Okay, so got the musings on the Babylon 5 RPG out of my system, so back to all things Star Wars.
Over the past few weeks, LucasFilm/Disney has been releasing info on the main characters of the upcoming Rebels CGI animated series. Now, I'll admit that my initial response to this was rather tepid, as The Clone Wars generally left me cold (I really didn't care for Ahsoka at all, and would have preferred the series to focus on Jedi other than Obi-Wan and Anakin).
But, as details started to come out, I found myself becoming more and more interested. The fact that it takes place in the Dark Times Era (that 19 year time frame between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope) means that the showrunners and writers have a lot more free room to create their stories rather than trying to shoehorn them into the three-year span that was the Clone Wars.
There's also the matter that the lead characters of Rebels are all original characters, so no having to deal with pre-established leads that pretty much script immunity due to needing to appear in later films. The hero list started with Chopper, an astromech that's supposed to be as far from Artoo-Detoo in terms of personality as you can get; Artoo's been compared to a loyal canine, where Chopper is more akin to a cat in temperament. Next was Kanan, the "cowboy Jedi," and while several folks over on the FFG forums were upset that there was a Jedi character in the series, i can't say that I was surprised. While FFG may have pushed Jedi PCs to the third rulebook (Force & Destiny), Jedi remain one of the most identifying elements of the Star Wars franchise. However, Kanan is something of a "failed Jedi" in that while he survived Order 66, he's largely given up on being a Jedi, even going so far as to lock away his lightsaber.
The next character to be revealed gave me reason to chuckle. Said character, Ezra Bridger, has been described as a street smart kid with untapped Force abilities... which is almost exactly the character I've been playing in a Sunday Skype game. About the core difference is that while Ezra is pretty much clueless about the Force (he's only aware of his abilities as something that helps him get out of a tight spot), my character Valin was aware of the Force, being fortunate enough to receive a bit of training from a Jedi that survived Order 66 (I figure said tutor was a Padawan that managed to go underground rather than a Knight or full-fledged Master). I know the similarities are very much accidental, but it still amused me.
There had been some concern from a few of the female Star Wars fans that I follow on Twitter (such as dunc of Club Jade and Amy Ratcliffe) that so far, all we'd seen were the guys, particularly after the ToyFair convention at which the only Rebels toys shown were for male characters, with only a few hints at a female Mandalorian as a new character. Well, that's now changed as Sabine (female Mando explosive expert/graffiti artist) and Hera (Twi'lek pilot and "team mom" that's sensibly dressed) have gotten their official introductions. There was a bit of concern that Sabine's introduction used a lot of feminine buzzwords such as "sassy" and "feisty" and "kind of a tomboy", but I think it bears mentioning that the person using those words was the voice actress portraying the character, while Dave Filoni instead focused on her being a Mandalorian and thus an expert fighter, while a few others expressed the cool factor of having a character that expresses themselves through art.
I must say, out of the characters, the two that I'm most interested in are Ezra and Sabine. Ezra because frankly I enjoy playing teenage characters, particularly Force-sensitives when it comes to Star Wars RPGs; I've only played one character in various Star Wars RPGs that wasn't a young Force-user that wasn't for a one-shot using pre-gen characters. Plus, I've already been playing a character very similar to Ezra, so it should be fun to imagine to myself "how would Valin handle this situation?" while watching the show. I do agree that his look and backstory does merit the nickname "Space Aladdin," but given that I found Disney's Aladdin to be an enjoyable character, it's a comparison that doesn't bug me.
And Sabine because frankly, she looks to be something that the Star Wars franchise has been missing for a while... a strong female lead. Princess Leia is a well-known character for a damn good reason, and has been cited as a role model for young girls as she's managed to be strong-willed and capable in addition to being a princess and being attractive without being reduced to mere fanservice (the slave bikini in RotJ only coming about due to Carrie Fisher asking for an outfit that let her show off her figure). With Sabine, you've got an attractive young woman that's wearing armor (no exposed midriff) that's capable of kicking butt right alongside Kanan and Zeb. In fact, she'd probably make a great basis for an RPG character in and of herself. Earlier today I gabbed with a female gamer that (sadly) has sense moved out of the area, and she expressed a lot of enthusiasm for Sabine, even going so far to say that she regretted the move simply because she's not had any luck finding a new gaming group. Which led to us discussing over Skype how to go about building Sabine as a PC.
Speaking of RPGs, what's interesting about the crew from Rebels is that on the surface, they look to be more at home in an Edge of the Empire style of game than an Age of Rebellion one. The party is operating out of a light transport (The Ghost, a VCX-100), waging their own battle against the Empire. Going by the Age of Rebellion Beta, a lot of the focus is on the PCs being a part of the Rebel Alliance and having notable support from the Alliance, particularly as they complete various missions. However, having played the WEG version of Star Wars back in the day, the set-up of Rebels sounds very much like a "Mission Ops Group" as described in Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim. In short, a disparate group of individuals (the PCs) are lumped together into a team, provided with a light freighter (if they don't have one already) and given missions by the Alliance to investigate or derail various Imperial schemes. Since Rebels takes place at a time when the Rebel Alliance hasn't quite formalized yet (or at least is not as we see them in the films), it makes sense that the crew of the Ghost are mostly operating on their own directives.
There's also the matter that Greg Weisman is one of the executive producers of the show, and given how much I've enjoyed his work, particularly on Gargoyles, Spectacular Spider-Man, and Young Justice, I'm hoping for the excellent characterizations for both heroes and villains that his shows have provided. Though sadly, for all the talk of Joss Whedon getting screwed over by Fox in regards to Firefly (he was), Greg's had it worse, with many of his shows getting cancelled after one or two seasons, or going down the tubes if the show does make it past that two season mark (Gargoyles: Goliath Chronicles is a prime example of that). I'm really hoping that Star Wars: Rebels bucks that trend, lasting for more than two seasons and maintaining a decent level of quality along the way.
Back to things pertaining to Star Wars RPGs, despite an earlier promise to myself that I was done and through with it, I've found myself returning to the Unofficial Species Menagerie, reviewing and revising a number of species as well as adding some new ones to the roster. But I guess there must be something in the air, as my co-author on the project, Ben "Cyril" Erickson has gotten a similar urge to review his own contributions and devise a few new ones. There's no telling when this would be finished, though I suspect it'll be a while.
I've also been poking around with my Ways of the Force supplement, in particular the Jedi Initiate. Being able to get some actual play-time with the spec has lead to seeing where things could certainly be changed and revised, which I've done. I'm also exploring taking some of the "minor powers" that I'd introduced and fleshing them out into full-blown Force power trees. One of them has turned out pretty good, while the other is still very much a "work in progress." Of course, what's going to make this interesting is that if the pattern holds true, then FFG should be releasing the Force & Destiny Beta rulebook at this year's GenCon.
Lastly, and I'm ashamed to admit this, but working on my contribution to Order 66 Kickstarter backer rewards had (until recently) stalled out. I'd hit a number of snags, including losing a nearly-finished copy of the adventure once and narrowly avoiding losing my computer entirely, as well as hitting a (brief) span of time where I simply didn't want much to do with Star Wars RPGs. Plus, it's hard to want to stare at a computer screen when you've just gotten home from a job that requires you to spend most of your day staring at a computer screen and trying to solve and sort out the problems that other people have created. But, things have improved, as I've gotten over a major hurdle in the adventure's second act, and I've gotten a good start on the third and final act, which should go much smoother in terms of getting it written. Of course, the issue becomes finding the time to write it, but with a bit of luck, I should have this done much sooner rather than a lot latter.
Also, it's only a few more weeks until I board a plan to head to Fort Worth, Texas to attend GamerNationCon, aka 3 Days of Gaming Goodness. I'm looking forward to this, more to meet and hangout with folks that I mostly know through the d20 Radio Forums, but also for a chance to get some Star Wars gaming in, something I've not been able to really do since the Sunday game I was in went on hiatus. I'm also running a couple of events and even helping table a seminar on RPG writing, so if nothing else I'll at least have those to keep me busy.
My next post will probably be in the wake of GNCon (at least at the rate I post on this blog), so see you in March.
February 22, 2014
Babylon 5 RPG - a few thoughts and rambling considerations
Yep, February. Dismal month, with cold temps and lots of snowfall that needed to be cleaned up.
Most of my recent gaming posts have had to do with Star Wars RPGs, specifically FFG's Edge of the Empire, so I thought I might ramble a bit about a different sci-fi RPG setting, one that I've enjoyed quite a bit.
Like the subject line says, the RPG in question is the Babylon 5 RPG published by Mongoose Publishing, particularly the 2nd edition. For me at least, this was the version of the game where things really started to gel into making this it's own RPG instead of yet another D&D knock-off.
For those of you that don't know about Babylon 5... shame on you. It's one of the first TV series to prove that you could have a multi-season story arc built around an ensemble cast with elements from the earlier episodes tying back to episodes from later seasons. It could easily sustain multiple plot arcs that while separate were not wholly divorced from the overall story. It had characters grow and evolve over the seasons. As the character G'Kar said during the first season,"Nobody here is exactly what they seem."
