Total Party Capture

Today was the third linked adventure for play testing Bughunts & Bedlam, following on the previous two planetary mine investigations. Today's session was all aboard Longinus Station, in orbit around planet RX-55. 

During the first investigation (krytes from the movie Critters invaded a mine), one of the station technicians was an oddball.  What the PCs didn't know is that a Puppeteer, a mind-control bug based on Heinlein's Puppet Masters but also Ceti eels from Wrath of Khan, the brain parasite aliens in TNG's Conspiracy episode, and any other creatures that latch on to your brainstem and then control you, had taken control of the technician. And there was a crate full of them waiting to infest the rest of the crew. 

Session two (battling Alien Bounty Hunters and Coeurls), when they returned to the station, a few more people were odd. 

This session, they set out to find out who was mind controlled, or a secret synthetic, or maybe a doppelganger type shapeshifter. It actually didn't take long, as early in the session Jada's Hero Sarah went off with one of the infected crew members, who took her to the cargo storage area to try to infect her. She avoided that, but the infected scientist got away. Charles and Steven's Heroes Magnum and Conner (respectively) were looking for clues and not finding much, when suddenly there was an alarm. Someone had sabotaged part of the engineering section. They went to help patch it up, but failed their rolls. The first infected tech showed up to "fix" the situation. 

Our heroes met up with each other and took one of the security officers (compromised!) to confront the station medic, who they knew had acted oddly. There was a fight, but both infected crew were subdued. Sarah  performed surgery to remove the medic's puppeteer, but failed to remove the security officer's. Another alarm went off in the loading dock during the surgeries, but they ignored it. Finally, a decompression event happened in the maintenance bay. 

They put on oxygen masks and went to see what they could do. All of the remaining infected crew (five of them) were waiting. Unfortunately for our crew, Steven was tired (and maybe a bit bored of mostly talk talk talk) and fell asleep at the table. So Connor was out of this final battle. And it went sideways quickly. One tangler grenade wrapped up the infected admin guy with a rifle. Another wrapped up more. The remaining infected crew fired stunners, but didn't take out the Heroes. One last tangler grenade missed, and the bounce roll showed that it came right back at the Heroes. They both failed their saves. 

So, all the Heroes were captured, and they and the remaining uninfected crew became hosts for puppeteers. 

They should have destroyed the case the puppeteers came in when they had the chance! 

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Luckily for the players, we're running play test games, so despite the horrible end, the PCs will be back next session for more. And they leveled up, with Sarah taking the Xenologist advanced class, and Magnum taking the Trooper advanced class. I'll get Steven to level up his PC later, and Denis and Justin can level up their Heroes next session. 

Serendipity (III)

 At the beginning of the year, my wife started learning Korean calligraphy. Then, a few months back, she found an art teacher to teach her watercolor painting to decorate the calligraphy designs. My wife came home from her art class the other day and said she mentioned to the teacher that I was writing an RPG book. The art teacher offered to do some art for the book. 

So we messaged a bit, and then went to talk to her a couple of days ago. 

She's now working on a design for cover art for Missions & Mayhem. It will be a full color acrylic painting, if we do commission her for it. Her work that I've seen is very good, and we shared some concept art, other modern-ish RPG cover art, etc. along with some reference art for the characters that will grace the cover. 

She said she can also do black and white line art fairly easily, so I'll probably commission some more interior art pieces from her later. 

Another artist in Seoul, Jeff Witty, has been doing a lot of art for Dungeon Crawl Classics lately. We've also talked, and he likes my concept for art to highlight the character classes, but he's pretty busy with commissions already. Hopefully, I'll be able to snag a few pictures from him as well.

There's no monsters in the core book, but I'll of course be commissioning some monster art from my buddy Jeremy Hart for the campaign module books. I want to support him as much as possible, too.

I'm pretty excited to see what the art teacher does with the concept I gave her. And once I've got the cover art, it will be a lot easier to start promoting the books. Other than revising some "how to play" and "how to run the game" sections, the main Missions & Mayhem core rules book is done. I'm pretty happy with how it plays, and I don't expect to make more than tweaks to the game from here on out.  

Encouraging Exploration

 

Amae (Aurelian) and the good folks at the TTRPG in Korea Discord server are again hosting an online Summer Con, coming up at the end of August. I've volunteered to help with organizing this time, since I've got a bit of experience from the BTGC last fall. So far, I haven't had to do much.

