Last month we talked about Goblinoid Games’ Mutant Future. This month, let’s talk about a supplement for Labyrinth Lord/Advanced Companion, called Rabbits and Rangers: Cartoon Animals for Fantasy Gaming (R&R). As is true of many of my games, I acquired this from DriveThruRPG.com. Remember Disney’s Robin Hood animated movie, in which Prince John was a lion, Robin and Marion were foxes, Little John was a bear, and so forth? This is like that. As I’ve mentioned before, Labyrinth Lord’s Advanced Companion rules are very similar to AD&D First Edition. R&R gives rules for playing various anthropomorphic animals (like in Robin Hood) in an otherwise “standard” fantasy role-playing game. You could have a Badger thief, a Tiger paladin, an Owl cleric, or even a Mouse Magic-User. Each species has unique benefits and penalties. Some are Small, some Medium, some Large. Ability scores in a logical fashion, and many species have armor class bonuses. The Coyote, for example, has his armor class improved by one point – because he’s “Wily.” There’s some wonderful new spells – like, for example: Ahkme’s Catalog Level: I1 or M1 Duration: Special Range: Special Little is known about the mysterious wizard or conclave of wizards known as Ahkme, except they make really useful stuff. By means of this spell, a Magic-User or sub-class may send a missive (and at least 25 gp) by way of a small magic bird to the hidden laboratory of Ahkme. The message describes a problem and asks the genius (or geniuses) of Ahkme to send an item to help deal with it. The bird takes 1d6 turns to fly back to the caster, bearing a package from Ahkme. The contents of the package will vary wildly depending on the need of the caster, per the random table below. The player should roll 1d20 on the table, adding +1 for every additional 25 gp sent. The magic bird can carry an infinite amount of gold. There’s a good number of guidelines on hit dice adjustments, based on the Animal’s size and type. The book does not offer any advice on class restrictions, nor on multi-class restrictions, which means that the game master gets to make some great decisions for his own game. I don’t know when I’ll have the time to play this, but I’m really looking forward to it! Grab some dice, and let’s start killin’ some goblins – er, I mean Snakes … Sum non Satis? Commodore Tank Clark, SFMD Team Leader, 33rd STARFLEET Rangers (“The Paladins”) “Have Phaser, Will Travel”
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Last month I discussed a new (to me) game, Starships and Spacemen (S&S). As I mentioned then, the publisher of S&S, Goblinoid Games also puts out other “Old School Roleplaying” (OSR) games: Labyrinth Lord, Advanced Companion Labyrinth Lord, and Mutant Future (MF). Labyrinth Lord is strongly based on “Red Box” D&D, while Advanced Companion adds elements from AD&D First Edition. Honestly, the AC is kind of like how my group played AD&D back in the day: a bit of “original” D&D, a bit of “the new stuff.” This month, I’m going to discuss Mutant Future, a “Gamma World”-esque game. I’ve been a fan of post-apocalypse RPGs for decades. I reviewed versions of Gamma World in this column before, but it’s been a while. The most recent edition I discussed here was Gamma World, Third Edition, in October of 2014. MF uses the same “engine” as Labyrinth Lord – and therefore, is very similar to old-school Dungeons & Dragons. It is, in fact, very similar to Gamma World 2nd Edition, but in a wisely re-edited, slightly modified way. In common with most of the old-school games, MF has six ability scores, each rated between 3 and 18 (generated the old fashioned way, by rolling 3 six-sided dice – 3d6). Each character has saving throws, that are dependent on character level. The game has only one character class: adventurer. At each advance in level, a player rolls on a table for an improvement, in either damage, attacks, or ability score. Hit points are dependent on the character’s Constitution score. In MF, there are five broad racial groups: androids, mutant animals, mutant humans, mutant plants, and pure humans; androids are only available as a player character “race” if the gamemaster (“Mutant Lord”) permits it. The mutations each mutant animal, mutant human, and mutant plant start with are generated randomly, in classic old-school fashion. The world uses both bartering as well as the coinage system