I've been busy with con prep the last couple of weeks, but felt that I could be helpful by offering some non FFG resources I still use for Star Wars game prep.
If you don't have these, go find them and buy them:
The Star Wars Atlas. Not an RPG supplement, but a LucasBooks offering. The best job of making sense of the myriad planets of the EU and their proximity to each other ever.
d20 Star Wars (WOTC-Out of Print-RCR): Galactic Campaign Guide:
Yeah, it's dated. Yeah, the statblocks are for a version of the game that stopped being supported during the Bush years. But the combination of floorplans, plot hooks, game ideas, and best of all, random name generators for about two dozen species (including all 7 in Edge of the Empire), I've been using this book non-stop since I bought it.
The New Star Wars Essential Chronology (Lucasbooks). Yeah, it's a few years old, and could do with an update, but its great for a concise treatment of the EU, and oh, yeah, has provided me with seeds for a good dozen scenarios over the years.
d20 Star Wars (WOTC-Out of Print-RCR): Coruscant and the Core Worlds. Yeah, it's dated. But it has great writeups of locales, NPCs, and adventure seeds on a couple of dozen important worlds in the Galactic core...all very easy to convert to Edge of the Empire (and the system info is basically unchanged).
d20 Star Wars (WOTC-Out of Print-RCR): Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds. Does for the Outer Rim what Coruscant and the Core Worlds did for the central part of the galaxy.
d20 Star Wars (WOTC-Out of Print-RCR): Ultimate Alien Anthology. Let's face it. If Edge of the Empire has a weakness, it's the lack of playable species. While this book is a few years old, and statted for d20, converting races from d20 to Edge is simple as can be. Together with the Unofficial Alien Supplement on the GSA's website, this should give you all the alien races you could ever want, and more.
Showing posts with label Star Wars Saga Edition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Star Wars Saga Edition. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Star Wars Saga Edition, Anakin Takes A Bullet, Episode IV, Session 1 Writeup
The Story So Far...
System: Star Wars Saga Edition (modified d20)
Campaign: Anakin Takes a Bullet
Episode IV, The Great Unravelling
Session 1
Date Played: July 22, 2012
Date in Star Wars Timeline: Day 1, 977 RRE (Ruusan Reformation Era, 977 years after the reformation of the Republic subsequent to the Battle of Ruusan, which ended the last of the Sith Wars) or 23 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin)
The Great Unravelling represents something of an experiment for me as a GM. At the end of Episode III, Betrayal On Kitos V, Kizme Naberre, a Naboo noblewoman, played by my wife, ran for and was elected to the Senate. The other two characters, Draglo Fis, who is basically Han Solo if Han had been a Dug instead of human, and particularly Catherine Starkiller, a Miraluka Jedi Knight, didn't exactly seem to be great candidates as Senate aides, and so the original group of three characters has split in two.
The first group, centered around the Senator, consists of a Selkath Scout, Shako and a Gand Scoundrel, Fluulehn, along with the Senator. The second group, centered around Draglo Fis and Catherine Starkiller (a Jedi and a Pilot/Fixer character), is rounded out by my wife's 1st Level Jedi, a padawan. It was the first group that was the focus of the first session, and this first group is who the remainder of this writeup will be about.
Play began on Coruscant. After briefly handing an assignment to the Jedi Group that shall be a object of future sessions, we dealt with business in the office of newly sworn in Senator Kizme Naberre, who had barely been sworn in before she dealt with another job applicant, and a bribery attempt.
The latter became a primary focus of the rest of the session, as the group began to investigate the mysterious woman who made the bribery attempt, hoping to find out more about who was behind it.
So far, they've got a voice sample, which is being run through security databases, and some holovid footage of the perpetrator on the way in and out of the building (she used a scrambling device to muddle up security holovid cameras inside the Senator's office, but failed to engage them outside the building).
In the next session, we'll see what they do with that.
System: Star Wars Saga Edition (modified d20)
Campaign: Anakin Takes a Bullet
Episode IV, The Great Unravelling
Session 1
Date Played: July 22, 2012
Date in Star Wars Timeline: Day 1, 977 RRE (Ruusan Reformation Era, 977 years after the reformation of the Republic subsequent to the Battle of Ruusan, which ended the last of the Sith Wars) or 23 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin)
The Great Unravelling represents something of an experiment for me as a GM. At the end of Episode III, Betrayal On Kitos V, Kizme Naberre, a Naboo noblewoman, played by my wife, ran for and was elected to the Senate. The other two characters, Draglo Fis, who is basically Han Solo if Han had been a Dug instead of human, and particularly Catherine Starkiller, a Miraluka Jedi Knight, didn't exactly seem to be great candidates as Senate aides, and so the original group of three characters has split in two.
The first group, centered around the Senator, consists of a Selkath Scout, Shako and a Gand Scoundrel, Fluulehn, along with the Senator. The second group, centered around Draglo Fis and Catherine Starkiller (a Jedi and a Pilot/Fixer character), is rounded out by my wife's 1st Level Jedi, a padawan. It was the first group that was the focus of the first session, and this first group is who the remainder of this writeup will be about.
Play began on Coruscant. After briefly handing an assignment to the Jedi Group that shall be a object of future sessions, we dealt with business in the office of newly sworn in Senator Kizme Naberre, who had barely been sworn in before she dealt with another job applicant, and a bribery attempt.
The latter became a primary focus of the rest of the session, as the group began to investigate the mysterious woman who made the bribery attempt, hoping to find out more about who was behind it.
So far, they've got a voice sample, which is being run through security databases, and some holovid footage of the perpetrator on the way in and out of the building (she used a scrambling device to muddle up security holovid cameras inside the Senator's office, but failed to engage them outside the building).
In the next session, we'll see what they do with that.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Anakin Takes A Bullet: The Story So Far
I'm back to work on the Star Wars Saga Edition game. As I've said before, it's an alternate universe game entitled "Anakin Takes A Bullet."
The break in official Star Wars canon takes place during the podrace in Episode I. During the race, there's a scene where Anakin's podracer is grazed by a bullet from a slugthrower shot by a Tusken Raider sniping the race course. My assumption is that instead of striking his racer, it strikes Anakin in the skull, penetrating. The combination of the gunshot wound, coupled with the blunt force trauma resulting from the subsequent crash kills him.
The net effect of this is that the A plot of the Star Wars timeline is effectively removed, thus allowing the player characters to become the A plot. The Skywalker line is gone, so no Anakin, no Luke, no Leia. The larger sweep of the galaxy is otherwise unaffected, but these deaths cause ripples in the timeline due to the absence of the Skywalkers (and the presence of the party). The net effect is that the events of the Fall of the Republic seem to be playing out in the background, but there's just enough cognitive dissonance, and just enough new elements being introduced to keep the players just a bit uneasy.
The campaign itself has been episodic in nature, so far, three have been completed and resolved. After a few months break where the group has been playing other games. We're probably just a handful of weeks away from Episode 4's start. Here's what the group has encountered so far:
EPISODE I: ANAKIN TAKES A BULLET
Episode 1 dealt with the aftermath of Anakin's death and the situation on Tatooine (where Padme, Qui-Gon Jinn, and Obi-Wan Kenobi) are stranded after Watto wins the Naboo Royal Yacht in the podrace). The Judicial Department reluctant dispatches another group to retrieve the stranded heroes, and see what can be salvaged of the situation in Naboo. This group, naturally, is the PCs.
The three intrepid heroes are a human noble woman, part of Padme's Royal Handmaidens (and a distant cousin), a male Dug Scoundrel/Pilot who has an uncanny ability to find trouble, only to dig himself out, and a female Miraluka Jedi.
By the time the group reaches Tatooine, both Qui-Gon and Darth Maul are dead, as the lightsaber battle that punctuates Episode I's climax takes place on Tatooine. Eventually, after a pitstop in Coruscant, where Chancellor Valorum's government has fallen based on his illegal use of the Jedi on Naboo, complicated by the stranding of the group on Tatooine. In one of the first ripples, corpulent Twi'lek Senator Orn Free Taa pulls enough strings/hands outs enough bribes to become Chancellor.
Eventually the group makes its way to Naboo, where the heroes of the movie, in combination with the player characters, break the Trade Federation's hold on the planet, and Naboo celebrates its liberation.
EPISODE II: LAST CALL AT CARLASS
Episode 2 advances the timeline a couple of years. Several canonical things that happen in the timeline happen here. Count Dooku resigns from the Jedi Order. The Jedi Order begins to suffer a wave of missing Jedi. Usually younger, recently promoted Jedi Knights, the Order is concerned enough to launch an investigation.
Meanwhile, in the Senate, Chancellor Orn Free Taa, whose greed is exceeded only by his waistline, becomes mired in corruption charges, just like his predecessor. Calls for his resignation, like a dim echo of those for Finis Valorum just a few years before, can now be heard.
