Adventures of the Black Lotus Part 1

Adventures of the Black Lotus Pt 1

Art Credit: Quiet Among the Stars by http://doommetal101.deviantart.com/

Adventures of the Black Lotus is a sci-fi compaign that I started about 5 years ago.

I spent alot of time setting up the background, the mysteries and conspiracies. And its a sandbox game with 20 minutes of introduction. 

I really wanted to run a travelleresque game, but I didnt know the Traveller rules very well so I ran it as a straight hero system game. But, I didnt have the right group. Some players were very transient / unreliable. Others, didnt know the system.  But really the way I run an rpg game, I try to make the rules as transparent as possible, while still keeping the mechanics there for people who enjoy it.  And as you might know, HERO GAMES has tons of mechanics. Id say, its almost cultish. On the downside, these very finite mechanics also slow the game down and suck the flavor out of the game. 

Since only one person beside myself knew the mechanics of hero games, I instructed the players to say AGGRESSIVE, Normal, Defensive, and I applied the appropriate modifiers thus unburdening the players. I also stripped out the segment chart, and STUN. 

So where are we now? Well I think for now I will stay with my cut up version of Herogames for combat. One of the new players has made some squeaking sounds about playing it in Traveller. I will Have to think that over.  I have a real suprise coming up for you TFT fans. But I dont want to spoil it. 

So tell us about the Sandbox Universe.

About 500 years ago Earth finally masters Jump technology. They sent out seven waves  of colony ships. It became a great corporate race to find a star. There was a low percent. None ever returned. They were assumed gone. 

Then again 400 years ago, another colonization wave took place. Some thirty jumps out from earth they found a grouping of colonizable systems, and set the flags down to extend humanities grasp.  All was not perfect. The first colony was ravaged by misfortune. it grew for a hundred or so years before they could restock and re-colonize the 19 closest star systems

 There was quiet among the stars. And progress.  Humanities greatest quality  is its resilliance.

Next up?  The map, The races. The mysteries, conspiracies and cat people who are still human.

Descent 2 scenario For Heroes and Other WORLDS! wow!

A walk in the park for use with Heroes and Other WORLDS!

This is something I whipped up for my  fascination with Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition) boardgame, and Smackwell's Dungeon Crawl and Now again, I've adapted to Heroes and Other Worlds.   Oh, Yes,  TFT. The fantasy trip. Yep. That's it.

The name of the scenario is FIRST BLOOD the purpose is to introduce people to Descent's game mechanics and combat systems. 

In order that I not completely obliterate copywrite laws, this is consider a spoof of first blood.


-Joel

There is a big party in central park in downtown Torranville for the Mayors new born son.  The Green’s gang are also having a some fun.   The Greens gang is a group of ‘GREENS’ that are trying to STEAL 4 of the presents and escape down into the filthy sewers (where they belong). The Ettin named SMACKYOU is running interference for the other greens in order to help them on their quest for mayhem.  There is also a squad leader orc among the named BROWNSWARTH. Brownsworth would be the Master Goblin Archer in descent.

Win Condition:  Smack this DIES before the goblins exit.    

Loss Conditions:  4 goblins must exit the bad guy space.    

Special Descent Mechanics in HaOW:

• EDIT:  Group Limits: This is a crucial part of the scenario. 
  The number of players gives group limits to the number of orcs/goblins.  They call it GROUP limits in Descent 2. In Descent 2, the orc is considered a RED or master critter. This prevents the gobs and orcs from winning to quickly.
• 2 players:  two goblins, one orc. 
• 3 players:  three goblins, one orc.  
• 4 players:  four goblins, one orc.
• Beginning of players turn:  Dying is not Dying.    If this were a simple roleplay scenario the players would get kaboodled in just a few rounds. So when you hit ZERO hit points, you simply get knocked out.  This is a rpg adaptation of DESCENT 2. On the knocked out players turn he stands up and rolls 2d6-2 and sets his hit points to that level.  Much like 4th level dnd, you dont apply your heal from negative hitpoints,  you apply them from zero. So you can be at Neg 15 but you still apply the points from zero.  
• End of DM's turn:  replacing a lost goblin/orc.  If at any time the DM looses a minion, the DM is allowed to replace 1 of them at the end of his turn.

