Patrons for WHFRP

Patrons, those social anchors and quest givers for the wandeeing murder-hobos we call player characters.

From nudging players into action via quests, or rewarding success, to providing the social context for why killing that bad guy doesn't get the town guard after you but shaking down the bigger kid does, patrons should be a big part of fantasy game. A society even remotely based on a medieval world view wouldn't allow for most of the shenanigans that PCs get into without a powerful patron to give political sanction to those random bouts of physical violence and the liberal misappropriation of monies players are prone to.

So what does that mean in a game? Well first off the Patron should color the group, be it political views or fantasy religious habits.
This is a big deal because its a way to guide the party template. If you don't know what the party template is you really owe it to yourself to check out Fear the Boot. Go listen here

In a nut shell its the logic behind why a group of player characters would risk their lives with other nutcases while going out and risking their collective necks. So rather than pretending there's a floating invisible mark over the heads of just some people which means they're somehow trustworthy,  you instead create an artifact that explains why people are together.

This is where the patron comes in. In WHFRP game I'm planning the characters will be defined by which patron they all decide to serve. This will also decide what plots I focus on developing further.

For example, picking a patron that is a member of the religious hierarchy of a major faith, like the cult of Sigmar in WHFRP,  would give a party a fairly significant inroad with the faithful, access to at least some level of political shielding,  access to some significant finances and hopefully some access to magical healing beyond the norm. However on the other hand they'll be expected to act to further the plans of the church, be it cleaning up awkward messes or recovering relics from dangerous locations. The focus needs to be on opening up new venues for the players, rather than limiting options

Combat in WFRP

To quote Wikipedia
"Combat in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay descends from the system used for large-scale miniature combat, making it substantially more deadly than the combat featured in many other systems. Most human-level creatures and characters can absorb only one or two hits without receiving a serious injury, a "Critical Hit" that may instantly kill, cripple, or permanently maim a character. There are no regeneration or resurrection powers in WFRP and limited healing options. "Fate Points", which represent a character's fate or destiny, provide a limited number of opportunities to avoid crippling or killing results."

"It's like Terry Pratchett writing the 30 Years War, only darker.

Hmm. It's the game where you start out thinking you're playing D&D, only to discover you are in fact playing Call of Cthulhu." - Professor Phobos

Looking over the Core Rules this will be a very interesting (in the Chinese sense) game to run. Its going to be like Call of Cthulhu in some senses and unforgiving to those who mistake it for D&D. My initial idea of running a campaign about the invasion of Lustria may have to wait, as I have not been able to find enough material to create profiles for Lizardmen, as I just dont know the system that well to make this amount of material up.

This leads me back to an old world located game. This may actually make it easier on me as I have quite a bit of material to draw on so stats are not an issue. Rooting out horrors and dangers in the creaking hulk of the empire, fun times.

Zak is doing it again

Zak over at Playing DnD with Porn Stars is at it again. Barbarians!! This is another of the cool alternative classes for older DnD that are less rigid than original format. I really need to create an ODnD game to run with these alternate classes and my City-State of the Invincible Overlord or Bridgeport.

[SWN] Wanderers in Darkness - the Journal of Julianne Moore

Excerpts from the Journal of Julianne Moore (dates from PCs landing on Abihijit)

- 100 days before landing
Damn they decided to transfer out the one intelligent cute guy on this damned rock. The doctor is being replaced by some guy named Grewill Stersell and I cant find anything out about him, and thats just odd, not even where he got his degree.

-90 days before landing
Grewill Stersell is here and damn theres something just creepy about him. Hes got a plastic smile and I dont like the way he looks at the other girls let alone how my skin crawls when he looks at me. Its like hes measuring me up for something, not even undressing me. Odd.

-85 days before landing
Wow, a whole transport of 23 miners disappeared. When I went to complain the boss of security I found at that he was on it. Something happened to that hard ass, former marine? Thats just scary. Something is wrong with this.

-80 days before landing
Our transmitter is acting up. All communications with the outposts are on the fritz. I thought the last upgrade was supposed to fix that. And that creep Stersell has been haunting the supply building. And come to think of it I havent seen the supply guy at all for the last couple days.

