The Dark Trooper Project for SWFFG

Had a couple folks ask about the Dark Trooper stat blocks I wrote up for the Gamer Security Agency some time ago, especially as attempts to use the Internet Wayback Machine came up blank.  So, in the interest of having the material available for GMs interested in them, I'm re-posting the old material.  Bear in mind these were written before the Age of Rebellion core rulebook came out with FFG's own take on the Dark Trooper (specifically the Phase II model).  I have tweaked a few things here and there, most notably removing the Cortosis quality from the Phase One and Phase Two models, as that was initially added so that the lightsabers of the time wouldn't just instantly brutalize one of these things. 

Dark Trooper Phase Zero (Rival)

 Characteristics

Brawn 3, Agility 3, Intellect 2, Cunning 2, Presence 1, Willpower 2

 Skills

Athletics 1, Brawl 2, Discipline 2, Perception 1, Ranged (Heavy) 2, Vigilance 1

Talents

Barrage 1, Durable 2, Point Blank 1

Soak Value: 6

Melee/Ranged Defense: 0/0

Wound Threshold: 15

Special Abilities: Cyborg Hybrid – this character is considered to be a Droid and follow all the rules for Droid adversaries.

Equipment: Heavy blaster rifle (Ranged [Heavy], Damage 10, Crit 3, Long, Auto-fire, Cumbersome 3), Phase Zero Dark Trooper Armor (as laminate armor), comlink, jet pack

Background: During the early days of the Galactic Empire, the Imperial Stormtrooper regiments found itself in a quandary, as many of its most experienced soldiers were rapidly-aging Clone Troopers.  Rather than accept the loss of these veteran soldiers, the Imperial command gave the green-light to Project Dark Trooper, which was placed under the supervision of Lt. Rom Mohc.  Using extensive cybernetic reconstruction surgeries, the aging Clone Troopers had their bodies forcibly replaced with mechanical parts, giving the Empire a way to continue fielding the battle-hardened veterans of the Clone Wars.  And while the project did accomplish its stated goal, the Phase Zero aspect could hardly be called a success, as many of the converted Clone Troopers attempted suicide in the wake of becoming little better than the “clankers” they had been bred and trained to fight during the Clone Wars.  In spite of this setback, the Empire was able to field an alarming number of these cyborg-hybrid soldiers, being undeniably effective, but as the Empire increased in power and recruiting techniques began to make up for the loss of the Clone Troopers, the decision was made to shut down the project.  However, Lt. Moch would use the effectiveness of this early program and his later influence as a General to reinstate the Dark Trooper project many years later.

Dark Trooper Phase One (Rival)

Characteristics

Brawn 3, Agility 2, Intellect 2, Cunning 2, Presence 1, Willpower 2

Skills

Melee 2, Perception 1, Vigilance 2

Talents

Adversary 1, Lethal Blows 1

Soak Value: 6

Melee/Ranged Defense: 2/1

Wound Threshold: 15

Special Abilities: Droid, Inorganic, Mechanical Being

Equipment: Wrist-mounted vibrosword (Melee, Damage 5, Crit 2, Engaged, Pierce 2, Vicious 1, Defensive 1), wrist-mounted blast shield (provides Defense 1), combat armor (+2 soak) with enhanced optics suite and built-in comlink

Background: The initial production model of General Ram Mohc’s reinstated Dark Trooper Project, the Phase 1 Dark Trooper is essentially a phrik alloy skeleton equipped with a vibroblade and blast shield.  Although the Phase 1 Dark Trooper droids were produced in great numbers, they usually see deployment as sentries at remote Imperial installations rather than seeing use on the front-lines.

