The Black Campbell

It was mentioned in passing this last episode that Artemis Campbell was in the market for a large sail yacht, something she could live on when getting away from business in the Adriatic.

Ariel is a Bermuda-rigged sail yacht 60′ in length designed by Andre Mauric for French businessman Paul Blanchet in 1940.  Because of the war, the boat was scuttled in Marseilles harbor to keep the Germans from breaking er up for the 13 tons of lead in her keel.  She was refloated in 1947 and bought by Artemis Campbell, notorious smuggling queen of the Adriatic.

Length: 18.35m   Beam: 3.99m   Draught: 2.6m   Mast Height: 23m

Accommodations include 2 cabins, a saloon with 2 more bunks, a skipper’s bunk aft w/ shower and washroom, cockpit dining table and galley, BBQ on after deck and dining table on foredeck, deck shower with potable water.  Equipped with radio and a wind direction and boat speed meter, an electric windlass and 100′ chain, 4 winches in the cockpit, and 7 on the mast and boom, as well as a 50hp motor with 300 gallons of petrol.

Hollow Earth Expedition statistics:

Size: 8   Def: 6   Str: 18   Spd:  20   Han: -2   Crew: 2   Pass: 6   Cost: $15,000

Ever since the multi-touch, multi-user Surface tables were being shown about by Microsoft, the techno-geeky gamer in me has been lusting after my perfect gaming table.  Apparently, I’m not the only one...

For me, it’s the idea of having the ability to have multiple dice programs, character sheets, notepads for all the players right on the table top.  Need a map?  flick it out onto the surface for everyone to expand, mark-up, whatever…

It’s a dream I have.

Keeping on the Tales of the Gold Monkey theme from the other day, here’s a new plane for those expeditions out there:  the 1937 Grumman G-21 Goose!

The Goose was designed to fit the needs of wealthy Long Islanders that needed transport to and from the Big Apple quickly.  The aircraft proved to be versatile and tough, and capable of heavy modifications.  It would serve as a military scout craft in World War II, and 60 of the 345 Geese made still ply the air today.

The Goose was a modern monoplane — the wings situated at the top of the fuselage, which was made of high-strength aluminum.  They were originally powered by twin 450hp, nine-cylinder Pratt & Whitney R-985 radial motors.  The hull was designed for water landings, and this seaplane had hand cranked landing gear.  Some of the craft had a hatch in the nose, which could remain open in flight for ventilation.  The aircraft’s shallow draught, seaplane configuation and landing gear, and later ice rigger modifications on the pontoons and undercarriage (on some) allowed the Goose to go just about anywhere.

1937 G-21 GRUMMAN GOOSE

Size:  4   Def: 4   Str: 8   Spd: 184mph   Rng: 1050mi   Ceiling: 21,000   Han: 0   Crew: 2   Pass: 8   Cost: $7000

A little update:  There is a company making the Goose anew, with improved motors, etc.

For James Bond: 007 — Helmet and armor jackets reduce Wound Level taken by the rider in a crash by one.  Full-racing suits lower injuries by 3 wound level.

Since I had a chance to fire the new pistol today, I figured I might as well gin up some numbers for James Bond: 007.  Here’s the Kimber Ultra CDP II…

KIMBER CDP II ULTRA 9mm

PM: +1   S/R: 2   AMMO: 8   DC: F   CLOS: 0-3   LONG: 7-12   CON: -2   JAM: 98+   DR: +1   RL: 1

GAME INFORMATION:  The Ultra CDP II’s Meprolight night sights remove the ease factor penalty.  .40S&W and .45acp versions of the gun have much stouter recoil and lose the performance modifier, but have a Close range of 0-4 and Long of 8-14.

The Battlestar Galactica game naturally lends itself to mass-combat, if only due to the large number of fighters in any combat between capital vessels.  In our campaign, we’ve had three capital ships on either side, plus masses of fighters.  Instead of judging combat by caveat, some fights should have that element of danger that randomness gives…

To that end, I cobbled together a set of mass combat for BSG RPG:

1.  Whereas personal combat takes place in 6-second increments, mass combat takes place in at least 1 minute increments.  All capital ships are a single unit, with fighters represented by flight, squadron, or wing.

2.  At Capital range, all capital ships are an EASY target and cannot maneuver to avoid fire.  Point defense systems may conduct an opposed test against incoming fire to stop missile and kinetic weapons, as well as attack fighter craft that close to skirmish range.  At ranges before Capital, ships can also attempt to maneuver to make targeting more difficult by presenting a smaller target or better angle to slough off attacks.  This requires a HARD AGL+PILOT/CAPITAL SHIP.  A success allows the to add the ship’s AGL to the EASY difficulty, and at Long Dradis, the test acts as an opposed test to the enemy’s roll to hit.

