31 Days / 31 Characters - HE WHO GLISTENS IN THE AUTUMN TWILIGHT BENEATH THE THIRD AND SEVENTH MOONS

This entry is a toast to the memory of one of my dearest friends and greatest gamers I've ever known, Allen Halden.

Allen passed away in the fall of 2017 and not a week goes by where I don't think about him and miss him terribly. As I try to regularly post RPG related subjects to this blog, I can't help but think of Allen as he was such a big part of my best gaming experiences for so many years.

One of my favorites of which, was our Galaxy Quest campaign and one of the reasons it was so good was his character... 

Character: He Who Glistens in the Autumn Twilight Beneath the Third and Seventh Moons.

AKA: Lt. Commander, Moonbug

Player: Allen Halden

System: Galaxy Quest, The Roleplaying Game, Homebrew based on Teenagers from Outer Space, 1st Edition by R. Talsorian Games. 

Nature: Short Campaign: Galaxy Quest: Galient

Gamemaster: Adam Dickstein 

Circa: 2003

Origins: I've told this tale before but to sum it up; originally I was meant to run our regularly scheduled game with my ol' New Jersey group but for one reason or another it couldn't be done. Most everyone was therethough  and I still really wanted to run something so I had a sudden epiphany - a Galaxy Quest game. 

After quickly explaining the rules, everybody pitched me their character concepts. My buddy Allen, already well known for playing strangle looking and quirky characters, decided to take the 'Dr. Lazarus' role (played by the incomparable Alan Rickman) and create a Token Alien who was also our Science Officer (and Second-in-Command). 

Where he got the idea to create this character I couldn't say. Allen was very creative but also great at understanding how to pick and choose the appropriate tropes to include so that his characters fit the setting he was playing or running in.

I do know his choice of the name was a spoof on how so many aliens in Sci-Fi TV and films have names that are easy for the actors to say and audience to remember. This character's parents didn't name him with you in mind. His name makes perfect sense to other members of his species and hey, that's what counts.

Backstory: He Who Glistens in the Autumn Twilight Beneath the Third and Seventh Moons didn't really have a backstory per se. At least he didn't have any that came up during the course of our campaign. Through dialogue and jokes we developed a little information about his species however. 

The Lieutenant Commander's home planet was warm, wet, and mostly covered by rainforests and jungles. Plants grew very large, particularly flowers, lilipads, and fruit trees.We know it has at least seven moons but it is unclear if that is the total number of natural satellites.  According to the Lt. Commander the most dangerous predators on his world were a type of amphibious reptile described as an alligator/frog hybrid. 

Like everyone else on his planet, He Who Glistens in the Autumn Twilight Beneath the Third and Seventh Moons has dozens of brothers and sisters. Although this makes the homeworld heavily populated, He Who Glistens in the Autumn Twilight Beneath the Third and Seventh Moons is the only member of his alien race in the NSEA Fleet and one of the few roaming the galaxy. The Insectoid people (no species name was ever established, though they were sometimes referred to as 'Insectiloids'.) were content to remain on their own world and had little interest in the greater interstellar community. He Who Glistens in the Autumn Twilight Beneath the Third and Seventh Moons was a very rare exception. 

Overview: Played as both comedically over-the-top and with subtle nuance, He Who Glistens in the Autumn Twilight Beneath the Third and Seventh Moons' personality is difficult to describe. For the most part he was calm, cool, collected, a consumate professional, and always polite. He could sometimes get frustrated that not everyone shared his views on proper manners and etiquette. This is best exemplified by the use of his name. He would always say it in its entirety when asked what his name was and wasn't fond of other trying to shorten it or give him a nickname. To everyone else his name was too long but to him, it was his name and he didn't shorten yours. 

Eventually the reoccurring joke/real life issue of people tripping over his name caused our friend Lynn's character to call him 'Moonbug' and it stuck. Otherwise people got around the issue by calling him by his rank.

Knowing our Commander had the responsibility and burden of...well...command, He Who Glistens in the Autumn Twilight Beneath the Third and Seventh Moons tried very hard not to distract her or interfere with her operations. This created a running gag wherein He Who Glistens in the Autumn Twilight Beneath the Third and Seventh Moons.starts to say, "Commander, perhaps we should...", as the Commander walks past and waves him off or ignores him for the most [while rubbing the bridge of her nose]. The Lt. Commander then falls silent. Later, when the poop really hits those huge unnecessary fans below the catwalk, the Commander would call for ideas, suggestions, or answers and Moonbug would say, "As I was going to say earlier...". 

The Highlights:

I usually prefer to highlight character driven moments and not just action based ones but in the case of Moonbug its been over 20 years, it was a humorous campaign, and his personality was, as noted above, subtle and hard to pinpoint in a single standard out event.

In the very first use of his Token Alien ability, He Who Glistens in the Autumn Twilight Beneath the Third and Seventh Moons invented 'Communicate with Insects' to prevent a rhino sized beetle creature from attacking the PCs in the first session/adventure. He used it again in the second adventure, talking to a large flutter of butterfly-like insects in order to locate an ancient ruin hidden by the surrounding jungle. This was his most often used ability and therefore became his only permanent Special Ability. Among my favorite uses was his last, wherein he called upon clouds of swarming gnats to distract and frustrate a Meechan Warlord! 

