The Dresden Files

Okay, first a quick 5AK update: almost all my mailings have gone out, and I should have the last three in the mail today. I have the car this week (one o the “perks” of the wife being out of the country) and I’ve been using the opportunity to make daily post runs on my lunch break.  Postage costs have been higher than I anticipated because all the packets have been an ounce heavier than my original “test” mailing…which is just weird. Did I use a different size envelope with first one? Did the addition of the adventure really add a full ounce?

Well, whatever…I’ll just eat the cost for now. The thing that REALLY bites, though, is the way the post office has changed their customs forms. They now have to manually enter all the info off the customs form into their computer for each mailing? WTF? I never had this issue with my last two books…just sending a single packet to Canada added an extra 5-10 minutes to my time at the post office yesterday. And today I’ve packets going to both the UK and France! Good thing I’ve got a Jimmy Johns just a couple blocks away.

[my lunch break is only 30 minutes]

So, yeah, people should start seeing their books arrive in the next few days. I know Gary’s Games (my local retailer) has sold a couple copies and asked for more, so the game is already in the hands of some folks.

Okay, so…Dresden Files. Had the chance to play this at Dragonflight this year and wanted to talk about the experience. Especially with regard to “role-playing” and in comparison to my recent play-test of D&D Next (i.e. 5^th Edition Dungeons & Dragons).

[oh no! Not this can o worms again!]

Yep…a little bit.

Dresden is one of those games that I don’t own, haven’t read, and (previously) had no interest in purchasing or playing. It uses the FATE game system, itself a derivation of the FUDGE (universal) game system, and I’m not a fan of FUDGE. I’m not a fan of “universal systems,” as they tend to be bland and generic (duh), drawing any flavor from the setting material or theme assumptions you try to slap on…and I prefer a system that synchs game mechanics tighter to the gameplay/style of the game. FUDGE with its subjective, descriptive phrases makes me cringe even more. What’s the difference between “good” and “great,” really?

Whatever…I’m an old fuddy-duddy curmudgeon in that regard. FATE offers a couple upgrades over FUDGE, and I enjoyed playing Spirit of the Century (which uses a version of FATE as well) the last time I was at Dragonflight. A lot of fun actually.

But then, SotC allowed me to live out some of my pulp fantasies (I absolutely love early pulp...). The Dresden Files? It’s “Harry Potter” meets detective noir. At least, that’s what it looks like, and I’m not a fan of Harry Potter. Yes, I’ve read the books and watched the films, but that’s because I’m a completest: I want to know how the story ends…even if the story’s not particularly compelling. The idea of a magical world living side-by-side with a mundane world, basically cooperative, kind of not-so-but-somewhat-secret…it’s like “World of Darkness Lite.”

More fun than it looks.

So yeah…not a big fan of the “fudgy-ness” of FATE, not a big fan of the Dresden theme (haven’t read the fiction nor watched the show), so why would I be interested in the game?

Well, turns out it’s a lot of fun actually.

And in ways I wasn’t really expecting. For one thing, the game made it very easy for me to role-play, and here I mean it in my own terms of putting myself in my imaginary character’s shoes. And this despite being an “indie” game…remember me talking about how “authorial stance” doesn’t facilitate role-playing because it takes you out of the character’s perception? You don’t remember that? Well, it was a pretty rambling set of posts.

Let me walk you through my experience: I wasn’t doing anything so I showed up at the Story Games Lounge just as they were deciding what game to play. A couple people voted for Dresden and I wasn’t about to rock the boat. Ogre (the GM) had a “canned adventure” ready for Dresden and handed out pre-gen characters…characters that had been played before and thus were a little developed based on past players.

My character sheet was a mass of gibberish…or rather, a mass of jargon with which I wasn’t familiar. I had a bunch things that looked like skills, ranked from +1 to +5. I had a bunch of magical gear, some of which was self-explanatory (healing potions), most of which weren’t (“vial of tears?”). I had a bunch of “aspects” which were descriptive one-liners…these things I remembered vaguely from 2010 (when I last played a FATE game) but I didn’t remember exactly how they worked mechanically. Some, like “good kid from a bad family” looked useful while others, like “channel my inner Admiral Ackbar,” were baffling to me (and I say this as a Star Wars fan who knows Admiral Ackbar). My character’s concept was something like Young Wizard Malcontent or something…a slacker 20-something who’s part of the local “wizard council” (or whatever) but has issues with authority (mainly due to his own apathy, probably).

Not every character at the table was a wizard: one dude was a (mundane) cop assigned to the Special Investigation (“supernatural”) unit. One was an older wizard “warden” (like the badass, magical “sheriff” of the territory). Two characters were supernatural non-wizards: a half-goblin/fae/changeling prankster and a dude who was like Wolverine without the claws (a brawny brawler with super-hard bones and regenerative abilities). The adventure was the kind of throwaway one-off you’d expect: someone got murdered, the police figure out supernatural beings are involved, SI cop drags his usual supernatural cronies into the investigation, and hilarity ensues. Or bloodshed. Or whatever. You get the gist.

