The PCs started the session preparing for the upcoming wedding of former Gambler and secret Mormon, Hale, to his beloved former saloon-girl Becky.  After Miller had nearly caused a scandal for Hale by incorrectly thinking he was secretly a Catholic (he came close to the truth), Miller offered to make it up for Hale by running his bachelor party.  The fairly milquetoast Hale was reluctant but decided to accept the offer.

Miller paid for everything and held the party, which involved a poker game for various "prizes" (mostly prostitutes) at the top floor (the floor usually reserved for high-stakes games) of his Gambling Hall attached to the Beatty Hotel.

During the game, which was incredibly being won mainly by David the Mexican in spite of his having no idea how to play, one of Miller's employees comes up to inform him of a situation.  It turns out that an impromptu high-stakes game has taken place downstairs and is attracting a huge crowd, on account of how there's currently $20000 on the table.

The man holding up the game doesn't have enough to match the current raise of the only other player not to have folded yet. But he's trying to get a $10000 loan from Miller now, because of his insurance:  he'g got a four-of-a-kind in his hand.
Miller takes some time thinking about it (after arriving in Dodge near-penniless only 2 years ago, he was now wealthy enough to make the loan if he wanted), but in the end decides that he's too distracted by the party upstairs and on impulse says no.  However, the town bank manager says yes and gives him a cashier's check for the value, that whoever wins will be able to cash first thing in the morning. The gambler was sure of his victory, but everyone is stunned when the other man at the table has a royal flush.



After the game is over, the PCs and the other guests continue enjoying themselves at the bachelor party. All except Doc Baker, who calls it a night early.

Some time in the night the losing gambler leaves town with his tail between his legs. The next morning, first thing, the winning gambler cashes his check, and heads out of town quickly (not suspicious, given that he's likely to be nervous about someone who heard the news trying to hijack him).
Then the bank manager tries to hang himself. He's found in time by the teller, and they get him to Doc Baker, but Doc is nowhere to be found! They bring over Kid Taylor, the second most skilled medic of the town, to examine the manager.

Marshall Bassett is concerned about Baker's absence. He and Kid start to look around, and they discover he's nowhere to be found. Miller ends up finding out from the town drunk Louis that Baker was seen last night with the losing gambler.  What none of the PCs know, nor nayone one else in town except for Miss Jenny, is that long before Doc was a doctor, he was a riverboat gambler on the Mississippi, and he recognized the old scam: the two gamblers were in on it together. They'd set up the game to secure the loan and walk away with the bank's money (though Miller had been their original target). Unfortunately, when he was following the losing gambler in the hopes of finding proof of his suspicions, he got spotted and taken hostage.

A manhunt ensued, and eventually Kid, Jim Masterson and Wyatt Earp ended up finding them in a shack in the red light district. They'd doubled back into town and were trying to figure out what to do with the Doc and how to get out of town.  The lawmen were soon joined by the two Millers and Bill Tilghman, but they still had a hostage situation.  It turned out to be the young and usually bloodthirsty Jim Masterson who solved the issue.  He agreed to the men's demand that they be able to walk out with the Doc, and when they were too far to run back into the shack he drew on them, making it clear that they might kill Doc but six guns would end up mowing them down like dogs. The men surrendered.

One might have thought that would be all the action Dodge would see for a while, but the very next night a real tragedy struck.  In the middle of night, Dora Hand (one of the most renowned and beautiful singers of the west at that time, and one of the most famous citizens of Dodge) was shot dead.



She was killed in the house of Mayor James "Dog" Kelley, her lover. Kelley wasn't in Dodge at the time, having gone to Ft. Dodge for some medical attention while Doc Baker was missing.
The murderer was Spike Kenedy, the heir to the largest ranching fortune in this part of the west, son of cattle-baron Miflin Kenedy.



Spike had fallen madly in love with Dora Hand, and he hated Dog Kelley for being her lover. He'd actually tried to assassinate the mayor six weeks back (only to have the case thrown out thanks to his father's influence) and some three weeks back he'd come to town and challenged Dog to a fist-fight; in spite of being decades older than Spike, Dog beat him to a pulp.

This time, he'd gone to Dog's house in the night to murder him stealthily, not realizing that it was Dora who he'd shot.

Spike fled the scene, and Bat Masterson immediately put together a posse: Bat, Charlie Bassett, Bill Tilghman, and Wyatt Earp, accompanied by Bill "other" Miller, and Kid Taylor as deputies. The four lawmen were at this time four of the most famous lawmen in the west, and the new Ford County Register later reported on the matter, naming them "The Intrepid Posse", as never before had such famously intrepid lawmen all ridden together in such a celebrated manhunt.

Bat:
Charlie Bassett:
Bill Tilghman:
Wyatt Earp:



They chased Spike Kenedy down, at night, through a raging autumn rainstorm. About 7 hours after they set off they caught up to him. He tried to ride off but Bat Masterson shot him through the upper arm with a .50 rifle while Wyatt Earp shot his horse out from under him. Spike cried out "Did I kill the bastard?", and one of the posse told him it was Dora Hand he'd murdered.  Spike glared at Bat and said "you should have been a better marksman"; to which Bat replied "I tried my best".  Spike would end up surviving his injury but only after the doc took about five inches off that arm, leaving it permanently paralyzed.

The murder of Dora Hand and the Intrepid Posse that caught the killer would become part of the wild west's legend.  Little do the PCs know that for one of the men in that posse, it would be the last time he ever rode as a Dodge city lawman.  But that's a story for next session.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Neerup Egg + Image Virginia

You've probably seen this cover, of the White House turning into the Kremlin.


Only, that's not the Kremlin. That's St. Basil's church. Time magazine doesn't know what the Kremlin looks like.

But worse: I know why.  If you do a google search for "kremlin", a lot of the images that appear are of Red Square, where St. Basil's and the Kremlin are both located, and some of the pictures that come up INCORRECTLY identify St. Basil's as the Kremlin.
See, this is St. Basil's (but the search claimed it was the Kremlin):



See the building on the right of the cathedral in this next picture? THAT is the Kremlin:



The Time magazine cover was done by someone who had to google to see what Kremlin was like, and got it wrong. And several million Democrats have been nodding sagely not realizing that Time Magazine knows fuck all about Russia and now they too know fuck all about Russia, thanks to thinking that a group of culture-studies-grad Establishment Journalists can actually have anything intelligent to say about the Trump presidency, foreign affairs, russian politics, or anything other than than the 'safe space'/microaggression nonsense they learned in school.

That cover is the ultimate triumph of the dominant Left-wing paradigm of "narrative/feeling over fact/truth or reason".  It symbolizes absolutely everything about the bullshit "Russia hacked the election" fabrication.

That is your brain on fake news.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Soltario Volcano + C&D's Chestnut

So, I recently had some people complaining about the high cost of shipping US RPG-book products to Canada.  I wasn't aware of this, but apparently these days shipping books to Canada from the US or abroad has become even more ridiculously expensive than ever before.

Meanwhile, Lulu has a production facility IN Canada, and thus avoid those exorbitant fees.

Now someone recently asked me if I could be willing to put Dark Albion for sale on Lulu so that it would be cheaper for Canadian and other non-US customers to buy.



Well, in fact, Dark Albion IS on Lulu.
It's always been on Lulu. It came out on Lulu first.




In fact, the Alternate Cover Edition of Dark Albion is ONLY on Lulu.

And yes, Cults of Chaos is also on Lulu!




So if you are in Canada or one of those other "you get screwed on shipping/import duties/etc" countries, and didn't know you could get Dark Albion, now you have no excuse!  Go get yourself a real "OSR extravaganza" with Dark Albion and Cults of Chaos!


RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Egg + H&H's Chestnut

I like the Palladium system. Overall, I have little beef with it. It's mostly very good at what it does; it's fast, it's not particularly complex, it runs smoothly, and it gives you that fast-and-loose kind of feeling.

