Strict Location Records Must Be Kept II

Oops.

It seems that my last post on this subject was the result of a misunderstanding. Apparently what was wanted was a list of all possible locations for antidote vials for the Doctor's poison, rather than my suggested locations.

Oops.

The Attic:

I don't think the Doctor would hide any vials in the attic, mainly because of the risk of the ELEPHANTOM getting out.

First Floor:

• Abaddon (p37)
• Mammon (p37)

(If one of the above rooms has a vial, the other does not.)

• A; the suit of armour (p41).
• Apollyon (p41)
• Eblis (p42)
• Mephisto (p42)
• Shaitan (p43); as written, I suggest this antidote be a fake.
• Erasmus (p43)

Ground Floor:

• E: the library (p49); hidden inside The Common Almanacke.
• F: the gallery (p53); behind the painting of the raven woman.
• G: the surgery (p53); inside the "patient".
• I: the storeroom (p53-54); in the medicine cabinet, although it's suggested that you don't put a vial here.
• K: the barbed wire trap (p54); as written there isn't a vial in here, but I don't see why there couldn't be.

The Cellar:

• C: the laboratory (p53); there are no antidotes here, but the players can make one, if they have the recipe.
• J: the vault (p60); this seems like an obvious place to keep a vial, and it's tricky enough to access that it seems fair to include one.

The Caves:
The Doctor doesn't come down here often enough to hide any antidotes, I think. I am inclined to suggest that ADAM (p54) could brew an antidote easily enough.

FYI

Not Broken, Don't Fix

Short Review:

Break!! is a well-designed game that reminds me a lot of Redbox Hack, and a little of 13th Age, and as I like both of those games a lot, I'm quite well-disposed towards Break!! too.

(Much) Longer Review:

This is going to be mostly positive, so let's get what I don't like out of the way first.

The book is massively overwritten. Every little bit and process -- except, oddly, the d20s on the page edges -- is explained in exhaustive detail. It's 470+ pages and it doesn't need to be 470+ pages.

BUT.

If Break!! were my first role-playing game, if I were new to the hobby and needed explanations for how to do things or how rpgs worked, then all of this extra detail and instruction would probably be quite useful. So yes, to my old brain and eyes it's Too Much Writing, but I'm not everyone, so I can let this one go.

I would have liked a bigger monster section. What we do get is good and explains how monsters work, and even how to reskin them to make new, different creatures, but I would still have liked seeing a few more examples. One notable gap is a Level One Sword Fodder type creature. A goblin/kobold/skaven type. Again, there are a couple of creatures that could be modified into that role, but it would have been nice to have one to use out of the box. Not that there is a box.

Something else there isn't is a Frog condition, which seems like a terrible omission, but I suppose you could hack that back in.

And that's it. That's everything negative I have to say about Break!! Now on to the positives. You may want to get a cup of tea or your local equivalent.

The classes callings are all interesting and look exciting to play. They have enough similarities with classic D&D types that they are familiar, but also have enough differences or twists to feel fresh and exciting. The Raider is sort of a D&D ranger, and sort of a D&D monk, but also quite unlike either. The Champion is more or less a fighter, except they are also good at cooking! Cooking the organs of slain monsters, yes, but cooking nonetheless! The Factotum is probably the most unique, a sort of support class calling upgraded to a full player class calling, part skills expert, part tactician, part pack mule, and like nothing I've seen in a fantasy rpg before. It's these classes callings and their unique abilities that make me think most of Redbox Hack and 13th Age; I like them a lot.

The mechanics seem good and robust. There are lots of options, but the basic rules are quite simple, based around single d20 rolls with only a couple of modifiers; like 13th Age the players will have more to remember and track than the GM will -- although some of the monsters can have complex abilities -- which should let the GM get on with running the game. Although not complicated, there is a lot of content, but the organisation is excellent; sections and subsections are clearly and intelligently marked and finding things in the book should be quite easy. Everything is in one book too, which will always win points from me.

There are WFRP-like damage charts (like!), magical corruption for spellcasters (like!), and a magical allegiance mechanic (like!) similar to that found in Elric!/Stormbringer (like like!). There's even a section on colossal enemies -- as in Shadow of the Colossus (very much like!) -- with evocative but simple rules for climbing on and fighting such huge creatures.

(That's it over there. One page. That's all you need to explain a whole sub-system. Imagine that, Call of Cthulhu 7...)

The GM section is very good, full of basic -- see above -- but solid advice on running games, and also what look like excellent tools for generating adventures and setting, with some examples to get you started, or to just rip -- not literally, please -- and run from the book.

Break!! also looks great. Grey Wizard's anime style art is lovely and does an excellent job of conveying the intended feel, although I should point out that if anime's not your thing then there's almost nothing baked into the game itself that forces that sort of style. You could run this as a depressing and obstinate Dark Souls type game with no problem. If you wanted. Anyway, good art! There are also plenty of narrative comic-style pages, which is something I always like to see. More rpgs should have them.

(I am available.)

Grey Wizard's book design is also good and clear. It does feel a tiny bit like a school science textbook -- smells a bit like one too -- but the art does take the edge off that. And there's nothing wrong with science.

In Conclusion (thank fudge for that):

Anime and computer game fans will of course find Break!! right up their alley, but there's also a lot to like if you enjoy fantasy role-playing games but are looking for something a bit different to the D&D style.

I very much like the look of this game, enough so that it's making me run it, and I haven't run a role-playing game in a looooooong time. That's a recommendation you can take to the bank.

(Don't do that.)

Arbitrary numeric score: 4 chocolate wafer fingers out of 2 chocolate wafer fingers.

You can buy Break!! here and follow the Break!! blog here.

Break(!!)ing Bad(ger)

I've had a good look through Break!! and I'm putting a review together, but for now let's just say I like it very much and I'm considering running it. Maybe.

Before unleashing it on my group I thought I'd give character generation a try to see how it goes. I went for random rolls throughout, and this is what I got:

Ylkinee, aka, "BADGER":

CHIB (anime halfling, in this context) RAIDER (sort of like a D&D ranger mixed with a D&D monk, but not really)

Might: 9
Deft: 10
Grit: 10
Insight: 7
Aura: 7
Attack: +1
Defence: 11
Hearts: 3
Speed: Fast
Inventory: 8 (+3)

Abilities:
Like the Wind, Hunter's Focus, Sidestep, Easily Overlooked

Badger can use light and medium armour, small and standard shields, and all weapons (although as he is Small, some options are restricted)

Background and History:
Badger is from the BURIED KINGDOM, and speaks HIGH AKENIAN as a bonus language.

