Games I Would Like to Run

This post is mostly introspection. These are campaigns I would like to run in the future. The chance of me running most of them varies greatly, but they're all things I have tucked away in my mind for some future use, perhaps. They are in no particular order.

*A heavily house-ruled game of Cyclopedic D&D, tweaked to fit my perfect idea of D&D.

*A game with the same premise as Metamorphosis Alpha, but run using Gamma World 2nd edition or Mutant Future.

*A planet-hopping game of Mongoose's Traveller, in the vein of the computer game Freelancer or the TV show Firefly...just a crew, a ship, and wandering in space.

*A World of Darkness game in which demons/infernals are the principal antagonists, and the characters are part of a secret group of exorcists or magicians or something similar that opposes them. (Run using either mortals + Second Sight or Mage or maybe even some parts of Hunter)

*A game of, gods help me, Nightbane.

*Deadlands, set in west Texas or in Dodge City. I'd like to try it sandbox style, with the character left to do as they will.

*Rippers, though mainly run as the revival of my steampunk vampire fighting Legacy of Dracula game.

*Palladium Fantasy, straight out the book.

*A sandbox style game of Vampire, probably using the Masquerade setting but with the basic rules of Requiem because they are a bit cleaner.

*A "sci-fi exiles" game, with the characters adrift on a ship of some kind. I'd like to include a lot of resource management for the ship, and ideally the characters would be of positions of authority. I'm thinking things along the lines of Battlestar Galactica, Densetsu Kyojin Ideon, and Ulysses 31 (what very little of it I remember) This could be done with Traveller, Star Frontiers, Savage Worlds, Robotech (part of the Expeditionary Force whose fold device malfunctioned?), or most other systems.

*Carcosa, or perhaps a Carcosa/Mutant Future mashup.

I have other ideas as well... I mean, ideally I'd like to run every game on my shelf. These are just things I have been thinking over lately.

Fiddly Bits

Last night, one of my friends (who has played in the majority of the campaigns I've run since I moved here) tried his hand at DMing. (I actually had no idea it was his first outing until after the session) He knows that I have no love for 3.5, but I played because he's my friend and I always encourage people who want to start up a game. Dungeon Masters are always somewhat in demand, from my experience. I thought he did a pretty good job for his first time; I've been in sessions that weren't half as well run that were done by people with more "experience."

However, I will say that building a 3.5 character and fighting 3.5 combats did solidify what I dislike about the system. My "build" was not efficient, and as such my character was not very effective. You would think that a guy with a big double headed axe would know his way around the battle field, but I did not cross the i's and dot the t's and use three different source books, so I was not as useful as my compatriots who made their character using the so-called "splat" books. I no longer have the patience for juggling multiple source books to make a character whose numbers all click in the right ways. I also forgot how magic-item dependent the game has become... much of my character's effectiveness was derived from his magical gear and not from his abilities. (Or my abilities as a player)

Now, don't get me wrong... there was a time when I enjoyed this sort of thing, but my tastes have changed and I just don't want to spend two hours making a character. Granted, we did make high level characters...I'm pretty sure that I could have rolled out a 1st level d20 character in a much shorter period of time. This does not really change the whole "build" aspect, nor my feelings toward it.

The older editions continue to appeal more and more to me. Roll stats, grab race and/or class (depending on the version), grab gear and/or spells and you're off. I'm even rueful of the bastardized skill system I put in place in my game... next time I might just swipe the prime attribute idea from Castles & Crusades and call it good.

I am not against all games that involve building... I can knock out a Savage Worlds character in fifteen minutes, maybe a bit longer if he's a spell caster, psychic, or other power-user.

It may be just a phase, but for now I find that I long for games with less finicky mechanics and crunch.

The Penultimate Blog Post

You're ALL doing it wrong, forever.

Good DAY, sir.

The Rust Ooze

A monster I scribbled up over lunch yesterday and dropped (literally) on my players last night.

Frequency: Rare
No. Appearing: 1
Hit Dice: 6
Armor Class: 8
Move: 6
No. Attacks: -
Damage/Attack: -
Special Attacks: Rust, surprise on 1-4
Special Defenses: Hasted by fire
Magic Resistance: 15%
Psionic Ability: Nil
Intelligence: Animal
Alignment: Neutral
Treasure Type: nil

