MSV - The Origin

In 2009, Game Designer Jim Clunie created a game for a 24 Hour RPG Challenge called Extended Mission. I originally found the game through the website 1KM1KT but as of now neither that site nor Extended Mission seem to exist. I will update this if they become available one more. 

A rules-lite, resource management game, the focus was on playing satellites trying to get information about an abandoned Earth for the Humans living on Mars before their batteries ran out and/or they burned up in Earth's atmosphere. I was intrigued and inspired by the system and concept and began to tweak the rules to work with an idea I'd have for years; a game in which players would play Artificially Intelligent robots. 

The result was something I initially called Extended Mission Expanded. I ran it for several sessions and those sessions were pretty damn great. I forget why it ended. Scheduling most likely, the ultimate enemy of good games. 

From there I made some changed and pushed the game even further, thinking that if it could handle robots of the Star Wars Droid and WALL*E variety, maybe it could handle Giant Robots. Maybe, just maybe, I had a potential Anime/Manga Mecha game on my hands that could solve what I felt/feel is the key issue with the Mecha games that have come out so far...

They aren't, generally speaking, very Anime like.

Before I get into that though, let me finish with the origins of my new RPG. Where was I? Ah yes...

Over the years that followed I tinkered with the game further and further, eventually transforming it from Extended Mission Expanded to Extended Mecha and finally its current incarnation - Mecha System Variant or MSV*. 

Now here's where I give my unpopular opinion:

While there have absolutely been some awesome Mecha RPGs over the years, especially Mike Pondsmith's seminal game Mekton, most American Giant Robot games focus too heavily on tactical, wargame oriented combat. Pages and pages are dedicated to range, armor, damage, and the specific mechanics of missiles vs lasers, size and weight, and other such details that don't really matter. 

That's right, you heard me, these things don't matter. 

Very few Anime or Manga make a distinction between different weaponry beyond what that do. Is the opponent in range? Don't pull out a hex map and measure the distance - they don't do that in the medium. Are you and the target on screen at the same time? Was the enemy approaching before a jump cut to the hero? In either case, they're in range because that allows for action. You shouldn't slow down a Mecha Anime game with crunch and I feel that's exactly what most Mecha games do. 

There are no hit points in Anime. Mecha rarely loose armor points, though sometimes their armor gets blown off.  Animation and Comics are visual and visceral and they focus on what happens, not on abstractions. Gundam robots don't take 3 points of damage, they lose targeting or visual sensors. When the EVA-01's arm is cut off the important thing for the audience to know is that the pilot, Shinji, is afraid and in terrible pain, not that it adjusts his hit modifiers.

To this end I set out to produce a Mecha game with no hit points and armor that reduces the level of negative events. I wanted rules that added drama and built to climaxes. It was important that the action move the story and vice versa, avoiding action for actions sake. This doesn't mean action isn't a major element of the game; far from it.  Mecha Anime and Manga are solidly a subgenre of Action Adventure. It's just that the goal in making this game was to create sessions where you can see and feel what is going on in the game and not spend too much time calculating numbers. Decisions you make are character, story, and scene driven and less tactical in nature. 

30 Minute Mission Alto Custom

by ICHI [いち]

At least that's the plan. 

Here goes nothing...

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*The name MSV actually comes from a series of books put out in Japan called 'Mobile Suit Variations' which detail designs and variations on those designs for robots featured in the Universal Century and One Year War timelines of the franchise.

Many of the designs never appear in any Gundam series, having been created purely for merchandising (models kits mostly) or for a planned series that was cancelled. Nonetheless, as the books were put out by Bandai/Sunrise - the company that owns Gundam - and designed by the writers and artists of the series, all the Mobile Suits in these books are considered canon. 

I used to collect these whenever I found them and loved pouring over the various designs again and again. When I started thinking up names for my own Mecha game, MSV was the first thing that popped into my head and it kept coming back. Defining it as Mecha System Variant, an alternative to traditional Mecha RPGs, sealed the deal. 

Into The Sea, You and Me

I'm running a fill in game for our Wednesday night Google Hangouts group next week.

