2012 - a great year of just plain gaming

With the Temple of Demogorgon 4 year anniversary just this last week, I thought it might a good time to talk about some of my gaming from the last year (as seems to be the tradition). Mostly the last year was about focusing on actually running games over blogging or kerfuffling in the OSR, and I found it both peaceful and fulfilling.

In 2012 I didn’t do much in the way of gaming outside the regular group. After a couple of shitty experiences in the previous and other years both at tabletops and online (there were some good ones too), I dedicated myself to the regular group and to new campaigns with gusto, and kept my posts here to an average of 2 or 3 a month.

Pretty much started the year jumping right into my long-daydreamed about classic Runequest game. I did a lot of research, and dreaming up of my own stuff in relation to existing data for this campaign. It was a lot of work, but I love Glorantha and could not wait to portray my version of it. Though I used a lot of the Celtic imagery and some clarifications on locations from later editions, I did my best to keep my Glorantha very basic, they way I experienced it as a kid. There was a bit of work to be done with the crunch, as I almost immediately threw out some of the Strike Rank stuff and started houseruling to make the game and all it’s combat focus go smoother. I think that went well, as I’m pretty sure I captured the groups imagination with strong tribal-clan setting, a nice break from generic medieval Europe setting of D&D. I finally got to do the classic Gringles Pawnshop and Rainbow Mounds scenario’s, and it was all good. I think I left the campaign off later in the year with the players wanting more, and that is the feather in the GM cap as far as I’m concerned. I will for sure revisit the characters later this year.


In January regular player Paul brought a copy of Arkham Horror boardgame when we were low on players, and though lengthy (as most boardgames seem to be) it was fun, and got my juices flowing to do some Call of Cthulhu. We did eventually get a few sessions in, and it was good times. I called this part of the campaign “Fangs of New York,” with a classic New York setting. Byakhees and Chinese Gangsters over Times Square on New Years Eve, Cho Cho People and Chaugner Faugh in the Jersey Pine Barrens. Really great sessions, and as in the past some players hemmed and hawed about the genre, but loved it once we played. Quite honestly, I think I do my best GMing with Cthulhu. I’m really “on” when I run it. Looking forward to getting in some more of this soon. It is a good game for when you are low on players.


Just a quick video gaming mention as an aside. Around the earlier part of last year my video game of choice ended up being Fallout 3. I hadn’t played a video game with this much enthusiasm since Resident Evil 4. Just a great and immersive game, and a big time waster in 2012. Right now, into 2013, I’m putting a bit of effort into Borderlands 1 and Bioshock (I might have mentioned in the past that I am always 2-4 years behind on my video games).

My Knights of The Old Republic campaign continued. Despite the crunch, or maybe even because of it, the group on a whole seemed to really enjoy it. I cannot compare it to AD&D as I hadn’t run that for the group in over two years, but out of everything else I have done; Mutant Future, Champions, and Call of Cthulhu, this seemed to be what the gang liked best. I ran it right up to the holidays, but have set it aside since I want to do D&D so bad. We’ll hopefully get back to it later this year, maybe summer.

In addition to this new D&D campaign we are just getting underway, I also still want to do a mini-campaign with the high level dudes left over from the Night Below campaign I ended two years ago. The players seem very attached to these characters, and it seems a shame to not do the occasional outing with them, despite my mild dislike for high level play.


So we in the group have started my new AD&D 1st edition campaign, and the characters seem like a lot of fun so far. So my gaming wish list for lucky number 2013 is to do a bunch of this AD&D campaign, a smattering of the high level AD&D, More Call of Cthulhu here and there, a continuance of KOTOR later in the year, and…heaven forbid…maybe sneak a little Champions in? That would be a damn good gaming year for me.

Player characters – Divide and sometimes Conquer

I’m not talking about making PC’s squabble, which in itself can be fun and rewarding for a DM. I’m talking about giving characters their own little encounters outside of the usual group encounters. I did this in the last KOTOR game. Andy’s Mandalorian bodyguards for the major NPC Solomon, who visits the Coruscant University from time to time as an alumni. So I had him attacked in a student lounge area near the massive library, by the Sith brother Phade (see last post) whom Mandalorian had ticked off in a previous encounter. Also in the same game, I had NPC Solomon have the female Jedi, Lucia, watch his back as they entered a gang bar on a rescue mission of a young lady; it ended up in a nice big fight.


This is an example of something I have long since done in all my games periodically, including D&D. Give characters a life and encounters of their own from time to time. This is especially useful when you only have a couple or three players for the night, like I did. And they are a snap to design for. If you have decent characters to work with, they will have backgrounds and previous encounters that can give you good ideas for solo fights and you can pretty much just wing it. Old enemies return for an ambush, new enemies attack when character friends are doing their own thing elsewhere, or just rescue and escort missions depending on the character. This really helps flesh them out for me, rather than just constant group experiences.


Once again I firmly blame my comic book collecting background growing up. The example is right there in members of groups like the Justice League or The Avengers; big group-related donnybrooks, but the individual heroes also have their own comics with their own headaches.

You don’t want to make other players wait too long (sometimes I miscalculate, which is the main drawback of this kind of thing – but if it happens you can promise the offended player their own beefed up solo encounter in the near future to make up for it), but if you put some thought into it the players can really dig getting their own licks in without other characters getting in the way. It really helps bring them to life.

Star Wars – the Brutality of Force Powers

We had a very rollicking session of Knights of The Old Republic this week, one that stood out mostly due to the very high amount of force powers being tossed around the battlefield.



Most of the display of force powers so far In the campaign has been the Jedi characters, most specifically the male Jedi whose powers have been chosen for maximum combat usefulness (the player of the female Jedi has chosen powers and abilities that she liked over any sort of power gaming), making him a terror to lesser villains. He crushes and slams his way across a battle area, aided and abetted by things like negate energy (stops energy attacks), deflect, and block to keep the personal damage total to a minimum.



I got the chance to do some force power use of my own in a game earlier this year when the party took on a lichy undead Sith Lord aboard a haunted space station, but in the game this week it got way more hairy.



The party is travelling with a young, red-haired NPC named Solomon, who has for some reason or another (some prophesies have been attributed to him) has garnered interest from the Sith who want to find out what he is about, and another arcane group with great resources that seem to want him dead.



So in the campaign so far the party has been tailed by a pair of young brother and sister Sith Students, and in this last game it was revealed that they are actually working for their mother who is a Sith Witch. The witch, her kids, and almost a dozen other Sith students (actually young Fallen Jedi being tested) travelling with them confronted and ended up attacking the party in a rundown factory area of Coruscant. The male Jedi of the group was in a speeder hidden nearby, so most of the party was deprived of his strong force powers in their fight with the larger group. This Jedi was attacked at his speeder by a small number of Sith students, but did not end up in combat as one of the Sith was a former Jedi who grew up with the PC Jedi at the Coruscant Temple, and she recognized him from going up around him and stayed her hand, telling her companions to back off as well.



As a matter of fact, the Witch leader and the rest didn’t really intend to kill them. Obviously they were trying to get Solomon to come with them so they can investigate him further, but also with Coruscant being basically the Jedi capitol, it would be unwise for them to slaughter people planetside, especially involving killing of Jedi. But what they did want to do was show Solomon their strength, impressing him by beating the shit out of the other characters. Which in this case ended up being the two strong fighers.



These two characters are a Wookiee outlaw, and a Mandalorion veteran from the recent wars (that lead up to the current Jedi Civil War). Normally they dominate a battlefield, but they were facing strong, mid-level Sith warriors (almost all former Jedi) and all with force powers in addition to lightsabers.



And now, with me finally being able to cut loose with multiple force users of my own, it was my turn to dominate these two often bullyish fighters. And let me tell you, these powers are bruuut-tal! With the Mandalorian in full armor flying around in a jet pack, he got hit by Force Grip (one of the more strong and somewhat broken force powers), and a couple of other powers including a thrown lightsaber that did damn good damage (that surprised him, though he is a Mandalorian War veteran who would have faced Jedi in combat in the past). Pretty close to taking him right out. As for the Wookiee, he got hit by force lightning that was not only damaging, but severely knocking down his condition track (you get minuses to everything when your condition goes down). With several lightsabers coming at him, powered by decent skill and Dark Rage power, things looked bad for the Wookiee as well.



