9 January, 2012

Quality Apology

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Just a quick apology to the readers if the quality of my prose has been a bit lacking of late. I’m slipping these posts in during my daughter’s naps, so I’m often trying to spin them out in the space of 15-45 minutes. Hopefully, the substance hasn’t slipped, but if it has, hopefully it’ll improve as her sleep schedule renormalizes.

 

9 January, 2012

Computers in RPGs

Posted by blackcampbell under Roleplaying Games
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If you’re playing modern espionage, science fiction of any stripe, or steampunk, there’s one thing you’re going to run into: computers. The old cyberpunk systems dealt with cyberrunning/diving/fighting/hacking/whatever as combat-style actions, which is perfect for recreating the William Gibson-style hacking of his early novels. A lot of the modern games gloss over the importance of computers, and when they don’t tend to cinematize hacking.

You’ve seen this: the hero needs information…now! and the team geek with bang away furiously on the keyboard, opening windows that look like nothing that actually exists on the market and make you wish Hollywood set designers did graphic interfaces for your machine. Bang! He’s got camera footage of the bad guy wandering around the target location, he’s got the files on the guy from whatever agency, whilst accessing satellites and getting shots of the bad guy doing bad guy things. A few keystrokes and he’s accessed the security systems of the building (or whatever,) and can do [enter incredibly unlikely action here.]

It’s crap, of course, but it looks great on screen. Probably the worst offenders were the Bourne movies and 24. You would think every single camera on the planet, every bank, every agency, every street light, etc. is online and ready to be snagged by a super-grade A hacker.

In reality, here’s what your guy is doing: he’s doing research first. He wants to know the system the target is running, the kind of security. Fortunately, a lot of that information is available just pinging the target. You need passwords? Well there’s the top 10 people use, there’s researching people who do password properly to figure out the code, and there’s the heavy, randomized password security of some businesses and government systems. What a hacker stealing information, money, whatever, is not trying to access a particular account; they’re trying to break down to the administrative functions so they can do what they want.

There’s a couple of ways they’ll do this: they’ll craft a virus, or they’ll utilize know issues with the operating systems of the machines they’re targeting. (Yes, this is a bit simplistic, but most of the players aren’t going to be hackers and only need a convincing description of what they’re doing.) Some of the simple virii are open-sourced, available on bulletin boards that the black hat community use; the hacker will take and modify these for their use. Others are higher quality and require the hacker to craft them him/herself or gain code from friends and contacts. Here you can either have some canned virus with a specific skill level to use against the target machine, or you can have the hacker alter it and use a skill test to represent the efficiency of the virus.

Mechanically, there’s no real difference for what they’re doing. You could have them test for their research, to hit the target with a few probes to figure out what kind of server, OS, internet browser and sometimes even the security they’re using. Any success or failure could benefit or hurt them for the actual intrusion test. The intrusion test would go against either a static difficulty (an automated anti-virus system like Norton or Symantec) based on the quality of security — most of the time, this should be a “hard” test; top end systems will be more difficult. If there is a sysadmin on the network paying attention, you could test this as an opposed test — a perception-style test vs. the hacker’s test to either hack or craft the virus to enter the system.

Once in, the hacker can pretty much cruise around the network doing whatever they need to, although some networks are firewalled in nodes. The problem here — if you have admin access, you can usually bow through these nodes using a remote access program to do repair. Planting programs would be a computer skill test, finding information and snagging it a perception/search/investigate test. Any changes made to the system (planting keystroke loggers, programs, etc) can alert a sysadmin, as it will require administrator approval. Each time the hacker does something on the system that isn’t a normal user action (opening files, send email, etc.) they might be noticed; give the sysadmin a chance to see their activity. If they are trying to open encrypted files on the system, they can also be found. Better is to simply download the file and crack the encryption on your own machine.

This gives you a more realistic way to handle hacking (if that’s your desire.)

As for what you can find — there’s a lot of stuff online now, including stuff that is truly, monumentally idiotic to have accessible online (like, say, defense department mainframes.) Somethings, like a nuclear reactor, might be able to be monitored online, but the control systems are usually firewalled off (at the very least; many are mechanically operated.) Yes, you could probably reprogram streetlights, access traffic cameras, but you’re not going to find street cameras and security cameras in the local mall on the same network. Each system requires a hacking attempt; each thing you’re working means your attention is split, and running multiple processes slows your machine, working against the intruder. (This is why a lot of hackers work in “farms” in China, or utilize zombies and ‘bot to handle the basic functions.