3.  Another way to stop incoming missile fire is to jam the guidance systems of the weapon.  EW raptors can attempt to better the defense test of the capital ship with an INT+TECHNICAL ENGINEERING/ ELECTRONIC WARFARE.  The higher roll is the difficulty for the missile attack.

4.  Fighters and raptors act in groups to be ore effective.  Fighters are grouped into flights, squadrons, and wings – each is considered a single “capital level” unit in mass combat and do damage at the spacecraft-scale.

Flights consist of 1-11 fighters.    They can take twice the damage of the number of vessels in the flight.  Every two hits, lose a fighter (never a player character ship, though!)  Flights only do basic damage from a successful hit on a vessel.  Squadrons consist of 12-24 craft.  They gain d2W to a unit (be it a capital ship or a fighter unit.)  Wings consist of 2 or more squadrons (48+ fighters) and gain a d4W to any damage rendered.  Whenever a unit takes enough damage to drop below the minimum size, then lose their damage bonus.

5.  In fleet level combat, initiative is decided by an opposed INT+PERCEPTION/ TACTICS  of the commanders.  (For a fleet, this is the admiral; for a ship, the commander; for a fighter wing or what have you, the CAG.)  [We allow the CAG to roll separately of the admiral/commander, but the latter can do an indirect combined test with the CAG to gain initiative.]

6.  Combat takes place as with character level combat:  winners of initiative go first, then the force with the lower initiative.  On board the capital ships, the commander can aid any number of tests going on with an ALE+LEADERSHIP test.  Other characters can conduct tests they are assigned (a gunnery officer or executive officer might be handling the ship’s cannons or the point defense.)  Each test give a -1 step on the attribute.  (So a gunnery officer might be handling a gunnery salvo with a d8 Alertness and a d8 Heavy Weapons/Ship Cannons, then conduct point defense with a d6 Alertness and a d8 Heavy Weapons/Ship Cannons.)  This also counts for the leadership tests the commander might be rolling.  (Ordering a gunnery salvo, directing damage control, and aiding the CAG in conducting the fight — the last to tests would each lose a -1 shift to the attribute test.)  Engineers or deck crew can conduct damage control — fixing stun damage, or doing jury rigging on wounds.

Fighter units are commanded either by the player character leading a flight or squadron, and any non-PC led unit is commanded by the CAG.  The character rolls an opposed test vs. their opponents (usually an AGL+PILOT/VIPER) and vice-versa.

7.  Players in mass combat:  during the combat actions, you can “zoom in” on individual characters doing their thing — the fighter pilot in one tough dogfight, the engineer trying to stop the tylium lines from catching fire and blowing the ship sky-high, or the marines fighting Cylons boarding the ship.  Every ten rounds, zoom back out to handle the fleet-level stuff.

Granted, these aren’t well fleshed out, nor are they comprehensive, but they worked as a good framework for capital-ship level combat in the last few games we’ve had.

There is a debate going on in the Cortex System RPG boards over Strength as a dump stat for characters.  Agility is more important for scoring a hit on an opponent, Vitality more important for survivability.  Strength winds up often being the stat that gets short shrift.  One of the ideas to make strength more important in Cortex is to have it effect melee and hand-to-hand damage.

In the Cortex system, weapons damage is usually represented by the basic damage done by an attack with the weapons damage added (ex. Bill swings a knife at Jim.  Bill’s attack is and Agility of d6 and a skill in Melee Combat of d4 v. Jim’s Agility of d6 and Atheltics (he’s dodging) of d4.  Bill gets lucky and rolls a 9, while Jim rolls a 4…that’s 5 points basic damage, which is broken into 3 stun/2 wound.  He then rolls a d4W for the knife and gets a 2W — total:  4 wound, 3 stun…)

Here’s the rub:  Bill’s a friggin’ monster with a d10 Strength.  Shouldn’t the knife do more damage?  Certainly if it’s a cinematic-styled game, it should.  There are a few ideas floating around on the Cortex System RPG boards, suggesting an average between the knife damage and the strength of the character (in this case, it would be a d6 [rounding down].)  Another is to roll the strength and weapons damage and average that.  (Ex. On a d4W Bill rolls a 2, and for his strength a 7:  average of 11 is 6, rounding down.)

I am suggesting that the d10 Strength would be the damage roll for the weapon, but it would be Basic damage…thus the increased impact of the strength only amplifies, but does not replace, the weapon’s wound capabilities.  (Ex.  Bill had the 5 points basic for his initial impact split into 3S and 2W.   He rolls his strength-based damage of d10B and gets a 6.  That is split down the middle for 6 stun and 5 wound.  It’s a serious wound, but not immediately fatal to Jim with his 12 Life Points.)

As for hand-to-hand combat, I often allow the characters to choose Agility or Strength in HTH Combat.  While not entirely realistic in the ability to strike a blow, it captures the “big action hero” punch/kick styles for the movies.  Schwartzeneggar was never very fast in his punches, for instance, but on impact, they were impressive in their effects (on screen, at least.)