-75 days before landing
Oh shit! The complete communications system has died. We cant raise anyone or any of the satellites. Whats going on?

-65 days before landing
Oh god, I dont know what happened but people are missing. Even the intercom isnt working. Dony, in IT is trying to build a separate transmitter, at least we can try and get a signal to orbit.

-63 days before landing
Help!! He's coming for us. I hope anyone who finds this will search but we are so far out from the shipping lines. Oh please, if you find this please look for us! Please.

[SWN] Wanderers in Darkness - Monsters and Sundry

In Wanderers in Darkness the PCs on Abihijit which is a predominately jungle world that was/is being mined for the rare minerals that its highly reactive and electrically charged atmosphere seems to make it rich in. One of the catches to this plan is the local fauna, large lizard analogues. I say analogues as they arent quite Terran lizards but visually close enough that humans being humans they are called lizards, or dinosaurs. And if not-dinos weren't bad enough, with the "special" batches Grewill Stersell has created it will make things just that much worse for the PCs.

Bonesnapper
The bonesnapper is the miners name for a small but vicious lizard with large membranous frills around its neck. This is more of a nuisance than a true threat. Lacking eyes bonesnappers use echolocation to identify prey, using the frill as a receiver.
HD     AC    AB    Dam    Move   Morale
1/2       7       +1    1d4       20'         8

The Shadowed Death
The shadowed death is a vicious beast that can easily tackle many of the vehicles the miners use to travel as it is far smarter than just a plain creature. Its 3 pairs of eyes seem to gleam with malice when it attacks. The manner that they blink pairs out of sync with each other is considered very disturbing.
HD     AC    AB         Dam       Mv     Morale
3          6    +3/+3    1d6/1d6    30'     9

Warped Death
Not a true name so much as a description of what has been done to various Shadowed Death by Stersell using the "leftover" components from the males he has modified. The torso grafted onto its chest allows it to operate human equipment it can reach and the malice of the unaltered base creature is blended with the pained insanity of the human tortured beyond mental endurance.
HD     AC    AB         Dam       Mv     Morale   + Human weapons
4          4    +4/+4    1d8/1d8    30'    11             +2 AB    2d4 damage energy

Bloaters
Bloaters are an odd creation of Stersell, human bodies modified with strange subcutaneous oxygen buildups that create the weird bloated look. Always male, due to Stersells tastes, they attack like regular humans except when attacked with energy weapons. When struck with energy weapons the oxygen flares up in an impressive burn (1d6 damage to all within 10 feet)
HD     AC    AB    Dam   Mv     Morale
1          7    +1       1d6     30'       12

 Guards
HP    AC    AB    Weapon/ Armor                        Saves
5        4      +3      Combat Rifle(1d12)/Woven   PE 12/ME 15/Ev 14/Tech 16/Luck 13

Grewill Stersell
Evil, moral-less medical monster (lvl4 expert) inspired by Dr. H. H. Holmes
HP    AC    AB    Weapon/ Armor                        Saves
 16     5       +1      Laser Pistol (1d6)/Woven       PE 16/ME 15/Ev 12/Tech 11/Luck 14
Science-2. Tech/Medical-1, Persuade-1, Tech/Maltech-0, Perception-0, Combat/Projectile-0, Combat/Energy-0

[Swn] Oman

Oman

 Oman is the somewhat dystopian world that the overall arc of the Wanderers in Darkness campaign. With an oppressive police force willing to open fire on citizens at the least provocation, Oman is a bad place to be on the wrong side of people in power.

