Last week, I took my big box of Mordheim terrain, minis etc. over to Rod's on a Thursday night. I was on vacation and school had just gotten out for summer. What started as a couple of games kind of kept going. At first B. played too, then she fell asleep on the couch while the DVD of Transformers and Beast Wars played over and over. Rob's orcs, though a large warband, were out-shot and out-fought by Rod's skaven, as were my Osterlanders (Shane used them once) and my old lizard men. Uh, we kind of kept playing. Rob tried his Vampire Count, but that didn't work out against the skaven either. Rod's been playing skaven for a long time, and he seems to have it figured out. All heroes, no hired swords. Three melee specialists with swords and tail fighting when they get the skills. Three ranged specialists with braces of warplock pistols and eagle eye for distance when they get the skills. Infiltration, which can single handedly help win a lot of the scenerios. Dawn came, as did a couple of actual deer into the yard (yes, fawns downtown). By sunrise my lizardmen warband rating had gone from the 140's to the 200's, but they didn't win even once, and my Kroxigor failed his survival check. Man I love Mordheim though.
Today, I ran Star Wars from 2-8 for Phil, Rob, Carson and Marshul. I mostly ran from the old West End Games' Star Wars Planets Collection again. The party went up against the Loag, a cult of assasins on the world of Merisee (p. 156). They defended a biochemist who had hired them for protection from the assasins and from Imperial agents. The main battle was fought in the House of Utozz Prime Brewery, brewers of Merisee Smooth, though the party also fought giant bugs on the steaming jungle of neighboring Meriss III. Jaina, with the help of Marshul's Bothan scoundrel and Cap'n Garrick, was able to locate Parnoz Zedon IV and collect his 25,000 credit bounty. Later, the party risked three black holes and with the help of Forlorn Sky's navigation, made the Kessel run. Garrick bought two tons of spice with the help of a bankroll Jackpot had been saving until needed by the party. After a narrow escape from a large number of well-armed, seasoned pirates, the party was able to get away, achieving something that even gave the great Han Solo difficulty. See more notes below.
XP: 4,000
Ship Fund: Re-assessed. Dobbo the Hutt removed half of the 5 million visible in the ship fund, then Jackpot added 40 million; then 26 million (or so) was spent on spice worth 10 times as much. Also, the cargo hold is more full (about 3/4) of scrapped ships and vehicles than previously thought due to the party's repeated successes and subsequent scavanging. The cargo hold now contains enough vehicles and/or parts for about four starfighters, one hovertank (+1 treaded custom one), one submarine, one air fighter similar to those from the Battle of Hoth, and at least two dozen hover bikes, trucks, and other vehicles. In addition, there are lots of capital ship parts as well as semi-refined ores, as Akbar's Trap is fitted with mining equipment. Though the ship has retractable fuel scoops, there is currently no starship fuel stored on board. But there are considerable personal treasures purchased or saved by PCs and NPCs, including large quantities of computer equipment hoarded by Jarn, droids and parts collected by pretty much everybody (especially Jackpot), luxury goods belonging to Cap'n Garrick, medical supplies of Pieda's, extra man-portable and small vehicle munitions belonging mostly to Jaina, Destro, Forlorn Sky and Archu King. Tools and equipment of Mike Skruyabutavich's. Oh, and the party purchased how many tons of beer on Merisee? I think it was 20 or more... But Akbar's Trap is a medium freighter with about a 200 ton capacity.
Next session: Saturday, July 14, 2-8 pm or so.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Sunday, June 17, 2007
My 85th Post: Star Wars session Sat. 6/16/07
Rod and Rob played Destro and Jaina in my Post-Episode VI Star Wars RPG campaign yesterday. At the urging of their Hutt boss, the party found themselves infiltrating the prothium blaster gas system Killaniri as vendors to the Czerka Weapons Corp. Jarn Thro secured the needed vendor identification codes and ship marking decals. On the world of Mutanda, encircled by dozens of Imperial star destroyers, Pieda flew right in and landed Akbar's Trap at Justa Starport, near another 50 or so light to medium starfreighters. At this underground facility, Destro and Jaina got the lay of the land, mixing company with vendors from Czerka, BlasTech Corp. and Blethern Gas Industries as well as Imperial officers, civilian workers and a few of Mutanda's Horansi natives, who live on the surface largely ignored, except for a few mercenaries, poachers and hunting expedition leaders.