Badger was a FIELD SAPPER before he was an adventurer, with Purviews (+2 bonus) in ARMY MACHINE WORKINGS, GETTING BEHIND ENEMY LINES, and SPOTTING STRUCTURAL WEAKNESSES.

Quirk:
SURVIVOR (enhanced healing, but a greater chance of accidental injury, because he's a bit overconfident)

Gear:
A common rural item, a spade, a bomb (!), a demolitions kit, a functional outfit, a standard weapon, an adventurer's bag (+3 inventory space), and 1 coin.

And that's about it. With random rolls the entire process took about 10 minutes start to finish, which is pretty quick. Choices open up at later levels ranks but even then it's not too complex. The many interactions between class, species, background, and quirks mean that it is unlikely that any two starting characters, even of the same class, will be alike. I'll be interested to see what my group comes up with if and when we play.

Me and Rollo (or, Despatches From an Alternate 1997)

Last night/this morning I dreamed of a forgotten Britpop-era banger, circa 1997, from a band with the initials "FF".

It was a jangly, jolly, upbeat number, somewhere in Feeder or Supergrass territory, and although I don't recall most of the song, I do remember the chorus:

Me and Rollo, me and me and Rollo,
Me and Rollo, me and me and Rollo,
Doing lots of puff and going to the disco! (hey!)

I can't imagine Radio 1 letting that one go out without editing, even in the hedonistic 1990s.

I have a vague feeling that despite the overall jolly attitude, things did not end well for the singer's friendship with Rollo, but alas, the details are lost to the eye-rubbing haziness of waking up and facing the dread of being an adult.

The Cleverest Amphibian of Them All

If you like purple-clad turtle tech geniuses as much as I do, then there is a new design in my merchandise shops:

You can get the design on some bits and pieces like notebooks, stickers, and so on here, or on clothing (and some other bits) here.

(I get a little bit extra from each sale from the latter site.)

Get Starmer

Well, I know Keir Starmer isn't popular with every section of his party, but this seems a bit harsh.

Fight Ongoing

After what seems like ages* Fight On! magazine returns with issue #15!

I've got a couple of pictures in there, plus a comic strip with Jonathan Linneman. Fight On! is where I started in rpg art and writing, so it's good to see it return. Let's hope #16 isn't too far away.

You can get Fight On! #15 in pdf here and print here.

*(That's because it has been ages! I think #14 came out in 2014!)

Doomed?

So Robert Downey Jr has returned to Marvel to play... Doctor Doom.

Huh. I didn't expect that.

It's an interesting choice, and I'm intrigued to see how it's done. Evil Multiverse Tony Stark is probably the most obvious and least inspiring approach, but we'll see.

If I'm honest, I don't really care who's cast in the role, as long as they don't squader the character. Doom has far too much potential to waste as an end-of-film boss. He can be an intellectual rival and/or annoying estranged "uncle" for the Fantastic Four. He can operate on a political level alongside Wakanda. He can even be a national hero in Captain America stories. I've always enjoyed the weird interactions he's had with Spider-Man in the comics, and wouldn't mind seeing something like that on screen; imagine Peter Parker getting an internship at the New York branch of DoomLabs for example.

I'm a little concerned that RDJ is stunt casting and that he's only going to be around for one or two stories, when there's so much you can do, and so many stories you can tell, with Doom, and not just as an antagonist. Doom is a complex, ambiguous sort-of-villain, like Loki or Magneto, but with even more potential. I hope to see that reflected on screen.

Peter Hook Spambot Carnival EX Plus α

The Acorn Afloats, and so I must answer, albeit a month later.

PETER HOOK, aka PETER THE HOOK, aka HOOKY PETE, aka the SOUL FISHER: Armour 14 (as leather), Move 150’, 2* Hit Dice, 9hp, Big Chuffing Hook 1d10, Morale 6, Number Appearing 1. Immune to non-magical damage and weapons.

PETER HOOK may have been a man once, in the distant past, or perhaps was some sort of pixie or sprite, but is now a cruel and predatory spirit. He sneaks into your home at night and, if you sleep with your mouth open, he reaches in with his big shiny fish hook and snatches out your soul! You live, but as a cold, flat, emotionless robot-shark person, perfect for a job in the financial sector.

PETER HOOK keeps the souls in jars and then trades them for trinkets, the sort of garish junk you find in seaside shops; the tackier, the better for PETER HOOK.

• Very quiet: effective Stealth of 3 in 6 (LotFP rules) and surprises on 1-4.
• Immune to non-magical damage and weapons.
• Sees perfectly well in the dark.
• Can open any door or window using his hook (see below).
• Cannot cross a line of salt.
• Cowardly, and must make a Morale check if discovered sneaking about, or if attacked.
• Knows all the entities that desire souls, and how to contact and find them.

The Soulless: Those with their souls taken by PETER HOOK have Charisma and Wisdom scores of 0, or the lowest possible value, if your game doesn't like 0 statistics. If the soul is recovered, it can be "drunk" to restore the original values. Can you drink someone else's soul and get their statistics? Try it and find out!

Peter's House: A green wooden door you don't notice unless you concentrate. Perhaps it's down an alley, perhaps it's in the corner of a garden wall, perhaps it's in your house! The door leads through interdimensional space to a cramped grotto packed full of soul jars and PETER HOOK's assorted trinkets, few of which have any value; there is a 1 in 12 chance of finding a single normal treasure item, generated as you like.

Peter Hook's Hook: A huge, shiny fish hook. It's an Oversized item, a two-handed weapon, and counts as magical for the purposes of damage immunities. Anyone but PETER HOOK finds it unwieldy and has a -2 penalty to attack rolls, and only PETER HOOK can use it for fishing souls. The hook also picks any door or window, even magical locks.

And for Troika! and similar games of fantasy fighting:

SKILL 8 (10 for sneaking purposes)
STAMINA 8
Initiative 1
Armour 0 (but immune to non-magical damage)
Damage as Greatsword

The Soulless: Victims have a LUCK of 0 and can never regain LUCK by normal means, although a generous Referee may allow magic items to provide a boost.