Critters and abilities:

• SMACKYOU is a very large 2 headed ETTIN (ST18, IQ7, MV6, AR-1, DM 2d6-2)  with extremely long ‘Mr. long arms’. His special ability is Reach 2. Reach in case you dont know means that he can reach across a five foot area and tap some one a full space away. IF he hits someone he knocks them back 3 spaces.
• Brownswarth: Is a Standard  ORC on page 74 of the HaOW rules. I know Orcs and Goblins dont get along well in real life but this is fantasy isnt it?
• The Forest Goblins are standard Goblins but they can also use slings.  Slings utilize standard line of site rules.  Please use GOBLINS found on page 69 of the HaOW  rules.

Terrain:

• Slogging muck costs 2 movement points for each square. In HaOW each slogging muck space is considered 10 feet, not 5.  
• HHHH is where the Heroes start.    
• GGGGO is where the bad guys start. This adventure also includes a clever never before seen monster spawn point concept. When goblin or orc dies in combat, he comes back on the next turn back at the badguys start area. In case you dont know G is for goblin, O is for orc. But you knew that :)
• Bad guys exit spot? Have you figured out why that is there?  
• Fire pit:  If you are pushed or throw or fall into this, you receive 1 dice of damage. These dice are are reduced by armor. This is not usually the case with HoAW, but in this scenario it is. Just stand up and put yourself out.

Treasure:

There are 3 chests.

One chest has a roll on the equipment chart.

One chest has a roll on the a potion table from the standard treasure cards.

The last chest has a standard treasure roll. If you roll a 6, then roll again, its either a very low artifact, or a trap.   These chest require no search rolls.   (following true to Dungeon Crawl, One chest at random is trapped. For every 4 goblins players kill they receive a treasure card.)

Thanks to Heroes and Other Worlds,  Smackwell for Dungeon Crawl, and to FFG for Descent one and two, and hours of glorious fun.

Traveller type RPG using Starmada ships, and Hero Games RPG

Traveller type RPG using Starmada ships, and Hero Games RPG

>>Are your RPG players interested in a detailed ship-to-ship fight? How often will they want to man their battle stations and roll a few dice?

I was using Mongoose Traveller, and I wasnt crazy about the simple combat system in the book.Then I got mayday from rpgnow (where i bought most of my more recent mj12 games from), and thought about getting Azanti high lightening. I'm not crazy about Hero Game System combat for space ships.

My sandbox universe is wrought with flavor. ship to ship combat adds to the flavor of the game I am looking for. Essentially the group is in a mini-verse of 20 human systems. The alliance dominates with 80% of the worlds. All words occupants have a common origin earth. Combat is used to solve the pirate problem. There are no acknowledged aliens yet. Sometimes alliance systems to go the mattresses over $$$ issues, or political issues. over the last 300 years there have even been some colonial issues. But now all is quiet. The players are doing some mystery solving and exploring both of which require combat.

The Traveller ships I have are abstracted for fighting smaller ships and slightly larger ships. I think the players should feel like their ship is bigger than it is, to promote the "heroic feel".  That's what my style of rpg-ing is about.

A friend of mine out on Long Island uses Starfire to run his military rpg game. Its been years since ive played that and I dont think I want to invest in that or, a similar game SLAG, though slag looks interesting. I gave SS (3d miniatures combat game), I cant remember the full name of the game, but that company now has a license to do Traveller ships. Since I cant get a copy of the rules, I don't want to waste money on something Ill never use. I have too many rule systems laying around at home.

how often will the players roll the bones in space? Well they spent 3 games in a row, due to mis-jump and fought rogue miners a couple of times. They fought some kind of weird space pirates. They thought about taking on an alliance cruiser. They surrendered before displaying weapons (b5 reference).

Its not quite cowboys in space. I picture something like Elite (90's type computer game), something like Cthulu, a bit of spying and intrigue. Lots of trading and missions because its built on traveller making money building up for retirement. Since its built on Traveller without the weird races (cat people, dog people), the players have found, or been awarded a jump2 engine. The rest of the verse is still tinkering along at jump 1.

I'm sort of a game hacker. A bit of this. A bit of that. I hope that answers your question.

Mongoose Traveller With Starmada Starships.