Dark Trooper Phase Two (Rival)

Characteristics

Brawn 4, Agility 2, Intellect 2, Cunning 2, Presence 1, Willpower 2

Skills

Brawl 1, Gunnery 3, Perception 2, Ranged (Heavy) 3, Vigilance 2

Talents

Adversary 1, Durable 1, Barrage 1, Lethal Blows 1

Soak Value: 7

Melee/Ranged Defense: 1/1

Wound Threshold: 18

Special Abilities: Droid, Inorganic, Mechanical Being

Equipment: Light repeating blaster (Ranged - Heavy, Damage 11, Crit 3, Long, Auto-fire, Pierce 1, Cumbersome 4), missile launcher (Gunnery, Damage 10, Crit 3, Long, Blast 6, Breach 1, Limited Ammo 6), Dark Trooper battle armor (+2 soak, +1 defense) with enhanced optics suite and built-in comlink

Background: The second phase of General Ram Mohc’s Dark Trooper Project, the Phase Two model stands much taller than its predecessors, and features more complete armor coverage as well as a devastating weapons package in the form of its assault cannon, enabling it to lay down withering torrents of blaster fire or deliver anti-vehicular ordnance as need.  They first saw deployment on the attack on the Rebel Base on Talay, in which a small number of Phase Two Dark Troopers utterly destroyed the base, proving the effectiveness of General Mohc’s droid warriors to even the most skeptical of Imperial officers. 

Dark Trooper Phase Three (Nemesis)

Characteristics

Brawn 4, Agility 3, Intellect 2, Cunning 2, Presence 1, Willpower 2

Skills

Brawl 2, Gunnery 3, Perception 2, Ranged (Heavy) 3, Vigilance 2

Talents

Adversary 2, Durable 2, Barrage 1, Lethal Blows 2, Targeted Blow

Soak Value: 8

Melee/Ranged Defense: 1/1

Wound Threshold:20

Strain Threshold: 12

Special Abilities: Droid, Inorganic, Mechanical Being

Equipment: Light repeating blaster (Ranged - Heavy, Damage 11, Crit 3, Long, Auto-fire, Pierce 2, Cumbersome 4), missile launcher (Gunnery, Damage 10, Crit 3, Long, Blast 6, Breach 1, Limited Ammo 6), shoulder-mounted missile tubes (Gunnery, Damage 8, Crit 4, Long, Blast 6, Limited Ammo 12) or shoulder-mounted blaster cannons (Ranged – Heavy, Damage 10, Crit 3, Medium, Auto-fire, Pierce 1), phrik alloy battle armor (+2 soak, +1 defense, Cortosis, Superior) with enhanced optics suite and built-in comlink

Background: The culmination of General Ram Mohc’s Dark Trooper Project, the Phase Three design is a massive behemoth, standing nearly three meters in height and with a powerful frame to match that was made even more ominous due to its near-black color scheme.  Where the Phase One and Phase Two models were intended to operate solely as battle droids, the Phase Three could also serve as a powered exoskeleton, providing the operator with vastly increased strength and protection.  Additional anti-personnel armament was included by way of a pair of low-yield missile tubes, though the option to replace the missile launchers with a pair of dual blaster cannons was also present.  Thankfully for the Rebel Alliance, only a small number of Phase III Dark Troopers were constructed before the destruction of the Arc Hammer, General Mohc’s personal flagship which served as the primary construction facility for the entire Dark Trooper project.  Still, the Emperor is not known for little a valuable resource go to waste, and while there are no plans to re-initiate the Dark Trooper Project, there are still a number of Phase III Dark Troopers in operation even during the closing years of the Galactic Civil War.

 

From the Vaults - Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game

Thought I'd step away from Star Wars for a bit, and take a gander at an oddball RPG that came out during the 90's, one based on a fandom that I still enjoy even though I don't actively participate in it very much these days.  An RPG that is such an oddball that the parent company and it's more devoted fans will deny it ever existed.

That game is Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game published by White Wolf Game Studio.

