I'm On A Mission From God

Yeah, technically the Blues Brothers was 1980,

but who is going to tell Jake and Elwood?

 

Not me. I ain't no jive turkey.

There are only 17 hours left as of this post to get down with your bad self and back this funky-fly RPG!

You dig it? Outta sight!

AD
Barking Alien

Barking Alien 101: Advice For Playing In My Games

My good buddy Jay at the ever-so-futuristically-fun blog EXONAUTS, recently posted a list of things for novice PCs to make note of when first entering into the exciting, fast paced world of adventuring.

Actually, I think he might have meant that the points listed were things novice Players should think about when they start in the adventure gaming hobby, but that's just semantics more or less.

I think his post is largely bang-on, but I also thought a slightly altered version of it would be more appropriate to what I am specifically hoping to see in a new player (those playing in my campaigns, or wanting to in the future, please take note).

Snark Warning: Snarkiness Level set to Chartreuse. Pretty snarky but not too snarky.

Let's begin shall we? Being A Player in a Barking Alien RPG - Lesson 101

1. GOLDEN RULE: Ask the GM questions and try stuff. Have fun!

Don’t ask the GM if you can breathe or tie your shoe or whether the modern day city street your PC is on has stores. Are you dense? Try to imagine the place the PC is at, what it looks like, what it would be like. Seriously.
2. Talk to each other, you're a team so get to know your teammates.

OMG! Yes please. You are not alone in the game. Get to know each other.
3. Look around at your surroundings, try to be aware at all times.

If you have trouble doing this, let your GM know. Maybe he/she can draw a picture, set up minis or something. If you can’t picture the environment (see #1), get HELP.
4. Listen - this means both you as a player and your PC in game.

But be aware that you the Player can often hear things your PC can’t because they are not near the source of the sound. Learn to separate these two concepts. Please.
5. Learn about your abilities, see Golden Rule.

Less important to me. If it floats your boat, go ahead.
6. Look in your gear bag, learn about your stuff, see Golden Rule.

Less important to me. If it floats your boat, go ahead.
7. Check for traps - decide if they should they be disarmed or sidestepped? Left for enemies to run into?

OK, this can be summed up easily. Think. Don’t be stupid. If you are stupid, expect it to bite you in the butt.
8. Always be searching for clues, information is as valuable as treasure!

Yes. Yes. Yes.
In most of the games I run, information is much, much more valuable than treasure. There usually isn’t much treasure per se.
9. Record any clues you find or hints you might suspect are being dropped.

Do you know what record means? Take physical notes! Good physical notes. If we read the notes from last sessions this session and don’t know who or what they are referring to, YOU HAVE NOT TAKEN GOOD NOTES.
Remember fifth grade? Yeah. Like that.
10. Learn about your enemies, keep a record in case you run into more.

Notes. See above.
11. In combat - look for cover and take up key positions when possible.

Remember #7? Think and Don’t be stupid.
12. After combat - loot the bodies, see #7, and see #8.

Do this in one of my games and be prepared to face consequences unless appropriate to the genre.
Starfleet Officers, Superheroes, Knights of Chivalry, and Samurai do not loot the bodies.
13. Remember to get paid, collect treasure, and then convert it to liquid currency if needed. You earn XP for spending your income.

Again, if genre appropriate, get paid, collect treasure, etc.
Money has nothing to do with XP in any game I run. None. Not even D&D.
14. Return to HQ/town/etc. and get information on what you've found. Refer to previous clues discovered.

Good advice.
15. Heal yourself and other teammates whenever possible (this includes rest and nourishment).

Good advice.
A few other, general pieces of advice.


• Besides sticking to your class and/or race attributes, determine who's doing what on the team - (e.g., is one of you the group's "leader"? Who looks after team-owned gear, etc.).

Not applicable or appropriate in the majority of my games.
If you are playing Star Trek and you don't understand that the Captain is the leader, don't play Star Trek. Did I go too fast there? No? Good.
• Learn about basic tactics in combat (flanking, etc.)

Meh. If you want to. Probably won’t matter in a universe where people can fly, teleport, move at super speed, see the future, read your mind, etc.
• When in doubt, ask the locals. Brush up on bribing, interviewing, and intimidating NPCs. Even if encounters appear to yield nothing, there could be a clue in their temperament or mood. What aren't they saying?

Here’s a thought, instead of bribing, and intimidating NPCs, get to know them. Maybe, and here's a crazy idea, make friends. Who is more likely to give you good information, more often; the guy who hates you, and is afraid of you, and can’t wait for you to leave, or the guy who’s happy to see you and actually WANTS to help you out and see you do well?
• Try to determine who might find value in the treasure or information you've discovered.

