I Love This Plan! I'm Excited to Be A Part of It!

In 1986, two years after the release of the original Ghostbusters film, a small upstart game company based in New York City called West End Games obtained the rights to publish Ghostbusters, A Frightfully Cheerful Roleplaying Game. 

A bit before this game came out I met my good friend of 35+ years now, Joseph Vitaliano Jr., and we played our first session of Ghostbusters.

What happened next? I'll let Joe explain...

"Well my first role-playing experience was with you (He means me, Adam). You were my role-playing mentor. I met with you and other friends of yours back at your apartment in Brooklyn. This was while we were in high school. You had put together your own Ghostbusters storyline, using an RPG system of your own creation*. It was there that I first created the character of Dr. Alexander Thorton. In terms of chronology, this was before West End Games came out with their first version of the Ghostbusters RPG.

The Ghostbusters RPG by WEG happens to be the very first role-playing game system I ever bought. How many games of Ghostbusters did I run? That’s hard to say. I must’ve done well over 50 [over two campaigns and a few one-shots]. Some were based on what West End Games gave us through their supplements, others I just made up.

As I have discussed before, I had issues with West End's approach to their adventure design and approach to making it “funny.“ Sometime after running our first Ghostbusters campaign I got a hold of Call of Cthulhu and began running that. Doing so taught me how to run Ghostbusters. In fact, it gave me a basis for analyzing the humor of the original movies. The comedy [of Ghostbusters] comes from the characters themselves, not from the supernatural. Once in a while you have a comical entity like Slimer but the arch-villains are never funny. They mean business. Gozer and Vigo are serious threats. 

Call of Cthulhu became my main RPG [at some point]. I ran and created many adventures for it. I ran some supplements here and there or used them as the basis for my own stories. I want to try to run other genres of games like fantasy, science fiction, or superheroes [or what have you] but I found I really didn’t quite have the knack to do them.

I will say however, that I did have plenty of uses for many RPGs and their given supplements as idea generators for running Cthulhu and Ghostbusters. [Notably] Palladium came out with their own fantasy series, science fiction game, and even Call of Cthulhu-like setting called Beyond the Supernatural."

Before recounting and updating some of our past adventures and opponents, I thought it would benefit everyone to get some insight into Joe's outlook for creating Ghostbusters plots and scenario designs. As I mentioned in my prior post on our Ghostbusters: The Home Office campaign, we rotated GMs but Joseph served as our 'Head Writer' and 'Show Runner'. 

Without his recollections and observations I would be hard pressed to bring you enough material to make this endeavor worth while. 

He's also just the nicest guy. Thanks for helping out with this brother.

Up next...diving into the Ghostbusters RPG Archives!

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Barking Alien

*I had no memory of creating my own homebrew Ghostbusters game when Joe mentioned it. I wonder what it was like. Man I wish I'd saved those notes.

Pumpkins Scream In The Dead of Night!

It's October my ghastly ghouls and goblins! The Spooky Season has begun...

Welcome to a month of Halloween-themed tricks and treats here at Barking Alien. There will be some non-ghostly goings on as well but the majority of the posts this October will focus on the eerie, the unsettling, and all the things that go bump in the night. 

Bucket List of The Dead

The title above is a reference to Zom 100: Bucket List of The Dead, a Japanese Manga and Anime of the same name (actually, "Zom 100: 100 Things I Want to do Before I Become a Zombie") and a perfect way to describe one of my goals for the month; I want to revisit Horror TRPGs from Japan and hopefully cover all the ones I didn't get to describe the last time I tackled the subject. Join me as I look at what's new and what's popular in the Japanese Tabletop Role-Playing Game market as it pertains to what's kowai ('scary').

Case Files from The Home Office

I'll be posting up some of the old adventures and adversaries from our high school/early college Ghostbusters campaign: The Home Office courtesy of conversations with the original players! After talking with the guys over Discord and Facebook Messenger we recalled a few of our best outings and that jolted my memories of some additional scenarios.

I'll be updating the info and stats to match my current homebrew Ghostbusters AD system (a hybrid of the original West End Games rules, InSpectres, and the Panic/Stress system from ALIEN). See the Ghostbusters tag to see prior posts related to the subject.