What I’d like to do, though, is note the similarities between the (real life) circumstances of this game and my play-test of D&D Next. In D&D Next I also sat down with a group of (mostly) strangers and (very) casual acquaintances. I was given a rule set similar to something I’d played before, but that I still needed a little over-view of. I was given a character sheet for a semi-developed character with a bunch of (to me) gibberish…about the same length, too...including equipment, skills, and some special feats/stunts, abilities. Like the Dresden game, I was presented with a fairly obvious scenario: there’s a subterranean gnome community that needs help reclaiming their ancestral caverns that have become infested with non-friendlies. The players have a diversity of character concepts, all of which interact (mechanically) with the game environment in similar ways, if with different color.

Challenges will be presented. Players will address those challenges. “Stuff” will happen.

Now there WAS a difference in the type of character I played in the games: my DDN character was a dwarf fighter, while I purposefully decided AGAINST taking the “basic fighty-guy” in Dresden. It was offered to me (perhaps because it was my first foray into Dresden and only my second time with FATE), but I declined it in favor of the “snot-nosed kid.” I wanted to try something different.

[not that it really matters that much…I tend to play all characters the same regardless of concept]

The scenario in Dresden unfolded the way one would expect: you find clues in a scene, it leads you to a different scene. Sometimes there’s a fight at a scene. All leading towards the inevitable showdown with the “main bad guy” in a final, climactic scene. I’ve seen this kind of thing a lot over the years (typical World of Darkness type scenario). Having not read the rules, I don’t know if this is the typical Dresden scenario (the protagonist, Mr. Dresden, is a detective, right?).

All in all, pretty standard…which is what I would say of the D&D Next scenario, too. Not much surprising, fairly linear in the lay-out from “start” to “objective.” The players in both cases were a mixed bag, both regard to skill level (with the rules) and level of engagement (with play itself). In both case the DM was perfectly competent to run and referee, neither limiting the players through their decisions, nor providing exceptional surprises or “twists” in the action of the game.

I should also point out that both systems (DDN and Dresden) provide little kewl things (feats, stunts, powers…whatever you want to call it) that allow your character to operate outside the standard rules of the game, generally as an expendable resource. Okay? Same stuff with different jargon.

Having said all THAT, I will say that the Dresden Files most definitely facilitated the act of role-playing and D&D Next most certainly did not.

The difference was not the GMs running the game. The difference was not the players participating or the quality of their interaction with each other. The difference was not an exciting “adventure” that required a bunch of brain power or socializing with NPCs. The difference wasn’t minimalist rules or character sheets. The difference wasn’t a “lack of dice rolling” (I rolled more dice in Dresden than I did in the game of D&D Next). The difference was a lack of combat or danger: I actually missed a good section of the adventure (as I explained before) but came back in time for the whole climactic showdown with big, mean sorcerer and bunches of gun-wielding goons.

The difference was the SYSTEM…the mechanics of the game. One game (Dresden) forced me, again and again, to consider who I was as the imaginary character. It put me firmly in the shoes of my character…making me consider my game play from my character’s perspective. Here’s how:

When your character tries to do, well, pretty much anything at all interesting, you roll four “FATE dice” to see how effective you are. A FATE die is a six-sided die with two sides marked “+,” two sides marked “-,” and two blank sides; these stand for +1, -1, and 0 respectively. The result of your roll is added to your skill (+1 through +5) to arrive at a number that tells you how good your attempted action turns out. Especially with regard to combat and damage, these results are fairly objective…many times you have to overcome a specific target number (like the skill level of an opponent) in order to succeed.

I don’t own FATE dice, so I was rolling a set provided to me by the GM. My dice rolled shitty the entire session, mostly rolling negative and never rolling higher than +1 (that I remember). To compensate for this, you are allowed to tap “aspects” (those one-line descriptions) if you can apply it to the action; each aspect can be tapped once per action and gives you a +2 bonus to the result of your roll. You are also required to spend a FATE chip (like a poker chip) for each aspect tapped. Whether because my character was a wizard or young or both, I started with fewer chips than the other PCs (I believe I started with three), but I was awarded one every time I did something clever or interesting or made a cool choice of action based on my character’s descriptive aspects.