So onto the RPG, of which I've been re-reading due to a very high likelihood of getting to play this game for more than just a handful of sessions (hopefully). The setting of Babylon 5 is a tricky one to bring to the gaming table, especially for being a d20 system. When most folks here "d20 system" they tend to conclude that said game is focused predominantly upon combat. But in B5, trying to simply brute-force your way to the solution isn't going to work; yes, there are times when a fighting pike or a PPG will help, but the series more often required the cast to out-think the opposition, or to come up with novel and unusual ways to achieve victory; when the latest Shadow War started, nobody in-series would have even begun to think of trying Sheridan's method to win the war for all time.
Personally, I think the best setting for a Babylon 5 campaign is after the events of the TV series. Even if you take the short-lived Crusade series into mind, there's a nice five year window where the galaxy is in a relative state of peace, and the younger races are just starting to learn what it means to truly be in charge of their own destinies. There's no major galaxy-spanning villains to be found, and the Interstellar Alliance is still in its infancy, though it does benefit from the leadership of Sheridan and Delenn as well as the support of the Rangers. Even if the station itself doesn't make an appearance in your campaign, the fact that there's no scripted material for events taking place after the series helps give both GMs and players a greater sense of freedom in what sort of games they might like to run/play. I know that there are supplementary books and other TV series that take place after the main series, but most of those can be easily and safely dismissed as "non-canon" for a GM's game.
One major challenge for a GM is one that often crops up in many RPGs... what exactly brings an EarthForce fighter jock, a Narn soldier, a Minbari telepath, and a Human covert agent into being a group? With most fantasy RPGs, there's the common thread of "professional adventurers" in that their common goal is to find vicious monsters and slaughter them for XP and loot. It's probably for the best that the GM have a basic structure in mind for their campaign, and let the PCs know about it so they can design characters with an eye towards "why would my PC take part in this?"
On the crunch side of things, there's some very interesting changes. One immediate change is that the base classes are limited to 10 levels each; much like in d20 Modern, if you want to go beyond 10th level, you'll need to multi-class in order to pull it off. Another big change is that hit point totals are a lot lower than you'll find in pretty much any other d20 game; most characters will be lucky to have more than 10 hit points at 1st level, and it'll be a great many more levels before they can really hope to break 20, much less 30. Seeing as how the average handgun in this game does 2d6 damage, the system reflects how the lead characters in the TV series made finding cover one of their top priorities when a firefight broke out.
Several skills have been combined into a macro skill, making things a bit easier on PCs that want to be good at certain things, enabling them to do so without having to spread their skill points too far around. These combinations include such popular things as rolling Spot and Listen into Notice as well as Balance and Tumbling into Acrobatics. The game also accounts for this being a future setting, with new skills to govern dealing with technology or conducting various actions that wouldn't occur in your typical D&D fantasy setting.
Telepaths were a notable element of the B5 series, being very powerful as it was incredibly difficult for mundanes to block a telepath's abilities. The RPG reflects that, and the higher a telepath's P-rating (roughly how strong a telepath is), the harder it becomes for a mundane to block them. In an interesting arrangement, telepath PCs pretty much start out with access to all the telepathic powers presented, both in the core rulebook and in the Lurker's Guide to Telepaths supplement (which I suggest picking up if you can, as it adds a lot of options for PC teeps). Of course, the drawback is that certain telepath powers require the user to have a minimum P-rating in order to pull them off; while a telepath can "push" their abilities to a limited extent, a lot of the really major powers are probably going to remain out reach of most telepath PCs, particularly if they don't take advantage of the Telepath class' 1st level option to forego a bonus feat in exchange for a hefty boost to their P-rating.
But while going through the book, I noted some things that were part of why I grew dissatisfied and generally disinterested in most d20 systems (Star Wars Saga Edition being the major exception). There was the "favored class" restriction, which for a game that seems structured to favor and encourage multi-classing felt unnecessarily restrictive. And most importantly, there was the skill point system, which again was problematic for a game where your skills are far more important to solving a crisis than your attack bonus or weapon selection or even telepathic powers.
Oddly enough, I found myself looking to Paizo's Pathfinder for solutions to some of those issues. For starters, the skill system could easily be replaced with the Pathfinder system, which simply does away with the Level+3 cap for skills and increased cost for cross-class skills, and instead uses a flat cost of 1 skill point per rank, and with class skills getting a +3 bonus to the check modifier. To be honest, this is the one thing I truly liked about Pathfinder, and something I'd probably carry over into any d20-based game I were to run that wasn't Saga Edition.
The other Pathfinder solution was how they handled favored classes, which simply does away with the penalty aspect and instead provides the PC their choice of a bonus skill point or a bonus hit point if they take a level in their favored class. While Pathfinder simply cites that whatever class you took at first level is your favored class, for Babylon 5 RPG I might consider keeping the favored classes listed for each of the races, with Humans using the "class at first level is your favored class." Since this is a game that's more focused on your skills, I could see players opting for that extra skill point, although the extra hit point would be enticing given the low hit point totals that I mentioned earlier.
Now, I've gotten to play this game a few times before, in a rather short-lived campaign set around the time of the Crusade series and based around Andromeda Station, an Earth Alliance station that served as both EarthForce staging point and trade center; sort of like a mini-B5, but lacking the diplomatic importance of the titular station. Our group was comprised of 3rd level characters, with myself playing a Human Ranger that was on undercover assignment to investigate a smuggling cartel that was rumored to be dealing in Shadow technology.
Now, by the end of the first session, the simple fact that combat is so dangerous was made very clear when the Narn soldier/bodyguard rushed out to face a trio of thugs armed with cheap PPG pistols. The Narn was critically wounded and crippled by the end of the first volley, having not even managed to get within 20 feet of the thugs; it was a fact that the Centauri exiled noble took a great deal of delight in, given the almost instant animosity between the two characters (in-game only, the players were long-time friends in real life). It was through employing Batman-like tactics that my Ranger was able to take down two of the thugs, freeing up the Centauri and the Human bounty huntress to dispatch the third one... and they never knew I was there ;) We only played one additional session after that before we opted to move onto something else (what it was, I don't remember), so there were a lot of potential plot hooks that never got resolved, such as the Centauri exile trying to clear the name of his noble house, the bounty huntress to track down a war criminal that she had some personal history with, or my Ranger's mission to find out just what those smugglers were dealing in. A shame really, as there undoubtedly could have been some great stories told in that campaign.
So, as mentioned prior, odds are certainly looking to be in my favor of playing this game again. I've already had made the two Pathfinder-based suggestions to the GM, and he was certainly in favor of them. He did mention about maybe bringing in the Combat Maneuver system from Pathfinder as well to replace the grapple/disarm/trip business that's caused no shortage of headaches for d20 gamers, but that remains to be seen. There hasn't been much talk about what the campaign is going to be about, which does have me concerned a little given what I mentioned before about how a widely disparate group of characters can lead to some issues in the game's direction. However, the GM is a friend of mine, and I'm willing to trust his discretion on this. Though admittedly part of that is that he's approved my re-purposing my Human Ranger from the prior campaign for this one, making the necessary updates to bring him to 4th level and to account for using the Pathfinder method of skills. I figure I'm going to wind up taking the bonus skill points for staying in my character's favored class, since to be a competent Ranger you need to cover a lot of ground when it comes to skills.
So far I only know of one other character, that one being a female Human telepath. Given the player in question has a habit of playing social-savvy femme fatales (seriously, I can count on one hand the number of character she's played that weren't that), I suspect she'll be a high Charisma hottie and likely adept at using her telepathic prowess to enhance her social acumen. There's also been a running gag that when she and I are in the same game, our PCs tend to hook-up; given that she'll be a telepath and I'm playing a Ranger, be interesting to see how that shakes out.
Most of my recent gaming posts have had to do with Star Wars RPGs, specifically FFG's Edge of the Empire, so I thought I might ramble a bit about a different sci-fi RPG setting, one that I've enjoyed quite a bit.
Like the subject line says, the RPG in question is the Babylon 5 RPG published by Mongoose Publishing, particularly the 2nd edition. For me at least, this was the version of the game where things really started to gel into making this it's own RPG instead of yet another D&D knock-off.
For those of you that don't know about Babylon 5... shame on you. It's one of the first TV series to prove that you could have a multi-season story arc built around an ensemble cast with elements from the earlier episodes tying back to episodes from later seasons. It could easily sustain multiple plot arcs that while separate were not wholly divorced from the overall story. It had characters grow and evolve over the seasons. As the character G'Kar said during the first season,"Nobody here is exactly what they seem."
So onto the RPG, of which I've been re-reading due to a very high likelihood of getting to play this game for more than just a handful of sessions (hopefully). The setting of Babylon 5 is a tricky one to bring to the gaming table, especially for being a d20 system. When most folks here "d20 system" they tend to conclude that said game is focused predominantly upon combat. But in B5, trying to simply brute-force your way to the solution isn't going to work; yes, there are times when a fighting pike or a PPG will help, but the series more often required the cast to out-think the opposition, or to come up with novel and unusual ways to achieve victory; when the latest Shadow War started, nobody in-series would have even begun to think of trying Sheridan's method to win the war for all time.
Personally, I think the best setting for a Babylon 5 campaign is after the events of the TV series. Even if you take the short-lived Crusade series into mind, there's a nice five year window where the galaxy is in a relative state of peace, and the younger races are just starting to learn what it means to truly be in charge of their own destinies. There's no major galaxy-spanning villains to be found, and the Interstellar Alliance is still in its infancy, though it does benefit from the leadership of Sheridan and Delenn as well as the support of the Rangers. Even if the station itself doesn't make an appearance in your campaign, the fact that there's no scripted material for events taking place after the series helps give both GMs and players a greater sense of freedom in what sort of games they might like to run/play. I know that there are supplementary books and other TV series that take place after the main series, but most of those can be easily and safely dismissed as "non-canon" for a GM's game.