Even if you can access satellites, they don’t see every portion of the world at all times — satellites usually orbit the planet about once an hour, each orbit a few hundred miles from the longitude of the last pass. If the satellite isn’t over the target, it can be anywhere from 45 minutes to days between overflies. Retasking a satellite is a big f’ing deal — you have to get all manner of permissions, the satellite has to blow reaction material, and then is on a new orbital interval (possibly screwing another team’s intelligence.) It pretty much doesn’t happen.

Most people’s personal information is scattered throughout the internet. You’re not going to get some clean sheet with bank info, personal, data, family photos, nifty headshot, military record, etc. in one shot. You’ll have to cast about for a while. Information from before the 1990s is often not transfered to digital as of this time, so old records might need to be pulled by hand. Some of the information is going to be redacted; the scan of the material isn’t going to give you anything useable. This gives the GM the opportunity to gloss over certain things he doesn’t want the players to know, and hence keep some level of surprise.

In a sci-fi setting, this is less a problem. You can have centralized data files, and more integrated surveillance systems…whatever the GM desires.

Hopefully, this gives the GM some idea of how to design their adventures to create a more realistic hacking experience for the players.

 

9 January, 2012

Hey, Who’s Up For Another Edition War?

Posted by blackcampbell under Roleplaying Games | Tags: , |
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Hasbro announced that they’ll be bringing out a 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons only a few years after releasing 4ed. I don’t really have skin in this particular game — I don’t play fantasy settings, so I haven’t played in a D&D game since 1993 or so. However, I am aware of the absolutely insane response to the release of 4th edition — friends apparently not talking to each other, game groups breaking up over whether to play 3rd or 4th edition. It’s the sort of thing that makes we gamers look the nutbags we are portrayed as in media.

You don’t like one system? Don’t play it. You have players who want to play one edition or the other, compromise.

I will admit I was unimpressed wtih 4th edition (and more specifically the Star Wars Saga Edition.) I found the mechanics looked to be trying to emulate the RPG video games, rather than emphasizing role playing. But that’s my opinion; you may feel otherwise, and please do. Here’s the kicker: I don’t like 3rd Edition either…in fact, I think d20 is a terrible set of mechanics in general and its the reason I don’t do D&D oriented material here at Black Campbell — I don’t play it, so I have no opinion one way or the other. Additionally, there’s plenty of sites dealing with fantasy-based settings, so I target old, dead systems and settings that aren’t as typical for RPG blogs.

 

 

6 January, 2012

Battlestar Galactica RPG: After Action Report, Part 2

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Last night was our weekly game session, this time part 2 of the episode 3 of our Battlestar Galactica campaign. In this, the characters’ vessel Aegis arrives at Sagittaron with the mission to protect an archeological dig and the scientists there from fundamentalist terrorists who want the planetary government to arrest them for blasphemy and suppress their findings. (They have found the remains of a modern city that would have existed 8-10,000 years before Colonial settlement!)

The characters shuttle down a small marine detachment to provide protection, as well as the ship’s chaplain and commander — who will be negotiating with the local government to try and sort the matter out. One of the issues — Commander Pindarus’ father, a famed vet of the First Cylon War, helped suppress a serious general strike 20 years ago…his family name is not a benefit here. They are escorted to the Colonial military base outside of the capital to avoid possibly being shot down by insurgents. On the post, they find out Colonial servicemen are asked not to leave the post, and when they do to travel in groups for their protection. The commandant is adamant about respecting Sagittaron customs off-post; they are looking to avoid another attempted bombing on the place.

The meeting between the First Secretary of the Sagittaron Planetary Quorum and Sagittaron Security Minister went well, although the presence of the spiritual leader of the  Sagittaron Freedom Movement (Tom Zarek’s “defunct” terrorist group) threw a wrench in the works. Pindarus essentially lies to them: they’ll suppress the findings and get the archeologists off planet when their funding runs out in two weeks, and hints that he’s willing to leave it all in local hands, so long as they don’t pop the trigger on the blasphemy charges…the meeting goes well.

