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10 October, 2024

New Minor House for Dune: Adventures in the Imperium

A follow on post to the yesterday’s post on Alba II, here’s the minor houses of that world. Cailean is the family that my players have been running for their game; the Mazzola were their main rival for the first “book”.

HOUSE CAILEAN

House Minor, vassals to House Fujimori.

Traits: Loyal, Meritocratic

House Crest: A boar’s head on tartan (blue and green primary, white and yellow striping).

House Motto: Never Forget.

Domains: Primary, Farming (Produce); Secondary, Artistic (Produce).

Rivals: House Mazzola — House Minor; reason, ancient feud.

House Reputation: Respected (30)

House Skills: Battle: 5, Communicate: 7, Discipline: 6, Move: 4, Understand: 5

Notable Persons:

Ruler: Donchard Colm Cailean — head of the Cailean, councillor to Fujimori. (Picturing a Brian Cox,-type)
Consort: Lady Aline (nee Aristona)
Heir: Laird Halan Cailean (25 yo and anxious to do something important)
Other Children: Malcolm Cailean (18 yo son)Bari Cailean (16 yo daughter)Ian Cailean (13 yo son)
Advisor: Laird Lorne Cailean — head of nascent house/clan, McCailean
Councilor: Laird Sean McCailean (cousin to Laird Colm)
Marshal: Marshal Donella Zyrhan
Swordmaster: Lady Captain Siobhan Cailean — 22yo daughter and Swordmistress of Ginaz
Treasurer: Donal Baris
Warmaster: Bator Mak Drummond

Connected Nascent Houses: Calder, Drummond, McCailean, Mohr

Notes on House Cailean:

HOUSE CAILEAN was the first house to settle Alba II several thousand years ago. Much of the early history is half-legend, and even the Imperial Records have little on the first few millennia of Alban history. From the start, a rivalry with House Mazzola was established. Much of this has to do with early claims to the world, but as time has gone on, it is deeply tied to different views on the nature of government and its relationship to the people it governs.

The Cailean view their position as more of a steward of the people, rather than as a ruler. They have traditionally supported the education of their people and allowed for a certain amount of social mobility based on merit that the rigid framework of Faufruchles does not. The Mazzola, highly religious and socially static, view the Cailean attidues as “libertine” and dangerous. As a result, there is les incursion by official religious programming in Cailean lands than many places — one of the reasons for the 75th Padishah Emperor’s move to place the Fujimori over the Cailean and Mazzola on the planet.

They are famed for the Alban beef and stonefish — delicacies throughout the empire, as well as their excellent liquors: whiskies, gin, and ciders. Another point of fame comes from their liberal attitude toward education and expression: Alban, and specifically Cailean, poets, playwrights, and musicians are regular members of House Jongleur.

The peoples of Hyperborea view family as the center of life, and view those not part of the “clan” as something to be watched, if not outright distrusted. For this reason, most senior positions in the Cailean government and military are family, or closely trusted confidants. When a Cailean takes you as a friend or family, it is an unbreakable bond. They view the interfamilial court intrigue of the empire as distasteful and destructive. Cailean is a house with three main clans related to the noble house: the clans of Cailean, Calder, McCailean, and Mohr. There are other people and families related — the Moray and Stewarts — but these are the ones that are nobles. The House is lead by Laird Colm Cailean, or the Donchard and Laird of Ben Cailean & Glenmoran. His heir is Laird Halan Cailean. The Calder are lead by Laird Halan Calder, the Laird of Stanehome. He is a cousin to the main line. Laird Lorne, brother and advisor to Laird Colm, heads the recently created House McCailean, and is now Laird Lorne McCailean of Stainhome.

Their dialect is one of the purest forms of Galach in the Imperium — possibly going all the way back to Earth, itself. While most educated people also speak Nihon, the language of the Fujimori, once out of the cities, Galach is the dominant tongue in the north.

As a result, the Cailean Militia follows this rank structure:

Bashar — leader or the militia (Laird Colm)
Subashar — leads a division of militia
Bator — leads the air group
Commander — leads an air wing
Major — leads a regiment
Captain — leads a company
Lieutenant — leads a platoon
Sergeant — leads a squad
Corporal — leads a team
Trooper

The Cailean Militia are generally unshielded and wear light armor. Their uniforms are composed of a green, high-necked jacket over kilt in the Cailean tartan. Knee-high boots have a scabbard for the ceremonial dirk. This is topped off with a Glengarry cap and a fly plaid pinned with a Cailean badge in the house colors that is used as a blanket or cloak in the field. Standard equipment is a broadsword and lasgun rifle.