When a murder occurred on the NSEA Spaceport Beta-2 during a Galactic Peace Accord Conference, Commader Krista Packard had her hands full dealing with panicked diplomats, coordinating station security, and getting hassled by her superiors to find answers and fast! He Who Glistens in the Autumn Twilight Beneath the Third and Seventh Moons made some initial observations and came up with a general guess about what had happened, which he kept to himself for the time.

The rest of the Galient's crew split-up into teams to investigate the situation, including Moonbug heading off with Security Chief Van Pelt. After looking into the mystery and attempting to catch a mysterious group of 'phantom assassins', the Commander called everyone back to give her a run down on what they'd found. Ambassadors from a few different galactic powers barged in demanding to know what Commander Packard and her people had discovered. Packard told them all to have a seat as she was just about to be informed on just that subject. The PCs all gave the evidence they had, testimonies they'd heard, and theories they'd come up with based on their observations. All but He Who Glistens in the Autumn Twilight Beneath the Third and Seventh Moons. When the Commander asked, "Lt. Commander? Anything to add?"

He Who Glistens in the Autumn Twilight Beneath the Third and Seventh Moons stood up from his chair, looked to the Commander and said, "Yes Commander, if it would please you and the esteemed assembled dignitaries, I'd like to solve the mystery. Again, if that's all right with you." The Commander, heck everyone, stared at him dumbfounded until she finally shook her head and motioned for him to speak. Allen goes on to say that he actually solved the murder in the very beginning and then waited for everyone to gather proof to back up the answer he'd had all that time. Not only was he right, he worked out additional details based on evidence the PCs had assembled that weren't intended to be part of the mystery [by me].

His idea was BETTER than the idea I had. It was essentially my plot plus. 

Game Info:

While I can't seem to locate the original piece of scrap paper Allen wrote the character on (though I found everyone else's oddly), I do have the one we used for the expanded campaign.

 

Notes: He Who Glistens in the Autumn Twilight Beneath the Third and Seventh Moons' special abilities included Communicate with Insects (which he used enough to make it part of the 'show's' permanent continuity), Danger Sense (which he successfully used once), Limited Flight (also used once), and Sticking to Walks (used twice). I believe he had one or two other one-shot abilities. 

While Allen didn't affect a funny voice for this character, he definitely had a distinct way of speaking and particular mannerisms. He was polite, very fastidious, and was a being of few words except when directly asked to explain something. Then (as in the Highlights section above) he could go on and on about a subject in great detail.  

Legacy: This character hasn't been used in any capacity since the original Galaxy Quest campaign I ran back in 2003 and that's partially because I've never felt comfortable portraying him the way Allen did. I can't quite nail that certain something that made him so awesome. With Allen gone, it is possible He Who Glistens in the Autumn Twilight Beneath the Third and Seventh Moons may never grace my table again. 

Still...what I wouldn't give to run Galaxy Quest once more. Maybe, just maybe, a shiny green insectoid alien science officer could appear as a background NPC. 

The true legacy of this PC isn't the character itself but Allen Halden - his creativity, talent, warmth, humor, and friendship. 

We miss you Moonbug.

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Barking Alien

Command Crew to the Bridge

I thought it prudent to follow up my last post with the words of the players involved in our long standing Star Trek Adventures RPG campaign, Star Trek: Prosperity.

I posed to them the question, 'Why do you think Star Trek: Prosperity has lasted so long?"

Before I tell you what they said/wrote, I thought I'd give you all a brief, up-to-date rundown on our four Player Characters. 

Our Commanding Officer, Captain Ann Fletcher (played by Dan), went from young woman to watch to a well respected and regarded officer, a favorite of the Beta Quadrant's Starfleet Admiralty. Born and raised in the Sol System Asteroid Field, the Captain's teen and young adult years remain a bit of a mystery but definitely include some rough and tumbler years. She has a strong will, unflinching beliefs, and a goal of unifying every intelligent species in the galaxy in mutual friendship and respect.  

Commander Solok, our former First Officer and Chief Science Officer, published a number of papers on Precursor Science and Technology touted as ground-breaking by scientists across the UFP, particularly the Vulcan Science Academy. Mr. Solok has temporarily taken a leave of absense from Starfleet after marrying the Prosperity's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Margaret 'Maggie' Hanover. The player now plays the up-and-coming young Helmsman Charlie Wilder, a natural born pilot (Solok and Wilder played by Leo).

Commander Solok of Vulcan

Former First Officer and Chief Science Officer

The ship's Chief Engineer, Andorian officer Tha'ar Bhoth (played by Alex), was promoted to First Officer and now serves with both distinction and a constent feeling of having to live up to his predecessor. Bhoth is a man of two worlds, with his dedication to the UFP and Starfleet pulled and pushed by his relationship with the Andorian Imperial Guard, where his father serves as a well-respected General. 

Finally, last but not least, Lt. Commander Rhys Carr (played by Arthur) started out as our Chief Communications Officer, was transferred to Chief of Security, and finally promoted to Chief Science Officer. Earler in Carr's Starfleet career (prior to the start of the campaign) he served as a Crytanalyst and that played a big part in his role as Chief of Communications. He was able to decypher the iconographic language of the Precursors and developed an improved algorithm for Universal Translators that greatly enhanced First Contact operations for years to come. 

Now, on to the players' comments...