Meanwhile, the military protection detail, in civilian clothes, talks their way past a couple of road blocks by local thugs to the dig and set up security, instructing the scientists on how to act, should they be attacked.

The next morning, Pindarus and his brother-in-law (the priest) head out to the dig site and their convoy is attacked in a rather expert way. They lost a few NPC marines that were guarding them, but all the characters got away with minimal injury. The fight sequence was tense until the lieutenant in charge of the dig site security and a couple of PC NCOs arrived to aid them. They have two prisoners they evaced to the ship (breaking a promise to the commandant of the military base not to fly outside of prescribed areas of operations.)

Pindarus is now going to use this to excuse military action to protect the dig and put pressure on the Sagittaron government — which is obviously looking for the easy way out of the issue — to help them shut down the splinter group that has been threatening the dig.

Next week, we’ll be seeing interrogation, politicking, and more trouble for the crew…

 

5 January, 2012

Game Review: Supremacy

Posted by blackcampbell under Board Games | Tags: |
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This is another from the oldie but goodie category. Easily my favorite strategy game of the 1980s, Supremacy was a high-complexity board game in the style of Risk. The players chose a bloc that they controlled — Europe, America, South America, Russia, etc… The game includes an economic track that allows the player to buy and sell resources, or use them for their military. You can build armies, navies, and most powerful of all — nuclear weapons and weapons satellites. The player’s territories provide them with resources per turn, and playing the market can be very important in your ability to keep your fighting forces active and to keep yourself flush.

We often found that players would collude in market manipulation to profit from resource trading. Many would reflexively avoid using nuclear weapons, as 12 of the sinister black mushroom cloud figures on the board means everyone loses (MAD.)

Here’s the board:

There were some good expansions that included submarines and “fortune” (natural disasters, etc. to help keep the market moving), and a few that were less useful (including massive maps and larger units for the wargamers who didn’t like dealing with child choking hazard-sized pieces.)

Some black mushroom goodness:

The goal is to either eliminate the opponent through conventional or strategic war, or bankrupt them through economic means. The average play time is between three and six hours, depending on the number of players. This is not a “hey, let’s just bust out a board game” sort of thing; this is a “let’s spend the day playing Supremacy” sort of thing.

To my knowledge, Supremacy Games is defunct and this is no longer produced. If you find it on eBay, or someplace, it’s a good addition to the pile if you are a board gamer. It’s stuck firmly between the light strategy game of Risk and the heavy sims of SPI and other wargames.

 

4 January, 2012

Nifty Alien Trailer Recut Prometheus Style

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4 January, 2012

Now That’s What I Call Facetime

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Maybe it’s staged, maybe it’s not…either way: pure awesome.

 

4 January, 2012

RPG Blog Carnival: Fantastic Locations

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This month’s RPG Blog Carnival is being sponsored by Keith Davies and revolves around the idea in the title: Fantastic Locations.

Creating compelling locations for your games isn’t much different, in many ways from set location scouting for a movie: you want to find something that will grab the attention of the players and imbed the action into their minds. Even better is if the location pushes the action, as well.

At the “strategic level”, I like to start plotting an adventure by deciding where it will take place. For modern espionage, I like to follow the James Bond school of location scouting — pick a few major locations for the action to occur. For instance, in Die Another Day, the action sequences take place in North Korea, Cuba, London, and Iceland. For a Star Wars game, you might choose Coruscant, Tatoonie, and an asteroid field on the Rim. In periods where the transportation is slower, you might want to just fix on a certain general location: Tombstne, Arizona in a western, London and maybe it’s environs in a Victorian setting.

Once I’ve got the general place, for modern games I look for interesting buildings, scenic locales, something that will “look neat” and fit a predetermined action sequence or allow the place to set the action for me.