As we prepare for our big, upcoming Marvel/DC Crossover mini-campaign, our regular GM Keith has asked for a short break to re-familiarize himself with Marvel Heroic.

Since I expressed an interest in running Anime/Manga style Giant Robots in the recent past, and others in the group have expressed interest in trying out the genre, I am to take this opportunity to run a story I've been thinking about for a while...

Gundiver is a Mobile Suit Gundam 'Side Story' set during the original series 'One Year War', in which the Earth Federation Forces develop an undersea operations Mobile Suit in an attempt to counter the superior aquatic mecha of the enemy Zeon Navy. 

Having developed the Mobile Suit first, the forces of the Grand Duchy of Zeon have a head start in the arms race to build the better giant, humanoid machines. While the armies and navies of UN SPACY (the NATO of the United Earth) have a mere half dozen robot designs that they customize and adapt for various missions, the Zeons have numerous mechs specially designed and build for various situations. 

When fighting underwater for example, the Earth forces normally use the General Model Mobile Suit, or GM, adapted for aquatic conditions. Later, they start specifically outfitting the RAG-79, or Aqua GM, with the gear it needs right off the assembly line.

Unfortunately, by the time they do so the Zeon forces have the Gogg, the vastly improved Hygog, the Z'Gok, the Z'Gok-E, the Acguy, and the Zaku Marine Type (the mass produced counterpart to the Federation GM). 

A trio of Zaku Mariners on the hunt for Federation Forces.

Our story will begin in space, where an Earth Federation Space Forces vessel prepares to send a 'care package' to its allies on terra firma. An experimental, prototype Mobile Suit - the RAG-79-G1 'Waterproof' or Aquatic Gundam, nicknamed 'Gundiver' will be orbital dropped to a hidden rendezvous point of the coast of Brazil.

It seems Zeon Intelligence is at the top of its game however, as Zeon forces attempt to insure the thought-to-be-secret 'Gundiver' never reaches its destination...

The game will likely be run with my own, homebrew Extended Mecha system (based on the free RPG Extended Mission). There will be about six players (not including myself as GM), and the plan is for this to be the first of three sessions.

I will keep you posted.

Uchiageru!

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Easy Does It

Before I go deeper down the wormhole of Star Trek Traveller, I'd like to tell you about a some great gaming experiences I had over the holiday vacation.

Between December 24th, and December 31st, I got the chance to run a lot of games. How many you ask? I don't even remember. A LOT.

While they all went over well, two in particular were really fun, and I can pinpoint why quite reasonably.

They were easy.

Now when I say easy, what I mean is that it required very little effort on my part to get the games set up, started, and going smoothly. The players displayed no resistance to the genres, nor to any of the details of the setting, story, or rule mechanics.

Basically, in a very zen sort of way...I wanted to run a game for my friends. I did. They wanted to play a game I was running. They did. It was fun.

Um...why aren't all games like this?

Because in order for me to run a great game, I need players who want me to run, and want to participate in, a great game. Furthermore, it would be awesome if they want a great game from me more than they want to get hung up on their various individual, er, hang ups.

Wouldn't that be grand?

The first of the two games was a DC Adventures / Mutants & Masterminds 3E game with my ex-wife, my friends Luke, and Lily, and a bunch of  'alumni' kids from the Tutoring Center. Inspired by the DC Comics Holiday Special issues over the years, the Justice League, and some of their Young Justice proteges went up against the Penguin, Sinestro, Bizarro, The Floronic Man, and the wicked warlock Wotan! All in a desperate battle to save none other than Santa Claus!

The Justice League of Earth-602!

Why 602? That's the address of the Tutoring Center, LOL

The most amazing thing about this session was how well the players took to their characters when the vast majority of them aren't comic book readers. I've noted before that this group, largely middle school and high school students of Chinese decent, have never read American comics in their lives. Their only knowledge of and exposure to these characters comes from the animated and live action shows on television. Add in the fact that only one of the adults in the group was a huge comic fan (and more well versed in Marvel mythos), and it repeatedly astounds me how well they all nail these well-established characters. 