The Horansi are civilized but somewhat primative and resemble great predatory cats. Their tribal conflicts and racial and philosophical differences have split them into the tigerlike Kasa, the lionlike Gorvan, the leopardlike Treka and the pantherlike Mashi. Mostly, their native weapons have been limited to bows and spears. Destro and Jaina met their Gorvan contact, and working with him, they infiltrated and easily defeated his tribes foes in rival Kasa and Treka villages. In return for a more secure Gorvan region and services and weapons delivered by the party, valuable native animals were authorized for offworld delivery. In terms of credits, this will depend on what price this live cargo will bring elsewhere, but 20 tons of live herd, predatory and novelty creatures are now in the Akbar's Trap cargo hold, in return for a mere 2 tons of Hutt weapons.
As it turned out, an elusive Mashi named Sw'isi was an Alliance spy, but unfortunately the network of Imperial spies spread misinformation and used Destro, Jaina and the Gorvan tribe to smoke the Mashi out. But Destro broke in on the Imperial takedown of the Mashi, and after intimidating the entire group with a thermal detonator, he took data discs outlining the local spy networks as well as prothium gas production and delivery information. Using his new flutterpack, Destro flew away clean.
Jaina, with the help of this information, the party and the dirty rotten attorney Milus, managed to freeze her arm on a carbonite prothium processing tank, then sue Czerka Corp. for 1.25 million credits, settled out of court. In order not to submit to this defeat, Imperial agents attempted to apprehend Milus, but were prevented from doing so by Jackpot. Details are unclear, but may involve an unknown gas used in an Imperial star destroyer hallway, and possibly some unknown method of biological memory erasure similar to the procedure used on droids.
Experience: 3,000 xp
Ship Fund: +1.25 million credits, +20 tons exotic animals, -2 tons weapons
Next session: Saturday, June 30, 2007 2-8pm (subject to change)
I saw the brand new Star Wars rulebook. It's pretty straightforward. From what I can tell, the D20 system is getting better all the time. This newest update should streamline the game even more, speed up play and make it even more fun. Personally, since the game sessions I run are very short-story oriented, the rules actually matter a lot less to me as GM than most people would think. I tend to memorize the newest set of rules just by using it and yes, even though I can't really afford to, I try to keep up with the latest set of rules for Star Wars and D&D. In the long run, it's better that way because you don't get behind and you can enjoy each edition for its maximum possible life. So yeah, I okayed Rod and Rob to go ahead and update their characters to latest edition rules. But DON'T WORRY, they're easier if anything, not harder, and characters from the previous edition easily translate just fine. I think I get what Wizards of the Coast is doing with Star Wars: they've found a way to make it quicker for new players to create a character, while at the same time making it easier for veteran players like us to customize our characters more easily than before. I especially like the section on Droids. I could have a lot of fun with the Droid building guidelines.
Whew. All of that being said, for the session I ran yesterday, I referred to one of my old West End Games references, the Star Wars Planets Collection (1994). This book, like the GURPS Space planetary references, is good enough that you can open to just about any random page and have plenty of fresh ideas for a session. All you have to do is ad lib a few things, and you're good to go. So yeah, when it comes to role playing games, I like the newest rules, but when it comes to adventure ideas, the new stuff is great, but nothing is ever too old either so don't get rid of it. I have some old MegaTraveller ideas that I still use. I even incorporate Warhammer 40,000 ideas. I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction, and watch a lot of Scifi Channel also, and I file it all away in my mind, for possible future use of anything in some future session. And yet when I'm actually running a game, I usually start with just one big idea for a session, but I improvise and use a lot of index cards. I add some color and detail but I really try to keep the game moving.
The Horansi are civilized but somewhat primative and resemble great predatory cats. Their tribal conflicts and racial and philosophical differences have split them into the tigerlike Kasa, the lionlike Gorvan, the leopardlike Treka and the pantherlike Mashi. Mostly, their native weapons have been limited to bows and spears. Destro and Jaina met their Gorvan contact, and working with him, they infiltrated and easily defeated his tribes foes in rival Kasa and Treka villages. In return for a more secure Gorvan region and services and weapons delivered by the party, valuable native animals were authorized for offworld delivery. In terms of credits, this will depend on what price this live cargo will bring elsewhere, but 20 tons of live herd, predatory and novelty creatures are now in the Akbar's Trap cargo hold, in return for a mere 2 tons of Hutt weapons.
As it turned out, an elusive Mashi named Sw'isi was an Alliance spy, but unfortunately the network of Imperial spies spread misinformation and used Destro, Jaina and the Gorvan tribe to smoke the Mashi out. But Destro broke in on the Imperial takedown of the Mashi, and after intimidating the entire group with a thermal detonator, he took data discs outlining the local spy networks as well as prothium gas production and delivery information. Using his new flutterpack, Destro flew away clean.