A new unit under Lady Siobhan, the Black Guard, wears the same uniform in black. They use shields and a Fujimori-style tanto.

To police the Cailean lands, the Cailean Constabulary is a separate force that can be used in ground defense situations. Their uniforms are blue, instead of green, and their carry the ceremonial dirk and a slug-thrower sidearm, as most of their encounters are unlikely to involve shielded opponents. The constabulary’s rank structure follows:

Marshal — military equivalent: bator; leads the Constabulary
Deputy Marshal — military equivalent: major; runs a city or province
Chief Inspector — military equiv. captain; leads investigation team
Detective Inspector — military equiv. lieutenant; leads investigations
Detective Constable — military equiv. sergeant; conducts investigations
Constable — basic policing

The 2d20 system and Modiphius Logos are copyright Modiphius Entertainment Ltd. 2020. Dune © 2021 Legendary. Dune: Adventures in the Imperium is an officially sub-licensed property from Gale Force Nine, a Battlefront Group Company. All Rights Reserved.

Original material — Alba II and locations, House Cailean, Fujimori, and Mazzola — copyright of Black Campbell Entertainment, but go ahead and use it. That’s what it’s here for. Just give us credit.

9 October, 2024

New Planet and Major House for Dune: Adventures in the Imperium

After having watched the second Dune movie when it came out, my young teenage daughter, and the wife were quite taken with the setting. I knew there was a 2d20 game, Dune: Adventures in the Imperium out by Modiphius. Since we were between campaigns, I decided to buy the book and GM screen, and set to work creating something for the ladies. What I came up with was a world split between three cultures — a sort of 18th Century Scotland and Italy, and a Meiji-period Japan that was placed in stewardship over them.

Here is Alba II and it’s ruling family, the House Fujimori.

ALBA

Home Star:

Taiyo (historically Alba) / HD223913, a G0V type star with a M1V companion, CPD-66 3810 B.

ALBA II

World Type: Habitable Forested/Ocean World.

House Affiliation: House Fujimori (major), Minor Houses Cailean and Mazzola

Military Power: Ground defense forces, a small space fleet, limited planetary defenses

Population: 500,000 million.

Industries: Primarily farming, fishing, and heavy machinery. Cailean known for their arts, especially poetry and song, as well as their superb liquors; Mazzola for their architecture, wine, and culinary skills.

Planet Notes:

Alba II has one satellite, Bano (formerly Elatha). The companion star to Taiyo is CPD-66 3810 B, a M1V red dwarf, called Sanakai — but to the majority of the planet it is “the Wee Yin” or it’s older name “Solino”. Solino/Sanakai is as bright as Bano in the night sky when it is in opposition to Taiyo, and is visible faintly when Taiyo is in the sky. At sunset and sunrise at certain times of the year, both stars are readily visible, with Sanakai having an apparent brightness of about a quarter of the main star. Also quite visible at night and even to the unaided eye during the day is Purana, or Gamma Tucanae, 11 light years away.

There are several continents on Alba, but the big three are Ladinum in the south — the lands of the Mazzola, Hyperborea in the north — settled by the Cailean, and Nanomi — which has steadily become the province of the Fujimori, along with the large Haino Island chain, where the world capital and spaceport, Ninga, lies. the Fujimori also directly control the mining and construction facilities on Bano.

There are several places of note: Ninga sports Shoja Castle, the seat of the Fujimori rule. Ben Cailean is the mountain fortress of the Cailean, perched over the largest city in their lands, Glenmoran. The Mazzola are based in Casseli Trento, in the beautiful city of Trento (which gives the region, Trentino, its name). Much of the heavy industry is owned by Mazzola and Fujimori-tied families throughout the Gorvanello Valley in Ladinum. Both the minor houses keep a smaller militia and are charged with law enforcement and tax collection in their regions.

Cultural Notes:

Alba II was settled by the Houses Cailean and Mazzola at roughly the same time. Most imperial histories on this world are a bit vague as to the start of colonization, but most evidence suggests the Cailean arrived between a half century and a full century earlier than the Mazzola. As a result many of the naming conventions in the north use Galach, while in Mazzola lands, the tongue of Nuladin reigns. The Imperial Society of Linguistics has noted that Alban Galach is the most unchanged of the Imperial tongue, going back to the original Anglo-Gallic roots.