On Naboo, the combination of the loss of the Royal Yacht, the heavy toll in property damage and civilian life taken by the longer occupation by the Trade Federation, and the sense that Naboo's Queen was guided by rather than leading events during the occupation lead to bold calls that Queen Amidala step down, including some voices on the Naboo Royal Council. While Amidala holds on to her office for the time being, there is a sense that barring a change in the fortunes of the Queen, she will be stepping down at the end of her term.
The group is given the task of following up on the disappearance of one of the missing Jedi, a Jedi whose mission had been to recover a possible Jedi or Sith Holocron on Eriadu. There, they meet a younger, but every bit as taciturn, Eriadu Lieutenant Governor Wilhuff Tarkin (the same Tarkin of Death Star fame), and look for clues to the whereabout of the missing Jedi. They find no Jedi, but they do locate the Jedi's ride, a Modified YT-2000 Freighter piloted by a now dead Mon Calamari pilot. After a violent encounter with a Dark Side Force Adept who has already lost an arm to what she describes as a Sith Lord, she leads them to believe the Jedi may have gone rogue, and locate clues that she may have moved on to Carlass, an outer rim system that is mostly unexplored outside of a small mining colony on the system's mainworld.
Travelling to Carlass, they still fail to locate the Jedi, but do run into a number of beasts that have been twisted by the Dark Side of the force in the form of a crypt of a minor, but previously forgotten Sith Lord. There, the group battles their way through a variety of Sith Abominations, a Dark Side Spirit, and a pair of fiendish puzzles/traps (I'm fond of that sort of thing at times), before locating what turns out to be a relatively unimportant Sith holocron.
After a stop at Naboo where the group foils an assassination attempt on Padme Amidala's life by a group from the Nebula Front, the group returns to Coruscant, with a vaguely disconcerting feeling that at least one of the missing Jedi Knights has gone to the Dark Side, and a sense that even though they have a better idea what happened to the missing Jedi, and did retrieve the holocron, that there was something more that should have been done by somebody.
EPISODE III: BETRAYAL ON KITOS V
Episode III was aimed firmly at the Naboo noble in the party. The timeline is advanced to roughly six years after Episode I. On Coruscant, yet another treason trial on Nute Gunray fails to convict him, leaving it very likely that the Neimoidians will walk away consequence free from the illegal occupation of Naboo. Chancellor Orn Free Taa resigned not long after the conclusion of Episode II, leading to Palpatine being voted in as the new Chancellor. The political entity that would become the Confederacy of Independent Systems is launched by Count Dooku, The Trade Federation joins the Confederacy soon after.
Also on Coruscant, a devastating act of terrorism in Westport leads to the destruction of numerous starships, and tens of thousands dead, including two Senators. As a response, the Senate passes (and the Chancellor signs) the CEASES Act, which creates an exception to some existing civil liberties protections for persons branded by the Chancellor as suspected of committing acts of terrorism. While some civil libertarians bemoan the loss of liberties, the public, reeling from the Westport bombing, and similar terrorist acts on other core worlds, by and large approves of the measure.
It is against this backdrop of civil strife that the group of player characters is called upon to travel to a seemingly insignificant mining colony in the Outer Rim, Kitos V, a world considering joining with the Confederacy, which happens to be the linchpin of an interlocking string of alliances that could take most of three sectors with it.
The group travels to Kitos V to meet with the governing council. They quickly learn that all five members of the council, are less than conventional personalities, with conflicting goals and agendas, and with nobody really acting as it would seem.
Throw in the first real Sith Lord the group has encountered, a group of mercenaries and bounty hunters intent on killing anybody who threatens Ragga's plans, and the group has to tread lightly, finding the pressure points of the various council members, politicking to get their vote, and in some instances confronting the violence of Ragga's thugs head on. Ultimately, the group is successful in keeping Kitos V loyal to the Republic, but not without grave consequences to the world, and more than one council member.
One other incident has set the table for the fourth episode. Padme Amidala was assassinated on Naboo. One of the things the players have been made aware of from the beginning is that events outside of their control will happen outside of their sphere of influence. This was one such time where this came true. Simply put, I removed Padme to put the Naboo noble that is a member of the party in a position of influence in Naboo politics. She has been elected Senator, and the party has effectively been split into two groups...a Jedi focused one that will be investigating rumors of embezzlement from the Republic government offworld, and a politically focused group centered around her as Senator on Coruscant, and dealing with the corrupt nature of politics in the late Republic.
In future posts, I'll provide a few SWSE builds for some of the NPCs I've created, as well as session notes as we run the Episode. For now, consider this a teaser.
The break in official Star Wars canon takes place during the podrace in Episode I. During the race, there's a scene where Anakin's podracer is grazed by a bullet from a slugthrower shot by a Tusken Raider sniping the race course. My assumption is that instead of striking his racer, it strikes Anakin in the skull, penetrating. The combination of the gunshot wound, coupled with the blunt force trauma resulting from the subsequent crash kills him.
The net effect of this is that the A plot of the Star Wars timeline is effectively removed, thus allowing the player characters to become the A plot. The Skywalker line is gone, so no Anakin, no Luke, no Leia. The larger sweep of the galaxy is otherwise unaffected, but these deaths cause ripples in the timeline due to the absence of the Skywalkers (and the presence of the party). The net effect is that the events of the Fall of the Republic seem to be playing out in the background, but there's just enough cognitive dissonance, and just enough new elements being introduced to keep the players just a bit uneasy.
The campaign itself has been episodic in nature, so far, three have been completed and resolved. After a few months break where the group has been playing other games. We're probably just a handful of weeks away from Episode 4's start. Here's what the group has encountered so far:
EPISODE I: ANAKIN TAKES A BULLET
Episode 1 dealt with the aftermath of Anakin's death and the situation on Tatooine (where Padme, Qui-Gon Jinn, and Obi-Wan Kenobi) are stranded after Watto wins the Naboo Royal Yacht in the podrace). The Judicial Department reluctant dispatches another group to retrieve the stranded heroes, and see what can be salvaged of the situation in Naboo. This group, naturally, is the PCs.
The three intrepid heroes are a human noble woman, part of Padme's Royal Handmaidens (and a distant cousin), a male Dug Scoundrel/Pilot who has an uncanny ability to find trouble, only to dig himself out, and a female Miraluka Jedi.
By the time the group reaches Tatooine, both Qui-Gon and Darth Maul are dead, as the lightsaber battle that punctuates Episode I's climax takes place on Tatooine. Eventually, after a pitstop in Coruscant, where Chancellor Valorum's government has fallen based on his illegal use of the Jedi on Naboo, complicated by the stranding of the group on Tatooine. In one of the first ripples, corpulent Twi'lek Senator Orn Free Taa pulls enough strings/hands outs enough bribes to become Chancellor.
Eventually the group makes its way to Naboo, where the heroes of the movie, in combination with the player characters, break the Trade Federation's hold on the planet, and Naboo celebrates its liberation.
EPISODE II: LAST CALL AT CARLASS
Episode 2 advances the timeline a couple of years. Several canonical things that happen in the timeline happen here. Count Dooku resigns from the Jedi Order. The Jedi Order begins to suffer a wave of missing Jedi. Usually younger, recently promoted Jedi Knights, the Order is concerned enough to launch an investigation.
Meanwhile, in the Senate, Chancellor Orn Free Taa, whose greed is exceeded only by his waistline, becomes mired in corruption charges, just like his predecessor. Calls for his resignation, like a dim echo of those for Finis Valorum just a few years before, can now be heard.
On Naboo, the combination of the loss of the Royal Yacht, the heavy toll in property damage and civilian life taken by the longer occupation by the Trade Federation, and the sense that Naboo's Queen was guided by rather than leading events during the occupation lead to bold calls that Queen Amidala step down, including some voices on the Naboo Royal Council. While Amidala holds on to her office for the time being, there is a sense that barring a change in the fortunes of the Queen, she will be stepping down at the end of her term.
The group is given the task of following up on the disappearance of one of the missing Jedi, a Jedi whose mission had been to recover a possible Jedi or Sith Holocron on Eriadu. There, they meet a younger, but every bit as taciturn, Eriadu Lieutenant Governor Wilhuff Tarkin (the same Tarkin of Death Star fame), and look for clues to the whereabout of the missing Jedi. They find no Jedi, but they do locate the Jedi's ride, a Modified YT-2000 Freighter piloted by a now dead Mon Calamari pilot. After a violent encounter with a Dark Side Force Adept who has already lost an arm to what she describes as a Sith Lord, she leads them to believe the Jedi may have gone rogue, and locate clues that she may have moved on to Carlass, an outer rim system that is mostly unexplored outside of a small mining colony on the system's mainworld.