Each person's interpretation of their character was very much influenced by the individual players' familiarity:

Green Lantern was very much the GL of Justice League Unlimited.
Aquaman was Super Friends style.
Flash and Kid Flash were a mix of the CW show and Young Justice.
Martian Manhunter was a mix of Justice League Unlimited and the Supergirl CW show.
Aqualad was totally Young Justice.
Superman was classic Silver Age, if a bit powered down (JLU also?).
Supergirl was straight out of the CW show.
Wonder Woman was Super Friends/Silver Age, complete with Invisible Jet.
Batman was pretty much Batman: The Animated Series.
Green Arrow looked classic but was really more like the Arrow TV series. 

If you are asking yourself, "Wait...were there actually 11 players?!", then I can tell you the answer is yes, most assuredly. 

The second awesome game I ran was MACROSS - Return of the Blue Dragons!

A sequel to the 1986 MACROSS - Blue Dragons campaign I ran in high school. Two of my old high school buddies, David Concepcion, and Eric Flores, were on hand to revisit my version of the Macross universe 30 years later (both in game and in real life). 

David played the son of his original character, while Eric played a bishonen character whose gender is never clear throughout the scenario. 

Numerous upgraded elements from the original campaign were added including the PCs' base of operations - The UN Spacy Odyssey II replaces the previous Odyssey, upgraded versions of the variable space fighters - the VF-3 series - and both of A.J. DeLorca's kids following in their parents footsteps and becoming Valkyrie pilots. 

The VF-3J Crusader

(Based on Shoji Kawamori's VF-3000 Crusader design)

With a thirty year gap between the last session of the original series and this one-shot, one would think it might have been hard to get back into the swing of things. Nope. Not one iota. 

For Dave and I it was really just continuing the campaign as if little time had passed out of game. As if we've been meeting to run this every month for three decades. Eric, for his part, merged into our lane with ease and contributed an interesting character with good tactical skills and even better social ones.

Snappy dialogue, fast paced combat, and a classic science fiction plot made this so much fun we were bummed when the session ended and we realized, 'Crap. This doesn't continue next week or even next month.' Sad panda.

Dave, as I have mentioned in the past, now lives in Boston. He is a working single parent and though he makes trips back to NYC one to three times a year, he doesn't always know if and when he'll be visiting. 

Eric is a GM regularly running his own campaigns.

I have work six days a week (my own Dog Walking Company and one day teaching), yet still manage to run or play twice a week (online and Friday nights), as well as once a month (my monthly group campaign, which is currently my homebrew Superheroic Medieval Fantasy setting using Ars Magica rules). 

Sigh.

Still and all, I am looking forward to more gaming like these two sessions this year. For my 40th Anniversary I want - no NEED! - to get back to gaming like I use to. I'm looking for that immersive experience with players that buy-in and embrace the setting and their characters. I can't wait to see what happens next. Additionally, I'd like to do so without the deconstructed, meta-viewpoint so prevalent in modern gaming.

Easy does it now. Baby steps. Baby steps...

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NaGa DeMon Versus Barking Alien - Day 2

CONSPIRACY THEORY!

 

 

 

Everything you know is a lie.

 

What? You knew that? Well, then not everything I guess.

 

I can tell you that I told a little white lie yesterday. I am not really feeling Visitors From Space. The POP! I was hoping for, the one I got from some of my previous projects (The Muppets, The Smurfs, my Expanded Extended Mission campaign, etc.), didn't come full force. Not like it did for those others. This was a bubble wrap pop and not a huge, loud...I'm thinking more BOOM Tube BOOM! than a mere pop here people. That's what I am waiting for. That's not only going to get the office light to go on, it's going to keep it on.

 

Several nefarious elements have conspired to make me want to drop this project (Visitors From Space - Not the whole NaGa DeMon challenge).

 

Broken hearted and depressed, it's hard to generate a comedic RPG.

I like the concept, I don't love the concept. To finish and play it in a month, I need to LOVE it.