One major challenge for a GM is one that often crops up in many RPGs... what exactly brings an EarthForce fighter jock, a Narn soldier, a Minbari telepath, and a Human covert agent into being a group? With most fantasy RPGs, there's the common thread of "professional adventurers" in that their common goal is to find vicious monsters and slaughter them for XP and loot. It's probably for the best that the GM have a basic structure in mind for their campaign, and let the PCs know about it so they can design characters with an eye towards "why would my PC take part in this?"
On the crunch side of things, there's some very interesting changes. One immediate change is that the base classes are limited to 10 levels each; much like in d20 Modern, if you want to go beyond 10th level, you'll need to multi-class in order to pull it off. Another big change is that hit point totals are a lot lower than you'll find in pretty much any other d20 game; most characters will be lucky to have more than 10 hit points at 1st level, and it'll be a great many more levels before they can really hope to break 20, much less 30. Seeing as how the average handgun in this game does 2d6 damage, the system reflects how the lead characters in the TV series made finding cover one of their top priorities when a firefight broke out.
Several skills have been combined into a macro skill, making things a bit easier on PCs that want to be good at certain things, enabling them to do so without having to spread their skill points too far around. These combinations include such popular things as rolling Spot and Listen into Notice as well as Balance and Tumbling into Acrobatics. The game also accounts for this being a future setting, with new skills to govern dealing with technology or conducting various actions that wouldn't occur in your typical D&D fantasy setting.
Telepaths were a notable element of the B5 series, being very powerful as it was incredibly difficult for mundanes to block a telepath's abilities. The RPG reflects that, and the higher a telepath's P-rating (roughly how strong a telepath is), the harder it becomes for a mundane to block them. In an interesting arrangement, telepath PCs pretty much start out with access to all the telepathic powers presented, both in the core rulebook and in the Lurker's Guide to Telepaths supplement (which I suggest picking up if you can, as it adds a lot of options for PC teeps). Of course, the drawback is that certain telepath powers require the user to have a minimum P-rating in order to pull them off; while a telepath can "push" their abilities to a limited extent, a lot of the really major powers are probably going to remain out reach of most telepath PCs, particularly if they don't take advantage of the Telepath class' 1st level option to forego a bonus feat in exchange for a hefty boost to their P-rating.
But while going through the book, I noted some things that were part of why I grew dissatisfied and generally disinterested in most d20 systems (Star Wars Saga Edition being the major exception). There was the "favored class" restriction, which for a game that seems structured to favor and encourage multi-classing felt unnecessarily restrictive. And most importantly, there was the skill point system, which again was problematic for a game where your skills are far more important to solving a crisis than your attack bonus or weapon selection or even telepathic powers.
Oddly enough, I found myself looking to Paizo's Pathfinder for solutions to some of those issues. For starters, the skill system could easily be replaced with the Pathfinder system, which simply does away with the Level+3 cap for skills and increased cost for cross-class skills, and instead uses a flat cost of 1 skill point per rank, and with class skills getting a +3 bonus to the check modifier. To be honest, this is the one thing I truly liked about Pathfinder, and something I'd probably carry over into any d20-based game I were to run that wasn't Saga Edition.
The other Pathfinder solution was how they handled favored classes, which simply does away with the penalty aspect and instead provides the PC their choice of a bonus skill point or a bonus hit point if they take a level in their favored class. While Pathfinder simply cites that whatever class you took at first level is your favored class, for Babylon 5 RPG I might consider keeping the favored classes listed for each of the races, with Humans using the "class at first level is your favored class." Since this is a game that's more focused on your skills, I could see players opting for that extra skill point, although the extra hit point would be enticing given the low hit point totals that I mentioned earlier.
Now, I've gotten to play this game a few times before, in a rather short-lived campaign set around the time of the Crusade series and based around Andromeda Station, an Earth Alliance station that served as both EarthForce staging point and trade center; sort of like a mini-B5, but lacking the diplomatic importance of the titular station. Our group was comprised of 3rd level characters, with myself playing a Human Ranger that was on undercover assignment to investigate a smuggling cartel that was rumored to be dealing in Shadow technology.
Now, by the end of the first session, the simple fact that combat is so dangerous was made very clear when the Narn soldier/bodyguard rushed out to face a trio of thugs armed with cheap PPG pistols. The Narn was critically wounded and crippled by the end of the first volley, having not even managed to get within 20 feet of the thugs; it was a fact that the Centauri exiled noble took a great deal of delight in, given the almost instant animosity between the two characters (in-game only, the players were long-time friends in real life). It was through employing Batman-like tactics that my Ranger was able to take down two of the thugs, freeing up the Centauri and the Human bounty huntress to dispatch the third one... and they never knew I was there ;) We only played one additional session after that before we opted to move onto something else (what it was, I don't remember), so there were a lot of potential plot hooks that never got resolved, such as the Centauri exile trying to clear the name of his noble house, the bounty huntress to track down a war criminal that she had some personal history with, or my Ranger's mission to find out just what those smugglers were dealing in. A shame really, as there undoubtedly could have been some great stories told in that campaign.
So, as mentioned prior, odds are certainly looking to be in my favor of playing this game again. I've already had made the two Pathfinder-based suggestions to the GM, and he was certainly in favor of them. He did mention about maybe bringing in the Combat Maneuver system from Pathfinder as well to replace the grapple/disarm/trip business that's caused no shortage of headaches for d20 gamers, but that remains to be seen. There hasn't been much talk about what the campaign is going to be about, which does have me concerned a little given what I mentioned before about how a widely disparate group of characters can lead to some issues in the game's direction. However, the GM is a friend of mine, and I'm willing to trust his discretion on this. Though admittedly part of that is that he's approved my re-purposing my Human Ranger from the prior campaign for this one, making the necessary updates to bring him to 4th level and to account for using the Pathfinder method of skills. I figure I'm going to wind up taking the bonus skill points for staying in my character's favored class, since to be a competent Ranger you need to cover a lot of ground when it comes to skills.
So far I only know of one other character, that one being a female Human telepath. Given the player in question has a habit of playing social-savvy femme fatales (seriously, I can count on one hand the number of character she's played that weren't that), I suspect she'll be a high Charisma hottie and likely adept at using her telepathic prowess to enhance her social acumen. There's also been a running gag that when she and I are in the same game, our PCs tend to hook-up; given that she'll be a telepath and I'm playing a Ranger, be interesting to see how that shakes out.
January 29, 2014
One month in, and not a great start to the new year...
Yeah, about due to make a post here.
Aside from my newish tradition of watching the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition for New Years', this hasn't exactly been an award-winning month.
While the last two sessions with my Saturday gaming group (spent playing Legend of the Five Rings) were a blast, they were tinged with the sad fact that said gaming group is about to go our separate ways, due to most leaving the area for one reason or another, be it job-related or other. I will miss playing my Hare Bushi aka the "killer bunny." That his fighting style could be compared to that of Himura Kenshin (of Rurouni Kenshin fame) was a happy coincidence :)
Speaking of Rurouni Kenshin, I was amazed to learn that a live action movie had been made, combining various plot arcs from the first six volumes into a single flick. And to be honest... they did a bang-up job, with the actor (Takeru Soto) pretty much nailing Kenshin's overall look while retaining a degree of realism (red hair, but not bright red like the anime) as well as getting the attitude down pat. The fight scenes made Kenshin's use of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu to rapidly take down foes both cool to watch and surprisingly believable. Sanosuke was such a boisterous ham during his scenes, and again the actor (Munetaka Aoki) did an excellent job in the role, and though he was a bit beefier than manga/anime Sano, having that kind of build makes sense for a self-taught street brawler. The movie made a few changes (naturally), particularly to some of the villains. Aoshi and the Oniwabanshu were removed, though elements of Aoshi's fight with Kenshin were covered during the storming of Kannryu's mansion, as well as introducing Saito a lot earlier and tweaking Jin-E's role in story while still staying true to the root of the character. The movie is only available in Japanese with subtitles (from what I could find), but that wasn't much of an issue for me, as I'd rather have to read subtitles than deal with sub-par dubbing. So if you're a fan of Rurouni Kenshin, be it the manga or the anime, this movie is worth checking out.
Another plus has been Suns of Fortune for FFG's Edge of the Empire being released. I've not really gotten a chance to really read through it yet, but what I have read is pretty cool. There's not a huge amount of crunch, but the background fluff on the various worlds of the Corellian Sector is pretty neat.
I've been doing some tweaking to my Ways of the Force supplement, mostly as one GM let me know of an issue that came up, specifically in regards to Deflect Blasters and the ability to activate qualities from the attacker's weapon (especially autofire). I've got a few ideas on how to fix this, but the issue now is finding a chance to do some first-hand play-testing.
In other gaming news, ran my first true session of Age of Rebellion (Beta) in a Skype "Rebels" campaign. Intended more as a temporary thing while Ben "Cyril" Erickson recharges his mental batteries before (hopefully) resuming his Sunday EotE campaign. It was a short session, with several nods to Dawn of Defiance's "Traitor's Gambit" module that I don't think my players got (or if they did, they didn't remark on it). While I didn't do a whole lot of in-depth prep, the beauty of this system is that I didn't have to. All I really did was jot down a few bullet points on a sheet of notebook paper (yeah, going old school) and most everything was made up on the fly. Only had three players, but they had fun, which is the main thing.