common to fantasy RPGs (gold, silver, and copper pieces.) A character starts out with a certain amount of money, with which to buy starting equipment. This process is very familiar to the experienced role-player. Most of the game play is centered on “sandbox” exploration. This means the Mutant Lord populates his world with creatures, hazards, exploration sites, and rewards, and the party of characters explore it, pretty much at their will. Again, this is very “old-school,” and is one of the strengths of the game, as far as I’m concerned. This is a great execution of the classic old-school sci-fi post-apocalyptic role-playing game, with the added bonus of it being easy to mix-and-match with Starships & Spacemen and Labyrinth Lord… which makes it easy for your intrepid starship crew to explore a post-atomic war world, or for your mutant plants to encounter orcs and goblins. The only thing I would change in this is what I always change – the math in the combat system. MF uses the THACO system – which means it’s easy to replace the math with the Stars Without Number system. (I’ve explained that before – go look it up in a previous article!) Grab some dice, and let’s start killin’ some goblins – er, I mean mutants … Sum non Satis? Commodore Tank Clark, SFMD Team Leader, 33rd STARFLEET Rangers (“The Paladins”) “Have Phaser, Will Travel” First, I'd like to do a follow-up on For Gold and Glory (FG&G): good, solid game. We experienced only two minor issues. First, we find it worthwhile to actually purchase a hard copy of the game’s book. We were using PDF readers on my laptop, an iPad, and a Windows tablet. Looking something up quickly was more difficult than it needed to be, and a printed copy would have removed that difficulty. A softcover edition in black-and-white (with a color cover!) cost less than $11, and arrived within ten days. The second minor issue relates to my being bad at math. FG&G uses the same “THAC0” (“To-Hit Armor Class 0”) combat system that AD&D used, but I chose to use the system from Stars Without Number, a free science-fiction RPG that uses “Old School” elements. In this system, the attacker adds the result of a d20 roll to his Base Attack Bonus, any relevant modifiers (like Strength bonus to attack with a melee weapon), and the defender’s Armor Class (which starts at 10 for an unarmored target and improves by the number getting smaller, just like in AD&D and FG&G. Chain Mail, for example, is AC5, and could be modified by Dexterity, shields, and magic items.) If the result of this modified roll is 20 or greater, it’s a hit; 19 or less, a miss. To get the Base Attack Bonus (BAB), simply subtract the THAC0 given in the book for your class and level from 20, and write that number down on your character sheet. Example: George the third-level fighter has a FG&G THAC0 of 18. 20-18=2, so George’s BAB is 2. He’s very strong; his strength bonus to hit with a melee weapon is +2. He’s specialized in Cutlass (a type of sword), so he gets an additional +1 to hit with it, and he owns a +2 magic cutlass. When using a cutlass in combat, George therefore would add 2 (BAB) to his other modifiers (Strength +2, Specialization Bonus +1, Magic +2: total +5) and his opponent’s Armor Class (AC) – let’s say a human wearing chain mail, so AC 5 – to a d20 roll. 2+5+5=12, so d20+12, and any result of 20 or more is a hit. Most of this math can be done beforehand, with each weapon carried, so it’s simply a matter of adding the enemy’s AC to George’s normal +7 with his cutlass. The math problem that I will confess to is the simple 20-THAC0=BAB equation. I did not prepare so diligently as to write the total attack bonuses (BAB plus modifiers) down, and a couple of times I subtracted the bad guy’s AC from 20 instead of his THAC0. Mea culpa, I'm math-dumb. Regardless, For Gold and Glory” is awesome, and well worth both the free download and buying the book. If you haven’t yet done so, please point your browser to http://drivethrurpg.com/product/156530/For-Gold--Glory, and download the free PDF. Now, I did get a new (to me) game published by Goblinoid Games entitled Starships and Spacemen (S&S). Goblinoid Games is the publisher of other “Old School Roleplaying” (OSR) games: Labyrinth Lord, Advanced Companion Labyrinth Lord, and Mutant Future. Labyrinth Lord is strongly based on “Red Box” D&D, while Advanced Companion adds elements from AD&D