Travelling to Carlass, they still fail to locate the Jedi, but do run into a number of beasts that have been twisted by the Dark Side of the force in the form of a crypt of a minor, but previously forgotten Sith Lord. There, the group battles their way through a variety of Sith Abominations, a Dark Side Spirit, and a pair of fiendish puzzles/traps (I'm fond of that sort of thing at times), before locating what turns out to be a relatively unimportant Sith holocron.
After a stop at Naboo where the group foils an assassination attempt on Padme Amidala's life by a group from the Nebula Front, the group returns to Coruscant, with a vaguely disconcerting feeling that at least one of the missing Jedi Knights has gone to the Dark Side, and a sense that even though they have a better idea what happened to the missing Jedi, and did retrieve the holocron, that there was something more that should have been done by somebody.
EPISODE III: BETRAYAL ON KITOS V
Episode III was aimed firmly at the Naboo noble in the party. The timeline is advanced to roughly six years after Episode I. On Coruscant, yet another treason trial on Nute Gunray fails to convict him, leaving it very likely that the Neimoidians will walk away consequence free from the illegal occupation of Naboo. Chancellor Orn Free Taa resigned not long after the conclusion of Episode II, leading to Palpatine being voted in as the new Chancellor. The political entity that would become the Confederacy of Independent Systems is launched by Count Dooku, The Trade Federation joins the Confederacy soon after.
Also on Coruscant, a devastating act of terrorism in Westport leads to the destruction of numerous starships, and tens of thousands dead, including two Senators. As a response, the Senate passes (and the Chancellor signs) the CEASES Act, which creates an exception to some existing civil liberties protections for persons branded by the Chancellor as suspected of committing acts of terrorism. While some civil libertarians bemoan the loss of liberties, the public, reeling from the Westport bombing, and similar terrorist acts on other core worlds, by and large approves of the measure.
It is against this backdrop of civil strife that the group of player characters is called upon to travel to a seemingly insignificant mining colony in the Outer Rim, Kitos V, a world considering joining with the Confederacy, which happens to be the linchpin of an interlocking string of alliances that could take most of three sectors with it.
The group travels to Kitos V to meet with the governing council. They quickly learn that all five members of the council, are less than conventional personalities, with conflicting goals and agendas, and with nobody really acting as it would seem.
Throw in the first real Sith Lord the group has encountered, a group of mercenaries and bounty hunters intent on killing anybody who threatens Ragga's plans, and the group has to tread lightly, finding the pressure points of the various council members, politicking to get their vote, and in some instances confronting the violence of Ragga's thugs head on. Ultimately, the group is successful in keeping Kitos V loyal to the Republic, but not without grave consequences to the world, and more than one council member.
One other incident has set the table for the fourth episode. Padme Amidala was assassinated on Naboo. One of the things the players have been made aware of from the beginning is that events outside of their control will happen outside of their sphere of influence. This was one such time where this came true. Simply put, I removed Padme to put the Naboo noble that is a member of the party in a position of influence in Naboo politics. She has been elected Senator, and the party has effectively been split into two groups...a Jedi focused one that will be investigating rumors of embezzlement from the Republic government offworld, and a politically focused group centered around her as Senator on Coruscant, and dealing with the corrupt nature of politics in the late Republic.
In future posts, I'll provide a few SWSE builds for some of the NPCs I've created, as well as session notes as we run the Episode. For now, consider this a teaser.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Con Game Preparation I: Star Wars Saga Edition-The Betrayal of Darth Revan
Betrayal of Darth Revan is a game I've tried to get on the table for a couple of years now. It's a WotC RPGA module that was created for GenCon 2008 (timed to coincide with the release of the Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide for Saga Edition). For those familiar with the Star Wars Expanded Universe (EU), that is the novels, comics, video games, etc. set in the Star Wars universe, the module takes place not long before the start of 2002's Knights of the Old Republic video game and is a key part of an event that appears in a couple of cut scenes from the game.
It's a fabulous adventure that was released by the RPGA when they ended support for the Saga line. It combines a little of everything that makes the Old Republic era great in the first place, Jedi vs. Sith, lots of aliens, space battles, ground battles, the works. I've never run or played it before, but I've read it and can't wait to put it on the table.
The fortunate thing about this one is I've got very little prep to do. Print the maps, create my usual hints one-page to give neophytes a primer on the rules system, print the character sheets and the adventure text, and study the adventure in depth.
As for what led me to choose it? I figured, with the release of the MMO, that there might be renewed interest in the Old Republic era, and that this would be a good, easy to do tie-in to the game. It also acts as a pretty good overview of the system, and looks like a rollicking good time.
It's a fabulous adventure that was released by the RPGA when they ended support for the Saga line. It combines a little of everything that makes the Old Republic era great in the first place, Jedi vs. Sith, lots of aliens, space battles, ground battles, the works. I've never run or played it before, but I've read it and can't wait to put it on the table.
The fortunate thing about this one is I've got very little prep to do. Print the maps, create my usual hints one-page to give neophytes a primer on the rules system, print the character sheets and the adventure text, and study the adventure in depth.
As for what led me to choose it? I figured, with the release of the MMO, that there might be renewed interest in the Old Republic era, and that this would be a good, easy to do tie-in to the game. It also acts as a pretty good overview of the system, and looks like a rollicking good time.
Con Game Preparation
After watching one of my long-running campaigns come to a screeching halt a couple of weeks ago, I've devoted the last two weekends to preparation of four one-shot adventures for the upcoming 2012 Phoenix Vul-Con.
Although I've certainly done it numerous times over the years, preparing for convention games is a unique experience. When I run games for my regular gaming groups, I've got a reasonable idea of what may fire up my players (though this can vary at times), and if nothing else, I can always ask.
Obviously, there is no feedback loop in time to do any good with a player group at a session. You can playtest it with your regular group (unless some of those folks want to play it at the con, but that's about it) for length, but even that is a different experience than it will be for first-time players who don't know you as a GM, in most cases won't know the game system, and likely don't even know each other.
So what does a conscientious GM do? In my case, I've created (or chosen, in the case of the couple of pre-made adventures I'm running) games that I think I can run successfully, and would enjoy playing in as a player.
In the coming days, I'll discuss the four adventures I'm running, and comments on each of them (spoiler free, of course), on why I chose them, and the things I think they bring to a con game.
Although I've certainly done it numerous times over the years, preparing for convention games is a unique experience. When I run games for my regular gaming groups, I've got a reasonable idea of what may fire up my players (though this can vary at times), and if nothing else, I can always ask.
Obviously, there is no feedback loop in time to do any good with a player group at a session. You can playtest it with your regular group (unless some of those folks want to play it at the con, but that's about it) for length, but even that is a different experience than it will be for first-time players who don't know you as a GM, in most cases won't know the game system, and likely don't even know each other.
So what does a conscientious GM do? In my case, I've created (or chosen, in the case of the couple of pre-made adventures I'm running) games that I think I can run successfully, and would enjoy playing in as a player.
In the coming days, I'll discuss the four adventures I'm running, and comments on each of them (spoiler free, of course), on why I chose them, and the things I think they bring to a con game.
Monday, January 30, 2012
For Those Going to Vul-Con
Consider this another preview of coming distractions.
I wasn't liking the way the pulp game was looking, so I pulled it. Still, there's plenty of amusement to be had by all. Here's a thumbnail sketch of each of them.
Call of Cthulhu-Delta Green: The Last Equation.
For those unfamiliar with Delta Green, it basically takes H P Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, late 20th Century UFO and Government Conspiracy theories that were such fodder for the X-Files (though Delta Green predates the X-Files), puts them all into a blender and hits frappe.
The Last Equation is a Dennis Detwiller creation I figured was about the right length for a late night Saturday night convention slot. It's a great game with strong Mythos undertones and should play well.
Star Wars Saga Edition - The Betrayal of Darth Revan: Set in the same era as the two Knights of the Old Republic video games (and roughly 300 years before the recently released MMO), this is a former GenCon WotC game I've not had the chance to run before, and am looking forward to. It's something of a prequel to the first video game, Knights of the Old Republic, and looks very good.
Darwin's World - The High Road to Hell: Based on d20 Modern's rule system (still available online as the Modern System Reference Document, or MSRD), Darwin's World is a grimmer, grittier take on Post-Apocalyptic role-playing than Gamma World, or some other takes on the genre. The designers were very definitely thinking of the first two Fallout games when they designed this one, though it's enough different from Fallout to not really be compared to it. This is a low-level (5th Level) adventure that is a former GenCon scenario for the game).
A Dirty World - Bucknell 13, Delaware 7: Based on Greg Stolze's one-roll engine (the same dice mechanic behind Wild Talents, and its various brother superhero games, as well as Reign (sword and board fantasy), and Nemesis (horror), this is a film noir game. For Senator Benjamin Bucknell, the day began by watching his alma mater win a football game, and ended with his being shot. What happens after is up to the players.