Peter Hook's Hook: Two-handed; counts as magical for purposes of damage immunities; imposes a -2 Attack Skill penalty to anyone but PETER HOOK; unlocks any door or window, even those sealed with magic.

Gracie Is Pregnant

In Star Trek IV: The One With the Whales -- the best one -- it's suggested that in the Kirk era Starfleet doesn't recognise cetacean intelligence; over the course of the -- best -- film Kirk's crew go on a quest to find whales to solve an extinction-level problem, and along the way discover that they are not simple animals, but sapient beings capable of higher communication.

Given the "new life and new civilisations" thing it's reasonable to assume that the events of the film lead Starfleet and the Federation to formally recognise cetacean intelligence.

In other words, is Star Trek IV the secret origin story of Cetacean Ops?

(Oh, and it's technically 21 years since I started the blog! Crikey! Although the first few posts weren't very meaningful so I'm not sure they count.)

Going Over to Sutekh's House

Oh, I didn't write any more about the 2024 series of Doctor Who after all. Oops.

Oh well. I enjoyed it anyway.

I thought the finale, "The Legend of Ruby Sunday"/"Empire of Death", was very good, and there was lots to love. Bonnie Langford's Mel almost stole the episode, and confirmed how wasted she was in her original episodes. Sutekh himself came across very well and I quite liked the "controversial" cgi jackal form, which did much better "acting" than you tend to get in cgi monsters, even more so at this sort of budget level.

It was a bit disappointing that the Doctor defeated Sutekh in basically the same way he did it in the original story, even though that didn't work, as the episode explains, but I'll probably be long dead and unable to complain the next time the villain appears so I'll allow it. I did chuckle when he was defeated with a lead and a whistle. Jackals aren't quite dogs, but close enough for the pun to work.

It was also a bit naff that Sutekh's attack was more or less the Blip from Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which was not helped by the turning-into-sand visual effect, or by the episodes being broadcast on Disney+, but I can let that pass. Let's call it an homage.

(Although one difference was an almost throwaway line that suggested Sutekh's victims remained conscious after being "dusted" which is nice and creepy... but alas not at all explored.)

I have seen a lot of claims about the Doctor's solution to the not-Blip also undoing the Flux, bringing Gallifrey back, and so on. I don't think there's direct evidence of that, and all that was undone was Sutekh's Sands of Death™ attack, but there's enough ambiguity there that I could see it being used as a mechanic to bring back any dead characters or locations in future stories.

My only real problem with the finale is that everything builds up to the Doctor going to find his granddaughter Susan at long last -- it's even explored in the dialogue! -- and then he... doesn't. It's a very odd creative decision, that.

I do have one final observation. If Sutekh has been hiding inside the TARDIS since 1975, then...

And Relax

I am relieved, but I am not enthused. We've had 14 years of incompetence, cruelty, and corruption from the Tories, and Labour should be better than that, but Labour's official party stance on the EU, immigration, Gaza, unions, and trans rights gives me considerable pause.

Worse, the rise of R*form as a political force, while fatal for the Tories, is terrifying. I hoped that the British weren't that sort of people, but apparently about four million of them are.

I have muted hopes and low expectations, but it could -- and has for 14 long years -- be worse. Fingers crossed for better.

Tanky Tuesday

Here's an idea I don't have time to explore at the moment, but popped into my head at lunch time and probably should be written down somewhere.

Bog standard fantasy business, except:

• The aftermath of a war that has left the world an irradiated-but-magical mess.
• Everyone bangs around in tanks, because tanks provide the best mobility and protection from the environment.
• Dwarf tanks are big chonky things that move very slowly but are almost invulnerable.
• Orc tanks are like dwarf tanks but are stuck together with spit and hope, and randomly explode.
• Elf tanks are speedy and graceful and are more like sports cars than combat vehicles.
• Undead tanks are ramshackle shells of destroyed vehicles, hanging together through willpower and hatred of the living.
• Ghost tanks are actual ghosts of tanks, all glowy and incorporeal.
• Chaos tanks are not tanks at all, but horrible wasteland mutants as big as a tank and just as tough.
• Players are tank crews exploring the wasteland, looking for supplies, survivors, and loot.
• Lots of random tables to generate the wasteland, and all the horrible things that can happen.
• Lots of building and modification options for tanks.
• "Dungeons" are the remains of huge battle fortresses, some traditional buildings, some gigantic super-tanks; some of the latter may still be rolling around.

It's Dark Sun meets Iron Kingdoms, except with tanks instead of robots. Or Spelljammer, on the ground, with tanks. Or a Tolkienesque Mutant Year Zero with tanks. Or Gorkamorka taken to its (il)logical extreme. Maybe it's a role-playing game, maybe it's a wargame, maybe it's both.

Inspirational viewing:

Break!! Fast

This arrived yesterday!

I have been following Reynaldo since the old blogging days, through the halcyon Google+ times, and then through the Break!! development, so backing the Kickstarter in 2023 was always going to happen.

The book is lovely. It's very thick -- almost 500 pages! -- and very dense but the design is nice and clean, reminiscent of the beautiful tomes produced by Bitmap Books.

It'll probably be a while before I get to read through Break!! in detail, but I'm very much looking forward to it.

It's Not the Konami Code

I have just finished Ian Livingstone's 2022 Fighting Fantasy gamebook Shadow of the Giants. It's not too bad! The main issue is that for the most part there's only an illusion of meaningful choice; decisions either loop back to the point where the choice was made so you can get back on the correct path, or they don't matter because either option has a roughly equivalent effect on later events. As a result things do feel a bit basic and linear, but also more gentle than the Sir Ian of old, who would not hesitate to punish incorrect choices with a gleeful "Your adventure ends here."

(There is one very arbitrary choice towards the end that feels like 1980's Ian, but it's the only occurrence I found.)

So the "game" part is a bit easy and flat, but the "book" part is quite strong. There are some interesting ideas and a few evocative sequences, and there are a handful of compelling characters met along the way. The quest is an interesting one, local in scale but still with real stakes, and I appreciate the twist (revealed early on) about the cause of the calamity. I give it three Yaztromos out of five.