		Star Data	Type M4 V Red Dwarf Radius 2.92 x 105 km   (0.42 x sol) Mass 6.90 x 1029 kg   (0.35 x sol) Temperature 2800 K Luminosity 1.47 x 1025 W   (0.04 x sol)
		I	Type Terrestrial World Orbital Radius 2.59 x 107 km   (0.17 AU) Period 1.07 x 103 hours   (0.12 earth years) Physics Large iron/silicate Gravity 11.44 m/s2   (1.17 x earth) Hydrosphere 29 % water, 10 % ice Atmosphere Dense breathable Biosphere Prokaryotic microbes Special Heavily developed city hives
		II	Type Rock Planet Orbital Radius 5.62 x 107 km   (0.38 AU) Period 3.41 x 103 hours   (0.39 earth years) Gravity 2.43 m/s2   (0.25 x earth)
		III	Type Rock Planet Orbital Radius 7.88 x 107 km   (0.53 AU) Period 5.67 x 103 hours   (0.65 earth years) Gravity 5.22 m/s2   (0.53 x earth)
		IV	Type Asteroid Belt Orbital Radius 1.37 x 108 km   (0.92 AU) Period 1.31 x 104 hours   (1.49 earth years)
		V	Type Ice Planet Orbital Radius 2.42 x 108 km   (1.62 AU) Period 3.05 x 104 hours   (3.49 earth years) Gravity 4.73 m/s2   (0.48 x earth) Special Planetary rings
		VI	Type Ice Planet Orbital Radius 4.58 x 108 km   (3.06 AU) Period 7.95 x 104 hours   (9.09 earth years) Gravity 9.42 m/s2   (0.96 x earth)

Updates and a random link of goodness

[SWN] Wanderers in Darkness will hit the next (hopefully last) session in this story arc Saturday. With this in mind I need to create several handouts for clue giving, and an experiment in programed posting. I also have to thank the fellow gamers that contributed ideas that have warped the Wanderers in Darkness in weird and depraved ways.

Thanks to Zak over at PlayingDnDwithPornstars for this wonderful link http://talesofthegrotesqueanddungeonesque.blogspot.com/2013/01/carcosa-rehab-instead-of-violation.html because every one needs a random table of blasphemous rituals to perform in weird fantasy gaming

[SWN] Custom starting packages

One of the fascinating aspects of SWN is the blend of Traveller-esque skills with d20-esque simple combat system. To fit the fact I'm not running the default setting I'm going to craft some custom background packages and skill packages.

Expert training package
"Problem Solver"
Problem solvers as they're known are agents-at-large for the sector government and serve as the earliest intervention in planetary issues. Their first choice is to maintain the peace, though they are not incompetent in a fight, usually when guns come out their mission has failed and all thats left is cleaning up the mess.
Skills;
Bureacracy, Combat (projectile or primitive), Leadership, Perception, Persuade, Sercurity, Stealth, Vehicle (grav)

Warriors training package
"Galactic Rangers"
The Galactic Rangers are the wandering lawmen of the Galactic Systems. Focusing on conflict resolution by any means necessary,  Rangers can be shining knights or grim arbitrators of justice. One of their signature items is the Peacemaker Energy pistol, a biometrically synced short ranged pistol (I'm imagining Deckard's monster pistol from Bladerunner but energy)
Skills;
Bureaucracy, Combat/Energy, Culture/Traveller, Leadership, Persuasion,  Tactics

More as i think of them, or people come up with ideas

Psuedo-Quasi-Intellectual review of Alternity

Psuedo-Quasi-Intellectual review of Alternity Science Fiction Roleplaying System

Alternity. The final roleplaying system to emerge from TSR (much of the supplementary material was printed under the TSR, a division of WOTC trademark) was crafted from the start to be a classless, skill based science fiction set from the modern era to the far future. With the addition of material in Dragon Magazine the system could actually be pushed back to the 1800s, potentially even as far as the Renaissance era if you tried, and out into horror and b-movie genres. There was even material to convert D&D Characters, monsters and gear to and from the system.

Published Settings

• Darkmatter - Take X-Files, make the heroes work for a non-profit with no governmental sanction and youre looking at the basis of DarkMatter.
• StarDrive - Space Opera in the 26th century, on the newly reopened frontier. This was actually the most supported of all the official settings.
• Gamma World - Poor Gamma World, yet again the red-headed stepchild of the family, the game only ever had the core setting book printed and one Dragon article that I know of printed.