I wasn't liking the way the pulp game was looking, so I pulled it. Still, there's plenty of amusement to be had by all. Here's a thumbnail sketch of each of them.
Call of Cthulhu-Delta Green: The Last Equation.
For those unfamiliar with Delta Green, it basically takes H P Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, late 20th Century UFO and Government Conspiracy theories that were such fodder for the X-Files (though Delta Green predates the X-Files), puts them all into a blender and hits frappe.
The Last Equation is a Dennis Detwiller creation I figured was about the right length for a late night Saturday night convention slot. It's a great game with strong Mythos undertones and should play well.
Star Wars Saga Edition - The Betrayal of Darth Revan: Set in the same era as the two Knights of the Old Republic video games (and roughly 300 years before the recently released MMO), this is a former GenCon WotC game I've not had the chance to run before, and am looking forward to. It's something of a prequel to the first video game, Knights of the Old Republic, and looks very good.
Darwin's World - The High Road to Hell: Based on d20 Modern's rule system (still available online as the Modern System Reference Document, or MSRD), Darwin's World is a grimmer, grittier take on Post-Apocalyptic role-playing than Gamma World, or some other takes on the genre. The designers were very definitely thinking of the first two Fallout games when they designed this one, though it's enough different from Fallout to not really be compared to it. This is a low-level (5th Level) adventure that is a former GenCon scenario for the game).
A Dirty World - Bucknell 13, Delaware 7: Based on Greg Stolze's one-roll engine (the same dice mechanic behind Wild Talents, and its various brother superhero games, as well as Reign (sword and board fantasy), and Nemesis (horror), this is a film noir game. For Senator Benjamin Bucknell, the day began by watching his alma mater win a football game, and ended with his being shot. What happens after is up to the players.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Canon Nazis Must Die or Oh My God!, Darth Maul Just Killed Obi Wan!
First, I'll come clean. I'm a Star Wars junkie. I've read and collected virtually all the novels, and some of the Dark Horse comics stuff. I've got the Star Wars films in three different formats. I've been collecting the Clone Wars series on Blu Ray as it has been coming out. I bought the 3 volume Star Wars Encyclopedia at a store closing sale from Borders a few months ago. So I've got a stronger sense of Star Wars canon than any player I've ever had.
Still, I could care less about the continuity of any of that when I'm running a Star Wars RPG session. I see so many GMs who walk on eggs in fear of whether players will be upset with them for messing up canon, or worst still, GMs destroying their own game because they are afraid of destroying canon that I've got to say, take canon, put it in front of the Death Star's laser, and fire the laser on full power.
There are some things players of ANY RPG based on a licensed property, or even just an extensively published original RPG setting (cough. cough. Greyhawk. Eberron. Forgotten Realms. cough. cough.) need to understand if they really want to get the best out of their games.
1. YOUR PLAYERS' CHARACTERS SHOULD BE THE STARS OF THEIR STORY.
I'll come clean. I hate playing or running in the canonical Rebellion Era. What makes for a great pulp-space cinematic story in the Original Trilogy (a handful of determined, talented, doggedly loyal to each other friends taking down a Galactic Empire) makes for a terrible RPG setting. A canonical Rebellion Era dooms the PCs to being a B plot. Think about it. Luke destroys Death Star I. Luke becomes the first (and only during the Original Trilogy) new Jedi. Han and Leia lead a group of rebel troopers (and Ewoks) to destroy the shield generator on Endor. Lando and Wedge destroy Death Star II.
None of those characters are PCs. So what do your players get to do? Maybe they get to be Rebel Trooper #111 on Endor. Maybe they are Rebel Pilot 26 in a snowspeeder trying to delay the Imperial invasion of Hoth. Then again, maybe their actions are off-screen entirely. The one time I ran a canonical Rebellion era game, the climax had the players lead a diversionary action elsewhere while Luke, Han, Lando, Leia, Wedge, R2D2, C3PO, Chewbacca, et al. were destroying a Death Star. B plot. Strictly B plot. It was easily the least satisfying campaign I ever ran.
To make your game more satisfying, play fast and loose with canon. Lucasfilm certainly has over the years (mitichlorians, Leia knew then couldn't have known her mother, retconning Obi Wan's knowledge of Luke's father being Vader, various Expanded Universe gaffes). Feel free to have Wedge catch a case of food poisoning the day of the Death Star battle over Endor so a PC can have a chance to save the world. What does it matter? It's not like somebody is going to reshoot Episode VI to make it match what happens in your game.
2. NEVER LET YOUR PLAYERS KNOW WHAT IS COMING.
The other big problem with canon, particularly with a canon heavily developed along a timeline with an overarching metaplot (Star Wars, Dresden Files, Star Trek, anything publishing using the Cortex System) is that the players have a good sense of what is coming. In Star Wars, we even name the various eras in the timeline, and each of them has a very different feel (Rebellion Era, Prequel Era, Dark Times, Old Republic Era, New Jedi Order, etc.).
Even though players may not know the details of your campaign, they do have a pretty good sense of the general feel of the era, particularly if the game adheres to canon. For example, in a Dark Times game, your players go in knowing the Emperor has been triumphant, the Jedi are gone, force-users everywhere are hunted, repression is everywhere (particularly for non-humans), and eventually the seeds of a rebellion will coalesce.
Feel free to mess with the feel of the eras. Let ideas and concepts from other eras bleed into the era you've set their game in at least a bit.
An example of this is the campaign I'm running right now. It's set in the Prequel Era (moving towards the Clone Wars era, but between the first two films). The party is centered around a young Jedi Padawan who becomes a Knight, a young noblewoman who is a distant cousin of Padme Amidala, and a wise cracking Dug pilot/mechanic. In the early stages, younger Jedi just keep disappearing without a trace. The players are employed by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, and so far he's been more than accommodating to every request made, interfering little with their missions once assigned.
Now, the players are beginning to run into all sorts of red lightsaber wielding dark siders? Are they Sith apprentices? Or are they Dark Jedi who defected from the order as part of the disappearing Jedi and stumbled across the wrong sort of knowledge? Is the Rule of Two still operative? Is Chancellor Palpatine really the one-dimensional villain he is made out to be in the movies?
Even though outwardly, the campaign looks an awful lot like the Republic from the Prequel Era, there are just enough oddities to create a sense of cognitive dissonance...a sense that maybe things aren't quite what they seem to be on the surface. Even if running a campaign in an era with a well-established canon and generally planning to adhere to that canon, I encourage GMs to create this sense of not knowing for sure how things are going to work out. Make the tactics of some members of the Rebellion morally questionable from time to time. Let your players run into honorable Imperial officers and soldiers. Create that sense of verisimilitude by changing things up a bit.
3. THE CARE, FEEDING, AND KILLING OF CANONICAL CHARACTERS
There's an unwritten rule that I've always adhered to when designing or running campaigns. Never put an NPC into the game if you aren't prepared to have them killed the first time the players meet them.
A classic example of this was when I ran the WotC campaign for Star Wars Saga Edition, Dawn of Defiance. It's a pretty solid series of linked adventures set during the Dark Times Era. Without giving too much away, the true Big Bad Evil Guy of the campaign is a recurring villain. By the end of the adventure, everything imaginable happens to this character. In the final battle, he basically winds up looking like Darth Vader without the really cool black helmet he's been wounded so much he's lost so many limbs and organs.
That's, of course, if the characters don't kill him outright the first time they encountered him by blowing a boatload of Force Points and Destiny Points. Which happened. In my game. My players were rolling exceptionally well, I rolled exceptionally poorly, and before I knew it, the recurring villain was being skewered on the business end of a lightsaber. Ouch. The campaign pretty much died with him.
My point is that in an RPG, no character should be more precious or sacred than any other, particularly NPCs. It's a slight spoiler here, but a decade old, so I'm going to give it away. Chewbacca's death in Vector Prime (New Jedi Order series of novels) was handled ridiculously by the fans. The unfortunate author, R A Salvatore, received death threats...yeah, that's right, real death threats because he killed off a fictional character in a novel.
Once you got through dealing with the shock though, the story made sense, both from a literary point of view (how do you write a character that doesn't speak in a recognizable language?), and from a dramatic point of view (nothing says "shit just got real" quite like the death of a beloved character). To me, it was written well (he dies saving others), and served to let people know in a way that every previous Star Wars novel had failed to, that the galaxy was dangerous, that the antagonists were utterly ruthless, and that all of a sudden you feared for the rest of the heroes of the story. Whatever you may think of the New Jedi Order series of novels (and opinions are decidedly mixed), that moment, to me, was one of the most dramatic moments of the novels. Mission accomplished.