March will be bringing GamerNationCon, at which I'll be running a Saga Edition game (Tales of the Blue Zephyrs: Jail Break) as well as a Dragon Age RPG game (Duty Unto Death). I've also been asked to help with a "Writing for RPGs" panel, though I suspect my contribution will pale in comparison to that of Jay Little. I'm hoping for the chance to get into some EotE games while there, but mostly I'm looking forward to meeting up and hanging out with longtime friend Linda Whitson and her clan as well as other d20 Radio forumites.
Also got set-up with a VIG companion badge (thanks again to Chris Bradshaw) for GenCon. Having access to the VIG lounge and being able to hit the dealer hall an hour early on Thursday were nice perks, as was getting premium seating for the costume contest.
However, my excitement for GenCon has been soured by the clusterfuck that was the housing system this year. Apparently they decided to try a new system (Passkey), and to call the results "less than stellar" is a gross understatement. Skimming the web, I've seen plenty of posts of people getting booted just as they were about to book a hotel reservation, or simply not being able to access the site at all. Hotel reservations at GenCon have always been a problem, but this year took the cake. I simply gave up in sheer frustration, and find myself hunting for alternate housing options. I've got a couple leads, as well as the back-up of having booked a room at a hotel near the convention center at their "gouge your wallet" prices. I'm hoping one of those leads pans out, as I really don't want to have to pay $400/night for a hotel room.
The job is naturally a job, and has it's ups and downs. This week's been interesting, as staffing arrangements have left me trying to cover a 3-person job, with priority requests showing up left and right, and nobody outside the department really grasping the concept of "sorry, I don't have the time to work on your request." At least my manager and director both understand that I'm trying to prioritize all these priorities and work them as best I can, which helps immensely.
So, that's pretty much been my month. Hopefully your January has had more ups than downs.
Aside from my newish tradition of watching the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition for New Years', this hasn't exactly been an award-winning month.
While the last two sessions with my Saturday gaming group (spent playing Legend of the Five Rings) were a blast, they were tinged with the sad fact that said gaming group is about to go our separate ways, due to most leaving the area for one reason or another, be it job-related or other. I will miss playing my Hare Bushi aka the "killer bunny." That his fighting style could be compared to that of Himura Kenshin (of Rurouni Kenshin fame) was a happy coincidence :)
Speaking of Rurouni Kenshin, I was amazed to learn that a live action movie had been made, combining various plot arcs from the first six volumes into a single flick. And to be honest... they did a bang-up job, with the actor (Takeru Soto) pretty much nailing Kenshin's overall look while retaining a degree of realism (red hair, but not bright red like the anime) as well as getting the attitude down pat. The fight scenes made Kenshin's use of Hiten Mitsurugi-ryu to rapidly take down foes both cool to watch and surprisingly believable. Sanosuke was such a boisterous ham during his scenes, and again the actor (Munetaka Aoki) did an excellent job in the role, and though he was a bit beefier than manga/anime Sano, having that kind of build makes sense for a self-taught street brawler. The movie made a few changes (naturally), particularly to some of the villains. Aoshi and the Oniwabanshu were removed, though elements of Aoshi's fight with Kenshin were covered during the storming of Kannryu's mansion, as well as introducing Saito a lot earlier and tweaking Jin-E's role in story while still staying true to the root of the character. The movie is only available in Japanese with subtitles (from what I could find), but that wasn't much of an issue for me, as I'd rather have to read subtitles than deal with sub-par dubbing. So if you're a fan of Rurouni Kenshin, be it the manga or the anime, this movie is worth checking out.
Another plus has been Suns of Fortune for FFG's Edge of the Empire being released. I've not really gotten a chance to really read through it yet, but what I have read is pretty cool. There's not a huge amount of crunch, but the background fluff on the various worlds of the Corellian Sector is pretty neat.
I've been doing some tweaking to my Ways of the Force supplement, mostly as one GM let me know of an issue that came up, specifically in regards to Deflect Blasters and the ability to activate qualities from the attacker's weapon (especially autofire). I've got a few ideas on how to fix this, but the issue now is finding a chance to do some first-hand play-testing.
In other gaming news, ran my first true session of Age of Rebellion (Beta) in a Skype "Rebels" campaign. Intended more as a temporary thing while Ben "Cyril" Erickson recharges his mental batteries before (hopefully) resuming his Sunday EotE campaign. It was a short session, with several nods to Dawn of Defiance's "Traitor's Gambit" module that I don't think my players got (or if they did, they didn't remark on it). While I didn't do a whole lot of in-depth prep, the beauty of this system is that I didn't have to. All I really did was jot down a few bullet points on a sheet of notebook paper (yeah, going old school) and most everything was made up on the fly. Only had three players, but they had fun, which is the main thing.
March will be bringing GamerNationCon, at which I'll be running a Saga Edition game (Tales of the Blue Zephyrs: Jail Break) as well as a Dragon Age RPG game (Duty Unto Death). I've also been asked to help with a "Writing for RPGs" panel, though I suspect my contribution will pale in comparison to that of Jay Little. I'm hoping for the chance to get into some EotE games while there, but mostly I'm looking forward to meeting up and hanging out with longtime friend Linda Whitson and her clan as well as other d20 Radio forumites.
Also got set-up with a VIG companion badge (thanks again to Chris Bradshaw) for GenCon. Having access to the VIG lounge and being able to hit the dealer hall an hour early on Thursday were nice perks, as was getting premium seating for the costume contest.
However, my excitement for GenCon has been soured by the clusterfuck that was the housing system this year. Apparently they decided to try a new system (Passkey), and to call the results "less than stellar" is a gross understatement. Skimming the web, I've seen plenty of posts of people getting booted just as they were about to book a hotel reservation, or simply not being able to access the site at all. Hotel reservations at GenCon have always been a problem, but this year took the cake. I simply gave up in sheer frustration, and find myself hunting for alternate housing options. I've got a couple leads, as well as the back-up of having booked a room at a hotel near the convention center at their "gouge your wallet" prices. I'm hoping one of those leads pans out, as I really don't want to have to pay $400/night for a hotel room.
The job is naturally a job, and has it's ups and downs. This week's been interesting, as staffing arrangements have left me trying to cover a 3-person job, with priority requests showing up left and right, and nobody outside the department really grasping the concept of "sorry, I don't have the time to work on your request." At least my manager and director both understand that I'm trying to prioritize all these priorities and work them as best I can, which helps immensely.
So, that's pretty much been my month. Hopefully your January has had more ups than downs.
December 21, 2013
Finally saw The Desolation of Smaug
Have to say that in spite of it being the holiday month, this December has not been all that great. I'll spare folks the drama and just say that there was much sucking of pink twinkies (to borrow a phrase from R2-DToots). Work has been leaving me mentally tapped out, which is probably why a few updates I'd hoped to make in the prior weeks never happened.
Also, the future of the Gamer Security Agency is currently up in the air, with none of the writing staff (those who are left at any rate) really sure what's going on. Wayne Basta, author of the Arestia series of books (go check them out, as they're pretty good) has noted he stopped submitting articles as he wasn't sure if the site was going to just fade away in the wake of former editor Brian "Fiddleback" Casey having moved on to do his own version, the Mad Adventurer's Society... which is pretty much the same thing as the GSA, just without the overwhelming focus on Edge of the Empire material that the GSA fell into.
But enough of my whining. It's the holiday season, and that means Christmas to look forward to. I opted to give myself an early Christmas treat and go see the newest installment of Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, the Desolation of Smaug.
Let me be honest, from the time it was announced it was going to be a trilogy of films, I wasn't a fan of the idea, and truthfully felt that while including material from the LotR Appendices was cool, making The Hobbit into three films felt more like a money grab. Of course, that doesn't mean I wouldn't go see them, having been practically raised on Tolkien, with The Hobbit being one of the first books that I had read on my own.
I'd originally planned to go see the latest film on opening day, but car troubles and lackluster response from the repair shop pretty much nixed that whole plan. And deciding I wanted to see the film sooner rather than later, I opted to brave the Christmas shopping crowds/traffic and head to the theater.
Despite only being the middle film of the trilogy, overall the movie didn't disappoint. I will say that I thought the movie could have done with a lot less time spent on "oh hey, here's Legolas being all awesome and stuff!" I will admit to being leery about the addition of Tauriel to the film, but her scenes didn't feel at all forced, and the scenes between her and Kili were sweet without being mushy. The way that Bard was presented was quite different, and I actually don't mind the change. Stephen Fry as the Master of Laketown was certainly entertaining to watch. The Dol Guldur/Necromancer story arc was also done well, with Radagast making another appearance.
But the thing that would make or break the film was Smaug, greatest of calamaties. While I loved the Rankin-Bass take on the scene and the dragon, I felt the film did it just as much justice. The CGI work on Smaug was incredible, and though processed to sound deeper and more menacing, Benedict Cumberbatch's voicework for the dragon was incredible. Peter Jackson and his crew did an amazing job of bringing life to the old wyrm, and the scenes inside Erebor were excellent. And though a change from the books, it was really nice to see Thorin and company make an earnest attempt to take down the beast; naturally they were doomed to fail, but they get an A for both effort and ingenuity.