I finished it on my second try. The first attempt was scuppered by one puzzle towards the end. See if you can solve it:

"You see a three-by-three boxed grid carved into the rock wall with each box containing a number."

2	7	6
9	5	1
4	3	8

The book gives us a clue:
"Up down
Left right
Say the number
See the light"

You're then supposed to turn to the paragraph number that matches the solution to progress further. Or, you know, give up and start again. If you want.

After a bit of searching I found the solution online, but I can't work out how you're supposed to get to that solution. These books are aimed at children so I should be able to grok it, but it's gone right over my head! Perhaps my brain is fried after my incident.

I have worked out one way to get to the correct answer -- I'll put it in the comments -- but it feels wonky and I'm not convinced it's the intended solution.

What do you reckon? What am I missing?

SAINT SEVURDAPOY'S ARROW

This is an arrow made of some sort of lightweight but strong metal. The name "Saint Sevurdapoy" is carved along the shaft.

• Feels icy cold -- almost painful -- to the touch.
• Counts as enchanted for purposes of immunity to normal weapons.
• Bursts into cold black and blue flame when fired.
• Flames do not start fires, but do provide dim blue light.
• Vanishes after use, but reappears at midnight. At the point it disappeared. I hope you remember where you shot it!
• No special effect versus red dragons.

13th Age:

• Standard bow damage +1d4 cold damage (+2d4 at Champion, +3d4 at Epic).
• Does 1d4 cold damage to the archer when fired.
• When hit, the target must make a normal (11+) save or one random magical effect or spell affecting them is suppressed until the next noon.

Quirk: Your manner is abrupt, brusque, and curt. To-the-point, one might say.

B/X:

• Standard bow damage +1d4 cold damage.
• Does 1d4 cold damage to the archer when fired.
• When hit, the target is affected as if Dispel Magic has been cast on them, with the archer's level standing in for casting level.

Fighting Fantasy:

• Standard bow damage + 1 cold damage.
• 2 STAMINA damage to archer when fired.
• AFF: When hit, the target is subject to Counter Spell; assume the archer has a Magic skill equal to her SKILL, modified by the STAMINA cost of the original spell.
• Troika: When hit, the target is subject to the Undo spell; roll versus the original casting, using the archer's SKILL.

No More Parachutes

This is your semi-regular reminder that Temple of Doom is the best one.

#TempleOfDoomIsTheBestOne

The Ferry Not Taken

I forgot to mention that as well as Rogue Trader, Stuart and I played a bit of the pithily-titled The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game the other day.

It's a fun game, that seems to scale well from small scenarios to full battles without breaking. There's some Warhammer DNA in the rules, as you'd expect, but also some innovations and simplifications that almost look like they are prefiguring Age of Sigmar if you squint. A bit. Ish. It's worth a look even if you're not into Lord of the Rings; Stuart has used it to run old Warhammer campaigns with considerable success.

You can ready Stuart's summary of our game(s) here so I won't rehash the details, but I will mention that I did manage to win the scenario when we swapped ends and played it the second time. I always lose LotR games, so I'm happy with that.

Neither of our attempts at the scenario matched the events of the book -- or even the film! -- but I must admit that I did game the system to scrape my win. I knew that Frodo had to escape for the hobbits to succeed, and I also knew that he and Sam had better game statistics than Ant and Dec Merry and Pippin, so it made sense to get Frodo on to the ferry as soon as possible and use Sam as a blocker, with the other two hobbits as support.

The scenarios are set up so that something like the canon sequence of events occur, but I was concerned only with winning and to heck with the Professor's intended story! In "my" Lord of the Rings, Frodo and Merry-or-Pippin escaped, and Sam and Pippin-or-Merry were -- probably -- shanked to death by frustrated Nazgûl on the bank of the Brandywine. So sad. Please send flowers.

This of course got me thinking about how Frodo's story would unfold with two of his friends dead-by-ringwraith. Would he even get to Rivendell? Would he go to Mordor on his own? Would the Ring -- or Gollum -- destroy Frodo without Sam there to defend him?

(If it were up to me, dependable working class hero Sam would leave landowning toff Frodo to his death and scarper with the Ring, but there's only so far you can eat the rich twist the expected outcome.)

I surprised myself a bit with this pondering, as while I'm familiar with this sort of "what if?" thought experiment, I don't think I'd ever applied it to Tolkien before. Although some have.

Part of me would like to play this alternate timeline out and see where it goes. Perhaps that's a project for another day.

Mission: Starfall

Here's a scenario for Stargrave. Fresh out of my brain and untested. I'll see if I can get Stuart to play it with me.

I may return to this with conversion notes for other systems. Frostgrave should be easy enough.

---

STARFALL

Intel says the cog-sat is going to crash out of orbit somewhere in this rough location. The people that ran the sat network are long gone, but the data in the pod should still be worth something, if we can get to it first. That's why we're going to be there when it lands.

SET-UP

Place terrain as normal. Note the centre of the play area and then depending on the size of the play area, mark the following points in a diagonal line from one corner to the other:

2' x 2' - Mark two points each 8" away from the centre. Including the central point, number the points 1 to 3 from one corner to the other.
3' x 3' - Mark two points each 8" away from the centre, then two further points each 16" away from the centre (ie 8" away from the previous points). Including the central point, number the points 1 to 5 from one corner to the other.
4' x 4' (or larger) - Mark two points each 10" away from the centre, then two further points each 20" away from the centre (ie 10" away from the previous points). Including the central point, number the points 1 to 5 from one corner to the other.

The numbers don't have to be visible on the table as long as they are noted somewhere, but the points should be marked. Some sort of radar or sensor "ping" token would be appropriate and cool.

No loot tokens are used for this scenario.

Crews should deploy in the corners opposite those used for the diagonal line. If more than two crews are involved, then there should be a deployment point halfway along each table edge.

Setup example for a 3'x3' or larger play area. The shaded areas marked A are for deployment in a two player game, while the areas marked B are suggested deployment points for games if you have lots of friends.

SPECIAL RULES

On an Initiative roll of 01-04, generate a random encounter as normal.

