A Haven

Recently, I've read a few blogs or seen comments saying basically that people are leaving the OSR because the scene is toxic. No, I'm not going to link to them because that would likely draw extra unwanted attention to these people. But they exist. And there are people within the OSR scene that are happy to make these people feel unwelcome. I'm NOT one of them.

I just want to state up front: This is a blog about D&D (and other geeky stuff). I don't care who you find attractive. I don't care about your gender*. I don't care about your race or ethnicity. Not to say that none of these things matter. I think they matter. But it makes no difference to me if we're going to discuss elf-games. 

You are welcome here. You are wanted here. You are valued here. 

Unless you're a hateful troll. Keep it to yourself, or go somewhere else. The internet is a big place. And there are plenty of places that will welcome you. 

This little corner of the OSR welcomes diversity and inclusion. This tiny voice in the chaotic void of cyberspace is about spreading the love of games, and YOU MATTER. 

Peace

*I don't care about your gender, but I will do my best to respect your pronouns if you care to share them.

Social Combat

 This afternoon I ran my Star Wars game. 

In this session, the party escorted Marjon, a Hutt princess, to Coruscant to attend the Grand Ball with a bunch of other rich young sentients. The party's mission was to protect the wealthy princess, make sure she had a good time, and help her improve her social cred. 

The players came up with a lot of clever ideas to accomplish the second and third goals, although there was a bit of confusion between the meaning of "have a good time" at first. Since my sons play in the game, we need to keep things PG rated but one player seemed intent on trying to get the Hutt princess laid...NOT the goal! It was one of those high society events where being seen is important. Luckily, the players thought to contact some local holonet influencers and have them talk up Marjon the Hutt. And in the party, when social barbs were flying, they were quick to try and defuse them through their own social interaction skills and occasionally a Jedi Mind Trick. 

Star Wars d6 made social "combat" really easy. Instead of hit points, you get Stunned, Wounded, Wounded Twice, Incapacitated, and Killed in regular combat. So for social combat, I just used the same mechanics and modified the damage track to Insulted, Hurt, Hurt Twice, Humiliated, and Reputation Ruined. 

Just like in normal combat, roll a skill to attack (Culture, Persuasion, Con, etc.) and another character can try to dodge with their own social skills. If the "attack" hits, roll Willpower to resist the "damage." I decided that the attack roll and damage roll would be the same, just to make things easier. 

And it worked really well. 

Luckily for the party, they managed to keep Marjon's spirits up. There was a Wookiee debutante that they also latched onto, and they helped keep her reputation up as well. The Twilek socialite, Chadra Fan celebrity, and Kel Dor Heiress were kept at bay. They even got the Togruta playboy to dance with Marjon, shortly before Zygerrian slavers broke in to try and kidnap a high value target for ransom. 

Of course, the PCs fought off the Zygerrians. And they did it without any grenades!

It was a pretty fun adventure, and in retrospect, it probably didn't need the Zygerrian interruption. The social interactions were fun and challenging all on their own. Hat tip to Jason Alexander for ideas on running a social event as an adventure. I didn't use all of his method, but it sure helped me sort things out and run the game.

The End of Down Time

My covid-19 quarantine ends at midnight tonight (about 2 hours from time of writing), so I'm back to work tomorrow. We had a pretty good day. Played some emulated console games with son #2 after I finished teaching my online classes. Ordered delivery fried chicken for dinner. Rewatched Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings with the boys. Scheduled my Star Wars RPG session for this coming Sunday. All in all, a pretty good day. 

So, since I've been talking about my actual down time, why not discuss D&D down time a bit after all? 

I don't have much in the way of downtime activity in my West Marches games. Magic-Users can, per Holmes Basic, create a scroll given a week's time and a bit of gold. I rule that to 1 week per game session, but the scroll-crafting can only be done in town. So the past several sessions in White Plume Mountain haven't allowed the characters to replace scrolls used. But once they get back to town, that's one way they can spend their time/money. Also, those that don't have magical weapons or armor can commission +1 items (only) from Rupert the Town Mage or Sister Clarion, the town Matriarch (technically, they could also go to Toutates the Priest [druid] as well, but so far no one has). But each of these NPCs can only work on one item at a time, and it takes several game weeks (sessions) for the item to be completed. Once PCs reach Name level, they could then do these projects themselves. 