In the most recent session of my campaign, I killed Padme Amidala. It happened off screen, so the characters learned about it by being contacted by the Chancellor's Office. As a character, she no longer served a story function, she was in the way of making one of my characters the star of the story (See Rule 1 above), and it just felt like the right time. My wife, who plays her cousin, a noble diplomat, actually teared up a bit upon hearing the news (I basically rewrote things to let the bomb on the landing pad seen at the beginning of Episode II actually kill her and the rest of her delegation). Her death served a dramatic function, it increased the sense of danger, and even advanced the campaign's metaplot. The handling of the news, the roleplaying that came out of it, and the story that will come out of it took to the game to a level I've rarely ever achieved running a game, and have never seen playing in a game.
4. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
All of this thinking led me to my current campaign, which has been entitled Anakin Takes a Bullet. To understand the thinking behind the campaign, I'm inclined to believe in a blend of the Great Man Theory, combined with a more social evolutionary approach.
To put this in Star Wars terms, Anakin Skywalker and the Emperor were the men, more than any others, who helped to bring down the Republic, but the state of the late Republic (endemic government corruption, rising internal disorder, economic decline, political conflict between the Outer and Inner Worlds, ossification of the Jedi Order) created the conditions under which they were able to destroy it.
I envisioned a multi-generational campaign, where the players would take a few sets of characters through the events of the Rise of the Empire, through the Dark Times, the Rebellion Era, and at least in to the early stages of the New Republic.
My first, and foremost goal was Rule 1, making the players the stars of the story. If you want to make the players the stars of the story during the time period covered by the six films, one of the easiest ways to do this is to remove the A plot, that being the Skywalkers story. How do you do this? The simplest way is to kill the Skywalkers.
In Episode I, during the podrace, there are several scenes in which we see Tusken Raiders, on one part of the course, taking potshots at racers using a slugthrower rifle. In one scene, we see Anakin's racer get grazed by a bullet. This is the point of divergence.
In Anakin Takes a Bullet, this shot instead hits Anakin in the brain. Even if he had a chance to survive the gunshot wound, The resulting trauma injury from the crash of the podracer finishes him. And in a stroke, no Anakin, no Luke, no Leia.
With ObiWan, QuiGon, and Padme now trapped on Tatooine (their ship now the property of Watto), Darth Maul can now deal with them at his leisure. Instead of the lightsaber battle on Naboo, the Sith Lord confronts the Jedi on the streets of Mos Espa. To create this battle, I actually statted up Episode I era versions of the three characters and let them duel it out. Ironically, as happened in the film, Qui Gon dies, but weakens Darth Maul enough that young Obi Wan, with the profligate expenditure of Destiny Points, kills Darth Maul in turn.
Enter the players. Their job is to pick up the paces of the failed mission on Tatooine. After retrieving Padme, Obi Wan, the rest of the group, and the body of Qui Gon Jinn, the group returns to Naboo, and the rest of the story from Episode I (alliance with the Gungans, battle with the Trade Federation Droid Army, destruction of the Droid Control Ship (with one of the PCs firing the shot that destroys it) proceeds from there.
But with this one death, Anakin's, a thousand ripples have spread. The Jedi must keep searching for their Chosen One. The PC Jedi becomes newly promoted Jedi Knight Obi Wan's apprentice instead of Anakin. The PC Noblewoman gets promoted from Handmaiden to diplomat for the Queen of Naboo, Padme. The Chancellor will need to find a new fallen Jedi through which to engineer the fall of the Republic, and other concerns are beginning to crop up. All because of one bullet.
DISCUSSION, DISCUSSION, DISCUSSION
One of the biggest challenges of a game like Star Wars or any other game with an extensively developed setting is selling your players on variations on a theme. I've been very fortunate in that my main RPG group, my family, have played together long enough, that we've developed a rapport, and they know, regardless of how experimental I get, that their characters will be treated fairly, that their characters will experience interesting stories and situations, and that together we'll make it a good game.
For those less fortunate, I encourage you to talk with your players. Seek their views on canon. See if they would be open to such a game. Emphasize that the changes you make are intended to give their players the opportunities to be the stars of the show, rather than a sidekick. And most of all, never let canon get in the way of a good game.
Still, I could care less about the continuity of any of that when I'm running a Star Wars RPG session. I see so many GMs who walk on eggs in fear of whether players will be upset with them for messing up canon, or worst still, GMs destroying their own game because they are afraid of destroying canon that I've got to say, take canon, put it in front of the Death Star's laser, and fire the laser on full power.
There are some things players of ANY RPG based on a licensed property, or even just an extensively published original RPG setting (cough. cough. Greyhawk. Eberron. Forgotten Realms. cough. cough.) need to understand if they really want to get the best out of their games.
1. YOUR PLAYERS' CHARACTERS SHOULD BE THE STARS OF THEIR STORY.
I'll come clean. I hate playing or running in the canonical Rebellion Era. What makes for a great pulp-space cinematic story in the Original Trilogy (a handful of determined, talented, doggedly loyal to each other friends taking down a Galactic Empire) makes for a terrible RPG setting. A canonical Rebellion Era dooms the PCs to being a B plot. Think about it. Luke destroys Death Star I. Luke becomes the first (and only during the Original Trilogy) new Jedi. Han and Leia lead a group of rebel troopers (and Ewoks) to destroy the shield generator on Endor. Lando and Wedge destroy Death Star II.
None of those characters are PCs. So what do your players get to do? Maybe they get to be Rebel Trooper #111 on Endor. Maybe they are Rebel Pilot 26 in a snowspeeder trying to delay the Imperial invasion of Hoth. Then again, maybe their actions are off-screen entirely. The one time I ran a canonical Rebellion era game, the climax had the players lead a diversionary action elsewhere while Luke, Han, Lando, Leia, Wedge, R2D2, C3PO, Chewbacca, et al. were destroying a Death Star. B plot. Strictly B plot. It was easily the least satisfying campaign I ever ran.
To make your game more satisfying, play fast and loose with canon. Lucasfilm certainly has over the years (mitichlorians, Leia knew then couldn't have known her mother, retconning Obi Wan's knowledge of Luke's father being Vader, various Expanded Universe gaffes). Feel free to have Wedge catch a case of food poisoning the day of the Death Star battle over Endor so a PC can have a chance to save the world. What does it matter? It's not like somebody is going to reshoot Episode VI to make it match what happens in your game.
2. NEVER LET YOUR PLAYERS KNOW WHAT IS COMING.
The other big problem with canon, particularly with a canon heavily developed along a timeline with an overarching metaplot (Star Wars, Dresden Files, Star Trek, anything publishing using the Cortex System) is that the players have a good sense of what is coming. In Star Wars, we even name the various eras in the timeline, and each of them has a very different feel (Rebellion Era, Prequel Era, Dark Times, Old Republic Era, New Jedi Order, etc.).
Even though players may not know the details of your campaign, they do have a pretty good sense of the general feel of the era, particularly if the game adheres to canon. For example, in a Dark Times game, your players go in knowing the Emperor has been triumphant, the Jedi are gone, force-users everywhere are hunted, repression is everywhere (particularly for non-humans), and eventually the seeds of a rebellion will coalesce.
Feel free to mess with the feel of the eras. Let ideas and concepts from other eras bleed into the era you've set their game in at least a bit.
An example of this is the campaign I'm running right now. It's set in the Prequel Era (moving towards the Clone Wars era, but between the first two films). The party is centered around a young Jedi Padawan who becomes a Knight, a young noblewoman who is a distant cousin of Padme Amidala, and a wise cracking Dug pilot/mechanic. In the early stages, younger Jedi just keep disappearing without a trace. The players are employed by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, and so far he's been more than accommodating to every request made, interfering little with their missions once assigned.
Now, the players are beginning to run into all sorts of red lightsaber wielding dark siders? Are they Sith apprentices? Or are they Dark Jedi who defected from the order as part of the disappearing Jedi and stumbled across the wrong sort of knowledge? Is the Rule of Two still operative? Is Chancellor Palpatine really the one-dimensional villain he is made out to be in the movies?
Even though outwardly, the campaign looks an awful lot like the Republic from the Prequel Era, there are just enough oddities to create a sense of cognitive dissonance...a sense that maybe things aren't quite what they seem to be on the surface. Even if running a campaign in an era with a well-established canon and generally planning to adhere to that canon, I encourage GMs to create this sense of not knowing for sure how things are going to work out. Make the tactics of some members of the Rebellion morally questionable from time to time. Let your players run into honorable Imperial officers and soldiers. Create that sense of verisimilitude by changing things up a bit.
3. THE CARE, FEEDING, AND KILLING OF CANONICAL CHARACTERS
There's an unwritten rule that I've always adhered to when designing or running campaigns. Never put an NPC into the game if you aren't prepared to have them killed the first time the players meet them.
A classic example of this was when I ran the WotC campaign for Star Wars Saga Edition, Dawn of Defiance. It's a pretty solid series of linked adventures set during the Dark Times Era. Without giving too much away, the true Big Bad Evil Guy of the campaign is a recurring villain. By the end of the adventure, everything imaginable happens to this character. In the final battle, he basically winds up looking like Darth Vader without the really cool black helmet he's been wounded so much he's lost so many limbs and organs.