"A longstanding mutual commitment that come what may, by the end of the session, Star Trek wins." Dan - Captain Fletcher

 ​“ First, the opportunity to portray a character for years and having them evolve and change though game play. Star Trek is a unique RPG setting that encourages communication over conflict, compassion over cruelty, and exploration over exploitation. Even as the world seems to prefers the later over the former, it’s comforting to be able to listen to our better angels. ”  Leo - Commander Solok / Lt. Wilder

“A fanatical love of and desire to live in Star Trek. The satisfaction of contributing our own stories in said universe. Love of each other at the table...a damn good ship design!” Alex - Commander Bhoth

"First, I truly love Star Trek and heartily welcome the chance to live in that universe for even a few hours a month. Second, I don’t have the opportunity in any other medium to not be the 'main character' and flex a player character’s interpersonal skills muscles on an ongoing basis. (There is no “I” in team. Except in Klingon. And then it’s more of an “eye”.) Lastly, to quote Professor Higgins, I’ve grown accustomed to your faces." Arthur - Lt. Commander Carr

The crew has spoken! The Voyage Continues...

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Barking Alien

RPGaDay 2024 - Barking Alien Edition - Day 11

Psst. *Whispering* Hey. Yeah you. C'mere. *Looks around* Can you keep a secret?

 

Players love their Secrets don't they? 

Player Character backstories are always full of checkered pasts, tragic childhoods, and embarrassing relationships to the big bad. Don't worry about remembering it all as it's explained in great detail in the ten page character write-up the player has given you. The thing of it is, for the time being this forbidden knowledge is known only to the player and you the GM. By no means should the rest of the group know or even be aware of any of it. Those secrets are to revealed later.

But when is later?

In my mind, secrets are best handled in the same way as mysteries. I've stated it before but what is the primary purpose of a mystery? To have it solved. A mystery that can't be solved lies somewhere between frustrating and meaningless. Secrets are very much the same. A secret no one is aware of beyond the Player and the GM might as well not exist. At some point that secret should be hinted at, then alluded to in a direct manner, then revealed.  Some excitement and drama stems from keeping the secret but even more can result from uncovering or confessing to the truth. 

This can get tricky if the player whose PC holds the secret is reluctant to divulge the information they've been keeping under wraps. You don't want to give it away too soon but the longer its held the harder it is to have it come out. Now I don't mean hard as in the reaction will be more intense, though it might be, but rather its more gets difficult to let go of what has become a well guarded and even coveted piece of a character's lore. If the others learn your secret, then what makes your character special now?

Well, lots of things probably (hopefully) but the expoxing of a PCs hidden information doesn't lessen the character, it simply changes their dynamic, their place in the narrative, and maybe even the narrative itself.

For me it all works best if the secret starts as an unknown, then trickles out into the campaign in the form of small clues and curious interactions or events, until eventually release of the knowledge into the wild becomes unavoidable. This could take half a dozen sessions, a dozen, two dozen, or even more but all relative to the length of the campaign itself. I don't have an exact number or percentage. I'd play it by ear personally. However, the key is I would wing it with an objective in mind - somewhere is trying to keep a secret and the universe is trying to reveal it. 

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Barking Alien

BONUS FEATURE: Day 11 of the official RPGaDay 2024 Prompts:

From what I understand, according to gaming friends who use pre-made one-shot adventures, Star Trek Adventures and ALIEN are big winners in this category. Both Modiphius and Free League seem to put out fun, short adventures that work very well as one-shots. 

I don't have any first hand experience so I can't really speak on it beyond this. 

Let's Get This Party Started

Hi everybody! Welcome to the Party! The Adventuring Party that is.

(Heh. See what I did there?)

This is a 'teaser' for the first entry in my new irregular series, 'Meet The Party', showcasing various gaming groups I've had over the years and their PCs. It is going to be very similar to the Characters section of my Campaigns I Have Known/Played posts but expanded, with perhaps a bit more about the players and the inter-player/inter-character dynamics. Perhaps I should call it Characters I Have Known?

This is kind of an experiment. I'm not sure how well it will go over compared to the Campaigns I Have... series and how many of these I can generate before the two series start to overlap. I definitely want these two works to cover separate ground. Hopefully I will be able to keep them distinct. 

On a personal note, I don't like the word 'Party' for a group of PCs and never have. I don't know why exactly but it just never clicked with me. If you go back to my posts over the years you'll see I use it considerably less often then group, team, or even crew.

It largely boils down to what I heard growing up; the only 'party' I was familiar with in a context related to 'adventures' would've been a Search Party or Landing Party. Lord of The Rings calls it a Fellowship. In Superhero comics they say Team. Star Trek sends down Landing Parties or Away Teams but these consist of Crewmembers. Rebels in Star Wars. Musicians form a Band, as do Merry Men. 

Yeah, Party just sounds weird to me. 

Anyway...Our first Party consists of one of my very first Parties, The Winghorn Guard from my original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (-ish) campaign from 1982-83. 

See you soon,

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Barking Alien

Happy 90th Birthday to the great John Williams, composer of all the best movie soundtracks of my youth. 

Rest in Peace to visual effects legend Douglas Trumbull - a pioneer in the field of film special effects who worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. 

Why Join The Party?

Why do 'Adventurers' stick together?