At the end of turn three's intiative phase -- and every turn from then on -- the Primary player should roll 1d20 to see if the satellite falls this turn, and if so where:

2' x 2' play area:
01-05	The satellite does not crash this turn.
06-10	The satellite crashes at point 1.
11-15	The satellite crashes at point 2.
16-20	The satellite crashes at point 3.

3' x 3' or 4' x 4' (or larger) play areas:
01-05	The satellite does not crash this turn.
06-08	The satellite crashes at point 1.
09-11	The satellite crashes at point 2.
12-14	The satellite crashes at point 3.
15-17	The satellite crashes at point 4.
18-20	The satellite crashes at point 5.

(I prefer a 1d4 or 1d6 here with the satellite not showing up on a 4 or 6 but Stargrave is a d20-only system. I can't imagine any player of Stargrave doesn't have access to other dice, so I leave it up to your conscience.)

Crash!
The satellite crashes at the end of the turn. Place a suitable satellite data pod type model at the landing point. The force of the crash causes a +4 Shooting attack on any models within a 3" radius, and creates a crater of the same size, which counts as rough ground for the rest of the game. If you have a nice 6" crater terrain piece, now is the time to use it!

Structures within the crater are probably destroyed, although you may decide that durable buildings like bunkers or vaults remain intact, in which case the crater is on the roof or something. Whatever works for you.

The satellite data pod is sealed and must be unlocked just like a physical loot token before the data can be downloaded. Yes, this means it requires two actions to access the data pod.

Option - Data Security: When the data pod is unlocked, the pod's automated security activates and a Sentrabot armed with a shotgun spawns adjacent to the pod. It follows and targets any models carrying the data, or in contact with the pod if the data has not yet been accessed. If no models qualify, it acts as normal except it will never move further than 3" from the pod.

LOOT AND XP

The data in the satellite is valuable and is worth three rolls on the data-loot table to the crew that secures it.

Experience is earned as normal, with the following additions:
+10xp for the crew that destroys the Sentrabot.
+10xp for the crew that unlocks the satellite.
+10xp for the crew that downloads the data.
+15xp for "catching" the satellite (ie, being on the landing point when it crashes, and surviving the impact; just being in the radius isn't enough, it has to be a bullseye!).

The Battle For the Monolith

It is the Space Year 1987. Long before his adventures in the wilder regions of space, Fateweaver Duu'ey of the Ad Hoc Craftworld, fresh out of Farseer Academy, is sent on his first mission: to investigate a strange monolith on the jungle planet Brytonn IV. An easy job, the space elf wizard thinks, until he detects an alien psychic presence on the planet...

We're playing Rogue Trader! The first proper edition of Warhammer 40,000! Neither Stuart or I have played it before! What could go wrong?!

Rogue Trader is a chaotic -- small c -- mess so at least three Eldar army lists and three different Genestealer Cult lists were published during its lifespan. I picked my Eldar from the list in White Dwarf #127 while Stuart's cult was from the Tyranids-but-not-really list in WD #145, so we're not quite authentic to 1987, but close enough.

The book does have quite an extensive section on generating scenarios but we decided to use one from Sci-fi Skirmish Scenarios by John Lambshead; after five to seven turns, whichever side was in control of the monolith -- not that one -- in the centre of the table would win. Nice and simple.

I was worried from the off as I got out my 13 miniatures and Stuart just. Kept. Deploying. Troops. We both had 1000 point armies but I was hugely outnumbered and we hadn't even started!

I expected a cagey, tentative start as no one would want to go for the central objective, and so it proved. The two forces inched -- ha ha -- forward but no one put their heads out. The Avatar, the bloody-handed god of war, must have been fuming at all this weak posturing.

Stuart sent some Genestealers around to his right and I, being well familiar with how deadly Genies are in second edition -- the best edition! -- sent the Howling Banshees and the dreadnought over to stop them. I was concerned that sending the dread over too was a bit overkill, but as it turned out the Banshees, despite being close combat specialists, had a very difficult time dealing with their opponents and it took the big war machine to break the deadlock.

The first major turning point came when the Genestealer Magus used his space magic to switch the allegiance of my Guardians overlooking the central square. Suddenly Fateweaver Duu'ey found himself surrounded by hostile enemies!

I had sent the Avatar on a speculative foray over to my right to perhaps assassinate the Magus but with Duu'ey surrounded and with more Genestealers on the way, I brought the war god back and charged the Guardians. While the Genestealers were immune to fear, the Guardians weren't, and they broke and fled, giving Duu'ey a chance to get to safety.

At the rough halfway point I had two units tied up with one enemy unit over on my left, and the Guardians gone over to the other side, so only the Avatar and Fateweaver Duu'ey were available to contest the objective. With the entire Genestealer army in front of them. Oh dear.

I decided to switch tactics and take advantage of the erratic jumble of rulesets that make up Rogue Trader. Eldar have a bespoke magic system that is nothing like that used by everyone else, so I used Duu'ey's Mind War power against the Patriarch. It cost me nothing to cast, so at best I could take control of the cult leader, and at worst I would chip away at the monster's power points, until it could no longer resist. All I needed was time.

The scenario has a variable length, between five and seven turns. The Genestealer Cult had the advantage in numbers and position, but if I could turn the Patriarch I could cause some trouble in the middle.

On this day, fate smiled on the Fateweaver.

The Patriarch turned, then literally turned, and charged into the back of his own cultists. This was a win-win for me; either Big Daddy would die, or his cultists would die, but either way that was two units tied up unable to claim the objective. I was still outnumbered, but there was a chance.

The Genestealers in the middle had been engaged in an inconclusive mêlée with the Avatar but withdrew -- Attack of Opportunity! -- to fall back and claim the monolith. Meanwhile the "combat specialist" Banshees finished off the Genestealers on my left with the help of the dreadnought, and moved into the middle. The dreadnought used its JUMP PACK -- because dreadnoughts in RT have jump packs, because this game is ridiculous -- to get there quicker.

At last, Duu'ey broke down the Magus' psychic defences and took control of the opposing space wizard. We ruled that although the Patriarch and Magus were not dead, the Eldar mind control meant that the psychic link between the leaders and the rest of the cult was severed, and so the cult turned feral. The Genestealers in the middle were confused and could not contest the Monolith, and everyone else was either engaged with the Patriarch or was stumbling around in a daze, so the only "Genestealer" forces that were in contact with the Monolith at game end were... two alignment-switched Eldar Guardians.