Some things challenge organizer Nathan Russell posted recently.

 

I really need to rethink this. To re-feel this. I seem to be out of tune with the force.

 

Bare with me...

 

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God From The Machine

I've got quite a bit to cover this morning so let's get started...

I've finally decided what my next campaign is going to be.

It was a long, winding and none-too-smooth process to come up with this bad mamma jamma but I really think my group and I have a winner on our hands.

Over the course of our last few Champions sessions and several one-shot side games, I really tried to analyze what I was doing right, wrong, not as good as I could do and what elements I wanted to add in that I wasn't adding in and why.

I also paid close attention to my players, their likes, dislikes, personal styles and I had a pretty powerful Q&A with them in this regard a week ago and a report on my 'findings' a week later (this past Saturday).

To a small extent, there are definitely elements of our gaming techniques that are different enough to rub each other the wrong way on occasion. I am just as much at fault in this regard as anyone else (except my good buddy Dave, who we all agreed is the one person in the group whose approach to gaming sits well with everybody), if only in that I need to show a little more patience with those whose styles are most different or contrary to what I find fun. Honestly though, I certainly acknowledge that there are other elements of my style of GMing that may not be perfect for everbody.

With all of our sins laid bare (er, so to speak), I was able to begin putting together something that would appeal to everyone...even me.



While the concept for this game was surely the result of the efforts I mentioned above (as well as being the fulfillment of a long time pet project of mine), it was just as surely cemented by a conversation I had with my girlfriend this past weekend about atheism, spiritualism and quantum physics (Yes, she's THAT awesome. Yes.). In that conversation, which also discussed different approaches to the creative process and how communicating with someone passionate about their craft can inspire the desire to create in yourself, I realized that depending on ones perspective, the Art Film can be viewed as a Blockbuster and vice versa.

I wanted to create a game with a very unique atmosphere, a 'look' and 'feel' very different from what we've been playing over the last year or so. At the same time, I definitely didn't want something unregoinizable, where my slightly more conservative players would find themselves lost. I needed action, intrigue, grand vistas and awesome 'special effects' complete with my signature big explosions. I also needed and wanted there to be Human passions, philosophies and a perceived meaning behind it all. This campaign idea called for a grand epic across disputed stars, where survival of a people was at stake, not just a quest for fame and glory.

Sounds exciting, no?

The end result, is something I have been wanted to do for some time. I really like the Battletech universe, always have. It's Great Houses, Clans, various political, economic and social factions battling for control of a massively large space opera setting is the perfect backdrop of an action/adventure game with the potential for a bit more character depth. Plus, it has giant robots. Mecha are like bacon. Everything is better with mecha.

Except...Battletech mecha suck. They just one-hundred-percent-no-ifs-ands-or-buts suck the big wazoo. Slow. Limited in function. Ugly.

First things first. Replace all the images and designs with ones that are actually in the style of Japanese mecha and look cool.






Excellent. Moving on...

And the rules to Battletech and Mechwarrior? Clunky, wargamey and definitely not what I want. I want Battletech as if it were an modern Anime or Manga series. I want fast, kinetic with cool robot designs that can do what robots in Anime do.

Got it!

A little while back I brushed off my ol' Mekton book and my homebrewed alternate version of the free RPG Extended Mission and created a very fun kitbashed frankenstein of a game I call the Extended Mecha system. I have decided to clean that up a little and use it for this game. Essentially a simplified Mekton, the key difference is that weapons don't do points of damage, they do 'rolls' of damage. When you score a hit, the targets armor removes a numbers of rolls. If any rolls get through, the attack rolls on a chart to see what damage was done to the enemy mecha, vehicle, etc.

So let's say my Particle Cannon does 5 rolls. I hit my target, who has an armor of 3. I scored 2 rolls. I roll twice and get:

- Component Damaged. Operates at -2.
- System Offline. Skill action needed to restore.

