Sunday, February 4, 2024

Return to Cthulhu?

 

So, it has been a while since the gaming trio has gotten together on ROLL20 for a session, but hopefully this week e can get together and maybe come close to ending the scenario. We are playing Regiment of Dread from the Tales of the Miskatonic Valley adventure book.

It is a straight forward adventure and I like the theme. There is a certain amount of railroading in the adventure but I hope to avoid making it too obvious.

Monday, August 28, 2023

RPGaDay 2023 questionaire

 


 So, I am a little late seeing this, but I figure what the hey lets take a run at it.

Monday, November 28, 2022

RPG updates

 


 So, I am actually playing a game as a player. It has been a long time since I have been a player.  It is good to be just a player, no stress, no prep work just show up and play, great! We are using Cepheus for the operating system which really is just Mongoose Traveller. There are some minor changes but not enough to really notice. maybe in the deluxe version there are enough changes but to my mind it looks like the same rules with a new cover. Whatever. I am enjoying the game!!

Now I have run a session of Barbarians of Lemuria and I enjoyed running it. It is a quick and easy system to run and inspires one to run simple straight forward action adventures. I can see playing this for a while, but, I have started to look at running a D&D game, most likely with 5th ed. The main reason is that I feel I would like to run a dungeon crawl high hit point game, or series of games. 

Hit points are something that I have had mixed feelings about. D&D always seemed rather silly with all the hit points that a character could have. The disconnect between weapon damage and hit points is at it's most extreme in D&D. Just try slitting the throat of a 12th level character. You would typically have to saw away at the throat for a few turns to maybe kill them. Your average hero could be a pin cushion given the relatively low damage done by crossbows. But, even with these fault there is some aspect of it that I sort of like. I do feel heroes should be larger than life. I do like to see them suffer damage and not die. They keep on going despite the wounds. In contrast to this are some of the games I have recently played. Bol has very low hit point vs the potential for high damage. Heroes could be dropped by two blows. While that may be closer to reality it does cause a player to be very concerned about survival vs adventure and daring do.

The other games that I have recently played, Pulp Fantastic & Traveller also have low hit points and weapons that can easily kill off a hero. Both systems have players subtract points from their characters stats whenever they get wounded. In Pulp Fantastic you start losing functionality of that stat. So take 2 points of damage from your strength means the next time you use your strength you will do it it with 2 fewer points. Certainly simulates the weakening of a character as they take damage, but really has too big an impact. Take a wound and see your chances of doing something decrease. Now because you fail you have a greater risk of taking more damage and you will rapidly find yourself in a rapid decline that only plot points can save you, but even those only go so far. I do like Pulp Fantastic, but it does have it's problems that I may go into a greater detail sometime.

Right now I think it is time for a simple (simplistic) game of D&D, a game where players can just be heroes and I can just roll damage with no worries about what damage I dish out. 

Thursday, August 25, 2022

Barbarians of Lemuria

 


 So taking this out for a spin! I plan to make this the rule set for a spinoff of our ongoing Pulp Fantastic game. The original plan was to use this while characters adventured in H.P. Lovecraft's dream lands. I figured it would be a nice diversion from the 1930s and offer a rules light fun sword and sorcery mini campaign.


Now I have started reading the Lin Carter books and naturally my thoughts start drifting towards running something in Lemuria proper. Maybe a hybrid will work, where portals will allow movement between the realms, maybe Lemuria is just another dream land...

Whatever I do it too will be on Roll20, my preferred way to role play.


Sunday, December 5, 2021

Working on super hero RPG gaming

 This time it might really work!

I have decided to try FATE as the game system with Venture City providing most of the framework for powers. I may also make use of some of the ideas in Daring comics and also the origins, and playbooks from Worlds in Peril.

I really like the simplicity of Venture City, very quick and easy to build a character. The playbooks in WiP offer a path to explore the nature of the hero character to avoid the game just becoming a very long fight sequence.