One of the coolest features of the ruleset was the degrees of success. Instead of merely a binary result you had the possibility of; critical failure, failure, ordinary success, good success and amazing success. This allowed for one of my favourite systems for handling firearms Ive encountered. Striking a bargain between heroic action like D20 where gun shot wounds can be laughed off and the realism of Gurps where bullets flying gets people dead real fast, Alternity allows for dangerous but not automatically deadly combat. Wounds degrade your ability to act successfully, without the binary status of up and acting or down and bleeding out that HP systems are notorious for.

Tying into the levels of success was an innovative die mechanic that took in account difficult of task without changing the target number. Instead of moving the target number around to show different difficulty, a control die was changed. With the goal to roll low and the player always rolling a D20, adding or subtracting dice to the roll was a straightforward idea, supported by a great diagram.

[SWN] 1173 Abhijit

1173 Abhijit

		Star Data	Type F7 V Yellow-white Main Sequence Radius 8.57 x 105 km   (1.23 x sol) Mass 2.87 x 1030 kg   (1.44 x sol) Temperature 6400 K Luminosity 1.95 x 1027 W   (5.09 x sol)
		I	Type Rock Planet Orbital Radius 9.24 x 107 km   (0.62 AU) Period 3.53 x 103 hours   (0.40 earth years) Gravity 8.89 m/s2   (0.91 x earth)
		II	Type Rock Planet Orbital Radius 1.47 x 108 km   (0.98 AU) Period 7.07 x 103 hours   (0.81 earth years) Gravity 5.71 m/s2   (0.58 x earth)
		III	Type Rock Planet Orbital Radius 1.89 x 108 km   (1.26 AU) Period 1.03 x 104 hours   (1.18 earth years) Gravity 12.10 m/s2   (1.24 x earth) Special Advanced alien artifact
		1173 Abhijit IV	Type Terrestrial World Orbital Radius 2.91 x 108 km   (1.94 AU) Period 1.97 x 104 hours   (2.26 earth years) Physics Standard iron/silicate Gravity 9.67 m/s2   (0.99 x earth) Hydrosphere 61 % water, 12 % ice Atmosphere Standard Biosphere Large Animal Analogues Civilization Mining Outpost Special Heavy volcanism, large moon, electromagnetic storms
		V	Type Rock Planet Orbital Radius 4.91 x 108 km   (3.28 AU) Period 4.32 x 104 hours   (4.94 earth years) Gravity 10.23 m/s2   (1.05 x earth) Special Wreckage of a crashed starship
		VI	Type Rock Planet Orbital Radius 8.68 x 108 km   (5.81 AU) Period 1.02 x 105 hours   (11.64 earth years) Gravity 7.31 m/s2   (0.75 x earth)
		VII	Type Rock Planet Orbital Radius 1.66 x 109 km   (11.07 AU) Period 2.68 x 105 hours   (30.66 earth years) Gravity 6.25 m/s2   (0.64 x earth) Special 4 small moons

Star System Generator by drow
http://donjon.bin.sh/

1173 Abhijit IV

Physics	Type Standard iron/silicate Radius 6995.62 km   (1.10 x earth) Surface Area 6.15 x 108 km2 Land Area 2.46 x 108 km2   (1.65 x earth) Mass 7.12 x 1024 kg   (1.19 x earth) Density 4.97 g/cm3   (0.90 x earth) Composition 33.6% oxygen, 32.4% iron, 23.8% silicon, 4.9% nickel, 3.7% other metals, 1.7% other elements
Gravimetry	Gravity 9.67 m/s2   (0.99 x earth) Escape Velocity 11.63 km/s
Rotation	Period 12.26 hours Axis Tilt 17.21 °
Hydrosphere	Water 61 % Ice 12 %
Atmosphere	Type Standar Pressure 115.11 kPa   (1.14 x earth) Composition 54.5% nitrogen, 26.9% water vapor, 14.8% sulfur dioxide, 3.9% methane, trace other gases
Climate	Type Cool Min Temp 283 K   (10 °C) Avg Temp 292 K   (18 °C) Max Temp 336 K   (62 °C)
Biosphere	Chemistry Carbon Lifeforms Advanced animal analogs
Civilization	Type Mining Outpost Population 1165 Tech Level Spacefaring (orbital spacecraft, cybernetics, laser weapons)
Special	Features Heavy volcanism, large moon, electromagnetic storms

