The Game Plan

February has sucked for page views.

In a way I'm not surprised, as I have been pretty light on posting this month. February is always a tough month for me in a lot of ways but I often do much better than this in regards to posting.

At the same time, I did expect a bit better, as there seemed to have been some great responses to some of the posts and quite a lot of interest in Traveller on the net of late. Still, I am seeing the dynamic reinforced once again that the most comments I get, the fewer page views there are and vice versa.

Enough of this...on to more interesting concerns...

***

Oh wait, before I forget...

NOVA #1 was really good. I loved the art, the story and situation are shaping up nicely and they actually explained the alternate costume as an in-universe element of the plot and that always makes me happy. Also, I do want to spoil it for anyone but Sam's father's Nova power...it's...did anyone else notice The Star Brand?

***

So we are still two Saturdays away from the second session of our new Traveller campaign, originally dubbed 'Operation: Paladin', now being nicknamed 'The Compleat Traveller' as I am running it at The Compleat Strategist, our FLGS.

What I am relearning from this experience is something I should have remembered from the last time I ran a monthly game at the Strat. A month is too damn long.

Seriously, I am still super excited and super invested which only makes it feel like it's taking even longer to get to the next session and it's only episode 2! How the heck did I do this last time? It's painful waiting this long to continue.

Unfortunately its also brought up some other thoughts that have me considering an additional campaign of something...maybe Supers.

See, some of the Traveller plays can only commit to a one a month game, while others are a bit more available but only two are available every week. This means I may be looking at the following schedule...

First Saturday of the Month - Ars Magica
Second Saturday of the Month - Traveller
Third Saturday of the Month - Ars Magica
Fourth Saturday of the Month - Supers

That's a lot of campaigns for me right now. I don't really have that much free time to devout to the prep work necessary for three seperate campaigns. Also, I am getting a little tired of Ars Magica and plan to wrap it up somewhere down the line (soon-ish).

What I would much rather do would be...

First Saturday of the Month - Supers
Second Saturday of the Month - Traveller
Third Saturday of the Month - Supers
Fourth Saturday of the Month - Traveller

...but that seems highly unlikely at the moment. Another, perhaps more feasible scenario is...

First Saturday of the Month - Supers
Second Saturday of the Month - Traveller
Third Saturday of the Month - Supers
Fourth Saturday of the Month - Supers

...with a large, open world Supers game that has players playing different characters depending upon with other players show and who was teamed up with who last session.

On a related note...

***

I am in the mood for Supers again, that much is certain. This time I want to go more classic, Silver Age than I usually do. While I always have so degree of Silver Age influence (sometimes more, sometimes less), I want it to be the major style focus this time around. OK, maybe a sort of Silver/Bronze mix. Maybe.

What system? I am feeling the 'extremes' at present and can't decide between Marvel Heroic (finally getting the chance to attempt a campaign of this game) and Champions 6th Edition ('Cause I do love me some Champions).

Oh before I forget, the 'Do Superheroes Improve?' discussion rages on. Check out WQRobb's thoughts on the subject here.

So, The Game Plan, as it turns out, is still not finalized and there is likely to be a good deal more thought and discussion on the subject.

Until next time,

AD
Barking Alien

Art of The Compleat Traveller I

This is a small sampling of art from our current Traveller campaign, Operation: Paladin.

There will be much much more I assure you.

Mostly I am using this page as an image dump to show some friends who can't see the images using the social media system we all meet on.

The Ithklur, lizard-like shocktroopers of the Hive Federation

By the amazing Keith Conroy (colors by me).

The Fujikawa-Trisector Patrol Speeder Custom built by two of the PCs out of spare parts.

A kitbash of drawings by the incredible Matt Pattinson (Culprit Tech)

Sorry Mr. Pattinson, not trying to infringe.

A Hiver head.

A classic Hiver illustration from the old Traveller game colored by me with a spacey background.

Anyone know the original artist?

My interpretation of a Gurvin.

The illustration is a hodge podge of stuff combined from different illustrators

and than further modified by me. I also did the coloring.

***

Well that's all for now. Still feeling under the weather so I may call it an early night. Be well blogoverse, talk to you soon.

AD

Barking Alien

Counterbalance

The never-lacking, ever-metal Zak at PDaDwPS posted this entry which he dubbed Balance.

In it he says, essentially, that he is cool with any puzzle, trap or encounter the PCs of any given game may come across as long as there is a possibility that a reasonable group of average, intelligent people (the Players in this case) can survive and defeat it.

