Traveller Session - Ouch that hurts!

Having discovered that the gravitational anomaly they had traveled through, was linked in some way to the power source buried under the surface of the planet the PCs decided to take a break from torturing the yellow goo they discovered last week, and revisit the surface.

This time they took an adventurers kit! I had the players detail exactly what they were taking with them, and believe it or not, this included both a cuddly toy and a collapsible ten foot pole! Of course they also had their 6 Marine (meatshield) buddies too.

They split their team and started re-investigating the place, but the PCs returned specifcally to the "control room".

They braved flicking a few switches and things started happening...rather a lot of things actually.

• The air within the tunnel network started moving.
• A camera system was activated. Actually a rock wall became a kind of monitor, with moving pictures displayed as embossed relief within the rock. They found they could monitor all of the major rooms they had already visited as well as one they hadn't.
• Six massive glowing "suns" were launched from within the planet up into orbit, bathing the otherwise completely dark planet in light.
• A super fast rocket/missile/UFO was launched and sped off into space 
• "Stone Space Spiders" were brought into being that started moving around the complex and frightening some of the Marines into a one sided firefight. They were calmed down with some comforting chat on the radio, and they reported that the spiders rose up out of the rock and that the Marine's bullets were bouncing off the things. The spiders did not attack they seemed much more interested in doing their own inexplicable thing.

They also recovered a few more of the boxes that contain yellow goo. One was opened on the surface to see if the yellow goo did anything...which it didn't.

During this fun they were getting reports from their spaceship from a panicky member of the crew. He'd spotted a beam emanating from the cathedral ship-ghost-thingy pointed at the anomaly, this beam seemed to be destabilizing the anomaly and reducing it's size. He was concerned that the anomaly might disappear and as it was the way they had got here, he also assumed it was their only way back.

One of the last switches in the "control room" was discovered to boost the power source on the planet and the anomaly was strengthened at the same time. The final switch setting revealed a map that included a path to the planetary power source.

Engineers on the ship calculated that unless the power could be boosted the anomaly would disappear in two hours time. The race was on.

Two Marines were dispatched down the vertical shaft to investigate the tunnel that led to the power source. They soon ground to a halt. The tunnel angled sharply upwards and was so greasy they couldn't climb it.

The PCs and the rest of the Marines headed down there to bring some real muscle and brains into play. In next to no time at all they were standing on each others shoulders creating a human ladder to reach the top of the slope.

At the top they found themselves in a level tunnel where they met the equivalent of a swinging-blade-trap. Rock discs were crossing the tunnel, literally forming out of the living rock and slicing across. This presented no trouble to anyone and they all made it through to the "lava" room.

The tunnel opened up funnel like. The slope down was being rained on by liquid stone pellets that hit the floor and rolled down to the "liquid stone" floor of the room. The exit was on the far side, a tunnel mouth that you would have to jump to. The liquid-stone floor of the room was deathly hot but fortunately there were protuberances of solid stone scattered stepping-stone like across the floor. Holding their packs over their heads to protect against the stone rain,they tumbled down the slope, two of the Marine's getting injured in the process.

They crossed the stepping stones and then had to puzzle their way up to the tunnel mouth. A Marine was detailed to try. He jumped, failed and fell into the liquid floor. There was a valiant attempt to pull him free, but it was too late one of his legs was burnt off fatally puncturing his suit!

A PC used a grapnel and a rope was put in place to crawl up to the tunnel mouth. The two injured marines were left here to man the rope for the return journey (they needed to pull on the rope of hold it taught for the climb). Time was rapidly passing and the PCs needed to get a move on.

The tunnel they had reached contained stone tubes that appeared to flail around  occasional connecting to each other briefly. All but one Marine managed to dodge through here without trouble. The Marine received a minor injury from being slapped by the tubes.

Beyond this point the tunnel angled sharply down disapearing into another liquid stone pool. This was tentatively tested as they feared it would be more of the burning liquid stone. It turned out to be cool and one Marine was dispatched down the tunnel and was followed by the rest of the party. There was a danger of getting lost in the complete darkness but everyone made it and emerged on the far side.

The next room to cross looked empty and set the PC's on edge. "It was quiet...too quiet." A spanner was chucked into the room, it hit the floor and sunk slowly, leaving no trace. The PCs asked for a Marine volunteer to try sprinting across. No one stepped forwards. One PC had to start threatening them with an axe! The volunteer got to within a few meters of the far side before becoming stuck. A second Marine was threatened into trying, but he too became stuck. The last Marine got into a bit of state and headed back to get the rope from the room with the two injured Marines. He got turned around when trying to pass through the cool liquid tunnel. Tick, tock,tick,tock. One PC made an attempt to sprint across and managed it, another got stuck. The Marine returned with the rope and managed to pull the sinking fellows back to the entrance before they were lost for good.

