Gamma World Actual Play: “Pax Extraterrestria” at DC Game Day
High Leaf, the Plant Mind-Coercer
I picked up Gamma World last Thursday. I hadn’t intended to run it so soon, especially with DC Game Day over the weekend… and then fate intervened. My sunday morning game of Old School Hack was canceled on Saturday since the DM had something come up, and so I stepped up. None of the other players minded the switch, so life in Gamma Terra was on.
However, there were some obstacles. As I talked about in my review, I wasn’t a fan of the adventure that came in the core book, so I only wanted to use that as a last resort. I managed to get my hands on the preview adventure from Pax by Logan Bonner that had gotten excellent reviews. (It’s the same one Wil Wheaton played.)
Then, I had to get my stuff in order. The evening before, I tossed a bunch of miniatures in a box (ones I had acquired for cheap from Miniature Market, mostly Star Wars and Horrorclix), grabbed my Battlegraph boards and dry erase markers for the maps, printed the adventure, some character sheets, and a copy of these power cards. With the time I had available, that was the extent of my prep, other than reading the adventure.
I had 6 players for the game, two of whom had never played 4e and one or two had played some previous incarnation of Gamma World. A good range of experience, to be sure. [Read the rest of this article]
Dave’s Gen Con 2010 Wrap-up
So you may have seen all the Gen Con schedules posted last week that told you where various Critical Hits staff members were going to be, I am going to buck the trend and tell you where I WAS at Gen Con… or at least the highlights.
Wednesday
Arrived in the morning, was able to check in relatively early (the Hyatt rocks, by the way, except for the completely awful slow and expensive internet connection.) We then managed to get into a game of Castle Ravenloft, the new cooperative board game, for which E summarized the game play and we later did an unboxing video. We also helped Asmadi Games haul in product to their booth, giving us an early look at the exhibit hall before it was fully set up. From Asmadi, I later got a copy of Innovation and the Win, Lose, or Banana promo card Cake.
Thanks to Sarah Darkmagic‘s husband Fred, we found a good liquor store with a very helpful owner and I dropped over $200 on booze. (Thanks again, Fred!) We then returned to the Hyatt to secure tables, and at 8, ran DD&D. I’m still delighted and amazed that the event worked out, and have even more ideas for next year. Primary on my list is expanding to another table, since the worst part was having to turn away friends. I also want to organize a simultaneous teetotaler D&D game for our non-drinking friends. [Read the rest of this article]
Gen Con 2010: Drinking Dungeons & Dragons
Now years ago, it started as a joke: making a drinking game out of 4e Dungeons & Dragons. After that, it became an annual tradition at Gen Con for some of our closest blogger friends those first two years, run by ChattyDM. This year, we were faced with two issues: we were getting too many people at the table, and Chatty was going to be busy with seminars and such leading up to Gen Con, limiting the time he would have to prepare.
I offered to step in and spear-head the DD&D game, if he would collaborate with me and run a second table. An accord was struck and the planning began: a Drinking Dungeons & Dragons event for Gen Con to top all the previous. As we planned more and more over the months leading up, it was clear this wasn’t just an ordinary convention game… it was an event. While the goal was drunken fun, the prep was serious business.
Last Wednesday at 8pm we ran the game to what I would call great success. We had 12 interested players, 2 DMs, a small audience, and over $200 in booze that would lead to quite an evening. I’d like to call out a few important things that went into the adventure… and I’ve invited ChattyDM to chime in with his thoughts as well.
(Chatty: Oh I’m there Dave! I’m there!) [Read the rest of this article]
Origins 2010: “Game Design is Mind Control” Seminar
During Origins 2010, I dropped by a packed seminar run by Luke Crane and Jared Sorensen. Luke Crane is the designer of Burning Wheel and Mouse Guard RPGs, of which we (mainly ChattyDM) have spoken of on many occasions. Jared Sorensen is the game designer behind a number of games including Action Castle and the Parsley system, as well as a variety of electronic game projects. These are just some of my notes from the seminar, so nothing here is verbatim what they said, just how it was interpreted by me.
What does it mean that game design is mind control? As they explained it, games encourage you to do things you wouldn’t normally do. They encourage you to put yourself in situations you wouldn’t otherwise be in and have your feelings manipulated, which is a form of mind control. Well-designed games evoke certain feelings in players and put those players in the middle of a scenario. As they emphasized, the goal is not to make your players have fun, since fun is a very subjective thing. (Just like Yehuda said.) But if you can succeed in designing a game that causes the players to have the reaction you intended, you’ve succeeded as a game designer. They said everyone in the seminar is a game designer… which as they joked, meant arguing and starving. [Read the rest of this article]
Air War: A Skill Challenge
Last weekend, as part of the finale to a major plot arc in my game, I wanted to make a skill challenge to represent a fleet of airships breaking through the enemy’s air forces in order to get the party to their objective (the Big Bad Guy and his reborn Primordial). I’ve done a few airship skill challenges before, thanks to a motley Dwarven pirate airship. Escape from the giant dragon air skill challenge and “oh crap the airship is crashing” skill challenge both had been done, so for this one, I envisioned something like the space battles in Star Wars, like the trench run but in a more open space.