The rust ooze is nearly impossible to distinguish from a large patch of rust. (Only a 10% chance when directly observed) They surprise opponents on a 1-4, usually dropping off of a ceiling or wall or attacking from the floor. They attack by engulfing their prey (up to 3 man sized creatures at once) Rust oozes dissolve all readied metal weapons in one round. After two rounds, they dissolve the target's metal armor and shield. After that, they dissolve any other metal objects that are not completely sealed in a pack or bag. The rust ooze causes no actual harm to bare skin, nor to any non-metal creatures or objects. Metal creatures such as robots or iron golems take 8d6 damage each turn they are in contact with a rust ooze, and tend to be singled out by the creatures in favor of hand held weapons or armor. Note that "duralloy" or similar futuristic metal is entitled to a saving throw each round.
If slain, the rust ooze dissolves into a brownish, foul smelling protoplasm that causes no futher damage to any material.
A rust ooze can choose not to dissolve metal that it is in contact with. Typically this is done to hang from an advantageous hiding place. Rust oozes can sense metal within 60 feet.
Damage from fire causes the rust ooze to be hasted, as the magic-user spell, for 1d4 rounds.
There have been reports of giant rust oozes or psionic rust oozes, but these are drunken ramblings of vagrants and braggarts, not to be trusted by wiser folk.



***
The party lost a scimitar, two laser rifles and a laser pistol to the creature.

In Which I Finally Cave

Today I shelled out the money for an actual physical copy of Mutant Future. I don't have a shiny laptop, so looking up information from MF during the game requires me to split my time betwen the computer and the gaming table, which is a pain in the ass.

Another bonus is that Mutant Future is more easily compatible (mechanically speaking) with AD&D than Gamma World is, though I will continue to mine GW for ideas.

Oh, and it will also provide some great material for my revision to The Temple of Zirugar, which I will run at another convention someday.

Week 22!

I just realized that I started my AD&D game exactly 22 weeks ago today. To date, we have missed but one session. We play on Wednesdays now, so tomorrow will be our 21st play session. The characters have only advanced about as far as 4th level (depending on the character), though I believe one is nearing 5th. Part of the problem is that they have amassed a large amount of treasure that they have been unable to get home or cash in yet. Still, I find that I am relatively unconcerned with levels, and the players seem to be less concerned than gaming groups are usually. The focus is definitely on exploration and interaction with the enviornment. We even had significantly fewer combats than your "typical" AD&D game (from my perspective, anyway.)

Honestly, I feel like we're just getting started... there are so many places this can go.

19th Century Monster Killin', Canned Campaigns, and the True Meaning of Christmas

I recently picked up Deadlands Reloaded and Rippers, both settings for Savage Worlds. (Well, Deadlands originally wasn't, and Savage Worlds was actually derived, mechanically, from Deadlands, but I digress...) I always did enjoy Deadlands, and Rippers is Victorian monster hunting...how could I pass that up?

Now, I have to say I love Savage Worlds because it's a clean, simple, fast moving system. There's crunch but not a lot of it. You can make a character in maybe fifteen minutes if you know what you're doing. You can use minis, though the game works just fine without them. Yes, it is inherently cinematic, so I wouldn't use it to run anything, but it remains one of my favorite systems regardless. Oh, another bonus point: it has vehicle combat rules that don't make me want to gouge my own eyes out; I can say this about relatively few rpgs I've read that contain such rules.

...where I diverge from Savage Worlds, however, is in the presentation of their game worlds. Savage Worlds is big on pre-packaged stories (Plot Points, they are called) with a definite beginning, middle, and end. They advertise them as stories "starring your posse." (that one is Deadlands specific but you get the idea)

How boring. How did I ever enjoy this sort of thing?

My tastes have rocketed away from story based gaming, where I come up with the story ahead of time and essentially just let the players navigate it. Gaming, to me, has become the exploration of a fictional world. The players should be free to pursue what they like. I don't want to come up with complex plot lines that they "have" to participate in.

Now, should I start up one of these two games some day (the wife is really keen to play Rippers), I think I'm going to run it my way. I don't anticipate there being much of a problem. I will, however, have to un-Mary Sue the important bad guys in Deadlands, as most of them are specifically mentioned as being immune to all physical and magical attacks, and many of them have a come-back-to-life clause should the characters find some way to thwart them. That's pretty lame. The "story" bad guys are so ridiculously powerful to begin with (most of them ignore rules regarding power points and one of them straight up has every power in the book); it would be a slap in the face to a group that could actually put one down to see him just come back, sometimes stronger than before. I understand that they have a continuity to "protect" (because gods forbid the players have any capacity to change their world), but one of the old Deadlands books did say "if you stat it, they will kill it." It seems odd that they have reversed their old position.

Though I have these misgivings, I must reiterate that I do love Deadlands. I bet both of these fine games will work just fine for an exploration type game. Plus, you could theroetically cross them over, since they take place more or less around the same time.