Colours 2013

Here are some photos of the games convention, Colours 2013, which I was helping at this weekend.

                                         The Trade Floor before the doors opened, Saturday.

                                         Alexander vs Darius, battle of Gaugamela 331BC

                                         Earl Rivers' Regiment ECW re-enactors display.

                                         Battle of Korosten, Ukraine, 1941

                                         Battle of Bosworth, 1485, in 54mm

                                         Battle of Kursk, 1943

                                         Battle of Leipzig, 1813

                                         Leipzig again

                                         And again... (it was a massive table...)

                                         The Vikings are coming!

                                         Wargames championships

It all went well, except the Bring and Buy, which was pretty bad on Saturday, at least, and the Club apologises for this; changes are afoot.

See everyone in 2014 (Sept13th/14th)

2nd Edition, here we come!

I will hopefully soon be running AD&D 2nd Edition for my Monday night group, which is currently making its way through the Serpent's Skull Pathfinder AP. After running 3.x and Pathfinder since 2000, it will really make a nice change :-).

We will be playing with the class/race splat books, and a lot of the optional rules, as I like crunch. There are some options not available, like Bladesingers and Elven archery.

I plan to run the party through several first and second edition modules I own, cumulating in G1-3/D1-3. They will start with N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God. Along the way, I hope to run Castles Forlorn, House of Strahd and the Dungeonland modules, as well as a couple of the UK modules. There is also the option of Greyhawk Ruins to fill in gaps.

Kill the monsters and take their stuff

I have been developing a new RPG over the last year or so: it is intended to allow quick and dirty dungeon based adventures, at least initially. It is called Kill the monsters and take their stuff, which I think sums up the 'old-school' philosophy. This is shortened to Kill the monsters... or KTM.

I currently have brief alpha documents, outlining chargen, the game systems and spell casting, and am transfering them into a beta document, which should be playable. If anyone wants to be a playtester, get in touch.

Alpha documents are here: http://db.tt/VrEp2nXL

D&DNext first public playtest kit

Well, its here - the first glimpse at D&DNext, via the first public playtest documents. It consists of 5 characters (Fighter, Wizard, Rogue and 2 Clerics), basic rules, DM guidelines, a bestiary, and an adventure (based on the caves of chaos from Keep on the Borderlands).

Characters

The clerics and wizard seem pretty solid. Turning is now a spell, but the Clerics have an ability to cast it at will, which indicates it will be available as a spell for other classes (the Paladin?). Both get minor spells, which can be cast at will. For the Wizard, vancian casting is back.

The rogue is a real skill monkey - he can take 10 for a skill check after rolling the check. He is explicitly a Thief, and does thiefy things. Sneak attack seems to improve every level.

The Fighter is, well, crap compared with the other classes. All he seems to get is +2 to damage. At second level, he can attack twice 2 times a day, and at third level gets cleave. That's it, basically.

All the characters have a background and a theme. It is not clear whether these are class agnostic, or not. Could you, for example, have a Slayer Wizard?

Rules

All in all, the basic system is pretty good - it seems to have been dialled down from previous editions. The highest DC seems to be 27, and attributes max out at 20 (+5) for PCs. Given +3 for a trained skill, the best skill check appears to be +8. Saves are now attribute rolls, and there is no explicit BAB. As written, characters going up a level get more HP and some powers, but no bonuses to attack rolls/saves, which seems...odd. It may be that they stripped out level bonuses to keep things simple.

All rolls are checks now, based on attributes. So a melee attack is a check based on Strength, plus bonuses.

Combat notably has no rules for using a grid, which suggests such rules may be a module. This will be jaring for those used to later editions of the game. The armour table is one of the worst parts of the game - the maths is totally wonky, and Chain Shirts rule...

The rules include a selection of spells, most of which are the old classics. The save DC does not increase with the level of the spell, apparently.

DM Guidance

This is a shorter document, outlining what the DM needs to know. One glaring ommision is the lack of information on the check required to disable a trap.

Bestiary

The bestiary includes all the mosters from the adventure. The stat blocks seem to be a combination of 2nd and 3rd edition information. There are very few monster powers a la 4th edition. HP seem a bit high (88 for an Ogre?), but apparently that is one of the areas they want to test. It is all a bit bland, but thats OK for a playtest.

Adventure

This is a faithful reworking of the caves of chaos from B2. I think it would require a lot of work by the DM to be fun, to be honest.