Mongoose Traveller RPG. This is second most recent version of Traveller RPG. It's considered Version four.  Version Five is the 100 dollar book put out by Mr Miller on kickstarter. I regretfully reclined.  I have a been a Traveller fan for years.

Starmada is put out by MJ12GAMES.com   Thats Majestic12Games. Good name. The author is a good guy and very accessible. I applaud his hardwork over the last 17 years. I hope he keeps going.

I am not crazy about traveller ship combat, and I dont want to go back to Mayday ship combat so I have decided to do some hacking and trimming. Therefore I am employing Starmada Admiralty edition as a means.

The Traveller problem: Traveller does not use shields. Starmada does. Armor plating wont cut it for me, although it sounds very tempting. So shields represent a tougher hull.

So here are some Hacks to get Traveller to work with Starmada or is that the otherway around?

Hulls represent 20ktons of ship. this could be a problem for 1000kton traveller ships, but I dont anticipate playing with ships that big.

To make things a bit more heroic I am thinking of ditching the ODD rule for enemies. Realize that I want to have the players survive some firefights. Input?

Also on the ship design I wasnt sure if i should make it (AB) (AB)
or rate of fire 2. I think a dual laser should be ROF, since they both need to target one weapon.
correct me if im wrong (AB) (AB) means i can target 2 different enemies?

Another problem is skill levels, so I am going to use 2 OCV levels per +1 starmada modifer
For dueling pilots ill do a Skill lvl minus Skill level, and apply the +/- difference as a starmada modifier.

This OCV stuff comes from hero games. Im doing Hero games science fiction with traveleresque skills/ground combat, using starmada combat.

Heres a Basic Traveller Trader 100 ton,
Two hardpoints.
(88) Trader-class Alliance FreeTrader
Hull: 5 4 3 2 1
Engines: 6 5 4 3 2
Shields: 2 2 2 1 1
Weapons:
1:X 2:X 3:Y 4:Y 5: 6:
X: Hardpoint Dual Laser: 4/8/12, 2/3+/1/1; [AB]
Y: HARDPOINT Missle Launcher: 5/10/15, 1/4+/1/2; [ABCDEF]; Ammo: 6
Special: Cargo; Fire Control; Hyperdrive; Countermeasures


Heres a FAR FRIGATE 200 Ton; Three Hardpoints;
(163) Frigate-class Alliance FAR
Hull: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Engines: 6 6 5 5 4 3 3 2 2 1
Shields: 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1
Weapons:
1:X 2:Y 3:Z 4: 5: 6:

X: HARDPOINT Tracking Laser: 4/8/12, 2/4+/1/1 [AB]
Y: HARDPOINT Pulse Cannons: 3/6/9, 2/3+/1/1; Anti-Fighter; [ABCD];
Z: HARDPOINT Missle Rack: 5/10/15, 1/4+/1/2; [ABCDEF] ; Ammo: 6
Special: Cargo (6); Fire Control; Hyperdrive; Countermeasures

Enemy Pirate Escort.
(38) Escorts-class Pirate Free
Hull: 2 1
Engines: 4 2
Shields: 1 1
Weapons:
1:XY 2:XY 3:XY 4:X 5:X 6:X

X: Fixed Combat Beam: 3/6/9, 1/3+/1/1; [AB][CD]
Y: HARDPOINT Missle Launcher: 5/10/15, 1/4+/1/2, [ABCD]; Ammo: 4
Special: Point Defense; Countermeasures

Discussing Character creation in FATE, Fiasco, Cortex, Traveller, Apocolypse world.

Discussing Character creation in FATE, Fiasco, Cortex, Traveller, Apocolypse world.

This dialog is slightly edited. I had time to chat with another player in the DND 4th edition that I am playing in with JJ, Ben, Sean, and Dan.  I'll snip the beginning of the coversation away. The DM is quite good, colorful and reasonable. The game is a straight dungeon crawl called Undermountain. Im not crazy about straight dungeon crawls. Especially this one. It doesnt seem to be going anywhere with a story line, but hopefully we can dredge some out sometime soon.

