Gaming Swag from Japan

Over the weekend, my family took a little trip to Fukuoka, Japan. My wife currently has a broken toe, so she almost didn't go, but decided to go anyway. It wasn't easy managing things, as there was a lot of walking involved, but we got through it. [And the doctor exam yesterday showed no problems.]

The last two times I'd been to Fukuoka, my mother-in-law was with us. That meant a lot of the things we did were focused on her desires. This time it was just us, so the boys and I got to do a few things that WE wanted to do. One of them was to visit a geeky resale shop called MANDARAKE which was sort of like a vintage geek Mecca. Steven, my 10yo, is already planning to save money for our next trip so he can purchase a used gaming console. They had a SEGA MegaDrive (J-version of the Genesis), PS2 through 5, an original X-Box, and a few others. Plus games, of course. He wants one...not sure if he'll get his wish, but we'll see. 

They had manga, US comics trade paperbacks, old CD/DVDs of music, anime, etc. Lots and lots of toys: action figures, cars, model kits, and so on. Oh, and books. 

I finally, after years of (not very extensive) searching through used bookstores in Japan, found a copy of Sword World RPG. 

 So far, I've only had time to skim through it. My Japanese is pretty rusty, but I did read through the "What is an RPG" section. Luckily, the few kanji I didn't remember were easy to guess from context. That is probably one of the most straightforward, concise, and effective explanations of what RPGs are and how they play I've ever read. I took notes for my revised Flying Swordsmen game. 

When I get more time to go through the game, its mechanics, and what not, I'll probably have more to say here. 

Also at the shop were three boxes of vintage Grenadier Star Wars metal minis! The first I noticed was a Bounty Hunters set. Then there was one with the Heroes of the original trilogy (plus Vader). And the third was an Imperials set. I ALMOST bought them. My boys were encouraging me to get them. I wanted them. But all three sets together would have been close to $100 and my wife would not have been happy. And at 1980s 25mm scale they would be so tiny next to my 54mm plastic SW minis from my previous time in Japan. So I didn't get them. 

I'll probably be kicking myself for that decision years down the road, just like I sometimes kick myself for not spending $100 to get the Japanese Basic Set shortly before I left Japan for Korea. But such is life.

Additionally, at the 100 yen shops Seria and Daiso, I picked up some dice (two sets of 4 d6s at Seria), and some condition counters for RPG or board/card games (4 sets of 8 counters at Daiso). 

At Daiso, I also found two copies of the Werewolf game, with really cool art. There are some common cards in the two sets, but each also has some unique characters. 

Next to the Werewolf cards were these cards called "Biology Card Game: Cell". I had no idea what they were, but they looked like a CCG. My wife said to go ahead and get them, since they're only a dollar each. The cards are themed around viruses, diseases, organelles, medical tech, and various biological fluids each illustrated with a cute anime girl. 

The QR code on the box and on each card leads to a video tutorial which I haven't watched yet. Because I'll probably never play the game. But a fun curiosity for $2. 

Finally, in the books section of Daiso, I found this book about yokai. A lot of my players aren't familiar with them, so this is something I can use in my Jade Campaign to show off what some of the creatures they encounter look like. 

That's the extent of the gaming related stuff I picked up. Other than that, we met my friend Keita, bought some clothes, lots of snacks, saw a few touristy things (finally went up in Fukuoka Tower, rode swan boats in Ohori Park again), and ate a LOT of good food. 

All in all, a fun trip!

Daegu One-Shot TTRPG Extravaganza

As I start to type this, the Daegu One-Shot TTRPG Extravaganza is just wrapping up (according to the schedule). I wasn't there today, but yesterday Flynn and I woke up early and drove up to Daegu for some gaming. It started Friday night with one game session slot, then three on Saturday (we were there for two), and then two more game slots today (Sunday). 

We arrived at Cafe Panoplie in central Daegu at around 8:45am, and they let us in at around 8:50. The first game session was scheduled from 9am to 1pm, but of course people were gathering, buying their first drinks, saying hi to old friends, meeting new people, and all of that. We probably didn't actually start to game until after 9:30. 