I am paraphrasing of course and probably not doing it justice.

 Go read it. Come back after. I'll be here.

Hmmm-hmmm. Da-dee-da.

Back? OK.

I agree whole heartily with everything this says.

Then I reach this point...

"Allegedly there are GMs who won't give you the chance to puzzle it out and who won't agree with you about what's a good idea. When I meet one I'll start worrying."

...and my first thought is, "It must be nice to be Zak."

Now I don't mean this facetiously. I don't mean because he gets to have sex with some of the most beautiful women on the planet or because he is such a skilled artist. My envy does not stem from these...well...ok, maybe the first one...but the point is, I envy someone unfamiliar with the GM who won't give you the chance to puzzle it out and who don't agree with you what's a good idea.

I can assure you, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that my time in the hobby would've been very different if I had not met the very GMs of whom he speaks. I am primarily a GM and no lover of Dungeons & Dragons to this day because that is what I encountered when I played that game and a number of others.

From as early as my first game of AD&D 1E to the last game I played over the internet, I have encountered GMs who can't believe you tried multiple times in multiples ways of figuring out the puzzle but weren't thinking of the one-and-only-thing-that-would-work-which-is-based-on-an-obscure-concept-that-I, the GM-spent-the-last-three-weeks-figuring-out.

Nope sorry. Funny? That I am. Creative? I like to think so. Capable of an excellent William Shatner impression? Most definitely. Telepathic? Nope, can't help ya.

"Really Adam? Really? You couldn't figure out that the way of escaping the trap was eluded to by the images of goats in the ballroom tapestries? Don't tell me you aren't familiar with 14th Century French Tapestry Art and the meaning of their images as political and social symbols. You didn't get the reference, you don't know tapestry art and you failed to ask the seamstress who I mentioned walking by and waving to you all as you approached the castle. I gave you every available chance. Do I have to spell it out for you?"

Yes. If you are going to use information no one knows but you and make it the key to enjoying this adventure than f*^&ing Yes!

In reference to the GM who doesn't agree with you on what's a good idea, if I had a nickel for every time I've encountered or seen that I would be able to buy back my entire collection of original Star Wars figures and brother, I had a Bantha load.

I remember one instance that still keeps me up at night sometimes.

I was watching some friends play a Sentai RPG campaign run by a female GM who they knew but I did not. Basically it was a Superhero campaign styled after Japanese Super-Sentai shows, what we know here in the US as 'Power Rangers'.

A PC villain, after monologuing triumphantly at how he had trapped the Red and Blue Rangers, also PCs, blasted them with a huge, spherical energy bolt. The way in which they were trapped made it impossible for them to dodge, reach for their weapons or whathaveyou. There was barely enough room to move but there was that much. It seemed they were doomed!

With nothing to lose, my pal Nelson, playing the Red Ranger, swung his arm to simply backhand the ball of energy away. The look on Nelson's face, the sly smirk, the steely gaze, was enough to send the villain Player reeling back with a nervous chuckle. We knew Nelson had formed a plan, an explanation for the insane action in the same moment he thought of it.

The GM said, "You can't do that. It's an energy bolt. It will explode. You're hit. Take..."

"Wait!", said Nelson, "Our armor is energy resistant and PseudoScience/Magic. This is Sentai and Sentai is Japanese. Japanese characters have a precedent for batting away energy blasts. Goku of Dragonball Z does it all the time, as did characters in many older series created by the same guys who created the first Sentai shows."

Then the villain's Player piped in as he was the true guru on all things Sentai. "Actually in one of the early Sentai shows one or two of the characters could defect lasers with their hands or bracelets, not unlike Wonder Woman. I'm cool with this. He can try to deflect the blast."

No. The GM would not allow it. It didn't make sense to her.

When the term 'Old School' is bandied about, I tend to think of GMs and play styles like that. When I wasn't GMing, when someone else was, most of the other GMs I encountered were very much like the woman in the tale above.

So forgive me my gripes and jabs at Old School in general and D&D in particular. I can name the GMs I've met in my 35 years of experience who were not like that out of memory. I can count them on one hand. I might need to include my other hand were I to include myself in their number.

I hope you all appreciate the time you spend not playing with those GMs or being those GMs. Smile about it and give thanks.

Good gaming all.