But the Sith had made their point, and backed off. I was actually a bit torn at that point, and put it to a secret dice roll as to whether they might try to kill the party. The Sith Witch and her two children were not involving themselves in the fight, but the characters chose to throw some attacks their way. I felt it was kind of foolish, going for honor shots on the leaders instead of focusing on those attacking you. But that’s overconfident players for you. Lucky for the characters that they backed off anyway, as it probably would have been the end of them. It actually would have been kind of cool to end things in a TPK.



See, even though it’s fun and I love the KOTOR setting (initially sparked by the KOTOR XBOX game), I kind of need a break from it. We actually don’t play it as much; our first game was around a year and a half ago, and we’ve probably only done fifteen or so sessions of it since. As it’s getting higher level, the foes need more detail over the cannon fodder the PC’s have been wading through so far. I was using over a dozen force users on the battlefield, all with differing powers and abilities. I even went so far as to have to put numbered bits of paper under them to keep track of the individuals better. This is a lot of work for me. Not like D&D which I can basically phone-in and still have a fun session.



So I think some D&D is in order to run some more relaxing sessions. A new campaign. It’s been a couple of years or so now since I finished my Night Below campaign, and I think I have recovered enough from that to get on the Dungeon train again. So I think KOTOR goes on the backburner for awhile, and I’ll get on some good ol’ D&D as we get into a new year.

Disneyfication of Star Wars

Last night I showed up to run our continuing Knights of the Old Republic campaign (using Star Wars Saga Edition) at Andy’s place, and the big news of the day (right after the disaster on the East Coast) suddenly struck me as being very relevant to our session. Disney buying all things Star Wars from Fox meant that, more or less, we were playing a Disney game! The horror.

Not really. I don’t have a lot of emotional investment in Star Wars. I’m only running a Star Wars based game because I loved the KOTOR video game from a few years ago. That setting, created by fans who grew up on Star Wars, was far removed from the hubris of Sir George. A fresh take, filled with what was GOOD about Star Wars, set long before the whole Skywalker Mess™.

And now that more Star Wars films are confirmed, maybe we can get more like that. More GOOD SW films. Disney has not done wrong by Marvel Comics yet, and I was originally horrified by that takeover.

But so far that is all good. Films by good writers and directors, set perhaps in the era of Luke and Han’s children? Maybe even my precious Jedi Civil War setting for KOTOR? Really, we now know that the further George Lucas is away from Star Wars the better. This is probably going to be a good thing for Star Wars fans, even a moderate one like me.

The many Wonders of Abstract Hit Pointism/Hit Points in Film

This last week, out of the blue, the group got a new female player (I’ll call her “J”). She’s in her early 20’s, very cute, and often entertainingly energetic in a way younger gamer grrls often are. Session-wise, a rarin’ to go and get on with the game type attitude I wish the long time players would have more of. After playing with pretty much the exact same folk for a handful of years now, it was sort of a refreshing sea breeze for me. Now, don’t claim I am sexist, because last year Big Ben had an old gamer buddy visiting in town and he joined one of our KOTOR sessions, and I loved the energy a new player brought to the group even then (OK, but maybe a little less then).

I guess I could write an entire post about “J,” and her first game with us, but what I wanted to get around to was the fact that her first game with us was my classic Runequest game. Now, “J” is a 3rd edition D&D player. No, really, she is young but has the type of “this or that crazy thing happened to my character in a game” war stories us older guys usually joke about. But like I said, she was a goer, and dove right into a game she had never even heard of before.

What probably stood out in her mind as the biggest difference between RQ and D&D was the whole hit point thing. Sure Runequest has hit points similar to D&D. But whereas in D&D you go up significantly in HP as you level, in RQ there are no levels, and your hit points will remain constant. Worse, each body part has a fraction of the full hit points. If an arm or leg takes enough damage, it will be destroyed. Same for head and torso. So bottom line you have a fair chance to be killed or crippled outright from a blow by even the most unskilled warrior if they got past your defenses.

Now here’s D&D with that famously abstract hit point system. Two guys the same size and mass could have insanely different hit points. Like, farmer boy has 2, and 10th level fighter boy has 90. The disparity is seen most when cross referenced with small bladed weapons that do a D4 or a D6 in damage. The farmer’s son is going to probably go down in one hit, while the fighter laughs as, several hits later, he is still floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee in the fight.

This was merrily explained in early D&D as a combo meal of realities. Lots of the HP is luck. When somebody attacks you and hits (lets not get into the luck part of getting hit or not in an attack in the first place), the first furtive points they ding you down are mostly the “luck of the gods,” or the Irish, or whatever. You are “using up” some of that divine protection as you go. OK, the next veil beyond that abstraction is one of exhaustion. Here, some of the hit points are related to combat fatigue. You duck this blow here, backflip over another blow there. You are using up some of your combat “chutzpa” here. Yeah, like me you probably think that is a pretty small percentage. So after those first two abstractions, we get to what is real. The meaty flesh. Eventually you are out of luck and stamina for the fight, and now it is your flesh getting seriously blasted. The fighter with 90 HP is down to around 25 points or less when we start seeing real blood. The next blow could put the big guy down for the count.

Here’s a quick comment from an online forum on this very subject:

characters go from 'mortally wounded' to capable of fighting again within a week, but then the stronger and tougher they are, the longer it takes them to make a full recovery

Yeah, another weakness in the system is that more potent PC’s take longer to heal than lesser HP folk when they are taken down to low numbers. But again, really, a lot of that is luck and combat savvy building back up.
I've always looked at it sort of cinematically, which I think is actually perfect for old school D&D. I like the combo of luck, survival instincts, and good old meaty frame to explain the many "wonders" of abstract hit pointism. And you see this in action films.

Indy Jones tends to take a beating that would have most other people in traction at least. When he came out of the Temple of Doom and before the fight on the bridge, he had taken dozens of punches (most to the face), fought off a bunch of guys with spears, got hit by rocks, burned by a torch, and sliced with a dagger. Then proceeded to dodge arrows and fight a big Alistair Crowley looking guy on a broken bridge. He comes out of it laughing and dancing and getting jiggy with that Willy chick in the end. No worries. And what about Stallone characters? In First Blood Rambo gets roughed up and dry shaved by “The Man,” gets shot, falls from 100’ onto rocks, gets exploded by a rocket launcher, attacked by rats, and goes on to blow up a town and machine gun a fat sheriff. Never mind what he goes through in Rambo 2, or Rocky 4 for that matter.

What those dudes all have in common are survival friendly hit point totals. Probably in the 80 range. In the abstract sense, you even see Cap’n Kirk and his fellow upper management friends’ dance around godlike beings and energy aliens, while lesser hit point dudes in red shirts get vaporized in all sorts of horrible ways. There are heavy luck factors making up those hit points.

Sure, you can look at the more mortal, sectioned hit points of a game like Runequest as a sort of more realistic cinematic type thing (like in 300, or a Scorseses film), but nothing lends itself to “how the hell did he live through all that shit” Hollywood heroics like good old massive D&D hit points.

Runequest: Dragon’s Pass is so Passe

So far so good with my old school Dragon’s Pass Runequest campaign. I think the players are liking it, despite not everybody really investing a ton of interest in the setting (my fascination with Glorantha since childhood being my main reason for running this now) or the whole rune concepts. Only a couple of the characters have a god association at this point. I think that the main appeal so far is the down and dirty nature of the combat (one lucky hit can kill anybody) and it’s often visceral outcomes, and the fact that it is just such a different system than D&D. I’m glad it’s fun, although it is still a tad early to see if it will have the surprising wild popularity of my on-hiatus Star Wars KOTOR campaign. Of anything non-D&D I have done with this group, that seems to have had the most appeal to them, despite nobody in the group being overly fond of Star Wars. Even Big Ben has expressed interest in a SW campaign of his own (though sadly he seems to want to do it near the movie timeline).