Just the other night, the members of one of my gaming groups (for whom I am currently running Champions 4th Edition in my friend William's 'Age of Champions' universe) got into a discussion about Player Character groups or 'parties', why and how they form, and what are their reasons for remaining as a unit. 

It struck us as noteworthy that a lot of games (especially ones we play) have a built in conceit for this:

• Blades in the Dark PCs are a Crew, out to perform a heist or other criminal enterprise.
• Call of Cthulhu PCs may be from different walks of life but all are Investigators
• Star Trek PCs are all Starfleet Officers and the Crew of a Starfleet vessel on a mission.
• Star Wars PCs are often a Rebel cell, in the Grand Army of the Republic, or members of the Jedi Order
• Superheroes are all, well, Superheroes. Often they're part of a team or acting as one to fight evil. 

The list goes on and on. Of course someone out there is saying, "You don't have to be Starfleet Officers in a Star Trek game. You can be a bunch of Smugglers and Mercenaries just like in other Space Opera settings." Yes, you can. You can do whatever makes you happy. I am simply addressing the default assumptions of the games noted above and the majority of people who play them. 

My point is, you don't need to find a reason for your Superheroes to unite and battle crime and villainy. They are Superheroes. That's what Superheroes do. If you sat down to play Superheroes your reason for being part of the team is pretty much baked into the crust. Sure, each character might have their own inciting moment in their backstory, their own personal motive that drives them but since we've decided to play Supers, yeah, we've going to play Superheroes doing Superhero stuff. 

As always, the odd one out is the most popular one...Dungeons and Dragons. 

DM: "Alright, so with the map provided by the Inn Keeper, you set off to defeat the dragon Blorfog and obtain the Lost Treasure of Iron Smoke Mountain!"

Player 1: "I don't see why my character would go on this quest."

DM: "I'm sorry...what?"

Player 1: "Sure, I could use the treasure but I'm a Thief who is easily killed. My stats and such aren't great. It would make more sense to stay around the city and just pick pocket locals."

Player 2: "Yeah, and my character is a Ranger. I could see him leading the group to the mountain but then I'll probably just get paid for that and head back. My sworn enemy is Werewolves. I'm not really equipped or motivated to go against a dragon in tunnels under the ground."

DM: "Why would you make Adventurers who don't want to adventure together?"

Players (Together): "I'm just playing my character."

D&D, as well as all the D&D Clones and Cousins, aren't alone in this aspect. Traveller and other open universe, sandbox Space Adventure RPGs also see this sort of thing from time to time. Just as the default assumption of many modern games and IP settings is that the PCs are like-minded people who've formed a team from the start, older Sandbox games tend to default to a bunch of disconnected individuals who need to come up with a reason to join forces.

D&D Party Commission By ABD-Illustrates

Commissioned by  sinaasaappelsap

Thinking about this sent me down a rabbit hole of analyzing why these games are built this way, are they even built this way in reality, and why certain players feel it necessary to assert their defiant independence in what is clearly a group activity. 

When RPGs first emerged out of Wargaming, I don't believe a lot of thought was given to motivation, story, or any such concerns. It was, after all, just a game and while fun it hadn't yet evolved to be more than the sum of its parts. Your reason for going on a given adventure was that there was one and you wanted to play an RPG, ipso facto you joined a party of other players that wanted to do the same thing. 

Let's assume for just a moment that this is a truism. The idea here is that the creators of D&D, Traveller, and similar games of the era didn't expect the players to need motivations for their characters to go on dangerous journeys with others because that is simply what playing such games is about. A player plays an Adventurer and that is just what Adventurers do. 

Maybe that didn't come through clearly. Maybe that wasn't the point after all...

Eventually, quite organically I would imagine, someone added a bit more backstory to their character than was the norm at the time, taking the PC beyond a set of numbers representing game mechanics and into the realm of a protagonist in an emerging narrative that was developing at that very moment. 

So when exactly did the first player say to their Gamemaster that they needed a reason to go on the adventure presented outside of the fact that the adventure existed? Moreover, why did they themselves not try to provide a reason? 

Honestly, I don't know. I couldn't say. The ideas presented here are foreign to my thinking.

This is where I need all of you Old School Grognards to fill me in. This is one of those elements that fascinates and baffles me because my very first character had a motivation in my very first story driven adventure back in 1977. A reason to adventure was both provided by the players AND given by the Gamemaster since moment I entered the hobby. 

Follow that up with the fact that I enjoy and most often play/run games with the built in purpose I mentioned at the start and you can see why I have trouble comprehending this concept. 

To finish up I'll say this - As a player, find a way to motivate yourself. Give yourself a reason to adventure. Understand that you are joining other players and participating in a group event. Don't make the GM or other players have to cater to you and you alone. That's a violation of Rule Zero: Don't be a D**k.

GMs, keep in mind who your players are and who they are playing. Include elements of the PCs backstories and goals in your scenario and plot to give them something to latch on to. Making it more personal will make it more interesting and engaging. 

Work together and achieve more than you could in a vacuum.

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Barking Alien

31 Days / 31 Characters - EMIL FUJIKAWA

One of my best, longest, and most influential games in recent memory was my Traveller campaign, Operation: PALADIN.