That's, of course, if the characters don't kill him outright the first time they encountered him by blowing a boatload of Force Points and Destiny Points. Which happened. In my game. My players were rolling exceptionally well, I rolled exceptionally poorly, and before I knew it, the recurring villain was being skewered on the business end of a lightsaber. Ouch. The campaign pretty much died with him.
My point is that in an RPG, no character should be more precious or sacred than any other, particularly NPCs. It's a slight spoiler here, but a decade old, so I'm going to give it away. Chewbacca's death in Vector Prime (New Jedi Order series of novels) was handled ridiculously by the fans. The unfortunate author, R A Salvatore, received death threats...yeah, that's right, real death threats because he killed off a fictional character in a novel.
Once you got through dealing with the shock though, the story made sense, both from a literary point of view (how do you write a character that doesn't speak in a recognizable language?), and from a dramatic point of view (nothing says "shit just got real" quite like the death of a beloved character). To me, it was written well (he dies saving others), and served to let people know in a way that every previous Star Wars novel had failed to, that the galaxy was dangerous, that the antagonists were utterly ruthless, and that all of a sudden you feared for the rest of the heroes of the story. Whatever you may think of the New Jedi Order series of novels (and opinions are decidedly mixed), that moment, to me, was one of the most dramatic moments of the novels. Mission accomplished.
In the most recent session of my campaign, I killed Padme Amidala. It happened off screen, so the characters learned about it by being contacted by the Chancellor's Office. As a character, she no longer served a story function, she was in the way of making one of my characters the star of the story (See Rule 1 above), and it just felt like the right time. My wife, who plays her cousin, a noble diplomat, actually teared up a bit upon hearing the news (I basically rewrote things to let the bomb on the landing pad seen at the beginning of Episode II actually kill her and the rest of her delegation). Her death served a dramatic function, it increased the sense of danger, and even advanced the campaign's metaplot. The handling of the news, the roleplaying that came out of it, and the story that will come out of it took to the game to a level I've rarely ever achieved running a game, and have never seen playing in a game.
4. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
All of this thinking led me to my current campaign, which has been entitled Anakin Takes a Bullet. To understand the thinking behind the campaign, I'm inclined to believe in a blend of the Great Man Theory, combined with a more social evolutionary approach.
To put this in Star Wars terms, Anakin Skywalker and the Emperor were the men, more than any others, who helped to bring down the Republic, but the state of the late Republic (endemic government corruption, rising internal disorder, economic decline, political conflict between the Outer and Inner Worlds, ossification of the Jedi Order) created the conditions under which they were able to destroy it.
I envisioned a multi-generational campaign, where the players would take a few sets of characters through the events of the Rise of the Empire, through the Dark Times, the Rebellion Era, and at least in to the early stages of the New Republic.
My first, and foremost goal was Rule 1, making the players the stars of the story. If you want to make the players the stars of the story during the time period covered by the six films, one of the easiest ways to do this is to remove the A plot, that being the Skywalkers story. How do you do this? The simplest way is to kill the Skywalkers.
In Episode I, during the podrace, there are several scenes in which we see Tusken Raiders, on one part of the course, taking potshots at racers using a slugthrower rifle. In one scene, we see Anakin's racer get grazed by a bullet. This is the point of divergence.
In Anakin Takes a Bullet, this shot instead hits Anakin in the brain. Even if he had a chance to survive the gunshot wound, The resulting trauma injury from the crash of the podracer finishes him. And in a stroke, no Anakin, no Luke, no Leia.
With ObiWan, QuiGon, and Padme now trapped on Tatooine (their ship now the property of Watto), Darth Maul can now deal with them at his leisure. Instead of the lightsaber battle on Naboo, the Sith Lord confronts the Jedi on the streets of Mos Espa. To create this battle, I actually statted up Episode I era versions of the three characters and let them duel it out. Ironically, as happened in the film, Qui Gon dies, but weakens Darth Maul enough that young Obi Wan, with the profligate expenditure of Destiny Points, kills Darth Maul in turn.
Enter the players. Their job is to pick up the paces of the failed mission on Tatooine. After retrieving Padme, Obi Wan, the rest of the group, and the body of Qui Gon Jinn, the group returns to Naboo, and the rest of the story from Episode I (alliance with the Gungans, battle with the Trade Federation Droid Army, destruction of the Droid Control Ship (with one of the PCs firing the shot that destroys it) proceeds from there.
But with this one death, Anakin's, a thousand ripples have spread. The Jedi must keep searching for their Chosen One. The PC Jedi becomes newly promoted Jedi Knight Obi Wan's apprentice instead of Anakin. The PC Noblewoman gets promoted from Handmaiden to diplomat for the Queen of Naboo, Padme. The Chancellor will need to find a new fallen Jedi through which to engineer the fall of the Republic, and other concerns are beginning to crop up. All because of one bullet.
DISCUSSION, DISCUSSION, DISCUSSION
One of the biggest challenges of a game like Star Wars or any other game with an extensively developed setting is selling your players on variations on a theme. I've been very fortunate in that my main RPG group, my family, have played together long enough, that we've developed a rapport, and they know, regardless of how experimental I get, that their characters will be treated fairly, that their characters will experience interesting stories and situations, and that together we'll make it a good game.
For those less fortunate, I encourage you to talk with your players. Seek their views on canon. See if they would be open to such a game. Emphasize that the changes you make are intended to give their players the opportunities to be the stars of the show, rather than a sidekick. And most of all, never let canon get in the way of a good game.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
How Are You? What the hell happened, man...
Since my last post, the flat panel display on my notebook died (since replaced). I also got sick. And I'm still fighting a very balky router, whose replacement is now on order. Posting anything of length was out of the question, and still is of a sort, which is why the historical gaming series was put on hold.
Still, here's what I've been doing lately, since I've been incommunicado for a few weeks.
What I've been reading:
After finishing A Dance With Dragons (Book Five, of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin), I've been reading the three books of S M Stirling's Nantucket Trilogy. The gist of it is that Nantucket Island, circa 1998, finds itself transported (along with the immediately surrounding waters), dropped back to the Bronze Age. It's an interesting example of what happens when you drop a very small slice of a modern society back into a different epoch, and leads to some very interesting and believable results. Worth the read.
What I've been watching:
Picked up a couple of movies on Blu Ray: The Magnificent Seven, The Adjustment Bureau (a great adaptation of yet another short story by Hollywood's go-to guy for near-future science fiction, Philip K Dick), and I'm ocntinuing to work my way slowly, with the family, through several seasons of Supernatural, Buffy, and X-Files with the family).
What I've been gaming:
Not much with the computer down.
Now that it's back up, I'm working on some more ship designs/conversions for the oft-delayed New Jedi Order Sourcebook for SWSE. I've finished the Shieldship, the Jade Sabre (Mara Jade Skywalker's ship), and the Ralroost (Bothan Assault Cruiser, pretty much saw every battle of the Yuuzhan Vong War).
I'm making preparations (read as reading the 200+ pages of the book) to run the classic campaign for Call of Cthulhu, Masks of Nyarlathotep via Skype once the new router gets up and running.
I'm also continuing to run the Alternate Timeline Star Wars "Anakin Takes a Bullet" campaign (which I promise to post about in length at a later date).
I've also been fiddling around with the Dresden Files RPG, but I'm not ready to run it yet. I scooped up a bunch of Green Ronin's Mythic Vistas Settings for 3.5 and have been reading through them. One of these days I'll get Eternal Rome on the table.
Finally, I'm getting ready to run Arc Dream Publishing's One Roll Engine film noir game, A Dirty World. It has a fascinating game mechanic and I'm rapidly becoming fond of the simplicity of running and teaching the One Roll Engine. Picked it up on RPG Now for $10 a couple of months ago, and can't wait to give it a whirl.
Still, here's what I've been doing lately, since I've been incommunicado for a few weeks.
What I've been reading:
After finishing A Dance With Dragons (Book Five, of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin), I've been reading the three books of S M Stirling's Nantucket Trilogy. The gist of it is that Nantucket Island, circa 1998, finds itself transported (along with the immediately surrounding waters), dropped back to the Bronze Age. It's an interesting example of what happens when you drop a very small slice of a modern society back into a different epoch, and leads to some very interesting and believable results. Worth the read.
What I've been watching:
Picked up a couple of movies on Blu Ray: The Magnificent Seven, The Adjustment Bureau (a great adaptation of yet another short story by Hollywood's go-to guy for near-future science fiction, Philip K Dick), and I'm ocntinuing to work my way slowly, with the family, through several seasons of Supernatural, Buffy, and X-Files with the family).
What I've been gaming:
Not much with the computer down.
