Hi,

And finally, the player's ship:

( the Turquoise Jubilee )

later
Tom

Hi,

Another Diaspora character:

( The Captain )

later
Tom

Hi,

I've also finished reading through Paddy Griffith's Napoleonic Wargaming for Fun.

...and now only invader_haywire is still reading this.

This is a reprint of a book that came out in 1980 in the UK. And the title pretty much explains it all. The interesting twist here is that Mr. Griffith addresses the issues of realism vs. playability in an interesting way. He suggests that no one game can account for every possible variable and that different games should instead focus on different aspects of combat.

To that end, this slim volume contains seven separate types of wargames. It starts with Skirmish level wargames and then moves up the chain of command to Division, Brigade and Army level games. In each case the underlying system remains relatively fixed, but more and more emphasis is placed on Command and Control and the player's ability to understand what's going on at a macro level vs. the more intimate view of a Lieutenant or Major.

Eventually, the miniatures are dispensed with altogether and a couple of map games are introduced. In particular, the Generalship game looks really neat. The players basically make up a "to-do" list for that game day. Aside from writing orders, they have to spend time maintaining communication/supply lines, maintain correspondence back to their home country, sleep, and move about the countryside. An umpire coordinates the various orders and gives feedback to the players. The combat system is extremely abstracted but sufficient so that a general who has been the most efficient will probably be able to win, although the double-blind nature of the conflict means that there could be any number of unexpected surprises.

Finally, the set concludes with a discussion on "Tactical Exercises Without Troops" (TEWT). Here, the author expects pasty white gamers to actually go out into the woods and conduct imaginary battles. This was an actual training method for Napoleonic officers, but while it sounds interesting, I'm not sure it's a level of authenticity I'm actually striving for.

Overall a fun book if you're interested in wargaming of any stripe and want to dig into our illustrious wargaming past.

later
Tom

Hi,

Another Diaspora character for my con game. This one seems the weakest of the bunch. OK, I haven't actually made up the other characters yet, but I have clear ideas for their role in the game. This guy...kinda generic. So if you have ideas to punch up this guy, let me know.

( Spacer )

later
Tom

Hi,

The next character I statted up...
( Guardian )

later
Tom

Hi,

So now that I finished creating planets, I'm going to try creating a person from each world. Here's the character from Apex. Since I think I'll use this set-up for a gaming convention one-shot, I'm providing both male/female names for the character and trying to be pronoun neutral.

( The Scientist )

later
Tom

Fairhaven T-2 E3 R1

The legends of Fairhaven speak of a time in the ancient past when Lord sent his two angels out to people the two worlds. Now, depending on who's telling the story, it was Orphamiel who rebelled against god and sought dominion over all of Fairhaven or it was Sabrael who was the traitor. In any event, the followers of each angel marched out into the sky to do battle and after a long and terrible war, the right side one and the other side was left utterly devastated and defeated.

It's been a long, slow climb out of the darkness and even now Fairhaven relies on coal and natural gas for most of it's energy needs. The sophisticated and cosmopolitan members of the larger cities are fully aware of the distorted history their religions are based on and pay it only minor lip service, but the mass of people still follow the church. Everyone still believes their side was in the right.

When St. Eigen brought his sky ships into the world, the rich and powerful shielded him from the more literal-minded members of the Clergy until a number of mutually beneficial agreements could be worked out. Eigen ships freely move through the system extracting the rich resources of the system, the aristocracy of Freehaven get lots of high-tech toys to play with and the Church gains powerful "signs and portents" to hold over the masses. The system was far from perfect, but Fairhaven was in no position to bargain and the offer was really quite generous.

Now that the slipstreams have reconfigured and Confederation ships from Apex (via Bellweather) have been appearing in the skies, the facade has been cracking and crumbling at a faster pace. Some see this as a chance for Freehaven to free itself from Eigen control, others see it as the chance to free the people from the crushing boot of the aristocracy or the Church or both. A select few see this as an opportunity to finally put an end to the heretics who started the war that drove them all to this pitiful condition.