It was also, on occasion, something of a nightmare. Fear of being injured, discovered, or any number of other things kept some PCs from being bold when it was needed. This frustrated other PCs who would respond by acting independently in an especially bold fashion that was counter to the rest of the team. You can read more about the trials, tribulations, as well as the good times by checking out the Operation: PALADIN tag. I believe there are some general Traveller posts that may discuss this campaign as well. 

While I've talked about this campaign and some of its character in detail in the past, one character who hasn't received enough attention is my friend Ray's PC, Dr. Emil Fujikawa. 

Character: Doctor Emil Fujikawa

Player: Ray Harris

System: Traveller - Classic version w/ modification from MegaTraveller and houserules.

 

Campaign: Operation: PALADIN

Gamemaster: Adam Dickstein 

Circa: 2013-2015

Origins: The following tale of Emil Fujikawa's creation comes directly from Ray, the player. Take it away Ray: 

"When I started gaming with Adam, I had considered myself a veteran RPG player. My experience gaming was almost exclusively Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, Pathfinder, and homebrews (which used D&D as a baseline to recreate some anime or video game). Oh how wrong I was. Although I claimed to be an experienced gamer, I hadn't played in a game that shared in nearly any of the characteristics that Operation: Paladin would in its roughly three year run.

 

Dr. Fujikawa was my first character for a sci-fi campaign. Despite my fascination with Sci-Fi movies and TV that went back to Stargate and ST:TNG, I had no idea what to expect from the Traveller RPG. What I did understand was that intelligence and caution with just a little bit of daring usually saved the day. So that was what I tried to build into my character.

I decided that I wanted to be a scientist with a focus in Robotics but as I stepped through the character creation system with Adam, I lost sight of my desire and finished three terms of Scientist with only 1 point in Robotics. (At this point, I would like to highlight just how unfamiliar I was with sci-fi games, because I was creating a robotics expert with only the basic understanding of computers that is granted to a character by the fact that I was counting Earth as my homeworld). I started a second career as a Scout in order to round out my squishy Scientist a bit, only to find myself dead. I had failed the Survival Roll of my first term as a Scout and was feeling disheartened as I was starting to like the collection of skills and stats that would become Dr. Fujikawa. Adam too sensed the potential in my nascent character and offered to make it so that that my Scientist/Scout didn't die, but rather (homebrewed chart roll) was captured (homebrew chart roll) on an alien planet by the (homebrewed chart roll) aggressive and violent Ithklur.

This fateful encounter wound up doing two things for this collection of skills and stats to make it into a character. Firstly, I picked a skill that I would get to enhance because I was using it exhaustively during my capture. This would be my Robotics. I stayed alive during my captivity because I was performing forced labor, repairing the robots that my captors used. Secondly, it established that I was on the frontier, someplace where I might be captured by a hostile alien species. That got me thinking, not about how I would get out of this mess, but about how I got into this mess.

Adam was still in the middle of explaining how I was captured and who my captors were, but I was barely listening. My mind was thinking about how a respected Roboticist from Earth would find his way to the space boonies so that he could get captured, be listed as dead, and eventually get freed and reclaim his second lease on life on some backwater space station in Spica Sector. (This is why one of my favorite t-shirts reads, in the classic Traveller font, “You haven't lived until you've died... during character creation.”) Instead of listening to Adam's description of who the Ithklur were and why they might want to hold me captive, I was coming up with a reason for my character to be on the run from very dangerous people.

Before the day was out, I was talking to Adam about my ideas of how Dr. Fujikawa was unintentionally involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the Emperor and replace him with a robotic double. Adam explained how difficult that would be because of the state of robots in Traveller. Basically, robots in Traveller were more R2-D2 than Data and even a C-3PO, without the gold paint, would be a high end model. So I set out to explain in my backstory how my character would be involved in the creation of a fairly rare and possibly illegal model of robot called a pseudo-biological. A model of robot that, thanks to a duplicate 'lab ship' benefit roll, I would start the game in possession of. A couple of weeks later, we started the first session and a couple of weeks after that I gave Adam my full backstory."

Backstory: The full backstory as written and created by Ray with minor adjustments by me to fit it into the setting and story of the campaign:

Dr. Fujikawa's story starts while he was attending Neo Tokyo University getting his doctorate. 

He becomes smitten with a pretty lady, Anna Maria Romanov, who was able to wreck his thesis by talking his robot into a logical failure, multiple times. Eventually they hit it off and she helped him finish his thesis and graduate. It turns out her parents worked at a big time robotics corporation and hired him to work on various projects that all pertained to making a robot seem more like a human.

Eventually, he decides to ask Anna to marry him and she says yes. Unfortunately, they don't have the time to actually get married yet as he gets this big assignment to make a pseudo-biological robot. Luckily, Anna's degree was in art design so they get to work together as she is able to design and create the prototype robot body, while he is putting all of his work from the last 10 years together to create the robot's brain. They finish the robot prototype just before this big tech conference and finally get married. Anna reveals that the robot, "Maria", is physically a duplicate of her, because she has been keeping its design a secret from him as a sort of wedding present.

Then as they are due to leave for their honeymoon space cruise the next day, Anna pulls him aside and plays a recording for him. The recording reveals that Anna was a spy who was assigned by 'her parents' to get Dr. Fujikawa to ultimately build a robot that could pass as human that would be used in a plot to gain control of the highest ranks of government. She was supposed to turn him so that he would join the project willingly but he inadvertently turned her so that she wound up working against the plot. Anna was taking the robot's place and would stall for as long as she could so that he could get away.