One element that I think could lead to an interesting scene in the next film is the fact that Legolas is currently the one in possession of Orcrist, having taken it from Thorin when the dwarves were taken prisoner by the wood elves of Mirkwood. As I said, could lead to an interesting scene where Thorin is either handed back the blade during the upcoming Battle of Five Armies or has it laid to rest when he perishes after said battle. And don't whine to me about spoilers on that last bit; the book's been around longer than I've been alive!
So overall, the movie was very enjoyable, though not without its faults. I will probably wind up seeing it a second time, if only due to taking my mother as I've done with all the prior films, and I won't mind doing so in the least.
Though on a gaming related note, I really do hope that Cubicle 7 can get back into producing and releasing supplements for their One Ring RPG. While I may not be actively playing said game, I do very much enjoy it, and would like to see more of Tolkien's world through the game's filter, as I honestly believe it's the best attempt to reflect the setting while staying true the professor's work.
Also, the future of the Gamer Security Agency is currently up in the air, with none of the writing staff (those who are left at any rate) really sure what's going on. Wayne Basta, author of the Arestia series of books (go check them out, as they're pretty good) has noted he stopped submitting articles as he wasn't sure if the site was going to just fade away in the wake of former editor Brian "Fiddleback" Casey having moved on to do his own version, the Mad Adventurer's Society... which is pretty much the same thing as the GSA, just without the overwhelming focus on Edge of the Empire material that the GSA fell into.
But enough of my whining. It's the holiday season, and that means Christmas to look forward to. I opted to give myself an early Christmas treat and go see the newest installment of Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, the Desolation of Smaug.
Let me be honest, from the time it was announced it was going to be a trilogy of films, I wasn't a fan of the idea, and truthfully felt that while including material from the LotR Appendices was cool, making The Hobbit into three films felt more like a money grab. Of course, that doesn't mean I wouldn't go see them, having been practically raised on Tolkien, with The Hobbit being one of the first books that I had read on my own.
I'd originally planned to go see the latest film on opening day, but car troubles and lackluster response from the repair shop pretty much nixed that whole plan. And deciding I wanted to see the film sooner rather than later, I opted to brave the Christmas shopping crowds/traffic and head to the theater.
Despite only being the middle film of the trilogy, overall the movie didn't disappoint. I will say that I thought the movie could have done with a lot less time spent on "oh hey, here's Legolas being all awesome and stuff!" I will admit to being leery about the addition of Tauriel to the film, but her scenes didn't feel at all forced, and the scenes between her and Kili were sweet without being mushy. The way that Bard was presented was quite different, and I actually don't mind the change. Stephen Fry as the Master of Laketown was certainly entertaining to watch. The Dol Guldur/Necromancer story arc was also done well, with Radagast making another appearance.
But the thing that would make or break the film was Smaug, greatest of calamaties. While I loved the Rankin-Bass take on the scene and the dragon, I felt the film did it just as much justice. The CGI work on Smaug was incredible, and though processed to sound deeper and more menacing, Benedict Cumberbatch's voicework for the dragon was incredible. Peter Jackson and his crew did an amazing job of bringing life to the old wyrm, and the scenes inside Erebor were excellent. And though a change from the books, it was really nice to see Thorin and company make an earnest attempt to take down the beast; naturally they were doomed to fail, but they get an A for both effort and ingenuity.
One element that I think could lead to an interesting scene in the next film is the fact that Legolas is currently the one in possession of Orcrist, having taken it from Thorin when the dwarves were taken prisoner by the wood elves of Mirkwood. As I said, could lead to an interesting scene where Thorin is either handed back the blade during the upcoming Battle of Five Armies or has it laid to rest when he perishes after said battle. And don't whine to me about spoilers on that last bit; the book's been around longer than I've been alive!
So overall, the movie was very enjoyable, though not without its faults. I will probably wind up seeing it a second time, if only due to taking my mother as I've done with all the prior films, and I won't mind doing so in the least.
Though on a gaming related note, I really do hope that Cubicle 7 can get back into producing and releasing supplements for their One Ring RPG. While I may not be actively playing said game, I do very much enjoy it, and would like to see more of Tolkien's world through the game's filter, as I honestly believe it's the best attempt to reflect the setting while staying true the professor's work.
November 29, 2013
Ways of the Force, version 1.2 (and other things)
Greetings, salutations, and various other modes of introduction.
Firstly, for those readers that live in the U.S., I hope your Thanksgiving was fun, semi-relaxing, and filled with plenty of good eats.
As the title notes, I'm now releasing Version 1.2 of my Ways of the Force fan supplement for use with Fantasy Flight Games' terrific Star Wars Roleplaying Game.
Ways of the Force, Version 1.2
On the mechanical side of things, the material takes into account new material and updates from the Age of Rebellion Beta, as well as some reworking and (hopefully) simplification of some of the new Force Powers, specifically the Injure power and the Resist Force minor power. I'm quite pleased with how the specializations are set-up, so not major changes there other than swapping out a talent here and there.
However, the biggest change is in the formatting of this fan supplement. Previous versions have been fairly "bare bones" and going right into the material, with the credits and such at the end. Well, due to various experiences with some of the realities of web publishing, I've opted to change things up a bit in regards to how the document appears. For starters, there's an actual cover page, with the credits page following right after. Also added was a Creative Commons license agreement, something I've added out of semi-reluctant necessity given how one of my other projects was treated as "help yourself and do what you want" due to the lack of the CC license agreement in the document itself, leading to a series of events that I have no desire to repeat.
You might also notice that I've moved away from GoogleDocs and over to DropBox. I've been having some issues with updating and replacing files on GoogleDocs (to say nothing of GD's lack of ability to track how many hits a file's gotten), and so I'm going to give DropBox a shot. I've been using DropBox for a couple minor things, and I've been pretty impressed so far. That and the preview versions of my PDF files don't look quite as garbled or washed out as the did on GoogleDocs. Still, you'll need to download the file to your computer/netbook/tablet/device for it to look the way it should.
As for the other FFG Star Wars RPG fan project, the Unofficial Species Menagerie, going through the process of getting version 3.0 in order was certainly a learning experience. In particular, that I should have stuck with my gut feeling and reached out to the person that I wanted to have do the "prettied up" PDF in the first place instead of the individual that I got stuck working with due to the lack of Creative Commons license issue that I noted above. For all his remarks about my being "unprofessional" (mostly as I was trying to give various artists and authors a reasonable time to respond rather than the "right now dammit!" that he was insisting upon), he certainly screwed several things up, including the spelling of several alien species, and his own attitude was hardly what I'd call professional. Particularly when Brian "Fiddleback" Casey in his role as editor of the Gamer Security Agency started up a separate thread to announce the newest version of the USM being available and the accusation that I deliberately tried to cut him out of the deal, when nothing could be further from the truth as I tried to arrange a simultaneous notification of both the low-resolution and high-resolution versions.
But that is in the past, and I'm happy to say that JegerGryte (check out his blog here) has happily agreed to step up to the plate in getting a corrected version of the Unofficial Species Menagerie. He was my original choice as for who I wanted to work on the "prettied-up" version of the USM for the third version, and his work has been outstanding. He's also shown to have no problems with feedback or about typos, which puts him well above the other guy in my book. As I said, given the quality of work that he's done and the lack of ego in working with him, I really wish I had stuck to my gut and told "thedearth" to sod off. Things are looking pretty good, so keep your eyes on the GSA for an update in the near future.
And speaking of the Gamer Security Agency, things are in a state of flux as near as I can tell. Brian Casey has opted to move on to doing his own version, the Mad Adventurer's Society, and I think his notification that he was stepping down from being the GSA's primary editor has left everyone else a bit gun shy. While the GSA is still up and still running, there's not been a whole lot of new content.
Also, given a listen to the latest episode of the Order 66 podcast "GMing A-Z with Jay Little" featuring the lead developer/designer of FFG's Star Wars RPG, Mister Jay Little himself. There is some great advice on working with so-called "problem player" types, with an emphasis on the "working with" part as opposed to the traditional suggestions that focus more on "dealing with" those types of players.
Firstly, for those readers that live in the U.S., I hope your Thanksgiving was fun, semi-relaxing, and filled with plenty of good eats.
As the title notes, I'm now releasing Version 1.2 of my Ways of the Force fan supplement for use with Fantasy Flight Games' terrific Star Wars Roleplaying Game.
Ways of the Force, Version 1.2
On the mechanical side of things, the material takes into account new material and updates from the Age of Rebellion Beta, as well as some reworking and (hopefully) simplification of some of the new Force Powers, specifically the Injure power and the Resist Force minor power. I'm quite pleased with how the specializations are set-up, so not major changes there other than swapping out a talent here and there.
However, the biggest change is in the formatting of this fan supplement. Previous versions have been fairly "bare bones" and going right into the material, with the credits and such at the end. Well, due to various experiences with some of the realities of web publishing, I've opted to change things up a bit in regards to how the document appears. For starters, there's an actual cover page, with the credits page following right after. Also added was a Creative Commons license agreement, something I've added out of semi-reluctant necessity given how one of my other projects was treated as "help yourself and do what you want" due to the lack of the CC license agreement in the document itself, leading to a series of events that I have no desire to repeat.