Now to be fair, a large part of what sparked this bit of nostalgia was my stumbling across the low-budget fan-film Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist.  Said film (which was done with Capcom's blessing) covers the later part of Ken and Ryu's training under their master Gouken while also delving into the history of both Gouken and the sinister Akuma.  In contrast to the big-budget disasters that were the Van Damme vehicle (the only thing of any value was Raul Julia's hamtastic final screen performance) and Legend of Chun-Li, (which had nothing of value), Assassin's Fist is actually pretty damn good, has a coherent story that makes sense within the setting, and is actually faithful to the source material.  The actors do a great job of capturing the essence of the characters, and the fight sequences are faithful to the moves we see in the games without being dogmatically so.  You can find the entire film on YouTube, and if you're a Street Fighter fan, it's worth the watch.

White Wolf was still in their hey-day with the classic World of Darkness games, with Vampire: The Masquerade being their most popular game by far.  With their focus on telling a story as opposed to the combat-heavy approach of TSR's Dungeons and Dragons, it came as quite a surprise when White Wolf published an RPG based upon the setting of the wildly popular Street Fighter II video game.  Given that their in-house Storyteller system was well known for not being all that great at combat, a lot of folks were curious as to how said system would work for a setting where combat was the main focus.

At the time, I was big into Street Fighter, and had gotten pretty good at playing Ken, the flashier Shotoclone cousin to the more stoic original Shoto-fighter Ryu.  Since I'd also been a long-time RPG fan and generally liked the White Wolf games (this was before they started wallowing in existential angst that soured a number of fans, self included), I was intrigued and picked up a copy of the book from the local Waldenbooks, as there really weren't any gaming stores (friendly or otherwise) in my area at the time but Waldenbooks had a pretty good selection of RPGs that weren't D&D to choose from.
To say the combat system was unusual is probably a bit of an understatement.  To keep things from dragging on I suppose, the designers did away with the attack roll to hit, and instead went straight to damage, rolling a number of d10's equal to their attack's damage value less the target's soak, which was typically their Stamina.  I guess by deep-sixing the attack roll, they also made it so that big, lumbering fighters like Zangief and T. Hawk would have a chance to connect against the smaller and quicker fighters like Chun-Li, Fei long, or Cammy.

As was typical for White Wolf games, the players started as virtual nobodies on the Street Fighter circuit, being fairly fresh in terms of their martial arts training, while the various World Warriors (aka the fighters from the video games) were vastly more capable and powerful in their respective martial arts styles.  To put in D&D terms, the PCs were usually about 1st level while the World Warriors started out at 18th and went up from there.

To account for the variety of special moves that fighters in the video game possessed, White Wolf developed a variety of Special Maneuvers that accounted for a decent chunk of what you'd expect to see in SFII, ranging from the iconic Dragon Punch to Fireballs to Lightning Leg to Flash Kicks and everything in between.  Later supplements added more special maneuvers and new fighting styles.

And while a bit quirky at first, once you got used to how combat worked in this game, it was actually kind of fun, with initiative handled based upon the speed of the combat maneuver each participant was using, with the slowest fighter going first while faster fighters had the option to interrupt at any time with their action.  The RPG keeps the players and GM honest by use of combat cards, of which the PCs will have close to a dozen at the start of their fighting careers.  At the start of a combat round, each fighter picks a card for their chosen maneuver, lays it face down on the table while declaring the speed rating of that maneuver.  When I was running the game back in the day, I just had each player write their speed and maneuvers on a series of post-it notes and then reference the maneuver's full information off a separate sheet rather than fill out a slew of cards, which had the same effect as what the designers intended with the combat cards.