<snip>

Me:  I like good emersive. rpg, where people get into char, accents, have personal boundaries(like real people). Thats the kind of game I run thats the kind of game I like to play in

 JJ:  I have a lot of that feeling too. I'm not super-big on accents, but otherwise, yeah. The NPCs don't have particularly interesting agendas beyond "Fight whoever shows up to the death." In most cases communication isn't even possible.   I've actually been told that 4e combats really sing most when there is interesting geography and something at stake besides just hitpoint attrition. But most of our combats are HP attrition in very flat environments.   That's why I actually enjoyed that Bugbear encounter. It wasn't "balanced," but there was clearly Something Going On and it wasn't just a matter of "Everybody immediately move to engage the monster and choose among your small suite of powers until someone falls over."

 me:  Bugbear encounter was good.  His intro game was very good. the Under mountain 4e isnt my cup of tea. The straight dungeon crawl went out with the  Ornithopter.

 JJ:  I think the intro game was definitely better.

 me:  Maybe he can give us an interim encounter before going back in. something that will take us outside, and give us some rp

 JJ:  I think from the DM's perspective, we are Getting Clues to a Bigger Picture. The problem is there are no stakes - in the sense that, there's nothing to make either characters or players care about the bigger picture especially. As GM, he knows there's a Plot in there, and we're getting pieces of it, a little bit at a time. Problem is, it's just a plot. Neither Thorgrim nor I have particular reason to care that this rich woman's nephew's companion has gone rogue and united the monsters, except.

 JJ:  You still have to have a reason to care about the clues. At least I do.

 me:  This is what you have to do with something like this dungeon crawl thing.  big picture issue to make it work somewhat theatrically. fight/clue.  Fight clue. lower boss/clue/draw conclusion. Go back to previous room/person investigate.   Rinse repeat:  To lieutenant;  Rinse repeat to BOSS.   That makes it cinematic. action oriented. Heroic. fun.  Other wise we are slogging from room to room.  As it stands there is nothing pulling these fights together.  he pulled that off in his intro game. I do. But there are none.

 JJ:I've been following the thread of "Rescue the fellow adventurers."  That's been good enough for myt character Thorgrim. He believes in karma, and I do kind of. You pay shit forward. He's a weird dwarf, but I like that about him. It gives me a reason to say, "Don't bother with that door now. We have to get these folks before we die."

    But the rooms themselves aren't interesting. And we don't have any personal connection of love or hate to the folks we're trying to rescue. And 4e doesn't have any mechanics for tying PCs into a web of relationships. So it all feels a bit empty.   Like, when a bone throne on a bone platform doesn't even block line of sight from someone behind it, everything feels flat. Like a map not a room. Or when the heavy leather curtain just suddenly opens wide up.  Part of me wants to ask Sean to swap out Thorgrim's training in Medic for Intimidation or Diplomacy, because I haven't used Medic at all. When you play at the Cleric's house you never have to worry about missing a healer! :D   But part of me worries that I wouldn't be able to use a social skill much the way the campaign is written and run.

 me:  Curtain opening up wide was deus es mach, but I follow you on your beef with terrain effects.  What do you mean by a game system tying into a web of relationships. and what do you mean about the social skill.

(here's where it gets interesting.)

 JJ:  Social skills like Diplomacy and Intimidate and such. Or Empathy in Fate Core.

Web of relationships a la how character setup works in Fiasco or a *World game.

  
me:  I dont play FATE or Fiasco. My experience with FATE for 3 games was with a problematic, manipulate DM. And manipulative dm's don't do well with fate or warp tokens. hence, I wont play it again.

 JJ:  Ouch. One thing Fate does though is reveal a manipulative DM PDQ.  In Chicago I ran a retirement-community supers game using Fate Accelerated. I was sick of high-school supers!

If you look at the Dungeon World playbooks, you'll see how, at character creation, each player picks two other PCs to establish facts about from a list of generalized statements.  You do this with discussion and consent, but it generates a nice basis for PC-PC interaction.

 me:  Since the my entry of into the  roleplaying games hobby, it was up to the players to re-inforce the socialization amongst each other, rather than having to roll it up on the relationship binding tables from games produced in the 1990 game. 

   Table one: favorite object.  

   Table 2: person you look up to. 

   Table 3: girl friend/boyfriend/it friend  

   Table 4: hated enemy. 

 These all seemed very contrived, and I find that its better to elicit these from individual players, or the sort of roleplayers Id like at my table.