My first game was my 2nd choice game for that time slot, a whimsical heist adventure (5E D&D). The DM, Tabi, let us roll up some slightly overpowered 3rd level PCs before the game started. I made a Dwarf Fighter (Noble) who was gruff and a bit pompous. Another player, Rachel, had rolled up a Fairy Barbarian (Gladiator), who acted all nice and sweet until she started to kick ass. The third player, Kimberlee, was new to RPGs, but had played in a 5E game on Friday night. So she used her 1st level Halfling Rogue (unknown background) from the night before, and bumped up to 3rd level. The 4th player didn't show up. 

The adventure was to steal a magical gauntlet from the Magistrate. Using our various skills and backgrounds, and coming up with an intricate plan that we botched the most important part (we paid for a counterfeit gauntlet to be made, but forgot to pick it up before infiltrating the Magistrate's mansion), we bumbled through the mission and succeeded, just at the last minute (real time).

Flynn played a Traveller game called Death Station in the morning slot run by a GM named Nicole who I don't know (this was both of our #1 pick for the slot). He said it was a mission to explore a ship that had been wiped out by a contaminant and they had to science their way through the adventure. He enjoyed it, and was wondering if there is a computerized version of Traveller for solo play. I'll have to look that up. [Or someone in the comments, please give us a link!]

We had found an American style Chinese restaurant on the map and wanted to go there for lunch, but it was closed. Korean style Chinese food is very disappointing compared to the American fare (or Japanese style Chinese). Since it took about 15 minutes to walk there, and there was only a 1 hour lunch break, we ended up going to Lotteria (Korean fast food). 

When we got back, I chatted with my friend Scott a little about the organization of the event (he was an organizer), and he said he's willing to pitch in to help Justin and I if we organize something like this in Busan later. Nice. Then we went to our game tables. We were both in our #1 picks for the afternoon slot (2pm to 6pm), thanks to Scott. 

My afternoon game was Dragonbane, run by the GM Amae. I knew Amae online because he's the admin of the TTRPG in Korea Discord group. He had five pregens  for us. I got the Human Magician. Lem was the Wolfkin Warrior. Lexi was an Elf Archer. Abi was a Halfling Thief. And the fifth player, whose name is escaping me at the moment, was a Mallard Knight that we nicknamed Duck Tank. I didn't know any of these players before the game started. 

The adventure was called The Sinking Tower. We were after treasure, and the tower that rises out of the sea once every 20 years was slowly sinking back down. We managed to bumble our way through most of the puzzle/traps, and a couple of combats. We managed to loot a few small treasures and also got one of the great green emeralds from the top of the tower, with a tense last minute scramble by Lexi's archer. It was a blast, and I'd love to get a chance to play Dragonbane again. 

Flynn's afternoon game was Cyberpunk Red, run by a fellow Busan gamer named Keith. Flynn told me they were a low level street gang, running deliveries of drugs and bootleg chips for Razor, their boss. They got into a deal way over their heads, but somehow managed to charm one of the criminal syndicates, who helped them defeat the cyberninja that was pulling the rigged deals. Flynn's character was a street rapper, and Keith had him use ChatGPT to come up with lyrics for his rap songs during the game, which Flynn enjoyed. 

Keith running his game. Flynn is in the NASA shirt. I don't know the other players.

The Cyberpunk game went down to the wire (6pm). We went across the street to Shake Shack for dinner. Even though we had burgers for lunch, my Dragonbane group had gone there and invited me along. I waited for Flynn, so we showed up a little late and had to sit at another table because another gamer had joined them. 

After that, we headed back home. All in all, a really fun day. And we got to meet some cool new people, and play some games we probably never would have gotten a chance to play if we hadn't gone. I definitely want to run something like this here in Busan in the near future.  

Chintzy Magic Items (And a Game Con!)

 Tomorrow (Saturday, June 7th), Flynn and I are headed up to Daegu for their One-Shot Extravaganza TTRPG event. It actually starts this evening and goes through Sunday afternoon. But honestly, the games we wanted to get in the most were Saturday morning and afternoon. So we'll drive up tomorrow morning (about an hour's drive on the expressway) and come back tomorrow evening after the games. 

 Flynn prefers sci-fi to fantasy, so he's got a Traveller game in the morning (called "Death Station" and honestly, this was my first pick for this time slot as well), and in the afternoon will be playing Cyberpunk Red. He's been playing the Cyberpunk 2077 PC game, and loves it, so he's hyped for this game. 