You might also notice that I've moved away from GoogleDocs and over to DropBox. I've been having some issues with updating and replacing files on GoogleDocs (to say nothing of GD's lack of ability to track how many hits a file's gotten), and so I'm going to give DropBox a shot. I've been using DropBox for a couple minor things, and I've been pretty impressed so far. That and the preview versions of my PDF files don't look quite as garbled or washed out as the did on GoogleDocs. Still, you'll need to download the file to your computer/netbook/tablet/device for it to look the way it should.
As for the other FFG Star Wars RPG fan project, the Unofficial Species Menagerie, going through the process of getting version 3.0 in order was certainly a learning experience. In particular, that I should have stuck with my gut feeling and reached out to the person that I wanted to have do the "prettied up" PDF in the first place instead of the individual that I got stuck working with due to the lack of Creative Commons license issue that I noted above. For all his remarks about my being "unprofessional" (mostly as I was trying to give various artists and authors a reasonable time to respond rather than the "right now dammit!" that he was insisting upon), he certainly screwed several things up, including the spelling of several alien species, and his own attitude was hardly what I'd call professional. Particularly when Brian "Fiddleback" Casey in his role as editor of the Gamer Security Agency started up a separate thread to announce the newest version of the USM being available and the accusation that I deliberately tried to cut him out of the deal, when nothing could be further from the truth as I tried to arrange a simultaneous notification of both the low-resolution and high-resolution versions.
But that is in the past, and I'm happy to say that JegerGryte (check out his blog here) has happily agreed to step up to the plate in getting a corrected version of the Unofficial Species Menagerie. He was my original choice as for who I wanted to work on the "prettied-up" version of the USM for the third version, and his work has been outstanding. He's also shown to have no problems with feedback or about typos, which puts him well above the other guy in my book. As I said, given the quality of work that he's done and the lack of ego in working with him, I really wish I had stuck to my gut and told "thedearth" to sod off. Things are looking pretty good, so keep your eyes on the GSA for an update in the near future.
And speaking of the Gamer Security Agency, things are in a state of flux as near as I can tell. Brian Casey has opted to move on to doing his own version, the Mad Adventurer's Society, and I think his notification that he was stepping down from being the GSA's primary editor has left everyone else a bit gun shy. While the GSA is still up and still running, there's not been a whole lot of new content.
Also, given a listen to the latest episode of the Order 66 podcast "GMing A-Z with Jay Little" featuring the lead developer/designer of FFG's Star Wars RPG, Mister Jay Little himself. There is some great advice on working with so-called "problem player" types, with an emphasis on the "working with" part as opposed to the traditional suggestions that focus more on "dealing with" those types of players.
November 10, 2013
It's a Good Weekend to Game
You know, for most of this week not being great, the weekend has been making up for it so far.
In all fairness, the past Sunday was a good day, as I was privileged to participate an a proposal ceremony for two good friends of mine, Amy and Tiffany. Tiffany put a lot of effort into making sure it would be memorable for her beloved, and aside from a few very minor hiccups, it went according to plan and I'm sure it will be a day that both of them remember fondly in the years to come. I was particularly glad to have officiated the hand-binding ceremony (which is normally used for neo-pagan weddings but was adapted for wedding proposal in this instance). I must say, the idea of having Amy travel across and around the Capital District on a scavenger hunt to gather the pieces of her Ren Faire gown while in search of her princess, with each stop (mine being one of them) having not only a piece of the outfit, but also a scroll with the clue to the next location and a script that tied into some notable piece of geek culture (Princess Bride and Star Wars for instance) was a very nice touch. Tiffany certainly looked like a princess, right down to the tiara and pink dress, and again it was a very touching moment that I was glad to help out with in any way that I could. Even if it was a frakking cold November night.; man was that fire pit nice to have.
The rest of the week had it's share of bumps, not all of which were work related. Let's just say I learned who some of my real friends were, and for those people, I'm very thankful.
Friday night was a Skype game run by my long-time and dear friend Linda, who has always been nervous about her ability to GM a game. She was even more nervous for this Friday's game, and admitted that she almost called it off, but only went through with it because she had promised to run the Age of Rebellion Beta adventure for us. There was a tad of a rocky start as some technical issues had to be resolved before we could start, and one player (her son) was late due to high school team practice. We only focused on the middle part of the adventure, as the first part is frankly rather dull and really only has bearing if one is going to be running an extended campaign; since this was a one-shot, the personalities at the Rebel base really didn't matter. Once the ball got rolling, and particularly once we got to the meat of the adventure, the entire group had a blast. I feel in some ways that I cheated, as I made a character (Human Spy/Scout) that was almost tailor-made to completing the various objectives that we had, particularly the sneaking about and sabotaging bits of the Imperial base, though by the end of the adventure, everyone got a chance to participate and be awesome. Heck, our Duros Ace/Pilot even managed to make a Piloting (Space) check! But yeah, it was a lot of fun, and was exactly what I needed after the way most of the week had gone.
Last night was part three of what I believe was originally supposed to be a two-part Dragonball Z game. The GM, a fellow fan of the Dragonball series, had asked to borrow my DBZ:RPG books (yes, they exist!) a couple months back, and I did so after digging them out of the storage closet. The books were published by R. Talsorian and used their Instant Fuzion system, and while the core book was certainly very rough, the three books in tandem actually made for a pretty decent RPG, albeit one that shouldn't be taken too seriously. Kinda like the Dragonball Z series itself; DBZ's not a fight anime, it's kabuki theater with a martial arts theme (watch the series with that notion in mind, and you'll find it's far more enjoyable, particularly the Kai version which cuts a lot of the excess dialogue & filler).
I think only one player of the group was actually serious in regards to his character; playing some kind of science super-ninja commando while the rest of the party consisted of Shosen, a comically serious "not an elf!" mystic and Karen Kaori, a teenage female sword master (with typical teenage girl interests such as MLP:FiM merch, boy bands, latest fashions, and shopping as well as being an expert with a blade), with myself playing a tween male ki-powered kung fu warrior. Drawing quite a bit from Dragonball-era Son Goku as well as Son Goten and a touch of Son Gohan, Chris Shiroh was both fun to play (cheerfully naive but not utterly clueless) and a monster in a fight due to his absurdly high Power Level and the fact that I put most of my skill points into combat skills (given the game & setting, not an unusual thing). The GM also had a few changes to the basic rules, stuff that I believe came from the Dragonball X fan supplement that I grabbed off the web several years ago as well as stuff of his own devising, such as a "special heritage" chart that everyone got to roll on using a d6. Haven't seen the chart, but the results were "You get nothing" (roll of 1), a specially-forged weapon (roll of 3 for the teen sword master), starting out with the Kaio-Ken technique (roll of 5 for the mystic), and "unusual parentage" (roll of 6, which is what I got). In retrospect, I probably should have declined or asked to tweak what that parentage meant.
So what was Chris' "unusual parentage" you ask? Well, apparently Goku and Vegeta weren't the last pure-blooded Saiyans in the universe (GM set his game about 500 years after the end of the DBZ series and completely ignored the anime-only GT series), as Chris was a Human-Saiyan hybrid, which meant a much higher starting Power Level than what I already had, and a host of other perks that have proven to make my mighty-mite PC into a pint-size powerhouse, particularly the Zenkai/Near-Death Power-Up. Again, in retrospect I probably should have declined, but since we went in with the expectation that we'd only be playing a couple of sessions, I opted to zip my lip and just play the game.
While those added advantages did enable me to play "Big Damn Heroes" a couple of times, including being the only PC with a chance against the major villain of the arc (particularly due to another house rule the GM to make Power Levels have more bearing on the game), there was the fact that I was playing a combat monster, and anything the GM came up with that would be a threat to Chris would likely wipe the floor with the rest of the group. Something that was proven when the arc villain, a cruel Android warrior in the service of a reformed Red Ribbon Army killed the super-ninja commando without that much effort, leaving the PC feeling (rightfully so perhaps) that he'd been set-up for a fight that he had no chance in winning given the high disparity between their respective Power Levels, especially once the villain (Colonel Chrome) entered "hyper mode" and pretty much became a full grown mountain bear to the other PCs' newborn kittens. Our mystic, Shosen, did prove the Kaio-Ken was useful, since for a while it allowed him to keep rough pace with the Android villain, but folded once it became a case of close-quarters fighting (something that Shosen was not good at). In terms of skill (at least before his "hyper mode") Karen was able to land a couple of hits with her sword just on sheer skill (she's that good!), but it felt like the GM used the existence of my PC and the fallout from a very lucky roll on the Zenkai power-up from Chris getting his butt handed to him during the second session as an excuse to make this one foe an over-powering threat.
Now to his credit, he did provide plenty of other second-string baddies (weaker models of Androids) for the rest of the group to quite happily pulverize (with the science ninja even getting to settle his vendetta with a ruthless female cyborg before getting sent to another dimension), so it wasn't like the rest of the party was just sitting there and watching as Chris and the Colonel slugged it out. I don't know if it's on the Evil Overlord list or not, but "seriously injuring and then threatening to kill the pretty love interest within sight and reach of the hero is not a sound battle strategy" should be added. Yes, Chris has "a thing" for Karen (there's less than two year's age difference), and after seeing one friend/ally killed and his crush about to go the same way... yeah, Saiyan Rage got triggered, and lead to a brutal battle as Chris went from "just barely able to keep up with BBEG in Hyper Mode" to "kicking ass like it was going out of style." We're not sure if we're going to play this game again, as most of us had fun (particularly by not taking things too seriously), but I am leery about just how powerful Chris is in comparison to the rest of the group; it's almost akin to playing tFU's Starkiller with a bunch of low-level PCs. Granted, I can simply choose to "hang back" and not get too directly involved in the action, thus allowing the other PCs to shine (a habit I picked up from playing Force-users in multiple versions of Star Wars RPGs), but there's still the specter of "showy boring invincible hero" to worry about. Which I guess if you stop and think about it, is true to the source material as Goku was often the one true powerhouse that saved everyone's butts in DBZ (ending of Cell Saga being the primary exception).