Jaina, with the help of this information, the party and the dirty rotten attorney Milus, managed to freeze her arm on a carbonite prothium processing tank, then sue Czerka Corp. for 1.25 million credits, settled out of court. In order not to submit to this defeat, Imperial agents attempted to apprehend Milus, but were prevented from doing so by Jackpot. Details are unclear, but may involve an unknown gas used in an Imperial star destroyer hallway, and possibly some unknown method of biological memory erasure similar to the procedure used on droids.
Experience: 3,000 xp
Ship Fund: +1.25 million credits, +20 tons exotic animals, -2 tons weapons
Next session: Saturday, June 30, 2007 2-8pm (subject to change)
I saw the brand new Star Wars rulebook. It's pretty straightforward. From what I can tell, the D20 system is getting better all the time. This newest update should streamline the game even more, speed up play and make it even more fun. Personally, since the game sessions I run are very short-story oriented, the rules actually matter a lot less to me as GM than most people would think. I tend to memorize the newest set of rules just by using it and yes, even though I can't really afford to, I try to keep up with the latest set of rules for Star Wars and D&D. In the long run, it's better that way because you don't get behind and you can enjoy each edition for its maximum possible life. So yeah, I okayed Rod and Rob to go ahead and update their characters to latest edition rules. But DON'T WORRY, they're easier if anything, not harder, and characters from the previous edition easily translate just fine. I think I get what Wizards of the Coast is doing with Star Wars: they've found a way to make it quicker for new players to create a character, while at the same time making it easier for veteran players like us to customize our characters more easily than before. I especially like the section on Droids. I could have a lot of fun with the Droid building guidelines.
Whew. All of that being said, for the session I ran yesterday, I referred to one of my old West End Games references, the Star Wars Planets Collection (1994). This book, like the GURPS Space planetary references, is good enough that you can open to just about any random page and have plenty of fresh ideas for a session. All you have to do is ad lib a few things, and you're good to go. So yeah, when it comes to role playing games, I like the newest rules, but when it comes to adventure ideas, the new stuff is great, but nothing is ever too old either so don't get rid of it. I have some old MegaTraveller ideas that I still use. I even incorporate Warhammer 40,000 ideas. I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction, and watch a lot of Scifi Channel also, and I file it all away in my mind, for possible future use of anything in some future session. And yet when I'm actually running a game, I usually start with just one big idea for a session, but I improvise and use a lot of index cards. I add some color and detail but I really try to keep the game moving.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Mordheim, Mordheim & Alternity
Over the weekend I played Roddy's Skaven warband a few times and my Osterlanders kept losing. So I allied with them when we played Rob's giant orc warband (we won, almost entirely thanks to Rod's Skaven). My Osterlander rednecks currently have a rating of about 200, and I just hired two more jaegers and now have 5 heroes and 5 henchmen total, including my third ogre (that's right, the first two failed survival checks) and my second priestess (now the warband only has one spell, bear's paw, instead of the three I was up to before). I still like playing this warband, but I'm seriously thinking about re-building one of my old lizardmen or reichlander Mordheim warbands, or trying one I haven't yet, maybe witch hunters. I miss having lots of crossbows. My old Brettonian group was pretty fun too, with good spells and horses. I don't know. Maybe I should just make my own group of Skaven.
We played Shane's new Alternity campaign at Rod's later on, and my character is basically an alien medic/pilot/hvy wpns guy who is a medivac specialist. His name is Gus, but they call him Mac, and his race look like cybernetic humans. The campaign so far is very military in nature and I think my character will be a useful NPC on weeks when I can't make the game. I wouldn't call Gus well-rounded but for being a new character he's pretty good at what he does. The first session, he made most of his pilot, air vehicle and treat injury dice checks. We are using the original Alternity system, which is weird but elegant in design. You just never have enough skill points.
That was a lot of gaming for me, about 14 straight hours' worth. My usual is about 6. But typically I only play about two sessions a month.
We played Shane's new Alternity campaign at Rod's later on, and my character is basically an alien medic/pilot/hvy wpns guy who is a medivac specialist. His name is Gus, but they call him Mac, and his race look like cybernetic humans. The campaign so far is very military in nature and I think my character will be a useful NPC on weeks when I can't make the game. I wouldn't call Gus well-rounded but for being a new character he's pretty good at what he does. The first session, he made most of his pilot, air vehicle and treat injury dice checks. We are using the original Alternity system, which is weird but elegant in design. You just never have enough skill points.
That was a lot of gaming for me, about 14 straight hours' worth. My usual is about 6. But typically I only play about two sessions a month.
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