Thus, I consulted Gamefiend, the mad genius of skill challenges, for his help in designing it. One Skype call later (and then another day of planning later) I came up with the following skill challenge. It is stretching the skill challenge framework quite a bit and turning into its own mini-game, so be prepared for that right away. I’ve made it slightly more generic for use in your campaign, along with some notes for adapting.
Air War
Background
A ragtag fleet of 6 airships needs to puncture the enemy’s air forces in order to deliver the party to their objective. The party has been given command of the flagship of the fleet, which is equipped with listening coins to be able to communicate with the captains of the other ships. The goal is for the party to reach the end, while saving as many of the other ships as possible. The DM is encouraged to staff the other airships with important NPCs, absent PCs, and allied forces to increase the drama and importance of each ship to the party. [Read the rest of this article]
4th Power Project: Playtest Recap & Wealth
4th Power is my attempt to mash-up 4e and d20 Modern into an RPG that I want to play and run campaigns in, leveraging the stuff I like from both, along with other elements that try to fix what annoyed me about both systems.
Well, on Halloween, I ran the first ever playtest. I designed all the characters, constructed a scenario, recruited members of my regular D&D group, and GMed the game.
I am definitely happy to report one thing: the game didn’t combust in on itself…
…but the scenario did end in near TPK, and a total objective failure for the PCs. [Read the rest of this article]
4th Power Project: First Level Characters
Well, I missed my first deadline by not posting feats last week. They ended up being more tricky than I thought. 4e and d20 feats all seem to be more combat-oriented, which was always my complaint with systems like Call of Cthulhu d20. Anyway, I had a hard time coming up with them, and it’s still something that’s going to require some thought on my part.
Tomorrow, though, is the big day: the very first playtest. To prepare, I had to come up with an adventure, character stories, and character sheets. In the process, I had to invent new powers and feats, which added some time. So posted here are 4 of the 5 characters that will be used tomorrow, sans backstories. Then next week, I’ll let you all know how it went. [Read the rest of this article]
4th Power Project: Skills
I’ve got some core classes (which are pending some revisions), some at-will powers, and some other powers. Next step is relatively simple (but not without some thought): skills.
While skills are not trivial in 4e, they play a much greater role in modern games, and have a greater variety. This is not just because of the need for modern skills that wouldn’t exist in D&D settings. It’s also because there is more of an emphasis on using skills, and possessing those skills differentiates characters. Especially in a game where not everyone is adapt in similar areas (i.e. combat) the choice and variety of skills can make a big difference.
My first step was to look at the skills that 4e characters possess and see what should be brought forward. It turns out: almost all of them, since they are a really well put together list of skills. There’s only one that outright I can’t see in a modern game, and that’s Dungeoneering. So that gets tossed. [Read the rest of this article]
4th Power Project: Classes, Part 3 (Other Powers)
The beginnings of some at-will powers were posted last week- not all of them by any means, but I figured it was a start.
Now as I mentioned then, at-will powers should come up fairly often, and be the stand-bys. The other powers are Per Scene (formerly Per Encounter) and Per Session (formerly Per Day.) In 4e, it’s a pretty easy scale: Dailies are better than Encounter are better than At-Wills, at least as far as damage goes. With modern powers, I don’t necessarily see that as being the case. The division is more based on the drama of the power: is this something the characters should be doing every scene (but not every round), or is this something that should only come up maybe once a session? Also unlike their equivalents, you wouldn’t necessarily try and burn through the modern powers as often as possible.
Additionally, I look at the powers as being closer to “spells” as far as interesting effects go. This does add the most challenging part, however: balancing them by level. Since you’re not just evaluating damage, conditions, area, and so forth, you’re trying to adjudicate the relative balance of less easily defined powers. Thus, when looking at these powers, please do keep in mind that they might need to be moved around in levels.
What you need to know: Per Scene and Per Session powers are specific to classes. I may also give them additional “kickers” based on build later, just like their 4e counterparts, but that will come later (hopefully after I have the builds nailed down.) [Read the rest of this article]
The 4th Power Project: Classes, Part 2 (At-Will Powers)
Last week I started in on the core classes, which garnered a lot of discussion. I’ll definitely be going back and revising them soon (they’re already in the works in my design document.)
So here’s what I think of as the next step, or at least a defining portion of the next step: at-wills. At-will powers accomplish a few important things in the game. They serve as the powers you will use the most, and throughout your entire career adventuring. They are the fall backs when you don’t want to use any of your encounter or dailies (expendable resources) and are more all-purpose.
But in 4e, those are also the powers you will be using every round in combat. They’re the go-to. You will probably use one of them at least once per combat. In a Modern game, that’s not necessarily the case. You rarely see the same move done in every scene. [Read the rest of this article]
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