First Edition. Honestly, the AC is kind of like how my group played AD&D back in the day: a bit of “original” D&D, a bit of “the new stuff.” Anyway, Starships and Spacemen has a very similar “engine” to Old School D&D. There are races (species) and classes; each class has a specific function, as well as different primary (and secondary, and “other”) skills. For example, a Medical officer is a subclass of a Scientific Branch officer. As a Scientific Branch officer, he has a primary skill of Science, and as a Medical officer, he has a secondary skill of Technical. This gives him a better Science skill than, say, a Military Branch officer (as well as a better Science skill than an Enlisted (Scientific Branch) character) but his Technical skill is not as high as that of a Technical Branch officer. There are three branches: Military (who wear gold uniforms), Science (who wear blue), and Technical (who wear red.) Enlisted characters have a lower Experience Point (XP) requirement to advance than officers, and Military Branch officers have a higher XP requirement than officers of the other two branches. Each branch has sub-classes: Military has Command, Security, and Fire Control; Scientific has Biology, Medical, and Sentient Life; and Technical has Communications, Navigation, and Engineering. Officers progress through twelve levels, and Enlisted through nine. (There is, to my Navy brain, a mistake in the rank titles for enlisted crew: a fourth-level enlisted is listed as “Petty Officer First Class,” with 5th Level being Second Class and 6th Level being Third. In the Real World – and in STARFLEET, for that matter – it’s the other way around. 4th Level should be Petty Officer Third Class, 5th = Second Class, and 6th = First Class.) There are four Skills: Combat, Contact, Science, and Technical. Primary skills are higher than Secondary, and both are higher than “Other” (If it’s not a primary, or a secondary, it’s other.) These skills improve with level, and the game mechanic calls for the player to roll the skill number or lower on a twenty-sided die (d20). The skill may be modified by ability scores, special items, situations, equipment, etc. The races somewhat resemble standard Star Trek races. For example, the “Taurans” are a green-tinged, pointed-eared species with great strength, a “machine-like logical mind,” copper-based blood, psionic powers, and a nerve strike that may stun a victim. They also go into a “blood fever” every so many years, during which their ancestral aggressive impulses rise to the surface. Pon Farr, anyone? Since the system is similar in many ways to other games published by Goblinoid Games, it would not be difficult to use “monsters” from Labyrinth Lord or Mutant Future as aliens – sentient or not – in this game. For that matter, it would be fairly easy to add Elves, Dwarves, or Halflings to a starship’s crew. Equipment is issued to characters based on their level and class: a Security officer can’t get an “auto-analyser” (tricorder), a Biology officer can’t get a Skirmish Suit, and an Engineer can’t get a Medkit. The more powerful the item, the more “Units” it costs. A starting Human Ensign has two units to “spend.” A communicator is one-half unit, as is a Universal Translator. A Beam Pistol costs one unit. Equipment is returned to the ship’s locker, or to the starbase, at the end of the mission. There’s a lot more to it, but overall, I find it simple to understand, and probably very easy to generate characters and to play. I’ll let you know how it works (if I ever get a chance to play it)! Meanwhile, I designed a character sheet that I like better than the one that comes with the game. You can get it here. Grab some dice, and let’s start killin’ some goblins – er, I mean “Zangids” … Sum non Satis? Commodore Tank Clark, SFMD Team Leader, 33rd STARFLEET Rangers (“The Paladins”) “Have Phaser, Will Travel” I have been crazy-busy recently, and have not had any RPG time. With the Independence Day holiday approaching, I do intend to run a session of “For Gold and Glory” (as reviewed last month.) If you haven’t yet done so, please point your browser to http://drivethrurpg.com/product/156530/For-Gold--Glory, and download the free PDF. As I mentioned, this game is very similar – almost identical in most respects – to AD&D 2nd Ed. (I’m going to assume – or maybe just pretend – that you’re familiar with 2nd Ed.)