Where and when appropriate, sure.
• Always review your character sheet -- look for ways of improving yourself. How will you spend your XP?

Meh. This is fine as long as it doesn’t lead to min-maxing. Don’t min-max. It’s asinine. Update your character logically based on their interests and goals.

Hopefully, this will give a little insight into how my games differ from most, with a little added humor. Hopefully.

Now put your books away.

Class dismissed.

AD
Barking Alien

The Golden Age of Pulp...Is About 10

With a new school year comes a new session of the Sunday program at the tutoring center where I teach. This semester, so far, Sundays are pretty light, with only four students signed up and attending regularly.

Saturdays are much busier, and I have been covering for a teacher who is on vacation. So, yeah, worked seven days a week for two weeks, plus working this week at the regular job. Saturday, Oct. 4th will be my first day off since Sept. 13th.

Be that as it may, I love it and the kids are awesome.

As part of what I do at the center, I run an RPG session each week, connected to a writing lesson and/or creative writing assignment. With both the game and the lessons, we try to encourage the students to think and be creative, as well as practice their writing skills.

Many of these kids are in ESL classes (English as a Second Language), and either have difficulty with English because they moved to the USA fairly recently, or because English isn't regularly spoken by their family at home.

For this 'semester', I started with two girls, each in 4th grade, and a boy in 2nd. Another girl has now joined them, also in 4th grade.

I initially had this idea I thought was amazing, combining a modified version of the game Psi-Run with creative writing, learning how to search for clues and information in text, and other elements that would have been both really helpful to the students, and incredibly fun. Unfortunately, with so few kids, the basic premise of project (each student learning about his or her character from questions created/asked by the other students) wasn't going to live up to its full potential. I decided to shelve the concept for now, and do something else.

I asked the original three students what they wanted to play. One girl said Fantasy, the boy said Superheroes, and the other girl didn't care as long as it had fighting and action.

I asked them when it should take place. The answer was discussed between them and they voted for the present, modern day. I asked where it should take place. I got 'the Ocean', 'the Sky', a 'Far Away Land'.

Pouring all these ingredients into my mental blender, I came up with an oddly Pulp Era-like supers game. Basically, HEROES meets Indiana Jones, or something akin to the game I mentioned not long ago called Double Cross. The only difference was the feel was much more 'Dime Store Novel' then I intended once we started playing.

What we ended up with is called, 'The Crime-Fighters' (named by one of the girls and winning the unanimous vote). The Crime-Fighters (we learn in Episode #3) are a team of international secret agents fighting against evil, and using either special skills, high tech gadgets or superhuman abilities.

Our first session found the team fighting a bunch of pirates who had stolen a priceless treasure, recently excavated from the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. The treasure was lost hundreds of years ago when a storm sank the boat carrying it.

Defeating the criminals, they loaded the treasure onto the team jet (a small craft owned by one of the PCs), and headed back to Washington, D.C. to hand the treasure over to a museum. Low and behold, it would not be so easy, as the pirates were working for a mysterious fellow known only as 'The Boss Man', who immediately gave chase in his own plane (a massive, modified B-52 Bomber looking flying fortress). The pirate ship was originally supposed to meet the plane anyway to transfer the stolen treasure.

The heroes had a head start but the enemy plane used 'turbo boost' style rockets to catch up. Eventually, one of the players (the boy), handed the controls of his plane over to a teammate so he could fly over to the enemy plane with his special suit...

Oh yeah, The Crime-Fighters are:

'Lucky', a girl with the power to give herself and others Good Luck or Bad Luck. It is sometimes hard to believe this young lady is only in the 4th grade. She came up with the idea that if she raises her right hand (or touches someone with it) it's Good Luck but her left hand is Bad Luck. At one point, she hands the controls of the plane to the 'Fighting Girl' who said she didn't know how to pilot the craft. Without missing a beat or giving any other signal, the player put her right hand on her friend's shoulder and said, "Well, Good Luck flying the plane." Brilliant.

'Fighting Girl' is a modern day Hua Mulan, apparently replacing her aging father who was a member of the Crime-Fighters but retired. She has no supernatural or superhuman powers but is an extremely skilled fighter. She is a master of numerous martial arts techniques, an expert archer, and an incredible swordswoman (Swords are her main weapon). She also carries various grenades (flash, smoke, etc.), and a grapnel gun (made for her by the male member of the group).

Referred to as 'The Pilot' and 'The Flying Hero', the male member of the team is an inventor with a host of nifty gadgets. Largely inspired by the Falcon from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the Flying Hero wears a winged suit that lets him fly and turn invisible (though he can still be heard, smelled, etc.). He wears goggles that enable him to see himself when he's invisible (Very clever on this kids part), see in the dark (as night vision goggles), and shoot lasers from the sides (the beams are not very powerful but he can weld things, burn you, cut ropes, etc.).

