting scenario for the game, called Pink Gold.

The art is evocative and on-point, drawn/painted by the author Jonathan Torres a.k.a. "The Basic Expert" 

Fallen Justice, RPG

Fallen Justice is an OSR inspired RPG where you get to play the part of a vigilante, not a super hero, but a real person who's willing to put two-fisted justice into the gaps left by the officaldom.

I picked up the 84 page PDF from DriveThru and I have to say, I'm impressed with it. The comic book style art on the cover is used throughout the book and creates a ambiance of the gritty violent bloody mood the game presents. This mood is supported by the included fiction extract, that features blood and teeth shooting everywhere as fists, bats, and bullets take down the bad guys.

Being a OSR game is has the expected standard six stats from every OSR game, but has an additional one called "Infamy" which represents the notoriety of the PCs vigilante character. 

Characters also have to track Stress that the PC encounters. This is important to the game play, as increasing stress pushes the character towards their "Breaking Point". If the PC breaks through the break Point they pick up a behavioural trait, which might be have a Mindless Rage, or turning to substance abuse.  In this way the Stress can become a kind of "Alignment".

Your character can be one of ten classes, including "The Crusader" who's out to clean the streets, and "The Marksman" who uses guns over fists. Each class has a number of special abilities , for instance "The Colossus" class has a "Granite Chin" that can turn critical hits suffered into normal hits. 

For money the system uses $, but I found the various costs of the hero-equipment were really cheap. Only by reading further into the rules did it become clear that this is not real world money prices. For instance if your PC were to take a hit-job from one underworld criminal to hit another the fee would likely be in the many thousands. But that kind of money would allow you to buy up all the game equipment. So if you are refereeing a game keep this in mind, and the money supply low.

This game is gritty. You play the part of someone who's been wronged, badly wronged, and the justice system has failed. Your character is driven by a revenge motive that will likely evolve into a desire to clean up everyone out there doing wrong. Play should include lots of descriptive play, When you smack an NPC with a baseball bat, make sure all the players know what it sounds like. Keep it visceral and unpleasant and you'll be on-target for the mood the game wants you to have. I liked everything I read in this book, it was on-target and meaningful.

Scarlet Heroes: Solo session 2

This is my second journey into a solo play of Scarlet Heroes, using the same PC, returning to the same dungeon.

Halfling spends a week lodging at the inn for 3gp, and heals back up to full HP.

Halfling decides to return to the same dungeon. 1-3 chance the goblins have replaced the guards, no guards. 1-5 goblins have armed the pit trap, they have armed it. Halfling attempts to edge past trap, success. He deactivates the trap.

Halfling turns right and tries to sneak through the double doors, success. The 10 goblins are still there. Rather than leap into the fray like last time he plans to knock one down with his sling, then retreat back outside and sling any others he can see. He takes his shot, hits but does no damage. He sprints for the exit and runs over the trap and stops just outside.

The goblin mob charges after him, he gets a shot off and misses.

Halfling stabs at a nasty looking goblin but misses, but while laying about himself he knocks down two gobbos. The goblins swarm our poor hero but he fends off all but one attack and takes a point of damage.

His aimed spear attack misses again in the next clash, but he unintentionally takes out a goblin with the spear butt as he pulls it back. The goblins keep swarming, they wont give up as they are defending their home, three of them hit him!

Badly hurt but determined, Halfling strikes running his target right through and stabbing another goblin behind! Shocked at the horror, only one goblin manages to hit Halfling and the blade just slides off his shield.

With only three goblins still on their feet Halfling shouts his war cry and stabs one goblin through the throat  and slicing open two others with a wild swing on the spear.

Gasping for breath Halfling binds his wounds (+2HP). He searches the dead and gathers up 7 daggers that he slides out of sight under a bush, and 19gp that he slips into his purse.

Halfling heads back into the cave and through the doors to where he encountered the goblins and find 3 Hobgolins coming at him! (Actually I misread the room, these should have been mixed in with the goblins, lucky for Halfling!)

A hobgoblin dodges his spear thrust, but the trusty shield-bash took out another. One of the two remaining goblins smashed its mace into Halfling's armoured arm nearly breaking it.