What I’m going to talk about here is combining the minor differences between FG&G and 2nd Ed AD&D with some house rules which I plan to try out. First, I intend to open up advancement in appropriate classes to all races. I have so very rarely played any high-level RPGs that this isn’t really a factor, anyway. I’m also opening up more single-class options for most races. Although I won’t allow a Dwarf Magic-User, I don’t see why a gnome or Halfling can’t become a Bard, or a Ranger, or a Druid… Instead of a blanket set of rules, this sort of thing will be “GM’s Judgement.” MY judgement. Demi-human multi-classing will work the same way. Bards can cast spells even while wearing armor. Bards are special that way, and they have the training to wear the armor while casting their spells. (Multi-classed Magic-Users are still restricted in their use of armor. It’s the way wizards cast spells, as opposed to the way bards do.) Starting level: 3rd. If you’re multi-classed, it may be 3rd/3rd, or 2nd/2nd… haven’t decided yet. Starting equipment will include two random rolls on the Magic Item tables. If you get something you can’t use, too bad. (Maybe you can trade it with another character…) FG&G doesn’t quite use Weapon Proficiency rules, replacing it with “Combat Skills.” Combat Skill points may be spent on learning how to use individual weapons, groups of weapons (long blades, axes, spears, short blades, etc), entire classes of weapons (bludgeoning, slashing, piercing), combat styles (single weapon, weapon & shield, dual-wielding, etc.) An option in the rules permits exchanging extra language slots (gained from a high Intelligence score) for extra Combat Skill points. I will permit this. AD&D’s Non-Weapon Proficiencies (NWPs) are likewise changed in FG&G to Skills. The way they work in FG&G is about the same as NWPs in AD&D, with the addition that each character has a free Trade Skill, reflecting the career path he followed before becoming an adventurer. I will add to that the option of taking a free Knowledge Skill, if appropriate, representing the same type of character history. For example, one PC may have started out as a Hunter, or a Blacksmith, while another may have been a student of Ancient Languages, or a Navigator on a ship… I will continue to use the “Stars Without Number” combat method, instead of the standard THAC0. This means that we subtract the character’s THAC0 from 20 to provide a “Base Attack Bonus”, add that bonus to all other appropriate combat modifiers and the opponent’s AC, and roll a d20. If the total is 20 or greater the attack hits. A natural (unmodified) roll of 1 always misses, and may indicate a fumble; a natural roll of 20 always hits, and does double damage. I’ll let you know how it works! Grab some dice, and let’s start killin’ some goblins… Sum non Satis? Commodore Tank Clark, SFMD Team Leader, 33rd STARFLEET Rangers (“The Paladins”) “Have Phaser, Will Travel” I started playing Dungeons and Dragons, and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, as a child. In the Navy, it was one of the things that brought me to socialize with some of my new friends, and I continue to enjoy D&D and other Role Playing Games (RPGs). I started playing a blend of “Red Box” D&D and First Edition AD&D, then playing each separately, and – in 1989, moving into the newly-released Second Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. 2nd Ed was a lot of fun – it fixed many of the things that needed to be fixed, while keeping the game loose and barely under control. Like many others, my gaming group moved into 3rd Edition – which dropped the “advanced” part of the title – and my days of 2nd Ed moved into the past.
Well, not entirely. As much as 3E, and later D&D 3.5 were entertaining – and as bad as Fourth Edition was – there were so many good things about the former (and so much effort on my part to make 4E worthwhile), I still enjoyed 2nd Ed. I was not alone. There’s a “movement” of people in RPGs who not only enjoy the “old school RPG” experience, but enjoy getting other people involved in the older style of gaming. Do a web search on “OSR RPG” sometime, and you’ll see what I mean. It’s not easy to find the older RPG books, although some of them are now being re-printed. Sometimes, one may find PDFs scanned from the old books, but these are usually not entirely legal. However, there is an alternative. Point your browser to http://drivethrurpg.com/product/156530/For-Gold--Glory, and download the free PDF. This game is very similar – almost identical in most respects – to AD&D 2nd Ed. All the old-school fun, in an easy-to-use all-in-one product. It’s a huge file, so it’s probably not something you’re going to want to print out, but it’s ideal for loading onto your tablet for use at the game table. It’s fully compatible with all of the old adventure modules. If/when you decide you need a print copy, DriveThruRPG sells those, too, for less than $20. That’s cheaper than the cover price was on the original 2nd Ed Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monstrous Manual, even back in 1989. Grab some dice, and let’s start killin’ some goblins… Sum non Satis? Commodore Tank Clark, SFMD Team Leader, 33rd STARFLEET Rangers (“The Paladins”) “Have Phaser, Will Travel” I love watching Westerns. True Grit – the definitive one, the one with John Wayne, Glen Campbell, and Kim Darby – is my favorite movie, with She Wore a Yellow Ribbon in a very firm second place. My TiVo records Bat Masterson, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Gunsmoke, and Maverick without me telling it to do so, and when it was on the Encore Westerns channel, Have Gun, Will Travel as well. It should come as no big surprise, therefore, that I own a surfeit of “Wild West” genre role playing games (RPGs). I have every edition of TSR’s “Boot Hill” game, in PDF format, as well as GURPS “Old West” and “Aces & Eights” by Kenzer & Co. I recently came across a very rules-lite game, though, entitled “Tombstone: Role—Playing in the Wild West.” This game was free (my favorite price) at RPGNow.Com, and is listed as an “Alpha Playtest”, version V.I. You get a lot more than you pay for with this RPG, though.
