Interface Zero: Hostile Takeover
Hostile Takeover is a 41 page supplement for Gun Metal Games excellent cyberpunk setting, Interface Zero. The book focuses on adding elements of corporate intrigue, politics, policy and power plays to a campaign. It is divided into two sections – the first is designated as “The New Employee Handbook” for players, and the second is titled “The Policy and Procedure Manual” for Gamemaster’s.
The player’s section is written as if it were a manual for a new hire at a corporation. It contains information for understanding the setting and has advice for using the standard Savage Worlds mechanics in a way that is stylistically consistent with the genre. There are also new Hindrances and Edges for players to choose from that reinforce the setting (I got a kick out of the “Non Disclosure Agreement” hindrance).
The GM’s section, as you’d expect, has a lot of advice for introducing corporate play into Interface Zero. Early on it talks about avoiding turning your game into an office simulator, which I found interesting and helpful since, to me, that seems the quickest way to kill the fun factor of the setting. There are entries on running different types of corporate style games, as well as a detailed section on creating unique companies that have a sense of character. There is also an excellent chapter called “Murder in the Board Room” that shows you how to use common Savage Worlds mechanics (chases, mass battles, etc..) in new ways that emulate different facets of the genre (like using the mass battle rules to resolve a corporate takeover). This approach is very creative and keeps with the classic Savage Worlds idea of trappings. The book is end capped with a list of common NPC’s that your player’s are likely to encounter in an office environment.
This is a cool book and a pretty neat idea. On the surface, the prospect of role playing in an office sounds painfully dull. This book had the challenge of refuting that idea and it does so quite well. Presentation, like all Gun Metal Games releases, is stellar. Layout is well done and the whole book is very polished. This title is well dressed, ready for business and bleeding cool.
The Call of Cthulhu for Beginning Readers
This is an awesome project by DrFaustusAU on deviantART. Titled, “The Call of Cthulhu – For Beginning Readers“, the book recreates the venerable tale written by Lovecraft in a whimsical manner that emulates the classic Seuss style.
DrFaustusAU has a lot of other great work in his gallery that’s worth checking out as well. I’d love to get a print copy of this book for my son.
D&D Next
I got my link to the D&D Next play test materials earlier this morning but it’s been broken all day. I’m mostly just curious to have a look at what the Wizard’s folks have been up to. I played 4E just once and it wasn’t for me.
Anyone else had a look yet?
Update 05/26/12: I managed to finally get my copy yesterday. I’m giving it a read through now.
Geek-Related posted a nice level headed assessment here. So far it seems spot on with what I am reading.
Evolving Character Generation
Monte Cook posted an interesting article about character generation on his Live Journal the other day. I’d encourage anyone reading to hit the link and give it a look as there’s some great stuff in the post.
The gist of his post pertains to character creation at the beginning of a game or campaign. He argues in favor of pregens and talks about the frustration of making complex character choices at the outset of a game, when you have very little information about what is to follow.
His article got me to thinking that it would be pretty interesting to use an “evolutionary” character creation system for Savage Worlds. You can start all of your primary attributes out at a d4 just like during regular chargen and then increase them by spending your points during play, based on in game decisions. The same could apply to skills. Instead of stacking everything up front, based on a guess, your character can evolve based on actual play. The idea is pretty appealing and creates a situation where your character feels tailored to suit the game.
As I mentioned above, he talks about pregens too. I’ve never minded pregens though I know some people have an aversion to them. I think they are great for facilitating quick pick up games and also offer a great way for people new to gaming to participate in a game without being discouraged by an intense learning curve. I can also see using base pregens with the evolved chargen idea as being a great compromise for getting into a game quickly while still allowing player input and customization.
Interesting stuff.
Leagues of Adventure!
Leagues of Adventure is a 250 + page game book of Victorian Adventure from the fine folks at Triple Ace Games. Written by Paul “Wiggy” Wade-Williams, the game presents a Victorian era setting – with steampunk elements – using the Ubiquity Roleplaying System. Ubiquity, which was created by Exile Game Studio, was first seen in the popular pulp game, Hollow Earth Expedition.
Since Leagues of Adventure and Hollow Earth Expedition are both pulp style games, I wanted to start out by talking about how they differ. To oversimplify, Leagues of Adventure is to Allan Quatermain as Hollow Earth Expedition is to Indiana Jones. While both games evoke a pulpy feel, they differ distinctly due to the eras in which they are set. It’s easy to look back and lump 1850 – 1940 into one easily digestible “way back when” time frame, but the two eras are quite different. While “Indy” evades machine gun fire from a Nazi in a speeding Jeep, your Victorian hero has come to fisticuffs with his/her well dressed adversary on the roof of a horse drawn carriage. While archaeologists in the 1930′s are deciphering hieroglyphics in an old temple, explorer’s in the 1890′s are still looking for the uncharted areas of the earth where said temple is yet to be found. The Victorian era presents an earth that is still very much shrouded in mystery. These two games are unique and self contained, but also provide very complimentary worlds. It would be appropriate for your young Victorian era hero in Leagues of Adventure to be the elderly, refined, world traveled great uncle of your 1930′s hero in Hollow Earth Expedition.