 

Superhero 2021-2022


Skills [22]

Summary

Overcome

Create advantage

Attack

Defend

Athletics

General level of physical fitness, whether through training, natural gifts, or genre-specific means

X

X


X

Bureaucracy

Dealing with red tape. Laws etc

X

X

X

X

Burglary

Aptitude for stealing things and getting into places that are off-limits.

X

X



Contacts

Networking, making, maintaining connections

X

X


X

Deceive

Lying to and misdirecting people.

X

X


X

Drive

Operating vehicles and things that go fast

X

X

X

X

Empathy

Knowing/being able to spot changes in a person’s mood or bearing. The emotional Notice skill

X

X


X

Fists

Unarmed combat, including natural weapons, claws teeth, improvised items.

X

X

X

X

Investigate

To find things out through concentrated effort and in-depth scrutiny.

X

X



Knowledge

Knowledge and education

X

X



Notice

Ability to pick out details at a glance, and other powers of observation.

X

X


X

Physique

Natural physical aptitudes, such as raw strength and endurance

X

X


X

Pilot

Navigate vehicles through 3 dimensional environment, air, water, space

X

X

X

X

Provoke

Getting someone’s dander up eliciting a negative emotional response fear, anger, shame, etc.

X

X

X


Rapport

Making positive connections to people and eliciting positive emotion.

X

X


X

Resources

General level of material wealth in the game world and ability to apply it.

X

X

X

X

Science

Understanding & competence with the scientific method

X

X



Shoot

Ranged weaponry, either in a conflict or on targets that don’t actively resist your attempts to shoot

X

X

X

X

Stealth

To avoid detection, both when hiding in place and when trying to move about unseen

X

X


X

Technical

Practical ability to create, maintain & repair things

X

X

X

X

Weapons

Fight in close quarters with weapons

X

X

X

X

Will

General level of mental fortitude, the same way that Physique represents your physical fortitude.

X

X

X

X

The Basic Game Actions

Overcome:

  • True to its name, you tackle some kind of challenge, engaging task, or hindrance related to your skill.

Create an Advantage:

  • Whether you’re discovering something that already exists about an opponent or creating a situation that helps you succeed, creating advantages allows you to discover and create aspects, and lets you get free invocations of them.

Attack:

  • You try to harm someone in a conflict. That harm may be physical, mental, emotional, or social in nature.

Defend:

  • You try to keep someone from harming you, getting past


Starting skill levels, powers etc

All players start with 15 skills rated from +1 to +5. (A total of 35 points)

1 skill at +5

2 skills at +4

3 skills at +3

4 skills at +2

5 skills at +1

The remainder are at 0


Saturday, June 26, 2021

Talisman Adventures review

 

                                            Well this was unexpectedly good, go figure!

Well on a stupid whim, I decided to pick up this game just the other day. It is based on a tedious, pointless boardgame that I used to play in my more youthful days, back when I did not know any better. So what could go wrong with making an RPG out such a vacuous boardgame? Well everything! But, somehow the creators of this game managed to embrace many of the aspects of the world created for the boardgame, yet at the same time have sidestepped the limitations of the boardgame.

Monday, June 21, 2021

Enemy Rocket Ships

 


Our stalwart heroes will be going up against these. The bomber will be delivering the Purple Death to the planet Earth if the Earth does not capitulate.

The cruiser is the main workhorse of the Moon, while the heavy cruiser is a larger upgraded cruiser with more guns and a bigger crew.

These were done on Inkarnate, using de-saturated, and increased brightness, wooden ship templates that were also stretched, and narrowed.
 

Saturday, May 29, 2021

update to the Rocket ship

I went back to the project and came up with this.


 This works much better. The old version will be changed to become a grav-sled.

 

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Well it looks like the Moon Men are set to invade the Earth...

 looks like we will need a rocket ship to hold them off. cue Dr Zarkoff...

This is my test to see what Inkarnate can do with something less fantasy, I think it worked out well.

It is a cutaway image of mans first rocket ship to take them to the Moon!





Sunday, January 31, 2021

Next roleplaying distraction...

 On my night stand...

With the Pulp Fantastic campaign going well, I have foolishly started looking at running a fantasy campaign...