A millennium ago, during the rule of the 75th Padishah Emperor, the Fujimori family was gifted with Alba to rule over. Initial resistance was quickly put down, with the Cailean quickly siding with their new masters. Attempts to introduce Nihon, as the language of Alba have been semi-successful. Most Albans can get by in Nihon, but once away from Nanomi and Haino, Ladinum and Galach are the chief languages spoken.

Alban beef, stonefish, barley, and whiskies are frequently found in the houses of the Great Houses, even when many don’t even know where or what Alba is. Trentino wines are similarly well thought of.

The Fujimori have been attempting to gain notice and support from the larger major houses for some time, and a recent marriage to a lady of the Richese family elevated them to a known name. With the misfortunes of their war with the Vernier, and their loss of Arrakis to the Harkonnen, the advantages of this marriage have no been realized. The official title of the ruler of Alba is Count Ariano Fujimori, Daimyo of Alba and Bano. His title of daimyo, is used on Alba.

HOUSE FUJIMORI

House Major, rules Alba II and its moon, Bano.

Domains: Primary, Industrial (Machinery); Secondary, Military (workers) and Farming (Produce)

Traits: Cautious and Honorable

Rivals:

House Maros — House Major: reason, competition (Agricultural products); level — rival.

House Reputation: Respected (50)

House Skills: Battle: 6, Communicate: 8, Discipline: 7, Move: 4, Understand: 5

Notable Persons:

Ruler: Count Ariano Fujimori
Consort/Wife: Countess Saia (nee Richese), sister of Count Iblan.
Consort: Michiko Nanuri — older than Saia, she was the first consort of the Count.
Heir: Lord Hanzo — 21 year old and eager to prove himself.
Other Children, Nanuri: Shoja — 30 year old son; playboy and lay-about.Haina Mazzola — the eldest child, 40 years old, and married to Lord Milo Mazzola.Ari — 24 yo daughter.
Other Children, Saia:Goro — a year younger than the heir, he is interested in affairs of state.Merce — 18 and desperate to become a swordmaster.Noemi — 15 yo daughter waiting for marriage.
Advisor: Kan Veli (mentat)
Councilor: Lord Colm Cailean
Marshal: Rikusa (colonel) Masa Nigura — secret supporter of Lady Haina.
Swordmaster: Rikusa Ao Morime — trained by the Swordmasters of Haino Island.
Treasurer: Ola Aramaki — a genius gifted to them by the Richese.
Warmaster: Bashar Ko Senda

7 October, 2024

Review: Outgunned Adventure

Posted by blackcampbell under Roleplaying Games | Tags: outgunned adventure, outgunned rpg, two little mice |
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I still hold that the Broken Compass RPG and the Kickstarter that spawned it was one of the best bang-for-your-buck games I’ve ever bought. The Kickstarter (and now Backerkit) campaigns that 2 Little Mice ran were well orchestrated — with constant updates, quick turn-arounds that had the PDFs on time, and delivered their products on time or only slightly late for physical materials, in the case of Outgunned. Now, they are releasing Outgunned Adventure — the successor to Broken Compass. Their system now has a name: Director’s Cut, but it’s the same basic mechanics we’ve seen since BC, just with some tweaking here and there to improve the product. The PDF landed in my inbox a few weeks ago, and the physical product is in the offing. So how is it?

Excellent. There are a few differences in character creation: there is one less Attribute than in BC, and each attribute has four — rather than three — skills associated with it. You start with one pip in skills, two in attributes, and these get added to as you choose your role (Hunter, or Professor, for example) and your Trope (Like Action Archeologist). That’s the die pool you roll for a task, plus or minus a die per advantage or disadvantage gear or scene traits, etc. provide. You look for matches onthe die face, so you can use their fancy dice or normal d6s, just like in Broken Compass.

Only the players roll — you either take an action or a reaction to things happening. Tasks, challenges, fights — all the same mechanic. It’s dead simple and easy to learn and play. It’s Broken Compass, but with improvements.

What improvements? Gear, for one. It pulls the gear “feats” from Outgunned, and which I have suggested should be applied to Vehicles here. Strangely, the one set of rules they left out were the Chase rules, replaced by the Run rules in Chapter 5. The real additions to BC/Outgunned are made here: chapters five and six.

Chapter 5 gives us Temples & Traps, and makes suggestions for how ancient temples should be deployed in your adventures. Does it have to be a temple? No — it could just as easily be a library, ancient building, whatever. Traps gives suggestions for what kind of taps are cinematically appropriate and gives plenty of examples. After this are the Run rules — the trap is sprung, the bad guys are on your tail — You set up the number of turns they must run to escape the danger, what kind of reactions are appropriate, and what happens win or lose. It’s very Indiana Jones-flavored, but what about a car chase or the like. You could absolutely use this; it’s simpler in some ways than the “Need for Speed” car chase rules in Outgunned, but I think I would probably use those, instead. Chapter 6 delves into the Supernatural. It is a location, a creature, a treasure…and rules for what traits and dangers these opponents would pose. It also gives examples, once again. There’s a chapter after that on how to run the genre and a complementary adventure at the end.