So not much for down time rules in my current game. 

In one of the 5E play-by-post games I am in, though, there are some rather extensive rules for down time.

First of all, it's also West Marches style (and the inspiration for me to want to run a WM game myself), but in the more traditional sense that there are multiple parties all exploring different areas simultaneously. But since it's play by post, it's slow and erratic. And while an adventure may take only a couple of days of in-game time, it can take literal years of real time to play out. My longest running character in the game (we're allowed multiples as long as they join different groups) is only on his second adventure after 5 years of actual real world play. But he is 8th level on the verge of 9th in that time...

Anyway, as Gygax would say, YOU CANNOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT or something to that effect. The GM does take careful records of time spent by each party, how many days/hours have passed, how many rations we've expended, etc. And how many days of real world time have passed since each expedition sets out to when it arrives back in town. 

But as mentioned, each party's progress can't really be tied together in one big calendar in this game. If an expedition that covers a day or two in-game time takes a year or more to play out, while another group can cover four or five game-days in the same amount of time, but both parties end up back in town at the same real-world time and switch party members, things won't add up. 

So the GM decided that he just wouldn't worry about that part. But when players asked to spend downtime days for stuff (5E allows for item crafting, earning money with professional skills, learning a new tool proficiency or language, etc), he came up with the following:

*The number of real world days that pass while in the Marches equals the number of downtime days the character has to spend while in town. They must still spend any gold required for the training desired. 

That seemed to work OK. My oldest PC in the game traded in some of his hard won gold and a lot of that downtime to learn some new languages and tool proficiencies. 

But some people weren't going to use those downtime days, so the GM came up with the following:

*You may convert downtime days to XP at the rate of 3XP per 'day' spent. 

This led to a few problems in that one of the players (or maybe two) were trying to keep track of all the members' XP totals for them, with big complicated charts. But the player(s) started assuming that all downtime days were being converted to XP, so when my PC, for example, spent quite a few days on learning stuff, it messed up the charts. Also, there were questions of when these bonus XP amounts should be added, who was adding what when, etc. It got to be a mess.

So recently, after discussion with all the players, the GM has decided to get rid of tracking the downtime days. If PCs return to town and want to do some downtime activity, they can just declare it and spend the gold needed for training (or supplies). Not sure how he's handling profession skills...none of my characters have bothered with that sort of thing. 

Long story short, 5E has some interesting rules for managing down time, but unless strict time records for the campaign are kept (or there's only one party in the campaign), they can be a hassle!

Fun with the Boys (Down Time 2)

Sorry Lance, still no novel innovations for "down time" in games. Just more quarantine fun. 

The boys and I grabbed my copy of 1st Edition Gamma World and rolled up some characters just for fun. I'm not gonna run it (it's a little too loosey-goosey, especially since I have the 4th edition rules which are not that complex, and 2nd Edition in PDF now which is better organized than 1st and simpler than 4th), but one of my players is considering dipping his toes in the refereeing waters soon with GW, and my 7 year old was itching to roll up a character. 