The one PC that made it across was on his own. The next room was as weird as the others. Stone blocks were forming out of the ceiling and dropping to the floor and sinking into it in seemingly random patterns. He bolted across and made it in one piece.

He now emerged to find a wide crevasse blocking his way, but he could see the power room beyond. This was too wide to jump safely. Some serious discussion and planning was made and the collapsible pole was deployed across the gap. The near end was secured with duck tape and plaster from the med kit. The rope was tied around the pole and to the PC. That meant he only had to walk along the pole to the far side. He made it!

Adjusting the power setting of the system was simplicity itself after all of the other trials. Then all they had to do was get back passed all of these hindrances!  Which they managed. One Marine was knocked down but not killed. He was carried along in the rush back to the ship. In only 70 minutes of the 120, they were able to get back to the surface.

Back on the space ship they found it was being dragged back towards the anomaly, a desperate attempt was made to line the ship up with the direction of movement but failed, meaning they entered the anomaly and jump, unaligned...

What will happen next week? Will they emerge from jump where they expect? Will they emerge from jump?!?

Traveller Session - Going Deep

The session kicked off with the PC's still investigating what they've come to call the "Alien ant colony". They were returning to the central shaft when they got a call from Marines on the lower level. They'd discovered a glowing "force wall" across the entrance to a large storeroom.

They decided to try and destroy the wall with explosives. They retired and left a Marine to do the actual planting. A minute later he came running down the tunnel followed by the expected explosion. When they returned to the wall, it was intact but the floor was cratered.It was then that they discovered a control panel in the floor. Like everything else here it was made of living/flowing stone. A series of button presses soon had the door open.

Behind this door was a massive warehouse-room filled with metallic cubes. the cubes turned out to be sealed and without any way of opening them. A random cube was selected and carted off to the surface for investigation.

They then decided to investigate further sections of the tunnel. They came to another massive room filled with level upon level of the alien statues, each once again molded/carved from the living rock and armed with a spear. There were thousands of them. Marines were ordered to take one to the surface. With two Marines tugging on one of the statues it was soon broken free. This was carted to the surface too.

The collection was still incomplete so they climbed back up to the egg chamber and worked an egg free. This too went back to the surface.

There was more tunnel to investigate, but as soon as they started getting radiation alerts they backed off and returned with their collection to the ship.

On board ship they set to work on cracking open the box. An engineer was volunteered and he started cutting it open. A yellow viscous material leaked (slowly) out. A PC asked the engineer to test the liquid. The Engineer was a little nonplussed and may have said something like.. "I'm an Engineer Jim, not a scientist." Not knowing what else to do, he hit the puddle of liquid with a spanner. The liquid reacted and moved away, giving the impression that it was alive. A little panic ensued, the end result of which was a descision to move the box and contents to the nano-containment facility.

The box was wrapped in a tarp and carried up to the containment and placed into a glass tube. Then followed a series of electrocution experiments on the yellow liquid. It continued to react but showed no evidence of intelligence.

One of the other engineers turned up and ended the session by reporting that he has discovered a pulsing pattern within the gravitational anomaly and that the pattern was being matched by a power source down within the "ant colony".

Traveller session - There are jumps and JUMPS

The Traveller campaign continued on Friday night.  It started with a little trepidation for the players as I'd asked them roll up new characters "just in case". Of course they assumed their PCs were doomed, but honestly that wasn't the plan. There were a couple of options early on in the session where the choice they made could have jumped away from what I had planned. By having "alternate" as opposed to "replacement" characters I could still have them play through the content I had in mind. Of course, I didn't tell them that.  MWAH HA HA HA...

Last session we left the heroes having defeated the alien creepy crawlies that had infested their ship. The engineers had also managed to get breathable air into the core of the ship, bridge to engineering, but not a lot else. They had the Jump drive on-line after three days. Thus the plan was for them to jump in consort with the Navy cruiser back to Affran to defend it against the Aslan invasion.

Of course it didn't go that way. Right at the moment of initiating Jump, there was a terrific explosion of power and a magnificent light show around the gravitational anomaly they'd seen on arriving. There was nothing to do and no time to worry or investigate as the Jump was in progress. They spent the next week in-Jump healing up from the fight with the bugs, while the engineers continued working on the Maneuver drive, which they were able to make barely operational.

When they emerged from Jump, things were a little weird. There were no stars. They soon discovered a number of things.

• There was a gravitational anomaly behind their ship.
• There was a planet near by, just one and no associated star.
• They were between galaxies.
• There were odd energy readings ahead of their ship, which on closer inspection resembled the outline of the cathedral ship they have previously encountered, but not the ship itself.
• They did not have enough fuel to Jump, and they were way out of range anyway.