Tombstone has a very simple base mechanic: roll three six-sided dice (3d6), trying to beat a target number (in this game, called the “Roll Required”). If the roll equals or exceeds the roll required, the attempted action has generally been successful. Single (occasionally multiple) dice are rolled for damage done. A four-sided die (1d4) is used, as the “Fortune Dice” mechanic. There are two methods of generating a player character (PC). In Method A, one chooses a gender for the PC, gives the PC a name, and selects a “Quick Play” character. Method B is not much more complicated, replacing the third step above with selecting a background (other games might call this a Class), assigning Skill Points, and buying weapons and equipment. There are only six backgrounds, and one of them is optional. One may be a Folk Hero, a Gambler, an Indian Brave, an Outlaw, a Soldier, or the optional Holy-Roller. Each background has special abilities at certain levels, and has restrictions on how to assign skill points. There aren’t many skills in this game, either. Health, Defense, Gunfighting, Brawling, Personality, Investigation, Willpower. One also must know the PC’s speed and how many fortune dice one has available, as well as the PC’s possessions and money, but that’s easily scribbled down, too. At first level, characters distribute five points amongst their skills, obeying restrictions listed according to their Background, and not applying more than two points to any one skill. The Health skill is a bit different, and serves a purpose not unlike Hit Points in other games. A beginning character (not a Quick Play PC, but a Method B character) rolls 1d6+3 to determine starting Health. After doing a bit of math, one sees that a first-level character has a Health skill anywhere between four and eleven. Your average six-gun does 1d6 points of damage… so gunfights are appropriately deadly. (A Gatling gun spits out 6d6 of damage – you would want to be on the trigger-side of it!) There is a short equipment list in the rulebook, as well as a few different scenarios. If you’re familiar with the genre, it wouldn’t be very hard to come up with several scenarios to play. Reading through it, it looks like a simple, easy-to-play, fun RPG. It’s rules-lite and adventure-heavy. Pick up your copy at www.RPGNow.com, or let me know and I’ll email you a copy of the PDF. Get 3d6, 1d4, paper, pencils, and your imagination, and let’s play! Sum non Satis? Commodore Tank Clark, SFMD Team Leader, 33rd STARFLEET Rangers (“The Paladins”) “Have Phaser, Will Travel” As I have said before, I have a lot of roleplaying games (RPGs) in my horde. (Not a collection: “collections” are organized, while a horde isn't.) I love reading them, and seeing how they work – and how they don't. I eagerly seek out RPGs that I don't own. However, I don't have an unlimited amount of money, so I concentrate my search for physical RPG books at used book stores, like Half-Price Books and Recycled Books. After the March ship's meeting, we visited the Half-Price in Watauga, where I found a copy of “Hackmaster Basic”, as well as the setting book for “Shadowforce: Archer” (for the first edition of Spycraft, a d20 spy RPG.)
Once upon a time, Wizards of the Coast (WoTC) decided to introduce a new version of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D). The game was, at that time, in its second edition, and was very successful, but as there were an over-abundance of supplemental rule books – some of which were very unbalanced, WoTC was probably very smart to bring out a third edition. The Third Edition (3E) D&D rules were even released as Open Source material, and the proliferation of d20 games began. Meanwhile, there was a very popular (and still ongoing) series of Web comics, entitled “Knights of the Dinner Table” (http://www.kenzerco.com/Operiodicals/kodt/kodt%20webstrips/phpslideshow.php) in which the characters played a very complicated, arcane RPG called “Hackmaster” which was quite obviously a fictional version of AD&D (2nd Ed.) In the run-up to the release of 3E, some old-school gamers over-reacted, and the characters in Knights of the Dinner Table (KoDT) did, too... only, in the strip, they were complaining about the release of Hackmaster Fourth Edition. The owners of KoDT did something amazingly smart. They purchased the rights to AD&D 2nd Edition, added a HUGE amount of craziness (from the KoDT strip), and released it, as “Hackmaster, Fourth Edition.” It was entertaining to read, but I personally found it a hassle to play. At the time, I was playing in a 2nd Ed game, and the Dungeon Master (DM) forbade us players to have a copy of the DM Guide out during play. During one session, at which I had a copy of the Hackmaster DM Guide, I looked up something in it and read it out loud – after which, I was forbidden to have that book open at the game. Too close to 2nd Ed... in many cases, word-for-word. Regardless, I have known people who've played Hackmaster and enjoyed it. Kenzer, the publisher, is a very strong company, and they've released some great products, both within and without the Hackmaster line. (One of which is sitting on my shelf, Aces & Eights, a Western RPG.) Which brings me back to Hackmaster