Fractal World Generator by drow
http://donjon.bin.sh/
Based on original code by John Olsson

[SWN] 3496 Mao Xiu

3496 Mao Xiu

		Star Data	Type A7 V White Main Sequence Radius 1.44 x 106 km   (2.08 x sol) Mass 3.65 x 1030 kg   (1.83 x sol) Temperature 8100 K Luminosity 3.29 x 1028 W   (85.88 x sol)
		Close Companion	Type M1 V Red Dwarf Distance 1.17 x 108 km   (0.78 AU) Radius 2.87 x 105 km   (0.41 x sol) Mass 6.57 x 1029 kg   (0.33 x sol) Temperature 3200 K Luminosity 1.71 x 1025 W   (0.04 x sol)
		I	Type Rock Planet Orbital Radius 3.59 x 108 km   (2.40 AU) Period 2.21 x 104 hours   (2.53 earth years) Gravity 12.89 m/s2   (1.32 x earth)
		II	Type Asteroid Belt Orbital Radius 5.99 x 108 km   (4.01 AU) Period 4.77 x 104 hours   (5.45 earth years)
		III	Type Jovian Planet Orbital Radius 1.11 x 109 km   (7.42 AU) Period 1.20 x 105 hours   (13.73 earth years) Gravity 56.56 m/s2   (5.78 x earth) Special 44 small moons, 3 large moons

Star System Generator by drow
http://donjon.bin.sh/

Mao Xiu is a strange system as the asteroid belt and the moons of Mao Xiu III are the primary sites of interest. Rumours of strange objects found drifting in and among these sites have only fanned the speculators who have flooded the system.

System Creation for [SWN] - 4037 Revati

I have to give all credit for creation to a tool I found on Donjon.bin.sh, which has a lot of great generation pages, look at it.

 

4037 Revati

		Star Data	Type K8 V Orange Main Sequence Radius 7.00 x 105 km   (1.01 x sol) Mass 2.22 x 1030 kg   (1.12 x sol) Temperature 3600 K Luminosity 1.37 x 1026 W   (0.36 x sol)
		I	Type Rock Planet Orbital Radius 3.66 x 107 km   (0.24 AU) Period 1.00 x 103 hours   (0.11 earth years) Gravity 6.69 m/s2   (0.68 x earth) Special Trace atmosphere
		II	Type Terrestrial World Orbital Radius 7.59 x 107 km   (0.51 AU) Period 2.99 x 103 hours   (0.34 earth years) Physics Small iron/silicate Gravity 7.00 m/s2   (0.71 x earth) Hydrosphere 10 % water, 4 % ice Atmosphere Trace breathable Special Planetary rings
		III	Type Rock Planet Orbital Radius 1.29 x 108 km   (0.86 AU) Period 6.64 x 103 hours   (0.76 earth years) Gravity 2.30 m/s2   (0.24 x earth)
		IV	Type Rock Planet Orbital Radius 2.16 x 108 km   (1.44 AU) Period 1.43 x 104 hours   (1.64 earth years) Gravity 12.42 m/s2   (1.27 x earth) Special Heavy radiation

Star System Generator by drow
http://donjon.bin.sh/

4037 Revati II is a  marginal world that is composed of (from the human point of view) sealed habitats and dig sites. Valuable primarily for an abundance of rare elements in concentrations to make mining viable, the planet is surprisingly unexplored beyond basic orbital scans.

[Stars Without Numbers] Wanderers in Darkness pt. 1

Wanderers in Darkness is my SWN campaign for an episodic game at the monthly club.

However Im not going to stick with just the rules as written. I want to add a little more heroics then I think the rules are designed for. One of the elements I like with Savage Worlds is the concept of bennies. A simple limited number of rerolls is the easiest to implement, so all characters will start with 3 bennies for the 4 hour sessions. On the other side I'll have 2 + a bennie for each player.