Except the skills. The skills fail at all of the above. Skills are not fast, and they are complex.  They are the single biggest drag in the character creation process, the one thing that stops one from being able to say that the Palladium system would really be a great introductory or "pick-up" sort of game. Imagine Palladium, but where it only took you five or ten minutes to make a character, instead of having to spend a half hour poring back and forth from your OCC to the Skills section trying to look up the percentages (and progressions) of every single fucking skill, because they're all different. 

It doesn't run smoothly; the percentile mechanic is easy enough, but what happens when you level? This skill goes up 5%, that one 4%, that other one 2%! Once more, you are forced to look up everything (or at least, if you were smart enough to jot all the progressions down in the first place, you still have to take more time than you should have to double checking that you brought each skill up its required amount).

Finally, it's not "fast-and-loose" at all. It doesn't much fit with the rest of the system. In Combat you don't have twenty thousand different maneuvers; you just have "strike", "dodge", "parry", etc. But with the skills you, have "Radio operator: basic"; "radio operator: expert", "radio operator: superexpert"; "radio operator: jamming", "radio operator: techno-wizard radios", "radio operator: DJ", "radio operator: Ham"; "radio operator: shock jock", "radio operator: semi-intermediate that-kind-of-stage-where-you're-halfway-to-expert", "radio operator: ninja", and of course "radio operator: Fred".

It's idiotic.

So in any case, we were talking quite a bit about Palladium's skills a little while back on theRPGsite, and I hadn't forgotten about it. I had asked a few people what their solutions were, but none of them seemed quite radical enough. So here's what I came up with:

You know how all the skills are divided up into very broad categories? Make THOSE categories the skills!
So the new Palladium game system skill list would be:

Communications
Domestic
Electrical
Espionage
Mechanical
Medical
Military
Physical
Pilot
Pilot Related
Rogue
Science
Technical
Wilderness

Plus the weapon proficiencies, that we'd keep as it is. There you go, twenty million skills pruned down to 14.

Now, every skill would begin with a base 30% + 4%/ level progression.

But beyond that, if you wanted to make it slightly more sophisticated, you could say that the old skills were just skill "specialties", that a given class would get a bonus for when rolling their skill as relates to that specialty. You would now have the skill specialties be automatically determined based on his OCC skills and related skills (and wherever his OCC related skills indicated a bonus to an entire skill-set, that would apply as an overall bonus to that skill including to any specializations; if an OCC related skill set indicated "none", that would mean that excepting any specializations already given under the OCC skills, the character has a value of 0 in the skill). 

Physical skills that gave you actual bonuses to attributes could only be taken if they were one of your OCC skills, otherwise they don't exist. For hand-to-hand skills, you could assume that if the option is given in the OCC to take a "higher" grade of hand-to-hand combat, you will have that higher grade. In other words, every PC will start out with the highest hand-to-hand type permitted by their OCC skills, unless the player himself wants to have inferior combat skills for some reason of character.

So for example, let's take the RIFTS "City Rat". It has for its OCC skills the following: streetwise (+20), pilot motorcycle (+15), pilot automobile (+10), math: basic (+10), running, wp of choice (1), hand to hand:basic. It also notes that the city rat could optionally have hand to hand: martial arts (or assassin if evil-aligned) if they use up one "other" skill.

So first of all, we assume that the City Rat will indeed have Martial Arts (or Assassin). Then we factor in the various specializations to end up with a skill set like this:

Communications
Domestic
Electrical
Espionage
Mechanical
Medical
Military
Physical
Pilot
-motorcycle +15
-automobile +10
Pilot Related
Rogue
-streetwise +20
Science
math: basic +10
Technical
Wilderness

He also gets to pick one weapon proficiency, and takes running, which gives him +1 to P.E., +4d4 to speed, and +1d6 to sdc.

Now we look at "other" skills. Here is where we will determine the actual values of the skill. In the case of the City Rat, the "Other" skills are listed by category as: Communications: any (+10 to radio:basic and surveillance), domestic: any (+5), Electrical: basic only (+5), Espionage: none, Mechanical: automotive only (+10), Medical: first aid or paramedic (+10) only, military: any, Physical: any (+5), pilot: any ground vehicles, jet pack, robot basic combat (+10) only, pilot related: any, rogue: any (+15), science: math:advanced and chemistry only, Technical: any (+10), wilderness: none.

So now the skill list ends up looking like this:

Communications 30
-radio basic 40
-surveillance 40
Domestic 35
Electrical 0
-basic electronics: 35
Espionage 0
Mechanical 0
-automotive mechanics 40
Medical 0
-paramedic 40
Military 30
Physical 35
Pilot 0
-motorcycle 45
-automobile 40
-ground vehicle 40
-jet pack 40
-robot basic 40 (robot basic combat)
Pilot Related 30
Rogue 45
-streetwise 65
Science 0
chemistry 30
math:advanced 30
math: basic 40
Technical 40
Wilderness 0

As you can see there are effectively only 21 skills for the PC to worry about, and all of them will be going up at the same rate. When the time comes to level up, the player will just have to add +4 to each skill.

Next up, to finish rounding the character out, we see how many secondary skills he would have received. In the case of the City Rat, he had 10 secondary skills. In our system, you multiply that amount by five to receive the total amount of extra points you have to put into your skills listed above. You can put those points into any skill that isn't listed as having a rank of "0" (those are skills not available to the class and will never go up), either into the main skill or the specialization, but any points you put into the main skill do NOT end up raising the specialization at this point (this is to avoid the obvious wholesale points-pumping that would otherwise occur). So in the case of the city rat, you'd have 50 points to spread around into your various skills.

Finally, as the PC goes up in level, every three levels (lv. 3, 6, 9, 12, 15) the PC can choose two "adds" to the skill-set. An "add" can be either a bonus of +10 to a skill (general or specialized, there's no difference at that point), or a new weapon proficiency, physical skill, or robot combat technique, if any of these are allowed to the class.

So do let me know what you think about this solution to the problem of Skills in Palladium! I'll certainly be giving it a whirl if I ever get that RIFTS campaign I've been thinking of running going...

RPGPundit

(originally posted june 16, 2007)

I have to run Dark Albion in ten minutes.











RPGPundit

In our last session, the PCs had managed to break up a massive counterfeiting/child-trafficking/cannibalism ring in Highbay.  As such, Chief City Officer Swanlee agreed to provide the party an escort to get to the Azure Tower, where they hoped the Azure wizards would help them to get back to the high-orbit floating city of Lol.

Now:

-A new masochist/player has joined! His 0-level dudes: a green mutant pageboy, a human weed farmer (with a chicken), and a weird domino mutant who's half black and half-white like those aliens from the original star trek... except he has huge claws for hands.



-"Does G.O.D. accept drugs for sacrifices?"
"Well, he doesn't accept rations, so... no."

-Tonut is trying to sell a valuable bracelet he has on him, to get some smaller denominations of cash to use as sacrifice to lower his disapproval.
"I'll give you 1200 smithplium pieces for it."
"I won't take less than 1750."
"ok, how about 1000 smithplium that aren't counterfeit?"

-"I'm giving you an escort formed from the best conscript guards that could be randomly selected by lottery."

-Aside from the three newbies, who are conscript guards, plus the chicken, the escort also includes a joking sergeant, and a sullen captain.
"Hey you guys, ask the Captain his last name!"
"Shut up, sergeant!"
"Seriously, you guys, ask him!"
"Ok, now we have to know."
"..omvmmh.."
"What's that? We couldn't hear you?"
"It's Richard."
"Ask him his last name!"
"It's Obvious, alright?! I'm Captain Richard Obvious!"
"Haha, he's Captain Obvious!"



-"So what's your name, Sergeant?"
"Sargent"
"Yeah, but your given name?"
"No, that's it. I'm Sergeant Sargent"
"oh"
"That's it? That's all he gets?!"