Based on where we were in relation to each other and the way I worded my attack ("I am not letting him get aways again!"), the GM decides the Component Damaged was the Flight Jets in his left leg. The System that went down was the enemy mech's Enhanced Maneuver System and he can't really steer right now. The enemy pilot needs to rolls his Computer Skill or Mecha Engineering to get the system fixed and the system back up and running.

While I am normally not one for charts, I have used this system in the past to excellent effect so I am willing to go with it for this type of setting. By defining a mech's operational capacity as made up of Components (Physical Parts like Hands, Feets, Weapons, Rockets, etc.) and Systems (Functions programmed into or handled by the computer such as Communications, Targeting, Sensors, etc.), players get the feeling they are operating a robotic vehicle and not just a tower of numbers.

I have a lot more to say on the subject and rest assured I will be detailing the campaign elements and how it all plays out here on Barking Alien.

Oh before I go...almost forgot...

New summer session has begun at the learning center in Brooklyn where I run a combo Creative Writing/Storytelling/RPG Playing class on Sundays. We just started and it looks like it's going to be a blast. I am running a sort of humorous horror game based on the Japanese TRPG 'Peekaboo Horror' where the kids play Middle-School club of supernatural investigators who each have an otherworldly companion/side kick - played by another player! So each kid is playing two characters, their own club member and some other members 'Boo'. I am using InSpectres crossed with Monsters and Other Childish Things.

RIP Ernest Borgnine. Sad to see him go but he left us with a great body of work.

I'm sure I am forgetting something...oh well, I guess I'll just have to blog more. ;)

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And Here Now The News

Short update primarily geared toward the announcement of a bigger update to come. Ah, the joys of shameless self-promotion.

We just played another session of our Extended Mission game and it was bizarrely existential. I may go into some detail on it in a later post but it went from a tense space combat scenario to questioning the nautre of reality and the laws of astrophysics in the blink of an eye. One of the weirder though more intriguing games I've run in a while.

Next week is the next (second) session of our D&D-For-Those-Who-Don't-Like-D&D campaign. It seems we may be adding several new players for a total of 7. Well alright!

At the end of the month, appropriate for the Halloween weekend, I am heading to the lovely (cough, weeze) state of New Jersey for the long overdue third session of Ghostbusters. I love this plan. I'm glad to be a part of it.

That leaves...well no time for me to breathe with all the work and personal life things I'm also doing but since I don't sleep like normal humans I'm not going to let that stop me. No siree Bob! I am going to be announcing my game for next year and its gonna be a doozy if I do say so my self.

So, be on the look out for an upcoming post or series of posts detailing the details of all these games and more. Same Barking Time, Same Barking Channel!

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Power Sources

OK, so I can't seem to stop talking about how cool my new Extended Mission campaign is. Sorry, I'm just really excited. After 25+ years of wanting to run an all robot game its finally come together and it rocks.

I wanted to do one last post on the subject before talking about something else. I've put together a collection of a few of the inspirations and sources that have influenced this campaign and I wanted to share it was everyone. If you find it difficult to see how some of these sources relate to each other or the game idea...awesome. That is how a good Barking Alien campaign works. Place twenty vaguely related concepts into a blender and press purée.

Books:
I, Robot, Inside The Robot Kingdom, The Robot Book*, The Velvet Glove.

Films:
2001: A Space Odyssey, AI: Artificial Intelligence, Bicentennial Man, Ghost in the Shell, Hinokio, Iron Giant, R.U.R. , Star Wars (All), WALL*E.

Games:
Eclipse Phase, Metamorphosis Alpha, The Morrow Project, Transhuman Space, Traveller.

Television:
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and SAC: Second Gig, Serial Experiment Lain, Space: 1999, Star Wars: Droids.

Science Programs:
Aftermath: Population Zero, Alien Planet, The Future is Wild, If We Had No Moon, Life After People, Planet Earth

Science Articles, Information and Projects:
Artificial Intelligence, Robonaut, Robots (General Categories, Types and Related Information)

*My father purchased this book for me in 1980 from a used book shop in Upstate New York. It loved it literally to pieces and I have no idea at what point I lost it but I am seriously tempted to purchase time bad boy off ebay.