Anyway, I’m jazzed to finally be doing some classic Glorantha, and I can foresee running it for several more sessions before needing to get back on that Star Wars track. One of the interesting things I’ve found online is how many people have played RQ for decades almost non-stop. To many of these people, the thought of somebody doing the “old setting” in Dragons Pass seems almost quaint. They are like old warriors “Ah, I remember Dragons Pass and Prax from the days of my youth. Sometimes I long for those humble and basic places.” You see, they have long since moved beyond the very basic locations of Dragons Pass or Prax. They have had campaigns where the braving of Duck Tower and Snake Pipe Hollow are distant memories. Their adventures have taken them to Griffon Mountain and beyond deep into the Lunar Empire, and off across the sea to other continents. You see, while Dragons Pass is sort of a Scotland/Finland amalgam, and Prax Mesopotamian in nature, other parts of Glorantha that are akin to Pirate genre, Medieval England, Africa, and Asia have long since awaited exploring, and these old RQ fanatics have explored them all. I get bits and pieces of info from my communications online about these great campaigns, but just not enough.

Will I run enough Runequest to let my players explore beyond the basic setting? Who knows. But I did nab a pdf of Griffon Mountain today. That’ll get saved on a flash drive in the hopes that in a year or two, we’ll still have enough Runequest interest to move beyond the humble hills of DP and the arid plains of Prax.

Obligatory 5th Edition post

My experience with an D&D beyond 1st edition could fit into a thimble. In the early 90’s one of my players wanted to run D&D, so she went out and bought the 2nd edition stuff. She ran a few games, but I don’t really recall the major differences in systems.

One of the main reasons I stuck with 1st edition all through the 90’s was probably because most of my players tended to have very little gaming experience until they came to my games. “I always wanted to play but never go the chance” people. I of course was the “seasoned veteran,” and was able to lead these gentle lambs through many a campaign with 1st edtion. Hell, they didn’t care. That was a time of wide-eyed wonder for my players, it seemed. And I often had a lot of females in games then (at one point in the mid-90’s outnumbering the guys at many sessions), and in my games they tended to lean heavily towards role-play (especially shopping trips, which in D&D, Call of Cthulhu, and Champions was always great for developing those “winging it” DM muscles), so task resolution was not the main source of fun during those times. We’d have these amazing several hour session with minimal combat or action.

From around 2000-2008 I was not gaming, and not even really keeping up on what was going on with D&D. My stuff was all in boxes in a garage, and my internet interests were more about comic books, music, and movies.

Then out of nowhere *BAM* I’m running games for a regular group, reading about D&D and other games constantly online, and started this friggin’ blog. Gaming and D&D was all up in my grill. Still, I’m not exactly Grognardia James in terms of my knowledge of the history of gaming, and what is going on in the OSR. Obviously I’m a much better talker than a listener. Powergame Dan sometimes marvels at what I know that is going on in gaming and the OSR, but really it’s reading Grognardia and a couple of other select forums that gives me any particular knowledge on what is going on. And that knowledge is not exactly deep even after three years.

And in all honesty, looking at online stuff about gaming is starting to lose it’s luster. “G whiz” factor is gone. It might be different in my case if I was back in semi-retirement gaming-wise. I’d look online and do a shitload of “remember when.” But with a full and regular group going, I’m trying to enjoy that more. In some ways because I’ve slowly realized that it is a fairly rare and precious thing.

As for 5th edition, well, it’s not very relevant to me. I don’t think D&D is relevant at all any more. You don’t see it getting played by characters in films or TV shows like you sometimes did in the 80’s and 90’s. You never hear it getting joked about. Even the Ubergeeks on The Big Bang Theory don’t play it. In dorkdom these days, it seems pretty bottom of the barrel. If you watch Attack of The Show for a week you might hear a smarmy D&D reference, but even in venues like that it is rare.

So I don’t much care. I have a KOTOR campaign going, a Runequest campaign just started, a 1st edition setting to get back to, a player who is regularly running 1st edition games for us, and am itching to do some Call of Cthulhu before too long. I have plenty on my plate. So let me join the throngs of “happy wanderers” and toss my own “I wish them well” into the ring. That’s it, Mac, Smile and wish them well. But it’s ok if inside you just don’t give a rats ass.

The Star Wars Universe is like a Toaster

In this recent post about the Star Wars city planet Coruscant, Chaz makes this comment:

“…On a further aside - what's with the technological stagnation in the star wars universe? My grandmother was born in 1916 and today she uses a kindle with ease! It always seemed weird to me that KOTOR tech was in line with Episode IV etc…”


It’s true that we still think more about the cool tech, and enduring “lived in” look of Star Wars than why this 25,000 year old galaxy-spanning civilization does not advance much in terms of the functionality of the equipment available. Over the thousands of year of the Republic, little changes outside of, perhaps, the architecture and style-design of weapons and gear. Pod Racers might be popular towards the end of the Galactic Republic, while Swoop Bikes are the choice for racing 4,000 years prior, but very little goes forward in the technology that drives and powers things. The biggest technological difference that comes to mind to me time and time again is that the protocol droids are far less mincing than their Empire era counterparts (but still a little light in the loafers) although that is sketchy research matter at best. Bottom line; if C3PO was proficient in over 6 million languages, odds are that was the same amount a Knights of The Old Republic droid would be proficient in.

Comlinks are the cell phones of the Star Wars Universe, and Datapads seem to be the Laptops/Netbooks of folks. You would think that just like the real world these things would change fastest and the most, but between the KOTOR period and the Trilogy period, the tech has not changed. In fact, in the classic Star Wars periods you do not see many Datapads at all, usually only in the hands of tech dudes on the Hoth base or whatever. But as little as 30 years prior in the Clone War era Anakin is seen goofing around with one on the couch. So did they just get too expensive in the Empire era? Was everybody just too busy shitting their pants to even think about such frivolous items?

In Dune, the universe had a pretty good excuse for keeping tech from advancing. They had bad prior experiences with robots, so they banned all computers any more advanced than an abacus. There’s yer technological retardation right there. Not even the Golden Path could overcome that fear.

But Star Wars has no such excuses. What’s the deal?

One could say that the galaxy and Republic is constantly being faced by devastating wars again and again, usually involving the Sith and the Jedi. This not only costs huge numbers in lives and sucks up resources, but puts many thriving planets, again and again over the millennia, into periods of urban decay and semi-post apocalypses. When this happens to major industrial areas, technological growth gets retarded. OK, but you soon have to hand-wave theories like this, because wars tend to bring forth greater and great technologies that eventually trickle down to the masses. That does not seem to be happening (outside of the occasional Death Star or Star Forge).

So could the very presence of Jedi as constant allies in the Republic over the millennia have something to do with technological retardation? Probably not, because after most Jedi are gone regular folk seem to fuck things up pretty good on the high tech front. Everybody heads for the hills when The Empire takes over, and most of their ships and vehicles don’t seem to be able to even get a paint job, much less an upgrade. Hey, when the highest tech items on Tatooine are either used to vaporate moisture or bullseye Womp Rats, you know you are in a universe in decline.

But I think my “Toaster Theory” is the most logical fit. You see, toasters have barely changed in almost 100 years. They must be the least changed technology in our real world. Sure, they have come in countless designs and styles on the shelves of Sears stores over the decades, but when the day is done they all still heat your toast and your Pop tarts by heating up metal coils. That’s it. Why? I think it must have something to do with functionality meets cost-benefit analysis meets the point of diminishing returns. Could we come up with better ways to toast our multi-grain grub-outs if we threw a lot of money at it? Sure. We could probably also set little laser beam blast traps to disintegrate the mice infesting the garage, only 2.1 million dollars per trap down at Rite-Aid! But will it kill mice better than a spring-loaded roll bar that breaks it’s neck for 3 bucks? Nope. Don’t need a better mouse trap. Come to think of it, in Star Wars they would probably have it be a low tech Rube Goldberg-like device with gears and poles and descending cages like the old board game.

