Happy SAGE!

I did the SAGE thing with some of the OSR blogosphere folk, organized by Zak Smith. It's a pretty cool idea and what I got was just what I was hoping for. I think it should be up on google docs now, here (fingers crossed).

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tNpAVc0J74rfLfRI1_7Rbvg#gid=0

For my contribution I drew a steampunk modron and wrote up some stats for it. The stats are probably not the best but I've never played 4th edition and don't own any of the books.

Computer problems.

We've had 2 play sessions so far and they've gone pretty well, but I've been having some computer problems and now that I got my desktop up and running again I haven't had time to post an update. I'll do so with some play reports and whatnot as soon as I get a chance.

You know you're a hopeless nerd when....

you can't find your birth certificate, but all your old d&d characters from 15 years ago are safe in the filing tote meant for important documents.

Currency conundrum...and a solution!

I called my husband today from work and the subject of the PA game currency came up again. In the White Wolf system you don't get starting cash like D&D so we've been discussing some possibilities and while I haven't decided how that is going to work yet, I think I've got a currency type now that fits the setting.

I thought about pre war coins, bottlecaps, cheap plastic credits, etc. My husband suggested something else and I like it so I'm going to use it.

Gift cards.

There would be tons of them around. As people stop using personal checks or paper gift certificates, you can find these everywhere with denomination and without. I'm thinking any sort of plastic card like a credit card, club card or gift card without a denomination would be a single. Fives would be fivers. Tens tanners and so on. I'm not sure what to call this form of currency just yet but I love the idea of people carrying around all those stupid leftover plastic cards and using them for money.

Monster Monday!

http://www.megapathdsl.net/~amichaels/EyeballGuySM.jpg

All dressed up and nowhere to go this week.

Hell-A character lineup so far.

My players are sometimes brilliant people. One is my husband and he is pretty much an idea machine. My stepson is young and has been playing with us for about 3 years, so he often takes a more back seat sort of approach then sometimes stuns us with some brilliant insight from left field. The other two players I have confirmed are a married couple we've known for years and years and are good friends of ours. They're whip smart people so this should be a really crazy game because they seem to have taken the whole idea of player freedom behind the sandbox genre and run away with it.

Angie hasn't fleshed out her concept entirely but this is what she has so far. Her character is a 'genetecist'. By that she means someone with little to no scientific or medical training who found a copy of Darwin's Origin of Species and has taken it upon herself to save mankind through a selective breeding program. She wanders the wastes trying to get people to sign up for her 'study', mate with each other, swap people from different settlements to encourage 'strong' genetic traits... I can't wait to see how she tries to convince people to do it.

Jekob has two different ideas and I'm not sure which one he's going to go with. The first one is a born wastelander who after striking out on his own, found a high school kid's backpack with some textbooks and junk and is under the impression that 'High School' is the highest school in the land and he wants to gather the books and materials necessary to re-institute higher learning. The second idea is really wacky and he is supposed to be writing it up for me. I can't really do it justice to describe except to say that it has to do with Knights Hospitaller, mistaken history and Hospitals. When he gives me the write up I'll have to post it. He went into a lot of detail.

My husband decided on playing a Brotherhood of Steel advance scout. A sort of navy seal type guy who has been sent to the region for reasons we haven't determined just yet. He's supposed to be carrying on the non involvement policy of the west coast Brotherhood and looking for whizbang tech to 'secure' for the future of 'humanity', ie the Brotherhood. It's going to be really fun to watch his mission programming break down over time as he is out without the Brotherhood around to tell him what to do all the time. I already decided his ability to communicate with their headquarters will be pretty sporadic. They have access to a single working satellite but because of it's orbit it's not available for use 24 hours a day.

My stepson is making a fairly generic scavenger loner sort of character. He's still thinking about it some maybe he will come up with something a little more interesting.

I didn't give them any restrictions except to say that they needed to not be so loner-ish that it makes it really difficult for me as the game referee to get them together and keep them together. Nothing is worse than some lame loner player who refuses to be motivated or play with the group in order to remain true to their character.

Monster monday!

I decided now that I'm almost done with hell, err I mean the academy, I'm going to try and post a monster or mutant every monday to keep my drawing skills sharp. No description, no name, just slimy maws and tentacles. If you want to use the picture for something feel free! First up...

http://www.megapathdsl.net/~amichaels/SpaceMonsterSM.jpg

I'd post it as a clickable thumbnail but I have no idea how to do that.