One thing to remember is that this was the 90's, and what information that Americans had about the background of the Street Fighter world was filtered through Capcom USA, so things didn't always line up perfectly with the information that folks over in Japan had available.  So where Japanese fans could learn that Ken and Ryu practiced a hybrid form of karate that was based upon ansatsuken (re: assassin's fist) techniques, here in America we were told that Ken and Ryu both practiced Shotokan Karate (thus the term "shotoclone" for any fighter in a video game that uses moves akin to Ken and Ryu).  It also lead to some humorous translation errors, such as Cammy being revealed to have once been Bison's paramour (in the actual storyline, she's his clone; long story) or lead to wild fan speculation such as Sheng Long being the name of Ken and Ryu's master based upon Ryu's win quote about how his opponent had to defeat Sheng Long (a person) to stand a chance, when really what he was saying was that you had to overcome his Dragon Punch (one of his three identifying special moves) to stand a chance.

Back to the RPG, while the main focus of Street Fighter was combat, in particular one-on-one fights between skilled martial artists, the game setting was flexible enough to allow for a much broader scope.  There was a definite pulp adventure theme to the world, with strange mutants lurking in the dark corners of the world, and a wold-spanning criminal organization in the form of Shadoloo that was responsible for many of the modern world's ills, with M. Bison sitting at the top as the megalomanic in charge of it all.  Of course, this being a White Wolf game there wasn't a whole lot in the way of organized resistance to fight Shadoloo, with Interpol (or at least the Hollywood version of such) being about it, and most fighters frankly not really caring and instead being focused on their own goals.  So while Chun-Li and Guile are both actively trying to take M. Bison down for personal reasons, Ryu is off being a karate hobo and simply wandering around looking for strong fighters to challenge and Zangief wants to demonstrate to the world the natural superiority of Mother Russia.

The players in Street Fighter are typically part of a stable of fighters, often run by an NPC manager (whom the players have to invest points in if they want a capable one) who handles the day-to-day bookkeeping of running the stable and travel arrangements, thus freeing the characters up to follow the needs of whatever adventure the GM has laid out.   While the book presents Shadoloo as a shadowy yet ever-present threat, the campaigns being run don't have to center around taking down Shadoloo, and a GM could run campaigns where there is no sinister organization that's trying to take over the world from behind the scenes.  It is worth a re-mention that this game was released in the 90's, so there's a lot of things that modern society takes for granted that simply didn't exist back then, which gives the RPG a wee bit of an anachronistic feel to it.

However, as quirky and fun as this game was, it didn't last.  White Wolf fairly quietly let the product line drop, and the closest it got to any further mention was the World of Darkness supplement titled Combat, which was an attempt to take the Street Fighter combat system and make it fit their main Storyteller system games.  From what I recall, Combat was one of their less popular titles (possibly because of its origins), and so from White Wolf's perspective that was that.  I've heard stories that if you try to mention the Street Fighter RPG on the White Wolf forums, the poster is either ignored or flamed to the point of leaving in disgust, but since i generally avoided White Wolf back when they were actually producing RPG material, I can't say if that's true or not.  Though given how rabid a portion of their online fanbase can be, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some truth to that story.

Also, if you are intrigued by the idea of a Street Fighter RPG and are curious to check it out, it so happens that group of very dedicated fans took a page from Onyx Path Publishing and their 20th Anniversary editions of the classic White Wolf games to compile the material from the various materials from the long-defunct RPG line into a single volume titled Street Fighter: The Storytelling RPG 20th Anniversary.

Street Fighters Paradise - Street Fighter TSG 20th Anniversary

The PDF covers all the new crunch introduced in the various supplements and makes corrections where needed, with a chapter towards the end explaining the issues the author found along with the change made and what the reason for that change was.  Sadly, this compilation doesn't include the starter adventure "High Stakes" or the four pre-generated fighters that the original core book had, but given it's got all the crunch from several different supplements in one handy place, it's a fair trade-off.