Aspects:

• The war is not yet over between us
  
• Church and State are only united against the people
  
• "Angels" travel between the worlds [Angels being a biological creature that moves through interplanetary space. Think space-borne algae -- occasionally they "bloom" in the upper atmosphere of the habitable worlds causing an impressive lightshow]
  

later
Tom

Eigen Inc. T2 E-1 R1

The scatter of humanity across the galaxy has allowed for a wide range of social experiments, some intentional, most accidental. Eigen was a little of both. Certainly, an aggressive belief in free market capitalism was encouraged by the original settlers. The planet was basically ruled through an intricate web of corporate partnerships providing services to the employee-stockholders of one another. Life for many of these employee-stockholders on the bottom rung was pretty rough, but food and shelter was almost always available. The rush to gain a competitive edge brought about ecological disaster, but that was always offset by technical advancement. Even today, the people of Eigen live within climate-controlled domes or arcologies. If life was measured in dollars and cents, you got a lot for your money.

All of this changed when Friedrich Eigen, a researcher working out among the large asteroid belt within the system re-discovered the process of slipstream travel. Working on his designs in secret, he built a prototype slipstream module, installed it into the small survey vessel he lived in and lit out for the slipknot. Luckily, his first manned trial was a success and he returned to Eigen several months later with a complete map of the cluster and a batch of completely unique items.

Eigen's employer sought to claim all rights to his inventions and trade goods, but Eigen was smart enough to play off his employer's rivals against one another. Everyone was anxious to obtain slipstream ships, but only Eigen knew how to make them. In the end, he was allowed to start a small company of his own, the sole manufacturer of slipstream units. He charged a fortune and soon Eigen Inc's profits outpaced everyone else. In the end, Eigen wrested controlling interest of several other large corporations and became the primary employer of the system. Such unabashed ambition and daring (and enormous economic clout) was enough to get the home world renamed to Eigen in honor of the corporation that based itself there.

Although Eigen had a stranglehold on the system, it was clever enough to allow a blossoming of smaller, independent companies. None of them have the direct clout to take on Eigen directly, but they can pursue risky strategies or novel ideas and if they pay off, Eigen can swoop in to take advantage. It's worked fairly well and no one has been able to duplicate Eigen's technical leap and gain an edge (though Eigen always watches).

So things proceeded fairly well for a century or two and then Eigen and Fairhaven were both wrenched away from their cluster and attached to this new one. Eigen is anxious to expand into the new territories and the thousands of independent traders are rushing out to form what deals they can. Eigen is disappointed at the relative poverty of the new systems it finds in this cluster, but hopes to take advantage of Eigen and Fairhaven's abundance to leverage themselves into a position of control. If they could just capture one of Apex's advanced starcraft and reverse engineer it, they'd easily be able to overtake Apex and rule the cluster.

Aspects:

• Unbridled Ambition
  
• Domed cities in the wastelands
  
• Large merchant fleet
  

later
Tom

Darmini's Rest T-1 E0 R0

Slipstream disruption can isolate systems for long periods of time. There are numerous stories about isolated systems falling into chaos and ruin. It's a nightmare scenario for most high-tech worlds. For the people of Darmini's Rest, however, slipstream isolation has been something of a blessing. The original inhabitants were the losing side of a civil war. The losers fled in a massive colony ship known as the Darmini with the winning side hot on their heels. The pursuit forced a hasty exit that resulted in a mis-jump.

The Darmini came out of slip space into an unremarkable system that was fortunate enough to possess a habitable world. The Darmini put into orbit and the survivors took stock. The mis-jump forced the Darmini through the slipknot but the system itself was disconnected from the slipstream. The random nature of the mis-jump meant that the Darmini's pursuers were unlikely to be following along. So the passengers set about the task of investigating and colonizing the habitable world which became known as Darmini's Rest.

The system remained isolated for several hundred years and during that time, technology slipped back considerably. The inhabitants hadn't lost the knowledge or skills, but the necessary infrastructure was just too difficult to maintain in the face of more pressing needs. Further, the planet was dotted with islands, none much larger than Greenland and the Darmini just wasn't optimized for dealing with water-rich worlds. The system stabilized at an atomic-power level of technology but maintained small group of scientists and technicians who worked to preserve as much data as possible. The group was also responsible for maintaining a series of monitor satellites near the slipknots.