Basic, the game I bought in March. I initially believed it to be a variant of the “Red Box” Dungeons and Dragons I first played in the late 1970s & early 1980s. Upon further review, however, it is in fact its own system. I see elements from D&D, and from AD&D, and from Hackmaster, but it stands alone in its own right. In the forward and introduction to the book, it states that this represents a new version of Hackmaster (either second edition, or “fifth”, depending on your viewpoint). This book only takes characters from first through fifth levels, with the 6th through 20th levels available in “Advanced Hackmaster”, three separate books (Players Handbook, Gamemasters Guide, and a book of monsters). Each of those books costs $59.99 at the Kenzer web site. ** Shudder ** “Tank, there ain't no way I'm payin' a hundred 'n' eighty bucks for a...” Relax, friends. Although I'd purchased the soft-back, physical version of Hackmaster Basic, you can get the same stuff for free at the Kenzer web site. Go here: http://www.kenzerco.com/hackmaster/downloads.php and download stuff. Don't download the adventures, unless you want to run the game. Print off the blank character sheets. Grab some dice, and then follow the directions in the “Hackmaster Basic Free RPG” PDF to roll up a character. Then, let me know. Let us schedule a time and place to get together and play. Sum non Satis? Commodore Tank Clark, SFMD Team Leader, 33rd STARFLEET Rangers (“The Paladins”) I have a lot of roleplaying games (RPGs) in my horde. (Not a collection: “collections” are organized, while a horde isn't.) By far, the majority of them are rulebooks and supplements for various editions of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) or Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D). These span from the “Red Box” and “D&D Cyclopaedia” that I first DMed, through First Edition, Second Edition, Third Edition, 3.5, 4, and even the basic three rulebooks of 5th Ed. Fantasy RPGs certainly predominate the rest – Rolemaster, MERP, LOTR, Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC), Discworld, the Palladium Fantasy Role-playing Game, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying System (WFRP), Talislanta, and RuneQuest, among many others. I have quite a few space opera/science fiction games, like SpaceMaster, Star Frontiers, Star Wars (D6, D20, Revised Core Rules D20, SAGA edition), Serenity RPG, a several different Star Trek RPGs, including one that's actually mostly a supplement for d20 Modern, the Starship Troopers RPG, and so on. There's also the post-apolcolyptic genre, represented by Metamorphosis Alpha and every edition of Gamma World, as well as the Western genre, including several editions of Boot Hill, and Aces & Eights. There's games in the Super-Hero genre, as well as the Spy genre. I've got some “horror” games, like Call of Cthulu, Beyond the Supernatural, and Ghostbusters. Then there are the “generic” games, like GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System), the HERO system, d20 Modern (and its supplements, d20 Past, d20 Future, Urban Arcana, etc.). Name it, I probably have an RPG for it.
Some of these games I haven't played, others I haven't played in decades. Whenever I'm at Half-Price Books, or Recycled Books in Denton, I visit the RPG section, just to find out what's there. One such RPG (purchased at Half-Price, and never played) is in the Super-Hero genre: “Silver Age Sentinals” (SAS). SAS is a d20 game, using the Open Gaming License, and requires the use of the D&D Player's Handbook (3.0). If you don't happen to have the 3.0 rulebook, the 3.5 one would work fine; for that matter, the information is also in the d20 Modern Handbook, and the first two WOTC-published versions of d20 Star Wars. There really isn't much that the SAS book doesn't include that you need. That being said, SAS is an odd duck. Ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, etc) are apparently rolled randomly (“Refer to the Players Handbook”), but can be increased by point-buy. There are no Feats: they are replaced by Powers, and purchased by that same point-buy system. You can get more points to spend via buying “Defects.” The point limitations are set by the Gamemaster (GM), and range from “normal” to near godlike. The table that tells you how many points you have to spend, also states the “Experience Level.” There are nine character classes, who advance using the XP table in the D&D Player's Handbook (or those other ones I mentioned – they're all the same). It isn't clear if a character starts at the lowest level in the Power/Experience Level chart. The book starts out with a great overview of the history of comics (up until when it was published, in 2003.) Chapter three is noteworthy. This section does in twelve pages what takes D&D one whole book and notable parts a the second to do: it tells you how the game works in play. Checks are the same as in D&D -- roll a 20 sided dice plus your skill, save, or BAB, plus bonuses and your related attribute modifier, and roll as high as you can. Combat takes a page from the Palladium RPGs; you roll to attack, the target rolls to dodge or to block. Any armor, whether from armor or a power, reduces damage, although