I ran a one-shot for a few members of my Saturday gaming group as we opted to take a brief break from the SWFFG version of the Dawn of Defiance game we're in.  A couple players made their own characters (a massive Sanbo grappler that'd make Brock Lesner look puny and a feisty kickboxing rocker girl heavily inspired by Candy Cane of the Rumble Roses wresting video game) while the two other players used pre-gens (a Capoeira playboy and street-hardened karate punk) from the original core rulebook.  I ran them through High Stakes, which admittedly is pretty formulaic but still fun, and the group did have a lot of fun with it once they got the hang of the combat system, especially with the big tournament fights at the end.  The adventure as written has a fight take place between Guile and Balrog, but as I set the adventure in roughly modern times I figured those two would have retired and so instead had it be a semi-regular Las Vegas event that was hosted by a retired Balrog, with the main eventer instead being his top protege vs. another seasoned fighter (a knock-off of Guile that lost horribly) rather than a World Warrior match-up, along with a few other fights to give the PCs an idea of what some of the more skilled fighters could do.  Luckily I still had a lot of my old notes, including material for generic fighters of various styles to pit the PCs against for their tournament matches.  Luckily the adventure gives the players a chance to warm up to the combat system before their tournament matches, so by the time those bouts took place, they had a solid grasp of how combat worked and what strategies to employ.  There was talk of maybe my running a follow-up adventure at some point down the line, but we'll have to see how that plays out.

So that's my trip down RPG memory lane for this outing.  Like I've hopefully show, the Street Fighter RPG is a quirky yet fun game, perfect for the occasional one-shot to give a group a break, and works best if it's not taken too seriously.

Star Wars Uprising - Suprisingly Fun If Not Revolutionary

As I'm sure most folks interested in all things Star Wars are aware, the mobile app Star Wars: Uprising dropped last week.

I'll be honest, I was not very enthused about the game.  I dislike the "free to play but pay to win" video game model that has become the industry standard, especially where MMOs and mobile app games are concerned.  I'm old school in that I prefer to get the completed game all at once with a single payment.

But, since it's Star Wars and was free to purchase, I figured "what the heck, I'll download the game and give it a try."  After all, it's Star Wars and I'm a self-avowed Star Wars geek/nerd.  At worst, I figured I'd lose a couple hours to the game, and that'd be that.

Well, to be honest I was pleasantly surprised at how generally fun this little game is.  Granted, it's nothing super-inventive; if anything, this seems to be a Diablo type game with Star Wars window dressing.  There's no Jedi, no lightsabers, no Force usage at all in this game... which given it's set just months (if not weeks) after the events of Return of the Jedi, that makes perfect sense as Luke is the only known Jedi Knight in the galaxy.  That might change in later canon, such as the fates of Ezra Bridger, Kanan Jarrus, and Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars: Rebels being as yet undetermined (or at least not yet revealed to the audiences), but as things stand, Luke's it and he's apparently quite busy elsewhere in the galaxy.

Now to be far, I've not gotten all that far in the game (still on the starting planet), but one thing that I do like is that while you may not have a whole host of XP-earning missions you can undertake, the game does offer repeatable side-quests that let you find new gear and crafting materials to upgrade that gear, as well as "crew missions" that you can send various underlings on to acquire credits, gear, crafting materials, and other in-game valuables

The missions themselves have a bit of variety in that you can choose how high on the difficulty meter you want to go; you can play it safe at the lower ends but with not-so-awesome rewards, or you can gamble and take on a higher difficulty with better rewards but a greater chance of being defeated.

Now, this being a free-to-pay game, there are of course options to make in-game purchases, or as TVTropes calls it "bribing your way to victory."  And in a lot of these types of games, if you aren't willing to shell out the extra money, you don't get access to a lot of the high-end content.  So far, Star Wars: Uprising has averted that, at least so far.  Granted, I'm still fairly early in the in-game plot, so there might yet be "juicy goodness" that's locked away behind dollar signs that I've not seen advertised.  Although I will admit there was an offer to buy an NPC astromech for part of your crew that I was sorely tempted to go for, simply for the fact of having an astromech (love those little droids), but chose to abstain.