I pitched one Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins game (Ruby), using an old adventure I wrote back when I was still in Japan. It's been updated and modified along the way. Actually, I think I used to give it away as a free download here on the blog in the old days. 

I also pitched, since the New GM workshop was cancelled at the Busan Con this past spring, a workshop about exploration-based play. It will be based on the main gist of my New GM workshop idea. Trying to get younger/newer players out of the mindset that they need to craft a story before they can run a game. 

But since it's a general workshop, I'll also be trying to give player advice to help players think and explore the fictional worlds of our games more, rather than just waiting for the next crumb of a plot hook from the GM. Themes/topics may include: 

Dungeon Crawls

Hex Crawls (including West Marches style play)

XP for Gold

Diagetic Problem Solving through Questions and Detailed Observation

Sandbox Play 

Setting Up a (small & contained at the start) World, Not a Story 

Because he used those special parts / To make his robot friends

I've spent the better part of this week working on the robot rules for Bughunts & Bedlam. 

Not special rules for running robots (I already have the Android Character section written), but rules for designing and building robots. 

I looked at the various robot rules in d20 Modern products (core book, d20 Future, and Menace Manual all have robot design guidelines, and they're all a little different). I also went to refresh myself on the venerable (or at least tolerated, in some circles) robot rules from Star Frontiers. 

And while I'm done with it, and it should work just fine, I'm looking at it now thinking maybe I made it too fiddly.  I've got base costs based on the frame (armature, standard, and aesthetic) and size. Then add-ons like legs or wheels or sensors or security systems are either a set cost or a % of the base frame's price. 

Then I made a bunch of sample robots, and man, it was a pain to tally up the costs based on the options each model had. It was also a bit of a pain to have to list them all in the "monster" description. 

Star Frontiers has a much simpler function x body type chart, with some add-ons for different types of movement, programming, or additional equipment integrated into the robot. I may make something in that vein, although a bit expanded in the functional robot types and body types/sizes based on what I've already got. 

What I have now is 6 pages long in draft. I think I can streamline this a bit. 

_____

Update: After a weekend of revision, I'm down to 5 pages and a much simpler system to determine a robot's features and functions. 

Now I've gone back to the planetary environment effects. Thick atmospheres. Alkaline water. Constant earthquakes. That sort of stuff. 
 

 

Weekend of Gaming

 On Saturday, Justin ran a one-shot session of Mythic Bastionland. Here's my character sheet. I played Bertilak the Tankard Knight. Despite my fairly poor stats, I played him as a boisterous Brian Blessed type. C.C. played Glowy the Glass Knight, and Scott played Fainlin the Willow Knight. Glowy was exuberant and outgoing, while Fainlin was timid but hopeful of achieving glory. 

First, we had a tourney with three NPC knights (listed on my sheet). Glowy and Fainlin both won in the first round, but Bertilak lost to Demelza. Then Glowy, by lot, battled Demelza and won. Then Fainlin and Glowy fought, and Fainlin came out the champion. 

But at the feast that night, a weird minstrel woman put a spell on the assemblage and announced us the prey of Lord Spinjack's Hunt. Also, the lord's daughter was put into a magical sleep. So we did what mythic knights are wont to do, and set out to find Spinjack. We did, or rather Spinjack found us. And after a very rough battle, we emerged victorious. 

 ____

I have to say, Mythic Bastionland is a more interesting NuSR type game than the various Black Hack spin-offs I've played. The combat system of using a die pool and placing successes to do damage or have special effects (gambits) is complex, but a nice challenging mini-game. 

Also, the opponents get to make their own rolls, rather than me as a player having to roll defense. I've come to really dislike that type of system. But that's a topic for another post. 

Mythic Bastionland does a good job of making the game feel like you're in a fairy tale or Medieval romance, where everyone is representing some sort of superlative archetype. A bit like The Princess Bride. Buttercup is the most beautiful. Humperdinck is the greatest hunter. Fezzik is the strongest. 

On the ride home, Justin explained how the game normally sets up a campaign with six "myths" to explore, but once these are completed the campaign is finished. So it's really not designed around one-shots, but the campaigns have a built in shelf life. I like it, but it's probably not something I'd run myself these days. I've moved on to preferring a little bit heavier game (but not too mechanically complex). 