Good Points

- underlying system seems solid
- Wizard and Clerics have plenty of option in play
- old school feel

Bad Points

- fighter is very poor
- maths seems wonky at times (especially on the character sheets)

Overall, a good, solid start.

Red Stars sci-fi setting riff

[also posted to rpg.net]

The year is 250 SE (socialist era) (or AD 2167 in the old, bourgeois dating).The Federation of Socialist Friendship (FSF) dominates the earth and space, following the collapse of the imperialist west in the 70s SE (1990s), and is itself dominated by the Soviet Union, reformed by Mikhail Gorbachev in the 60s-100s SE

The USA is a declining state, still clinging precariously to its outdated imperialist-capitalist dogmas. Its main ally is Canada, along with some Latin American states and Australia. It survives mainly due to superpower rivalry between the USSR/FSF and China, and its nuclear arsenal. Both find the existance of the USA useful in their geopolitical tussles. Western Europe has been absorbed into the FSF as a number of Socialist states. The African Socialist Union rules Africa from its capital in Addis Ababa. The nations of the middle east are allied to the FSF. Most of South and South-East Asia is dominated by China, the FSF's only real rival (and nuclear competitor).

Dominating earth orbit is the massive FSF orbital complex Lenin-Gorbachev, the HQ of the FSF fleet and administrative capital of the non-earth FSF in the solar system. The Chinese have a smaller orbiting complex, the Chairman Mao Zedong. The solar system is exploited by both the FSF and China, and there have been several stand-offs in the last few decades (none of which have thankfully resulted in a shooting war).

68 years ago, FSF scientists developed a practical hyper-drive, exploiting holes which had been exposed in the theory of relativity. China soon reverse-engineered the drive, and a new extra-solar space-race began. Dozens of colony worlds were established, and soon  great quantities of extra-solar resources were pouring into earth.

The strains were showing, however, and in 225 SE, 14 colony worlds revolted from the FSF, arguing that they should decide what was done with their resources. After a short civil war (and some humiliating defeats for the FSF: it is rumoured that the Chinese gave the rebels help), the Out-worlds treaty of 228 SE established the Out-world Union, independent of the FSF. These planets have developed into more democratic states than FSF or Chinese colonies, although they still have socialist economies. The FSF, China and Out-world Union have all started new exploration programs, and the total number of colonies and Out-world planets number in the hundreds.

Both the FSF and China have so-called Gulag planets, where criminals, dissidents and other undesirables are exiled. Whilst not as notorious as the early Gulag camps on earth,  in the 1^st century SE, these are still tough planets to live on and are dominated by gangs and mafias.

The FSF and Chinese both maintain large space fleets. The pride of the FSF fleet are the Kutuzov and Zhukov class dreadnoughts, whilst the Chinese have the Zhou EnLai and Long March class Battleships. Although the USA doesn't have much of a space fleet as such, its massive Yankee Clipper class merchant transports are important in transporting goods, especially to and from the Out-world Union. In addition, they are rumoured to support the Freebooters, pirates in all but name.

Dragonrage Review

[Archived from www.thehexedgamer.co.uk]

Publisher: Flatlined Games (only available direct)

Designer: Lewis Pulsipher
Developers: Eric Hanuise and Lewis Pulsipher

Dragon Rage is a remake of a game originally published in 1982, shortly before the then publisher (Dwarfstar games) went out of business. I had a copy of the original game (no longer, unfortunately!), so I was intrigued when I heard about the remake.

What's in the box?

You get a lot of bang for your buck – a mounted, double-sided board, with a Human city on one side and an Orc oppidum on the other, 2 rule books, 213 counters, 4 monster cards and a player-aid card. The counters are thick, with rounded corners, and feel like they can take a lot of play! They are double-sided, with the original artwork on the back.

Gameplay

The basic scenario (covered by one rulebook) has 2 dragons attacking the city – large monsters like Dragons have several hit locations and attacks, so the scenario is well balanced. The Dragons have to make hit and run attacks, and avoid being caught on the ground. Other scenarios (in the other rulebook) have various combinations of units attacking the city or oppidum, and there are also point-buy and campaign options.
The way the large monsters work reminds me very much of the Steve Jackson games Ogre and GEV. They have several hit locations, and damage affects the movement modes (walking, flying, bounding or crawling, in the case of Dragons) and the attacks it can make (Bite, Wings and Legs, for Dragons). Other large monsters are Rocs, Wurms, T-Rexs and Sea-Serpents. Each has its own combination of hit-locations and attacks. Giants (Minor Monsters) have several wound points, but only one attack.