-Meanwhile, up in the city of Lol, Morris has finally regained consciousness!
"We have good news and bad news for you."
"What?"
"Well, the good news is that we managed to remove the explosive probe the Guardian Robots implanted you with."
"And the bad news?"
"Well, we could only save 53% of your ass."
"so..."
"Well, it's not so bad! We've managed to replace the 47% you'd lost with a Cyborg Ass."




-"What happened to the Viking Wizard?"
"Who?"
"My best friend, the Viking Wizard!"
"Do you mean Vladik? He's on the council now."
"My best friend is on the council??"
"Funny, he's never mentioned you."

-"Wow.. my best friend is on the High Council of Wizards!"
"He's not your best friend you imbecile, he charmed you!"

-Roman puts Morris on a shuttlecraft, with orders to investigate a barren asteroid called Gebo, which was the last known location of the Hippomagus, and later to go down to the surface to see if he can find the rest of the PCs, who never returned from their last mission.
"So how do I fly this thing?"
"According to this, sir, your ass is a fully licensed shuttle pilot."

-As expected, when he gets into the pilot seat, his ass starts to talk, giving him instructions on how to fly.
"He's literally flying off his ass!"

-"So um.. ass.. can you.."
"*Wait! ASS Calibrating!*"

-"*Attention! ASS Sensors detecting two lifeforms on the asteroid!*"

-The two lifeforms are of course Yarr the Halfling and Bill the Elf.  Bill is still a Sezrekhan Zombie, and for the past week he's been slowly chasing Yarr around the asteroid while she evades him and has managed to survive by eating her large supply of packaged peanuts.
"The thing about this campaign is that eventually, you will look back at the time you were trapped on this abandoned asteroid with fondness."

-"So is Morris' ass our new BOLT-0?"

-Yarr sees Morris' shuttle land and rushes toward it.
"Come with me if you want to live!"

-On the advice of Morris' ass, Yarr and Morris rush out of there, rather than face the zombie-Bill. They fly down toward the surface, as Morris' ass follows a tracking device that Roman had secretly planted on one of the other PCs. As they're heading down, the shuttle is suddenly hit by a lightning bolt, presumably from a nearby group of Halconlords.

-The PCs along with Captain Obvious and his guards see the shuttle going down. Tonut flies up to the shuttle and rescue Yarr and Morris before it crashes.
"Whoever shot down that vessel will be coming soon."
"Well, obviously, captain!"



-"I had been sent by these dinosaur guys to Gebo, where Bill was there. He killed the cat-wizard."
"Wait... do you mean Bill the Elf?"
"Um..yes."
"No!"
"Yes."
"Ok, maybe."

-"*ASS Calibrating!*"
"Morris..did your pants just talk to us?"
"Oh yeah, look at this guys!"
"Why is he exposing himself to us?"
"He does that sometimes."

-To avoid fighting the Halconlords, the party turns south, near the edge of the Badlands. As they're marching, a few of them (making a perception check) notice they're about to be ambushed by a group of small humanoids.
"They could be kobolds, or goblins, or halflings.."
"That's racist!"
"Actually, your people are famous for ambushing people, Yarr."
"Shh!"

-The ambushers turned out to be goblins; after beating them off, they decide to keep marching into the night, worried that the Halconlords might still be on their tail. Finally, very late into the night, they stop to rest.
"Someone should keep watch."
"Not me, my disapproval is huge and I need my G.O.D.-forgiveness rest."
"I need to heal."
"I've been chased by zombie-Bill for a week!"

-"Can I sleep with my jetpack on?"
"No. Well, yes.. but you'd probably fly into a mountain or something."

-"*ASS Calibrating!*"
"Damn it, it's the middle of the night!"
"Ass, can you just keep guard for us? You know, ass-guard?"

-"What are you calibrating, anyways??"
"*That information is classified!*"

-"At the next rest-stop, Morris takes a crap. Is it normal?"
"More or less. There's a 'ping' noise at the end, and your turd is a perfect cube."

-"Ass, can you calibrate on mute?"
"*I could, but why would I?*"

-"While you're all discussing Morris' ass, do a perception check."

-It turns out the PCs perceive that they're about to get attacked by a bunch of giant bees!



-"Captain Obvious is being pretty heroic."
"Those bees will likely sting us!"
"..still obvious, though."
"They will sting like that curry I ate yesterday!"

-"You bunch of children! An ass starts to talk and all of a sudden you're all immature."
"It was your idea!"
"Oh sure, blame the GM for all this!"

-"After beating those bees, the newbies are just 7xp away from one of them being actually relevant!"

-"I wonder if 'Ass' is his name, or some kind of an acronym?"

-"Ass... status report?"
"*ASS is fully operational, other than being attached to an imbecile*"

-That night, while Mu and Yarr are keeping watch, an Owlbear jumps down from a tree right on Mu!
"You all wake up from the screams; mainly Mu's, but also the Owlbear."

-They manage to kill off the owlbear, but Mu probably won't ever look at trees the same way.

-Kumar decides to make the owlbear remains into a delicious curry.

-"There are still Halconlord patrols in this area of the forest, be careful."
"I have an idea! What if we burn down the forest to get rid of the patrols?"
"We're IN the forest, dude."



-Next night, an Ogre sneaks to the camp, takes down the weed farmer and starts putting him into a sack. The other PCs notice.
"Me only want this one!"
"That's almost reasonable."

-They decide to fight the ogre anyways, and Publio the pageboy manages to stab the ogre to death, right through the ass.
"*warning! Alert mode activated! Ass-stabbing occurring in proximity!*"
"man, this has become a very ass-focused adventure."

-A night later, the PCs are attacked at night again, stealthily, by huge blood-sucking bugs. They manage to get onto Captain Obvious and Sergeant Sargent, already starting to drain their blood before the PCs finally notice.
Morris accidentally kills Sergeant Sargent, while trying to shoot the bug off him.
"Damn it, Morris! I really liked the Sergeant!"
"*The Sergeant was 70% more likable than Morris!*"
"Et tu, Ass?"

-Everyone is sad about the Sergeant's death, except for Captain Obvious.
"well, I hated him."
"Yes, that was obvious."

-"Our humor here is always so offensive."
"Captain Obvious points out that non-offensive humor is usually boring."

-Finally, the PCs make it to the Azure Tower! The Azure Wizards are not very interested in anything the PCs have to say.. until Yarr mentions offhand that she knows where the Sunstaff is.

-"My ass is awesome!"

-"So captain, will you join our party now?"
"I've come to see that it's obvious that whatever you're planning to do is very dangerous, so I will not be joining you."
"We never plan to do anything!"

-A slip of the tongue almost gets the group in trouble with the Azure Wizards.
"Are you misgendering the halfling?"
"Oh... no, it's ok, I'm gender-fluid."
"Oh, alright then."

-In spite of having previously mocked the Azure Order for having been a group of gender-indeterminate wizards, Mu now claims he's gender-indeterminate in order to get access to their library to finish studying magic missile. In his defense, one of his spells does make him flip gender when cast.

-"After you have finished your studies, Mu, you should strongly consider joining the order. There are many benefits to being an Azure Wizard!"
"Wait... Mu's a wizard??"

To finish off the session, the Azure Order has agreed to help the PCs, but they have yet another side-quest for them: it turns out there's a large zombie-plague attacking Coolland, and they just got a distress message from Queen Zoey. So if the PCs want a lift back to Lol and help with the Sunstaff-retrieval issue, they'll need to head to Coolland first.



RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Stanwell Deluxe + Image Virginia

Those of you keeping track of my DCC campaign will know that Morris the Creep, at present both the second-most-powerful and the second-most-despised party member (in both cases, second to Bill the Elf), had foolishly allowed himself to be probed by the dalek-like Guardian Robots, and implanted with an explosive device.

