From the mists of time; the Dwarf Thing revisted

Long ago, in the mists of 2014, I started a project that I found myself unable to finish; except I did finish it- but I suck at figuring that out- as I’ve recently been informed. The good news is I am going to put it together and re draw all the art and maps- and you’ll get some of my fancy new shit  with all the arrows and text clutter we’ve all grown to love.

Here is a link to everything I remembed to tag. There is more I’m sure. There is a
mega dungeon map at the very least.

The bad news is I’ll need to do like 100 illustrations. Because.
2014 was an exceeding bad art year. Brace yourself, youngling:

http://themetalearth.blogspot.com/search/label/Dwarfs

BX mars, final update

Mars went to the copy editor a few days ago layout is 8/10ths done and the cover art is below. The next time we’ll see anything about it here will be when we look at the proof in a month or so.

Star Wars AP 1

Star Wars AP

Session 1

Escape from Hoth:

Start: The Battle of Hoth

Taken from the front during the heat of battle, Lay-Sinn, the soldier and Gauge, the failed Jedi, were suddenly tasked with escorting Commander Danu, a pilot,  to his ship: The Distant Hope, an ancient Old Republic fast attack boat.

The officer who assigned this mission died in an ice fall seconds later. Danu took a fatal wound on the way to the ship, and barely remained alive long enough to make  the jump to light speed. 

Before he died the pilot imparted his mission onto Lay-Sinn and Gauge.

They were to find a world suitable for the new rebel base. The next step in their mission was to visit the planet Trinn, a water world and meet with an agent residing on the planet’s only island, in the planet’s only city: Port One.

The DH came out of light speed near Trinn; endured an inattentive imperial boarding party’s half assed search, and made landfall at Port One.

After leaving the ship the pair went to meet their contact at a fast food restaurant; a note passed to them told them to seek out Krusk in Pipe-town, deep beneath the surface, on the city’s lowest level. 

A few inquiries led them to Krusk, who gave the pair a computer storage crystal with the additional details of their mission and the course to a planet in a distant and little known sector at the galaxy’s rim. 

 As they left Krusks, a short distance down the pipe way, a gravity lift opened, discharging a squad of storm troopers led by Lorquin Qu’all, minor lord of the Sith. 

To be continued...

EDIT: Ref notes: the game was easily played although slowed by a little by page flipping; which is not to be unexpected in a first session. The second sessions way cooler. 

Fractal Setting Three: Pyramid of Empire (Star Wars Part 1)

Fractal setting Creation three: 

A familiar example: Star Wars Part 1

The Empire

The Empire’s Pyramid: 

1.Emperor

2.Vader/Moff Tarkin/ Aristocracy*

3 Organized crime; (formerly)the senate.

4. Top brass military officers- the guys Vader likes to choke

5. Military Personnel: Officers and administrative staff.

6. Enforcers: Stormtroopers; cops.

7. Citizens

8.Droids/slaves

Excepting the emperor, each category has a pyramid of it’s own- and in many cases, pyramids at the same level or even adjacent levels may battle over resources or power- or just as mutual expression of anger and hatred- even the Emperor is not immune. 

*the place of the aristocracy in the empire is ambiguous at best. Assuming it’s old money and and old boy network controlled, a place near the top seems fitting. 

It may or may not be useful to design a similar pyramid for your current setting. 

Of course we can argue about the exact placing below, if you like

Review WEG Star Wars 30th Anniversy Set.

Review: WEG Star Wars 30th Anniversary Edition

My first campaign ever was with FGU’s Space Opera RpG, set in the Star wars universe. However, by the time the actual Star Wars RPG was released, I’d moved on to dating. Before last night, I’d never run or played this system at all. Before last week, I’d never even looked inside one of the books. 

Watching the the Clone Wars show with my son and reading Archie Goodwin and Carmine Infantino’s run on Marvel’s original Star Wars comic rekindled my  interest in in the franchise. I really enjoyed the Force Awakens and (especially) Solo, too. And just out of curiosity, mostly, 

I’ve been looking at this set since before it was actually available. 

Anyway, I scored a big art commission, got paid, split the money with my wife and bought myself a whole bunch of comics- and this game. 

The set includes reprints of Star Wars the RPG and The Star Wars source book.

First physically- it’s fantastic. The slip case is sturdy; the books are hardcover and pleasing to hold. The interior photos and the graphics have charm and communicate an awesome space opera aesthetic. 

The only drawback to the presentation of the game is a separation of some combat stuff between the mechanics chapter and the combat chapter- and a few missing things, or things that should have a heading, but do not; however, this is mitigated to a high degree by thurough cross referencing. All in all it’s a wash. Organization is adequate. 

The system is amongst the best I have ever seen. I’m absolutely taken by it’s simple elegance. 

Another thing about the system and the rules, that frankly blows my mind, is if it happens in the movies and its cool or sounds cool- there’s likely a cool system for it in the game. Can you: Angle the deflector shields; use parsec as a logical sensible measure of travel time; plot a course though Hyperspace in an cool and exiting way; engage in an exciting chase; get snagged by a tractor beam- fuck yeas you can. 

I can’t say enough good things about the system, and there is only one thing I dislike about it and it was easily remedied. 