Coolest thing? He gave a spare pair of his googles (sans lasers) to each of his fellow Crime-Fighters so they too can see him when he's invisible. Teamwork! I was so proud and impressed by that idea.

Their assignment for next week is to come up with actual names for their characters, and give a little background as to where they are from and why they are members of the Crime-Fighters.

After getting over to the enemy craft (eventually accompanied by Lucky, who travels over by grapnel gun line), the Pilot manages to get into a fight with a few of 'The Boss Man's specially gifted henchmen. So far, the team has fought a super strong man with tough (although not invulnerable) skin, a samurai girl who is also very good with a sword, a man who can disappear and reappear in a puff of black smoke (a mystic), and a teenager who is either a cyborg or a robot.

'The Boss Man', originally seated in the front area, ran to the back of the plane, and locked the cabin door behind him after sending the cyborg/robot kid out to engage the PCs.

The team was aided in the last episode by a new member, another female character who can shape change into a variety of frightening monsters. She can not duplicate people and her size is limited to roughly the same as her true form but she has the most overtly noticeable supernatural ability in the group. The rest of the group is saying it's likely magic. I am curious to see what the player says in the writing assignment.

We've had three sessions so far, and yet, there are a lot more details I could tell you about. The kids are awesome and they're having a ball with this. It's so odd how the genre is feeling very Pulp as I mentioned, even though these kids are way too young to have any clue what Pulp even is. Not unlike that time I ran Superheroes with the older kids and it felt very Silver Age even though none of them read comics, let alone ones from the 70s.

Anyway, going to stop here and get back to other projects. A lot going on lately.

Talk to you soon.

AD
Barking Alien

Core Values

Good friend of this blog, and all around royal thinking person, Lord Blacksteel, made an interesting post over at his Tower of Zenopus on the subject of getting into a 'well supported' RPG.

By 'well supported' he means (if I understand him) that the game has, in addition to its core rules, a large amount of supplemental material produced for it including, but not limited to, sourcebooks, adventures, and other splatbooks of various kinds.

I think what Blacksteel says on the subject is accurate and valid, but (unsurprisingly I guess) I have a slightly different take on the subject.

These days, I really don't want a well supported game. At least, not in the traditional sense. Certainly not supported like the example he gives, which is Paizo Publishing's Dungeons & Dragons 3.x, also known as Pathfinder.

That's Too. Damn. Many. Books.

 

 

Now don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting every RPG company produce a single book of rules, and be done with it. That's no fun, and certainly not very effective from a business stand point.

 

Also, I will totally admit to owning damn near everything for every Star Trek RPG ever produced (except Prime Directive/Star Fleet Battles of which I own very little if anything), the Star Wars D6 RPG by West End Games, Mutants & Masterminds (all editions), and classic Traveller (including The Journal of the Travellers Aid Society magazines).

 

That said, I will name two games I've grown to really dislike, and perhaps you will notice a similarity between them:

 

Pathfinder and RIFTS.

 

Both share the distinction of being over-supported in my personal opinion. How can a game possibly be over-supported? Well let's take a look at some of my favorite games in comparison...

 

Currently, when I run Champions, I use one book and one book only for 90-95% of the campaigns content. I use the famous 'Big Blue Book', the hardcover rulebook for Champions 4th Edition. That's it. Honestly, what else do I need? Ah, there is lies the key word...need.

 

Let's take another favorite of mine, Star Trek. I have every supplement and sourcebook for every Star Trek RPG because I love Star Trek, but honestly, I hardly use anything that came out from Last Unicorn Games when running Star Trek campaigns, outside of the corebooks.

LUG created some great stuff, don't get me wrong. It's just that, between my knowledge of Star Trek, the excellent rules in the corebook, and my own imagination, I can run the game without any help from the game itself.

I will use material from a few of the supplements here and there, and from the FASA game, such as starships, species information, planets that strike my fancy, etc. Note that I do this because I want to. I found these elements interesting, so I want to use them. I don't use them because I have to, or I can't make the game work otherwise. I don't really. I mean honestly, outside of the rules and the basic information of Starfleet, their vessels and gear, some data on a few of the hostile space governments, what else do you need to run Trek?

 

Nada. Nothing. Zilch.

A big reason why I love these two games, Champions and ICONS Star Trek, is that both games do something no version of D&D has ever done, which is give the players, and GMs, the mechanics behind the rules so that they (the gamers) can build new, compatible stuff themselves.

 

Where as most games like to sell you model kit after model kit that enable you to build and use their cars, or their buildings, or their airplanes, and what-have-you, Star Trek, Champions and many other games I like sell you a box of LEGOs and say, "Go to town my friend. Get crazy."