As of our last adventure, Morris awoke from the Techno-Walrus surgical procedure to "deprobe" him, only to find that while they had successfully removed the huge explosive without triggering it, the operation had lost 47% of Morris' ass.  Fortunately, the Techno-walruses had managed to devise a new Cybernetic Ass to replace the almost-half of Morris' natural ass that he'd lost.  This cyber-ass went on to demonstrate a significant number of interesting qualities in the last session.

So, in answer to what absolutely no one demanded, I now present to you all, the statistics for Morris' Ass!:




The Cyber-ASS of Morris

Init: +0

Atk: none, when attached to organic host, except that it is capable of electrocuting its organic host at will or on command from its programmer. If it does so the host must make a DC15 FORT save or fall unconscious for 1d12 hours. The ass can only attempt to electrocute its host 3 times in a day, after which it must spend 12 hours in "sleep mode" to restore its power reserves.
When detached to its organic host, the cyber-ASS is capable of producing and attacking with (at +2 melee) a retractable vibro-blade that does 1d4+1 damage. This vibroblade could retract while attached to the ass' host but it would retract INTO the host, causing the host 1d4+1 damage to the host each round the blade remained extended.

AC:16 (if the host is wearing butt-covering armor with an AC higher than 16, use that instead)

HD: 30 hit points  (the ASS requires at least a "cyberpunk-level" tech workshop to repair damage)
If the ASS is attached to a live host and reaches 0 hit points, the host will begin to die from organ failure. He will lose 1 (temporary) CON every two hours until he dies or until the ASS is repaired or some substitute for it is acquired.

MV: none while attached. If detached from its host, the cyber-ASS can extend six spider-like legs and move on its own at a rate of 30' per round.

Act: 1d20

Special: Can attach itself to a human or other humanoid organic that has lost 47% of their ass, or has it removed for the purpose of symbiosis with the ASS.  Once attached, the ASS could not be detached without killing the host (unless highly advanced medical-tech or magical-healing facilities were involved in the process).
The ASS can speak in any language known to the Techno-Walri of Lol (which includes all standard languages of the world of the Last Sun). It is also equipped with sensors that allow it to detect life forms in a 30-mile radius around it and identify them by general type (eg. "human", "red mutant", "scotsman", "ocelot", "giant ocelot", "ocelot with top hat", etc.).
The Ass is also programmed with a wide variety of knowledge skills important to the Techno-Walrus culture, including flying and navigating skyships, mechanical and electrical repairs, operating computers (the ass is also equipped with an extension-cord attachment for connecting directly to standard ancienttech-descended computer systems and has a +6 hacking bonus), or heavy weapons targeting. It also has a GPS tracking system.
However, the ASS is an artificial intelligence and is not required to obey orders from its host (unless its host is also its original programmer), and will only be as helpful as it chooses to be depending on its judgment of its host's intelligence and personality and based on reactions to the interactions between the ASS and its host.
While attached to a host, the ASS will be required to "calibrate" once every 1d6 hours. When it is doing so, it will loudly proclaim "ASS Calibrating!", even if at an inconvenient moment. It is not actually required to make said declaration but it will usually do so unless there is an extremely good reason not to (for example, if making the announcement out loud would be immediately dangerous to the ASS itself).
The ASS can operate independently of a host body but it will require either access to a plug-in energy source or to attach to a new host within 3d24 hours, or it will run out of power and become inoperative until recharged or attached.  While attached to a host it does not require any separate power supply.

Saves:  Fort +4   Ref:n/a if attached, +1 if operating independently  Will:+6

AL: Neutral Freak


That's it for today! Let me know if in the future you want more such glimpses into the details of my crazy DCC Last Sun setting.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Solitario Egg + Gawith's Navy Flake

You know, I've met stupid people of all stripes over my many decades living on this planet. All races, all levels of education, all social classes; there's stupidity in all varieties and levels of human society.

But there's mostly only one group of people so utterly dumbfuck stupid AND so totally determined to REMAIN stupid that they will close their eyes and shout 'no no no' and refuse to even look at written truth that could free them from their dumbfuck ignorance: religious nuts.

Not just any religious person either; most religious people, even mainstream or even fundamentalist, even devout religious people of any religion usually are still willing to at least LOOK at something that contradicts what they desperately want to believe.

No, to be the kind that says "I won't even read that there thing you showeded me cause it's from the devil and it got the devil in it!!" you need to be a Bible/Quran/Gita-Thumping hooting hollering True Believer.
It takes absolute pigshit-ignorance to be that level of religious fanatic.

And that's what we increasingly see from certain breeds of online Leftists.  I've had several debates on G+ with a certain leftist who has repeatedly humiliated himself in discussions by not just being wrong, but outright refusing to read material, even firsthand-source proof of what we're talking about, if it doesn't come from the list of what he considers "orthodox" Establishment-news Media.  Material that immediately makes it obvious that he's wrong, and why and how he's wrong, to the point that he becomes a laughing stock to anyone following the conversation.

This guy claims to be an atheist, but he's really a religious fanatic. If you're so determined to cling to his dumbfuck leftist fairy tales that you're scared to even look at anything that could provide evidence to the contrary or that you're wrong, you're obviously not clinging to a rational set of conclusions about the world, it's not even a strongly-held conviction. You're a fanatical religious fundamentalist clinging to what your priesthood has told you. You're Boko Haram.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Missouri Meerschaum + Stockebbye's Bull's Eye Flake

Yeah, it sounds like a pretty radical statement, I know. But frankly, it's been coming a long time.

Those of you who bought my first ever RPG, "Forward... to Adventure!" way back when (or recently, I'm still making money from it!) would note that I there made use of a very straightforward xp system where you gained a point for every adventure completed, and went up in level after a progressively increasing number of points.

After several years, and after writing a couple of games that were not D&D-based, I had another opportunity to re-examine the issue with Arrows of Indra. Once again, I could choose to present a different way of handling XP, and make an even more radical statement in what was an OSR game.

I chickened out. I admit it. I had considered doing it, but in the end I decided to just cave and do an xp system that is pretty much the D&D-standard. I thought I was being sufficiently bold by using only an single XP table rather than making one for each class. Or at least, that's what I told myself.


I think I chickened out for a couple of reasons: first, it's the OSR. I was writing a game that was already unusual just for not being western fantasy, for having a strong real-world cultural parallel, for being a bit more "brainy" of a game setting than a lot of the OSR settings, for having a lot of weird names. I figured AoI wouldn't need another hit against it.

Second, as much as I already felt, at the time of writing AoI a few years back, that the XP system of standard D&D was suboptimal for a lot of cases, I wasn't really profoundly opposed to it yet. I mean, I was, at the very same time I was playtesting AoI, running a game of my Albion setting using the LotFP rules which includes the standard XP rules. I had at that time just come off running a forgotten realms campaign, and my Legion of Superheroes campaign which used the D20 system, ALL of which were using the standard XP rules. So even if I had written in different XP rules to Arrows, I wouldn't have exactly been practicing what I preached.

So what changed?

Well, first, the Albion game. We're still playing it. Only now the PCs are averaging around level 10, and while it was always sort of a little absurd that the PCs be looking around desperately for gold pieces in that kind of game in that kind of setting, it becomes increasingly absurd in a game where they're now all knights and lords and whatnot, and trying to scramble for thousands of gp in order to try to slowly work their way up to next level.
Even if the XP system was more turned toward giving xp-for-combat it wouldn't necessarily work well with the high-level Albion/Rose War setting. It has emphasized for me the pointlessness of that whole system.

Second, Dungeon Crawl Classics. They had the guts to drop the standard XP system and instead invent a system of xp-awards for navigating dangerous encounters. Applied liberally, this doesn't even necessarily mean defeating dangerous monsters. It can, if the GM so wishes, be applied to a much wider scope.