Madness in The Mountains

My good buddy Keith, a member of my Sunday evening group, is about to tackle a campaign of Old Gods of Appalachia. This is his first time running an ongoing horror campaign and I've asked him to share his thoughts on the exercise. Look forward to that later in the month. 

Find yourself the most sincere pumpkin patch you can find and settle in for a lot of thrilling and chilling Halloween fun this October. 

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Barking Alien

Make that 'Booing Alien'! Muwa-ha-ha-ha!

Starfleet Support Services

I finally got the chance to read through Modiphius Entertainment's Star Trek: Lower Decks Campaign Guide for the Star Trek Adventures RPG and I'm very impressed.

Not only does the book capture the art and humor of the animated series, it expands the game overall with several elements that work with any and all eras and settings. For example, this book contains the first full-on alien creature design system. I'm not only amazed it took this long for the game to have such a thing but that it should first appear in the Lower Decks sourcebook is wild.

The book isn't perfect, although none of its minor short comings impact my overall love for this product. There are some editing errors and it doesn't include stats for two alien species that are nonetheless depicted and/or mentioned, specifically the Dooplers and Pandronians. Luckily the latter are given a full write-up in the Star Trek Animated Series Supplemental Guide (which is awesome in and of itself - check it out!). Finally, and this one gets me, each new Species is given sample names except the Exo-Comp. WHAT? You're not going to elaborate on the choice of PEANUT HAMPER? Perfect opportunity for humor casually tossed aside. For shame! 

The more I read, the more ideas I get for a Lower Decks campaign but there are some changes I would make to the 'core game' to add an additional level of emulation to the game and the part of the Star Trek universe it depicts and embraces.

Yeah, yeah, you know me. I can't help it. I just have to customize. 

Optional Lower Decks Character Creation

It bugs me a little that they didn't change or add much to the Character Creation process for Lower Decks characters. To me, there are some considerations that I feel could be a lot of fun if addressed. 

For instance, standard Character Creation involves having two Career Events: things like Conflict with a Hostile Culture, Ship Destroyed, and Transporter Accident. These events give the PC bonuses to an Attribute and a Discipline, as well as providing a prompt for some backstory. Cool right? But...Lower Decks characters haven't had a Career yet, let alone two character building Events. 

I would like to suggest a few alternative options for making a Lower Decks PC in Star Trek Adventures. Here goes nothing...

Environment and Lower Decks Upbringing

Environment and Upbringing seem to be a big deal for the characters in Lower Decks, especially Mariner and Tendi, though Boimler too to a lesser extent (I'd love to meet his parents in an episode). I think this should be evident in Character Creation, perhaps giving the PC something more meaty than Homeworld and Science and Technology. *Yawn*

I'm thinking you can probably keep Environment as is (haven't decided) but Upbringing should carry more weight. Maybe with Lower Decks Upbringing you get only one Attribute bonus, you pick a Discipline as usual, a Talent, a Focus, and then you have Issues.

Issues are drawbacks that can benefit your PC by operating at a cost or with a disadvantage for your PC now in exchange for a bonus later. Something like Rebels Against Authority for Mariner or Embarrassing Heritage for Tendi. Hmm, maybe you get to re-roll a D20 when interacting with your Issue ( say, when Mariner is disobeying an order from the First Officer or Tendi is trying to explain away how she knows where the secret compartments on a Smuggler's ship are located) but any Success also comes with a negative consequence (be it real or perceived). 

Career Events Academy Major and Academy Minor

Academy Major: Character receives a +1 to one particular Discipline and a Focus related to their career objective. Command Officers might take Diplomacy or Starfleet Protocols, Security Officers might take Energy Weapons or Small Unit Tactics, etc. You also get to come up with a story on how, this one time, you aced a test the rest of the class did poorly on or helped a classmate get past a mental block preventing them from grokking a subject. Gain a Contact! In the first example, the Instructor was so impressed she stayed in touch. In the second situation, you and the other Cadet remained friends even though they're stationed on another ship.

Academy Minor: The PC receives a +1 to one particular Attribute and must choose a Focus that will not come up that often. A very niche area of knowledge or a not generally applicable skill is their forte. Maybe they excelled at reasoning out Time Paradoxes in Temporal Mechanics Class. Perhaps they're extremely well-versed in early period Andorian Ice Sculptures.

Alternatively...