_____

Yesterday (Sunday), I ran Missions & Mahyem, trying out my near-future Bughunts & Bedlam campaign module material some more. Last session, the players explored a mining facility on an exoplanet that had been overrun with Krytes (the titular Critters from those old 80s movies). Honestly, I thought with their strong bite damage and paralyzing poison darts that they would be a challenge. But they weren't. I should have at least doubled, if not tripled, their numbers. Also, I realized that the d20 Future stats for laser and plasma weapons, which I copied directly, may be too powerful for this game. Charles's PC, Magnum, bought a plasma rifle and was doing crazy amounts of damage. Sure,when a Predator is chasing you, I want that damage to be nasty. But in the hands of the PCs, it was too much. So I toned it down a bit. Charles took a bit of convincing but he went along with it, and he seemed satisfied by the reduced but still impressive damage of the plasma rifle. 

And on to this session. The PCs were back on the space station orbiting the exoplanet. They had some clues that survivors of the mine might have escaped to another mine, and what do you know, that mine was also now not communicating with the space station or the other mines now. So they went back down to investigate. 

This time, they found a pair of Alien Bounty Hunters that were looking for the Krytes and also some Coeurls (a.k.a. the inspiration for the displacer beast in D&D). They didn't trust the party, but the Heroes tried to ally with them. Well, when they suggested that the ABHs head in first with the Heroes right behind them, they assumed the Heroes wanted to backstab them (sorta, the players just wanted the ABHs to take the brunt of any attacks). So they opened fire. After a short gunfight, one ABH was badly wounded and so were one of the PCs (Flynn's new Hero, on his first mission!). The ABHs retreated, and the Heroes spot welded them into the mine's habitat area -- unknownst to them, where three of the Coeurls were napping. While Jada's Hero Sarah dished out some healing treatments, I quickly rolled a combat between the aliens and the Coeurls won, with one of the three cat-beasts dying. 

The party went another way to explore the mine more. They found some robots still mining ice, and then in the fusion generator room found three Coeurls napping in the nice warmth of the Fusion GirlTM reactor.  The Coeurls had surprise, and attacked. Flynn's Hero, Agent K, was almost dropped again, and Denis' Hero Lloyd was also beat up pretty badly. Magnum and Sarah covered their retreat, and then Lloyd laid down suppressing fire (FINALLY got to test out that mechanic!) and let Magnum and Sarah retreat. Agent K blew up an oxygen tank to do a bit of damage to the Coeurls, then the party retreated and also welded shut that door! 

They headed back up to the space station to report their sorta failure. And when they got there, they realized something is off. In the first mission, one technician was acting oddly. Now, several people, including the doctor and vice-administrator, were acting weird as well. But that's a mystery for next session! 

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It's good to be testing out a lot of these mechanics. There weren't a lot of general proficiency checks in this game, other than for healing. But the combat rules got a good run through, and seem sound even with some more powerful weaponry available. Also, the Krytes were not much of a threat in the previous session, but the Alien Bounty Hunters and Coeurls were good matches to a party of four 5th level Heroes.  

Resistance Is Futile. You Will Be Assimilated.

 Over the past couple of years, I've slowly been drifting into the headspace where I don't want to play the currently popular rules lite RPGs. Black Hack derived, PbtA games, Into the Odd, etc. I mean, for a one-shot or a short arc, they aren't bad. But they don't capture my interest that much. There's enough system to handle individual encounters, of a wide variety of types. But there doesn't seem to be a lot of staying power. Even the ones that have levels or some other advancement mechanics, like PbtA milestones/achievements just aren't holding my interest. And even if you do get to level up or improve every so often, the games usually don't have a campaign advancement system. You don't get to "grow up" and evolve to some sort of end game. It's still more monster hunting in dungeons, or another mystery/monster of the week, which is the biggest weakness of WotC versions of D&D in my opinion. 

And then we get into the art-punk stuff. I've mentioned before that Mork Borg may be a perfectly cromulent game, but the clashing fonts, disjointed layout, and purposefully garish art suits the genre it's going for, but makes it a pain on my old man eyes to read. 

Yet, if you've gotten the connection to this post's title, I did indeed try out Mork Borg a couple of weeks ago. Keith (who ran Cyberpunk Red at our game con last fall) ran a couple of sessions, running the same adventure for two different groups on consecutive days. I was in his Saturday group (the second game, the first obviously being on Friday). 