Cases in point: In a modern espionage campaign, say the heroes have to raid a high-rise office park — how do they get in? Do they rappel from the roof, climb the outside of the building? (There is a hotel in modern Shanghai I desperately wanted to use because it was a spectacular set piece for this sort of thing…some day…) For a sequence in my recent Hollow Earth Expedition campaign, I envisioned a multi-level restaurant with lots of staircases, intervening balconies, hanging lights, etc — perfect for the climb all over the damned set style of chop-socky fighting I wanted for the sequence. There were koi pnds to knock villains into, flaming kebab spikes to impale them on, lights to swing from level to level…everything was there to be used as cover or a weapon. (Think the big gong in Temple of Doom…why was it there if not to hide from Tommy gun fire? Or any Jackie Chan flick — the location is central to the stunts and fights going on.)

The description doesn’t have to be that extensive to set the atmosphere. You’re in an abandoned steel plant…it’s nearly dark and the catwalks and ladders between the levels throw shadows everywhere. Abandoned equipment lies dust covered and cobwebbed — shovels near the coal bins, tools here and there…. If there’s something you want the characters to notice, highlight it: …footprints in the dust lead you under the massive cauldrons that would drop molten metal. Chains rattle slightly from the rain that is coming through broken window panes in the roof, as you avoid a stand of metal poles that were used for whatever purpose (and maybe they notice one missing?)

Here’s a few examples from different eras of settings that have worked for me:

The working Victorian steel mill — nothing like molten slag, moving equipment, and the hazards of fire to get the players’ blood boiling. Dodge the kids and workers while chasing the villain over and around dangerous gear.

“Ridleyville” — when you need atmosphere at night, make the street slick from rain or recent rain and throw in a little neon to throw distracting shadows. A venting steam pipe or grate doesn’t hurt… You can even had Ridleyville inside a spacecraft (see Nostromo from Alien.) I’ve used this a lot for my 1930s Shanghai. The smell of crap from the nightstools doesn’t hurt, either.

A foggy hill in the woods, near a running stream (preferably winter time to throw breath, etc.) and the villans hidden in the mist. I’ve used this for my China campaign in Hollow Earth Expedition (fighting warrior monks) and in a Battlestar Galactica game where they could hear the toasters but not see them.

Craggy snow-bound mountains with loads of moguls and trees to have a ski/snowmobile chase through. And of course that big chunk of snow a few hundred feet up the slope is coming your way eventually…

The dimly lit pumping station wit lots of metal grate catwalks and steps to give you “spooky” lighting. This works for sci-fi, modern day, horror… I used this for a Supernatural game in which the heroes were hunting a werewolf. Fighting in tight spaces, with lots of metal guard rails to bang off of, water on the floor, the hum of the pumps to disguise movement, not to mention big spanners for weapons, fire extinguishers, etc…

Cliffs are always good. Cliffs are scary. Cliffs with waterfalls or snow, or loose earth are even better. A really good use of a cliff as a weapon? For Your Eyes Only. Kick that henchmans car that is holding on the edge by a tire or two into the ocean below. He was a bad guy, anyway.

Airplanes are great set pieces. They are a tactical nightmare when loaded with innocents. You have very little room to move, and there’s the danger of breeching the hull (which with a handgun or rifle really isn’t going to do much unless you clip a control line or bounce one into the engine. Some have big droppable gates at the back end so you can get tossed into thin air.

Boats are even better — most have a few decks and loads of stuff to destroy or use in a fight. Yachts are nicely lit but you’re still a bit cramped belowdecks. The engine rooms are a wealth of injury-inducing stuff. Cargo vessels are badly lit with tight companionways, big cargo holds full of stuff to climb on, fight around. Military vessels…well, you get the picture.

For things like car chases, the terrain can be very important. Try have a high speed chase on the crowded, very twisty roads int he Dolomites of northern Italy: hell, they couldn’t even transport an Aston-Martin Virage safely to the set of Quantum of Solace. When in doubt, drop a big Indiana Jones style cliff in…even when you’re driving along the flatest chunk on Egypt as in Raiders of the Lost Ark. If they’re having fun, the audience won’t care.

Cars in a chase can be your locale. Think the tanker from The Road Warrior — there’s a lot of action going on just on the rig itself. Or any western involving a stagecoach — runaway or otherwise.

When picking your settings, look for something to spice them up. You don’t need a monster or clever trap to make a cave complex dangerous (but it helps) — spelunkers can tell you they’re damned hazardous all on their own. The point is to have fun with it, and make sure the method of the character’s salvation is part and parcel of the danger they are in.