Well, my 7yo went first. He didn't roll so well for stats, and only got a couple of mutations, but I let him pick since it was just 1 physical and 1 mental, rather than rolling which made him happy. He rolled up: 

Popcat TV

Mutant Cat, MS 8 IN 11 DX 9 CH 7 CN 10 PS 13; HP 31, AC 7 (furs, shield)

Wings (fly speed 12), Mental Control over Physical State (ignore pain, heal x4, double DX, PS, speed for 5d10 rounds 1/week)

Then I rolled up  a humanoid (I rolled high for the two physical mutations, allowing me to reroll and ignore defects for #1, and just to select #2, while the mental mutation was a random roll): 

Del Hartman

Mutant Human, MS 17 IN 12 DX 9 CH 12 CN 8 PS 15; HP 20, AC 7 (furs, shield)

Heightened Strength (add 3 dice damage with physical weapons), Heightened Vision (see clearly up to 3km, infravision w/o drawback, ultravision), Mental Defense Shield (+4 mental defense, sense others with mental mutations within 30')

About the time I got done with that, my 14 year old came in and decided he wanted to roll up one too. He went with a mutant raccoon, and of course the dice loved him, although he did get a defect to balance things out:

Missile

Mutant Raccoon, MS 15 IN 14 DX 13 CH 15 CN 14 PS 10; HP 60, AC 3, Speed 9

Total Carapace (AC 4, reduce damage by 1/2, reduce speed by 1/4), Multiple Body Parts (+9 arms!), Wings (fly speed 12), Shorter (141cm tall, -1 AC bonus), Heightened Intelligence (+4 mental defense, -2 on artifact function discovery rolls), Poor Dual Brain (causes problems randomly)

The good thing about this edition is the simplicity. The character sheets are so simple. Char gen is relatively quick. The down side is that the rules organization isn't the best, and a lot of the mutation descriptions say things like "check with the referee for the effects of this" and just leave it up in the air. Of course, with later editions available to me, I can check to see how it has been done by others, but I think if I do run that GW game I'm thinking about, it will either be with the 4th Edition or a house ruled hybrid of 2nd and 4th (simplify where desired, use the more crunchy details when useful).

Down Time

I've been meaning to get some posts out here on the blog, but I've just been busy. Still meaning to return to Prince of Nothing's anti-artpunk stuff. More posts about Rouse's game design ideas. Oh, and stuff about the games I'm running and designing, too. 

But this week I finally caught covid-19. It's been pretty crazy here in South Korea. The government stopped caring about social distancing a while back, just before omicron hit. And now that cases have blown up, they've given up on contact tracing. People are still masking, but I picked it up somewhere. Started feeling a sore throat on Monday evening. Tested negative. Felt the cough coming on on Tuesday, stayed home from work, but still tested negative. Fever and muscle aches hit me on Wednesday, finally tested positive. Luckily, whatever's in the mixture of drugs the doctor gave me, it knocks the symptoms right out. Well, mostly. I've got an earache and still a sore throat, and an occasional cough, but that's it.

My older son is still OK (although he's got a throat tickle) but my wife and younger son tested positive today. Son #2 had a pretty high fever, but no other symptoms. My wife has a sore throat, a bit of a cough, and a bad headache. Fun stuff. 

Well, in addition to watching lots of Star Trek (TNG and TOS) on Netflix, I took the opportunity yesterday to finally paint my Caesar Miniatures lizard men. These are 1/72 (22mm) scale, so smaller than Reaper or WotC figures, but they have some pretty cool sculpts, and 34 lizard men for about $15. Not bad.

First step was to give them a green acrylic base coat. Son #2 helped with three of them. He really laid the paint on thick, but I was able to get some of the excess off after they dried a bit. 

Next (after a nap and some lunch), I went through and painted all the wooden clubs, spears, bows, etc. with a dark brown. Then added red and blue for shields and quivers/fletching. Used some yellow ochre for the leader's shield, and a bit of yellow dry brushing for spines and highlights. 

In the evening, I did a few touch-ups of green where I'd missed a few spots, and then added white dots for eyes and a bit of white on the spikes on the clubs to make them resemble teeth. 

This morning, I gave them all a black wash to accentuate the mold lines. After the wash dried this afternoon, I gave them a clear acrylic varnish top coat. This picture is from before I added the top coat. They're a bit shinier now that they're done, but I forgot to take a picture of them and my wife wanted her dresser top back now that I don't need to isolate in the bedroom anymore. 