Uh oh this game is getting away from me.

Oh noooo. My husband told some friends of ours about this game and now there's an actual group. 0_o No pressure!

Wasteland Vampires, of the mutant variety.

I decided the idea of cannibal vampire types in Fallout was pretty groovy but I think I want to go one step further than the game does and give them a mutation in which they are in fact actual vampires of a sort and not just creepy flesh eating weirdos. The Forced Evolutionary Virus opens all kinds of doors for odd, semi plausible mutations and with vampires this is what I'm thinking. Vampires, start out as regular people who have been exposed to the F.E.V but like ghouls, for whatever reason their DNA causes a specific mutation (vampirism or what have you) and they eventually become 'vampires'. Their bodies can't make a particular protein or type of cell or whatever on their own anymore so they have to get it from people. I think the idea of them kidnapping people or buying slaves then keeping them alive and doing creepy blood transfusions on themselves is way more interesting that just drinking blood. Maybe some of the ones that are off their rocker do drink blood or eat flesh, but I think that's sort of old hat zombie type stuff everyone is familiar with already. So in addition to that, they will be more resistant to radiation and disease and will heal quicker than a non mutated human. But they will be highly allergic to sunlight, but not because of the light. I had the idea that there is something produced by their cells when exposed to natural light (kind of like the vitamin D thing in normal people), which causes a serious allergic reaction (non beneficial mutation!). They still have to eat, sleep and breathe, etc. And they may be horrible disease carriers considering their direct exposure to blood born pathogens.

I did have this idea of a merc company of vampires wandering the wastes, swathed head to toe making them look creepy and mysterious, called the Midnight Runners. Yes, after the pop group. Maybe their leader found an old poster or cd...

Death by ninja.

Last night's game started off with a character death. Mine. I'm a little bummed about it but it was at least an epic confrontation with a demi god ninja. My Scion of Athena is a pretty tough opponent, so I didn't expect to be killed in 2 hits, split in half on the last one while only delivering a minor wound to my opponent. Doh. I had the opportunity after the first hit to declare my defeat. But the problem is that the ninja brutally tortured and murdered a good friend of the groups' (mine in particular) and threatened my character's family. I couldn't just let that go. It was a matter of avenging some wrongs that had been committed and the greeks are all about vengeance. I spent the rest of the game working up a new character, which will be fun but she's starting with significantly less power and xp than the group. Not odd for a lot of people but that's not what usually happens in our games. I'm pleased with the decision though. Everyone else are Demi Gods while my character will be trying to survive their sort of challenges and earn her place among them as a mere Hero.

Scrounging Tables and Geomorph PDFs up for grabs.

I revised the scrounging tables and put some important post apocalyptic survival stuff in there I had forgotten and then finished the Geomorph tables. I'm going to just call it done and then show the overall LA Map in a separate post and explain how I'm implementing them later. Anyway I hope they're useful!

http://www.megapathdsl.net/~amichaels/hellA/Modern-Streets-Geomorphs.pdf

http://www.megapathdsl.net/~amichaels/hellA/Scrounging%20Tables.pdf

Here's the LA map I'm starting out with. I'll expand it out with new sections as needed. It's the central part of LA. I'm going to number the sections as they get explored and use the geomorphs to define the neighborhoods.

Quick preview of the street geomorphs.

I finally finished scanning all the tiles in and getting them fixed up to go into a pdf. I rolled up a quick random 3 x 3 neighborhood as an example of what they look like. They don't line up perfectly but I'm pretty happy with them. There's 50 overall and I tried to make them individually interesting. Over the next week I should be able to release a pdf with all the charts and a Lankhmar style freeway map with gaps for randomly rolled neighborhoods.

Click for full size.

Finally finished.

I finished drawing the last geomorph today. I've got 50 unique tiles that can be re-arranged for quick neighborhood generation. I'm going to put together a pdf of all the tiles plus the generation chart, building type tables, habitation tables and structural stability charts. I don't think the charts will take a really long time to make since there will only be a few options on each, but the DM can take the information and record it pretty easily and create entire cities from scratch within a pretty short amount of time. I'm going to include the large LA freeway map I draw out too in case anyone wants to see what I did with all of it. It's going to take a while to scan because I think I can only scan maybe 6 tiles at the most at once. I can't say the streets will match up perfectly every time but I drew them all by hand.