So the game ended as a draw by the scenario rules, but Stuart did also have a single confused Genestealer in contact with the monolith, so there's an argument that he may have had a slight edge, or maybe not, because the Genestealer was confused and not really in control of anything. I don't know. You decide!

---

We had a lot of fun playing the original 1987 Rogue Trader. We were expecting it to be baroque and difficult but there is enough shared DNA with later versions of 40K that it was familiar to us and it played quite well. There is a lot of randomness but for the most part it added to the fun; Stuart's Magus and Patriarch had some funky space magic, some useful, some not -- you can teleport a mile! -- and my Avatar and Farseer had random statistics, which resulted in a god of war that was more or less invulnerable but also comically unable to hit anything.

The rules are weirdly granular at some points but handwavery and vague in others. You have to take into account encumbrance, and miniatures can't turn during their move without giving up distance in half-inch increments, but there's nothing in the book about climbing or falling off buildings, not even in the detailed section on... combat in buildings. The game is designed to be run by a referee and I imagine a lot of the edge cases would be ruled on the spot by them, but it's odd looking back from the future, where this sort of thing is covered in the rules. There's a definite loose OSR type feel to the game.

So yes, good fun! It's basically a skirmish wargame and there are more recent skirmish wargames that I prefer overall, but it's clear why this game took over the world.

Arbitrary numeric score: 1987 out of 40,000.

Next up in the 40K Project: 1993's second edition, the best edition!

Edit: Stuart's summary of the game is here.

The Last Straw

As I may have mentioned before, Shadow of the Colossus is one of my favourite computer games ever. When the team behind that announced a follow-up, The Last Guardian, in which the giant-thing-on-which-you-can-climb is a friend rather than a foe -- although the Colossi aren't enemies as such, but that's a bit of a spoiler -- I knew I had to have it.

I waited, and then it was announced it would not be coming out on PlayStation 2, but rather the upcoming PlayStation 3.

I bought a PS3 for the sole purpose of playing TLG. I waited.

It was delayed so long that the PS3 release was cancelled and it would instead be released on PS4. In the mean time I had found other games to play, so purchasing a PS3 wasn't a total waste.

I was lucky enough to win a PS4 in a competition, and so I waited.

The game was released! I got it! I... got busy and distracted and didn't play it.

I got a PS5. Just last week a gap appeared in my life and I, at long last, booted up The Last Guardian.

I didn't like it much.

Oh dear.

It's not bad. It's fine. It looks amazing, most of the time, the music is beautiful, and the central gameplay idea is very clever; your big furry buddy Trico does feel like a real creature and the way you interact with it in order to progress through the game is for the most part well-implemented. I also have to give the designers considerable credit for basing a game around collaboration rather than combat; it reminds me of the sort of quasi-puzzle games you'd get in the Amiga days, and in fact I'm sure there was a game of that era which had a similar pet-and-puzzles premise, but I am old and fuzzy now and I don't remember.

But.

The controls are borderline terrible. There's an attempt to go minimalist and simple, and the controls are context sensitive to an extent, but recognition of the context is a bit wonky, so you may be trying to walk along a platform but instead find yourself bouncing off a wall. The camera automatically rotates to point at Trico, which is a lovely touch except if you're trying to line up a precise jump. Basic movement seems to go from a single tentative step to a flat out sprint, with nothing in between, which again is not much good when you're hopping about hundreds of metres from the ground. Trico doesn't always do what you want it to do, which is fine because it's part of the central concept of working with a wild beast, but you'd expect your actual playing piece to respond to the buttons you're pushing, given that precise movement is such a big part of the gameplay.

The game also has a habit of taking control away to show off the more dramatic jumps, which I suppose on the plus side means you're not wrestling with the controls. In fairness these cut scenes are impressive, but would probably have been more fun if I'd been allowed to be involved.

I finished the game but I didn't complete it -- there are secrets to unlock -- and long before the end I knew I would probably never play it again. It would make a wonderful animated film but as a game it's a huge disappointment. I wonder if I just waited too long. Maybe it could never live up to my expectations.

Arbitrary score: PS3 out of PS5

Here you go, you can watch the beautiful production and my less beautiful struggles with the wonky gameplay:

Golf Bag Syndrome III

Here's a piece for an upcoming issue of Fight On!; the magazine that refused to die.

I'm very rusty, but it's been fun to draw again.

Yoo Hoo New Who

The BBC released the first two episodes of the new series of Doctor Who on Saturday and I very much enjoyed both, although I'm not blind to their faults. It's a bold and confident new start and the series seems to have regained some of its wild energy.

Ncuti Gatwa is great, but then all the best Doctors are Scottish. I'm much less convinced by Millie Gibson's Ruby, but it's clear that she's carrying the big mystery of this series, so let's see where the character goes.

Here are some disorganised thoughts. Not quite reviews, not quite analysis, and I don't know if I'll do more, but I'm enthused enough about the new series to write this, so we'll see.

There will be some SPOILERS, so beware.

• "Space Babies" was a bit weird and a lot stupid, and a lot of fun, although it went a bit flat in the scenes without the babies.
• There's some crashingly unsubtle but glorious social commentary. Russell T Davies is angrier than he was in 2005.
• The Doctor was scared! This was explained with some technobabble, but it is still unusual to see the Doctor openly frightened.
• There's a fair bit of 2005's "The End of the World" in here. The viewing window scene. The converted mobile phone. I get it. It's a soft reboot, so we're going to get some repetition.
• There's a lovely Doctorish moment as he decides to save the Bogeyman from an Alien death.
• Nanny seems to suggest that she's never seen the Bogeyman before, but later on reports that it turned up six years ago. Is that a script error? Or something significant?