Anyway, game related posts coming soon. No gaming for me this weekend, but assuming I'm recovered enough, the plan is to run some WEG d6 Star Wars again next weekend.

Bartertown

 I'm working up notes for a play-by-post Gamma World game. The home town will be fairly primitive, just having barely reached Tech Level II (early Bronze Age) but there are some definite Tech II and even a Tech III (Medieval) settlement nearby. Plus a market in the Tech III settlement run by Restorationists where artifacts can be bought and sold...the only catch being that the Tech III society is ruled over by the Knights of Genetic Purity. There is a trade town nearby as well, which takes domars (cash in Gamma Terra), but the home town will be only barter based. Junk from ruins will be a prime means of acquiring things, but time and effort also play a part. A day's food? How about you give me that shiny doo-dad you picked up in the ruins. Want a new spear? Plow my field for me.

I plan to have notes for important NPCs of what they have, what they need, what they want in trade. But for less important NPCs, or when the PCs want something I haven't considered, I made a Barter Table. Figured I might as well share it with you guys. Never know when this might come in handy. It could work for D&D or other games, too, really. Just replace junk with something relevant to the campaign.

Barter Table

	NPC Wants (roll 1d6):
Players Want:	1	2	3	4	5	6
Food (1 meal)	1 junk	1d3 junk	1d2 labor	1 service	1d3 goods	nothing
Water (days)	1 junk	1 labor	1 goods	clothes	nothing	nothing
Labor (1 hour)	1d3 junk	1 labor	1 creature	1 meal	1d4 water	nothing
Service (1 hour)	1d6 junk	1 bauble	1d3 meals	1d2 labor	1d3 goods	nothing
Clothes	1 junk	1d4 junk	1d2 labor	1d3 goods	nothing	nothing
Lodging	1d4+1 junk	1d6 labor	1d4 service	1 creature	1d3 meals	nothing
Goods (Tech I)	1d4 junk	2d4 junk	1d6 meals	1d10 labor	1d2 goods	nothing
Goods (Tech II)	2d6 junk	3d6 junk	2d4 meals	2d6 labor	2d6 goods	no trade
Goods (Tech III)	2d10 junk	3d12 junk	2d10 meals	2d8 labor	4d6 goods	no trade
Weapon (Tech I)	1d10 junk	2d6 labor	2d6 service	4d4 goods	1d8 meals	nothing
Weapon (Tech II)	3d4 junk	3d6 labor	4d4 service	1d3 creatures	3d8 goods	no trade
Small Creature	1d8 junk	1d6 meals	1d6 water	1 creature	2d4 goods	nothing
Medium Creature	2d8 junk	1d4 labor	1d4 service	2d6 goods	4d6 goods	no trade
Large Creature	3d8 junk	2d6 labor	2d4 service	1d6 creatures	4d10 goods	no trade

Junk: On average, 1 curiosity = 20 junk/5 baubles; 1 bauble = 4 junk; 

Labor/Service in hours; labor = physical work, service = mental work

Goods: 1 Tech III item = 10 Tech I items or 3 Tech II items. 1 Tech II item = 1d3 Tech I items

Nothing: free if NPC is friendly, will not trade if hostile; No Trade: will not part with item

RIP Scott Hall

 Scott Hall, also known as Razor Ramon, passed away at 63 from complications following hip surgery. 

Yet another pro-wrestling legend from my youth that left us way too early. 

In my college days, some friends somehow managed to get front row seats to a WWF event, and when one decided he didn't want to go, I snatched up that ticket. The headline match was Macho Man Randy Savage (I was a huge fan at the time) vs Razor Ramon. Macho Man gave me a high five as he went around the ring before the match. But Ramon won. 

Later, after I graduated, my Evansville group would play D&D in the evenings until WCW came on, and we'd watch Hall and Kevin Nash, the Outsiders, and later with Hollywood Hulk Hogan as the NWO. We loved to hate those guys. They were excellent heels. 

Rest in Peace, Mr. Hall. You provided me and so many others with a lot of great entertainment over the years.