At 250 pages, it’s the same general length as the other core books for Broken Compassand Outgunned. It will most likely be the same size for the books (9.5×6”) wth a hard cover and bookmark ribbon. the art is much improved from the more spare stuff in Broken Compass, and there’s more color art from Daniela Giubellini, and the few pieces that aren’t are — as with Outgunned — simple black & white (well, sepia-tone) line art. The writing and the translation from Italian to English is good; the tone is still more conversational than American audiences might be used to, but less so that Broken Compass (something one of my gaming group had remarked on while reading Outgunned was that it was a bit more polished.)

Is it worth it? Absolutely. You can find the pre-order page here.

7 October, 2024

FanHome Brings Back the Star Trek Collection

Posted by blackcampbell under Roleplaying Games | Tags: eaglemoss, fanhome, star trek |
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After the demise of Eaglemoss, the likelihood of new Star Trek starship models looked slim. FanHome, which took over the license and (I’m assuming the dies and related materials), has just announced today that they will be relaunching the Star Trekstarship collection starting with ships from Picard.

These include the gorgeous Enterprise-G and Enterprise-F (not so gorgeous…but that’s just me), Stargazer and Titan, as well as Eleos, and Shrike from season 3. Subscribers also garner exclusive gifts — a dedication plaque, a USS Eaves starship, and the like. For me, being a Strange New Worlds fan, the big announcement is Farragut, NCC-1647 from that show. Right now, it looks like the focus will be on the current or most recently broadcast shows, rather than the older series.

They are supposedly starting shipping in November this year with USS Titan, and will be following the Eaglemoss ship a month plan, with every four ships being an XL style (at ten bucks more than the regular). So, if you’re a fan of the new shows and want to see new ships — jump on it.

If the quality is the same as Eaglemoss, the standard sized ships are typically on the small side. I found them overpriced and I’m sure this will hold. Much of this is, I suspect, licensing fees. The XL models, on the other hand, were pretty darned good. The Discovery and the Battlestar Galactica XL ships were detailed, and the bigger size really made them pop. They’re more expensive, but there I thought they were more worth the price.

Click the pics to go to their site.

5 October, 2024

New Take on Caitians for Star Trek Adventures 2.0

Posted by blackcampbell under Roleplaying Games | Tags: caitian, star trek adventures 2.0 |
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A couple of the NPCs in our Star Trek Adventures campaign are Caitian — the Chief Engineer and one of the lead security officers. Whilst using BC Holmes’s excellent website to build characters, I noted that the Species Talent options were “prehensile tail” and “disarming nature” — both from STA 1.0 and they would have been just fine. However, I seem to remember Caitians as possessing fangs and claws, something that was confirmed in the prison break episode of Star Trek: Prodigy when the cute Caitian kid below rips up the baddie pretty spectacularly.

The nice thing about Talents is they don’t pull from the other talents you get to choose. So I dropped one in of my own: Tooth & Claw as a species talent, seen below.

Species Profile: Caitian

Eras: Originial Series, Next Gen era, Picard era, 32nd Century (?)

The Caitian are a bipedal felinoid species with a strong history of service within Starfleet. Their homeworld of Cait is a pleasant Class-M planet with extensive grasslands that support sprawling city complexes that integrate seamlessly into the environment, for which the Caitians have great respect. While known to be extremely effective and proud warriors, the Caitian culture holds artistic and philosophical endeavors in extremely high regard. Following their acceptance into the Federation in the late 22nd Century, Caitians have come to serve at all levels of Starfleet – to include high-ranking flag officers as well as often being elected to serve on the Federation Council. On average, Caitians tend to be slightly smaller than most other humanoid species. While this often results in Caitians being somewhat weaker than Humans, they more than make up for this in their balance, agility, and dexterity. Caitians are one of the few species actively serving within Starfleet that possess a tail – which requires alterations to standard Starfleet uniforms.