The planet was rather unremarkable. It had a thin unbreathable atmosphere that did contain  some hydrogen. A potential fuel source.

They decided to investigate the planet and found it a craggy rather dull rock. The only thing of note was an unusual smooth sided mountain. They landed on the mountain and climbed out to investigate. At the pinnacle they found a a vertical shaft driving straight down into the mountain. Their torches could make out openings in the side of the shaft that they could reach by rope.

They started investigating and found engravings of an unknown language around the entrance to the first hole which turned out to be a tunnel. They could only walk along this bent double.

The next hole they investigated was surrounded by engraved pictograms that appeared to show human-like shapes, but with four arms. Down this tunnel they investigated, and soon came to a room that had two stone statues standing in it. The statues were vaguely humanoid with bug eyes and no mouth, but did have four arms. They also seemed to be molded or carved from the floor, from the living rock.

They carried on investigating and found more strange things.  They found a room where there were control panels with buttons, switches, and knobs, all once again carved form the living rock. They dared to try one switch when made some stone nodules on the ceiling light up. They stayed wary and did not touch any others.

Next they found a large bowl shaped cavern where the floor was covered in stone eggs, again carved or formed from the living rock (think the egg-scene in the movie "Alien").

Next they came across a very very long tunnel with small cell-like rooms on either side. They were all empty and sealed with stone bars.

The last room they came across during the session was a truly awesome large cave with a device carved from the stone set in its center. It looked like a huge weapon, in the classic 50's style.

So right now, their ship is in orbit , the shuttle parked on the surface, a Marine waiting at the entrance to the shaft. A couple more Marines at the bottom of the shaft are investigating on their own and the PCs are wandering the miles of corridors.

Looking forward to next week. :)

Numenera - a review

It was with some trepidation that I started reading Monte Cook's "Numenera". I'm generally, not a fan of huge RPG books as they tend to be scourged by endless lists of rules for trivial unlikely events, or full of endless sections of character-choice spells that read like the F.T.  So I was pleasantly surprised by Numenera.

It's a 417 page PDF but inside you don't find endless lists of dry material, instead you find endless lists of interesting background that bring his world to life.

So what is the world he's made for us? It's not sci fi, at least in the classic sense. It's not fantasy in the classic sense either, instead it's an unusual blend of the two. The premise is that the game is set on Earth in the future, but billions of years in the future. Mankind as we know it has died away. Civilisations have risen and fallen until at the time of the game the rise and growth of the Ninth World (civilisation) is under way.

Humans, or human like people predominate, but there are other races too. Those that have evolved during previous eons, and some that migrated to Earth across galactic distances during some previous eons. The Earth itself is different too. The animals we know are gone, long gone, others have replaced them, the continents we know are likewise gone. In their place is a strange world littered with relics of the previous ages. From huge underground machines to man made mountains that float through the sky, the previous ages have left their mark.  

Your characters will be denizens of this world. There are three basic character classes, Warrior, Wizard and Rogue. Note that there is no magic in the Ninth World, rather there are ancient artifacts and machines that grant the user magic-like powers. I call it magic because the characters using these uncovered devices more than likely don't know how they work. The technology of the game is an unusual mix of classic medieval fantasy and super science.

A character is likely to write notes with quill and parchment, and be armed with a power lance that can cut rock! The science of this world is retarded, true there are experts here and there who have studied and learnt some of the ancient's secrets, but the majority of people have no knowledge of how they work.

So lets talk about the system. As I said , I had feared a bloated rules-fest, but that's not what we find here! It's a system based around the use of a D20. All tasks are given a Difficulty, you can multiply the Difficulty by 3 to see what you have to roll on the D20. But! Your skills, dice pools, and other bonuses generally change the Difficulty, rather than modify the roll. Thus if you are facing a lock with Difficulty 6, having the skills and equipment to pick it could reduce that difficulty by two levels, down to 4, meaning you only have to roll 12+ to succeed.

I like this concept, it's simple, it's straight forward.

Stats. Simple and straightforward again, with Might, Speed and Intellect you're not getting buried in pointless minutiae. Each stat is also a pool of "Effort" that can be spent to further reduce a tasks difficulty, this leaves your pool drained and it takes time to recover. A very nice touch.

Another nice touch...GM's won't be rolling any dice. None. Players do all the rolling.

And talking of GM's I love the way the GM can challenge the players via a "GM Intrusion". This is quite like  FATE where the GM can tag you're negative aspect, except here he can change things up and increase the chaos or difficulty. But, when they do this, they also hand the player concerned 2xp, and the player hands one of those xp to another player. What a great mechanism! It encourages story complications and player interaction.