The Anna that was with him was actually Maria and he had the only copy of the code and designs to build a new pseudo-biological. They were to get on a lab ship that was newly purchased and find a contact in SolSec (Solomani Security - Space CIA) who would protect them. The contact gets him into the Scout service so that he can disappear somewhere along the frontier, only he actually does disappear when he gets captured by the Ithklur of the Hive Federation. When he is later rescued by the Scouts, he has to recover what is left of his life, while wandering the passages of Bussard Reach space station, at least until he answers a post for a ship to travel to someplace called the Shallows.

Overview: "Throughout the next three years of play there would be many moments that stood out to me as touchstone moments in Dr. Fujikawa's life. From witnessing the death(?) of an NPC that gave him an inkling of understanding into why people had religion, to defeating an Aslan in mock combat by way of an exploding holo-drone, to participating in the arrest of the villain's most helpful minion, a fellow PC."

The Highlights:

"However, the moment that stands out the most to me is when I worked with another PC to infiltrate a Military Weapons Manufacturer and steal the evidence that we would need to arrest the main villain of the story. We had learned that one of the villain's primary lieutenants was an executive at this Government contracted weapons manufacturer. I had tried to hack into their systems but apparently having sensitive information about troop deployments meant that they had good firewalls, so I went to scout the building out and see if I could access an on-site terminal.

I went in claiming to be the parent of a new hire but bailed as soon as I saw the level of security at the front door. I was expecting a couple of overworked security guards tired of working the night shift. What I got was a couple of alert, physically fit guards that were part of a heavily-armed mercenary outfit which came out after the metal detector/x-ray scanner that was built into the front door alerted them that the woman who was pretending to be my wife wasn't what she said she was (that being a Human being). So, we got out of there as fast as we could, meeting back up with the rest of the team and I told them that the mission was a bust.

Having seen first hand how well defended the installation was, I was sure that there was no way we could get in without heavy losses. I argued passionately for hours with the others that getting the info from this location wouldn't be worth it, that we could find the same information stored elsewhere that would be less heavily fortified. I was out numbered. Everyone else insisted that it had to be here. This location was the only place that we could be certain was tied to one of the villain's lieutenants. If we turned back now it would throw out weeks of research and travel to determine the identity of this lieutenant and whoever else we could get to almost certainly wouldn't have the same kind of access to the villain's plans. So I relented. 

The other players changed my mind. I said that we would have to go immediately before the news of my attempted infiltration would bring reinforcements. Everyone scrambled to put a plan together to get me and one other player into the building. As desperate as we were to get this info, I didn't want to risk too many people, especially as most of the players were not combat inclined. That was how I wound up crawling through the sewers to reach a power junction terminal that granted me limited access to the building's security features so that one of my allies could infiltrate the building, access this corrupt executive's office and recover sensitive information from the computer and safe. After that I remember riding something down a sewer pipe that led out to a drainage vent so that we could jump over to our ship. The vessel was waiting for us and flew out of there with the planetary authorities hot on our tail.

This was the single most daring thing that I had done throughout the entire campaign and it held up the premise that I started the campaign with, that intelligence and caution with just a little bit of daring saved the day."

Legacy: A planned sequel to Operation: PALADIN never fully got underway and I haven't run a long term Traveller campaign since this one. The end result is Fujikawa  -who survived and had a solid epilogue in the original game- has not been seen since the Operation: PALADIN campaign ended.

In a twist I couldn't be happier about, Ray and my friend Will (who played the oft mentioned Belarus Hosta in Operation: PALADIN) are currently running a prequel campaign set some 15 years before ours. While Fujikawa doesn't appear, it details how the villain of Operation: PALADIN rose to his position of power and put his plans in place. 

Game Info: Dr. Emil Fujikawa

Species: Human – Solomani

Age: 34 years old.  Born July 25, 1061 IC/5579 AD

Height: 5'10”  Weight: 158 lbs  Appearance: Blue Eyes, Brown Hair

Homeworld: Earth

UPP:77AAC6

Armor Value: 7/0   Hits: 4/5

Scientist (Roboticist): 3 Terms / Scout 1 Term.

Special Assignment: every term

Skills:

Robotics 4, Robot Ops 2, Gravitics 2, Electronics 2, Computer 7, Sensor Ops 4, Mechanical 2, Navigation 2, Engineering 1, Computer AI 2, Laser Weapons 2, Vacc Suit 2, Stealth 1, Grav Vehicle 2, Pilot 2, Forward Observer 1, Instruction 2, Jack of All Trades 2, Liason 3, Demolitions (in training), Handgun (in training)

Special Items: “Maria”, an Android. “The Turing”, an Advanced Lab Ship.

Equipment:

Info Pad, Comm-Comp, Robotics Tools, Liquid Body Armor, Laser Carbine, Personal Drone, Maps of Spica Sector, Heads-Up Display, Wireless Download, Signal Jammer, Body Pistol, Knife, Coral Chunks, Sub-Basement External HD

Credits: 55,140

Next up we travel to that galaxy long ago and far, far away to meet a tough Mandalorian mercenary with a rather droll origin. This is the way of FLEETO WOFF! 

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31 Days / 31 Characters - A Celebration!