• "The Devil's Chord" was even more over the top and odd. Very bold and gutsy, although a little similar to "The Giggle", for perhaps obvious reasons.
• The Doctor is scared again. Again, there's an explanation, and this one's better -- the Toymaker did kill him, after all -- but it's still a bit weird twice in a row.
• Jinkx Monsoon is really good as the Maestro.There are some effective scenes in here, really leaning into the over-the-top campiness of the character, but there's also some successful horror too, like the hiding-in-the-cellar sequence.
• The fourth wall breaks were lovely. I'm intrigued by this idea that the Doctor has broken the universe and allowed fantasy and magic to creep in. It's a big idea and I hope RTD and crew can pull it off.
• There's not much of an actual plot, but it's done with such confidence and energy it almost doesn't matter.
• There are some odd performance choices. Why does the Doctor have a chuckle just after saying that his grand-daughter Susan may have been destroyed at a cellular level?
• The reference to Susan was itself a surprise. I'm pretty sure she's been referenced in the new series, but never by name. is that significant?
• This is the second episode in a row in which the resolution is revealed via voiceover flashback, which feels a bit lazy. I've never liked this device, so maybe I'm overly sensitive to it.
• Chris Waites and the Carrollers is an existing reference, but coming right after a line referring to "The One Who Waits" seems a bit suspicious.
• The Maestro has been killing/eating music since the 1920s, so does defeating them reset everything, going back 40 years? I assume the rules of magic and storytelling are in place and everything goes back in its box -- literally in this case -- otherwise the Doctor is being a bit negligent by going off on his next adventure and leaving behind four decades of the "wrong" timeline.

In terms of recurring mysteries, why are the Doctor's memories of Ruby's "birth" changing? Who is the cloaked figure who was there that day? Why does Maestro recognise them? Is that the One Who Waits? Is the One Who Waits someone else? What's going on with the recurring appearances by the actor Susan Twist? Will the universe get fixed so it's no longer operating on fairy tale rules?

I'm looking forward to finding out.

I Love You, Doctor Sessan!

My print copy of Ruination Pilgrimage arived today, so I tested it out by making a character!

Doctor Sessan, itinerant surgeon:

• Strength: 30
• Agility: 37
• Intellect: 39
• Combat: 20
• Presence: 28 (I rolled 666, which seems like it should be significant in this game!)
• Body: 22
• Fear: 29
• Sanity: 37
• Resolve: 29
• Faith: 7
• Sorrow: 2
• Health: 17
• Skills: Literacy 10, Mathematics 10, Surgery 20, Pottery 10
• Vice: Wrath!
• Previous job: Potter
• Background: Caught thieving and pilloried. Has a thief tattoo on his ear.
• Kit: Nice clothing, spyglass, blank scrolls, candles, 20 coins (double 10!).
• Patron saint: Arevadah, Saint of Combat (which seems a bit optimistic given his combat score!)
• Hat: classic Roman-style helm. (From JB's excellent random hats tables.)

I imagine Sessan was picked out of a life of -- apparently angry -- pottery and petty crime by a kind-hearted physician, who took the lad on as an apprentice. I feel like that 666 for presence should probably present -- ha ha -- as a slightly "off" feel. Maybe a whiff of brimstone about him.

Character generation was quick and simple. The full instructions are split across multiple pages and chapters, but most of the process is covered on page 2 and it's intuitive enough that there's not a lot of page-flipping. The only murky area for me was the patron saint; you are directed to a table later in the book to determine your character's saint, and there's a lot of data on that table, but I think all you care about during character generation is the identity of the saint. The other stuff comes up when you pray and conduct rituals for your patron. I think. Maybe. Ish?

#MayThe4thBeWithYou

Happy Star Wars Day everyone!

#MayThe4thBeWithYou

Warty Thou

I may have a problem.

This doesn't even include the two copies I own of the best edition -- second, obviously -- nor the army books.

(In my defence I only have two army books for each edition. Sort of. Ish.)

There is a plan behind all this, it's not just nonsensical collecting; although it is that too. Stuart and I plan to play at least one game in each edition, for fits and shiggles.

Carry On Carrying On

A very long time ago I played through the CARRION CROWN campaign for Pathfinder, and good fun it was too.

Also a long time ago but not quite as long ago a time as when I played Carrion Crown, I pondered rewriting the campaign. I never did get around to that rewrite, but when clearing up some old blog posts last week I uncovered my preliminary notes for what I was planning. I don't know if I'll go any further with it -- time has moved on, I have moved on -- but in the hope that it may be useful or at least interesting, here it is.

(Please bear in mind this is all based on decade-old memories and also that I was a player, so I didn't get to read the adventures. I also won't be going into rewrites of the individual adventures here, although most of them were fine. It's the campaign as a whole that needs work.)

Carrion Crown has a great central concept: each of the adventures is based on a classic horror monster, so there's a werewolf adventure, a Frankenstein adventure, a ghost adventure, and so on. It's a bit artificial but otherwise a very strong hook for the campaign, so we're absolutely keeping that.

The general plot is functional: a conspiracy of cultists wants to resurrect an ancient lich king, they need a bunch of items to do so; get the quest tokens before they do! A multi-part fetch quest isn't the most innovative setup but it is tried and tested, and anyway it's the classic monsters concept that's the selling point.

Except...

art by Kurt Jakobi

None of it matters. The cultists do the ritual anyway, whether the players have seized the "essential" items or not. They don't summon the big world-ending lich king, but they do summon a big end-of-campaign lich boss, and there's very little practical difference.

(I don't know if, as written, there's any possibility for the original ritual to succeed, but I'm fairly confident in guessing that there is not.)

Carrion Crown gives the impression of flexibility and an open quest, but it's an illusion. At the beginning of the campaign, the players are given clues about the ritual and the items needed, but it's only possible to make sense of the clues -- and go to find the next piece -- when the campaign says so. The cultists are always already there waiting, so the race against time is just as illusory.

In short, despite appearances, there's no meaningful choice and no real control over the outcome. And that's terrible.

So, how would I fix Carrion Crown?

Well, as mentioned above I'd keep the classic monster theme, and the lich resurrection quest is acceptable and easy to comprehend. I would invert the ritual; rather than needing the items to complete the resurrection, I would say rather that the items can be used to weaken the lich if he does return. In fact, they were used to defeat him last time, which is why there is a legend/prophecy written about them. This may require some rejigging of the items; again it's been a long time since I played and I don't remember what all the quest tokens were.

I would give the players the full set of clues right at the beginning, and let them decide where to start. The clues can be partial and require visiting a person or location to fully understand, but in general the players will have all the information they need to find the items.

(I would also chuck some alternative "solutions" in there. One thing Eternal Lies did well was provide different options for resolving the campaign. From Eternal Lies I'd pinch the possibility of recruiting a Lesser of Two Evils type entity to deal with or distract the lich king. Enlisting allies to help out is another "item" the players could find.)