AD
Barking Alien

Jump Points Into Random Space

I've been just a tad under the weather this week and as such I am quite behind on dumping out the clutter that makes up the interior of my skull. In effort to do some cleaning so I can find things in here, I offer up some random thoughts, points, pointlessness and cool pictures...

***

It was my birthday on Tuesday the 12th. I am...older. Happy Lincoln's and Darwin's Birthday to Me!

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. I do not currently have a Valentine but I gave a rose to a friend and she smiled and said it made her day, which in turn made mine.

Other birthdays around this time in February include George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., inventor of the Ferris Wheel. Today is the birthday of Matt Groening, creator of the Simpsons and Futurama, as well as astronomer, philosopher and more, Galileo.

***

What else...oh yeah, so at one point during the first session of our new Traveller campaign, a woman stuck her head into the back room of the Compleat Strategist where we were playing and asked, "Are you guys playing classic Traveller?"

"Yes, we are." we replied.

"Bless you." she said.

***

Now Marvel...or rather Marvel Now...is doing this...

Which makes me very, very happy. I love me some NOVA.

I wish they had made his helmet gold, or brought back the original star emblem, or the sunburst emblems on his chest or...well, really just the gold helmet. All that aside, I am looking forward to this series. It looks like fun. And who'da thought they'd be making fun comics again in my lifetime huh? Go figure.

***

Fun. Comics. Superheroes. Gaming.

Yeah, once a month Traveller is awesome but I (and at least one other player in my Traveller group) are hankering for getting together more often. We can't run Traveller more than once a month as it doesn't work with everyone else's schedule and I can't get him into my ongoing Ars Magica game as it doesn't quite fit his schedule.

Also, I hate to say it but I'm getting a little tired of Ars Magica. It didn't turn out the way I wanted. It's a great game but it feels too much like a typical D&D game with more politics thrown in. Not what I was hoping for.

After Science Fiction, Superheroes is my favorite genre and the one that keeps pulling me back toward it. Every time I finish a Supers campaign I'm like, "OK, that's enough Supers for a while", and then a couple months go by and Dave and I are on the phone when one of us says, "Ya'know what I've been in the mood for lately...Superheroes". To which the other replies, "Really? Yeah...me too."

Maybe its time to give Champions 6th Edition a fair shake. After all, they came out with a Complete rulebook finally (though why such a lame cover?)...

***

OK, off to work. More thorough musings soon...

AD
Barking Alien

Traveller - Foundation And Empire

So I described the Player Characters who participated in the first session of our new Traveller campaign. Now some details on the campaign itself...

 Flag of The Solomani Confederation

The Setting

The campaign, entitled Traveller - Operation: Paladin, focuses on the Spica Sector, a sector of Charted Space where the Solomani Confederation borders the Hive Federation.

In my version of the Traveller canon the Solomani Confederation, an interstellar government centered around and run by Humans from Sol (Earth/Terra), is a subsidiary government to the larger Third Galactic Imperium, which absorbed the Confederation a little less than 100 years ago following the Solomani Rim War. Previous attempts to absorb or squash the Solomani simply made them more eager to reassemble and rebel (we Earthers are independent and tenacious!) so this time the Imperium let the Confederation keep doing their thing, they just do it for the Imperium. That is to say, as long as the Imperium gets taxes, military support and trade opportunities from the Solomani, they can run their sphere of influence as way they damn well please.

Now, this attitude has worked pretty well for both parties, though Solomani pride is always smoldering just under the surface. One of my players said...

"The North beat the South in the Civil War. That was 150 years ago and people down there are still pissed. This is only a generation or so back."

Righto! See, our campaign begins in the Imperial Year of 1095 or 5613 AD on the old Earth calender. The Solomani Rim War ended in 1002. In 1045 there was a rebellion of sorts in which hidden caches of weapons were used in an attempt by Solomani guerrilla forces to liberate Earth, which had been captured by the Imperium during the war. That attempt, referred to as The Phoenix Project, failed.

Now things move along relatively smoothly, although undercurrents of unrest are bubbling up and may surface before long. In the meantime...

The Adventure (Or What The Players Did And Made Happen)

Our session began in the Flux Subsector, subsector J of Spica, on an orbiting space station Highport called Bussard Reach. Bussard Reach orbits Leighton (technically Leighton IV), a once temperate/terrestrial world that is now experiencing an ice age of sorts. While not as frozen as say, Hoth, it is largely covered by ice and snow and cold weather gear is needed to operate on the surface.