(and come on, you can't say this isn't good Old-School play, even without xp-for-gold; plus, somehow for some crazy reason my players still all want to get as many gp as they can lay their hands on)

OK, so that wasn't a tremendous revelation, but playing a lengthy DCC campaign (still ongoing) has served to show me just how much better it is this way. The thing is, the gold/monsters-for-xp setup works well for a number of D&D settings; it works perfectly for a couple, even. But there's going to be a lot of other stuff you can do with the D&D rules, a lot of other settings and campaigns, where having that system would be a hindrance. In a highly politicized campaign, where there's likely to be a lot of intrigue but relatively less combat or treasure-hunting, you can't really work with those rules in an effective way. In a travel-based campaign, you maybe can, but it means the PCs are only ever travelling from one source-of-xp to the next.
In short, in any game where money (or more specifically, the acquisition of treasure through combat) isn't the top priority for the PCs, the XP system runs into trouble. And even in a lot where it is a goal, but not the top goal.

The thing is, money and treasure and magic items is a reward in itself. Killing monsters is too, to a certain extent, in that it leads to treasure and likely to other rewards in-setting.
It's OK to pile on XP as a further reward on top of that, but there's no particular reason it has to be that way. So the thing about using a more generic system of XP reward means that it will work in any situation: It can still work for a campaign that's all about going into the dungeon in search of treasure, and it can work in the campaign which is all about fighting in a war, or protecting the Prince at court, or flying to the outer spheres, or whatever it is you're doing.

That's why in my upcoming Dark Albion: the Rose War book, my "Appendix P" house rules will include an xp system very similar to the one I started with in FtA!; one based on experience being granted by experiences, not treasure. So that if you save the kingdom and fight in several battles and get noticed by the High Pontifex, you aren't going to get less xp than if you'd broken into a bank or raided a merchant caravan. You can liberate your OSR game from any risk of metagaming, of players acting out of type for their character and ending up with money-grubbing knights or monks with vows of poverty scooping up every coin they can lay hands on just because their players know they need that to level up. WHATEVER are the priorities of your game, whatever your characters' experiences are, that's what they'll get experience points for.

RPGPundit

(Originally Posted March 4, 2015)

I don't have a lot of time today, as I have to go to a Masonic event later. That's the thing about Masonry, the further up you get the more stuff you end up having to do.

Anyways, I figured I'd just share along this map of perfect sci-fi stereotypes; the sort of thing you could pretty much use as-is (just adding some names, I guess) for a gonzo type of game.  I don't know exactly who did it, I heard it may have even been a product of someone from that other forum that isn't theRPGsite, but hell, props where props are due.




RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Poker + Solani Aged Burley Flake

So right now, I'm working on a little project.  A while back I called for publishers to contact me, and a ton of them came forward, an overwhelming number in fact, even though I'd said almost nothing about what the project was going to be about aside from that it would be small-scale and not requiring huge production effort.

Well, now I've got a publisher (which I'll be revealing shortly) after a process of elimination that somewhat resembled a Reality TV show. As for what I'll be doing with this publisher: I'll be producing a new series of short OSR books that will have a wide variety of topics, ranging from Dark-Albion style medieval-authentic work to outright gonzo.

For example this week, I've been working on a little product called "DungeonChef".

Anyways, stay tuned for more info!


RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Dunhill Classic Series Rhodesian + C&D's Bayou Evening

This is a review of the Shatterzone "classic reprint" hardcover edition, published by Precis Intermedia. It was designed (in the original edition) by Ed Stark.

Shatterzone was a classic '90s RPG, one of my favorite sci-fi games of the era. I should note that this edition is a reprint, and thus the content is identical to that of the original Shatterzone box set, only combining the original three books of that box set into one single hardcover volume. The only thing missing from the original set is the "Masterdeck" card deck. That's a bit of an issue, given that the deck is a part of the system, but it's actually a part that can be removed from the system without major issues save one (that the cards are the default system for determining which side gets initiative in a combat round; but obviously one could substitute that method with another, even just a basic opposed die roll, though Precis has an option of their own on their website).
In any case, the masterdeck is available as a separate product from Precis.

Shatterzone is not a fancy game. Honestly, it doesn't really introduce anything new to sci-fi.  It didn't introduce anything new to sci-fi 20 years ago, much less now. But it is a solid sort of sci-fi game with a solid sort of world. When I ran it, sometime in the mid/late-90s, my campaign was a sort of "Blakes 7" affair, which is just right for Shatterzone. Of course, there's a lot of other stuff you can do with it; it's good for most semi-hard-sci-fi adventuring that isn't too shiny (it has that 90s-style "grittiness" that today seems almost twee and naive), and doesn't have magic or jedi powers (though it does have psionics).

The new book uses all the same style and all the same art (as far as I can tell) as the original set. This features a full-color cover with some tough-looking guys in space-suits/armor in the middle of laser-weapon firefight (with one guy being blown to smithereens). The interior art is also a lot of nice black & white sci-fi art with that 90s-style of gritty grunginess, like all of outer space was just a bit run down and dirty.



The basic default setting of Shatterzone is in a human-dominated interstellar "Consortium". Humanity has expanded into countless systems, largely pushed by migrants looking for better lives and Megacorporations (because what 1990s game didn't have Megacorporations?) looking to make profit.  The implication is that the core worlds, the Consortium, the Fleet (the Consortium's armed forces), and the Megacorps all work to keep people moderately repressed in a cyberpunk-style of not-quite-dystopia. But there's plenty of ways for freebooters to end up making profit for themselves, and potential rebellions to join, and then there's the Shatterzone itself.  In true 1990s pseudo-science, the Shatterzone is an enormous area of space in the frontier of human space where "dark matter and regular matter collide", creating an unstable region like a "river in space" that is extremely difficult to navigate, but that contains all kinds of undiscovered wealth and ancient secrets. And on the other side of the Shatterzone, there's a very powerful and hostile alien empire that looks set up to launch an apocalyptic war with humanity.  Good stuff.

This being a reprint of a 1990s product by what was at the time a major publisher, Shatterzone's text does have an awful lot of newb-level "what is roleplaying/GMing/etc" nonsense, and "how to make an adventure" bullshit which ranges in terms of quality of advice from average to awful.  It also has a slightly smug (though nowhere near World-of-Darkness levels) sense of "look how awesome our game is" attitude, as if their innovations are remarkably better than other games. Shatterzone is not bad, in fact I like it a lot as I already stated, but there's nothing about it that is ground-breaking.

As for rules, being an OSR guy I'm obviously not a believer in the notion that older games are somehow inferior from newer ones, but I do also accept that throughout gaming history there were some general practices that fell in and out of favor, as some mechanics were tried and didn't catch on, or others were gradually replaced by mechanics that seemed to work more elegantly.  Shatterzone's system was actually a kind of 'second edition' of the system of an earlier RPG by the same company (TORG). So it did have the benefit of improving on errors that the earlier (much less playable) system had.

The fundamental resolution system of the game involves overcoming a difficulty number (the number for an "average" check is 9). To beat this number you add together your ability score and your skill bonus (if you have one), and potentially any bonuses or penalties. Then you roll 2d10 (adding rolls together, not percentage), but this roll is NOT added to your base value; rather, it is checked on a table which generates a bonus or penalty to your total.  A roll of 8 is a -1, a 9-10 is 0, an 11-12 is +1, etc.
If you meet certain conditions (most notably if you have at least a +1 in the relevant skill) then you get to reroll a '10' on one of the dice and add it. If you have a skill specialization, you get to reroll ALL 10s, including from subsequent rolls. So the total die roll can range from 2 to infinity (the table to show your modifier goes to '45' on the roll for a bonus of +14, but the rules note that every five points above that total grants another +1). Whatever your bonus or penalty from the die roll, it's added or subtracted to the aforementioned ability+skill+modifier, to give you your final number. If you beat the difficulty number, you succeeded, but how much you succeed by is based on the difference between the two values. There's a couple of tables in for that too: one is the "push" table, which indicates the result of that difference in terms of grades of success, power, or speed (so if you beat your DN by 4 points that's an "average" success, while beating it by 10 is a "superior" success; or if you were trying to increase speed to get away a difference of 4 would grant you a +1 to your normal speed value, while a difference of 10 would grant you a +2 to your normal speed. Pushing your strength or speed in this way gives you certain amounts of "shock" damage from the strain.