 JJ:  In Apocalypse World, you have a History score with every other PC, and when you roll to Aid them (or Interfere), your History score with them is what you add to the die roll. And the History score keeps changing as everyone interacts. Keep in mind that I'm not talking about personal traits, I'm talking about interpersonal traits. Different thing.

 me:  I would have to look at it myself.  So, I run heroic and gritty scenarios.

 Jim:  My history with D&D-type games is that, without mechanical support for both inter-PC agreement and disagreement, you either get no real relationships, which is what we've got now IMHO, or you get griefing.

 me:  I am old school i prefer that characters develop it at character creation time. Which is why i tried to make you a relative at the first game. We don't need no stinking charts. but i would be happy to look at them.if you have a good group you don't need that extra stuff, but im not blowing it off. im open minded. if it works well then it works.

 JJ:  Making people relatives e.g. is very much in scope for the kind of thing I'm talking about. I just couldn't carry off a brogue. :)  As it is, Thorgrim likes your guy not just because you're a dwarf, but because you help people.Thorgrim's really a nice guy. It's not necessarily to his credit that he's chosen to bash people's heads in for a living.

 Me:  Here's a solution that Ive done at creation time. for example in the traveller game I ran.  Each player goes through character creation. during traveler there are events that come up in your life time. When chars are almost done with creation they share it with the other folks. a describes then B describes and links to a or waits. then c describes then links to a or b... etc...each person has a link to some one else. Whether it was helping at an event or crisis... then they have the basis of relation to form a group. Then we go around again and make a second connection. usually the link comes in the form of telling an a story adlib.  Its good stuff.

  

Jim:  Sure. That stuff's awesome. The *World games just bake this kind of thing into the chargen rules, that's all.  So do most Fate games.  Smallville RPG did it too, but not other Cortex Plus games.

In Fiasco, the entire character generation process is JUST establishing relationships.   It's at the far edge of that kind of thing.

 JJ:  The problem with FATE I've found is coming up with those descriptive words. i found it... stressful. they push you to be unique. ID just rather rely on that first session. it worked well for us.

 JJ:  Sure. I am big on Develop-in-Play myself.

 me:  Fiasco, I tried playing at origins, i didn't find it particularly interesting. you have to have a group that leans that way. Also the scenarios have to have a certain feel... (of falling out a window and hoping you have a net.) i am pretty sure i left the fiasco demo early.

JJ:  Oh yeah. It's not for everyone. I have an improv background so I love it to death. But there's no perfect game, so it certainly isn't that.

I do find that even games that "aren't for me" often have interesting bits I can learn from.

But that doesn't mean I want to play them every week...

 me:  Agreed.

 JJ:  Fiasco's GMless, but in my experience that means you either need a table of experienced Fiasco players, experienced improvisers, or someone who will take a kind impresario role and keep things moving along. Particularly with new, sometimes shy players.

Epilogue: (me)

I think I will stay away from the touchy feeling games like FATE and Fiasco.  I would like to try some of the newer ones. I would also like to see Diaspora from the Evil Hat Game company. Those are the folks that Own Fate Core. 

One thing that I discovered today about FATE Core is that there are NO stat blocks. You define your character by SKILLS. Then there is a small version of the game called FATE Accellerated, which has absolutely no skills: only stats.   Make your minds.  :)

Needs of the Many Vs Needs of the few

This was written Some Time In March/Feb

Over the last 8 days, I was very fortunate to have had a very heavy play week. 

Played:

Mon: Pathfinder Chapter Final to Rodney's dnd game. He's a fine game referee with a very flavorful game world and story line. I enjoy it very much. 

Tues: Descent:: Journeys in the Dark (second edition) Nature's Ire (cooperative play module)
Thursday lunch: Splendor at lunch

Friday night: Splendor (twice),  
Saturday afternoon: Ravenloft DND boardgame. and reading through the myth 2.0  board game rules.
Today Lunch: Star realms, 

and tonight: DND 4th edition. 

Gaming helps take my mind off things, and at the same time allows me to enjoy the company of good people. So here's the deal with the blog title. First off as you probably know Mr Spock passed away recently at the venerable 83. These fine actors and writers people helped me through my wonder years. I was 12 in 1970.