Enter Belarus Hosta, a 38 year old woman with a very important personal mission. She sets out almost immediately (after getting the lay of the station) to hire a group capable of taking her to a planet called Shallows. Shallows is a Solomani colony working on experiment aquatic farming techniques. After hiring the rest of the PCs, she reveals that she has a considerable investment in the colony and it went silent about three months ago. Since than there have been a number of changes to the situation.

First, the Imperium has declared the planet a Red Zone and is not letting any commerical or civillian traffic approach the world. Unfortunately, according to Hosta, the Imperium won't give her any additional details. She needs to see for herself what is going on so she can report back to her lawyers, financers, insurance people, etc.

Another change, and one that came as a surprise to even Hosta herself, was that the border between the Solomani Confederation and the Hive Federation moved. Originally she was told the planet Shallows was right on the border between the two powers surrounded by both unclaimed planets and a few Hiver Colonies. That was six months to a year ago when the colony was first set up. Now, three months after the colony's last contact, the Hivers have claimed those previously non-aligned and unclaimed worlds and pushed forward, placing Shallows deep in Hiver territory.

So, at the end of our first session, a Jump-2 Lab Ship containing Belarus Hosta, the ship's owner and pilot Dr. Emil Fujikawa, his assistant Maria, Navigator and Engineer JayZed Trisector, gun-for-hire Rex Kincaid, bar owner and entrepeneur 'Barkley'*, Thorellian pilgrim Berell ThirdTurnFromThe Sky and his friend, the mysterious Kael, are all heading into Hive Federation territory to find out why a fish farming world ceased all contact and was declared off limits.

Side Story Theatre!

While assembling a Grav Vehicle from spare parts purchased at a Salvage/Junk/Machine Parts store, JayZed discovers the Gyrocompass/GPS unit has one previous destination still logged into it. Other than that, the unit has been reset and it's memory erased. He is able to unlock the information and discovers it leads to a point west of the mines on the surface of Leighton.

The grav speeder parts, including the chasis obtained later, are almost certainly from a type of Police Patrol Speeder common on the Solomani Rim. This may be a civillian version, usually sold to local sheriffs after being stripped of weapons when a Police Force upgrades to a better model.

***

Hosta convinces her friend Barkley* to come along on the trip by getting him to take a vacation from the bar while at the same time hosting a promotional gimmick. Posters, flyers and the like announce that Barkley has disappeared to some fantastic adventure. When will be return? What stories will he have to tell? Stop by Barkley's Den Bar and Restaurant to get your ballot (free with purchase of any drink or entree) and guess (i.e. wager) when he'll return. Be here when he does for valuable prizes like discounts and t-shirts! If you guess correctly there will be a cash (ok Credit) prize!!!

Really she wants him around for his heightened sense of smell and hearing and his familiarity with the Hive Federation.

***

The Thorellian is on a religious/philosophical journey to 'Follow His Path'. He believes now that his path runs along Kael's. Indeed, the paths of all these characters now run parallel and he must follow them to the end and either great enlightenment or death.

***

Kael has a complex past and has asked Berell to help him see his own path, and the paths of others if possible, in order to gain some insight into his next course of action.

***

Kael, Fujikawa and others share a considerable dislike for the alien species known as the Ithklur. The Ithklur serve as military troops for the Hivers and Hive Federation. Several of the PCs have had run ins with the Ithklur as part of their backstories, some of which lead to the death of friends and loved ones. In Fujikawa's case, the Ithklur held him hostage and made him work for them operating, repairing and maintaining mining robots. An Ithklur encounter may be unavoidable as the team enters Hive Federation space.

***

I am sure there is more but I can't think of it all right now. So much happened!

OK, sleep now...WAIT! I almost forgot...

Happy Birthday to my good friend Dave!

Happy Chinese New Year! Wealth and prosperity in the Year of the Snake!

It's my Birthday today, February 12th. So, yeah.

AD
Barking Alien

*Yes! Barkley shows up once more in a campaign of mine. Here he is a Vargr who has dyed his fur green and claims to be from a rare minor race variant of the Vargr who dwell on 'The Other Side of The Galaxy'. He tells tall tales and entertains the patrons at his Bar/Restaurant 'Barkley's Den', located in the center of the center level of Leighton Highport, aka Bussard Reach.

He is also the guy on the station who knows what's up and what's going down and trades information for information or occaisionally something else of value.