Angry and in pain Halfling quickly spears the hobgoblin that hit him, and slashes the other one.

Halfling rests up again (+2HP), stashes the three maces and finds another 8gp. He goes back into the cave to search the goblin's cave. He sees some constructs but nothing of interesting so follows the tunnel that extends beyond.

He finds himself confronted by 5 relaxing goblins waiting for the stew to cook! he jumps 'em. One is speared before he can get out of his cot, and another dies as Halfling stomps him through the bottom of his cot. The last goblin, a sneaky git(!) stabs Halfling under the armour. Halfling can't bring the spear into line in time, so shield charges and crushes the goblin against the wall.

Spending another minute or two he binds the wound from the goblin (+1HP) Rifling a few filthy pockets he turns up 11gp. He decides he doesn't want any more of the goblin daggers so leaves them.

The tunnel goes on so Halfling sneaks along as he can hear goblin voices. At the corner he dares a peek and sees a big goblin in a chair, and two more, one of them looks like a shaman.

Halfling prepares a sling stone and steps round the corner and fires at the shaman, he hits the shaman right in the spell book doing no damage! The big goblin and his pal charge. The large one is wielding a dangerous looking halberd that's bigger than Halfling.

Halfling drops the sling and wades into combat. He tries to take out the big guy, but the second goblin takes the blade in the chest to protect the big one. The huge goblin attacks but catches his pole arm on the roof. The shaman fires off a magic missile that hurts Halfling.

Halfling attacks back, but the big goblin blocks the thrust, but fortunately the shaman leaves himself open and pays for it. The huge goblin sweeps his weapon above Halflings head.

Halfling's thrust goes uselessly between the Goblin's legs, but it does throw off its aim.

Halfling swings wide in his next attack, missing and the goblin does likewise.

Halfling makes a weak thrust as he tries to back off missing his target, but also getting clipped by a halberd swing!

Another spear thrust goes wide of its mark but the goblin smashes a blow in Halflings Armor drawing a gush of blood.

Finally Halfling gets a solid strike into the goblin's leg, but at the desperate cost of another serious wound. Halfling's nerve finally gives, and he streaks for the door.

Goblin will pursue on 1-2, does not follow.

Halfling stands outside gasping for air, holding a sling in case the beast chases, but it soon becomes apparent he's not being pursued. He binds his wounds, picks up the daggers and maces before heading back to town.

Halfling sells the daggers/maces for 1gp each. As he sits down to his first meal at the Inn, he realises he's got his second XP and is now 2nd level. He's very happy and he's now worthy of being given a name!

I decide a level 2 character does indeed need a name, thus I dub him Norin Tossmeadow. I also spend some of Nerin's gps to upgrade his sling to a short bow.

Two sessions in and I'm really enjoying the experience of using the Scarlet Heroes for solo play in combination with Basic Fantasy. There is still that large goblin in the cave, so perhaps Nerin might head back when he's healed up.

Scarlet Heroes: Solo session 1

I played a mini solo game to learn how Scarlet Heroes plays out. I created a Halfling fighter (no name as he's level 1 and level ones are so prone to death in OSR games it aint worth the effort of naming them). Wearing scale armour with shield and spear. 

I decided to hit up ”Gold in the Hills” from the Basic Fantasy Adventure Anthology 1. I'm also using the implied background of Basic Fantasy as I haven't read the background material in the book yet.

Halfling approached the cave entrance sneaking up on the two goblin guards, they spotted him and fired arrows one of which hit the mark. Then Halfling was in among them and took out one with a spear hit and the other with the Fray die. Going through pockets and pouches got Halfling 6gp and two daggers for loot.

Halfling spotted the trap and edged around it and got to a T-junction. To the east double doors, to the west a tunnel leads to a big hole in the floor. Opting to clear the western room before opening any door Halfling went down that way. The hole was uninteresting, so it was back to the doors.

Listening at the door our hero heard sounds of digging and goblin voices. Halfling slipped in through the doors and saw 15 goblins across the way. Being the “heroic” sort he decided to sneak up on them before jumping into their midst. 