Example Values: War is Instinct, Conflict is an Art

ATTRIBUTES: +1 Daring, +1 Fitness, +1 Insight
TRAIT: Caitian. Caitians are all slightly smaller in both height and weight than average humanoids – with most reaching between 1.5-1.7 meters. They have retained the retractable claws of their evolutionary ancestors along with a flexible tail. Caitians are carnivorous and prefer uncooked meat. While they evolved from predatory felines, the Caitians are regarded as some of the greatest poets and philosophers within the Federation.

TALENTS: The character receives access to the following Talents:

DISARMING NATURE

REQUIREMENT: Caitian, or Gamemaster’s permission.
Despite their reputation for being fierce warriors, Caitians are extremely sociable and adept at putting others at ease. Whenever you are engaged in a Social Conflict, you reduce the Difficulty of any Test to make your target relax or to trust you by 1.

PREHENSILE TAIL

REQUIREMENT: Caitian, or Gamemaster’s permission.
While most Caitians have some functional control over their tail, characters with this Talent have worked to increase their control over the appendage to the point of it becoming fully functional. This provides the character with the ability to hold and operate an additional piece of equipment, like an additional hand. In addition, the character gains a bonus d20 to any Fitness Test to maintain balance or to climb.

TOOTH & CLAW

REQUIREMENT: Caitian, or Gamemaster’s permission.
While all Caitians have claws like a Terran cat and sharp fangs, characters with this Talent have learned to use these to great effect in combat. This provides the character with the ability to turn an Unarmed Combat melee attack into injury type deadly, not just stun. The character may choose either type of injury, although moving to deadly is an Escalation 1.

NAMES: Caitians derive their names from their familial units, to which they have strong connections. Their names often have a near-musical quality, though most humanoid species have difficulty pronouncing them correctly – as the species generates extremely low frequency vibrations that are at the far range of Human hearing.

SAMPLE NAMES:

Female names: J’Aana, M’ress, S’isha, K’irst, N’Simi, H’Lata, A’Ahia, P’Erone, C’Nola, L’Eni
Male names: R’Than, C’horn, Ur’Barr, L’Enton, H’Sook, K’Raka, A’Outte, V’Wilk, A’Mathi, Z’Thors

Most of this verbiage comes from the Star Trek Adventures, Alpha Quadrant sourcebook, copyright for 2d20 system in Modiphius, 2019. STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios inc. All Rights Reserved and no infringement is intended.

5 October, 2024

New Adventure for Star Trek Adventures

Posted by blackcampbell under Roleplaying Games | Tags: star trek adventures, star trek adventures 2.0 |
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MISSION BRIEFS: EXTREMEOPHILE

Suggested Era: Any.
Spotlight Characters: Science officers

SYNOPSIS

The ship is doing a survey sweep through an unremarkable system when they encounter a space-borne life lifeform.

OPENING LOG ENTRY

Science officer’s log: We are doing a sweep of system SSC-0913. The parent stars are a pair of unremarkable M4V main sequence stars of similar size. Both are 0.8 the size and brightness of Sol and are circling a barycenter 3AU from each star. Survey probes have been launched to map the system.

MAJOR BEATS

1) Do the Science Thing

While moving through the system, the flight control officers can set up courses for the probe with a Reason+Conn, Diff 2 to create an advantage of “Probe Data” for the science officer. The science officer can scan the system with a Insight or Control+Science, Diff 2 to gather information.

The system has a pair of red stars circling each other at roughly 6AUs with a barycenter that is littered with asteroids and gas in a bar-bell shape where the stars are pulling on them. Each star has a J-class gas giant companion at half an AU and 1.1 AU, respectively, with a T-class superjovian orbiting the pair at 12AUs out. But the real surprise: they note an anomalous vector change on one of the asteroids. It’s a bit smaller than their vessel and looks like it had an outgassing of material. It’s weirdly shaped — almost shrimp-like, and with a momentum spend of 1) it’s warmer than the surrounding rocks with a crust of nickel-iron, and the material expelled is a curious mixture of elements; another 2) the rock appears to have an extensive system of caves and is pinging back EM and heat signatures, as well as chemical signatures that indicate life. Lots of it!

They can reorient the probe to have another look or bring the ship in. As they get close, they can take another look. Insight+Science, Diff 1: their scans look to be making the rock outgas again, changing course and moving away. Whatever it is, it’s alive and responding to their scans. A momentum spend will also confirm there appear to be multiple life forms inside the network of caverns; some kind of ship? Ant attempt to communicate will not get a response, but the transmissions also seem to make the rock thrust away from them.