The Old Dragoon's Blog posted that someone else (possibly Tardis Captain's Blog of Holding?) had initiated a 31 Days / 31 Characters RPG Challenge for the month of January 2021.

To me this sounds like an excellent way to get the creative juices flowing and start the New Year off with a bang. While the basic idea seems to be creating a new character in a new system every day for 31 days (WOW! More power to you sir!), I am going with a different take on things. 

Each day in the month of January I will post a different character from one of the many, many campaigns I have run or played in in the past. Some of these characters will be mine, some will be those of my players, and some will be memorable NPCs. I will indicate the Player or NPC nature of the character, list the system, setting, and campaign they were used in and give some background information on them as well. 

This is a perfect excuse to do a blog series I've been thinking about doing for a very long time anyway, which is to celebrate some of the greatest characters in the greatest games I've been a part of, especially if they haven't gotten the proper love in other posts I've done previously. In a way it's a nice combination of Campaigns I Have Known/Played, Player Profiles, and a special thank you to everyone in my life who has made gaming my favorite pastime bar none. 

Also, just FYI - February of 2021 marks 12 Years of Barking Alien! My blog will be 12 years old on Feb. the 23rd. It's going to be an Anniversary year!

See you next month. Happy New Year to you and yours from me, mine, my dog Sketch, and of course Barkley. 

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The original 31 Day Character Creation Challenge image

OK, not exactly the original. I altered it slightly. 

The real one was kind of bland and off center.

It gave me artistic OCD until I tweaked it.  

Just Rewards

In the comments of my post on what I called 'Plot Avoidance', JB of B/X Blackrazor and I got into a discussion about 'Game Rewards', more specifically 'Whether or not Mechanical Game Rewards [such as Experience Points, Stat and Skill Increases, in-game Wealth and Improvements in Gear] were the motivation for playing.' 

The question and conversation so intrigued me that I asked the question of the members of three different Facebook groups dedicated to RPGs; two of which were general and one consisted of only personal friends and those I actually game with. 

Do you - do most gamers for that matter - play in order to gain to XP and treasure and see your characters improve? Is this why you play RPGs? Is that the reason you play or the goal in doing so?

Before revealing what my research discovered, here's my personal take...

For me, XP rewards and other forms of mechanical improvement are simply not that important to my enjoyment of a game. They're not unimportant or uninteresting, I mean, sure I like to see my characters' abilities improve and it's fun to gain new talents over time, but it isn't my motivation for playing. 

I would best describe it as a fringe benefit. It's akin to a tip or a bonus. I don't expect it these days but I'm pleased when it happens.

This wasn't always my viewpoint, though I don't think I ever played BECAUSE of mechanical rewards.* It was certainly never the primary motivator.

I play to explore an idea, create a personality, and to follow my character's story. I want to see development, but development of the PC's personality, relationships, knowledge, and the fulfillment of their desires and goals. I am motivated to play because I love doing these things. I love seeing my PC and their tale form and evolve. Whether or not my Piloting Skill goes from 3 to 4 is a minor concern at best. 

The same is true for many of my players over the years, if not all.

Now to be fair, I have mainly been a Gamemaster over the past 42 years of my time in the hobby so I'm sure I come at it from a different perspective then someone in it mostly as a player. In addition, I long ago turned away from reward focused games like Dungeons and Dragons and other titles that are focused on that sort of thinking. 

For the majority of my gaming experiences I've run and played games with minimal or extremely slow [if any] progression such as Star Trek, Star Wars, classic Traveller, Superhero games**, Ghostbusters, Teenagers from Outer Space, Mekton, and others where the heroes are not known for obvious increases in their perspective stats, station, or abilities. 

To make it clear, I am not saying that there is necessarily no progression at all but it may come slowly, may involve in game story improvements over mechanical ones, or manifest in very small increments. 

Now...that's me.

As mentioned above, I asked the question of a large number of gamers across many different age groups, backgrounds, and interests and the results were quite interesting if not completely unexpected. 

The larger percentage of responders, probably 60% more or less, are very much motivated by the idea of mechanical, rules related rewards for their characters, as well as in-game wealth, magic items (or superior gear), and other treasures. It is, essentially, why they play or at the very least, what they are playing for. Not surprisingly, most of these individuals are Old School gamers, people who have been playing over 20-30 years. Likewise, the majority of them mentioned D&D, Pathfinder, or some other game with the traditional format of raising levels, finding/stealing gold and enchanted items, and the dynamic of doing so by slaying enemies. 

The remaining 40%, who were not principally motivated by the acquisition of money, power, and increases to their 'to hit' were a interestingly mixed group. While many fell in with my own views on the subject, some who advocated it as a genre conceit were largely of the Horror RPG persuasion. That is to say, a good number of those motivated to play in order to explore character, great stories, world build, solve mysteries, and the like were people who played Call of Cthulhu, the new Alien RPG, and other games where at best you hope to survive to make a rude gesture in the direction of death or madness for another day. 

From friends I know personally I've received a number of interesting responses, one of which said that the mechanical rewards were important to him because, in his mind, RPGs are indeed games and games have winners. I don't exactly agree with that myself as earlier posts have made clear, but I understand where he's coming from. To him, as I'm sure it is to many, a game is an endeavor in which you score points and achieve some goal like finishing with the most hotels on the most properties or something. 