As I mentioned above, LoA is powered by Ubiquity. This was my first exposure to the system (I have since purchased and read Hollow Earth Expedition for perspective – awesome game!), and I have to say that I like it very much. It shares a lot of common design philosophy with Savage Worlds but still differs in some important ways. In many ways I’d argue that Ubiquity is a little less crunchy than SW, though this is likely subjective. Many of the mechanics are more streamlined than their SW counterparts and overall there is a cinematic quality to the system that is very appealing. This isn’t to say that one system is better than the other, they are both fantastic and have their own merits, I just think it’s worth mentioning since I usually talk about SW and this article veers off that path a bit. I’m not going to go into specific mechanics since the focus of my review is on the setting, and not the underlying system.
Where LoA really shines is in its portrayal of a quasi historical Victorian steampunk earth. This is a place where Jules Verne isn’t making up characters for outlandishly imaginative tales, he’s actually writing about the exploits of his friends. Fictional characters from the time are seamlessly interwoven with historically accurate elements and the result is a very believable fantastic world, ripe for adventure and exploration. Built atop this entertaining framework is a game where characters fly in fantastic airships, travel to exotic locales, encounter amazing beasts and unravel the schemes of nefarious secret societies. The art in the book, by Illustrator Chris Kuhlmann, is beautiful and perfectly captures the feel of the world.
Character creation is pretty straightforward and a key part of the process is choosing a “League” for your character to belong to. Characters can belong to more than one League and membership has different benefits depending on the group in question. There’s even a League known as The Hollow Earth Society, a nice nod to Exile’s Game. The full list of the eight step character creation process is: 1. Archetype, 2. Motivations, 3. Primary Attributes, 4. Secondary Attributes, 5. Skills, 6. Talents and Resources (Edges), 7. Flaws (Hindrances), and 8. Experience.
Another major area of the book that is worth special attention is the vehicle and gadget creation section. LoA offers a very robust creation system that embraces steampunk and weird science aesthetics. It’s a “from the ground up” type system that offers a great deal of crafting freedom and encourages imagination. It’s worth mentioning that this system is very modular and if you were inclined to run a “dry” game that favored historical accuracy over steampunk gadgets, you could certainly do it. Basically, this compartmentalized approach functions well as a weird science dial that you can adjust to personal taste.
The rest of the book is rounded off with advice for running games, information for creating Villainous Leagues, stats for beasts and adversaries and a gazetteer. The gazetteer has a massive amount of information describing the world of LoA and has a ton of adventure seeds. Honestly, there’s enough additional material here to run adventures for a very long time. No matter where your geographic interests lie, you’re bound to find it covered. Need stats for a Eunuch Guard or Doctor Moreau? Check. About to have Professor Moriarty, on mammoth-back, charge headlong into your hero’s camp? Got you covered. As I said, there is an amazing amount of cool information available in this book.
The only problems I found with the book were minor editing issues. They don’t break the text but they do create moments where reading flow is awkward. They are the types of errors that humans find much better than spell checkers. It should be noted that this is not the norm for the book. These errors are few and far between and most of the text is very well written.
This is a great read and an exciting release from Triple Ace Games.. Right now the pdf is available from their site and can be purchased alone or as part of a pre-order of the print copy. I can’t speak of this book highly enough. It’s also worth mentioning that even if you aren’t keen on trying Ubiquity, the book is worth getting just as a Victorian/steampunk resource book for rules of your choice. Ubiquity is close enough to Savage Worlds that a conversion would be very feasible as well.
I’m looking forward to seeing what support materials Triple Ace has in store for Leagues of Adventure. If you’re even remotely interested in the setting I’d encourage you to check this book out!
The Stress of Playing Einstein
Veronica Blessing published a great post about playing character’s that possess knowledge or skills beyond what the player her/himself has. I ran into this very issue recently with the Savage Worlds zombie PbP game I am playing in on G+. I am playing a special forces combat medic named Cpl. Elliot Horn. I, as a player, have no military experience at all and no medical training beyond basic CPR.
When I first started creating Cpl. Horn (his friends call him “Horny” – not a sexual reference), I felt compelled to go to the internet to do some research. I used Wikipedia to learn about military ranks and combat medic basics and wrote down enough to sound semi legitimate on paper. All in all I spent about 20 minutes getting enough real world window dressing to make him feel right.
After getting the sterile real world skeleton built I spent about an hour and a half thinking about how Cpl. Horn became the man I wanted to play. He was raised by his Grandmother, a nurse. His mother died during child birth. His father trained police dogs for a living and Horny witnessed him get accidentally mauled to death as a child (this poor SOB is a tortured soul). I gave him a severe fear of dogs and being overcautious as hindrances.
My point is, I spent much more time thinking about his personality and psychological makeup than I did trying to learn how to be a combat medic myself. When I play him, he’s always trying to take every precaution to ensure the safety of his team. He also has a bad chewing gum habit. We haven’t run into any dogs yet but when we do he’ll need another set of trousers. He’s respectful toward women.