Now unlike in D+D, these xp can be spent for a die re-roll. If you are willing to spend a couple you can gain the equivalent of a temporary skill. I know, "temporary skill" sounds a bit dodgy. It's not, if you as the player can justify it, you get the ability. The example given in the book is a good one. While robbing a palace, you notice the locks are all made by a locksmith you knew as a kid and you know the trick of picking them.  This becomes a short-term of local benefit skill.

For 3xp you can get a longer term benefit. So if you live off the land for a while you can spend 3xp and gain a skill at living off the land. Or you could discuss with the GM a +1 on the die in certain circumstances.

Of course you can spend xp to advance a level too.

Yet, the joy I gained from reading this game is not limited to the simple and evocative rules, it's the rest of the book. It is stuffed with background material. Section after section of emotive and inspiring source material, describing the creatures, the lands, the peoples and the environment. But even this is only a beginning. The game embraces the weird, the unexpected and the downright odd.  Your characters walk around waving swords as they assault a castle that's really a crashed ancient spaceship. They dig, not for diamonds, but for the ephemera and refuse of ancient times, always hoping to find an artefact that gives them the power they crave.

Everything in this world, is different from what you'd expect. Despite the map being laid out in exquisite detail with extensive descriptions there is still so much more to discover.

The rules and the background material is not all that's to be found here. There's also an excellent section for the GM. In some games these GM sections simply provide a myriad of new rules. Not here. Instead this section is actually about how to play the game. How to be a good GM, how to insert the excitement and the fun for the players. Truly good material.

After you've read all that good advice you then get four scenarios in this book. These are all very original and bring the "weird" of the Ninth World to life.

As you've probably guessed I liked this game. Everything about this PDF is great. The art is fantastic, the writing is clear, the rules are simple and best of all, the heap of background material is full enough to give you a rich full session during the first play. Go get it now!

A not so great Traveller Session, report

Friday night is Traveller night, and I don't think I did too well. I believe my reffing was a little sub standard and I can't blame the illness for that!

Having blasted the Aslan and chased them away from their secret base the heroes were travelling back to Affran on the tincan ship when the Navy sent a Cruiser to intercept and take them on board. The evidence of the Aslan invasion has got the local Head  of Station very scared. He only has a few ships which are really only used to prevent piracy (unsuccessfully). The threatened invasion can not be countered with what he has on hand, and even sending for help, it will take months to collect together an amarda.

So he decided he needed the player's abandoned Aslan ship which they left drifting in the middle of nowhere as a kind of Trojan horse. So onto the cruiser which was stripped and emptied so that most of the free space could be filled with fuel bladders, and off into the middle of nowhere.

They emerged from jump and discovered a gravitational anomaly, right where the now disappeared cathedral ship had been. They dodged that and considered the best way to board their old ship. In the end they sent across a tether and pulled themselves across towards a hole punched by meteor. One of the heroes started drifting off when he lost his grip. At the same time the marines found themselves in a fight with the space-bugs down in the darkness of the hole. A line was thrown out to the drifter but the PC doing the throwing was attacked from behind by a bug. He was saved by a spectacular shot from Mr drifter!  Eventually he got pulled back to earth the ship, but only as the marines had had enough and were pulling back.

A short discussion ensued and it was decided to use the cruisers lasers to purge the hole of bugs. BLAM!  Bugs were cleared out, the meteor was vaporized and more of the ship was damaged, but at least there was a way in now.

They moved in, battled some more bugs and found that all of the still-pressurized sections had foul air, it was poisoned by the fuel leak they left when they abandoned ship.

Up to the bridge and then down to engineering. They transhipped a few engineers from the cruiser but these needed help as they were completely unused to Aslan equipment.

Two marines on patrol for more bugs went off air, and the PCs went looking for them, and discovered the big bad end of level boss bug chewing on the marine's remains. They engaged with laser rifles scoring some good hits but not enough to stop it. The huge beast laid into them seriously wounding both PC's before they eventually took it down.

Then time passed as the engineers started getting a minimum  portion of the ship pressurized with breathable air and the jump drive on-line.

And there ends the session.  I feel it was all a bit predictable. I think I may have given the players a little shock with the near-death experience. Next week I'll do my best to make it a little more exciting.

I've written a short piece of fan-fic set in the Ninth World, and that means it's set in the universe of the RPG, Numenera. It's actually posted on Doctor Felbrigg's Mechanicorium web site.

I found the concept of a priesthood built around the study of objects from another age fascinating.  Not really a religious as such but rather scientists dressed up in religion, it reminded of Asimov's Foundation series.

Solo rules for "Ticket To Ride"

I've had Ticket to Ride for a few years now, and have pondered the possibilities of solo play on many occasions, but only today did I put in the effort to actually get a working set of rules changes going.