it increases your chance to be hit by slowing you down. Combat is suitably knockback-inducing; even a 'moderate' special attack will send a super flying through a wall. Rules are included for grappling, superstrength's effects on melee weapons (if you try to add your +8d6+15 Superstrength to a 1d6 damage sword, you may well break it), how to fight a superspeedster trying to hit-and-run, dangerous environments, falling, crashing, psychic combat, taking shock (similar to d20 Modern's Massive Damage Threshold, but based on the character's HP instead of the genre of the game). The experience rules are also in this chapter: characters can gain more experience at any time as represented in class levels, but they can't just go out and buy a level of Superstrength whenever they have 4 points free. Actions are initiative-based; you divide your initiative by your actions to see when you go. For example, if you have 5 actions and you roll a 20 on initiative, you act on Initiatives 20, 16, 12, 8 and 4. This is going to be a headache whenever you roll an initiative that doesn't divide evenly by the amount of actions you have. Plus, in d20 it's quite possible to roll an initiative of 0 or even negative; what then? By the way, crash damage beyond 2500 mph increases by 1d6+2 for every 2500 mph, instead of continuing the progression of whenever the crash speed doubles. I'm sorry, Flash, but if someone trips you in SAS, you're chunky salsa. The game includes lots of campaign information. The default world is very well described, and feels very “four color” – very much in tune with the Silver Age of Comics, although set in the “modern” time, rather than in the 1960s & 1970s. The powers and attributes of supers – both heroes and villains – are pretty well thought out, but it seems weird to have classes to deal with, too. Mutants & Masterminds seems to have done the job better, but I'll withhold final judgment until such time as I've actually generated a few heroes & villains & run 'em through an adventure. Silver Age Sentinels is an interesting treatment of a genre that I always wanted to play in (not so much gamemaster, more just playing). If you find a copy, and you enjoy RPGs and the super-hero genre, I highly recommend picking it up. Grab some dice... we're leading the way, Commodore Tank Clark, SFMD Team Leader, 33rd STARFLEET Rangers (“The Paladins”) This month, we played yet another game I'd never played before but had sitting on my Games shelves, the Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game by Decipher, Inc. Decipher released the game in 2002. This is the third role playing game (RPG) licensed for the setting, the two former games being Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP) and its simplified little brother, the Lord of the Rings Adventure Game, (LOR) both from Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE). There's a new Middle-Earth RPG called “The One Ring”, published by Cubicle 7, but I have not yet encountered that one. It should go without saying that these RPGs are all set in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. Decipher's version uses the “CODA” system rules – the same basic rules they used for their Star Trek Role Playing Game. Only six-sided dice (d6) are required to play, and actions are resolved by rolling 2d6 and adding modifiers. The core rule book is beautiful. I bought it (used, from Half-Price Books) simply to look at the pictures, most of which came straight from the Peter Jackson movies The text is sometimes not the easiest to read – it is printed over pictures quite often, and the font keeps changing colors to compensate. The layout of the book is poor. One comment I saw on the Internet (it's a tube filled with cats) said that when the page layout people handed the book over to the printers, the printers said, “Hey, it's gorgeous, but where are the rules?” In a panic, three monkeys wrote the rules on the back of used napkins from Subway, and handed them in. The rules aren't that bad... they're just not organized well. Character creation is fairly easy, but not straightforward at all. The book never lists the steps in character creation, like most modern RPGs do. Fortunately, I was able to find a few things about the game on the Internet, including blank character sheets and a character creation checklist. One starts by rolling stats, using 2d6. One rolls nine sets of numbers, keeps six, and assigns them as desired. One then chooses a race (Elves, Hobbits, Dwarves, and Men, most of which have some sub-races.) If you want the most advantageous character, there is no reason to play anything other than an Elf of the Noldor sub-race. The races are not in any way balanced between each other, except that Elves cannot be Barbarians and Hobbits shouldn't be Magicians. The creation process goes through several steps: skills, edges, and flaws derived from Racial background, Languages & Lore skills derived from the character's intelligence; skills, edges, and flaws derived from the character's Order. Orders are like what other RPGs call “classes”: Barbarian, Craftsman, Lore-master; Magician, Mariner, Minstrel, Noble, Rogue, and Warrior. If one desires, one may even start play without first selecting an Order (there's rules in there for it; it would replicate the way Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry started out from the Shire without any real experience in the world.) Equipping a character is one of the worst parts of the game. The player is instructed to get together with the gamemaster and decide what weapons, armor, and equipment the character is likely to have. There is no “starting money.” For that matter, money in this system is very weird. 