Additionally there is quite a bit of gear from SWN, Gammaworld and Mutant Future that I want to finally see in play. As cool as Serenity/Firefly is, I want more tech in my sci-fi. I plan to steal from Alternity and provide PCs with a piece of gear that is distinct to their concept, for example a battle hardened marine would feel naked without his old service armor.

Not exactly a rule change but I plan to havd players explain how they fail when they blow a die roll. I want failure to be as interesting storywise as sucess.

More as I create worlds

Custom RPG take 2

Im not quite dead... but with classes finally done for the summer my time shifts back to my games.

Having had some time to ponder my previous ideas, and more input from other sources has led me to firm up some ideas.

• Statistics are generated by 3d6 dice rolls, with any two stats swapped.
• Stats in order are; Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma.
• Rather than using 1st edition or later stat modifies I am going with 3=-3, 4-5 = -2, 6-8 = -1, 9-12 = 0, 13-15 = 1, 16-17=2, 18=3
• Strength modifiers affect melee combat for damage, Intelligence gives bonus languages and resistance to arcane magic, Wisdom affects resistance to clerical magic, Dexterity affect ranged to hit rolls, Constitution affects hit points and resisting poison, and Charisma affects reactions and social status.
• Once modifiers have been established 2d6 is rolled for Social status, modified by Charisma. 2 or less = slave status, 3-5 = lower class, 6-8 = middle class, 9-11 = upper class, 12+ = nobility
• Combat will use a matrix based system like Basic and 1e as this lets me maintain repeating results to set a specific feel, rather than the extended rise of newer editions.
• Weapon damage and weapon proficiency will be opened up while simplified.

Weapons	Small	Medium	Large	Two Handed
Warrior	1d6	1d8	1d10	1d12
Rogue	1d4	1d6	1d8	1d8
Warrior	1d4	1d6	1d8	1d10
Mage	1d3	1d4	1d6	1d8

Dual wielding roll for each weapon and pick one.

Gear Packages and Bases of Operation

The single slowest part of character creation, in my experience is picking equipment. There is rarely that much difference between the gear picked, unless an experienced or crafty player is involved, and yet picking the same stuff takes forever every time. Players are trying to pick enough items to have something for everything, and they try to carry it all.

But this begs the question, why bother?

No, seriously, why bother? What is gained by doing this? -- As far as I can tell, maybe an illusion of player control, but even that's debatable.

My idea for a solution is two fold, as there is both cause and effect to be addressed.

Cause - players feel they need to be prepared for all things at all times.
I blame Tolkien for this mentality, as he wrote the grand wandering story of the One Ring. Ive played too many games were the PCs travel all over the game world, and everything has to kept handy. This isn't completely terrible as its brought things like the Portable Hole and Robe of Many Things which are fun to play with. However since players are wandering and expecting to rely on themselves, you get a laundry list of items. So rather than changing the items available or something extreme, why not just give them a base of operations? Maybe a house, or a ship or some other place where stuff can be stored. You don't need to carry all your crap when you can just pop home and grab that ten foot pole or hydrospanner you need. But that's not the real reason to provide a base of operation, you do it to tie the players into a setting, to incorporate them into a story so they actually might care about at least a few npcs.
Solution - Provide a base of operation with a safe storage facility, and an opportunity to set down roots through roleplaying.

Effect - players want to have items to handle everything
Players should want to be prepared for problems, as thats half of what being an adventurer is about, but there is a difference between prepared and carrying everything and the kitchen sink. Anything can be taken too far, and poring over equipment lists can eat time like no ones business. Most genres have specific gear that's all but mandatory (and the DM had best know their material enough to pick these out) so total them up and write them down as packages, as they should show up. This has the added advantage of reminding the DM what sort of obstacles should be in adventures. If they players only have to pick one or two items and a package instead poring over lists it should go quicker. In fact you should be able to organize packages into specialized forms, such as one for the combat wombats, sneaky types and so on with the gear they need.
Solutions - Organize commonly used items into packages to cut down on what needs to be bought.

Making playing a human appealing to play

In pre-2000 D&D and its close relatives playing a non human (demi-human or humanoid) conferred specific ability or stat bonuses that exceeded anything a human could achieve. On the other hand humans were the only race to have access to all classes and no limits on how far they can advance in those classes. So a dwarven wizard or halfling paladin is out, and a human thief will always be capable of higher levels than an elf, even with the elfs longer lifespan.