I've played the following through and it works quite nicely.

The first thing to say is that this is a true solitaire rule-set, you play to see how high a score you can get, rather than playing against dummy players controlled by an A.I. Having said that, you will be playing against the game, as you  would in a cooperative game.  The challenge gets harder over time as you try to improve on your previous best.

Choose a colour to play with, any colour but black. We'll be using black to block routes as the game progresses.

Set the game out as normal.
Draw three tickets. You must keep these!
Draw two train cards to start off your hand.

Now, you start alternating turns, first you, then the game, then you, then the game and so on.

On your turn you can draw train cards or tickets or play trains as normal.

All double routes are active, but you may only use one, as per the normal rules.

On the games turn you draw a ticket. Find the shortest path between the destinations. Now place "one" black train on one of the route segments along that shortest route. You can not place black trains on both parts of a double route.  If the shortest route is occupied by either your trains or the black trains, find the next shortest route between the two points (even if it shares some of the same route) and play a train to block that route.In this way, every time the game "plays", it will block a route.

After you've played the black train discard the ticket. If you run out of tickets, shuffle the discards into a new draw pile. Likewise when ever you want to draw a new ticket you should shuffle the discards back into the draw pile first.

Continue playing until either your supply of trains gets to three or less, or the supply of black trains reaches three.

There is no bonus for the longest train. Instead you get a 10pt bonus if all of the destinations on your tickets are joined together in any way.

That's it. Nice and simple.

Yet another Classic Traveller session report

An excellent Traveller session last night. Our heroes were trying to organise a sale of one of their robots. They were looking to generate a bidding frenzy between the large houses on Affran. The first bid was 1MC, and they laughed at the bidder. So, that's two of the great Affran houses who now want their blood.

Their warehouse was attacked over night, in an attempted raid to steal the robots, but they took care of that with a few well placed lasers. the attackers were part of a mercenary company.

Then the Navy turned up needing their consultancy skills. The Navy considers them experts on the alien Aslan. This then, had them shooting out to one of the system's outer moons where a Navy listening post had gone quiet after a garbled message that mentioned the Aslan.

In then end, they found the listening post destroyed and the operators dead. Checking the security system and analyzing the digital records revealed that a small ship had launched from the moon shortly after the attack.

They backtracked the trajectory and this led them to another of the planets moons. There, they found a secret buried installation. When they examined the door, they found it was made for Aslan hands/paws. They blasted their way inside, losing a couple of their Marines (Vasquez and Drake) to an explosive booby trap. A pair of Aslan controlled robots appeared and took out Private Frost before they were taken down.

When they entered the installation there was a terrific explosion as an Aslan ship blasted of from a hidden silo. The P.C.s raced back to their own ship and set off in pursuit but only had an opportunity to take one shot, which they missed...

This is third Aslan incursion the team have happened across. First the illegal colony on New Horizon, the x-boat type ship that appeared in Imperium space and now a hidden base on this moon.

Video review - Maquis

This is my review of a free print and play WWII worker placement game

Another Classic Traveller session report

Role players never cease to amaze me with their ingenuity. I had a scenario all set up , and had thought through the possible outcomes, but in the end the players of-course do something unexpected...

It's a space game, classic Traveller. The PCs have a fantastic alien (Aslan) space craft, huge, well armed, armoured, and even a good jump drive. The last thing I ever expected, was that they would abandon it.

I'll admit that things might have looked a little tough...  The ship was being dragged slowly towards a massive mysterious alien ship by a huge inexplicable gravitational force. Asteroids and other space detritus was smashing into their ship as it too was dragged towards the alien. One of the impacts included some horrid space-bugs that tore their way into ship and started tearing apart the already injured Marine contingent in the Med-bay. The Hydro recycling system failed when the room was damaged by the strange gravitational forces. The Quantum Core interface had failed too. The Navigation systems were on the fritz and the jump-drive was smoking and sparking.

While all that was happening they detected the jump signature of a ship turning  up, but they couldn't see who or what it was.

Yeah. Things weren't looking great for them.

Then the alien ship that had started all the problems just disappeared and the gravitational waves along with it. They got the ship under control, but it was still infested with some very tough bugs. They opted to get the survivors into the shuttles and bug out (except for one N.P.C. who was locked up – poor mad Crow Gedes).

The other ship that had jumped into the system turned out to be an alien (Aslan). They used the Aslan shuttle they already had to false-flag their way into docking with the alien. It turned out to be an x-boat like ship, very little room but lots of jump-drive. They used their robots to rip out the air lock and "space" the Aslan pilot. Then fun and games commenced as they welded the human shuttle (they had one human and one Aslan shuttle) to the x-boat and rode it back to civilisation.