If a real life combat medic were to sit in on our game, he/she would likely roll their eyes at how “wrong” I have it. I don’t care. If one of the other player’s had an issue with my approach I’d certainly try to incorporate their feedback so that they’re having fun too, but not in a way that makes playing Cpl. Horn stressful for me. Fortunately, all the guys I’m playing with are fantastic and a lot of fun so I haven’t had an issue.
It’s important to remember that we play these games to have fun. If you get too bogged down with trying to actually know everything your character should know, you’r likely to run into stress!
2011 Nebula Awards Announced
Just a quick post for anyone interested who hasn’t already heard. The 2011 Nebula Awards have been announced.
Hael: Supplemental Books and Resources
Night of the Long Fangs
I reviewed the Hael Core Book a few weeks back in a previous post. Storyweaver released a couple of adventures around the same time the core book came out and just today uploaded their soundtrack to the Hael universe to RPGNow. It’s awesome that this setting just came out and there is already so much great support material.
Adventures
Night of the Long Fangs and Burning Bridges (16 and 17 pages respectively) are both presented with Storyweaver’s “Game in a Can” label on their covers. They are both unique sandbox style location based adventures that share a common design structure. The framework is actually very reminiscent of modern console and computer RPG’s (in a good way!). You are given a location that is well mapped out and each page in the books presents a different area of interest in that location. Along with flavor text you get information on NPC’s, stat blocks, story hooks and rumors. Each NPC has their own seemingly independent plot hooks that tie into one grand overarching tale. With this structure it’s just a matter of letting the players explore the area and interact with the populace. I like the way these books are presented very much and they do an amazing job of offering interesting stories without railroading you into clunky plot dependencies that break progress if missed. You can’t beat the value either since Night of the Long Fangs is a very reasonable $3.95 and Burning Bridges is free!
Hael Soundscapes – Untamed Sounds
Untamed Sounds is a collection of music for use during games. There are six tracks of music (plus a 7th bonus introduction track) that are designed to provide background ambiance for a variety of game situations. The songs are titled according to how they are connected to the Hael setting and they provide music for battles and other common game events. The production values are very high and stylistically the music would be appropriate for most any fantasy setting. (While writing this I kept wanting to write “Album”…. getting old….)
As I said above, it’s fantastic that there’s already excellent support material for Hael. I wasn’t familiar with the old D20 incarnation of the setting so I don’t know if these books are new material or revised and re-released stuff but really it’s irrelevant. I hope to see more of the “Game in a Can” releases soon and I’m really liking the music too. It seems like Storyweaver has great priorities as far as support for their products is concerned.
Iron Dynasty – Kesshi Tales 10
Kesshi Tales #10 is the newest Reality Blurs release for their excellent Iron Dynasty setting. Up until now each Kesshi Tales release has had a corresponding guidebook that further detailed the region where the adventure took place. This book is different in a couple of ways in that it both breaks from that symbiotic release schedule and also focuses on the introduction of some new mechanics.
Structurally, this 39 page book stays true to the aesthetics of the previous releases. It opens with an overview and synopsis of the adventure which has the players getting wrapped up in the affairs of a Dueling Academy in the capital city of Kara, in Sorimizu. After the initial introduction the book has a section that introduces a couple of new Edges for dueling. There is also a brief discussion on reputation which expands on what is presented in the core rules. Specifically, it discusses how the outcome of a duel affects a characters reputation and also introduces a card based system for randomizing an opponent’s rank and reputation.
The rest of the book details the cast and outlines the eight scenes that make up the adventure proper. The main story, as I mentioned above, has the character’s investigating recent attacks on student’s from the Kiyohara Dueling Academy. The adventure is set up to showcase the new dueling mechanics and, as one might expect, is very combat oriented.
This book is a fine addition to the already impressive line of Iron Dynasty books. Like the other titles in the series, layout is super clean and tablet friendly. The other thing I love about these books is that they are so well organized that you really need very little prep time to use them. They are even great for those who aren’t interested in pre packaged adventures. You can just grab npc’s, stat blocks and set pieces and throw them into your own sandbox to play with as you see fit.
As a side note, you can get the pdf of the Iron Dynasty core rules from RPGNow for $7.50 right now! That’s a steal!
G+ Zombie Game
The G+ Zombie PbP is going great so far. As I stated previously, this is my first foray into the world of play by post. I was initially concerned that the game would move so glacially slow that I’d lose interest but it’s been going along at a nice clip considering the medium. The GM and other players have all been fantastic and have been great fun to play with. We have a shared Google Drive folder for game materials and someone is always uploading some cool new map or other information.
I’m playing my combat medic “corporal jokester” type character and thus far haven’t really contributed any mechanical goodness other than failing a stealth roll that resulted in my high heels squeaking on the floor…. phew!
One quick note on technology – having a smart phone makes things much nicer. It’s been pretty awesome for the PbP since I get notifications and can quickly log into G+ and have a look. Granted, I’m not always in a position where I can post, but it’s at least nice being able to keep up.
I’ll throw a game progress report up in the next few days for anyone interested!