2) Beachhead

Control+Conn, Diff 2 to beam the landing party into the cave system. The extensive life signatures mean locking in on the party to return them will require a Control or Insight+Conn, Diff 3 to bring them back. (If they take transporter signal repeaters with them, this gives “Signal Repeater” trait that will give an advantage to this test.) The initial scan suggests a toxic atmosphere; they’ll need space suits.

As soon as they beam in, the creature will react to their transport and start to move away from the ship, requiring a Control+Conn, Diff 2 to stay in transport range, but not cause the creature to react.

Having beamed into one of the outer areas, they will find it has a more organic quality and are smaller than they were ready for. There’s no gravity, either. There are critters moving around the “corridors” and avoiding the team. Insight+Science, Diff 2: there’s everything from microorganisms up to creatures that are person-sized. Some of these look to be cleaning plague off of the corridor walls. If they have used their tricorders or set up signal repeaters (Control+Conn or Engineering, Diff 1), this counts as an Escalation 1. (What they don’t know: the radiation signatures of their equipment has drawn the attention of the creature’s immune system.)

Exploring the interior will require a Control or Daring+Conn, Diff 2. The Spacewalk trait knocks this down to Diff 1. As they explore, a Insight+Science or Medicine, Diff 2 to note there are areas of damage — the walls of the corridors have collapsed exposing musculature and vascular material. A spider-like creatures is appears to eating the damaged tissue, like a maggot, then excreting material to “fix” the damage. A momentum spend or second test using Reason to determine it’s either had some form of disease or injury. With a +2 momentum spend — it’s damage. It looks like something has eaten its way through the flesh? If they scan — or have the ship scan — the creature, Insight+Science or Medicine, Diff 3 to locate the reason: the creature has some form of parasite. It’s a nematode of some sort, but big — ten to twenty meters long.

As they’ve worked their way into the interior, their comms get more and more spotty from interference. They’ve found a sort of energy plexus, where energy is surging through massive conduits through a central spine. Reason+Science or Medicine, Diff 2: the “digestive” system, maybe? What is it “eating”? Could it be absorbing radiation and channeling it through this system? Is it eating rocks?

3) Immune Response

The team’s communications and scans will attract the attention of the creature’s immune system and they will be aggressed by some kind of critter — an ameboid like thing with tentacles/cilia. It’s main target is the repeaters (the radiation is being deemed a threat.) Reason or Insight+Medicine or Science, Diff 1 to realize there is something about the repeaters the creatures are responding to. It will attempt to eat them. Using phasers will be an Escalation 2 and will bring more immune response.

Beaming out could be difficult. If they left a team with the transport repeaters, they will also be attacked — the leucocytes are going after the repeaters. They’re not interested in the crew — just the stuff that is transmitting. If they left them alone, the repeaters have been eaten; Control+Conn, Diff 3 to beam the team(s) out.

4) Call a vet…

If they’ve found the parasite, they can either monitor the activity for science-sake, or they can attempt to help creature S-69281 by going in and killing it. (When I ran this, the doctor actually got creative and they used the transporter to beam the brain out of the worm.) Any use of transporters, phasers, etc. caused the creature to try and escape. Inside, any use of phasers or other energy weapons will bring the leucocytes within two rounds. If they can damage the worm, this will distract the leucocytes, which will attack the worm.

CONCLUSION

The crew should have assisted the creature and learned a little bit about it’s biology and behavior. If they monitor it for a while, they will also find that some of the asteroids in the system have the creature’s larvae inside. They eat the interior of the asteroids and wear them as a shell once they are large enough to set off on their own.

The copyright for 2d20 system is Modiphius, 2019. STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios inc. Image copyright of Adobe Stock. All Rights Reserved and no infringement is intended.

11 September, 2024

New Gear Feats for Outgunned RPG

Posted by blackcampbell under Roleplaying Games | Tags: outgunned rpg |
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In this post, I suggest new feats for guns — and other weapons — for Outgunned. But more than that, why not extend it to vehicles?

11 September, 2024

Adventure for Star Trek Adventures

Posted by blackcampbell under Roleplaying Games | Tags: star trek adventures, star trek adventures 2.0 |
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Click here for an adventure for Star Trek Adventures set just after the Klingon-Federation War (but easily adaptable to post Dominion War).

3 September, 2024

Life as a “Forever GM” & Keeping a Group Together

Posted by blackcampbell under Life Unconstructed, Roleplaying Games
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I’ll begin with this: I’ve been playing — starting with one of the box sets of Dungeons & Dragons I got from Hess’ department store in…’77? ’78? maybe? Long enough that almost no one knew what D&D was. I know it took a long time to find someone who wanted to play. There was a distant cousin I wound up running the game for, and there was an older guy who was running D&D at the local library, but I remember he didn’t make it very exciting; it was very rules oriented.