And so...next session starts with them on the star port having no ship, no money, and in orbit over a planet where the most powerful "Family" are likely to kill them on sight.  It's not looking good for the ex-crew of the S.S. Hairball.

Hollowpoint - an RPG review

I bought this RPG from LuLu the Print-On-Demand service. The book is 6 x 9 with an interesting two-tone cover in red and black. It features a silhouette of a man grinning insanely and pointing a gun past the viewer. The tag line on the cover really gives the tone of the game itself:

"bad people killing bad people for bad reasons"

That really does present the feel of the game, you might be playing mafioso hit men, hit men for hire, or even an FBI hit squad, going after some the other bad guys. The game is all about short sharp violence and your player characters are as likely as your targets to get taken down, and out of the game. In fact the referee is encouraged to go for the weakest P.C. To take them out!

There are really no good guys presented within these pages (rather like the 40K universe where everyone is atrocious) so pretty much everyone deserves what they get, even your character.

I've described it as an RPG, but the reality is that it's really more of a story telling game. The mechanics support a narrative approach with minimal die rolling. In fact the die rolls are pretty much reserved for conflict, and when you get there it's a dice pool mechanic, but not an ordinary one!

Your character has a number of stats, such as KILL, CON, or TAKE and each has a number of dice associated with it. When you come to roll the dice during a violent scene, you're not rolling and trying to get 5's and 6's to be counted as success' , rather your trying to get sets. A set is any number of duplicate numbers. You can use a single set to take an action. With an action you get to narrate what your character is doing and take a die out of an opponents set, possibly destroying the set.

So if you have a pair of 6's and an opponent uses their action to take one of those 6's, you no longer have a set and therefore can't take an action. If you have no sets for them to take a die from you take a consequence. What I like here, is that the consequence relates to the skill being used to attack you. If they attacked with KILL, you're going to get hurt, if they attack you with TAKE, they've stolen something from you. It's a huge narrative boon.

One feature I really love about this system is its very cinematic. Can you remember a film where the computer-guy is feeding info to the other guy sneaking through the bad guy's lair? This game's mechanism fits that like a dream. If the player is using their DIG (that's digging for info) skill they can use their rolled sets to help the other PC's. Perhaps they lock a security door, guide them onto the diamonds, or warn them where the explosives are.

As the game progresses, players try to inflict consequences on the bad guys and the ref works his hardest to do the same back to the PCs. In this game the referee IS the enemy, she IS playing to take you out. It's right there in the rules. Don't worry about that, the referee is as constrained by the story telling rules as the players, she needs good dice rolls too.

So what happens if the referee does take you out? You narrate an appropriate ending and jump right back in with a new PC. Simple and sweet. This game is not about character progression, it's about story telling in the best possible way.

So back to the physical book. It's novelette sized running to 110 pages, including intro, index, and a "flavour" section at the back. The cover is shiny and it has that new book smell.

I'm really impressed with the game, it oozes with its interesting theme and presents a system eminently matched to this original genre. Buy it now!

Deathwatch RPG – review

After a long slog I finally finished wading through the PDF version the "Deathwatch" RPG. This was produced by Fantasy Flight who have a a bit of a reputation for grandiose productions. They haven't broken the mold here.  The PDF is 402 pages long (far too long in my opinion for any RPG) and lavishly festooned with artwork.  And my-oh-my what artwork. If you're a fan of Games Workshop and their Warhammer 40,000 science fiction setting then you'll love the artwork. Mighty armoured warriors in dramatic poses wielding unseasonably large weapons to fend off the hordes of foes. Great stuff, really.

In this game you play members of the elite "Deathwatch", a secretive group of Space Marines drawn from the thousands of Space Marine chapters and forged into a "Kill team".  You are therefore playing the very tip of the Imperium's surgical strikes. If a jobs too tough or too important even for standard Space Marines it falls to the Deathwatch.. As you read through this book, you get a LOT of information about who and what Space Marines are, how they are barely human anymore and are instead super humans. This game is all about be bad-ass.

Nine percentage based stats form the core of a character. Then you start "tarting" up. Pick which chapter you marine hails from, this will give you a few tiny mods to stats. Then select a specialty, a role within the Deathwatch kill team for your character. Then a few calcs for your movement and wounds.  You also get a few Fate points which don't operate like FATE points, but instead allow you a few get-out-of-jail moments.

A nice touch next, with a die roll you determine some past events for your character, giving the chap a bit of a history.  You also get to add a "demeanor" to your character which can make him an outrageous ass, but also garners some mechanical advantage in some situations if you can worm it into the story.