Right away, the players are faced with a choice: they can go straight to the ritual site right now to stop the cultists, or they can try to find some or all of the items to make it easier. It should be difficult for a bunch of level one characters to stop the ritual, but it also should be possible in theory. Think of Frodo and Sam in Mordor; it's a different sort of campaign, but the, er, path is there if the players want to, um, find it.

In my version of the campaign the cultists would not be everywhere, mere minutes from claiming the plot tokens just as the players arrive, because that's rank nonsense. Instead, the main bulk of the cultists will be where they should be, preparing the ritual, with a couple of "strike teams" out and about, searching for the prophesied items. I would probably also randomise their destinations, at least at the beginning, so maybe the cultists are where the player-characters are, or maybe they meet on the road as they head to different locations.

There's potential here for the players to lose quest items as the cultists get there first, but this is good and interesting as it creates tension, and as the items have gone from essential to useful, it doesn't tank the campaign. It also encourages recurring baddies, if the same cultists keep turning up.

art by Dave Rapoza

In terms of levels and balancing, I think there are probably two main approaches. One is OSR-ey, setting up the Frankenstein adventure -- for example -- to be suitable for -- for example -- level four characters, letting players go in over-or-underpowered, and seeing what happens. I favour this approach, although it wouldn't work well for Pathfinder and some players may find it frustraing. The other option is more Quantum Ogreish, scaling the individual adventures to be an appropriate challenge -- eight Frankensteins instead of one, or whatever -- for the player-characters. I like this less and it would probably be more work for the GM.

One last, but important, thought. It's vital for me that the campaign feels like it is -- ironically -- alive. The cultist strike teams should be moving around, causing trouble. The ritual should be in progress from session one, and should complete at a certain time. The players should feel like they are not only racing against time, but literally racing against the cultists. If the players miss the ritual, the lich king returns and starts stomping about, and the players will have to decide what to do. One final big battle against the lich king and his followers, with whatever allies and items the players have managed to gather? Or do we finish and consider it a loss, because a bad ending is still an ending?

Of course if you're playing in a more old school style, or with an ongoing campaign, then a resurrected lich king is just a new element for your campaign setting. Enjoy!

That's about it for what I found in my ancient notes. Specifics are beyond me at this point, and I feel a bit of a fraud because it seems like anyone could have come up with these vague suggestions -- except for Paizo's editors, obviously, ha ha -- but I hope there's something useful in there.

Maybe I will find time to delve deeper and do a full rewrite at some point -- the vampire adventure is a complete mess -- but for now there is much to do.

Ed Balls

Ed Balls

#EdBallsDay

Kangaroo Pills

RUINATION PILGRIMAGE is Donn Stroud's new role-playing game of wandering troubleshooters/troublemakers in a mediaeval setting a couple of steps sideways from ours, where angels and demons and saints are real and mostly deadly. It's a little bit like Pendragon and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay had an unholy baby; regular readers -- or people that can click on links -- will know that I like both of those games, and I like this one too!

Before we get to the good bits let's look at some wonky bits, of which there aren't many. I'm reviewing a Kickstarter pdf, so some of these may be ironed out in the print release.

• Ruination Pilgrimage uses a d5 now and then. That's just a d10 halved and is easy enough to work out, but I've never liked it. For no valid mechanical reason, I'm just not fond of halved die rolls in general, and there's no compelling reason for it here as far as I can see; the overall system is d10/d100 based, but it also uses d20s, so I don't think it's out of a desire to use only one die type. I would have just used d6s there.
• The organisation is a bit off. For example, combat ranges are not in the combat section, but next to the wilderness travel and survival section. Natural healing is explained in the chapter on downtime activities, which makes sense, but isn't mentioned at all in the part about healing, which makes less sense. It's not a massive problem; all the information is there, it's just sometimes in odd places.
• The rules on conditions and survival are rather more detailed and complicated than I would have expected. We're not talking Fantasy Games Unlimited levels of crunch here, but given that the rest of the game is simple and robust, the detail in this part seems excessive and in places redundant. It almost feels like it's from a different game.

On the other hand, there is quite a lot to like! Exclamation point!

• As mentioned above, the main mechanics are robust and simple -- which I like -- and are based on d100 -- which I also like -- so that's all good. RP is apparently based on the Mothership rpg, but I've not played that. If it's close to this I'd probably like it.
• The mechanics are explained well and while some rules may be unnecessarily complicated or in odd places, there's never any confusion about how they work.
• There are some great, evocative tables used for critical hits, diseases, and character backgrounds and histories. Randomness is used well, and the tables are full of flavour. Usually flavour that's inimical to the player-characters, but good flavour nonetheless.
• The despair and sorrow system adds a "lovely" doom-laden feel to the game, making every action risky. Not all the despair results are negative, which is a nice touch. Having played rpgs with despair systems before I am a tiny bit wary of how this will work in actual play -- as they can sometimes lead to un-fun doom spirals -- but I'll wait and see.
• There's a table of replacement body parts! Some have built-in weapons! Excellent!
• RP ties character progression to a formal downtime system, and offers a variety of activities to improve and restore characters. I'm quite fond of the Making Friends one, which is a warm bit of simple wholeseomness among all the gore and mud.
• 
  The supernatural side of the game looks like it's got lots of toys with which to play. There are some fun-looking exorcism mechanics, and prayers and saint blessings also look like they will be interesting in play.
• Angels are all wings and eyes, and not only have specific abilities and roles -- they aren't just generic combat summons -- but also cause distress and terror when they appear. It's a bit Call of Cthulhu, another of my favourites. Demons are less interesting, but the angels more than make up for it.
• Adam B Forman's art is bold and evocative, and captures the mediaeval feel well. I would have liked more of it but what's there is excellent, and there are plenty of text sidebars to convey the mood of the setting.

The big question is: would I play Ruination Pilgrimage? The answer is a big mud-spattered, many-eyed, limb-lopping "yes!" If you like WFRP but prefer an "earlier" setting, or you like Pendragon but want more blood and mud, or you like Vampire: The Dark Ages but think vampires are dumb, then this may be right up your mediaeval twitten.

Arbitrary numeric score: 3d10+10