Akrasia, over at Akratic Wizardry, has an excellent entry on the “problem with feats.” I have to say it’s a close approximation of my own feelings on the pseudo-powers system. The only thing I would add is that, as I see it, the reason feats were introduced was to provide a skill/power system while keeping the class based system. In my opinion, it would have worked far better if they had simply scraped the underlying class system and built from the ground up.

It’s probably safe to say that I’ve played Traveller longer and more regularly than any other RPG in my collection. Like a lot of the old guard, I was introduced to the hobby by D&D, but it was Marc Miller’s brainchild that’s kept me playing all these years.

If I have one complaint about the game, it’s the rather stifling nature of its backdrop. Over the years, I’ve actually taken my games out of the Imperium in order to create the kind of atmosphere and environment I prefer (rather than having to make what I want to do fit within the Imperial framework). I have to admit, that’s one of the beauties of Miller’s system. Unfortunately, my lackluster feelings about the standard setting means that it can be difficult to find material that can be effortlessly dropped into my own games.

That’s why I was intrigued when I stumbled across Jon Brazer Enterprises’ Necro-Soldier (part of the Creatures of Distant Worlds series). From the description, it sounded like exactly the kind of material I’d be interested in using – offbeat, unusual, generic, and slightly dark. The summary on RPGNow reads:

On distant worlds in the deepest regions of space, unknown creatures await unwitting explorers. Close to home, devious politicians and gangsters lure native wild life to carry out their dirty work while maintaining denyability. On a frontier outpost, primitive life forms walk the uninhabited regions hoping claim the civilized place as their new home. Be prepared no matter where your players go. Be ready with the Creatures of Distant Worlds.

Necro-Soldiers carry out their tasks from beyond the grave. With a computer for a mind and dead heart for a soul, these merciless troops complete their mission with deadly accuracy.

As you can no doubt tell, the Necro-Soldier is designed to be a Sci-Fi version of the ever popular zombie. Dale McCoy, the author behind Jon Brazer Enterprises, does an excellent job of providing background and tactical information on how to use this new creature; in fact, he scales everything to fit into various tech levels. Even though this is a common sense approach to designing encounters for Traveller, it’s one of those areas that newbie GMs are likely to overlook (as I often did the first few years I played).

From there, McCoy expands on where and how you might stumble across (or use) a Necro-Soldier, and gives examples of locations and possible scenarios.† Even if you use the Traveller canon, it should be simple enough to drop these into a variety of systems, particularly if you’re playing on the outskirts of the Imperium.

The product is laid out well and includes a nice piece of original artwork; however, like many small, independent publishers, it does suffer from a lack of editing — missing words, misused phrases, misspellings, incomplete thoughts, etc. It’s generally not enough to derail the narrative, but being such a small supplement it does stand out more than it normally might.

Overall, I like where this series is headed, and enjoyed the basic execution; I plan on purchasing others and am considering investing in the subscription service Brazer Enterprises is offering. To his credit, McCoy manages to inspire adventure possibilities in almost every section of this two-page supplement. That, in-and-of-itself, is an accomplishment worth the price of admission.

† Initially, I thought the places used were within the Traveller canon, but as you can see in the comments below I was mistaken.

Required: Investigate, Deception, possibly a ship
Reward: Cr. 5,000

Player’s Information

Three days ago Karin Dosert, a well renowned anthropologist, hired a clown for her son’s seventh birthday party. Despite their reputation for scaring young children, Bonzi the Aslan Clown, with his dramatic martial arts display, was a huge success. Unfortunately, the day after, Karin discovered that her prized Klugan medallion – a relic from one of her early research projects on Trii – was missing. Fearing the worst, Dosert would like to hire the PC’s to find Bonzi and return her medallion.

Referee’s Information

Karin will give the PCs the electronic address she used to contact Bonzi the Clown. Using it, they should be able to track/coerce him and thus flush him out.

Variations

1. Bonzi’s not an Aslan at all but a physically modified entertainer who stole the medallion for drug money.
2. The same as above, except Bonzi was (counter-)hired to steal the medallion by a rival anthropologist who is attempting to discredit Dosert.
3. The same as above except Bonzi stole the medallion, double-crossed the second anthropologist when he discovered its value and is now attempting to sell it on the black market.
4. Bonzi was physically altered to look like an Aslan not just for entertainment reasons, but because he’s a Psion-in-hiding. While performing at the Dosert house, he suddenly became aware of a trapped intelligence, the medallion, which he took upon himself to liberate. If approached by the players, he’ll try to convince them to help him return it to its home world.
5. As above, but Dosert discovers Bonzi’s plans and hires a secondary group to stop the PCs from returning the medallion to its home world.
6. Bonzi is actually a female Aslan agent who was planted as an entertainer in an attempt to locate documentation on the destruction of the colony known as Tgrii-4. The Aslan suspect that Dosert’s fieldwork was done on Tgrii around the time of the colony’s destruction.

This is designed for an industrial, moderately high tech world with a diverse population, but you can definitely tinker with the idea in order to make it fit into other planetary environments. In addition, you can easily change the names of the colony to suit whatever sector of space you might be adventuring through.

Having been sucked away from public life by my mid-summer teaching assignments, I finally return to find that my entry in the One Page Dungeon contest has landed an honorable mention. As I mentioned a few posts back, I wasn’t sure the adventure would “translate” without stats.