Like I said earlier, at it's heart this game is a dressed-up Diablo clone, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  It can be a very fun diversion, as the various player missions don't take a lot of time, no more than several minutes tops, so it's something that can be played on the go.  And as long as you take the time to level up your gear, the majority of the missions aren't that difficult to accomplish, so it can also be a fun way to unwind after a stressful day.  And those crew missions I mentioned earlier?  You don't have to be logged in to have those run, so you can very easily check in, collect any rewards your crew members might have earned, and then assign them to new missions.

Another fun factor is that you have a lot of leeway in what abilities your character possesses.  While gaining levels doesn't do much behind giving a static bonus to damage and health, you can acquire various special abilities, such as the ever-useful Hold-Out Blaster that lets you spray death unto your foes or Grenade for an area-damage blast with a pretty short cool-down time.  I've not played around with too many different abilities, as the stock ones you get are pretty useful under most circumstances.

So in short, if you've got a smartphone or tablet that can support it, then I'd suggest picking up Star Wars: Uprising.  It's a fun game with a price tag no larger than what you're willing to spend on those in-game purchases.

The Force is with them (Force and Destiny Pre-Gens)

Happy Force Friday!

In honor of the event, I thought I'd post up a collection of pre-gen characters for use with Fantasy Flight Game's Force and Destiny, the third of the core rulebooks for their excellent Star Wars Roleplaying Game.

Each of these five would-be heroes was built using the rules for starting characters as outlined in Chapter 2, and each have something to contribute to the group in one form or another.   They were also built without a specific group resource in mind, allowing groups to pick the resource that best fits their interests.

Also, rather than just post a bunch of stat blocks, I've opted to simply collect these five characters in a single zip file, each loaded onto a two-page character sheet that I originally found over on the FFG forums during the EotE Beta and have sense extensively modified to account for various changes along the way.

Here's a quick summary of each of character:

Aayla Bondura, Twi'lek Sentinel
A street rat native to the seedy streets of Nar Shaddaa, Aayla is quick-witted and quite adept at getting into places others don't want her in.  She's no stranger to larceny of any stripe, though her many of her past thefts were driven by a need to survive than to hoard material wealth.  Her most valued possession is one that she lifted from an unsuspecting traveler, who had a secret that upon being revealed lead Aayla to rethink the course of her life and maybe see if she can be a better person than she was.

Loh Plund, Kel Dor Consular
While the Jedi are all but extinct, other Force traditions with equally long histories continue to exist beneath the Empire's notice.  Loh Plund is a student of the Baron Do Sages, having learned much of the Force, both the lore surrounding its many mysteries as well as a variety of Force powers.  Although there is still much for him to learn, Loh has left his studies to pursue a Force vision that he believes will guide him to his true destiny.

Oshaka Avros, Togruta Mystic
Strong-willed yet well-spoken, regal yet approachable, Oshaka is a natural speaker and a voice of reason.  At one time she hoped to become a leader among the people of her homeworld, but an altercation with an Imperial officer has required her to leave her old life behind.  She is an outspoken proponent of tolerance and equality, preferring peaceful solutions to violence, but that doesn't mean Oshaka will simply cower when threatened.

Tyron Roke, Human Warrior
A young man with strong views on right and wrong that are possibly as naive as they are noble, Tyron is determined to live up to the example set by the Jedi Knights of old, when they were defenders of peace and justice.  Though he only has the barest of training in the Jedi arts, Tyron is determined to use what abilities he has to stand against tyranny and oppression.

Zur Bukk, Zabrak Guardian
Tatooine tends to bred two types of people, those shifty enough to do whatever it takes to survive and those hardy enough to survive whatever the galaxy throws at them.  Zur is definitely one of the later, his rough upbringing and combat prowess making him sturdy enough to weather any storm.  Though he's left his homeworld behind him, Zur still acts as a protector to those in need.

Force and Destiny Pre-Gen Character Sheets