He speared one goblin, and Frayed another (perhaps smacking a goblin in the face with his shield). The remaining 13(!!!!) goblins drew daggers and dived at Halfling, more than a few stuck their pins in. 

Halfling bloodied but not downhearted struck back. 

He ran another goblin through with his spear, and Frayed another two (a shield into the back of one head, and spear butt into the crutch of another). Then the remaining 10 goblins attacked. Many missed but not enough. Poor halfling was reduced to 1 HP. 

Brave Halfling ran for it!

Having returned to town Halfling earns 1XP, and sells the two daggers for 1gp each giving him a total loot of 8gp.

Here's Halfling's stats...

Halfling STR16 DEX 15 CON 12 INT12 WIS 12 CHA 16 HP 9

Traits: Halfling stealth, Popular cook, Twisted firestarter, Make your own comfort

Camp gear, rope, rations 3 days, lantern, 2 oil flasks, waterskin, backpack, scale armour, shield, 8gp, 8sp.

Scarlet Heroes: First thoughts on the rules

I picked up the Scarlet Heroes RPG because of its touted awesomeness for single player OSR style roleplaying. A few years back another GM ran me (my character) though a single adventure. it was really a learning experience for him, but I remember having a good time.

Anyway back to the present day, and I now have a soft back copy of the game myself. Reading the rules for the first time certainly made it look suitable for solo play. In fact it IS designed for one player and a GM, but I think it could easily handle two players. However I would have to think twice before moving to three or more, I'm not so sure that would work, and here's why...

At first level your PC is a bit of a bad ass able to leap into battle with as many as ten goblins. It'll be close, but you'll likely win. With a second PC, you'd wipe the floor with them. With a third PC it wouldn't even be a challenge and I'd be surprised if it lasted beyond a single round of combat. 

So what would you do as a GM to increase the interest level for these three PCs? Adding more goblins would seem the obvious choice. But this leads to a huge number of gobbos to track and a bucket of dice, which would bog the game down. The next option would be to place beefier monsters in the dungeon to batter the PCs. BUT the players PCs are pretty squishy without a large number of hit points. One, maybe two hits from a bigger monster could lay them out dead. So that seems like a bad idea. Maybe there's something else to do, but it escapes me for the moment.

The rules of the game are presented first and only take up about a third of the book, with the remained being the well laid out background for the world. The rules are based in an OSR framework and indeed you can use these rules to play in any OSR world, not just the one presented in the book. I have done this and will make a separate post about that.

There are two main changes away from your average OSR title that make you're PC a bad ass, and that increase the single-PC dynamic preferable. 

The first is that hits your PC does to the monster, are done to hits Hit Dice (HD) rather than its hit points (it effectively does not have hit points). Therefore one hit point of damage done to a 1HD monster kills it. Whoa, don't panic. you roll your damage as normal, for instance 1D6 for a spear, then reference the result on a simple chart. A 1 on the D6 does no damage at all, 2-5 does one point of damage and 6 would do two points. Thus, a result of 2-6 would kill a 1HD opponent, and a result of 6 would be able to kill a 1HD or a 2HD opponent.

The second bad-ass trick is the "Fray" die. This is like secondary damage. In each round of combat you roll this extra die and check the number of damage the result does on the same table. These "extra" points of damage you can allocate to other opponents of your level or lower that are in the same combat. If your PC is in combat with ten goblins, you roll to hit one on them, perhaps skewer it with your spear, BUT you also roll well on your Fray die scoring two hits, meaning in the same round you also take out a couple more goblins. The Fray die results represent the general melee that takes place around and close to the main target.

I've run a couple of mini solo sessions, and I'll be posting about them shortly, but the TLDR of those sessions was "Nice!".

(Your Name Here) and the Argonauts

This is a quick video examination of "(Your Name Here) and the Argonauts" which is a free print and play game. You can download the files from its page on Board Game geek.

A board game idea - "hotel"

So the idea of this game is for a two or three player game that I know I will not have time to develop, unless someone wants to pay me to do it of course.

Players take the role of a general dogsbody in a hotel. If a guest needs a pillow you get it, If a room has a water leak, you fix it etc etc.