So maybe in the Star Wars universe, blasters work as good as you need them too and still be able to afford them. How much faster does a starship need to go once it’s in hyperspace? Would it make that huge a difference to spend three times the money to get somewhere a day sooner? And when your police force numbers in the millions and your armed forces number in the billions, can you afford to give them all blasters that do double damage, and give them all hand held super-computers? Could you divert needed funds towards teleportation technology? Who would set-up all these resources? And could such advances actually ignite wars over them, fracturing the Republic even more than the endless beatings it takes over the thousands of years of it’s existence?

In all Star Wars eras computers not changing is the real head scratcher. They seem to be in the early to mid-80’s Earth level of tech millennia-in, millennia-out. So…there are no Steve Jobs types in the SW universe? Perhaps there are some planets in the universe with super-tech that has actually advanced beyond those you see in general population use in Darth Vader’s time or Darth Revan’s time. But what works and is cost-effective on a planetary scale probably is not on a galactic scale.

OK, obviously I have no answers, and the Toaster Theory™ only goes so far. But apparently The Republic after the Empire era sufferes for it’s lack of tech advancement and too much reliance on The Force when the Yuuzhan Vong invade the galaxy. With their own bizarre organic hi-tech weaponry and immunity to The Force, they are enough to make the sentients of the galaxy wish they had put more nose to the grindstone in the technology department, and less in ancient weapons and hokey religions.

Sith Lord Lich and the Three-Headed Apprentice

This weeks KOTOR session was an action-packed blast. The group has been trapped in a derelict, haunted space station along the Hyperspace routes. Some decades ago during the Sith War the Dark Lord known as Darth Sinaes and his apprentices took over a Republic ship repair station and committed mass murder and horrible atrocities there, to the point of the Dark Lords apprentices themselves being appalled and turning on the master. Although they managed to kill him, his evil lingered in his body and allowed him to be a Dark Side Lich. Sinaes used his unholy power to meld the apprentices into one single body (three faces and three sets of arms, but just one pair of legs and a torso) that could use three regular lightsabers and one double lightsaber simultaneously. Oh, the horror! Along with his three-in-one apprentice, zombified bodies of old victims, and some other monstrosities, Darth Sinaes has lurked in the station an occasionally used it to lure unwary spacefarers to their doom, to become part of his growing undead army. Also trapped on the station was the ghost of a Jedi victim, Amelia, who had come along years ago. Amelia had her spirit locked here because of all the corruption, but she came in handy as a warning to players. She was able to tell the party the history Sinaes and his corruption of the place.

I originally meant this to be more or less a space dungeon for the characters to crawl around in, and it was, but in the end I mostly focused on combat encounters. The party had fun in the previous game fighting zombie hordes and a couple mutated monsters, but in this session it was time to face Sinaes and his hideious apprentices. Good thing we had a full group that session.

The apprentice managed to put a lot of fear and damage into the party, before he was ultimately defeated by a combination of good rolls and the infamous Force Grip of Pauls Khil (tentacle faced humanoid) force user. During this battle Terry’s Cathar (cat lady) Jedi Lucia was taken down with a killing blast (not so deadly due to the use of her last force point) of force lighting, but the spirit of Amelia used the force to bond with Lucia and not just bring her back to full health, but increase her stats and abilities for the encounter, allowing her to jump right back into the fray.

The party was now able to put the screws to Darth Sinaes, who I had planned to have run away but I hesitated so he could gloat and get an attack in. Bad move, because they were all over him. After some fierce melee and force use, Darth Sinaes set off explosions in the hull of the station that immediately started explosive decompression and loss of life support. Even though Andy’s Mandalorian soldier had Mando armor with life support, the party on a whole only got a couple more licks in on the beat-up Sith Lord before they had to make it for the ship (in cinematic fashion barely escaping).

This was the most exciting session yet, and I really got a kick out of it (and the players seemed to as well). Although faced with the possibility of a powerful enemy escaping from them, they mixed it up with a real challenge for a change and came out with flying colors. And Terry’s Jedi Lucia gets a colorful addition to her bio – namely, the soul of another Jedi whom now sort of haunts her (in a non-evil way), but also gives her a little bonus to a couple of stats and hit points when she is in contact with her. This will make for some interesting role-play down the line, methinks. I think Terry may have been struggling with what exactly the personality of Lucia was, but now she for sure has an interesting angle to work from. I originally though Amelia might do this bonding thing with the male Jedi (I thought he would get the focus of damage and be the first knocked out of the fight), and also thought it would be funny if her spirit bonded with the Wookiee, but in the end I am glad Terry will be the one dealing with it. Her character seemed the least fleshed out.

Next week we play in Dan’s palace up in Bel Air above Mulholland Blvd, and the party will finally arrive at the Galactic Core and the planet Coruscant for more mayhem. Man, I think I have finally decided that I like this game! (the prequel movies, not so much).

City Planet

There is something very cool and awe inspiring about a city that spans an entire planet. The concept actually goes way back in Sci Fi literature, so George Lucas’ Coruscant was nothing new. He had actually planned to have Alderaan (a certain brother-loving Princess’ home world) be the setting for much of the action of the first Star Wars film, but budgetary constraints prevented what he envisioned. But he was finally able to include it in his prequel films. Unfortunaly, much of the time it is only visible through an apartment window as we listened to the cringe-worthy dialogue of Anakin and Padme. Outside those windows was bumper to bumper traffic of flying cars filled with yammering muppets (you would think it would be a simple matter to widen those traffic lanes, there being plenty of room in the sky) . We did get some good views of the planet surface during the opening minutes of Revenge of the Sith.

Anyway, tonight we do another session of KOTOR at Andys, and before the night is over the party should have escaped the space station haunted by a Sith Lord Lich and his minions, and be arriving at their next destination, Coruscant, the seat of the Galactic Republic.

On the day of many KOTOR game nights, I have sent little info-blurbs to the group about something in the Star Wars universe related to the nights adventure, so today I put together and sent the Coruscant stuff below. You’ll see that Coruscant has many features that make a city planet cool, especially one that has been such a city planet for over 30,000 years. There are miles and miles of true underground ruins, factor and industrial areas, and lower levels that cater to the lower rungs of society in contrast to the higher levels inhabited by high society (shades of Lang’s Metropolis).

Even though I only plan to have characters there for a couple of sessions, you could do an entire campaign set on this planet, and the only environment you would be missing is that of a wilderness. But with the underground areas being huge enough to have evolved their own ecosystems and unique creatures, I guess you could have that as well.





"Seen from orbit, it is a blaze of light and sparkling colors, reminding some spacers of corusca stones, after which this planet was named long ago."

"An incandescent organ of life, visibly vibrating with the pulses of billions."


Coruscant

Coruscant was a planet located in the Core Worlds. Its hyperspace coordinates were
(0,0,0) which in effect made it the center of the galaxy. The actual galactic center, was located in the Deep Core. As the center of the galaxy, Coruscant was generally agreed to be the most important planet through most of galactic history. It served as the capital for the Galactic Republic, Galactic Empire, New Republic, Yuuzhan Vong Empire, Galactic Alliance, and the New Galactic Empire. Coruscant also served at various times as the home of the Jedi Order and the Jedi Temple. Coruscant was not only the political center of the galaxy. Most of the hyperlanes at some point would travel through Coruscant making the planet one of the richest in the galaxy.

Geologically, the planet was composed of a molten core with a rocky mantle and a silicate rock crust. At its poles were huge ice caps that were popular spots for tourists. The entire surface of Coruscant was covered by sprawling kilometers-high ecumenopolis, and boasted a population of over a hundred billion to several trillion, depending on the era. Following the end of the Clone Wars, an official census noted 1 trillion official permanent residents. The statistics did not include transients, temporary workers, unregistered populace nor residents of orbital facilities. Because of these omissions, the "real" population of Coruscant was estimated to be three times the official amount.