The PCs are in no way even half as competent as Luke on his first day off planet.  The version of Luke presented in the Sourcebook is an OP demigod, but that’s not even what I’m talking about. You cannot with the system as written create a character that has the skills Luke has when the movie starts- much less Han or Ben. 

This is a weird design choice, and I’ve seen it before- Hollow Earth Expedition PCs are crazy anemic, for instance. This is some kind of “earn your fun” shit that is endemic in RPGs and, frankly has no place in Star Wars.  

Other points of interest. The game has a mechanic to turn you character into an NPC if you do too much terrible shit. 

The environment is friendly to players. Things go their way when it’s possible and sometimes when it’s not.

Referees are strongly cautioned against killing characters 

Finally the book is 141 pages long; with 94 pages of rules and related; a character sheet; 3 pages of charts at the end; 17 pages of character templates; 5 pages on designing adventures and a 15 page adventure. I probably dropped a one in there somewhere. We’re all gonna make it. 

The sourcebook is a collection of descriptions and diagrams of common technology; starships; droids; creatures and aliens. The Wampa failed to make the creature section, but the Taun Taun is in there. Weird. The movie characters are all stated up and are incredibly OP. You’d be all like Mon Mothma, baby, why the fuck they stat you? And then she would hand your entire party and a platoon of storm troopers their collective ass.  

“Don’t call me Baby”

Other than that the source book is really cool. 

Our game was rocking. After months of play testing my own thing, followed by several weeks of trying to sort Icons die mechanic and poorly organized text, it was a relief to play something so well designed and easy to run. Improvisation- something I’m normally not on board for as it limits player agency, if I’m pulling consequences of their choices out of my ass, is very easy in this game, and it’s Star Wars, consequences are pretty easy to work out ahead of time. Further if you hit a rough patch, just toss in something from the movies. I did it like three time last night. We stated during the battle of hoth.  My (home made) encounter tables were mostly stuff that happens in the movies. 1. Pitched battle 2. Ice Fall 3. Wampa; 4 storm troopers; 5 something explodes; 6. Lorquan Qu’all, minor lord of the Sith. 

The characters are now tasked with finding a new planet for the Rebel base. 

  

Which brings us to my final point and another aspect of the game that has only emerged over time- and that is the crazy amount of additional material- and I’m not tlaking about EU stuff or RPG supplements. I’m talking about awesome DK picture/ map books; encyclopedias and art books and all that stuff. It is so easy to stat up creatures, NPCs and ships you don’t really need game books at all. 

Sadly, there are no complex rules on financing a 30 year mortgage for your starship. Otherwise if you’re running a game with a space empire- even some of the most esoteric aspects of the setting, Star Wars are common knowledge. This one campaign (of two that I can think of) where you don’t have to worry about the players not reading the setting material. 

Our cannon (So Far)

Planet Zal (Map, handout)

I was rusty as fuck with supers so the entire first session of our ICONS game was a bust. I retconned the entire thing out of existence.
Anyway,  I made this map that got no real use.

Save Vs Conan: The Monster of the Monoliths

Save Vs Conan: The Monster of the Monoliths

Conan the Barbarian #21, December, 1972

Roy Thomas/ Barry Windsor Smith

The Makkalet Epic chronicles the siege of the titular city. It runs through issues 19-26 of Conan the Barbarian. It’s a flurry of battles; captures and escapes. Conan switches sides a couple of times, and leaves the entire area only to return more than once, too. These are the last of BWS issues,and the first of John Buscema’s. Red Sonja makes her first appearance in issue 24 (BWS’ last).  

In issue 21, after getting the sexy-eye and a fancy armlet from the queen Conan leaves Makkalet with a band of soldiers, bound for  an ally of the city to request aide. The soldiers stop along the way. They kidnap some hapless girl and tie both her and Conan to slabs of stone set between two large stone blocks. A giant frog thing is summoned and it kills a bunch of guys- but seems really focused on Conan. The armlet given to him by the queen has the exact same runic markings as the monolith. Both sets of script are glowing. Conan realizes the armlet attracts the monster. He tosses it to one of the soldiers. The frog monster eats the dude and vanishes in a puff of smoke. 

This one seems to be useable in a variety of settings and genres.

Here, however, are the key components:

A traitorous power with lackeys

A poisoned gift(s) (i.e., something that attracts the monster- like the armlet).

A journey with a seeming purpose

A battleground (e.g., temple; center of ring of standing stones; arena; rouge asteroid; highway- really, wherever). 

A monster (e.g., frog demon; warbot; dragon; Hulk, whatever). The entity vanishes, destructs or just leaves after the destruction of the poisoned gift. 

I suggest, that rather than taking all the PC’s stuff and leaving them tied to a slab naked, that the referee use a little more finesse.  Have the lackeys lead  the PCs to the battleground, and leave them there, trapped, somehow; but with gear and weapons intact. The monster should be formidable enough that it wont matter. 

There should be some dark hints and foreboding leading up to all this - and at least one opportunity for the PC’s to suss out the trap. I find that whether the PCs get fooled or not, the results to such a scam are very satisfying on both side of the screen, but only if there was a viable way out at some point. 

Otherwise, it’s cheating. 

Either way- the players are going to want revenge upon the giver of the poisoned gift(s), which will lead to its own set of adventures.