In the morning, I'll be playing in what looks to be a sorta whimsical D&D 5E game. The DM seems much more focused on "telling a story" than running an adventure...but more on this in a bit. In the afternoon, I'll finally get a chance to try out Dragonbane (my first pick, Cyberpunk being my #2). I've been curious about it for a while now. The DM for this game sent a list of pre-gens, and I'm torn between the shifty human wizard and the wolf-man monster hunter. There's also a duck-man knight that could be interesting, but may be too similar to my morning character so I'll try to get one of the above two PCs. 

 For the 5E game, the DM has some pre-gens, but said we could also make characters and submit them for approval. I considered playing a Sorcerer, which along with the Warlock are the two classes in 5E that I've never tried to play. Or a Druid, which I did try once, and had fun with. But in the end, I went with a classic Dwarf Fighter, Level 3 (Battle Master archetype). Since it's a custom point-buy system, of course his physical abilities are really good (although I didn't go so far as to give myself a 20 in Strength...merely an 18). He's got the Noble background, and I had fun filling out a short list of titles he bears that would make Lwaxana Troi proud. And that's why I'll try to avoid the Sir Duck character in the Dragonbane game.

The DM said we each have 250gp to spend, so plenty of normal gear or a small magic item or two. But looking through 5E's selection, I was reminded of just how chintzy a lot of the magic is in 5E. Many of the cheap magic items listed online seem to be mostly cosmetic. And the few useful ones mostly refer to spells, which reminded me of just how unimpressive a lot of magic is in 5E. 

A potion of growth in old school D&D makes you giant and doubles your damage (I just checked 1E, though, and it only makes you big, no damage bonus...)! In 5E, it makes you giant and gives you +1d4 damage on your attacks. Helpful, but not impressive. 

A potion of climbing in old school D&D gives a 95% chance to climb sheer surfaces (99% in 1E!), but in 5E it only gives advantage on your climb checks and lets you move at full speed. 

And I'm sure I don't need to rehash how many magic effects that used to be instant effect (sleep), save-or-die, or at least save-or-be-out-of-combat in old school games are now make-a-save-each-round-until-you-escape-it. 

Old school magic users may not get as many spells, but it sure is a lot more fun to play one when the spells you do prepare pack a punch!  

Anyway, to end on a positive note: I'm looking forward to my first face-to-face game convention. And I'll be taking notes to see how easy it will be for me and a few friends to put on one here in Busan.  

Progress on Flying Swordsmen 2E

 In the past few days, I've been pretty busy. My older boy is back in Korea for summer vacation. I'm working on my next research paper. I've also been painting some minis in my spare time to relax. Oh, and I've got the first draft of Flying Swordsmen 2E more or less finished. I still need to add some examples (NPCs, making adventures, a sample of how a game plays). But the basic mechanics for creating characters, training/improving characters, running the game, creating campaigns and adventures, setting rewards, and the setting information are all there. 

I will need to decide if I want to license art this time, or stick to PD images...

 

The past two days, I've been going through it with find/replace to make sure I'm consistent with names of the skills, powers, abilities, etc. including which ones are capitalized, in italics, and so on. I also have used some words too often. 

Ability is used for the six main stats of the game (Prowess, Might, Agility, Observation, Presence, Education) but I also have used it indiscriminately to talk about capacities. 

Power is used for the special martial arts stats (Qinggong [lightness], Neigong [internal], Dianxue [acupressure], Suan Ming [divination], Wu [white magic], and Ku [black magic]) that allow for the use of Techniques (martial arts maneuvers, spells, feats). I also talk about creature powers, power as in political or social clout, etc. 

Luckily, I seem to have stuck to using skill mostly for mechanical skills within the game. 

My document is A4, single column, mostly 12 point font. Obviously headers use larger fonts, and some of the tables and some notes I use 10.5 point font. The document is 147 pages long, including 16 pages with character templates (two per page). No art yet, other than my Zhongyang Dalu map from the first edition.

I've got 41 skills, 108 techniques, around 60 monsters, 25 sample magic items (with notes on how to design more), and detailed but hopefully simple rules for combat including actions, reactions, special maneuvers, improvised weaponry, special types of damage (energy, poison, etc.), and so on. I've got a system for training new skills, and one for learning new Powers and Techniques. These are similar, but not exactly the same. Skills are a little easier to learn than a new Power, but if your Power increases you can learn a Technique automatically. 