 

4 January, 2012

Game Review: Shogun/Samurai Swords/Ikusa

Posted by blackcampbell under Board Games | Tags: , , |
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Back in 1986, Milton Bradley gave us their “Gamemaster Series” of “light” wargames. Unlike the high-complexity stuff you would have gotten from SPI or other wargame manufacturers, these were low-complexity rules that supported high-complexity strategy fun. Easily my favorite of these was Shogun, later renamed to Samurai Swords to avoid copyright issues with James Cavell’s novel and a game based on it (the most recent version was called Ikusa.) There’s a whole backstory of whuy the name changes, who owned the game when, etc…but we’re interested in the play:

The game consists of a large mapboard of Japan, broken down in to provinces which have corresponding cards to show ownership. Players split the cards evenly, populate their provinces with a spearman. They also get three armies (represented by a daimyo figure that corresponds to the army on another small army board. They also get a figure carrier fashioned to look like a fortification into which plugs a cardboard screen with all of the important rules on it. The plastic pieces include three daimyos, samurai (bowmen and swordsmen), and ashigaru (spearmen and riflemen.) Set up takes a bit of time, and does involve some strategy in the placement of units and armies.

Play is quick and easy. Each turn, you count the number of provinces and get a number of koku (money) to build fortifications (nifty fortress bases and castles), hire a ninja to assassinate your enemies, build your units. Order of play is decided by picking wee katana swords with a number of pips on them. The randomizers are d12s. Average play time is about 2-3 hours depending on the number of players and they quality of play.

The game is deceptively simple from a rules set standpoint: collect your money, build your units, etc., attack your enemies, repeat… The fights are ordered from the ranged weapons — bowmen and riflemen, to the daimyo, through the swordsmen and spearmen. Organizing your armies and standing guard in the provinces takes a lot of care and planning, and even the best plans can be laid low by chance. We’ve had some excellent games where it seemed one player was neigh invincible, only to have one single battle go awry and the player be taken out of the game early.

Quality of the Shogun and Samurai Sword sets is lovely — good cardstock, nice plastic figures, excellent artwork. I can’t say for Ikusa but I’m assuming it remained the same. If you find it on eBay or elsewhere, it’s a definite buy.

 

3 January, 2012

Quick Review: Hell on Wheels

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I’ve been watching this since the premiere and have enjoyed it throughout, but figured I would give it a bit of time before I commented on it. First of — the series involves the creation of the Union Pacific’s transcontinental railroad and the Credit Mobiliere scandal (although that has yet to become a major feature.) The history is solid, if dramatized, of course; the production values are high and improved by shooting the series in the Midwest of Canada to get the right look. Casting is solid and the acting is as well.

Central is an ex-Cnfederate out to find his wife’s rapist/killers from the Union army, Cullen Bohanan (Anson Mount looking very dirty and dishelved…perfect for the character),  who finds himself on the railroad hunting his quarry. He ends up as one of the rail foremans, which keeps him in the picture. The other lead is Thomas “Doc” Durant — the corrupt bugger that built the railroad and had been a smuggler during the Civil War, running cotton out of Mississippi (although he was a northerner.) He’s played well by Colm Meaney, who still can’t quite shed that Irish brogue. Durant is fighting to keep the money flowing from the Federal government and find a route through the Rockies (this is where the female lead, Irish actress Dominique McElligott comes in — her husand was his surveyor who is killed brutally in the first episode.) There’s a freed slave that become the counterpoint to Bohanan, Elam Ferguson (Common — doing an excellent job.) And there’s the agent provocateur, ‘The Swede” (played by Christopher Heyerdahl — familiar to any SciFi Channel viewer. [And no, I will not call it SyFy.]) who is the black hat for this first season. Tom Noonan, perrenial bad guy, played an alcoholic/wife beating priest who left his family to bring light to the Indians; I keep waiting for him to go crazified and evil, but it hasn’t happened yet.

The first episode had the usual “first episode blues” — a bit shaky and unsure of itself, but by the second episode, it was…on track? AMC has picked the series up for a second season, and we history buffs are better for it.

For the RPG readers, the series gives a good grounding for the sorts of adventures and conflicts one sees in the Reconstruction — good for the Western or Victorian/steampunk campaign.

 

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