Others noted their love of playing particular characters and how the very act of doing that is what brings them back to the table time and again. One of the fellows from my recent and current Red Dwarf / Yellow Sun game noted that his character is the most fun PC he's ever played. Experience points, new abilities, and such haven't even occurred to him. He just wants to play his character and continue having a ball doing it. 

So now I pose the question to you.

Is improving your PC's skills and abilities, finding treasure, and other mechanical or in-game rewards your reason or at least motivation for playing? How important is it to you? If you got one minor raise or a new talent every two dozens sessions, who that be enough? Does it matter?

Tell me what you think.

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*I once argued the Superheroes do indeed increase in ability and that rules for character improvement should be included in Superhero RPG. This was in counterpoint to the Marvel Heroic RPG by Cam Banks, which didn't really include a direct system for improving characters because, as he noted in interviews, it was his feeling that comic book Superheroes don't actually improve in a linear fashion. 

While I think they do, and gave my reasons why in that post, I am not really chomping at the bit to improve my Superhero PCs in general. It's nice to get a bonus every once in a while, but not a major concern. 

**This statement, which I've made before in some form or another has given me an idea for an upcoming series of posts. I want to detail to the best of my knowledge my first Dungeons & Dragons game ever. We're talking 43 years ago this August. It will explain a lot. LOL

Player Profiles - David Cotton

On Saturday, May 30th, 2020, one of my closest friends passed away. 

David Cotton, mentioned numerous times throughout the online history of this blog, suffered a heart attack as a result of a seizure. I was informed on Thursday, June 4th, by our mutual friend Eric, who was contacted by Dave's mother earlier that day.

Last night, from 6 pm to roughly 11 pm, Dave's friends including myself (who facilitated the event) held an online Memorial, sharing memories, telling stories, and of course recounting his many RPG characters and exploits. Eight members of our circles of friends showed up with calls, messages, and emails from literally dozens of others sending their love and sadness over his passing and their regret over not being about to attend live. A post on Facebook related to the new gained over 40 comments and nearly 60 likes/hearts in just a day and a half.

I first met David Cotton about 14 or 15 years ago when I decided to run a campaign of Mutants & Masterminds at my FLGS, The Compleat Strategist, in New York City. My wife and I had separated a year or so before and I hadn't gamed since. Gaming was such a big part of our time together and it didn't bring me joy any longer to do it without her. That was until I realized not doing it, not doing something I really loved, was preventing me from moving on and so I set up this Superhero campaign and opened the table to anyone who wanted in. 

At first I got some old friends and acquaintances I'd met over the years of shopping at the store and working in the retail game industry myself. It was a good sized group right off the bat, maybe six or seven players. Then a fellow came in, saw us getting ready, and asked what game we were running. This was Dave.

He came up with a character concept based on one he'd made for fun (not specifically for gaming) and I fudged his stats and such for the 'Session Zero' introduction. He returned the following session and from there on in never missed a game. In addition he brought in his cousin and later another friend. 

That campaign was easily one of my best Superhero games ever and the largest, with an average of 9 players showing up monthly and a maximum of 12. Dave was a key part of making the game entertaining and over time we learned we had a lot of interests in common beyond games. We shared a love of the same foods, films, social concerns, and many other details. Amazingly his birthday was February 11th. Mine is the 12th. 

Dave's A-List Superhero Characters

(Only a small portion of the ones he'd created)

IMPACT!, Silver Sun, Night Knight, and Anthem

The following fifteen years or so saw us becoming really close friends, discussing some of life's best and worst moments. From hirings to firings, found loves to break-ups, Dave was always there with warmth, intelligence, and honesty. And I gave it all right back because that is what true friends do even, no especially, when times are tough. 

He was also a great sounding board for ideas; creative and supportive but honest when he didn't like something or thought is could be better. He coined a number of phrases and concepts that still stick with me and always will about the creative process, how I myself do things, and how things can be done. We didn't always agree. We definitely had our differences of opinion but we shared a love of reasonable discussion and debate. We changed each others minds as often as we patted each other on the back. 

He would say, "I am a Reese's guy. I want some chocolate in my peanut butter." This was his way of explaining why he would combine two or more genres together to me, who can sometimes be a setting purist. 

When I would got confused or even frustrated over what to run he would say, "Adam, you make two kinds of campaigns: Summer Blockbusters and Indie Art Films.The Blockbusters aren't as close to your heart but they always go over well. Doing them earns you the credit and good will to suggest the Art film".

Mobile Suit Pilot Dane Bradley and his GM Striker

We would also speak about our views on racial injustice and equality that ring through my head continuously in our current world situation. I regret that I will never hear his thoughts on this past week. I, and others, will never get to know his take on what can be done to make things right and make them better. 

Universally, every person I have ever spoken to about Dave, whether they were close to him or had only met him once for a game at a Convention, described him the same way - One of the truly good people on this Earth. Kind, supportive, compassionate, confident not only in his own abilities, his own success, but in yours.

The Lady Luck, caracca of the Half-Elven Pirate Hero Jorvan StarsByNight

You believed him too, because his belief in himself and in you was like a force of nature. It was like a hurricane. 

The winds have died down. The storm is over. Only memories remain. 

Through the memories, I hope to retain a spark of Dave's lightning within me always. 

So long my friend,

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