This is not a horrible solution, but it can restrict the potential roleplaying opportunities though admittedly there are almost as many or more ways to munchkin out a character. A dwarf with arcane powers is a fascinating concept for example but as they are written up in 1e/2e AD&D they have some rather brutal resistance to magic as they progress in levels.

This leads to question of direction, do you give humans a bonus or restrict demihumans? One of the key concepts of pre 2000 D&D is the fact that the world is human dominated. If demihumans can be anything what is to stop them from overshadowing the humans? An incredibly durable dwarven paladin or the unearthly dextrous elf thief will achieve things over their longer lives that a mere human could, on a purely mechanical level. A wonderful example of this and the various mechanical tweaks tried to fix it is the halfling. As written by Tolkien a halfling does not belong in an adventuring party, because they simply arent suited for it. And culturally, going out adventuring would be treated like a sign of madness. So as the editions increase, they begin to gain additional abilities like luck bonuses until we have halflings that are more like Belkar from Order of the Stick. And the Baggins were never "shoeless gods of battle".

If we give humans bonuses to offset the fact that their mechanical stats are inherently going to be lower, you either give them equal stat bonuses and thereby cheapening the stat bumps that the other races have or an alternative bonus. Perhaps the reason the humans are the most populous and powerful race (besides breeding like rabbits) is the short term view that humans have that motivate them to push themselves hard.

If instead we restrict demihumans then we are limiting roleplaying opportunities, but the ones left are simpler to handle mechanically. The different races then become focused on the racial niches they've carved out. Such as an elf being a mage rather than a barbarian or a dwarf who fights rather than slinging arcane magic.

More notes on my Con Games

Based on my experiences at last year's GASPcon I need to do very specific prep. Rather than worrying about specific stats, as they are easy to create on the fly. What I need more is the mechanics to give a very specific feel to the game and a crib sheet of vignettes and characters to touch on when I need something to make the game fun.

Easy Credit Blues
I want this to feel like a mix of Serenity with Issac Asimov and other late 60s and 70s sci-fi. That means the crew's ship is liable to be falling apart rather than the immaculate ships of Star Trek (the Serenity contribution) while all the possible worlds to visit are remnants of a star spanning empire, with some major similarities between them. However that alone isn't really that interesting in a one shot con game. What I will have much more fun with is a card based mechanism to deal out random secrets that all the players have, things like "you're a traitor and seek to screw the players at a critical moment" or "you're actually a humanoid robot thats attempting to pass as a human". Each card will have ROLEPLAY IT written in big bold letters and "if you cant do this one, speak now!" so they will be warned and informed, and hopefully willing to introduce more elements of chaos and confusion.

Doom comes to Barvales
I will be drawing on the whole survival horror element of Death Frost Doom, Resident Evil, and some of the video games Ive been playing up the weird and horrible aspects that Lamentations is intended to have. A major element of the game will be surviving, with an eye to either carve out a new niche in the new order or take back the city from the horrors. That means gaining or protecting resources and taking advantage of all the resources I provide. My Doom players will get cards too - dealing out a card listing the character as being a local of Barvales, a pious pilgrim, or an outsider who has come to take advantage of the holy ritual everyone is coming together for.

For both games Im looking to deal out personality quirk cards, to give the players something to roleplay besides the cliched stuff like the drunk scottish dwarf.

[A2Z] A is for Almarand, the stone that stalks

Almarand is a whispered denizen of the area around the bottom of the Walk. Attacking only on the dark of the moons, even armored and armed warriors have been taken by the creature. However it only ever takes one victim a night, leaving no witnesses and few traces. Two months ago a boastful warrior armed with a magically ensorcelled blade boasted that she would slay the beast and managed to convince the authorities, civil and criminal, to clear the road surrounding the Walk on the night of the dark. For the first time a cry was heard, but it was fierce and inhuman. In the mornings light all the was found was bloodstains and chips of rock. A sizable reward for the recovery of the magical blade, and a somewhat smaller one for the capture or destruction of the creature, has since been raised.