And the capstone to a weekend of gaming goodness will be the continuation of the Edge of the Empire Skype game I'm in, where I'm playing a nascent Force-sensitive street rat. Sadly though, the game had a few shake-ups in the party line-up, as two players had to bow out due to real life concerns. As rough as this past week has been for me, it's nothing compared to the utter hell that Rikoshi has been put through the past several months, and I hope that things are finally starting to turn around for him; if anyone deserves a major lucky break, it's him. Also bowing out is Nateal, as her focus on completing her college degree for this Spring isn't leaving her much time for much else, which I can fully appreciate and respect. So it will be interesting to see what their replacement characters bring to the table.
Semi-related note, I've been doing some more revisions to my Ways of the Force supplement. The major change that's on the docket is to the "Resist Force" mini-power, which as currently written is far too clunky and cumbersome for such a streamlined rules system. Got a few different ideas to work from, so now it's a matter of finding the time to parse out which one works the best; any way I slice it, there's going to be complications added to the system, it's just finding a way that is as seamless as possible. Another change is to the Injure power. Had folks complaining the damage was too low, mostly as they were forgetting that the target's Soak Value didn't apply when in the heat of combat, so I'm dropping that and just upping the base damage a bit, as well as changing what skill the target uses on the opposed roll; Force-user rolls Discipline vs. target's Resilience, which seems to be working out pretty well based on the limited play-testing I've been able to do.
Well, I think that covers pretty much the highlights. That and I've rambled on long enough (I so did not expect to go on at length about the DBZ game when I sat down to start writing this) for this brisk Sunday morning.
In all fairness, the past Sunday was a good day, as I was privileged to participate an a proposal ceremony for two good friends of mine, Amy and Tiffany. Tiffany put a lot of effort into making sure it would be memorable for her beloved, and aside from a few very minor hiccups, it went according to plan and I'm sure it will be a day that both of them remember fondly in the years to come. I was particularly glad to have officiated the hand-binding ceremony (which is normally used for neo-pagan weddings but was adapted for wedding proposal in this instance). I must say, the idea of having Amy travel across and around the Capital District on a scavenger hunt to gather the pieces of her Ren Faire gown while in search of her princess, with each stop (mine being one of them) having not only a piece of the outfit, but also a scroll with the clue to the next location and a script that tied into some notable piece of geek culture (Princess Bride and Star Wars for instance) was a very nice touch. Tiffany certainly looked like a princess, right down to the tiara and pink dress, and again it was a very touching moment that I was glad to help out with in any way that I could. Even if it was a frakking cold November night.; man was that fire pit nice to have.
The rest of the week had it's share of bumps, not all of which were work related. Let's just say I learned who some of my real friends were, and for those people, I'm very thankful.
Friday night was a Skype game run by my long-time and dear friend Linda, who has always been nervous about her ability to GM a game. She was even more nervous for this Friday's game, and admitted that she almost called it off, but only went through with it because she had promised to run the Age of Rebellion Beta adventure for us. There was a tad of a rocky start as some technical issues had to be resolved before we could start, and one player (her son) was late due to high school team practice. We only focused on the middle part of the adventure, as the first part is frankly rather dull and really only has bearing if one is going to be running an extended campaign; since this was a one-shot, the personalities at the Rebel base really didn't matter. Once the ball got rolling, and particularly once we got to the meat of the adventure, the entire group had a blast. I feel in some ways that I cheated, as I made a character (Human Spy/Scout) that was almost tailor-made to completing the various objectives that we had, particularly the sneaking about and sabotaging bits of the Imperial base, though by the end of the adventure, everyone got a chance to participate and be awesome. Heck, our Duros Ace/Pilot even managed to make a Piloting (Space) check! But yeah, it was a lot of fun, and was exactly what I needed after the way most of the week had gone.
Last night was part three of what I believe was originally supposed to be a two-part Dragonball Z game. The GM, a fellow fan of the Dragonball series, had asked to borrow my DBZ:RPG books (yes, they exist!) a couple months back, and I did so after digging them out of the storage closet. The books were published by R. Talsorian and used their Instant Fuzion system, and while the core book was certainly very rough, the three books in tandem actually made for a pretty decent RPG, albeit one that shouldn't be taken too seriously. Kinda like the Dragonball Z series itself; DBZ's not a fight anime, it's kabuki theater with a martial arts theme (watch the series with that notion in mind, and you'll find it's far more enjoyable, particularly the Kai version which cuts a lot of the excess dialogue & filler).
I think only one player of the group was actually serious in regards to his character; playing some kind of science super-ninja commando while the rest of the party consisted of Shosen, a comically serious "not an elf!" mystic and Karen Kaori, a teenage female sword master (with typical teenage girl interests such as MLP:FiM merch, boy bands, latest fashions, and shopping as well as being an expert with a blade), with myself playing a tween male ki-powered kung fu warrior. Drawing quite a bit from Dragonball-era Son Goku as well as Son Goten and a touch of Son Gohan, Chris Shiroh was both fun to play (cheerfully naive but not utterly clueless) and a monster in a fight due to his absurdly high Power Level and the fact that I put most of my skill points into combat skills (given the game & setting, not an unusual thing). The GM also had a few changes to the basic rules, stuff that I believe came from the Dragonball X fan supplement that I grabbed off the web several years ago as well as stuff of his own devising, such as a "special heritage" chart that everyone got to roll on using a d6. Haven't seen the chart, but the results were "You get nothing" (roll of 1), a specially-forged weapon (roll of 3 for the teen sword master), starting out with the Kaio-Ken technique (roll of 5 for the mystic), and "unusual parentage" (roll of 6, which is what I got). In retrospect, I probably should have declined or asked to tweak what that parentage meant.
So what was Chris' "unusual parentage" you ask? Well, apparently Goku and Vegeta weren't the last pure-blooded Saiyans in the universe (GM set his game about 500 years after the end of the DBZ series and completely ignored the anime-only GT series), as Chris was a Human-Saiyan hybrid, which meant a much higher starting Power Level than what I already had, and a host of other perks that have proven to make my mighty-mite PC into a pint-size powerhouse, particularly the Zenkai/Near-Death Power-Up. Again, in retrospect I probably should have declined, but since we went in with the expectation that we'd only be playing a couple of sessions, I opted to zip my lip and just play the game.
While those added advantages did enable me to play "Big Damn Heroes" a couple of times, including being the only PC with a chance against the major villain of the arc (particularly due to another house rule the GM to make Power Levels have more bearing on the game), there was the fact that I was playing a combat monster, and anything the GM came up with that would be a threat to Chris would likely wipe the floor with the rest of the group. Something that was proven when the arc villain, a cruel Android warrior in the service of a reformed Red Ribbon Army killed the super-ninja commando without that much effort, leaving the PC feeling (rightfully so perhaps) that he'd been set-up for a fight that he had no chance in winning given the high disparity between their respective Power Levels, especially once the villain (Colonel Chrome) entered "hyper mode" and pretty much became a full grown mountain bear to the other PCs' newborn kittens. Our mystic, Shosen, did prove the Kaio-Ken was useful, since for a while it allowed him to keep rough pace with the Android villain, but folded once it became a case of close-quarters fighting (something that Shosen was not good at). In terms of skill (at least before his "hyper mode") Karen was able to land a couple of hits with her sword just on sheer skill (she's that good!), but it felt like the GM used the existence of my PC and the fallout from a very lucky roll on the Zenkai power-up from Chris getting his butt handed to him during the second session as an excuse to make this one foe an over-powering threat.
Now to his credit, he did provide plenty of other second-string baddies (weaker models of Androids) for the rest of the group to quite happily pulverize (with the science ninja even getting to settle his vendetta with a ruthless female cyborg before getting sent to another dimension), so it wasn't like the rest of the party was just sitting there and watching as Chris and the Colonel slugged it out. I don't know if it's on the Evil Overlord list or not, but "seriously injuring and then threatening to kill the pretty love interest within sight and reach of the hero is not a sound battle strategy" should be added. Yes, Chris has "a thing" for Karen (there's less than two year's age difference), and after seeing one friend/ally killed and his crush about to go the same way... yeah, Saiyan Rage got triggered, and lead to a brutal battle as Chris went from "just barely able to keep up with BBEG in Hyper Mode" to "kicking ass like it was going out of style." We're not sure if we're going to play this game again, as most of us had fun (particularly by not taking things too seriously), but I am leery about just how powerful Chris is in comparison to the rest of the group; it's almost akin to playing tFU's Starkiller with a bunch of low-level PCs. Granted, I can simply choose to "hang back" and not get too directly involved in the action, thus allowing the other PCs to shine (a habit I picked up from playing Force-users in multiple versions of Star Wars RPGs), but there's still the specter of "showy boring invincible hero" to worry about. Which I guess if you stop and think about it, is true to the source material as Goku was often the one true powerhouse that saved everyone's butts in DBZ (ending of Cell Saga being the primary exception).