The other table is the interactions table, which tells you what kind of result your attempt gave you in terms of various interactions like doing damage, interrogations, intimidation, taunting or tricking enemies, charming people or maneuvers. The combat column gives specific results (so a difference of 4 generates "knockdown O3" damage) while the other tables give you more general results (so a difference of 4 to "persuasion" is a result of "neutral", meaning you'd persuade someone who was neutral or friendly with regard to what you're trying to persuade people about, but not someone who was hostile or an enemy).

In combat, attack rolls are handled as above, rolled against a specific skill value of his target for resistance. So for example, if you're attacking with martial arts, your DC is your opponent's martial arts or unarmed or melee combat skills, or just his Agility if he has none of the above. Many weapons, including guns/lasers/etc, have a base damage value which is then added to the result difference of the attack roll and then subtracted from the target's toughness (which can include armor, etc).  On the other hand, melee and unarmed attacks have a value which is added to the PC's strength, and that result is then compared to the target's toughness as before; however, there are limits to how much melee weapons can add to your strength. The final difference determines how much harm was done. Resulting damage can include the character being knocked out, or taking different levels of wounds up to the point of dying. Being wounded causes penalties to actions based on the severity of the wound. Characters might also take shock points, which can (if accumulated) lead to unconsciousness as well.

Characters can choose to actively defend themselves as well, though that takes up an action to do. Active defense simply means that instead of using the static number for their defense, the defender will roll the dice and add that to his defensive value.

The rules include considerable combat modifiers and special circumstances, as well as detailed guidelines for handling things like persuasion/intimidation etc. The combat rules include optional rules for hit locations and targeted shots, suppressive fire, and surprise.

I should also mention the Life Point mechanics. "Life points" are both XP and special action points. Starting characters usually begin with 5 life points, and gain more as they complete adventures.  In between adventures characters can exchange life points to get skill points to improve their characters, but during gameplay they could also sacrifice life points to get special benefits. He can spend a life point to reroll a check (and that reroll will allow him to reroll both dice on event of a 10, as if he was specialized in the action being attempted); a life point can also be spent to cancel someone else's attempt at a reroll!  Likewise, it can be spent to reduce up to three levels of damage, or to shift the results of certain actions to a more positive outcome.

The next chapter brings up the card deck, and we should dedicate some time to that, since it doesn't come with the book. You can get the card deck as a separate product from Precis. In the standard rules, each player gets some cards they can play at certain times to get certain bonuses. Some of them give straightforward bonuses to certain skills, others can act as substitute life points, some can allow you extra actions, or create special effects, assist allies (or betray the party!), give people a reroll, etc. Others are 'subplot' cards which the player can use at the start of the adventure (if the GM allows it) to introduce some kind of personal situation for that character in the adventure. For example, the PC might have a 'personal stake' in something going on in the session, or might have a useful connection, a mistaken identity, or play the "martyr" card which gives the PC a bunch of extra life points but means that at some point in the adventure the PC must heroically sacrifice his life! There are also some odd wild cards that introduce other unexpected events that can affect the whole adventure.

As mentioned above, the cards are also used for determining initiative in each encounter, as well as unusual effects that can happen.  So the question is just how important are the cards?  Well, if you like that kind of stuff, the cards add a lot of unexpected little bonuses or penalties, sudden stuff happening, or plot twists. In small doses, that can be a good thing. In large doses, it might be too much, making for combats that seem full of weird turns. If you don't use the cards, all that happens is that Shatterzone becomes a much more typical sci-fi game (aside from sorting the initiative bit out).

The rulebook also has sections on ships (with many ships statted out) and space combat. Also, a section on "how to design adventures" that isn't strictly necessary to anyone other than beginners.

Only now are we at the second-third of the book, the player's guide. And only here do we start to get to rules about how to make a character.  First of all, there's a set of character templates provided, which only need a tiny bit of filling-in to complete. Among these are archetypes like the "old scout", "corp marine", "kestarian temptress", "megacorp freelancer", "hard warrior", "trader", "con artist", "cyberchopper", "bolter refugee", "pilot", "man from Intel", "mercenary" and a few others.  There's a mix of human and alien characters.

The other option is creating characters from scratch.  By this method, you would start by rolling on a random table to see how many points you have to distribute among attributes and how many for skills. After that, the distribution itself is point-buy, which is not really my favorite method. I don't really remember how I ran it at the time, but if I were playing this today, I'd probably have people work with the pre-made archetypes, adjusting to taste.

The player's guide leads you through the attributes and then selecting skills and skill specializations, as well as the other details of the character sheet, like Toughness and Life Points. The skill list is tied to the attributes, and is fairly large. After this, there's also advantages and disadvantages (here called "compensations"). Sample advantages can include being an alien (which includes mutants and the like), or a psychic, or things like having money or contacts, cybernetics, or equipment or fame. Disadvantages include things like being very old, very young, anti-alien prejudice, alien weaknesses, physical handicaps, mental issues, debt, a criminal past, being wanted, etc.
The advice given is for players not to just look at the point values and try to min-max it out, but rather to go with a holistic perspective of what you imagine the character to be, and then picking advantages and disadvantages to fit that. Which is a really great idea, IF your GM enforces that. This is the typical flaw of non-random advantages and disadvantages.

After this we get some typical advice for players, and a repeat of some of the basic rules in the previous 'book'.

The section on psionics is new information, explaining that psionics are very badly looked at in the Consortium. Psionics works as a skill, but using psionic powers runs the risk of injury from strain. There's a list of psionic powers, with the note that the GM can decide whether any given power exists in his campaign.

The last 96 pages of the book make up the "Universe Guide". It explains that a great deal of the space in Shatterzone is unexplored "wilderness" filled with risks and possibilities.  The Core Worlds of the Consortium are very stable but rife with intrigue. The Near Colonies and Inner Frontier are more lawless and filled with potential for rebellion, the frontier also features a large number of "bolters" (aliens who have crossed out of the Shatterzone into human space, as refugees). And then the Shatterzone is pure wilderland; incredibly tricky to navigate, filled with dangers and the unknown.

Medicine is highly advanced, from the point of view of what the mid-90s defined as "highly advanced", which is mainly cyberpunk stuff and low grade genetic engineering (to create super-marines etc).
The Consortium is kind of confederation, a political bureaucracy which is composed of various interest groups.  Individual worlds of the Consortium will have their own local governments, which might vary significantly in political structure.
There's examples of "futuristic" slang, which is what you'd expect of '90s sci-fi. In other words, awful. Luckily, it's limited to a sidebar and not permeating the entire book like some other RPGs of the era.

The Shatterzone obviously gets its own chapter, with guidelines to who can be found there, how to navigate through it, and the various risks it poses to explorers.
The Fleet also gets its own chapter. It's actually autonomous, working with both the Consortium and the megacorps but with its own authority. Details are provided as to the structure of the Fleet's bureaucracy and sample stats for typical Fleet fighter pilots, marines, special forces, intelligence officers ("Intel"), security, and scouts (as well as privateers). The Fleet can be the people a PC party works for, or the pigs that keep the PC party down and present a threat to their profit potential.

Megacorps also get their own chapter, because what 1990s game would be complete with out selfish/evil megacorporations? Obviously, they can be both patrons or opponents for the PCs. The most important Megacorps of the setting are given their own write-ups.