 

 

 

What is it?

 

It's awesome is what it is. It's what I wanted to make.

Why? Because LEGO m*^#erf*^$ers!

 

 

I've noticed that with Pathfinder and RIFTS, for example, GMs and players alike can't sneeze until they find the Sneezing Splatbook that tells you everything you need to know to get the most out of your sneeze. Screw that noise.

 

Don't get me started on Adventure Paths. I don't want a path. Paths don't lead to adventure. Paths lead to well travelled bed and breakfast lodges for a weekend getaway. Paths are the safe ways up the mountain. For far, in my experience, Adventure Paths are too heavy handed, too railroad-y, and not one, strangely enough, is tailor made to our groups' campaign. Not one. You'd think they didn't have us specifically in mind when they wrote it. The nerve!

 

What I want game companies to give me are sourcebooks that help me build my own settings, my own adventures, and my own creations. That, or they supply information I do need for the setting I am playing. A book of ships for Star Trek or Star Wars, character profile books for Marvel or DC, descriptions of the nations of Mythic Europe for Ars Magica, etc. True game support, if I may say so, supports the GMs, and the players, by allowing them to make more out of the games basic rules, setting, and premise.

 

A book on how to min-max the rules for the deadliest, deadly 'Deathdealer'? Five hundred more monsters when you haven't given me a Monster Creation system? A series of adventures that locks my group into a story we find boring a quarter of the way through?

 

No thanks. Just not my cup of joe.

 

Finally, note that Champions 4E, Star Trek by LUG, Star Trek by FASA, Star Wars by WEG, Ars Magica 3rd, Bushido, Mekton II, Faery's Tale Deluxe, InSpectres and many of the other games I play are not currently commercially supported. Doesn't effect me one bit.

 

The Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Monster Manual came out recently. Beautiful book with lots of monster entries. And no system for making your own. Tsk tsk.

 

AD

Barking Alien

 

Yesterday was the birthday of my hero, Jim Henson. Jim (Can I call you Jim?), would've been 78 years old. You are deeply missed.

 

Today commemorates the birthday of another departed favorite of mine, Christopher Reeve. Chris would've been 62.

 

In a different quantum reality, these guys are working on some crazy, awesome project together. I wish we could see it.

 

 

You will believe a monster can fly.

  

Marvel Two-In-One

I have a new pet project.

I am taking TSR's classic Marvel Super Heroes RPG (aka, the FASERIP system), and merging it with MWP's Marvel Heroic RPG.

Marvel Super Heroic!

What If? Indeed!

 

 

When it comes to Superhero RPGs, there are two games that sit in a very strange place in the Sanctum Sanctorum that is my brain.

The Marvel Super Heroes RPG by Jeff Grub (TSR, 1984), and the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game by Cam Banks and Rob Donoghue (Margret Weiss Productions, 2012).

I really don't like the Marvel Super Heroes game by TSR. I don't know why exactly, beyond the fact that it always struck me as sort of silly, and childish. I also felt it was odd that there were so few levels of power to differentiate everyone in Marvel Universe from Frog Man to Galactus.

I do like Marvel Heroic. A lot. It's very thematic, giving one the feeling of being in a modern Marvel comic book. It also has some nifty mechanics such as Assets, Complications and the ever awesome Doom Pool. I am not a big fan of big crunch, but I do like it when crunch translates directly into genre tropes, as is the case here.

Unfortunately, MH suffers from several obstacles when trying to win over many people I've spoken to about the game, at least in relation to long term play.

First, the character creation system is somewhere between vague and non-existent.

There is little to no system for (traditional) character improvement, even though the game has a really cool experience point system. There just isn't enough to do with your XP once you get it.

Power levels and effects don't feel particularly different from each other mechanically.

Each game has, IMHO, certain strengths, weaknesses, and interesting approaches to Superhero RPGs that the other covers, improves upon, and compliments. In the interest of searching for the perfect blend of genre simulation and game mechanics, I feel this mutant hybrid is worth exploring.

Basically I want to use the Assets, Complications and other situational modifiers from Heroic in FASERIP. Also, the cool XP system in Heroic (as in, how you gain XP), could give you MSH Karma instead. What do you think?

 

There are a few other elements of FASERIP and Heroic I'll be merging, but the key to this hybrid (the reason I'm doing it), is to give Heroic (my favorite of the two), the two things it sorely lacks. #1. A character creation system most players can wrap their heads around. #2. A system for improving your character through XP that benefits from Heroic's dramatic XP rules.

More on this idea as it develops. If anyone has any ideas, questions, or recommendations, feel free to let me know.

Excelsior!

AD
Barking Alien