Of cousre, Mr Spock kept Captain Kirk grounded. If you follow the movies Mr Spock gave us that immortal line, injecting it permanently into the mob consciousness. The needs of the many outweigh the  needs of the  few. 

How does this work affect Roleplaying? Who's more important? 

The Game Ref (director, or game master)? or the players (the people who make the story). Without a Ref you are team without a net or a ball. So, he's certainly important. But without players the Ref might as well be playing a Sid Meyer's Civilization on the computer. Both are equally important. Its really important that both groups listen to each other

Here's my rub. Why are you gaming? Is it the GAME? or is it your gaming buddies. lets say theres a guy who really wants to run DR Who rpg, and has a complete twist to introduce, and "oh boy oh boy, are the players going to really love this." I think just like in real life you need to listen to the players and not make sure its what they want to play.

Just a thought.

Tackling Savage Worlds Problems: How would you do this while still keeping the system more or less in tact?

Tackling Savage Worlds Problems:

How would you do this while still keeping the system more or less in tact? 

Back to the future:
I have a science fiction game that I enjoy running. Its a hack of 3 difference systems. I started the game in Mongoose traveler, but I couldnt get a handle on combat. Don't get me wrong here. Mongoose traveler is very nice. I know Hero games system better, so I moved the characters over to that system. I finally have a good space combat system which is based on Starmada. I am going to continue my search for a good system that has some not overly detailed space combat, and interesting general rules.  I am making a stop at the Savage worlds system and trying to mull over the problems I encounter as a player and GM. Savage Worlds, Savage Traveller is still a candidate.  Here we go:

Bennies, or not every one is an Oscar winning actor/comedian:
Bennies are nice, and I think shouldn't removed from the game. Bennies are good for usually 1 group of badguys, but they aren't easily replaced unless your GM wants to award good humor, and I usually dont do that as a DM. Instead of giving them out for humor, stick with the 3 Bennies at the game beginning and then give out 1 free Bennies every scene or 2.

Now you see him. Now you don't:

Insta-killed players. Instakill occurs when a villain rolls 3 or so exploding damage dice in a row. Rare, but it happens. Sometimes it happens less rarely. In any case I don't like it either, Its too random.  Sometimes Mooks do a bit too much damage on exploding damage dice. We need something to replace  the exploding die. Here's a thought. Instead of incurring more than 1 wound per mook, I suggest just loosing round or half round action per wound.

The Orck (rock) of Gibraltar:

Heres another point.  Some monsters that you just cant damage. This is due to high armor. I have never liked that rule. I ran into this problem while DMing a scene where a mummy showed up. I realized that 12 armor could rarely be reached, even if the parry was down low. Heres my solution.  My solution is the Signature move and defense.  

Witness my spinning, fast, climbing, tumbling sword strike:

The signature offers instant RAISES.  There could be a couple of different levels of RAISES.  One way would be to possibly tied the number or power of your signature attempts to your character level. Example: a Green leveled troopie would get a signature shoot from his gun. Thats 1 instant raise. If he goes into combat with the bigbadguy for 2 rounds, he gets a double raise when he finally attempts the killing shot.  You can view that as sort of a build up.  if you havent used your bennies, then you can spend 3 on a signature raise. So whats the cost?  Providing the players Thor's hammer may make the game less interesting in the long run. Critters that are too easy to kill, especially the big bad guy is anti-climactic.   We still have to keep the excitement in the game.

Good Wildcard/Aces    Bad Wildcards/Badguys:

The players are suppose to be wildcards, I think that's what you call them. We get that extra wild die to roll. I like it. Before veteran level you can expect to fail rolls. That's fine by me. It means that in situations you have to rely on your player intelligence rather than rely on dice rolls. That's tough to do sometime on a weeknight when the players have no interest in using the brain, I am a prime example of an exhausted player on a week night.

In champions, also, the players can get knocked out fairly easy by an over eager master villain.

How do we tame the Bad Wildcard master villains with out gimping him?

This is a sophisticated task for the GM. Not all Villains fight outright, and some of them will spring lots of traps, before they fight as a last option.  If you happen to play Lego Batman 2, you can watch the the mini villains unleash waves of hoodlums and traps before the villain is force to join (and be defeated) in combat

So whats left? did we keep the game in tact? Its hard to say. Your opinions are welcome