This completes the initial stage of my A2Z of Bridgeport write up - now I need to make it up into a document and start layout.

Custom RPG notes, part 3

As I ponder my little experiment, and listen to all the Thacoshammer, Save or Die and Roll for Initiative podcasts, Ive noticed that what I want to run is almost a lite version of 2nd edition D&D with hacks to the combat system - the circle is now complete as I return to my first rpg ever.

One of the more disappointing mechanical conceits of older D&D is the overly complex weapon system, where weapon access is limited by class or proficiency. Now admittedly some of these do have something remotely approaching logic (i.e. classic wizards spending all their time learning spells rather than swordplay) but even those break down when you look at them too hard or change part of the setting, like clerics being restricted to blunt weapons when the major religion is say a Norse pantheon. Secondly having damage variation by specific weapon is a detail that I don't feel actually helps the game, even when it doesn't inspire munchkins (ahem 2e katanas..) as your just as dead if the sword blade thrust through your chest is 2.5 feet long as you are when its 3 feet long. So to simply damage and allow cooler roleplaying characters and choices Ive knocked up a little table.

Weapons	Small	Medium	Large	Two Handed
Warrior	1d6	1d8	1d10	1d12
Rogue	1d4	1d6	1d8	1d8
Warrior	1d4	1d6	1d8	1d10
Mage	1d3	1d4	1d6	1d8

Dual wielding roll for each weapon and pick one.

This hopefully will allow the sword wielding mage or the cleric with an axe, as weapons are only mechanically important for how big the they are and leave the specific weapon up to the player to roleplay.

And anyone know how to fix the big gap ahead of my table?

Thoughts on Free RPG day (or the swag I got and what I think)

Free RPG day has come and gone yet again, and the lucky people got there swag. Before I go onto the break down of what I got I have to toss out my problem with the whole idea, we're preaching to the converted. Rather than reaching out to non gamers Free RPG day seems to me to be more of a pre-Origins, pre-Gencon demo for too many companies upcoming products. If you want to grow the hobby, why put the material where basically only existing gamers go? I mean admittedly there will be some random people walking in, or the tragic gamer girlfriend dragged along that will see something that catches their eye. And maybe some existing gamers will explore outside their comfort zone (ahem D&D fanatics) but there isn't the access to non gamers that is needed to truly expand.

Anyways, bitching is done.

What I got - Fantasy Flight's Black Crusade, Goodman Games' Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, Green Ronin's Dragon Age RPG.

Black Crusade - this is my big winner of the day. Black Crusade is FFGs fourth book to its Warhammer 40K rpg trilogy (yes we are going into Douglas Adam territory). What makes Black Crusade different is the characters, as you play Heretics. Now that means its dead easy to do an evil campaign and play soulless evil monsters, but the cool stories will spring from the fact that the appellation Heretic comes from the Imperium, so this could be anyone from a defeatist trooper to someone with a modern day liberal view. All that matters is that your outlook on the world differs from the official views of the Imperium, therefor you are a heretic. This looks EXTREMELY interesting. The adventure is pretty straightforward, but a nice twist on a jail break adventure, but with combat and interaction.

Dragon Age - this has been an rpg Ive been very curious about for quite a while, as Ive heard very good things about game play, and the stunts idea are quite cool. I had thought that the game was a little closer mechanically to traditional d20 games, but its different. Now I have just enough to ponder material to steal. The adventure is actually quite nice, with a mix of combat, exploration and interaction in it. The main reason that this isnt a top marks product is the fact that the back cover talked about Dragon Age boxed set 2 - it has roleplaying and exploration stunts! I want that!

Dungeon Crawl Classic rpg - oh were to start with this. Its not a bad product, but its definitely not what the cover offers. The rules in the booklet are, well nonexistent. You have brief notes on the differences between the system and both old and new school D&D, and a link to the beta document. I guess my bigger problem is with the weird dice it wants to use - I dont understand the point of adding additional dice. Now on the plus side you get two adventures, though both are written to be brutal, and some very cool artwork.