Thus when Darmini's Rest was attached to the cluster, the Darmini weren't surprised. Apex and Eigen ships arrived almost simultaneously and instantly began courting the system. Although technically out-classed by Apex and Eigen, the Darmini have the capacity to catch up if they strike the right bargains. The Confederation (via Apex) can offer high-tech information to help the Darmini grow, but Eigen can offer valuable resources to make that happen. The Darmini are valuable as potential allies, but they could also be useful pawns. The Darmini still remember the results of backing the wrong horse and so they've been very careful to play both sides against each other. There are factions within the Darmini who favor one side or the other, but all of them are careful to keep their options open.

Aspects:

• Careful dealings with outsiders
  
• The Ministry of Knowledge Preservation
  
• Mostly ocean
  

later
Tom

Concordia: T-2 E4 R0

Concordia is the Confederation's greatest technological achievement although some might argue they were merely building on the shoulders of giants. The Concordia system consists of a small star embedded within a large cloud of gas. The cloud is dense enough and contains enough oxygen that humans could easily survive in the open within a fairly thick band. It's not clear is this was a natural formation or the leftover remnants of some massive engineering project from a prior civilization. In any event, there was massive amounts of habitable space, the only thing missing was something to stand on. Confederation scientists fixed this problem by genetically engineering a wide range of plants and animals that could survive in the free-fall conditions of Concordia. A distant tours of asteroids (similar to the Oort cloud) were mined to provide minerals and to provide lattice-work structures for plants and buildings. Eventually, an immense ecosystem was built up and this provided enough organic materials to create small rings to provide gravity.

After that, the Confederation shipped in pioneers as quickly as it could fill the ships. Concordia was sold as an idyllic paradise so it didn't take much to get people to sign on. And for the most part, life within the system was pretty idyllic. The free-fall environment made industrial progress difficult, but the abundance of organic substitutes made life easy enough that the few space stations maintained near the slipknots to manage stellar traffic could provide all the high-tech needs of the system.

The disruption of the former Confederation system had little impact on the Concordia system as a whole and there are a number of residents who aren't even aware of the event. These days, Apex ships keep a tight watch over the system and do their best to mitigate traffic from Eigen. Eigen smugglers still make an effort to get through but often find that their efforts are less lucrative than they'd like since Concordians aren't interested in a lot of what the smugglers offer and have little to pay for the things they do want. The smugglers have found that human trafficking is the most lucrative scheme.

Living in a zero-G environment, Concordians make extremely capable spacers once they've been given some training in using high-tech equipment. Although the hard labor and close confines of starships can be hard on their psyches, younger Concordians with a sense of wanderlust, can easily get jobs on starships. A tour of a few years can provide them with a significant grubstake when they return. With the vast population, there are often thousands of Concordians competing for a few slots and the Eigen have been quick to exploit those who didn't quite make the cut. Smugglers offer to take potential recruits out of the system to Eigen where they can get a job, but their labor contracts are often a quick trip to indentured servitude.

Aspects:

• Life in Free-Fall
  
• An Ecosystem of Leisure
  
• Adventures Are Fun!
  

later
Tom

Bellweather: T-1 E-1 R0

Bellweather is an ice-covered ball on the fringes of its star's habitable zone. Temperatures run well below freezing and that's before the windchill sets in. The harsh climactic condition, slightly higher gravity and unremarkable resources made it the ideal prison world during a particularly dark time in Confederation history.

The one thing Bellweather does have is an abundance of steam thanks to numerous geothermal vents. Using this ready source of power, the Confederation drilled down through ice and rock and set up sprawling underground prison complexes complete massive hydroponics for food.

Conditions in the prisons were extremely harsh. The traditional problems of prison gangs and conflict with wardens were altered by the need for everyone to work hard to maintain the systems that kept the prisons viable. After one particularly disastrous riot, an entire facility lost power and was quickly turned into a frozen graveyard. This tended to force some degree of cooperation, but when buried grudges came to the fore, they were often more brutal. Over time, corruption set in and the wardens were integrated into the gangs in various ways. Often they ruled a gang as the top dog, but sometimes a crafty gang would get leverage on a warden and use them as a puppet.

Eventually, Confederation politics changed and Bellweather was decommissioned as a prison, but the culture of Bellweather had mutated to the point where everyone saw more benefit staying put. In flagrant violation of prison rules, a number of generations had actually come of age within the walls. People either had some sort of seniority in a pecking order that would be lost if they went back "outside" or they had no useful place in regular society. So Bellweather applied as a colonial protectorate and was largely ignored by the rest of the Confederation.