Academy Event

A Lower Decks Player Character receives a +1 to any one Attribute and a +1 to any one Discipline as well as two Focuses related to whatever the event was. It could be recommended [by the Narrator] that one of the Focuses be more serious and the other more trivial but it isn't necessary I suppose. I just think it's a fun idea.

On a related side note:

One of the things I loved about the FASA Star Trek RPG that other incarnations have kind of ignored is that it included skills like Gaming, Sports, and Trivia. I think we had a houserule that you could switch one of these for Hobby. Characters had interests and familiarity with things outside of beaming down to planets and scanning spatial anomalies. Lower Decks is all over this, so it seems only fitting to include it in the Character Creation section for a game in this setting. 

Values Goals

A lot of Star Trek Adventures players I know have difficulty understanding the Values feature and the rules around it, myself included. Part of the problem is I've been gaming for so long without needing or using role-playing mechanics (that is, a rules sub-system governing aspects of role play) that it takes me a while to wrap my head around rules that adjudicate my acting. Another issue, one I come across very often, is that they don't know their character's values at Character Creation. Sure they have some ideas but a lot of them develop their PC's outlook and beliefs as they play. Making Values before playing the Character is counter-intuitive to many of my friends, let alone ones that will aid them in a mechanical way.

In our [now 7 year long] Prosperity campaign, we just don't bother with Values at all. Determination is spent when it seems dramatically appropriate to what is going on in session. In other games I've run I let people leave them undefined at Character Creation to be written in later as they get to know their PC. 

For Lower Decks, I'm thinking of replacing Values with Goals. Instead of identifying the attitudes and convictions of a young Starfleet Officer who may not have figured those out for themselves, we go for the more straightforward objectives of a newly minted Ensign. Some possible Goals inspired by the show include:

• Find a Bridge Buddy
• Get noticed by the Captain
• Join a Clique/Club (For example: The Bear Pack, The Redshirts)
• Get a promotion
• Get transferred to a cooler ship

Like Values, you can act counter to your Goal but I recommend doing this near the end of an adventure/arch. If it fits what's going on, talk with your Narrator about making it a 'B Plot' for your character while participating in the latest 'episode'. Perhaps your Goal is to get transferred to a cooler ship in the standard fleet. Finally you're awarded exactly that after you work with your friends to save your current ship, a California Class vessel. Sure you get what you wanted but you turn it down to remain with your Cali-Class starship and crew. In the recently finished adventure you gained a new found appreciation for your ship and your crewmates. You might then swap that Goal out for a different one moving forward. 

I have more thoughts on this, including working out some new Talents, as well as Academy Majors, Minors, and Events to use with the idea above. I'll leave things here for now, as tomorrow starts a whole other focus for the blog.

Hint: It's Spooky.

Don't worry Star Trek fans, we'll talk again soon.

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Barking Alien

A Tale of Two Kinetos

I had the recent pleasure of once again talking with my friend William Corpening, creator of Kineto and our classic Champions Superhero RPG Campaign, 'The Age of Champions'.

We discussed, among many other things, how his version of Kineto differs considerably from my own. The reason for my Kineto diverging from his and the original 'canon' is quite understandable; my ideas about Kineto are based on my recollections of his appearances in our campaign.

Will's understanding of the character on the other hand are based on, well, Will made him up. He knows the character better in a way I never could. I'm working on memories from 35 years ago. Will's knowledge of the character is intrinsic. Will is the source of the OG incarnation. 

The core of the two Kinetos are essentially the same:

• He is a former Superhero.
• He is now viewed as a Supervillain by most of Humanity, both Normal and Super.
• He is an extremely powerful Super who controls Inertia, Momentum, and Kinetic Energy.
• He believes Superhumans to be superior to Normal Humans.
• He believes himself to be the 'most superior' of all Superhumans.
• He believes the salvation of Earth and its people depends on Supers ruling Normals.
• The majority of Humans, Normal and Super, do not agree with Kineto's Manifesto.
• A small number of Supers do agree with him. A smaller number of Normals do too.

Much of Kineto's early 'history' and backstory - his origin and the death of his wife for example - remain the same between the two versions. Likewise, most of the in-game events I've described in previous Kineto posts happened in essentially the same way. 

So the question is...how do they differ?