Aliens get their own chapter too.  Some of the most common aliens include the Glahn (who are a big blue-skinned klingon-substitute warrior-race), the Ishantra (who are the weirdo aliens who do all kinds of advanced genetic manipulation), the Armagons (the big bad-guy aliens from the other side of the Shatterzone that are an existential threat to humanity), the Yithra (who are tough plantmen, long before Groot came along), the Kestarians (barbaric golden-skinned aliens with four arms whose women are gorgeous and can make men fall in love with them), the Rednas (goofy lizard aliens prone to social faux pas), the Veronians (shapeshifting aliens who are very skilled at technology), and the Reavers (psychotic warrior-aliens from the other side of the Shatterzone who make the regular fake-Klingon Glahn look like pussies by comparison).

The chapter on planets presents a few sample planets, complete with adventure hooks, from different areas of known space. Then there's some very short guidelines for making up your own planets. This is followed up by a chapter on the "Xenos sector", which outlines an entire sector of six systems which is right at the edge of the Shatterzone. Worlds, locations, groups and an adventure are all provided to set up this sector as a potential starting area for a campaign.

Finally we get to the Equipment chapter, which includes weapons and armor, cybertech (and yes, too much cybernetics can give you "cyberpsychosis"), drugs, vehicles, miscellaneous gear, and some alien devices. There's handy equipment reference tables at the end, as well as an index, a shitload of system reference charts, and a character sheet.

So to conclude: does Shatterzone hold up as a game? Does the setting make for fun nostalgia, or does it also hold up as a setting? Or none of the above?

I think that in its own day and age, Shatterzone was a largely overlooked gem of a Sci-fi RPG. I was lucky enough to have seen it, and ran it, and have very fond memories (which I'll admit might be affecting my review quality).  I think that now, 20 years later (more or less), you have a game that can be really ideal for running a "90s sci-fi RPG". It could also work as a 'reboot', in a newer, grittier version that doesn't star Bruce Boxleitner and does a newer more mature take on the issues the setting brings up but deals with in the naively simple ways we all had back then.

The system was decent in its own time and is still OK now (if using some things that are slightly out of fashion today). The card deck is gimmicky but was at least a gimmick that sort of worked, though you don't really need to get it.

Can Shatterzone do anything that Traveller can't? No, not really. But something about the feel of it is different, much like either are very different from a 2010s game like Mindjammer.  There's both sci-fi elements and mechanical elements that mark each as products of their era.  Shatterzone is in some ways more cynical than what came before it (and Shatterzone was definitely a WAY better game than "Traveller: the New Era" which came out around the same time), while being so much more unintentionally innocent than the sci-fi settings that followed. Not so much in spite of the grungy space armor and the fake slang and the evil megacorps as because of those things.

If you approach it with that in mind, it's pretty good.  And if you lived through the era, then cracking open this rulebook means you're suddenly in your 20s again, and that's really good.


RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Ben Wade

So, I've just finished writing another small product for future release: "The Discriminating Wizard's Guide to Pipeweed".


Stay tuned, shortly I'll be revealing my partner.


RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Neerup Billiard + Image Latakia

In this week's session we had two different plot-lines going on in two utterly different locations.  First, Hale the Mormon (ex-)Gambler had gone back home to Utah, with his new wife Becky, to present her to his family.  She was to be baptized into Mormonism so they could be married within the LDS church in Salt Lake City.



Hale's family were very happy to see him and very welcoming to Becky, but while she was going through the hoops necessary to her conversion, a family incident took place.  Hale's young cousin Hiram had run away from home, to the only place that the Mormon's thought of as a worse den of iniquity than Dodge City: San Francisco. And since Hale was the most world-wise member of the family and was thought of by them to be something of a renowned adventurer, he was sent out to San Fran to find him.

Meanwhile, in Dodge, the time had finally arrived for the trial of Spike Kenedy, who had very obviously murdered the famous singer Dora Hand a month earlier (though it's true that he had actually meant to murder her lover, Dodge City mayor Dog Kelley). For the trial, Spike's father Mifflin Kenedy had come to town with a dozen strongmen and a carpetbag allegedly full of money (in fact it had about $25000 inside).



Dora hand had been so beloved that on the day of her funeral every saloon in Dodge closed its doors for the first time since the city was founded, and her  gorgeously-bedecked funeral carriage was followed by 400 men on horseback.

Dog Kelley had drunk himself into a month-long stupor, but the boys at the Alhambra Saloon were all plotting to take the law into their own hands if necessary. They were joined in this by Kid Taylor, and ironically by Deputy Young, though both of these had very different ideas of how to handle things. Young was assuming that justice would be served but Mifflin would use his men to try to spring his son, while Kid was pretty sure that Mifflin would bribe his son to freedom and vigilantes would have to take care of justice themselves.

Over in San Francisco, Hale had arrived into the largest metropolis he'd ever seen and had no idea where to even start to look for his young cousin.



He got the idea, in a bar, that maybe he could hire the Pinkertons to find Hiram, so he went to see them.



 Unfortunately, he was quickly "identified" as his doppelganger, the famous and missing outlaw Derek McClue. They apprehended him, in spite of his pleas of mistaken identity, though they did finally agree to send a telegram to the Dodge city sheriff to check out his claim.

Unfortunately, the telegram was sent on the day of the trial. As Judge Wright had ordered a closed court, the town's population were out on the street. Sheriff Masterson ordered that no civilian was allowed to carry weapons on Front Street for the duration of the trial, and all the lawmen (plus "Other" Miller, who'd been deputized) were busy trying to keep order.

The Alhambra bunch had settled on a plan: assuming that Kenedy and his men would leave Dodge along the Cimmaron Trail, they went to Turkey Bend to set up an ambush. Kid Taylor would stay behind in town and would immediately rush off to warn the other men when the trial was over and Kenedy was on his way. But Taylor was acting very suspicious on the street and Bat had him arrested. Taylor admitted to the plan and Deputy Young was sent out to intercept the men and convince them to call off the plan, which he did.

After only a couple of hours, the verdict came out: Spike was found not guilty! People were enraged by the travesty of justice, but with the lawmen as guards, the Kenedys and their men quickly rushed off to take the train to Cimmaron. The ambush wouldn't have served any purpose.

No one was more devastated by how the trial had gone than Charlie Bassett.



He was already in a foul mood on account of having had an argument with his girl Miss Jenny. She had demanded that he marry her, and he wasn't willing to do it. Then the result of the trial, where Mifflin Kenedy had very obviously bribed Judge Wright and the prosecutor, was more than he could take.

He went to angrily confront the Judge, and the Judge said something that implied that Wright wasn't the only one who had taken a bribe. Bassett had taken this to mean that Bat Masterson had also been bribed, which he thought would explain why Masterson had done nothing as he saw this obvious corruption unfold.  Upset beyond his limit, Bassett threw down his Marshall's star. He was done with the law.

Had Masterson taken the bribe? History is unclear on the matter, and from the GMing point of view I kept it a mystery too. My players were very divided as to what had really happened, and that's just how I wanted it.

Meanwhile, Hale was now in the San Francisco jail, in a cell with a number of nasty characters including a very large Chinese thug.



When the police guard called him McClue, the Tong man went nuts, apparently his gang had some kind of problem with McClue.  The jailhouse violence was halted when the police came back, with Hale's cousin! The Pinkertons had chased him down just to check the facts. Unfortunately, young Hiram, not wanting to be dragged home to Utah, claimed that his cousin WAS in fact McClue, having heard the "celestial" saying the name.

Everyone was now fairly convinced that Hale was full of crap, and he was left alone again, with the Tong enforcer about to slit his throat, when he was saved by the police for the second time. The Pinkerton had come back, as they'd finally gotten a telegraph reply from Dodge city. Since Hale had kept his trip to Salt Lake (and his Mormon heritage) a secret by claiming he was taking Becky on honeymoon to San Francisco, the sheriff's assumed that this was their Hale, so they quickly advised the Pinkertons to that fact.

The Pinkerton head office, it turns out, had also already been observing Hale and had concluded that he was not really McClue, so the local SF Pinkerton had to do the right thing and arrange for Hale's freedom. Hale rushed off to try to find his cousin. He tracked down his last location in a horrible slum-flophouse and there heard Hiram was planning to go sign on to a whaling ship. Hale was about to rush to the port, when he ran into his old cellmate and his Tong clan! Cue a kung-fu chase through the city, with Hale having no idea where he was running to. Unfortunately for him, he actually ran straight into Chinatown.