Apparently, it did!

Obviously, I’m pleased, especially having won Best Homage which was probably more fitting than the judges realize, as the inspiration was a combination of the original Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Slave Pits of the Undercity, and Dark Conspiracy. I’m looking forward to seeing the pdf with all the finalists.

I’ve been a member of a local meet-up group for the last six or seven months. For the most part, I’ve taken part in a few conversations and joining the associated Facebook page, but I’ve yet to jump into a game. The biggest reason being a lack of interest in what’s being offered. For example, I’ve yet to see a call for any campaign using a retro-game.

I know what you’re thinking. Why don’t you start your own game then? I likely will.

But at the moment, I’ve got a lot on my plate. Not only do I have a number of huge work projects that are eating into my person life, but I’m also running an on-line C&C game that just recently kicked into gear and is still in its infancy. On top of that, I’m (very slowly) working on developing a Savage Worlds setting that I hope to have polished off come winter.

But back to my point, the reason I bring this up is because I wonder if the same is true in other locales. I don’t exactly live in the sticks. In fact, RVA has three game stores (not counting the Games Workshop store) assuming I’m not forgetting any, nor is it due to a lack of games. I see at least one announcement coming off the list about every week, but it’s predominately 3.x or 4 ed. AD&D.

It kind of makes me wonder if the landscape of gaming, like so many other things, gets distorted in on-line communities. If I had to guess based on the blogging community, I would say the number of old school gamers was split rather equally with those who prefer newer editions/systems.

While I’m not above concluding that this is a statistical anomaly, I thought I’d ask, what’s the landscape in your area? Does it tend towards one school over the other or is it an even mix?

Since many of you participated, you probably already know about the One Page Dungeon Contest that was all the rage a few weeks back. I wound up entering a piece entitled: The Omenous Portent of the Highlands’ Meteor.

Based on the theme of the contest, I assumed that the primary setting would be fantasy, but decided to do a mixed genre piece. The only problem was that we were required to use a stripped down, stat-less format, which meant that I wound up with an adventure that had a few holes the GM would have to fill in herself.

I’m not wild about leaving holes.

So, rather than just post my entry as it was submitted, I decided to fill those in myself. The layout, content, and design are all still the same. The only change is that the entire adventure now has stats for Savage Worlds.

As I said before, this assumes that you’re using it for a fantasy campaign. It doesn’t matter if it’s high, pulp, or even romantic, as long as the traditional tropes (magic, races, etc) are present. If you’d prefer to use it in a historic or Deadlands setting, simply dump the Orcs and sub in Cultists!

Enjoy!

This weekend, as I was doing some prep work for the Castles & Crusades game I’m running, I got an idea for Savage Worlds stuck in my head. This is the kind of thing that used to happen all the time when I was a younger gamer. I used to have severe attention deficit when it came to rule sets, jumping from one system to the next as quickly as they were produced.

As I matured, and discovered the “kind” of gaming I preferred, I wound up calming down and eventually developed a passion for specific systems. I do, however, continue to collect new games though it’s primarily as a collector. I wind up using some for supplementary material to augment other games, but beyond that I tend to stick with a few of my favorite: C&C, Traveller.

Savage Worlds should be a part of that list. I should be using it for a large, expansive, fast & furious campaign; I want to be using it! The only problem is the system really works better with in-person games and I’ve only had the time to run PBP games for the last few years. So, in a very real sense, Savage Worlds is my “favorite game (I never play).”

Frankly, that was a rather depressing realization. Which, of course, made me wonder, is this a common theme with all of us? Do all of you have a favorite game that you never (get to) play and if so, what is it?

As I was roughing in the final stages of my trap-infested one page dungeon yesterday, I realized that the level of detail I needed was simply a bit much for the required space. I wound up switching to one of my bizarre designs, which was already finished and was going to be loaded here as the contest closed; meaning that I’m now going to go back and put more detail into the “trap dungeon” and make it available here when I’m finished.

Regardless of whether my actual entry winds up being published through the contest, I plan on posting it here as well. Considering that I used a new “monster” (sans stats, of course), it would no doubt be more interesting if I could truly flesh it out.

My ultimate goal was to blend AD&D/C&C/LL with…well, Dark Conspiracy for lack of a better comparison; and I believe I could make it far more effective with stat blocks, abilities, and a slightly more robust set of guidelines for the DM. For example, I commented at one point about “radiation,” but didn’t have the column space to go into any details about whether to use it as a hazard or how it might be used in play.

In any event, it appears that the contest was a big hit as there were some 60+ entries. With competition like that, I don’t figure on coming in at the top, but I have to admit it was fun to participate. I’ve said before that my gaming style is a combination of old school rules and modern storytelling arcs which ultimately means that I don’t do a lot of traditional dungeon crawls. But, like so many gamers who got hooked in the late 70’s, I certainly came from those roots, and this contest put me back in touch with those early, passionate, forays into the unknown.

I’m looking forward to seeing the winners.

Is everyone busy finishing their One Page Dungeons? I am (when I’m not working). In fact, I had a number of false starts – a few of which produced bizarre but ultimately interested ideas – but I finally settled into a simple, old school, trap-infested dungeon that will hopefully conjure up memories of the Tomb of Horrors. And if it’s even a fraction as deadly/funny/frustrating, I’ll be thrilled.