Now that it's back up, I'm working on some more ship designs/conversions for the oft-delayed New Jedi Order Sourcebook for SWSE. I've finished the Shieldship, the Jade Sabre (Mara Jade Skywalker's ship), and the Ralroost (Bothan Assault Cruiser, pretty much saw every battle of the Yuuzhan Vong War).
I'm making preparations (read as reading the 200+ pages of the book) to run the classic campaign for Call of Cthulhu, Masks of Nyarlathotep via Skype once the new router gets up and running.
I'm also continuing to run the Alternate Timeline Star Wars "Anakin Takes a Bullet" campaign (which I promise to post about in length at a later date).
I've also been fiddling around with the Dresden Files RPG, but I'm not ready to run it yet. I scooped up a bunch of Green Ronin's Mythic Vistas Settings for 3.5 and have been reading through them. One of these days I'll get Eternal Rome on the table.
Finally, I'm getting ready to run Arc Dream Publishing's One Roll Engine film noir game, A Dirty World. It has a fascinating game mechanic and I'm rapidly becoming fond of the simplicity of running and teaching the One Roll Engine. Picked it up on RPG Now for $10 a couple of months ago, and can't wait to give it a whirl.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Terna,
This is a particularly nasty beast that I developed for the Anakin Takes a Bullet Campaign. I'm still dicey on the CL, but I thought it stretched the boundaries of beast building for SWSE.
********************************
Terna, Carnivorous Insect
Description: The Terna is a particularly feared and nasty creature that resides in the grasslands and swamps of Kitos V. It's tiny size belies its great danger. A stealthy, 12 legged creature that resembles an oversized beetle, this medium to dark brown creature lives underground in small burrowed nests during the day, and hunts its prey at night.
Each bite of the Terna implants eggs into its unfortunate victim. These eggs will mature into living Ternae, killing the host in the process. Because of the pervasiveness of these creatures, particularly in unsettled areas of the planet, a treatment has been developed in New Home, while various folk remedies have been developed among the native Qaplans that achieve the same effect.
Terna, Carnivorus Insect
Diminutive Beast 8 CL 10
Init +7; Senses: Darkvision, Perception +15
Defenses: Ref 20 (flat-footed 15), Fort 12, Will 11
HP 52; Threshold 12
Speed: 4 squares
Melee: bite +6 (1d2) or
bite +4 (2d2) w/ rapid strike and
2 claws +6 (1) or
2 claws +4 (2) w/ rapid strike
Fighting Space 1x1; Reach 1 square
Base Attack +6; Grp +12
Special Actions: Egg-Laying, Darkvision
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 21, Con 14, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 7
Feats: Rapid Strike, Skill Training (Stealth), Skill Focus (Perception)
Skills: Initiative +7, Perception +15, Stealth +24
Egg-Laying: The Terna has an unusual means of reproduction. After fertilization, the Terna implants its eggs in a living host through its saliva. When a Terna bites a living being, 1d2 eggs will immediately be injected into the victim's bloodstream. Each egg will make an immediate +10 attack roll vs. the target's Fortitude Defense. Failure means the egg dies in incubation. Success has no immediate effect, other than the egg is successfully implanted.
Each hour after the egg is implanted, the same +10 attack roll vs. Fortitude is made. Failure has no effect. On success, the victim suffers a -1 persistent step on the Condition track. If this step results in the character falling unconscious, the same +10 attack roll vs. Fortitude is made again. If this attack succeeds, the character dies instead, and the egg successfully hatches, giving birth to a new Terna.
Terna eggs can be removed any time before the victim takes their first persistent step down the Condition Track with simple medical treatment (DC 19 Treat Injury check (+5 modifier to the roll if the player possesses the antidote)).
After the egg has forced the victim to take their first step down the Condition Track, the larva is considered too large to be successfully treated with drugs (short of applying a dose that would also kill the patient). A Perform Surgery application of the Treat Injury skill (DC 24) will be required to remove the immature larva. One hour is required (as per the standard rules) to remove one larva, which means that multiple surgeries may be required to completely remove all larvae from the victim.
********************************
Terna, Carnivorous Insect
Description: The Terna is a particularly feared and nasty creature that resides in the grasslands and swamps of Kitos V. It's tiny size belies its great danger. A stealthy, 12 legged creature that resembles an oversized beetle, this medium to dark brown creature lives underground in small burrowed nests during the day, and hunts its prey at night.
Each bite of the Terna implants eggs into its unfortunate victim. These eggs will mature into living Ternae, killing the host in the process. Because of the pervasiveness of these creatures, particularly in unsettled areas of the planet, a treatment has been developed in New Home, while various folk remedies have been developed among the native Qaplans that achieve the same effect.
Terna, Carnivorus Insect
Diminutive Beast 8 CL 10
Init +7; Senses: Darkvision, Perception +15
Defenses: Ref 20 (flat-footed 15), Fort 12, Will 11
HP 52; Threshold 12
Speed: 4 squares
Melee: bite +6 (1d2) or
bite +4 (2d2) w/ rapid strike and
2 claws +6 (1) or
2 claws +4 (2) w/ rapid strike
Fighting Space 1x1; Reach 1 square
Base Attack +6; Grp +12
Special Actions: Egg-Laying, Darkvision
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 21, Con 14, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 7
Feats: Rapid Strike, Skill Training (Stealth), Skill Focus (Perception)
Skills: Initiative +7, Perception +15, Stealth +24
Egg-Laying: The Terna has an unusual means of reproduction. After fertilization, the Terna implants its eggs in a living host through its saliva. When a Terna bites a living being, 1d2 eggs will immediately be injected into the victim's bloodstream. Each egg will make an immediate +10 attack roll vs. the target's Fortitude Defense. Failure means the egg dies in incubation. Success has no immediate effect, other than the egg is successfully implanted.
Each hour after the egg is implanted, the same +10 attack roll vs. Fortitude is made. Failure has no effect. On success, the victim suffers a -1 persistent step on the Condition track. If this step results in the character falling unconscious, the same +10 attack roll vs. Fortitude is made again. If this attack succeeds, the character dies instead, and the egg successfully hatches, giving birth to a new Terna.
Terna eggs can be removed any time before the victim takes their first persistent step down the Condition Track with simple medical treatment (DC 19 Treat Injury check (+5 modifier to the roll if the player possesses the antidote)).
After the egg has forced the victim to take their first step down the Condition Track, the larva is considered too large to be successfully treated with drugs (short of applying a dose that would also kill the patient). A Perform Surgery application of the Treat Injury skill (DC 24) will be required to remove the immature larva. One hour is required (as per the standard rules) to remove one larva, which means that multiple surgeries may be required to completely remove all larvae from the victim.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Qaplan Species
This is the write up on a new species for a Saga adventure I'm writing for the Anakin Takes a Bullet Campaign. The species is modeled a bit after the Aslan species from Traveller, though I've taken a few liberties.
***********
Qaplans (Azerbaijani for panther). Taller, lither than human standard (2m avg height for males, 1.9m for females). Definite feline features. Covered with fur, ranging from tan to dark brown in color (most will be lighter shades. Males have fuller faces.
Culturally, their political organizations are clan-oriented, with shifting alliances being the norm when operating outside of clans. Qaplan wrestle with their more bestial natures. When they fight, the fights tend to be short, sharp and vicious, with no rules of conflict as such, though such fights are normally not to the death (usually decided when one opponent effectively has the other rendered helpless). Outside of combat, they show a forced politeness, which should not be mistaken for kindness (a Qaplan will betray you with a bow and a smile). Qaplans are lither and more agile than humans, but not as worldly wise or self-aware.
Most Qaplans have never been offworld, and have had little to no contact with outsiders. These Qaplans will expect other species to adjust to their cultural norms.
Qaplan Species Traits:
Abilities: +4 Dex, -2 Wis
Medium Size: As medium-sized creatures, Qaplans gain no special benefits, or suffer no penalties, due to size.
Speed: Qaplan base speed is 6 squares.
Primitive: Qaplans do not gain Weapon Proficiency (lightsabers, pistols, rifles, or heavy weapons) as starting feats at first level, even if their class normally grants them.
Conditional Bonus Feat: A Qaplan trained in the Ride skill receives the Skill Focus (Ride) feat for free.
Expert Riders: A Qaplan may choose to reroll any Ride check, but the result of the reroll must be accepted, even if it is worse. In addition, a Qaplan may choose to take 10 on Ride checks, even when distracted or threatened.
Low-Light Vision: Qaplans ignore concealment (but not total concealment) from darkness.
Languages: Qaplan.
***********
Qaplans (Azerbaijani for panther). Taller, lither than human standard (2m avg height for males, 1.9m for females). Definite feline features. Covered with fur, ranging from tan to dark brown in color (most will be lighter shades. Males have fuller faces.