Further ideas for the geomorph.

Interestingly enough, my husband and I were talking the day before yesterday, while I was working on the modern geomorphs, about how the Lankhmar setting map worked really well for something like this because of the big white spots the GM could fill in on their own. Then this morning I saw that Zak over at pondering the use of the setting. So I was thinking this morning that I am going to make something similar for Hell-A. I have a bunch of zoomed out saves of google maps of the greater LA area. I think I'm going to take them and trace out the general area on a large piece of bristol board or something, using the major highways and little sub sections of LA like West Hollywood and all that with the large spaces in between open to be defined by random geomorph generation or other means. That way I can more easily keep track of where the players are at and where they're headed, and I can keep a journal for myself of which geomorphs got used in what order and a brief run down of what was there. Then like a west marches type sandbox, all those areas are still there and can change depending on how the players affect the landscape. And I can use random tables to define them on the fly along with what's in them.

Ruined Streets Geomorphs

I drew 20 4"x4" modern street geomorphs for the post apocalyptic game today. I'm going to do 50 of them total so I can create blocks of neighborhoods on the fly. Along with I am going to put together some tables based on building size for determining what buildings are along with their condition and structural stability. When I'm done I'll make it available as a pdf.

Random Scrounging Tables

I put together a bunch of random tables for scrounging in the post apocalyptic wilderness. There's random useless junk, weapons, armor, explosives, etc. If anybody needs something like that feel free to grab it. I took the drugs table posted over at Monsters and Manuals and modified it for my own needs.

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0ByOyz3onGFJRNTFjMTQzOGYtMTRjMy00NzAzLWE0ODItNGQ3NGI4MDdiOThi&hl=en

The only thing I still have to do is write up the rules for the Fallout drugs for the WoD Storyteller system.

Sandbox test run: Fallout: Hell-A

My husband has been itching to play some kind of post apocalyptic fallout/gamma world type thing so I think I am going to oblige him to get some experience running a sandbox game before I run the fantasy sandbox. I don't have to do anything to a system and have something that works that is easy and we're all familiar with; the White Wolf WoD core book is only 200 pages long and has everything I need to make just about any antagonist and give the hubby and the kid plenty of character options. All I have to do is put together the Sandbox, which will be a fun little diversion. Lots of random tables for scrounging and I'm going to make a bunch of square city geomorphs that I can put together randomly. I like map making so it shouldn't take too much work. I'm going to run it in the LA environs in the Fallout setting since we're all familiar with it and played the hell out of FO3. We also have the big Prima guide and I am going to steal sewer plans and stuff out of there to rearrange too.

Proliferation of my content and comments...

While I'm at work I'm stuck in one place for 2 days til I come off shift and go home. If no one is having an emergency that pretty much means I'm stuck with TV and internet blogs and whatnot to amuse myself with. Thus the large volume of content or comments from the last 2 days.

Revelations! Epiphanies!

Yesterday on a forum I frequent someone was asking some questions about Pathfnder system wise and I tossed off the comment that clerics are still basically just armored heal/buff/turn bots who bop things with a mace. This garnered some other comments about clerics being awesome engines of divine doom and while that might be true, unless your party has other means of healing, you're IT. Playing a cleric for me has often been like being the priest in a WoW raiding party, that's pretty much all you do and if you try to break out of that mold and do something else, the party bitches about it. I realized yesterday while driving back from the other station and onward to bed that I don't want those archetypes in my game. I want holy people to do crazy stuff like turn sticks into snakes, make rivers run with blood and part the very seas. There will be some healing in there too since in most religions that's a common theme of miracles. But I want priests or whatever to do the miraculous and leave the wizarding to wizards. This means I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board and go over some of my domains, but I think it will be interesting to hand the players descriptions of miracles they could perform that don't have a bunch of dice rolls attached. I'm thinking some of the lesser stuff will be more straight forward but the more pious and fanatical you are, the bigger and wackier the bang where Miracles are pretty much just descriptive and STUFF HAPPENS and the DM makes it up as they go along. So wizards or whatever they call themselves will still be doing eldritch weirdness like turning people's hair colors or levitating and whatnot. And clerics will be making it rain frogs.