Once I had an actually group of friends playing by 1980, we played a lot — and I was usually the guy running the show. That was partly because I didn’t have a lot of extracurricular activities, I could come up with a plot pretty, quick, and could usually improvise stuff on the fly. We cycled through a lot of games — all the TSR offerings, Universe and Traveler, then hit on James Bond: 007, which was my favorite system until about a decade ago. It’s still damned good.

In college, others would take over running games, but they usually would last a few episodes then hand it off to me because they were busy or just didn’t have the time. After college, I was down to a single player for a while before I moved to Philadelphia and picked up a new group. Again, me running. It was in Philly that I started being a lot more selective about who got invited to play. My roommate and I had the misfortune of meeting a 350-pound “ninja” who was so unrelentingly bad at peopling that we dropped him. He then stalked us for two months. I remember an incident where he was trying to call into the building, whilst me and my not-inconspicuous falt mate slipped into the atrium, got the inner door unlocked, and managed to slip up the stairs unnoticed by his well-honed ninja perceptive abilities.

There was an interregnum between Philadelphia and moving out to New Mexico where I was again down to one player before cobbling together a group over six months, pulling good gamers out of mediocre groups to form something special. In one of the groups, where I would meet my former wife, there was a goth Christian who wrote awful religious death metal music. He ran Call of Chthulu — and the experience was so Earth-shatteringly bad, I didn’t play CoC again.

The one GM that really sticks is this redheaded giant dude in Albuquerque, totally spectrum, who ran Dungeons & Dragons for his group of four. For about most of the session — which was a disaster — I started working on sussing out the players that were worth the effort, then peeled out the good gamers for our own group. This guy was stunningly misogynistic: after skimming through his 80 page bible on his game world, he gave us our characters, making sure the singular female got the cleric…who was mute. Seen, not heard. He rarely asked what she was doing, save when it was time to heal up the guys. Better yet, he made sure his wife was getting us drinks and food. He once played at our place and while stretching, he knocked the glass light cover off the kitchen ceiling. Shatter. Did he offer to clean up? Nope — he expected my then-wife to. Lovely fellow.

Even during the military, I was able to keep a game going with the wife and a rotating group of folks that came and went as we changed posts, and on returning to Albuquerque, I reconstituted parts of the old gaming group and added more. Divorce, remarriage, and a kid — there was always the gaming group, usually with me GMing.

I’ve manage to keep my gaming groups together for a good while. The original high school group gamed together, on and off, for almost eight years after we graduated and went out separate ways; we would get together once or twice a year at wherever was most convenient. The first Albuquerque group lasted — with a break for military service — twelve years. Several others followed, bouncing between two and six players, plus me. Recently, the current iteration of Nerd Night™, has been mostly the same people since 2017. In the last year, one of the other players took the role of GM for the first time. He’s been running us through Fallout, which several of the players know and have played the video game version, and there’s a promised Mythic Odysseys of Theroscampaign promised. It’s nice to play and not have the responsibility of the group on me but I did note — if I’m not available, the group doesn’t tend to get together elsewhere.

That brings me to the second topic of this piece: how does a group hold together for a decade or more? There’s a few reasons: 1) you have to be friends…not just for D&D. You have to get together for cookouts, or movie nights, or on the extreme end, blow a bunch of money to got to GenCon together. 2) There has to be the one guy that coordinates and keeps things moving. As forever GM, that typically has fallen to me, and still does — even when I’m not running. 3) Pick a day and time and commit. Yes, there will be kid’s plays, and illness, and trips, etc. but the group needs to meet regularly. Once a week is ideal, but at least every two. Longer than that and the momentum is lost. Chores, travel, other things will keep people away. If we have one player out, we typically have another player run the missing person’s character, or if the game allows for it, they are busy elsewhere. In our group of five, we’ll usually still play even with two down. We might do a board game night, movie night, or I find something I can run in a night. But you’ve got to keep it going.

This was originally posted at the new blackcampbell.substack.com. New stuff is hitting there. Come join us!

22 August, 2024

RPGaDay 2024: My First GenCon

Posted by blackcampbell under Board Games, Roleplaying Games | Tags: gencon 2024 |
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GenCon is one of those things that gamers all say they’re going to do at some point. It’s the nerd Mecca; going is the nerd haj — you’ve got to do it, sooner or later. It’s been one of those things on my radar since the ’90s, but I didn’t have travel to Indianapolis to play games and rent an expensive hotel room money in the ’90s. I’ve also always had the kind of jobs that don’t give you time to do it.