And honestly, the mechanics made sense when he explained them to me, they worked well for the adventure, and I sure had a ton of fun with it. Of course, it helps that my PC was the last one standing, after Scott backstabbed Martin, Craylin's PC died, then I backstabbed Scott's PC. :D Yeah, it was that sort of game. 

We did mostly randomized character creation. Keith let us pick our class and name (we could roll for that if we wanted), and if we didn't like a random roll result we could reroll once.  Or maybe it was twice? Anyway, being a one-shot, I wasn't super invested in making a bespoke PC, so I just went with my random rolls for my dirty old lives under the bridge hermit. 

Yes, I enjoyed it. As a more beer-and-pretzels or event (con) game, it seems really good. I don't see the long-term play aspect of it, although with just a one-session designed as a one-shot, I honestly can't judge it yet. But if it's like most of the other rules-lite OSR offerings of the past 10 years or so, I doubt it does lasting campaigns well. 

Of course, I'm becoming the old fuddy duddy who wants open campaign sandboxes that eventually turn into either a domain game, a plane-hopping series of grand adventures, or both. The way Gygax intended! Harumph! 

Jesus, I'm only 52 and stared gaming in 1984. Yet I realize I sound like those dudes who were already well along in their 20s or early 30s back in the 70s when the game debuted. 

But don't fear, loyal readers. This Saturday, Justin is running a one-shot of Mythic Bastionland. And I'll be playing in it. I don't have time to organize and run a game of Pendragon right now, so this is probably the next best thing. 

And Scott has invited me to a one-shot centered Discord server. I haven't joined it yet, but I might. We'll see. I'm not craving these rules-lite games per se, but one-shots or mini-campaigns (3 to 6 sessions and done) seem to be what's popular these days. 

Anyway, since I'm going on and on about evolving a game to a different endgame state, I should probably think about what to do with Missions & Mayhem at higher levels. How could I adapt domain level play to a modern or near-future setting game? Shouldn't be that hard. But that's either another section of game to create for the core rules, or another supplement to produce for the game. 

The "Day of the Dead" Problem

 Ever notice how, when characters in a TV show or movie go to Mexico, it always just happens to be Dia de los Muertos? Everyone's dressed like a skeleton in a parade? 

James Bond in Mexico*

 Well, yesterday I spent a good part of the day writing up information for designing exoplanets for Bughunts & Bedlam, the alien-fighting supplement for Missions & Mayhem. And while most of it is at least scientifically plausible, I realized that a lot of it isn't necessarily gameable. A planet with a weird orbit, or unusual axial tilt will affect what sort of life (if any) would develop on a planet, but other than helping a GM world build, there's not much difference in how an adventure plays out. 

Well, some things, like planetary size affecting gravity, have game effects. Day/night cycles or electromagnetic interference from the magnetosphere can come into play. But a planet with a transverse orbit (like Pluto, which crosses Neptune's orbit) don't really have much game effect. It's just color....

 Unless, the Heroes just happen to arrive during a crossover period AND the two planets are close to each other in their orbital cycles. Then gravity will cause all kinds of fun situations. 

 But like with the Day of the Dead in movies, will it will start to feel artificial if EVERY time the players get to a new planet with some orbital eccentricity, they just happen to be there at the most dangerous/interesting moment? 

Maybe not. We seem to be pretty OK with people in skeleton costumes dancing because it looks cool, even if a story already established itself as happening some other time of year than early November. We play these games to experience, vicariously, cool things happening around or to our characters. I could be over-thinking these things. 

But I noticed that Stars Without Number, for example, doesn't bother with orbital mechanics and the like. Their planet generator is geared towards what sort of environment and what sort of civilization is there. 

Of course, B&B assumes a barely colonized galaxy, at least by humans. It's not space opera. Most planets, if they have human (or intelligent alien) occupants, will be colony worlds, without a lot of developed society. The whole idea is to go out and explore the worlds, find alien "bugs", and kill them. So maybe I'm on the right track after all. As a resource, my system for creating unusual planets could always be combined with something like SWN or Terminal Space or Traveller or what have you. 

So I'm not getting rid of my work so far. But I am bracing myself for the game playing out in the rather artificial way in which any planet with unusual characteristics gets visited at the peak of its unusual activity.  

 

*I searched for more images, but Google just wants to serve up images from either Disney's Coco or Romero's Day of the Dead so I gave up. I know there are more examples, though. I've seen them.