Then a desperate merchant decided to hire a small gang of Bellweathers to protect his ship. The pirates who tried to board the merchant were cut down to a man. The claustrophobic prison warrens were very similar to life aboard a starship and the Bellweathers knew lots of ways to kill someone in a close-quarters fight where guns and explosives weren't an option. Soon Bellweather's chief export was Shipboard Security Services. The Wardens generally negotiated services and commanded the forces on-board. Despite some early (and swiftly punished) episodes of betrayal, the Bellweather teams were loyal and dedicated to their employer and the Confederation as a whole. The Confederate Navy experimented with incorporating Bellweather forces into their Marines, but these experiments were always small scale and kept fairly quiet to avoid a PR disaster.

When the slipstream connections to the Confederation broke up, there was a period of several months of violent outbreaks as power vacuums were exposed and filled. Things were soon sorted out and life on Bellweather returned to normal (although the lack of work was keenly felt). The re-alignment of the slipstreams has brought new opportunities and new problems.

The Wardens in particular, still hold some loyalty to the Confederation (even in its greatly reduced scope). They continue to favor working with Apex and Concordia. The gangs, on the other hand, are mostly loyal to their gang and the biggest paycheck. Merchants and mercenary groups from Eigen are anxious to get Bellweather gangs on their payroll and they generally have a lot to offer. So far, Bellweather accepts only limited contracts to work for Eigen merchants, but it's a rapidly growing sector of their trade and the pressure to do more lucrative deals with Eigen is steadily increasing.

Aspects:

• Natural Born Killers
  
• The Gang is Everything
  
• Steam-powered Warrens
  

later
Tom

Apex: T3 E2 R-2

The Apex system (along with Bellweather and Concordia) was once a part of the Confederation, a cluster-wide political organization that sprawled across 8 different systems. Apex, with its twin garden worlds and numerous space habitats was mostly devoted to scientific research and development. The theory was that cutting-edge science could be conducted within Apex and if anything went wrong, nothing too terrible would happen. The system's lack of material resources and the Confederation's high level of livable planets meant that Apex was the most expendable of the systems within the cluster.

Unfortunately, innovation can come from anywhere. Apex scientists still aren't entirely sure what happened, but based on the last news dump they received there was some sort of advancement in CyberCom technology. The current theory is that billions of people linked together via CyberCom may have formed some gestalt intelligence that sparked singularity. The outcome of this event was that the slipstream network connecting Apex, Bellweather and Concordia to the rest of the Confederation cluster broke up. The three planets were trapped in their own small cluster for almost a year and then the slipstreams re-aligned and now Apex is part of a new cluster.

Achieving Singularity has been a goal of many people in Apex. Advancing science and technology has been everyone's priority. Getting left behind while the rest of the Confederation moved on has stung them deeply. So they've thrown themselves into cutting edge research. Without a steady stream of resources from mineral-rich systems of the Confederation however, a lot of this work is still mostly theoretical. A great deal of effort is expended in simply preserving the technology they currently have. In this case, that means maintaining their starship superiority.

The Apex fleet, even with only a few dedicated warships, is the mightiest in the system. But it's old and while Apex still possesses the know-how to fix and maintain the ships (or even build new ones), getting the necessary materials to do the job is the problem. Analysts have concluded that Apex could probably wipe out the entirety of the Eigen space fleet, but would itself be destroyed in the process. If Eigen ever captures an Apex ship and manages to reverse engineer it, that would be the end of Apex dominance. The upshot is that Apex captains are very protective of their ships. It also means that Apex most valuable commodity, scientific and engineering information, must be traded away very carefully and for the highest of prices.

Aspects:

• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
  
• Achieve the Singularity
  
• Guard the Tree of Knowledge
  

later
Tom

Hi,

So I recently recieved a copy of Diaspora, a hard sci-fi RPG that uses FATE as the engine. It looks pretty slick. It's got a system of mini games for starship combat, mass ground warfare and social interactions. The group that put it together played a lot of old-skool Traveller and it shows through.