And the capstone to a weekend of gaming goodness will be the continuation of the Edge of the Empire Skype game I'm in, where I'm playing a nascent Force-sensitive street rat. Sadly though, the game had a few shake-ups in the party line-up, as two players had to bow out due to real life concerns. As rough as this past week has been for me, it's nothing compared to the utter hell that Rikoshi has been put through the past several months, and I hope that things are finally starting to turn around for him; if anyone deserves a major lucky break, it's him. Also bowing out is Nateal, as her focus on completing her college degree for this Spring isn't leaving her much time for much else, which I can fully appreciate and respect. So it will be interesting to see what their replacement characters bring to the table.
Semi-related note, I've been doing some more revisions to my Ways of the Force supplement. The major change that's on the docket is to the "Resist Force" mini-power, which as currently written is far too clunky and cumbersome for such a streamlined rules system. Got a few different ideas to work from, so now it's a matter of finding the time to parse out which one works the best; any way I slice it, there's going to be complications added to the system, it's just finding a way that is as seamless as possible. Another change is to the Injure power. Had folks complaining the damage was too low, mostly as they were forgetting that the target's Soak Value didn't apply when in the heat of combat, so I'm dropping that and just upping the base damage a bit, as well as changing what skill the target uses on the opposed roll; Force-user rolls Discipline vs. target's Resilience, which seems to be working out pretty well based on the limited play-testing I've been able to do.
Well, I think that covers pretty much the highlights. That and I've rambled on long enough (I so did not expect to go on at length about the DBZ game when I sat down to start writing this) for this brisk Sunday morning.
October 19, 2013
Hell's Bells!
This month has been pretty crazy, and not necessarily in a good way.
Gaming schedules have been pretty much tossed out of whack. So far, only my Saturday gaming group has survived the chaos, though we've not gotten to do a whole lot of playing, though hopefully tonight will be a return to form, though in an unusual method (more on that later).
Back when Chris and Dave of the Order 66 podcast were doing their Kickstarter, I'd pledged enough to get to play in a Skype game run by Chris. Well, through a comedy of errors on both our ends, that session got delayed a fair bit with my finally able to join in on a Saturday game session. And to be honest... it was worth the wait. I had never gamed with any of the other folks that were playing, but we came together pretty well as a team. The adventure in question, "Dead Man's Hand" was fun to play, and even fun to run as I got the chance to run a demo game for some folks last night, and opted to use that one. Sadly, the players I had weren't quite as creative with their actions, though I suspect most of that had to do with just not being familiar with the dice mechanic that FFG used for their Star Wars system.
The Wednesday D&D game has gone belly-up, due in no small part to just general lack of interest. The GM had something going as far as a storyline, but that eventually just fell apart and fell into the "go fight stuff and swipe their loot" rut that has been the death of more than one D&D game I'm sure.
On a positive note, a suggestion I made on the FFG Age of Rebellion Beta forums, to rename the Knowledge (Galactic Civil War) skill to the more general Knowledge (Warfare) has made it into the Beta Updates, so hooray me. Most of the changes made so far to the AoR Beta have been fairly minor, with the biggest changes for the Week 2 update being the addition of some new talents for the Gunner and Commando specializations.
I've been chugging along with articles for the Gamer Security Agency, though my day job hasn't left me as much mental bandwidth as I'd like.
I'm also gonna call an audible here, in regards to the backer reward adventure that I'm to write as part of the Order 66 Kickstarter. I've had some tech issues, and several files got corrupted... including the adventure I was writing. I've got an older back-up copy, so the entire thing wasn't lost, but I did lose all of Act 3 and a fair amount of formatting, so that puts my way behind schedule, as I'd hoped to have it done by the end of October.
In other dour news, fellow gamer, Star Wars fan, and d20 Radio's resident furry Rikoshi had to reluctantly bow out of the Sunday Skype game that I play in. While I can understand why he did it, having seen the crapfest that his life has unfairly become over the past few months, it still sucks to lose such a fun member of one's gaming group. His antics as the Squib scoundrel Kirkinnery-tovante was always entertaining, jaunty hat and all. Hopefully he can get things in order and turned around for the better sooner rather than later.
There's an update for the Unofficial Species Menagerie in the works, prodded into higher gear due to events I'm not going to go into detail on. Hopefully, a few new things are in place on the updated version to avoid that sort of mess in the future. The species that have gotten official stats or are due to have them very soon have been removed, mostly as I want to play nice with FFG when and where I can. I've still got the versions that Ben and I came up with, but I can't say if they'll show up someplace else at a later date, though I know that a few of Ben's can be found over at the d20 Radio forums in the FFG Star Wars RPG section.
I've also been invited to partake in a paganesque ceremony on behalf of some good friends in the not-to-distant future. It's nothing crazy or criminal, but given the circumstances behind it I'm quite honored to have been asked to attend.
As for the Saturday gaming group, we're going to break out an old and rather unexpected RPG for a one-shot session, mostly as something to break away from our usual games. The game in question? The Dragonball Z Anime Adventure RPG by R. Talsorian. I was quite amused when the suggestion came up, having played a very short campaign of that game many years ago, and remember the main rulebook being an atrocious example of poor layout; it took the third book to make the came well and truly playable as well as providing a number of sensible rules patches to cut down on the curb-stomp battles that could occur all too frequently (particularly where extra actions were involved). It should be interesting if nothing else. I doubt there will be anyone with a Power Level that's over 9000 or people's hair turning gold from their extreme power, which is for the best.
Gaming schedules have been pretty much tossed out of whack. So far, only my Saturday gaming group has survived the chaos, though we've not gotten to do a whole lot of playing, though hopefully tonight will be a return to form, though in an unusual method (more on that later).
Back when Chris and Dave of the Order 66 podcast were doing their Kickstarter, I'd pledged enough to get to play in a Skype game run by Chris. Well, through a comedy of errors on both our ends, that session got delayed a fair bit with my finally able to join in on a Saturday game session. And to be honest... it was worth the wait. I had never gamed with any of the other folks that were playing, but we came together pretty well as a team. The adventure in question, "Dead Man's Hand" was fun to play, and even fun to run as I got the chance to run a demo game for some folks last night, and opted to use that one. Sadly, the players I had weren't quite as creative with their actions, though I suspect most of that had to do with just not being familiar with the dice mechanic that FFG used for their Star Wars system.
The Wednesday D&D game has gone belly-up, due in no small part to just general lack of interest. The GM had something going as far as a storyline, but that eventually just fell apart and fell into the "go fight stuff and swipe their loot" rut that has been the death of more than one D&D game I'm sure.
On a positive note, a suggestion I made on the FFG Age of Rebellion Beta forums, to rename the Knowledge (Galactic Civil War) skill to the more general Knowledge (Warfare) has made it into the Beta Updates, so hooray me. Most of the changes made so far to the AoR Beta have been fairly minor, with the biggest changes for the Week 2 update being the addition of some new talents for the Gunner and Commando specializations.
I've been chugging along with articles for the Gamer Security Agency, though my day job hasn't left me as much mental bandwidth as I'd like.
I'm also gonna call an audible here, in regards to the backer reward adventure that I'm to write as part of the Order 66 Kickstarter. I've had some tech issues, and several files got corrupted... including the adventure I was writing. I've got an older back-up copy, so the entire thing wasn't lost, but I did lose all of Act 3 and a fair amount of formatting, so that puts my way behind schedule, as I'd hoped to have it done by the end of October.
In other dour news, fellow gamer, Star Wars fan, and d20 Radio's resident furry Rikoshi had to reluctantly bow out of the Sunday Skype game that I play in. While I can understand why he did it, having seen the crapfest that his life has unfairly become over the past few months, it still sucks to lose such a fun member of one's gaming group. His antics as the Squib scoundrel Kirkinnery-tovante was always entertaining, jaunty hat and all. Hopefully he can get things in order and turned around for the better sooner rather than later.
There's an update for the Unofficial Species Menagerie in the works, prodded into higher gear due to events I'm not going to go into detail on. Hopefully, a few new things are in place on the updated version to avoid that sort of mess in the future. The species that have gotten official stats or are due to have them very soon have been removed, mostly as I want to play nice with FFG when and where I can. I've still got the versions that Ben and I came up with, but I can't say if they'll show up someplace else at a later date, though I know that a few of Ben's can be found over at the d20 Radio forums in the FFG Star Wars RPG section.
I've also been invited to partake in a paganesque ceremony on behalf of some good friends in the not-to-distant future. It's nothing crazy or criminal, but given the circumstances behind it I'm quite honored to have been asked to attend.
As for the Saturday gaming group, we're going to break out an old and rather unexpected RPG for a one-shot session, mostly as something to break away from our usual games. The game in question? The Dragonball Z Anime Adventure RPG by R. Talsorian. I was quite amused when the suggestion came up, having played a very short campaign of that game many years ago, and remember the main rulebook being an atrocious example of poor layout; it took the third book to make the came well and truly playable as well as providing a number of sensible rules patches to cut down on the curb-stomp battles that could occur all too frequently (particularly where extra actions were involved). It should be interesting if nothing else. I doubt there will be anyone with a Power Level that's over 9000 or people's hair turning gold from their extreme power, which is for the best.
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