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.

TRON - a session report

Last night I ran a TRON game using the Fate rules. The game was set in the "Tron Uprising" time-frame which is between the two films. If you've watched Uprising then I can tell you it's more specifically between Tron imprisoning Cyrus and meeting Beck.

I'd written some "boxed text" to read at the opening of the session but had to quickly rejig it because one player (Ruby) was late .

You're all gathered at Tron's headquarters in the wastes. he stands at the window looking out at a data storm raging across the landscape. With his hands resting on the glass and his back to you he starts to speak.

"I'm glad you could all get here this cycle. All that is except Ruby, late as usual. I've some questions for you."

Tron's head drops in what looks like despair.

"Why. Why do I surround myself with encrypted idiots? Why do I trust programs so blatantly incompetent? Why do I trust the rebellion to such audit ridden functionaries as you lot?"

"Ruby (Matt)! How could she let Seeker to get derezzed?"

"Dedar (Justin)! Why weren't you there with his cycle baton, what were you doing?"

"Motive (Stewart)! You! You! You blew the bridge before the team were across, what were you thinking?

"Tan (Robert)! And as to you, what should I do with you? A program seen talking to Lieutenant Paige, Tesla's second in command when you should have been coordinating these...these useless dropped bits!"

"I'm going to give you one more mission to prove yourselves. Succeed, or don't come back."

Without turning he tosses a data chip to the floor at your feet.

"Take that. Get out!"

Yeah, Tron is kind of a dick. The data chip held a map of the city with a series of points with red dots in a circle around the city. A single red dot with a hovering question-mark was placed dead center of the city.

They jumped on their bikes and headed to the location of the nearest red dot. What they found was a building site, where foundations were being laid. A little tom-foolery was indulged as the group distracted the ever-present guards so one of the team could slip inside the cordon for a closer look. This confirmed that the foundations were for something big as the foundations went deep but weren't that wide, so big and tall.

The three team members split up to survey the next nearest three red dots before meeting outside a bar near the center dot. This went off without incident and they confirmed that the same building operations were taking place at each site.

After a swift drink they headed over to the location of the big red dot. This was based on  a public park, but the park had been cordoned off. A powered anti-program ribbon circled the place at waist height, and was quite capable of derezzing anyone who touched it. Many guards where also present along with a number of tanks and a large command truck. The main feature however was a tall thin pyramid being constructed in the park. Parts for the pyramid were being off loaded from the elevated train track that ran through the park.

Having taken a look around they headed back to secret-tron-base-hq-hideout to meet up with Ruby-late-as-usual, and discuss what they wanted to do.

After protracted discussions which involved everything from blowing up the train tracks, flying a chopper into the train, getting "the people" to attack the train and getting the local mobster to raid the train they settled for simplicity. They also did some research and contacted their friends and associates in an attempt to find out more info. What they found was vague. All the energy storage in and around the city had been bought up and the only name associated with it was Farad, a name that was either whispered or made people close their mouths tight.

After purchasing a chopper and equipping everyone with chutes, flash bangs and limpet bombs, they flew over to the central site. The chopper was set to fly off into the wastes on its own after they jumped.  Their jumps didn't all go according to plan instead of landing on target they were scattered all over the building site.

One landed on the top of the pyramid and then made a second leap for the control truck but dropped short. He was spotted, and guards started converging on him. He raced to the cab of the truck.

One landed on the train station and quickly and quietly slid to the ground while planting bombs on the stations supports. He took out one of the nearby guards and stole his disk thus becoming camouflaged before slipping in amongst the guards converging on the truck.

Another dropped between two tanks, was spotted by a tank commander who tried to warn the nearby guards before our hero derezzed the fellow. He then jumped onto and into the tank and KO'ed the two crew. He had no idea how to drive the thing but gave it a gallant attempt, starting by rolling backwards over the other tank behind him.

The last one's drop went off without a hitch, straight inside the pyramid right next to a terminal where he got to work. He quickly discovered that the towers being built around the city were part of a massive project to steal the power from every program in the city (which would derezz them all) and store it in the pyramid. He also found that the main control unit for this machine was in the truck. This was the last information he got before being locked out and the alarm raised. He clambered to the top of the pyramid and jumped for the truck, landing on its roof.

The truck was started by one hero and kangaroo-ed dues to inexperience at driving. Our hero on the roof was nearly thrown off, but burned his ID disc into the roof as an anchor. The back doors flew open and a program looked out confused about what was happening. The captured tank rolled after the truck running over guards that got in its way.

The disguised PC jumped for the open back of the truck, missed, but her outstretched hand was caught by the program in the back who pulled her inside. She however wasn't that grateful and smashed him to the floor and held her two discs to his throat.

A tank was drawing a bead on the truck and it fired.

The die result here would have exploded the truck most likely killing all on board, but Fate points and planning came to the rescue. The truck jinked and the explosives on the train station were detonated distracting the tanker thus reducing the damage to minor.

The truck and stolen tank rolled towards the power ribbon that surround the square, but our heroic driver tossed one of his explosives at the ribbon generator, dropping the killer ribbon before racing through and onto the road.

They sped for the wastelands and discovered that the prisoner in the back of the truck was none other than the evil scientist Farad, and that this truck was the one and only such truck in existence.

They took Farad's ID disk leaving him to slowly lose his mind and used the tank to blow the truck before heading back to Tron's secret base.

There ended the game. The entire city was saved!

Once again the session went nothing like I imagined it would. The attack on the truck and pyramid was supposed to be the first of a series of attacks to bring down the great plan. The players spent longer than I had thought they would, planning. I'd expected a simple quick "Charge!" , and then onto the next part. Having said that it was an unexpected twist, they pulled it off awesomely creating a very cinematic ending.

So what did I do wrong? I shouldn't be too hard on myself as I think dropping Farad into the scene worked really well, and the players still went from investigating through to the big finish, so that was cool. But. There is always a but.

When the players jumped from the chopper I wanted time to think about where each landed and what the effects of the bad rolls they made would do to their landing site. So I went through each player's landing one by one, and my brain rushed back to the 90s and I carried on the scene with this initiative order thing in my head. Instead of letting the players just tell the story, I constrained them to taking turns. Yuk! Sorry guys. When I realised what I was doing I broke out of it and we got back into the flow. Hopefully lesson learned.

You can download the scenario from my Black Dog of Doom blog

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