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Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto

Another thing that has me super excited over my Expanded Extended Mission campaign is that it finally allows me to fulfill a long time gaming goal, create a Robot Role Playing Game Campaign.

Even before discovering RPGs I was fascinated by robots in cartoons, movies, television show and books. In one of those peculiar twists of fate the year 1977 would not only cause my interest in robots to explode but I would also get my first take of gaming. The droids of Star Wars were amazing and I played my first game of D&D (Red Box I believe) a few months later. Now much to my dismay at the time we didn't know of any other RPGs as I'm sure I never would have played D&D if I knew science fiction games existed.

Fast forward to the future world of 1985, where with years of playing Star Trek, Traveller and other sci-fi games under my grav-belt I discovered an article in Dragon Magazine announcing a new game called Proton Fire. According to the article the game focused on players playing custom designed robots destined for exploration and adventure in a far off star system (or systems. The promos talked about the Matri system but also seemed to imply exploration of space beyond the system).

Alas, the Proton Fire game came to naught. Never released, at least in its entirety, the game became little more then vaporware remembered only by those who, like me, who were clamouring for its premise.

The game is believed to have survived, in whole and in parts, by being reprinted as articles in White Wolf magazine as a game called Nuts & Volts and as a supplement for Gamma World called Epsilon Cyborgs.

While Mekton served me well for my mecha anime needs (and always will I'd wager), I never found the game or the idea that let me really go crazy with the "Sentient Machine as PC" space adventure game I was longing for.

Happily, Extended Mission is that game. A very simplified version of the robot construction rules from Nuts & Volts is used to make the PC robots. Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto.


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Extended Mission...Expanded

Among the aforementioned RPG campaigns I am currently running is a game called Extended Mission. One of the free role playing games designed for the 24 Hour RPG project that I discovered at 1KM1KT, Extended Mission is the brainchild of talented mad genius Jim Clunie. I hope Mr. Clunie can forgive me for what I did to his game.

The original premise of Extended Mission is that you essentially play space probes that have been sent to a previously ruined Earth from a colonized Mars in the 25th century to find out if the homeworld is habitable again. An awesome idea and a great alternative concept for sci-fi gaming. Unfortunately I also felt it was a hard sell to most of my players and not an easy game to run long term.

Now its extremely rare that I come across a concept that I like and don't have the uncontrollable urge to mess with it royally. As a matter of fact, the more I like it at its very core, the more I want to expand it and screw around with it. While trying to think of how to do that with Extended Mission I found myself watching several show on the National Geographic Channel and Discovery Channel such as Life After People and Aftermath: Population Zero. Inspired but a bit depressed by these programs I decided to switch gears and put on my DVD copy of WALL*E. And then it hit me...

The players are all various types of artificially intelligent droid-like robots on a robot piloted exploration ship. The PCs and their craft have a tech level and look that's akin to science-ficition of the 1970's. I used a variant of Extended Missions rules but customized the probe/robot building system to allow more options and still keep it very, very rules-lite.

Activated after an unknown amount of time being offline, a glitching message tells them to alter course and investigate a planet which appears to be emitting an intelligent radio signal. After encounters with the nearly dead planet's strange lifeforms, hostile terrain and dangerous weather, the PCs encounter other robots considerably more advanced then themselves. After a battle and a quick escape to repair and regroup they are able to decode the original message and the radio signal. The alien planet is none other then the Earth thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of years in the future.

In the two adventures we've played we've learned only that the Earth, several moon bases and a few other areas of the Solar System were devastated in a civil war many millenia ago. Mars appears to have faired better but we haven't gone there because the hostile enemy robots are using it as a base.

So far its one of the best campaigns I've run in a long time. Having only two players and myself at the start, we've added one new player (a lovely young lady and first time gamer named Ashley) who picked up the rules and the story right away (probably helped that she is a big anime/manga and console/computer gaming fan).

So I want to apologize to Jim Clunie for twisting his creation beyond all recognition and thank him profusely for inspiring one of my coolest games ever. To you Jim!

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