More fortunately, though, he ended up in a small Buddhist temple. The old monk who managed the temple was apparently no friend of the Tong, and when they faced off everyone was sure they were about to see a kick ass kung-fu fight... except instead, the monk pulled out a shotgun and blew away the Tong ringleader. In fact, the monk (named Liu) was an old buffalo hunter who'd traveled with Buffalo Bill. He didn't know much kung-fu but he sure knew how to handle a shotgun.

Hale decided at this point he had no more fucks to give, and introduced himself as Derek McClue. Monk Liu was even more impressed and presented Hale to the Tong's rival, the Big Swords Society. They escorted Hale to the port, where he managed to catch his cousin at the very last moment before signing up to a whaler. After an impassioned speech, he managed to convince him to come back to Utah and face the family, promising that later if young Hiram wanted to leave home, Hale would give him a hand.

All ended well for the Mormon ex-gambler, but not so much in Dodge City.  People were expecting, at the very least, that Bassett and Miss Jenny would ride off into the sunset together, but it was not to be. Bassett turned her down, feeling it would always be unfair for her, for him to have chosen her second after his badge. Instead, Miss Jenny and Bassett both ended up selling their parts of the Long Branch Saloon to Chalkley Beeson, a recent newcomer to Dodge who'd already build the city's first Billiards Hall.



Miss Jenny went back to New Orleans, while Charlie Bassett headed off to Colorado with Mysterious Dave Mather, the two of them planning to go pan for gold.



To the players, Charlie Bassett was the archetype of the white-hat lawman, and probably the most important NPC in Dodge.  His departure clearly marked the end of an era for the campaign. Dodge will never be the same.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Raleigh Hawkbill + Image Virginia

There's a lot of reasons to love Wild West gaming.  But to me, there's no wild-west gaming better than historical Wild West gaming. I know that a lot of gamers disagree. That might be why makers of Wild West RPGs tend to want to make alternate-history Wild West settings, with or without magic and monsters and whatever other crap you want.



I suspect they do this because they feel like the real Wild West is somehow too "boring". That's bullshit, but what's more bullshit is how they try to cover that up by claiming that they're altering the timeline to "make the Wild West period last longer".  And worse still, pretending that it all "makes sense".



Now, if all you want is to run a game in Fictional Wild-West Themepark Land, more power to you. Just don't pretend your alt-history meant to make the west last forever "makes sense". Shit, just don't even try to explain it, just admit that you're running a game with no historical coherence and be done with it.



There are so many ways that every "Alternate History Wild-West" timeline I've ever seen doesn't make sense (especially the ones that find ways for the CSA to keep existing while somehow abolishing slavery and even racism at the same time: I'm looking at you, Deadlands). But fundamentally, whatever way you do it, the thing that makes the most nonsense is the idea that you can significantly expand the Wild-west period and have it still be the genre it's supposed to be.



 A key historical theme of the wild west was that the cowboys and the lawmen and the ne'er-do-wells moved around so much because they had to keep going further west to keep escaping the encroaching civilization.



The Indians not getting wiped out and having their own nations able to stand toe-to-toe against the white man is great for a PC alt-history fantasy of the late '90s or SJW revenge-porn of the 2010s, but that's also not the Wild West. A huge part of the Wild West was the tragedy of the Indian Wars and the horror that was for all concerned. If that goes a different way, it changes everything.



Having the civil war still going on in the 1870s or 1880s, or having the CSA win the war and the two states now have an uneasy stalemate doesn't "make the Wild West more interesting", it means the Wild West could never have happened. Because the Wild West, at least the period most of us think of, only  happened as a direct result of the war ending, and with a Union victory. 

(Jesse James only existed the way he did because of the South losing the war, but he's only the most obvious example)

A surviving Confederacy destroys the fundamental nature of Wild West society. The west was full of people who retired haunted from the Union Army, or fled the defeated South seeking their fortune and holding grudges. The fights between Republicans (northerners, pro-railway, pro-industrial, dressed in black, generally lawmen) and Democrats (southerners, anti-industry, anti-progress, pro-taverns-and-shootouts, dressed in colorful combinations, generally outlaws) was a central backdrop of all kinds of conflicts that happened in the Wild West. The OK Corral, for example, was a direct result of that (the Earps were Republicans, the Clantons were Democrats).



You have a civil war still going on, or a cold war, you're not going to have the wild lawless west. You're going to have a totally different setting. No Tombstone, no Dodge City, probably no Deadwood, no Las Vegas, no Fort Worth, no Dog Kelley or Earp Brothers or Masterson brothers or Doc Holliday, probably no Billy the Kid, all kinds of stuff would have been utterly impossible unless you just wave a gigantic magic wand of "I think it would be really cool if the CSA never fell but everything is somehow magically the same anyways, except maybe they're all politically correct and have black confederate colonels and everyone forgot about racism somehow". 

So what was I working on just now?

The latest work is tentatively titled "The Medieval-Authentic Vancian Wizard's Spellbook".  It will give you a whole new way to work your wizards.

Stay tuned, and in a month or two it can be yours!


RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Missouri Meerschaum + Gawith's Virginia Flake

No, I'm not dead. But thanks to a problem with the Uruguayan internet infrastructure I've had no desktop internet for the last four days.

And it's just too much of a hassle to do blog posts over the phone.

So, I'll be back as soon as I can. Which could be in a day, or in a week or more. That's the wonders of Uruguayan Socialist Monopolies for you.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Davidoff 400-series + C&D's Pirate Kake

I've had some people asking me if I have any plans to release any more future products for Dark Albion; which has been by far the most popular RPG product I've worked on (not counting 5e, of course).



Well first, I should mention what you can already get for Dark Albion. Aside from the main book, there's also the awesome Dark Albion: Cults of Chaos which is loaded with all kinds of tools for creating awesome and intricate medieval-authentic cults, sects, heretics, witches and more!
Then there's also the great introductory adventure, The Ghost of Jack Cade on London Bridge, written by Dominique Crouzet. It provides you with a fine first adventure, and an up-close look at the neighborhood of London Bridge in 1450s London.



Now, will there be more Dark Albion products in the near future?  The answer is actually "yes and no".

No, there is no plan right now for another book that will literally say "Dark Albion" on the cover. However, almost everything I am working on right now will be stuff that will have a direct utility to Dark Albion fans.



My next projects, depending on when their respective publishers get them out, will be chock-full of "Medieval Authentic" stuff.
First, with DOM (the publisher of Dark Albion) I'll be releasing "Lion & Dragon", which will be a medieval-authentic OSR ruleset that expands from the "appendix p" rules found in Dark Albion itself.
Lion & Dragon will also get rid of Vancian casting and replace it with clerical miracles and magister rituals that are directly based on Medieval authentic magic. It will have tons of medieval-authentic monsters, and magic items. A system for resolving medieval trials. Some expansions and changes to the equipment lists found in the Dark Albion book, and more medieval-authentic character creation and combat rule mods.

Second, with a publisher I haven't named yet but am about to, I'll be releasing a series probably called "RPGPundit Presents..." which will be a weekly release of short (2-8 page) supplements with a wide variety of stuff, for a low low price. About half of this series will be Medieval-Authentic roleplay products (the other half will be more "gonzo" stuff). Among those already written up are a guide to how to keep Vancian magic but make it slightly more medieval authentic (for those who don't want to go the full Lion & Dragon route) and three different supplements detailing one or more Medieval magical Grimoires and their uses.

So while there may not be a product with "Dark Albion" on the cover in the near future, you'll still be very likely to find a lot of material coming out in the next while that will satisfy your itch for more Medieval Authentic stuff to work with.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Neerup Hawkbill + Image Virginia