The board is made up of a cutaway profile of the hotel with three or four rooms per level. A stairwell and elevator give access to the various guest levels from the lobby, which is where the players avatars start. Carefully secreted around the hotel are special rooms that supply the things your avatar might need, such as pillows and blankets in the linen closet, tools in the basement and so on.

Each turn cards are draw from a deck of cards, perhaps one per player. Each card has a guests "need" that the avatars must fulfill. The "need" might be an extra pillow, fixing a water leak, coffee, whatever, and each card has an associated tip that the avatar will get for providing the need. The card is placed on the board in a room space.


To fulfill a "need" the avatar must be moved to the location that has the required item, such as pillows from the linen closet, and then moved to the room that has the need. The player then takes the card.

Tips can be spent to purchase upgrades to the avatar, such as roller skates that allow them to move quicker. At the end of the game the player with the highest amount of unspent tips will win.

Another feature of this unfinished idea includes take-that upgrades, that allow you to slow your opponents by setting banana skin traps, locking the supply room etc.

Well, that's the idea. Unfinished, unpolished. Now it's out of my head, hopefully I'll be able to sleep tonight

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

Another Leg End Mary game

I've been pondering another Leg End Mary (Legendary) game this time based on the classic TV series "Sapphire and Steel".

So I've been mocking up card layouts .

I've thinking of having a base set of cards, and then "assignment packs", with each assignment pack providing the location, enemies, events and additional cards for the Sapphire and Steel mini decks that are only used in that mission/assignment. Other mini decks too, for Lead and Silver etc.

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

I've launched a Kickstarter! Mecha Strike Force Omega

I've launched a kickstarter to raise funds to purchase art for a card game I've designed. I could go on about how great it all is, but what's the point! Check out the Kickstarter page, watch the video and see if you'd like to help getting this project off the ground.

It's got Mecha in it!

The Kickstarter Link

Leg End Mary: Encounters

I just published a free to download print and play game based around The Princess Bride. Details on one of my other blogs....

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

Solitaire play throiugh of Memoir '44, Montelimar

Another of my solo plays of Memoir 44. Not many left in the base game, then I'll have to move onto the scenarios in the expansions...

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

Hogarth's Heroes - a Traveller scenario

Hogarth's Heroes is a Traveller one-shot scenario for 1-5 players. Designed to be played in a single session. The PCs find themselves as part of a mercenary company.

The job looks simple, foward observation and the direction or Ortillery (orbital artillery). Then things start to go wrong. A mysterious light in the sky, comms failing, an enemy convoy, hunting dogs, and swarming militia. The party must escape and evade.


Available from : DriveThruRPG

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

Solitaire play through of Memoir '44, The Liberation of Paris

 Here's the next in my video play-through series of the official Memoir '44 scenarios.

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

Space Hero Memoir 40K : Actual Play

 Here's an actual play of the game I presented in my last post. A mashup of Memoir '44, Space Crusade and Heroscape.

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

Space Hero Memoir 40K

 I was looking at my collection the other night when it occurred to me there was a natural mash up just waiting to happen, so I went ahead and did it.

Here's the game set up for the first play-through...

As you can tell, all you need to play this game is Space Crusade, Heroscape Master Set: Rise of the Valkyrie (maybe two sets if you want four walls like me), and Memoir '44.

The idea was for the Emperor's best to find the Artefact Glyph and take it off board. Alas the forces of Chaos were to intervene.

After the first turn, the yellow squad were already in trouble, with chaos marines kicking their butt.

Sadly for the "good" guys things went from bad to worse very quickly, although they did take out the Dreadnought very easily.

It went very well considering I spent all of ten minutes working out stats.

The following stats are :

Move spaces, Melee Attack Dice, Range, Ranged Attack Dice, Defence Dice, Area Effect

Standard Marine 3,3,5,3,3
Close Combat Marine 3,5,2,2,3
Hvy Weap Marine 2,3,5,4,3,Yes
Ork 3,2,6,3,2
Gretchin 2,1,5,1,1
Android 3,3,6,3,3
Dreadnought 2,3,5,5,5,Yes
Genestealer 3,5,0,0,3

Moving onto higher terrain does not cost move points but you can only climb one level for each hex moved. When shooting at a lower target range is +1.