Coruscanti skyscrapers dwarfed all the original natural features, including mountains, as well as floors of oceans which once covered a large portion of Coruscant's surface. Areas of Galactic City were broken up into levels, megablocks, blocks, and subblocks.[14] Coruscant itself was divided into quadrants, which were divided into zones.[7] Below the skyscrapers was Coruscant's undercity, where sunlight never reached. Artificial lighting illuminated these lower levels and advertisement holograms could be seen everywhere. There were numerous establishments for entertainment, catering to a myriad of alien species. The residents were collectively referred to as Twilighters.

Coruscant was once a world mostly covered in oceans.[15] However, all natural bodies of water were drained and stored in vast caverns beneath the city as a result of years of overpopulation. The only body of water visible was the artificial Western Sea, with many artificially-created islands floating on it, used by tourists on holidays.

With no other bodies of water available to feed and water its trillion inhabitants, Coruscant's architects, along with many others from around the galaxy, worked together to build a self-contained eco-system in the massive buildings set all over the planet. Polar cap stations also melted ice and distributed water throughout the planet-wide city through a complex series of pipes.

Galactic City was divided into quadrants, "several thousand" in number, with each quadrant further split into sectors.[7] Each sector was numbered on official maps, but sectors often had nicknames, such as Sah'c Town (sector H-46, named for a prominent family that owned a large portion of its land) and The Works, the largest of Coruscant's designated industrial zones. (Coruscant practiced zoning, which is the designation of specific areas of land for particular purposes, such as governmental and senatorial, financial (including banking zones), residential, commercial, industrial, and manufacturing. Manufacturing and industrial zones were typically the largest designated areas of the planet.) The Works was once one of the galaxy's major manufacturing areas, where spacecraft parts, droids, and building materials were heavily produced during centuries, but as construction and industry became more efficient and cheaper away from Coruscant, The Works fell into disrepair.

It gained a reputation as a hub of criminal activity and many locals stayed away from it. A similar, but more dangerous area, was the Factory District, which was once the industrial heart of Coruscant until it too lost out to competition from producers in other Core Worlds. By the time of the Great Jedi Purge it lay in ruins and was almost completely deserted of sentients, because of the feral droids that prowled its streets. It was located on the opposite side of the planet, and was much more dangerous than the Southern Underground, Invisible Sector, which were infamous in their own right.[12] Another area of Coruscant was CoCo Town (short for "collective commerce"). Many diverse species lived there and worked in manufacturing. A partially enclosed open-air plaza near the Senate building, the Column Commons, was so-called because it housed most of the HoloNet and news media corporations.

The planet produced trillions of tons of waste an hour. Though almost everything on the planet, from clothes to packaging and machinery, was recyclable, some waste was too dangerous to recycle. Such items included worn-out hyperdrive cores which were delivered to one of the planet's five thousand garbage pits, where they were put into canisters and fired into a tight orbit around Coruscant. Garbage ships would then collect them and transport them to nearby moons for storage. Some of the more dangerous materials were shot into the nearby sun for complete incineration. Garbage not exported or destroyed was mixed into a slurry of silicone oils and processed by garbage worms which chewed it into pellets while removing any remaining organics, plastic, or recoverable metals. They turned millions of tons of pellets into carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases. Another problem for a world like Coruscant was the unimaginable amount of carbon dioxide and heat energy that its trillion-being population generated each day. Thousands of carbon dioxide-reactive atmospheric dampeners were put into place in the upper atmosphere to prevent atmospheric degeneration. The first set of these planet-wide dampeners, developed by the Galactic Republic, was known as the Coruscant Atmospheric Reclamation Project.[18]
Near the planet's core were a number of massive power relay stations. The lowest levels were abandoned to mutants and scavengers, such as the cannibalistic, mythical Cthons. The foundations of many of the buildings, some of which weighed billions of tons, also extended deep into the planet's crust.

History
Pre-Republic

"The recorded history of Coruscant stretches back so far that it becomes indistinguishable from legend…"
―Pollux Hax

The very early history of Coruscant is a bit sketchy and is not well known. Coruscant was considered by many to be the Human homeworld; early in its history, it was referred to as Notron, the "cradle of human civilization". Its name was changed at an unspecified date. At a certain point, the Celestials could have removed Humans from Coruscant to populate Corellia and other human societies on different planets throughout the galaxy.

It is known that at some point in ancient history, the near-Human Taungs attempted to conquer the 13 baseline Human nations of the Battalions of Zhell. A volcano decimated the Zhell, the ash filling the skies for two years, so the Taungs adopted the name Dha Werda Verda (Warriors of Shadow) for themselves. The Human Zhell eventually recovered and drove the Taungs offworld.

One hundred millennia later, Coruscant was surveyed by the Columi, who dismissed the planet as a primitive disappointment, despite the already planet-spanning ecumenopolis of Galactic City. New buildings were built on the old. As a result, there was virtually no exposed land. In the forgotten underlevels of the city, there was darkness, pollution and crime. Higher up, there were government offices and penthouses owned by the elite. The lower fifty levels of the ecumenopolis is said to have last seen sunlight tens of thousands of millennia ago.

Coruscant was one of many worlds conquered by the Infinite Empire of the Rakata, who used Human slaves to build the Star Forge in 30,000 BBY. Under Rakatan domination, the Humans of Coruscant's colonization attempts were limited to sleeper ships, which ended up on Alderaan, in the Tion Cluster, Seoul 5, Kuat, Alsakan, Axum, Anaxes, Atrisia, Metellos, Corulag, and many other worlds. The Rakata were eventually decimated by a massive plague, leading to slave revolutions on Coruscant and other subjugated worlds.

Over the next two centuries, Coruscant was linked to other Core Worlds, including Corellia, Alderaan, New Plympto and Duro, by hyperspace cannons, via the Herglic Trade Empire. It was during this time that the Coruscant government peacefully absorbed the nearby Azure Imperium. During these pre-Republic years, the languages of Coruscant and its neighbors meshed to become Old Galactic Standard.

Galactic Republic
"That's the seat of Galactic government!'"

The Sacking of Coruscant in 3,653 BBY. In 25,053 BBY, when the Galactic Constitution was signed, the Corellians and Duros invented the hyperdrive proper, allowing Coruscant to become the capital of a democratic union: the Galactic Republic. 53 years later the planet became the galactic center, and remained the Republic's capital for 24,981 more years. Shortly after the formation of the Republic, the Perlemian Trade Route was mapped, linking Coruscant to Ossus and bringing the Jedi Knights into the Republic. Over the next millennium, the Corellian Run was mapped, linking Coruscant to Corellia and beyond. Blasters were also invented on Coruscant around this time, and the famous Galactic Museum was constructed in 12,000 BBY.

From the very beginning, Coruscant, as the Republic's capital, was the primary objective in several wars. The earliest among these was the Tionese War with the Honorable Union of Desevro and Tion in 24,000 BBY, in which Coruscant was bombarded with Tionese pressure bombs. Other early battles included the Alsakan Conflicts, the Duinuogwuin Contention, the Great Hyperspace War, the Third Great Schism, the Great Droid Revolution, and the Great Sith War. At the end of the Great Sith War in 3,996 BBY, the Senate Building was built to replace the old Senate Hall.

Following the devastation of Ossus, the Jedi Council took up residence in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, to which many Jedi relics from Ossus were taken. The Temple was greatly expanded, including the building of the original Jedi Council Chamber. The Temple was repeatedly expanded including in 3,519 BBY, 2,519 BBY (when the Jedi Archives were built) and 1,019 BBY (when the Temple spires were finally fully rebuilt).

Stars Wars - Less Lucas the Better

This post over at Grognardia reminded me how much better a lot of the expanded universe of novels, video games, and comics were than the "hands on" work of George Lucas himself. Much of the talent working on these other non-movie aspects of the SW universe were fans of the material, and it showed in loving ways more than The Man himself. They "got it" while the master had "lost it."