I'm still digging into this but it seems like they really slimmed down the stunt system from Spirit of the Century and their new mechanics borrow a lot of good stuff from Burning Empires and it all gels together. I need to do some more reading, but I'm already pretty jazzed about it.

So jazzed that I built a star cluster:



Right, so the game posits that FTL travel between worlds happens via "slipstreams" with "slipknots" (i.e. jump points) located high above the ecliptic of each system. Apparently something went wrong with the slipstreams and now only small clusters of systems are linked together. The yellow lines on the map show how the systems in this cluster are connected.

The names are alphabetical and probably should be changed, but they'll do for now. The letter number pairs after each name give the system's basic stats.

• T = Technology
  
• E = Environment (how easy it is for humans to survive there)
  
• R = Resources
  

In classic FATE/FUDGE fashion, the values for these three stats run from 4 (unbelievable) to -4 (oh my god awful). So you can see that Apex is the most technically advanced system, but is desperate for raw materials. Eigen Inc. is probably a close rival of theirs and has a pretty good lock on the resource-heavy systems (itself and Fairhaven). Bellweather is a bit of a hole and Concordia has a lot of habitable space. Darmini's Rest is the most comparable to our Solar System.

I might flesh these out over the next few days. A bit of flash fiction since I'm not doing NaNo. Then I might build out a character or two.

later
Tom

Hey,

So the other day I made up a new fantasy miniatures game. The reigning champion in this field, Warhammer, is such an unplayable money sink that an improved system should be able to overthrow it easily. My system is clean and simple, yet retains a surprising amount of tactical depth. It even comes with 10 different armies!

( 10 rules behind the cut )

That's it. 10 rules, 10 armies 10 times the fun.
Tom

Hey,

So I picked up the new Heroquest rulebook last week and while I haven't given it a super in-depth read-through, I've skimmed it pretty heavily and I feel comfortable talking about it in general.

Right, so Heroquest is the Robin Laws system that was originally built for Greg Stafford's Glorantha setting. In its latest incarnation, it'ss being touted as a generic system for whatever you want. There's a section at the back that briefly covers the Gloranthian setting, but that's it. It's pretty much all mechanics all the time.

And the basic mechanic remains the same from previous versions: Roll a d20 and try to get below your value in the skill you're applying to solve the problem. Low numbers are better with a 1 being a critical and a 20 being a fumble. So if you've got a 15 in "Shove sharp metal through fools" and you are, in fact, trying to get past a fool by shoving a piece of sharp metal into him, then roll a 15 or less and you're good to go.

If your score goes above a 20, then you gain a Mastery for every full muliple of 20 and the remainder is leftover as your "value" in the skill. So a 25 becomes a 5-M-1. The M-1 means you get an automatic success and if you roll 5 or less you get more success. This leads to some wonkiness where a guy with 5-M-1 vs. a guy with a basic 15 will often tie (becuase the 5-M-1 guy gets an auto-success but usually fails the roll, while the guy with a 18 will often get a success on the roll so you both wind up with a success each and a tie). The whole "Mastery" thing doesn't quite feel right, although I believe the math actually works out like you expect it to. If you can get past the cognitive dissonance on this one bit, the rest of the rules are real slick.

There are simple contests and extended contests. For those of you familiar with the old system, the extended contests have been streamlined and simplified. Under the old system, there was this crazy bidding system designed to simulate a narrative ebb and flow, but now it's down to the side to reach 5 success first is the winner. The consequences/effects of the contest are figured out afterward based on comparing total successes. In a neat touch, if you win/fail a contest, the skill you used gets a bonus/penalty for a few scenes. So winning makes you better and losing means try something else.

This version of the ruleset very clearly states that it operates in the Narrative Mode (for you RPG theory wonks out there). The rulebook is actually pretty great about sweeping up a lot of Narrative gaming theory that's cropped up over the past few years and really converted it to concrete mechanics, advice and examples.

The most clear example of this is that setting difficulty is strictly a narrative decision. In essence -- the GM decides how hard it's going to be and sets the difficulty appropriately. The book offers a lot of help and rules of thumb on how to do this (have the characters been sucking a lot lately? make it easier. have they been riding high? up the difficulty). It may seem kinda GM fiat-y, but if you follow the 1st rule of all RPGs ("Don't game with assholes"), you'll probably do all right.