One of the players in my group makes the pilgrimage every year, and has since I’ve known him — 20 years! Man, I’m old! So we were discussing GenCon back in January when Matt (said haji) was getting ready for the ticket buying to open. The others all remarked that they needed to go at some point, where upon another player, our resident acupuncturist said, “why don’t we all go together?” Everyone agreed, save one. I was on the fence — time (it was close to when school was supposed to start), expense (yes, I could afford it…but still; it was a hit), and I’ve gotten more enochlophobic in the last decade or so (big crowds.) My wife was coming through the game room as I said, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to…” and stated, “You’re going.”

So I did.

The experience is weird. You buy your tickets through an online portal that opens at a select time. you buy your hotel rooms the same way, and if you don’t get an early time slot to order up your rooms, you find yourself housed in the ass end of nowhere. We got lucky and were in Hotel Indy, about a quarter mile (four blocks or so) from the Indianapolis Convention Center. You pick the events and games you want online and maybe you get them, maybe you don’t. i’m sure this is probably the most efficient way to do it, but it does mean you miss out on a lot. I mostly picked “mature” games, no kids — more because the idea of an old dude playing games with kids not his own was a bit creepy to me. I should have selected teens and mature to get more options.

We chose to come in a day early and leave on Monday. This cut the airline costs dramatically, and I popped for “comfort plus” on Delta so I had legroom and no one next to me for the flight out to Indianapolis. Two of the group flew first class. Must be nice.

Basically, gamers take over the downtown of Indianapolis for four days. There’s people in cosplay, but most of the people are wearing “the uniform” — usually some form of tee-shirt with game or franchise themed stuff on it. I had one idiot yell at me because he thought my Triumph shirt said “Trump”. I told him to read it again. (If you’re reading this…be better.) Traffic is awful and I really felt for the folks that had to get to work. At one point, I had to yell at some of the folks to let the traffic go, as we didn’t have the light. Social graces? — not on display at GenCon.

There’s a lot of walking. I average 6.2 miles a day according to my phone and the longest day was 10 miles. Blister time. Thursday is the start. You want to get in and get tickets and badges and everything, if you didn’t have them mailed to you. (I did. Good move.) The exhibit hall with the vendors opened at 1030 (although they were letting people in through one door a bit earlier.) There’s everyone there — although the Wizards folks were set up in nearby Lucas Oil Stadium. There was a lottery, I believe, to get one of the new Players’ Handbook and they were limited to 750 a day, I think it was.

I got a chance to meet the creators of Outgunned (and before that Broken Compass and Household) and speak a bit of Italian; the Lex Arcana folks were there as well. I finally met some of the people I’ve worked with in the gaming industry but have never physically met — which was nice. I spent too much money on dice, game books, a stuffed cat from the board game Boop! (which my daughter loves) — but much of the expense was food (and booze.)

I can heartily recommend Harry & Izzy’s, which is just a block from the convention center and has a nice Prohibition-era feel to it. the steaks are tremendous. It’s affiliated with St. Elmo’s next door, which is a stable for the GenCon crowd. Taxman was also good.

And that was the strange thing — dinners were the best part of the outing for me. I got a chance to reconnect with an old service buddy from Defense Language Institute who was running games for one of the D&D tables. I got to meet local gamers that were part of Haji Matt’s other groups. The socializing not connected to playing was more interesting for me.

Which brings me to the weirdest moment…I’ve always identified as a gamer, and a bit of a nerd. But that’s it: a bit of nerd. I always was the weird kid way back in school. Here, I felt very normal (witness the traffic incident above). It was strange to be “in the tribe” but not of it, if that makes any sense.

The games were good. We did one of the True Dungeon runs, which was fun and they put some work into it. I played in a Blade Runner game that was decent, and in an Alien game that was downright superb. The GM was on it, I connected well with the “buddy” and “rival” characters and players, and we managed to finish out a scenario that had TPK’d two other parties, and half of another. We lost one guy. Tactical acumen for the win. One game didn’t make because most folks head home on Sunday, so Sunday games often don’t make, so I chatted with other GMs for a while. I did a few drop-in games, as well.

Overall, was it worth it? It was damned expensive, but it was nice to see people I hadn’t in a while. Was it worth getting the newest stuff a few weeks early? Sure. did I have fun? Yes…but I’m not sure I would do it again. That said, when I told my daughter that last bit, she looked disappointed. So I guess, I might be doping GenCon again with my kiddo in tow.

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