There is also a long list of "skills" a.k.a. "advances" that can be bought and these generally end up giving your character a +10 here or there. I found it all rather boring to read, overly complex even. Lots of blather and inter-related requirements like a tech-tree all just to garner a +5% bonus when attacked from behind by something that's bigger than you.

...and don't get me started on the skill lists. Sheesh, more boring lists of descriptions for minor adjustments.

Your character also gets a number of "Talents". Which is another was of saying "skills". Again why these are broken out I don't know, maybe they needed more pages?

Once you claw your way free of these endless lists the book actually starts to shine. You start learning about the gear of the marines...lots of cool looking gear. Fascinating.

A big section on spells...I mean warp powered psychic capabilities. Some are interesting but many are well, just a spell list. Some flavour is added by making each marine chapter have different lists.

The rules of play start around page 205 and there are a lot of things to consider. They seem to have gone for the put-it-down-in-writing rather than hand-wavery approach. Combat covers thirty pages of double column. This is a min-maxers dream. With anything this complex there must be a thousand holes to fall through.

The games master section is pretty good, with some neat ideas for creating missions and creating the right "tone" of a 40K game.
Then comes the really good part of this PDF. The background material of the 40k universe. Up to this point all of the background material has been related to character generation and weapons. Now you start to learn about ...everything.  This I.P. Has a huge history and pretty much the whole thing is presented here is gruelling yet wonderful detail.

The endless war, foes on all sides, the apostasy, the constant struggle against the all powerful evils of the universe.  Utterly horrid, yet utterly absorbing and fascinating. A read through this section really brings home the nightmare future of 40K.

So to summarise my thoughts. Crappy system. Brilliant I.P. If you want to play Space Marines from the 40K universe, buy this book, you won't regret it. Just please, for all that's good and sweet in the world, don't punish your players with these rules.  Try another system , perhaps "Three Sixteen, Carnage Amongst the Stars."

A Traveller session report

Last nights Traveller game went well. The PC's were woken by the sound of a near riot. It turned out that one of the children born on the colony was showing Psi abilities. An agitator was calling for the "witch child" to be put to death. The heroes broke it up and got off planet with the child and her family.

The colony ship had been stripped for resources so was not useable. That meant that if they wanted to get away from the planet they would have to take the abandoned alien Aslan ship.

They jumped into the Affran system hoping to find a home for the family. They played safe and broadcast their presence, lest they get fired on by Imperial forces who would only see an Aslan interloper.

They docked at the station were boarded by a Marine contingent who wanted to inspect the ship. Meantime the visited an administrator and made an application for residency visas for the family. It was during this interview that they learnt that Affran is a planet run by "Families" and that the Administrator considered the planet a "hive of scum and villainy." They also learnt that there is likely to be a negative response to a Psi capable child.

They then decided to use their contacts over at the Navy base and got in to see the Head of Station. While sharing a meal and a few glasses of wine, they spun quite a tale. They told of a secret combat mission into Aslan space where thousands were killed, but in the end they, the heroes of this tale, managed to capture the Aslan ship. The Head of Station fell for it!

They found that this part of the galaxy was inhabited by pirates, and that the HoS thought the Killown family down on the planet might be responsible as their ships didn't seem to get hit as often.

So they hatched a plan to pretend to be visiting nobles who just happen to be trying to place the family as they look around at the possibilities of setting up a trade route while secretly they want to find out if the Killown family are dirty.  The HoS has offered help, as he wants to stop the piracy.

Meddling Kids - review

I've just finished my read through of the "Meddling Kids" RPG. This game pitches itself firmly at new and young RPG players. It's tone throughout is pitched for the younger audience, and spends quite some time explaining how to play an RPG.

I like its advice for new G.M.s  this kind of info is what I missed back in the early days of RPGs where I went on a power trip thinking I was king of the work. This book starts out by telling the new G.M. that they are firmly there it make sure everyone has a good time and that it's not an adversarial position.

As you can probably tell from the title this game is aimed at creating a game with that Scooby Doo feeling. The art work throughout backs up that assumption. The player archetypes support that too with Jocks, Fluff, Brains, Goofs, Tempers, Sidekicks, and Innocents.  Your characters have a set of stats in the traditional style, these being Strength, Moves, Smarts, and Health. On top of that you have a bunch of Abilities to pick from. Abilities are skills, and bonuses to certain types of action.

One clever trick of this system, is that the Scooby Doo character in the party is an NPC of sorts run by the G.M. It doesn't have to be a dog, could be an ape, a ghost, a batty professor or anything that's a bit out-there. This character is there to help out the kids/players when they are struggling, perhaps by sniffing out a clue or falling into the trap.

There are three tropes of the Scooby Doo series included in the rules that I think are just perfect.

The chase when the monster appears, the P.C.s will run! They have to escape the beast in the most inventive way possible and the skills and abilities back that up. Instant disguise ability anyone?