According to Will, the main difference is in their role in the universe. Will created Kineto on November 17, 1981 while sitting on the bus. The character was primarily inspired by Magneto (duh) but was used more like [the 1970s and 80s Marvel Comics version of] Thanos - a god-like, very big, very bad, Big Bad Guy. 

Will explains that his Kineto isn't particularly subtle, layered, or deep. He's a villain plain and simple. He's also a megalomaniac, seeing himself as a God among Ants. Think about that for a moment; Kineto doesn't perceive himself as a god among men but among ants. Everyone and everything is beneath him and only he can save the world by taking control of it. 

Will's Kineto is a nigh-unstoppable powerhouse, his only weakness his own massive ego and self-imposed code of honor. 

***

Will describes my version as 'more nuanced' and I'll take that as compliment (though I feel his is more layered then he thinks it is, lol). My Kineto sees himself as a King among Peasants, with the peasants being normal Humans. Other Supers are somewhat like Knights or other low-level nobility. This alternate viewpoint is absolutely key to understanding the incarnation I use in my games. 

Peasants aren't ants. They, along with Knights and such, are the King's subjects. He rules them but also protects them. He acts in the best interest of his people even if it's difficult for the common folk to understand his activities and goals. In fact, if my Kineto believed another King would be better at ruling he would hand the throne of the kingdom to that person. Of course he would insist on being kept on as an 'advisor' because someone has to make sure the king is doing their job [properly].

Adam's version of Kineto is just as powerful as Will's but more emotionally flawed. He has the aforementioned code of honor but it's more complicated as a result of his upbringing and experiences. The Kineto of Champions Earth-AD-1A is his own worst enemy, forever trying to fix a world that appears broken to him because he's viewing it through the lens of his own imperfections and regrets. 

Just some thoughts and conversation with my favorite Superhero RPG Gamemaster. I'll continue with my series on Kineto soon, hopefully finishing up in one or two posts.

See you soon,

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Barking Alien

Stardate 57

This was supposed to post yesterday (I know, 'Fake Fan!') but I was exhausted from a week of walking in New York's late summer heatwave. With that...

Happy Birthday Star Trek! 

First airing on September 8th, 1966, the venerable franchise is now 57 years young and still going strong. Sure, I don't love all the material they've made over the last...well...a long while, I absolutely adore Lower Decks and the Star Trek Adventures RPG. I am also happy to see Paramount paying attention to things long ignored or underappreciated like Star Trek: The Animated Series. 

Star Trek means a great deal to me. It remains one of my earliest obsessions; before I loved Red Dwarf, Ghostbusters, and even Star Wars, I was a fan of Star Trek. I watched the show in syndication on Saturday nights with my Father on one of the two evenings he didn't work. We would sit in front of the television with TV dinners, something we also only did Saturday nights. He had never watched it when it aired, being in the army, college classes, and getting ready to get married and have me (to be clear, my Mom did the hard part). 

In grade school we would play Star Trek the way other kids played Cops and Robbers or Cowboys. With plastic Phasers and Tricorders we explored the strange new world of a playground or set up our MEGO Action Figures to investigate the mysteries of a school yard. I drew pictures of the USS Enterprise and wrote stories about being in the Star Trek universe. 

Everything is better when you add Star Trek to it.

In 1982, at the age of 13, I discovered the gaming store one of my uncles had said was somewhere around the neighborhood of his office. Entering into this wonderland of tabletop and RPG awesomeness, I spotted the FASA Star Trek RPG boxed set and I knew I was home. I recount the experience in one of my oldest posts: Check it out.

I've mentioned before, recently even, that Star Trek is my favorite subject for running RPGs campaigns, with Star Trek Adventures being not only my preferred way of doing so but very likely my favorite game overall. I have run [easily] over a dozen long term games, several dozen short-to-medium length games, and so many one-shots I can't even venture to guess the number. I am currently in the 7th year of running an Original Series Era Star Trek campaign - Star Trek: Prosperity - and starting a separate one with a completely different group. 

Today (OK yesterday) I join all the world's fans in celebrating Star Trek in all its infinite diversity and infinite combinations!

Here's to you Star Trek! I am looking forward to the next 57 years (or at least as many as I get to enjoy). 

Live Long and Prosper,

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Barking Alien

Just noticed this is my 1701st post. Nice.