Hell, maybe I will get rid of the Miracle descriptions altogether and just have the player pray for a Miracle and then make it up as I go along based on the Power's domains. Radical.

The Powers or, a God for Every Occasion as one player put it.

I took a cue from some of the other OSR blogs and Sandbox makers out there and left a lot of stuff in my setting pretty fast and loose, hoping the players would fill in the blanks. For one, it's less work for me and players often come up with wacky and unpredictable concepts. Part of this experiment is saying yes instead of no to player creativity, so I left the gods deliberately vague. What I decided on was that the world is influenced collectively by what are called the Powers. They're a huge group of entities of varying levels of influence and power over the mortal world. Some might be gods, others demons, powerful spirits, elementals, ancient heroes, otherwordly monsters beyond human comprehension, etc. They can all grant a measure of their power to favored followers who have dedicated themselves to the service of their patron. I also liked the idea of a more cultish angle to these churches so I think there will probably only be a few 'churches' and the rest are hidden mystery cults and enclaves of creepy robe wearing weirdos. What I really hope happens is that the players interested in that stuff will create their own secretive sects with complicated handshakes for their characters. There are plenty of interesting real world examples to look at for inspiration and of course there's always the movies, which are full of awesome creepo cults. I worked on a couple to serve as examples and came up with some interesting names that the players can take and flesh out too.

'The King is the Land. He carries it upon his brow, and he is honor bound to unite all good men at arms to defend the Kingdom; under one banner.'

Brian Conlee, now called Brian the Blessed

At the right hand of the first King of Moray stood a man of unshakeable courage and great cunning, known then as Brian Conlee. So great was his loyalty to his liege lord that even after victory was won and the King granted him many lands and titles, he gave over all his wealth and power, remaining instead by his lord's side until the end of his days. It was said that so long as Brian Conlee stood by his side, the King would remain victorious and no harm could come to him. When he died he was buried in what would later become the royal crypts, watching ever over the Kingdom he served. Centuries later his story inspired a small but fervent cloister of holy warriors who continue to serve the Kingdom in his name to this day. They most often act as militant chaplains and keep alive the deeds of their patron through oral tradition and eschew the trappings of temporal wealth and power, freeing themselves instead to serve worthy lords in emulation of their beloved Saint. Very rarely, one might strike out instead seeking to serve the Kingdom as an errant, performing worthy deeds to serve the Land; that which the King represents. The only outward symbol they wear to identify themselves is a simple iron chain; it's weight reminding them of their Oath and duty to serve.

Domains: Healing, Protection, Strength, War

Servants of Brian the Blessed must swear an Oath to serve ever their liege Lord or the Land or be Cursed as an Oathbreaker. They may not in word or deed harm the object of their Oath and must endeavor always to act in it's best interest.

And some names. Some of them I took from real world mythological sources since they fit in well with my concept.

Horned Serpent of Eld

Domains: Blood, Darkness, Domination, Trickery

The Ravager

Domains: Chaos, Death, Destruction, Fire

Mithras

Domains: Animal (Bull), Fertility, Strength, Sun

Mother Eleusis

Domains: Fertility, Health, Sun, Wisdom

The Deepthing

Domains: Madness, Destruction, Darkness, Psychopomp

Pytun, God of the Grapes

Domains: Charm, Madness, Chaos, Fertility

Lord of Beasts

Domains: Animal, Earth, Health, Sky

Orphus the Intercessor

Domains: Justice, Order, Protection, War

Artos, god of the Wild Hunt

Domains: Animal, Blood, Destruction, Strength

The Demon of the Burning Pit

Domains: Chaos, Darkness, Destruction, Fire

Sarth of the Shadows

Domains: Darkness, Luck, Psychopomp, Trickery

Lord of the Golden Crossroad

Domains: Earth, Psychopomp, Sun, Wisdom

The Stormlord

Domains: Chaos, Destruction, Sky, Weather

Namarre the Even Handed

Domains: Death, Moon, Order, Spirit

Children of the Black Circle

Domains: Death, Darkness, Spirit, Trickery

The White Bear

Domains: Animal, Earth, Strength, Wisdom

The Blind Watcher

Domains: Blood, Darkness, Earth, Psychopomp