Combat is a case of rolling against a target number. If the target is a Major or Minor monster, wound points are reduced according to the attack score of the attacker. Normal units die if attacked successfully.
One or both sides may have a Hero and/or a Wizard. Heroes are 'super' units, able to provide leadership and take on monsters single-handed. They die after 2 hits. Wizards cast spells.

The rules are pretty comprehensive, with rules for breaching gates, scaling walls etc. There are some confusions, but these can be resolved by agreement. Each unit has its own section – this can cause a lot of flipping between pages in early games. There is a lot of fun little rules which add a lot to the atmosphere (Orcs and Goblins can only scale walls once, as they leave their ladders behind!), but the complexity is low (Eric Hanuise has stated that this was developed as a introductory wargame).

The victory conditions confused me somewhat – the attacker gets Victory Points by destroying important buildings, the defender wins by destroying the attackers – what happens if both things happen? I decided that the attacker can declare victory once he has reached the VP target. If he wants a better victory, he will need to continue and risk being destroyed.

This is an excellent game, and I recommend it as both an introductory wargame and a fun game which you can play to a conclusion in a couple of hours.

Traveller Starports Review

[Archived from www.thehexedgamer.co.uk]

 Publisher: Mongoose Publishing
Author: Carl Walmsley

Traveller Starports is a supplement for Mongoose Traveller, about, well, Starports. It is tagged as a Third Imperium product, but could be used in any campaign.
The book is softback, and has 118 pages, divided into 6 chapters: Introduction, Starport Encounters, Designing Starports, Sample Starports, New Ships and Reference Manual.

Introduction

This outlines the different types of Starport, and the (Imperial) Starport Authority (SPA). It explains what travellers can expect to find at the various classes of Starports (E to A), and Highports and Downports.
The SPA covers the organisation of the Authority at Imperial Starports, its objectives, customs law and links with other Imperial organisations. The Imperial Starport Organisation details the directorates within the SPA at each Starport, from Administration to Traffic and Flight Control. In a small Starport, employees will cover multiple roles, whilst the largest Starports will have hundreds or thousands in each directorate.
Finally, other Starports (Scout, Naval, Naval Depots, X-Boat Station, Independent Ports and Private Starports) are covered briefly.

Starport Encounters

The bulk of this chapter is devoted to tables for encounters at Starports, from Backwater Locations to Metropolis Locations. Each group of encounters is divided into General (day-to-day) and Significant (unusual and/or perilous). Some are patron encounters, environmental encounters, opportunities to buy unusual goods, and others are specific passengers.
Finally, it includes tables for local character details, the Starport Governor and Starport Quirks.

Designing Starports

This entire chapter is given over to designing Starports, and their associated costs. It is pretty comprehensive, covering everything from landing pads to security holding cells. Each Starport has a Profile, which may be filled out by the GM when creating it.
Starports are expensive – even a Class E Starport will cost upwards of MCr 1.
The chapter ends with a couple of examples: a Class E built from scratch and a Class E upgraded to a Class C.

Sample Starports

This includes details of 9 Starports created under the rules of the Designing Starports chapter. These are detailed with adventure hooks and important locations and personalities at the Starport. However, despite what the chapter introduction says, the do not include maps, which is a bit of a let-down. This from Mongoose, who provide plans for every ship they details (even 200,000 tonne warships!). Poor show.
The Starports range from Rhylantinople, the city-sized Starport of Rhylandor, to The Boneyard, an independent Starport built into the hulk of the Imperial battleship Megalith by a group of radicals (called the Dregs) from Querrion.
All the Starports have their place in the OTU, but could be transposed elsewhere with a little work. This is probably the most Third-Imperium centred chapter of the whole book.

New Ships

This includes 4 new ships: Dreg Fighter, Dreg Hunter (both associated with The Boneyard detailed in the previous chapter), Recovery ship and Tanker, all with associated rules and ship plans. New equipment is also included: Fuel Transfer Equipment and Magnetic Grapples, both of which may be included in other ships.

Reference Material

This has example Starports of each type, both Downports and (where appropriate) Highports. It also has basic schematics of each class Starport.

Conclusion

A good, solid supplement, aside from the now inevitable Mongoose typos: why can’t Mongoose hire proof readers (they jump out of the page at you, so a once-over would have revealed the problems). Still, it’s nowhere as bad as the Universe of Babylon 5 sourcebook! The lack of maps in the Sample Starports chapter is also a disappointment.
I would recommend this supplement to anyone running a campaign in the Third Imperium.