Players each get four cards in hand and can play one per turn and draw a replacement at the end of their turn.

All moves are completed before combat.

The Memoir cards in use are restricted to the following: Attack, Recon, Assault, Probe, General Advance, Recon in force, Pincer move, Counter attack, Direct from HQ, Firefight, Ambush

Area effect weapons hit the target hex, and one adjacent hex. Both hexs must be in line of sight (although you don't have to hit two if you don't want to. You make separate rolls for each hex. You can not target an empty hex you have to target an enemy.

Next time I might add in the Devastators from Space Hulk... or maybe the Ninja from duck! duck! Go!...maybe not that last one. 

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

Solitaire play through of Memoir '44, Toulon

The sun came out for an hour or two yesterday allowing me to wheel out the video camera for another solo session of Memoir '44, this time the 10th scenario from the base game, Toulon.

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

Decopedia Volume 2 released

I'm proud to announce the release of the second volume in the Decopedia series. This book has been written for use with the role playing game Traveller. It's designed to give the referee "drop ins" for their game. Each entry is separate and self contained so you can take it and squeeze it into your own game. Inside you will find, 10 planets, 10 alien animals, 10 people of interest, and 10 story seeds.

The planet descriptions highlight cultural, political and religious elements that make the system interesting to visit, this isn't just a string of statistics. The animals are all designed to inspire or be a part of an interesting encounter. the people of interest are individuals who have made a mark on Imperial society for good or bad, and each story seed is a core idea for generating an entire scenario.

This product was designed for use with Mongoose Traveller, but is compatible with all versions.

Currently available from DriveThruRPG 

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

The Experiments - a Traveller scenario

I've just published my first Traveller scenario!
 

The Experiments is a Traveller one-shot scenario for 1-5 players. Designed to be played in a single session the PCs find themselves in a horror survival situation. Convinced they were about to start a new life on a new world as part of the first wave of workers, they instead wake up in an underground facility on an operating table. With the lights failing, water pouring down the walls, and strange dangerous creatures coming up from below, this was not what they expected.

PDF available from: DriveThruRPG

A5 Booklet available from: LuLu

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

Playtesting time again

I've been working on a game themed on  The Princess Bride ( non-commercial) . It's a re-working of the Legendary Encounters:Alien game system with a re-theme of the cards and the contents. I finally got around to running the first play-test today. It was a loss. :(  That darned princess was not rescued.

Sorting the cards into seperate decks...

Ready to play...

Game over man, game over.

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

Going Ashore released

Cover

The WWII Pacific campaign has captured the imagination of history buffs for generations. The island hopping battles between the hearty U.S. Marines and the dauntless Japanese form the cornerstone of that fascination.

Going Ashore is a solitaire deck building game where you play the part of the Marines carrying out a series of battles as you hop from island to island. You must defeat all of the enemies on each island before you can move to the next. Clear the enemy from five islands to claim victory, any other result will re-write history as a loss for the allied forces!


Currently the game is available only as a Print-and-Play package via WargameVault.com but in the next few weeks it will also become a real tangible game you can purchase via GameCrafter.com

Example attack

This zipped up Print-and-Play package includes rules, the cards, morale tracker and turn sequence chart. The cards are presented in three ways giving you the maximum printing options. One PDF uses a larger format card, another "hobbit" sized, but you also get all of the card images in hi-res, allowing you print the cards in any way you see fit (see the readme.txt file before you print anything).


This is my second solitaire deck building game, and expands both the mechanisms and the number of cards  over those that appeared in "Wipers Salient".


Buy now from WargameVault.com

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

A Party of Wizards

I've just released a little RPG/story-telling game. In this game all the PCs are brand new wizards kicked out of the wizard school with an empty spell book and a basic understanding of magic. The main feature of this game is the generation of your own spells. There is no long list of spells to pick from, but instead there is a mechanism for creating your own spells!

So you take, quill, ink, spell-book, and dagger and wander into the wild world to discover and create your own spells as you battle the forces of evil (or good if your PCs are evil, you know, a lot of wizards seem to go evil, maybe it's the magic that does it).

Anyway, if you fancy giving it a try, you can get it from DriveThru for a buck-fifty.

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