Case in point. Several years there was a Clone Wars cartoon (not the odd looking one they have now - talk about "uncanny valley") miniseries that really got it right. Bad ass Anakin and Obi in mountain-shattering combat with Sith agents. Clone Troopers having their own piece where a group of them find themselves in a sort of Black Hawk Down situation where they show more skill and action than any of the movie clone warriors did. And best of all, they gave us a frightening and powerful General Grievous. Not the wheezing, slouched cyborg clown with the bad Dracula voice. Take a look at this clip if you haven't seen it, then tell me which version of Grevious is cooler.

A KOTOR cast of characters

IMHO, interesting and varied characters add greatly to the gaming experience no matter what game you play. Star Wars, or more specifically Knights of The Old Republic, is no exception (just go easy on the “Muppet” races). Here are the characters that are in my current campaign. Not a goddamn Muppet in sight (unless you count the Wookie. But he’s kind of an evil Wookie).

Garvin (Paul): is a Khil (bald and having many tentacles hanging from his face that sound like chimes when he talks). Garvin is of the Noble class, and his wealth talent has him raking in the cash (something like 5000 creds each level he gains). He is also a Force User. I started him out as a college acquaintance of my major, regularly appearing NPC.

Kruk (Andy): is a Feeorin (big and strong guys with dreadlocks like The Predator). Kruk is a Mandalorian from the recent wars, although he hasn’t admitted such to the other players. He is a Soldier class that Andy is meticulously choosing combat skills for, making him a run n’ gun type commando fighter. Fairly anti-social to others outside the immediate group, he has his item shopping and other errands done by other characters because he doesn’t trust himself not to put the hurt on some shoppie who talks to him wrong. I had thought Andy was going to run this guy as less of an asshole Mandalorian for some reason, but he has proven to be fairly cold blooded, killing a foe who had surrendered and was prone on the ground. I expect more brutal violence from this character in the future. BTW, this was the type of character I was hoping for in the campaign; something aiming it more at hard Sci Fi than just another dopey Star Wars storyline.

Totha (Little Ben): is a Bothan Scoundrel (goat dudes) and general agent for the Bothan Spynet. He travels around looking for interesting tidbits to report to the ‘net. Is an excellent shot and so far seems not to miss what he aims for. A Bothan spy is kind of handy for the GM; he is constantly feeing info to his superiors, and gaining info from them in return. Macguffins can be easily inserted in the game this way.

Rookieen (Dan): is a Wookie soldier, but is no “nice guy” like Chewbacca. So far the rumor is that Rookieen has worked as a slaver capturing his own kind. Yep, a Wookie traitor (Wookies are a slave race during this time period). Rookieen is a typical Dan “The Power Game Man” character; arrogant, anti-social, and prone to violence. With Kruk the Mandalorian and this evil Wookie around, I expect to throw lots of combat the groups way. Combat is hella fun in this system. Not a ton of room for abstraction, which is a nice break from AD&D old school.

Rokran (Big Ben): is a 20-year old Zabrak (Darth Maul’s race) Jedi from Coruscant. Like Andy, Ben is leaning towards well-studied optimization, become powerful fairly quickly through his (somewhat broken) Jedi powers .

Lucia (Terry): a 15 year old Cathar (cat people) Jedi, who was sent to the Dantooine Enclave as a child after the brutal attacks and atrocities of the Mandalorians several years ago. Sort of a Jedi bumpkin compared to the metropolitan Rokran, Terry has not had much of an eye towards optimization of abilities, but is just picking stuff that appeals to her for the characters (she seems to be leaning towards lightsaber combat specialist). As Lucia is Cathar, it will be interesting to see how she feels about Kruk when/if his Mandalorian background is revealed.
Note that all the characters that were created are non-humans. That set up an interesting dynamic right off that bat. Even in this time period humans are dominant.

The Jedi characters had special reason for being around where I started this first game, but all the rest just ended up, for one reason or another, at the Muunilist space port. The Muuns are the banking clan, as shown in the Star Wars prequels. I had no idea if they existed in the KOTOR period, but decided that they would have some galactic banking, loan, and law services set up even though the Intergalactic Banking Clan status of the planet was thousands of years away.

I had Kruk and Rookieen just being mercs who were slumming it at space port waiting for a job or whatever, and the Bothan also just hanging around sniffing for interesting happenings to report to his superiors. Garvin the Khil had a computer tech gig at one of the Muun universities, where he met and became friends with a student, Solomon (my regular NPC for this part of the campaign).

Solomon is an NPC and sort of the catalyst of the main adventure. He appears to be a good looking young human male (more or less) with blood red hair and sort of “mood ring” eyes. Solomon is a student of Ancient Galactic History and Languages, and he would bring all the characters together by offering them bodyguard jobs to protect him as he went to potentially dangerous places to look for clues to the historical stuff he is interested in (old ruins and ancient caves in wildernesses).

I expected the characters to be on Muun for one full game tops, but there ended up being so many fun things I could do with these PC’s before they hit the spaceways, we actually spent 3 games doing things there. The characters have fought andrenal junkies (adrenals are stat-boosting drugs very common in the KOTOR video game that inspired me to do this campaign), brawled in the cantina, gambled, had a gun battle with well-armed and violent poachers out in the mudflat outback, and got mixed up with a conflict between gang members with The Exchange (galactic Mafia), and thugs in the employ of The Hutts who were encroaching on Exchange territory. I’ve had the opportunity to use a Darkside Maurader (force sensitive soldiers with no force training who channel the force through battlefield rage) in a couple of fights. One fight had the Maurader crash a stolen truck into the spaceport ground shuttle some characters were on, and engaging them in a brutal gunfight on the street in the blocked traffic.

The two Jedi were around just by happenstance because they were on some kind of Jedi errand to the planet. The Cathar catgirl Jedi is young, and when she got involved in drinking and gambling at the cantina with the other PC’s, she indulged like any teenager would. It will be interesting to see if she continues that behavior. I have to give her plenty more opportunities to party it up in the future to see if she bites. Partying hardy is the path to the dark side!


Next: The players are on a space flight that crashes and nobody could possibly survive it. Do they? Stay tuned.

Would you face Traffic Hell for a game session?

Even though my life has become much busier due to previously mentioned things happening at work, our gaming group has managed to become a once weekly affair. One week I’m doing Knights of the Old Republic, and the next week Ben does his AD&D campaign (the one where we don’t all have to run elves). I haven’t done gaming on a weekly basis since I was a teenager, so it’s kind of a trip. I think all this solid, quality gaming is partly to blame for my decline of online participation in the gamer community, but I’ll talk about that in a separate post.

I thought I would be taking a summer break from gaming, as Andy and the wife are renting out the back place to a young guy from Spain for the time being (who Andy is trying to get interested in gaming so he’ll host us out there, if I am not mistaken). But Dan-Dan the Power Game Man, with the big palace up in Northern Bel Air off Mulholland, has stepped up to host for the time being despite a brand new baby in the house (his, he thinks).

It has been rough going for me so far, because as anybody in So Cal knows, the 405 Freeway (the gateway from West LA to the Valley) is a tough drive in the late afternoon. And despite a couple of better alternatives, it is the way I have foolishly tried to go to get to Dan’s (the Mulholland offramp has been closed, meaning having to drive down to Van Nuys, get off, and go back up Sepulveda).

Next week they are closing the 405 between West LA and Ventura Blvd. They are demolishing the Mulholland overpass or something. What this unheard of act means is that traffic is going to be a living nightmare for those willing to take to local freeways during his apocalyptic event. Sure, there is Sepulveda, and the few winding roads that go up into Northern Santa Monica and the Bel Air area, but those are more likely than not going to be a car nightmare.

For somebody like me who doesn’t like to drive unless it's long road trips up uncrowded Interstates, it was a given there would be no game next week, at least at Dan’s. But how about you? Have you ever gone into what you knew would be horrid traffic to get to a game session (maybe you were DM and didn’t want to disappoint those who showed up)? Would you try to get to the Dan situation I described for a game? I mean, I’m loving gaming lately, but LA traffic is bad enough without something insane like a 405 closure. I’d show up so frazzled I’d end up getting drunk and having to crash on the couch with Dan’s dogs.