In fact, because of the whole "it's as difficult as it needs to be for the story to be fun" set-up, Heroquest would probably be a great engine for Amber. Yeah, yeah, every game system is a great engine for Amber and I actually like the DRPG, but I think Heroquest would map more closely to the way the books work. There's lots of stuff in the books that obviously happens only because it's dramatically appropriate...well, I guess in a book everything happens because it's dramatically appropriate, but Amber has a few pronounced moments where things that don't normally happen do. The DRPG tries to get at that with the whole "imagine playing chess against a grandmaster, how do you beat him? Answer: you cheat", but the DRPG system never really takes those modifiers (i.e. your cheating) into its calculation of victory/defeat so it's hard to gauge what will be effective. In Heroquest, the numerical quantification is much better and only when people are relatively close in power will the random die roll determine who wins (which is also more satisfying to me somehow, when two people are closely matched, it's a toss-up who will win).

Anyway, if you liked the old version at all, I think the new version is a much better deal. If you're not sure, I'm almost certain to take the system for a spin next Gaming Weekend or so.

later
Tom

Hi,

So there's an old saw about D&D where people point out that the magic-user can cast fireballs, cause earthquakes, summon horrific monsters, but doesn't really have anything like "build a shack", "ensure good crops", "dig a well" or any other spell that a local community would really have a need for. Basically, magic-users are walking bundles of barely contained destructive arcane energies and who really needs that? Clerics have more useful spells in this regard, but they've got a built-in framework to be part of a community. Wizards are better off in towers far away.

I was thinking about Ritual Spells in 4th. ed. Ritual spells are mostly spells of long duration and/or questionable utility. By way of example, one of the ritual spells is "magic mouth". There's been a lot of complaining that Rituals are taking all of the quirky "cool" spells while the magical powers the Wizard can actually use on the fly are all blaster-type spells good only for combat. But frankly, I'm OK with that -- most magic-users simply stock up on attack spells anyway. Are you really going to take Magic Mouth over Magic Missile?

Ritual spells also solve the early problem of a wizard's place in a community. Now a "wizard" can simply be a guy who's got the Ritual Caster feat and has a bunch of Rituals. The Rituals all do useful, community-oriented things. Without delving into dungeons, this guy can hang out a shingle and provide useful services. I think that's pretty neat.

later
Tom

Hi,

Just as an FYI, the first batch of errata for 4th ed. D&D is out. You know how people where bitching about skill challenges and the like? Turns out the entire section was one big "oopsie!".

Fun stuff
Tom

...and I got nothing.

Referring to my earlier post, I went back and looked up how experience works in Classic Traveller.

If you want to improve a skill, tell the GM you're going to practice the skill. He makes a throw to see if you've got the willpower to keep it up (brilliant!). Then after four years of game time has elapsed, your skill goes up by one point. That's it. That's all there is. The lessons learned of a life of adventure mean nothing. You wanna get to Carnegie Hall, you practice.

It is, simultaneously the coolest and dumbest experience system ever.

Oh, I also discovered that all characters are assumed to have a skill of 0 in every weapon in the book. Skill level 0, just means you don't get "untrained" penalties when you pick up a weapon. Which is really kinda nice since it's entirely possible that you could go through a 20 year stint in the army and never get a weapon skill.

The wacky part is the "every weapon in the book" qualifier. The Traveller book has a surprisingly small suite of weapons in it. That skill-0 doesn't let you operate howitzers and bazookas or stuff like that. But it does mean that you can pick up any personal firearm from pistols to rifles and, more interestingly, you can use pretty much any melee weapon ever invented from clubs to rapiers to broadswords to pikes. In the far future, gym class must be brutal. You apparently also spend more time in gym class than you do in driver's ed.

What I would do (and what the next version of Traveller supports) is give people a small stack of level-0 skills based on the type of world you came from (barbarians should not be that familiar with laser pistols for example). I might further let players pick one level-1 skill of their choice (say in their first term of service). And finally, I'd probably say that Jack-of-All trades (which lets you have any skill at 0) still works, but anything you use JoAT for will only last for 10 minutes. So in a firefight, it's probably good enough, but for, say, a medical emergency, or repairing the warp drives, you better find a qualified expert in a hurry.

Fun stuff
Tom