The Black Campbell

What you need for ubercool: night, cool car, the right music:

Just a disclaimer right off the bat: I was one of the writers on the first edition of Victoriana, and some of my stuff has survived into the second edition. Also, I’ll be writing for Cubicle 7’s version starting with a new equipment book. I’ll be reviewing the PDF version of the book:

Victoriana is marketed as a steampunk/fantasy setting, but it’s really more of a early industrial period fantasy setting. A lot of the early material had a “Shadowrun transposed into the Victorian period” feel to it — the use of the classic fantasy races, the lower orders versus the evil corporations(or in this case the imperial government…and corporations.) The science fiction/speculative fiction elements of the setting are downplayed in the core book in both the first and second editions, leaving it up to the GM and players how much technology they want in the game. The lack of “steampunk” (a term I hate, but it’s ubiquitous enough I’ll have to deal…) seems to be one of the major complaints about the universe, but I’m glad to say it’s being addressed in an upcoming sourcebook, Marvels of Science and Technology.

The second edition tossed the Fusion engine that the original had borrowed as it’s system and has moved to a dice pool mechanic. The basics: you roll the number of dice equal to the attribute and skill that is applicable. 1s and 6s count as a success. The GM rolls “black dice” with those successes counting against the successes of the player. (Example: Rory the navvie is trying to lift a chunk of stone. The GM decides the heavy rock is a difficult task. Rory rolls his 2 dice in Strength and 3 in Athletics and gets 3 successes. The GM rolls the 3 black dice for the difficulty and only gets one success — Rory has 2 successes, hiking the mass onto his shoulder.) Fate dice and points work to alter the results of your rolls.

Combat uses the same basic mechanic: Roll initiative and combat tasks as opposed tests — the player and their opponent rol their applicable attributes and skills and the one with the higher successes wins. Damage is rendered by the number of successes (weapons add dice for the test) against one’s health. Armor counts against the number of successes: hit someone for 4 points but they have armor of 2…? You did 2 to their Health.

Magic also works the same way, but cost the character “manna” — spiritual energy to use spells.

Character creation is relatively easy, although there’s a “rank” or level system that I found extraneous — but not onerously so. The character gains experience points for use to buy skills, assets, privileges, and talents; there is another set of points that are given to improve the characters’ “rank”. All players start as beginner characters, at level one and can rise to 20.

Overall, the look of the book is nice — grayscale watermarking and art of decent to good quality, along with some Dore prints from his London works. The cover is done up to look like embossed leather. For the style, I’d give it a solid 4 out of 5. For substance — the world’s history, politics, and the class system of England are well rendered, as is the magic system. There are some issues with the alternate history; some of the altered events aren’t explained, and when doing alternate history it is a good idea to have a reason for the alterations. Overall, substance is excellent — 4 out of 5. The system is solid, easy (although if skimming it comes across the opposite), and the background is crunchy, if lacking in the steam side of the equation.

If you like your Victorian settings more fantasy than science fiction, it’s a definite buy. If you’re a steam fan, you’ll be a bit disappointed (but not for long!)

Finished work on my retelling if Perseus — it’s a pretty loyal telling of the original myth, but with more examination of the Olympians and their involvement. It’s being proofed and cover art is coming together and it should be hitting Kindle Store by midsummer.

The next, Cawnpore is a historical romance/war novel set during the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Anglo-Irish officer Richard Fortune arrives in the eponymous town on the eve of the outbreak of hostilities and is tasked with trying to keep the local potentate, Nana Sahib, placated over the new policy of “lapse”, where native rulers without issue had their lands and property seized by the East Indian Company on their passing. He falls for a dancing girl in Nana’s court and uses her as an asset to track sedition by members of the court. Unfortunately, the higher ups don’t believe that a mutiny will happen, and soon they are all fighting for their lives, trapped in a small fortification, surrounded by thousands of their former native soldiers. Reproofing the book, as the original proofs from publication have gone astray so I have to work from a preproduction version; should drop on the Kindle Store in July.

It looks like I’ll be doing more role playing game work for Cubicle 7, as well.

The original sucked (and not in the vampiric way)…this one looks like it could be good. Colin Farrell is playing the dickish vampire well, and David Tennant’s supposedly a scene-stealer as a Chris Angel-esque magician (the Roddy McDowell role in the original.)

There’s already a slapdash set of mass combat rules here on the Black Campbell site, but here’s another take to make the character’s respective actions more synergistic.

During a combat round, play is broken into initiative, the actions of the players/NPCs, then a final combat action by the respective commanders for morale.

Initiative is as in the core rules: the commanding officers roll their Alertness+Tactics in an opposed test (Cylons would use the basestar’s Alertness and Perception ratings if there’s no specific commander.) Winner goes first.

The commander then rolls an Alertness+Administration to see how well managed the ship or squadron is — the CO can pass off elements of this to other players. For instance, CDR Adama is overseeing the battle as a whole: his test, if successful, lends a skill dice step to his subordinates. He’s had COL Tigh take over damage control — he rolls the same ALE+Administration to give a dice step to the men under his command for making repairs (a fumble gives a -2 step to the DC teams as they are now uncoordinated.) CPT Adama is given command of the fighters and makes a ALE+Tactics test to aid the fighter pilots in their work.

The players now get to take their actions — Tyrol (or if there’s no PC, the ship Intelligence+Mech Engineering or Tech Engineering vs. damage suffered.) Starbuck takes the step Apollo gave for a successful tactics and slays a few toasters. The gunnery crews under another PC fire using his INT+Heavy Weapons skill with the step from CDR Adama.

Damage to the enemy ships is calculated. The fighter squadrons can be rolled as a unit, if you want — for simplicity sake, say the lead pilot can roll his AGL+Pilot v. the Cylon raider with a die step going to the attack or defense of the side with numerical superiority. Attacks by fighters on capital ships could be resolved with using the lead pilot’s skill v. the capital ship Agility or an EASY difficulty if in skirmish range, roll the damage of the vehicle with a step for each squadron attacking, then divide by 10 for the scale.

Next (or if the won the initiative, they went first) the Cylons do their worst, as per the rules.

Say all three PCs’ tests were successful: now the old man tests his WIL+Discipline to maintain the morale of the crew with a +3 die step (one for each success of the PCs). A failure will result in a -1 die step on the attribute of the NPCs and PCs on the next round of action. A success and the ship continues to fight well, an extraordinary success lends a +1 step to their skills for the next action round.

Do Cylons have morale? Depends on whether they have a resurrection ship in the area, doesn’t it?

It’s quick and very spitball, but it should work to allow the characters to have an effect on each other’s actions. It should also be applicable to ground forces with a bit of tweaking.