When NPC’s Chime In/Super NPC’s

When I was first introduced to D&D as a kid, and for years afterwards, it was very common for Dungeon Masters to use what has become known as the “Super NPC.” A classic example I can remember is from a game some dude ran at the Santa Monica Jewish Center on Santa Monica Blvd when I was in my mid-teens. Yes, that was kind of a trippy place for a catholic kid, but one of my D&D buddies at the time was Jewish and we often had games there on a Tuesday night. I was going there almost every week for a year at around the age of 14 to play. I had been to this pal’s Bat Mitzvah as well. Maybe these experiences are why I have such love for Israel and Yiddish people worldwide (I would run into this guy a few years later when I was going to some Society of Creative Anachronism events with a girlfriend of the time. He had been a good kid, but by then it was obvious he was growing up to be a grade-A dipshit; I hope D&D didn’t do that to him).

Anyway, one night an older guy, probably in his early 20’s, ran a game for us. I don’t remember the particulars of our characters, but I remember our asses getting kicked in the game. We ended up needing help, and helpful locals pointed us out to what was obviously a favored character of the DM’s that he was using as an NPC. That was as easy as it could happen. Mr. DM is winging it in a game, needs a strong character to save the day, and then *taadaaa* he just inserts one of his characters from some other DM’s game he’s played in into the mix. Oy vey!

In this case, it was some badass fighter with twin magic blades who could cast Haste on himself. I can recall our PC’s walking down the city street with this super-character, who was whirling his blades around at Haste speed and juggling them and generally showing off before the big fight. Some big fight. I think his guy mopped up the bad guys while our PC’s stood on the sidelines shouting “hooray” while doing a respectful golf clap.

I have to admit that I fell into this heavily in the 80’s. The very first character I rolled up as a kid, a ranger named Arcturus Grimm, was my first major NPC in my homebrew gameworld, and I still use him to this day. Although as a player character I probably had only gotten him up to around 5th or 6th level before he became a super-NPC in my world. But what with all his misadventures over the hundred years or so of game time that has gone by since around 1980 (no worries, he’s partly elf) he stands today, a ranger in the upper teens of level and on the verge of some kind of godhood (yeah, that is very high level for my world). I’ve used him quite a bit in the early portions of this current campaign, but only as an advisor really. He has some sons and daughters as NPC’s involved in the ongoing campaign shenanigans.

I could easily give a dozen examples of other favored super-NPC’s (one or two actually former characters like ol’ Arcturus), but the overall point to this is that I don’t use them so much anymore. I never really used them as in the example I gave about the DM at the Jewish Center, but I have toned down their general involvement. And after so many years, some have retired or disappeared altogether. After some bad experiences in the last couple of years, I am inclined even more to use them less.

Like when I went to a couple of Sunday Star Wars Saga sessions in Santa Monica (trying to little avail to get to know the rules so I could run for the infamous Hollywood Star Wars group). The GM, a 20 year old, pretty much just ran tactical combats with his super-NPC Jedi’s jumping in and doing most of the work. It really sucked.

The months later when I went to run KOTOR for an established group, the “lady” who was “in charge” was almost fanatically against NPC’s. She even talked about the young dude in Santa Monica’s use of NPC’s, which blew my mind (she knows somebody who went to one of his games). I said “no problem,” but I did have an NPC involved with the group as part of the ongoing adventure and I learned later that was one of many things that bugged her. Not that I care about what bugged the clueless dolt, but it did make me give some more thought about my use of NPC’s.

When player are having confabs as their characters, I have a bit of a habit of jumping into the conversation with an NPC (hey, the DM is supposed to have some role playing fun too, ya' know?). This is usually when there is information to give or it is just an appropriate time for them to speak, but I realized I was doing just a bit too much of it. I should be encouraging characters to speak more. Given, I only really have two players who really have conversations in character, with the others speaking up here and there. But I’m trying to lean more to letting it be the characters words that rule the day (good or bad).

So in our Night Below session last week, there was a point where a player or two were cooking up plans for another assault on The City of The Glass Pool, and rather than be a part of the conversations or have to hang on every word, I spent time doing other things. Looking in books, stepping outside, etc. Just listening to enough to catch good role play. It’s really only the DM’s job to react to what the players try to carry out, but in this case my distancing myself from the planning there were a few misunderstandings. So there needs to be a fine line. Me listening to important stuff, without feeling compelled to speak out as an NPC.

Now, I’ll readily admit that a lot of speaking up as NPC’s has come from a certain degree of my having to give information to move the game along. This group is kind of quick to action and short on understanding. They aren’t stupid, but I believe a “thinking man’s D&D” is not necessarily what they are after. They want combat and cool set-pieces to have it in. Hey, I can relate. As a player I like action over politics and making the proper decisions to move storylines along.

Also, for me, NPC’s have been an integral part of how I present my world. I’ve been using my homebrew game setting for going on 35 years , with well over a hundred years of game continuity. This is the gaming James over at Grognardia likes to speak of; starting with a tiny section of a game world and expanding from there. That was the beginning, like, 1978 for me. In the many years after that, I have expanded upon the gameworld big time, and I’m not just happy with that, I’m proud of it. I have a personal connection to my gameworld (and therefore to my own childhood) that I think is rare. My players can often feel that. So yeah, I take NPC’s seriously. If it is more than just an innkeeper or farmer the players will never see again, then it is an NPC worth investing in. But like I said, there needs to be a fine line when NPC’s are involved, so as not to gyp players out of character time. NPC’s should complement the character experience, not supplant it.

Should they just be extra muscle? The clichéd hirelings of old school D&D? Or should they be an integral part of the group sometimes. After all these years, this is still something I am trying to figure out.

Wii owners, help a bro out

For the most part, I have always gotten video game systems years after they come out. When folks where digging on their Playstation around the year 2000, I was still plugging away with Sonic on my Genesis. When games were jamming on their Playstation 2’s, I was still going strong on my Playstaton 1.

For the most part it has nothing to do with cost (at least for the systems, I would never buy a new game at full price. As if.), it was that I didn’t spend as many hours on a game as lots of other people would. Unless I was burning my way through the better part of a twelve pack of Bass Ale, an hour or so would do it for me on any given night. Plus I liked to get games used, because I’ve got Scottish blood filling my veins and will rarely pay new retail price for anything but socks, underwear, and liquor. And when I like that game, I’ll play it a couple of times, unless that game is of the likes of Final Fantasy 7 that you can easily put 80 hours into and has no replay value.

Right now I think I am ready for XBOX 360 or PS 3. My mouth has been watering for around two years to play games like Bioshock, Dead Rising, and Fallout. Damn, these games all have sequels out already. Well, last year at the office Xmas party I was lucky enough to win the best raffle prize – the Nintendo Wii (a two year streak – I won a high end DVD player the year before. Maybe I’ll win a car at next weeks party). Although weaker in ability than 360 and PS3, it was at least a newer system. Alas, after putting maybe an hour into tennis and boxing with the game it came with, it has now spent around 11 months in its box in the closet next to the set of Spanish bagpipes that I paid 500 bucks for but never play (fucking toy).

For one thing, I have games I am still enjoying on my Original XBOX and PS2. I’m on my third run through on Knights of the Old Republic (I got inspired by my upcoming KOTOR RPG I’m going to do for the group to have one more run through), am still trying to get the motivation up to finish the very difficult Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, and once a week or so regular group player Terry comes by for a couple of hours to play Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 that I happen to have for the XBOX. But before this year is up I’ll be done (or fed up) with these, and will want to maybe give that Wii a shot before trading up to the 360.

So, maybe you can help me. I’m fairly unfamiliar with the Wii. I know it is mostly a kiddie/family system, and is famous for that Wii Fit stuff (c’mon, I get a better work out washing my Jeep). But what else is there I might have fun with? I know of Mario Galaxy from others who have the system, but I’d like something with a little more realistic and/or serious action for a grown up. I also know that Dead Rising was ported over to this, but I heard that it has features of the original that are missing (important ones, like the ability to jump over fences). So what would I like?