Once I get done with the terminology consistency passes, I'll make a separate document with just the player facing information and work up an adventure or two to playtest the rules with my group.

Monsters in Flying Swordsmen 2E

I've been writing up the monsters for Flying Swordsmen 2E. I have around 50 of them (monsters and animals, not stock NPCs) total, and around 20 left to stat up. I've been basing a lot of them off of the OGL d6 Fantasy Creatures book, but with some modifications to fit the system I came up with for FS2E. 

A lot of the descriptions have just been copy/pasted from the original Flying Swordsmen, but there are some places where I've made some changes. One thing I did with the dragons is to make sure they all have some sort of special environmental effects they can create to make fighting them more challenging but also more interesting. 

Having done that, though, it makes me realize just how similar many of the monsters are to each other. Similar dice codes for abilities and skills. There's not really a huge range. Most creatures have attacks and skills at around 4 or 5 dice. 

I have given special abilities to some monsters, and some also get martial arts Powers and Techniques (Powers are sort of like the Force Skills in Star Wars d6, Techniques are a combination of the martial arts maneuvers and spells from 1E Flying Swordsmen, with a few new things thrown in). That helps distinguish some of the monsters. But I think I need to go through and figure out ways to make monsters more interesting. I think human opponents and rivals will be primary antagonists of the game, but there should be interesting monsters to fight when you have to throw in a monster.

Movie Review: Thunderbolts*

On Saturday, my younger son and I went to see the newest MCU movie, Thunderbolts*. I have to say, I wasn't eagerly anticipating this movie, but the trailers did make me hopeful that it would at least be entertaining. I went in with fairly low expectations, and it surpassed them by quite a bit. 

Note for anyone wondering how much "cursing" is in the movie, there's a fair amount of mild swearing. 

Yes, Google searches for movie titles plus "curse words" still lead people to my movie reviews. 

So, Thunderbolts. The team of the B-league antiheroes. Former villains/opponents, brought together and trying to do the right thing. It's got the Marvel action, humor, and heroics we expect. It's also a movie built around exploring depression, regret, and redemption. Yeah, the movie has heart. It's not a huge world-shattering plot. It feels fairly small and personal, despite the way things go south in the third act and do threaten the world...or at least NYC. 

And for a team that "just punches and shoots" as you may have heard in the trailer, our protagonists can't fall back on their military training to resolve the plot. 

I'll avoid spoilers, but this movie felt like a callback to the Phase I MCU movies. And yet, the resolution (and post-credits stinger) tie into the overarching plot of...what is this, Phase VI? After the slightly better than mediocre (fun and full of action, but failing to resonate) Captain America: Brave New World, this is an improvement. 

Watching Thunderbolts* after watching Daredevil Born Again (which was excellent!), I feel like Marvel may have finally figured out their new formula for success. And I was already looking forward to Fantastic 4 this summer, but I'm even more excited now! Of course, the MCU is also going up against the new James Gunn Superman, which I'm also really excited for. 

If you're missing the feel of the early MCU in the post-Disney+ glut era, check out this movie.

I feel a disturbance in the Force...

Next Sunday is May the 4th (be with you), and yes, I'll be running my Star Wars d6 campaign instead of my TS&R (D&D) campaign. Last year, I tried to run a session to introduce SW gaming to a new audience, but out of five players, only two were new. At least they both stuck around (Randy's wife has been keeping him busy most weekends, but he still wants to play). This year, I'm just running with the regular crowd. 

I recently got involved with the TTRPG in Korea Discord group, during their last WinterCon. I offered to run a SW game for those guys on the 4th, but no one signed up. So I cancelled that game and will run for my Busan group. 

If I'd done the Discord group game, I would have used one of my old adventures (the first one I ran, actually, based loosely on the plot of the move Shaft). Since it's the regular group, minus the people who can only play online, I'll be furthering the game as we shift into the post RotJ era. 

The Hutts want to retake their planet Dandoran, which an Imperial invasion made them flee (with help from our Anti-Heroes). Now, the Hutts Strike Back. I've got four mini missions in mind, and the PCs are free to take or leave them (although the first one is smuggling heavy weapons to Dandoran, so they'll probably take up that mission). 

I've still got a bit of prep to do for the other three missions. But the good thing is, if we don't have time for all four (I figure we'll get two done), I've got content prepared for the next time we run SW.