You can't just beat up the bad guys here with clubs, you have to trap them. The more monsterous the monster, the bigger and more complex the trap has to be! Players have to devise an outrageous trap to catch the beast.

Finally, no one gets killed, they get "Bonked", which means that they sit out of the game for a minute or two. Simple and straight forward, no player elimination, everyone has fun.

While aimed at kids, I think this will be a fun game for anyone willing to jump into the spirit of the game.

Recommended.

A promo for my 3:16 campaign

Christmas is the time for sharing with your family, the giving and receiving of gifts... or if your me, the time to set up all the family computers as a render-farm for your animated promotion video!

Here's a new little promo video for a campaign book I wrote a couple of years back.

Planning a new gamebook

Having recently completed and published my gamebook "Dwarven Vengeance" I started thinking about a starting another. Despite it being a lot of work, I have really enjoyed the end result, so I wanted to start another one.

This time I thought I'd do a little market research about the subject matter. I went onto Role Playing Game Geek (RPGGeek.com) and posted a poll asking which genre would they be more likely to part with thier hard earned money for.  the poll ran for 15 or so days and got 49 responses.

The options on the poll were:

• Sci fi trading and exploration: 18 votes
• Pulpy noir detective (with tentacles): 9 votes
• Marines vs Bugs: 4 votes
• Dungeon crawl/landscape crawl: 4 votes
• WWII, pilot escaping occupied territory: 10 votes
• Other: 4 votes

I was hoping for Marines vs Bugs, but the omens have dictated otherwise.

This is a new genre for me, especially in gamebook form. It's set me a challenge. A gamebook needs a "system" of rules, those rules should match the expected game play. For instance it's no use having game rules for trading if there is no trading in the game.  So now I'm going to have to spend some time debating with myself what the focus of this new gamebook will be and once I've done that, how to implement a complimentary set of rules that fit the genre without over complicating something that needs to be really simple to fit the book format.

So now I'm collecting ideas and making notes about possible scenarios that could appear in the book. At the same time trying to avoid going too far down one line of thought without considering mechanisms at the same time.

At this point I know there are some limits on story. I polled a bunch of role players and "sci fi trading and exploration" means the RPG "Traveller" to them. The Traveller game has a number of tropes and associated expectations that goes along with the name, so those will be my focus to start with...

Target! Bearing 093 degrees!

I designed and released a card game called "Target! Bearing 093 degrees!" back in 2011 and its been on sale at WargameVault.com since then. Its only in the last week that I noticed that the people at WargameVault have stated that products with an associated video sell better than those without. So with that in mind, I've thrown together the following video promotion for the game.
Enjoy ... consume ... buy ....

Golo - a review of a Golf-dice-game

I saw this for 1.99 in my local corner store I would have passed it by as another piece of junk-ware-shelf-filler but caught sight of a D12 in the bottom. I checked it out and low and behold it had nine D12 in there. My first thought was that 1.99 was great for 9D12, so if nothing else it was worth picking up for that. Actually it turns out the D12s are not normal D12s, so it might not be worth it.

When I got home I pulled it open expecting the worst of Christmas junk-gaming. Not so. inside the plastic tube was a nice golfing score page and a dinky little pencil, quality stuff! The rules appear on the score pad so I was good to go...but wait!

There is also a little cardboard rule book, that repeats the rules and adds in a few pointless optional rules. Pointless to a gamer that is, but I expect a few after-christmas-dinner players will like to try them out.

I was blown away by the quality of the dice cup. Thick plasic, mug-sized and lined inside. I'd be happy with the price just for the cup!

Then onto the dice. Nine engraved dice in three colours. Two red for Par 3 holes, five white for par 4 holes and two red for par 5's. These are not numbered like ordinary dice. For instance a white dice has three number 4's and ranges from 3-8. It's a similar story for the other dice too.

The "par" numbers on each die are surrounded by a square and the 1-under by a circle.

Game play is Yahtzee style. Roll all the dice, lock one or more, roll the rest and keep going until you've rolled and locked them all. Then allocate the dice to the appropriate holes on your score pad.

You do this once for the first nine holes, and then again for the way back to the club house. Add up your final score.

That's it. Simple. Multi player solitaire if you have friends over, or a quick diversion if you're on your own.

Considering the price, I'm really happy with it. A quick round of golf on your table and an excellent dice cup!



Found in "It's a Gift" a corner store that sells toys, cards, small tools, stationary, sweets and garden ornaments.

A cautionary tale for gamebook authors

I write a gamebook a few years ago, and it didn't end well. Here's why.

Creating a character in Diaspora

"Diaspora" is a hard science-fiction role playing game based on the FATE system.  THe video below shows you how to create a character.