Here’s an idea of the things I like to give you an idea: I like mellow jazz, long walks on the beach, holding hands, fluffy kittens, and sipping tea while curling up in front of the fire with a good book. OK, I don’t really like any of those things. But heres some of my favorite games from older systems to give you and idea of what appeals to me (whether it be RPG, action game, or shooter).

Super Mario Bros. 1&3: what’s not to love? Mindless but challenging gameplay.

Final Fantasy 7: Taught me to love again. And also to have patience. I put 80 hours into it.

Resident Evil: Played all the regular ones in the series on Playstation, and then Res Evil 4, the best, on PS2. I played it through 3 or 4 times. Outstanding gameplay and story. Terry has this on the Wii, but I don’t need to play it on another system. I’m done.

Silent Hill: all the thrills and great gameplay of Resident Evil, with more creepy scares. Especially liked the first in the series, and The Room.

Castlevania: loved ‘em on the Genesis, and adored Symphony of the Night on PS1.

Fear Effect: 1&2, great action gameplay similar to Res Evil, but with interesting story, characters, and lesbo love.

Tenchu Steath Assasins: My one and only Ninja game. Played it a half dozen times through.

Dune 2000/Sim City 2000: yeah, I can dig a certain amount of Micromanagement. Makes me feel like a god, I tells ya! I especially loved the cinematic live scenes in Dune 2000, as well as the movie soundtrack used in it. Shamelessly used money cheats though.

Diablo: Oh yeah, fun fun fun top down gameplay. How could anybody who grew up on D&D not like it?

Champions of Norrath/Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance: both with that winning Diablo style top down gameplay. Terry fell in love with CoN, and because of that I have a girl coming over a few times a month who I am not banging. Thanks a lot, CoN/BGDA.

Halo 2: Oh man, I can still pop it in for huge fun. One of the only shooters I ever got into. Great story and solid Sci Fi concepts.

So, anything you can recommend for Wii? Or should I just try to get 60 bucks or so for it on Ebay, and put that towards a nice used 360?

You’d GM it if you could (but probably never will)

Since the 80’s, I’ve always tried to have an alternate game to do for my D&D groups whenever I was feeling a little burnt out, or if a player important to the current scenario was missing. From the late 80’s until the late 90’s, my usual alternative would be either Champions (my long-running setting was based heavily on Superhero 2044), or Call of Cthulhu. Both genres originally would meet with resistance by the group (they never burnt out on my D&D), but after a couple games under their belts my players would often request an alternative session.

After several years off from gaming, I have had this new group going strong for over a year now. At a time of year where it is easy for players to miss a game due to end of the year obligations, it is more important than ever for me to introduce an alternative game. Something that we can do if only three players can make it (I like at least four players for the D&D session, but three is ok for most other stuff).
For months I have been putting thought to this. For the most part, I don’t feel like putting all the prep into Cthulhu like I used to do. My Champions setting is something I would like to rekindle, with my only consideration being that we play for only around three hours on a Wednesday night. Many simple combat scenarios can take more than three hours with Champs.

Having remembered the great times running Gamma World and Metamorphosis Alpha when I was a kid, I have also been tossing around the thought of doing Met. Alpha using the Mutant Future rules.

So last week I got together with a couple of my players (the ones most into doing an alternative genre) over a few beers, to work on characters for both Champions and Mutant Future just to see how we feel. Both players came up with mutants (a human and a plant), and the results of their random mutation rolls really brought back the old fun of those old mutant games. Both characters ended up with one really crippling bad mutation, but the others were so good they wanted to use the characters as is (the plant got the faster aging mutation, but also got the three dice of acid blood damage mutation – nice. The human mutant got the slow action mutation, but also got the disintegration and teleportation powers).

Then we really got to work on the Champs characters (oh, the crunch) and there were some good ideas there as well. A street level game is what I want to go for at first. Andy came up with a chop socky Hong Kong cop, and Paul (a fairly new player to the group) dreamed up a two-fisted chemist who carried special attack vials of chemicals (web, acid, smoke screen) and knew Savate (French kick-boxing.)


So the alternative will for sure be Champs or Mutant Future based mostly on great characters getting created, maybe both. But this has me thinking about the games and settings I have wanted to do for a long time, but probably never will. Maybe one day I will game more, and on the weekends, but twice a month on a Wednesday night isn’t exactly conducive to lots of experimenting. And with at least a couple of my players not wanting to play if it isn’t my D&D, these alternatives will always be the least priority in what we do.

But here are the ones I’d like to do if I could, but may actually never get the chance:

DUNE – I never really could get into the book when I was younger, but I always got a kick out of the David Lynch film. Several years ago I suddenly got into a Dune phase. I watched the directors cut of the film, and went right out and got the book. With the film setting up some of the locales and themes in simpler form, I was able to enjoy the nuances of the book more. I even read the two or three sequels that followed. Then I logged in countless hours on the Dune 2000 video game. It was around that time I got a real hankering to GM a game in the Dune setting. With no official game releases on this, I probably would have used the Hero system . With players running mentats, pilots, warriors, etc. I would have adventures across the planets of the empire and finally to Arakis itself. Whenever I mention wanting to do a Dune game to my players, it usually goes over like a lead balloon. So I guess this one shall remain a dream unfulfilled.

RUNEQUEST – I played this more than I ran it as a kid, but I loved it. I always dug the simple elegance of the Chaosium basic role playing system, and the mythical, ancient Greece styled setting was a great break from our D&D games that were going strong at the time. With most of my current players preferring the pulp fantasy of D&D, this one shall likely remain a dream as well.

TRAVELLER – another great game from my youth. Like Runequest I played more than I GM’d back in the day. At Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica, where I hung out as a kid, this was a heavily played game, much more than D&D. I also really loved the Dumarest novels by E.C. Chubb as a kid, a major influence on Traveller even thought it doesn’t get enough of that credit. Although I’m not a fan of the whimsy of the character creation process, and that I think there could be more character development as games progress, I really would love to do a straight Sci Fi game with little or no fantasy elements.

KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC – I loved the video game on XBOX so much it made me want to run games in that setting, despite not being a hard core Star Wars geek. KOTOR is so removed from the yammering muppets, mincing droids, and lame humor of Sir George’s works, it really shines as a separate, more mature section of the SW multiverse. I actually got the chance to run several games for an established Star Wars gaming group recently, and despite that not working out the way I would have liked, I would love to spring this on my regular group. Problem is, they ain’t exactly hard core Star Wars geektards either. Long live Jar Jar (not).

BUNNIES & BURROWS – Even though I sold my first edition of this 1970’s game on Ebay a few years ago (sniff), I would love to run a small campaign of this Watership Down inspired old school RPG. I think I would find an alternative sytem to use for the character types (maybe Chaosium’s basic role playing) as presented in the original game, but I would really love to see how game play would pan out. Just going out in the field to look for truffles is a huge danger to these characters. So tense, furtive gameplay would be the order of the day. Yep, another lead balloon for my players. I don’t think they would buy my pitch.

So, those are some of mine. What kind of game would you like to GM, but probably never will?

The game that doubled in price overnight

Earlier this year when I agreed to do A Knights of the Old Republic game in the Star Wars Saga game, I picked up the core rules, and of course the KOTOR campaign guide. Both were around 40 bucks, and I managed to get both for close to 30 on Ebay in great shape.

I heard rumors a week or so ago online about how the KOTOR book was suddenly super-rare. A couple of the players at my first game Sunday mentioned it as well. I just looked on Amazon, and it's going for nearly 100 bucks! Dang.

What would cause an RPG supplement to go critical so fast? I dunno, but it's popularity may be helped by the fact that the XBOX game from years ago is still popular. I considered getting this sourcebook a year ago anyway, because I loved the video game so much and really loved the setting.

What other game books have shot up in price so fast? I got 60 bucks for my 70's copy of Bunnies and Burrows a couple of year ago, and that was almost 30 years after it went out of print.