100 copper pennies (cp) equal one silver penny (sp). Four silver pennies equal one Silver Piece (SP), or one gold penny (gp). Four Silver Pieces or four gold pennies equal one Gold Piece (GP). (So, yes, a Silver Piece equals one gold penny.) Confusing. It took me about three hours to create the first character, and about an hour each to create the next three. We had a Noldo Elf Magician, a Hobbit Rogue, a Man (well, a woman) Warrior, and a Dwarf Noble (who may, or may not, have been female. You can't really tell, you know.) I used an adventure from ICE's MERP, and converted it mostly on the fly. (MERP is easy to convert). The party was hired in Lake-town to help find some villagers/farmers who live near Mirkwood who went missing. Our Heroes trailed them through a small bit of Mirkwood, found a Giant Spider nest just off the road, killed the spiders, and rescued the two still-living farmers. Combat worked okay, but we didn't use some of the options. The CODA system uses “exploding” dice – if you roll a six on a die, you keep the number and roll another d6, repeating if you keep rolling sixes. The result of your die roll, added to the appropriate modifier, is compared to a Target Number (TN) (for combat, the TN is usually the opponent's Defence). Exactly hitting the TN is a “success”; for each 5 above the TN, the degree of success is improved – likewise, rolling two “ones” is a Critical (sometimes Disastrous) Failure. The Hobbit got lucky, and ended up with an amazing result on one attack. Combat lasted four rounds, the first of which was a surprise round (the Spiders are sneaky). Overall, I'd say the game isn't all that good. I'd give it a 2 out of 5. I certainly would never use this game to introduce someone to RPGs (I think the Ghostbusters RPG would be the best for that!) At FenCon, one of the things I was looking for was a game for Tracy and I to play, that could also be played by more than two people. Perry and Melissa introduced me to Munchkin, but it really needs three or more; the Settlers of Catan card game (which I love) is a two-player only game. But then, I stumbled across Unexploded Cow, by Cheapass Games. Europe. Summer. 1997. You have discovered two problems with a common solution: mad cows in England, and unexploded bombs in France. In Unexploded Cow, you play a savvy entrepreneur who wants to help solve the world's problems, by blowing up lots of cows. You'll round up a herd of mad cows, give them a stirring pep talk, and march them through the French countryside. In doing so, you will clear fields of leftover ordnance from long-forgotten wars. And you'll make a few bucks doing it. There are two decks of cards (a City deck and the Main deck, full of cows and events), a load of counters representing francs (100, 200, 500, and 1000 “notes”) and a six sided die. You start the game with 5,000 francs and three cards. Each player antes 500 francs, and you determine the first player randomly. (We rolled the die, highest roll wins, re-rolled ties.) On each turn, you:
You can download a “free” version of this game, at http://www.cheapass.com/node/48. I say “free,” because in order to use this, you'll have to print out & make your set. The “deluxe” version I bought was well worth the $25 MSRP, if just for the artwork and the high-quality counters. When we were done playing Unexploded Cow, we tried a game that I'd been given quite a while ago. “Ascension: The Apprentice Edition”. This is a “deckbuilding” game, in which you start out with just a few cards, and you expand your deck through play. The game set we own is complete, but the instructions are fairly lacking, in my opinion. The instructions were also printed on the back side of the play mat, which meant to look at the rules, one had to remove all the cards and counters off of the mat – poor design, I think. Anyway, we were about halfway through the game before we became confident on everything. We may be playing it wrong, but at least we're fairly confident about the way WE played. Tracy won this game, fairly easily, but it was moderately fun. The version of the game we own is a two-player version... I don't know if there's a version for more than two players, but I don't see how it would work, if there is one. Grab some dice (and some cards)... we're leading the way, FCAPT Tank Clark, SFMD Team Leader, 33rd STARFLEET Rangers |
Commodore Tank ClarkCommodore Clark has been the Team Leader of the 33rd STARFLEET Rangers for several years. His monthly articles about games (usually Role-Playing Games -- RPGs -- but sometimes about other tabletop forms of entertainment) appear regularly in the Regulator Charge!, the ship's newsletter. Archives
September 2017
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