Culturally, their political organizations are clan-oriented, with shifting alliances being the norm when operating outside of clans. Qaplan wrestle with their more bestial natures. When they fight, the fights tend to be short, sharp and vicious, with no rules of conflict as such, though such fights are normally not to the death (usually decided when one opponent effectively has the other rendered helpless). Outside of combat, they show a forced politeness, which should not be mistaken for kindness (a Qaplan will betray you with a bow and a smile). Qaplans are lither and more agile than humans, but not as worldly wise or self-aware.
Most Qaplans have never been offworld, and have had little to no contact with outsiders. These Qaplans will expect other species to adjust to their cultural norms.
Qaplan Species Traits:
Abilities: +4 Dex, -2 Wis
Medium Size: As medium-sized creatures, Qaplans gain no special benefits, or suffer no penalties, due to size.
Speed: Qaplan base speed is 6 squares.
Primitive: Qaplans do not gain Weapon Proficiency (lightsabers, pistols, rifles, or heavy weapons) as starting feats at first level, even if their class normally grants them.
Conditional Bonus Feat: A Qaplan trained in the Ride skill receives the Skill Focus (Ride) feat for free.
Expert Riders: A Qaplan may choose to reroll any Ride check, but the result of the reroll must be accepted, even if it is worse. In addition, a Qaplan may choose to take 10 on Ride checks, even when distracted or threatened.
Low-Light Vision: Qaplans ignore concealment (but not total concealment) from darkness.
Languages: Qaplan.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
What I've Been Doing, Week of June 15, 2011 Edition
What I've Been Playing:
None on the RPG front, though I'm beginning plans to run a Skype Call of Cthulhu game...probably Delta Green, but that's to be determined.
Prepping:
Working to revive a long-dormant Skull & Bones game that started as a one-shot, but will probably become a campaign. Also prepping another Star Wars adventure and possibly a Call of Cthulhu one-shot for the two week vacation coming up.
Reading:
Still working on A Feast of Crows. I've been doing so much game prep that it's been put on the back burner, though I am about a third of the way through it.
Watching:
Finished up True Blood, Season 3.
Currently watching Season 2 of Supernatural.
None on the RPG front, though I'm beginning plans to run a Skype Call of Cthulhu game...probably Delta Green, but that's to be determined.
Prepping:
Working to revive a long-dormant Skull & Bones game that started as a one-shot, but will probably become a campaign. Also prepping another Star Wars adventure and possibly a Call of Cthulhu one-shot for the two week vacation coming up.
Reading:
Still working on A Feast of Crows. I've been doing so much game prep that it's been put on the back burner, though I am about a third of the way through it.
Watching:
Finished up True Blood, Season 3.
Currently watching Season 2 of Supernatural.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Games I'm Running, Part I: Star Wars Saga Edition, Anakin Takes a Bullet
I was pulled into the Star Wars RPG by the video game Knights of the Old Republic, a wonderful RPG by BioWare. Frankly, I consider it to be the best bit of fiction to hit the Star Wars Universe since The Empire Strikes Back. A strong story, with deep characters, and so replayable that you really don't do the game justice until you play it as both male and female characters, as well as dark and light.
As a result, I got into Wizard of the Coast's (WotC's) d20 Star Wars RPG right about the time of the transition from Original Core Rulebook (OCR, built on a modified version of WotC's D&D 3.0), to the Revised Core Rulebook (RCR, built on a modified version of WotC's D&D 3.5). I ran a lot of games with RCR, but liked when Saga Edition came out even more. It was simple, and the character classes a lot more customizable.
One of the things that has always dogged me about running Star Wars games set in the time period around the six movies is what to do about breaking canon, and what to do about the main characters and villains of the film. There's a wide variety of opinions on the best way to handle canon.
Some GMs quietly herd players away from the big events and characters of the films. As a player, I wouldn't personally find that to be satisfying. Having the players making diversionary raids in another system while Han, Luke, Leia, Chewbacca, Lando and Wedge are blowing up the Second Death Star in orbit around Endor just didn't seem fun to me.
Of course, other GMs will let their players run into movie, novel, comics, and TV series characters, which sometimes will lead to the GM going into shock when the players kill Darth Vader in the First Act...or worst still, giving him an implausible escape rather than let him die in the First Act.
I decided to avoid all these dilemmas, and throw the A-Plot of most of the films out. I thought the way I did it was rather clever. For those of you who remember Episode I: Too Much Jar Jar, not enough Jedi, er, The Phantom Menace, one of the big scenes is Anakin's podrace on Tatooine. There's a great sequence where a group of Tusken Raiders (Sandpeople) are standing on a bluff well above the course, and taking potshots at the racers as they pass the location. One of those shots grazes Anakin's podracer, but he manages to keep it under control...and this is where I blow things up.
In the immediate prologue, I described a sequence to the players where that bullet instead strikes Anakin through the right temple. While the shot might or might not have been fatal with Star Wars Medical Technology, the resulting rather fiery crash when Anakin loses consciousness and control of his vehicle is.
Needless to say, Anakin loses the race (as well as his life), Qui-Gon loses his bet to Watto, and therefore, the group's only means of escaping Tatooine, which now gives Darth Maul plenty of time to hunt down the Jedi there before they can ever return to Naboo. Maul fights a desperate lightsaber battle with Qui-Gon Jinn and a young Obi-Wan Kenobi. I actually statted up the characters and ran the battle as a combat. In the simulated combat, pretty much the same thing happens. Maul goes after Jinn, burning hit points, and killing the aging Jedi Master, while Obi-Wan blows a load of Force Points, and takes down Darth Maul.
That's where the players begin. Their job is to rescue Padme Amidala, Obi-Wan, and the rest of the Queen's retinue before the Trade Federation can send a boatload of droids to kill them.
More importantly though, Anakin is dead, which means there will be no more Skywalkers. The Sith are still there. Some of the supporting characters are still there (Obi-Wan is the Master to a young Jedi apprentice that is one of the players). The players can take center stage.
This is the game I've wanted to run, and have been running off and on for a couple of years.
As a result, I got into Wizard of the Coast's (WotC's) d20 Star Wars RPG right about the time of the transition from Original Core Rulebook (OCR, built on a modified version of WotC's D&D 3.0), to the Revised Core Rulebook (RCR, built on a modified version of WotC's D&D 3.5). I ran a lot of games with RCR, but liked when Saga Edition came out even more. It was simple, and the character classes a lot more customizable.
One of the things that has always dogged me about running Star Wars games set in the time period around the six movies is what to do about breaking canon, and what to do about the main characters and villains of the film. There's a wide variety of opinions on the best way to handle canon.
Some GMs quietly herd players away from the big events and characters of the films. As a player, I wouldn't personally find that to be satisfying. Having the players making diversionary raids in another system while Han, Luke, Leia, Chewbacca, Lando and Wedge are blowing up the Second Death Star in orbit around Endor just didn't seem fun to me.
Of course, other GMs will let their players run into movie, novel, comics, and TV series characters, which sometimes will lead to the GM going into shock when the players kill Darth Vader in the First Act...or worst still, giving him an implausible escape rather than let him die in the First Act.
I decided to avoid all these dilemmas, and throw the A-Plot of most of the films out. I thought the way I did it was rather clever. For those of you who remember Episode I: Too Much Jar Jar, not enough Jedi, er, The Phantom Menace, one of the big scenes is Anakin's podrace on Tatooine. There's a great sequence where a group of Tusken Raiders (Sandpeople) are standing on a bluff well above the course, and taking potshots at the racers as they pass the location. One of those shots grazes Anakin's podracer, but he manages to keep it under control...and this is where I blow things up.
In the immediate prologue, I described a sequence to the players where that bullet instead strikes Anakin through the right temple. While the shot might or might not have been fatal with Star Wars Medical Technology, the resulting rather fiery crash when Anakin loses consciousness and control of his vehicle is.
Needless to say, Anakin loses the race (as well as his life), Qui-Gon loses his bet to Watto, and therefore, the group's only means of escaping Tatooine, which now gives Darth Maul plenty of time to hunt down the Jedi there before they can ever return to Naboo. Maul fights a desperate lightsaber battle with Qui-Gon Jinn and a young Obi-Wan Kenobi. I actually statted up the characters and ran the battle as a combat. In the simulated combat, pretty much the same thing happens. Maul goes after Jinn, burning hit points, and killing the aging Jedi Master, while Obi-Wan blows a load of Force Points, and takes down Darth Maul.
That's where the players begin. Their job is to rescue Padme Amidala, Obi-Wan, and the rest of the Queen's retinue before the Trade Federation can send a boatload of droids to kill them.
More importantly though, Anakin is dead, which means there will be no more Skywalkers. The Sith are still there. Some of the supporting characters are still there (Obi-Wan is the Master to a young Jedi apprentice that is one of the players). The players can take center stage.
This is the game I've wanted to run, and have been running off and on for a couple of years.
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