The thing is, I was forced to take actions (or motivate my character) based on my descriptive aspects because of my shitty dice rolls. Even when I didn’t roll terrible, I was still spending chips and tapping aspects because I wanted to get bigger successes. I was milking the system, constantly emptying my chip total as fast as they were awarded, and fully engaged in the mindset/personality of my character, because that was the only way for me to achieve effectiveness in the game. It didn’t matter, that my character wasn’t the strongest-toughest, or the biggest badass wizard, or the goblin-girl who’s stealth rolls ended up with “legendary” results every time because of various stacking feats and stunts and circumstance bonus. I, as a player, was fully in the mindset of my character AND still affecting the outcome of the adventure scenario simply by using the built-in mechanics of the game. I was the character that ruined the Big Demon-Summoning Ritual, and put a bullet in the Head Witch, and then later found said-witch (after she made a magic “quick escape”) with a ritual designed to follow the bullet I’d left in her. Pretty good considering my character seemed to have been designed to control wind and water and heal folks.

[as I’ve said before, I don’t really do “cleric.” In the end, as usual, I ended up leading the charge into battle and mucking everything up for the bad guy in my typical show-boat fashion. The GM later told us he’d run this scenario several times in the past and this was the first time anyone had ever actually stopped the demon from being summoned…most times the Wolverine guy would charge the summoning circle and get possessed and then turn on his buddies. I used my “wind evocation” to fly ahead of everyone and then used “water control” to wreck the summoning circle. The gun-play only came about because there’s a prohibition on wizards using magic to kill people, but in the end it worked out for the best when I had the idea to track the bullet]

I never did “channel my inner Admiral Ackbar,” though.

The aspects I did use included things describing the character’s personality, ethics, likes and dislikes. Things like “my friends are my family,” “mortal lives are in danger,” and “Erik’s not a bad guy…when people are trying to kill us.” The last referred to the character’s prickly relationship with the wizard warden – the stereotype “old guard vs. young buck” kind of dynamic. The other PCs used their aspects to do cool things as well: in one memorable instance, the cop used his cop authority to make all the mook cultists throw down their weapons, instead of doing the otherwise inevitable (and drawn-out) gun battle with a bunch of AK-47-armed, meth-head Satanists.

[just to contrast, back in my Vampire the Masquerade days, this is exactly the kind of thing that would take up hours of game play without being exceptionally interesting to the game]

SO…fun time had by all and quite a bit of (what I would consider) actual role-playing. Based on the mechanics of the game and the way the game-play unfolded. Now, am I anxious to get down to the shop and pick up a copy of Dresden Files? Or some other FATE-based game? No, not really.

Why not? Because, fun as it was to play I’m not terribly interested in running the game. I had a blast playing a character in the game (even someone else’s pre-gen character) but I would not want to act as a GM for the game…and if I purchased Dresden with the idea of introducing it to the players at my table, chances are I’d be running it. And the GM part of Dresden just doesn’t look all that fun to me. To me, it looks like the GM’s game (with Dresden) is very much dependent on what your players are bringing to it.  In D&D (and similar games), this isn’t the case: if the PCs don’t bring their “A” game, it just means they get killed…and killing players is plenty fun. I get the impression that character death isn’t really a feature of game play in FATE (judging by how difficult it is to even damage a non-mook NPC)…so unless your players are ready to dive in to the role-playing and start burning those chips, your game’s just going to be dull, dull, dull. I’m also not sure if or how the “character development” works in FATE; as a one-off session, the game worked great, but how do characters change over time in an extended campaign/saga?

ANYway…I was impressed with the gameplay and wouldn’t mind playing again (as a player, mind you). After dipping my toe into FATE on two occasions, I find myself a bit intrigued with its particular mechanics, wondering how it might be used in other settings/themes, perhaps in a streamlined form. Maybe I’ll check out a couple of these other FATE games (like Bulldogs! or John Wick’s Houses of the Blooded). I just wish the books had fewer pages.

Friday Morning Assessment

Yesterday wasn't nearly as productive as I'd hoped it would be...it is a constant surprise to me how distracting a beautiful baby can be, especially as I grow to love him more every day.

However, I got several more pages written (page count is now officially at 26 of 64), including much of the "gear" chapter (including all cybernetic enhancements and weapons) and a page of combat rules. Once I add the actual equipment and combat tables (currently residing in Excel format) the page count will probably spike another 2 or 3.

ALSO, finally figured out how I want full-auto fire to work in the game. Unlike the space opera game, resource management IS a small part of the new book, harkening back to it's D&D roots. However, I needed to make ammo counting as simple as possible.

In addition to writing, managed to FINALLY pick up a used copy of 1st edition Shadowrun down at Gary's...I now have 1st through 3rd edition. And you know what? The 1st edition book is more impressive than I remember. For a 1st edition game, it is surprisingly complete, well laid out, thoughtful, and (wow!) beautifully illustrated. It is also MUCH MORE "D&D cyberpunk" than the later books...really dark fantasy stuff. There's not a whole lot of attempt to shoehorn every metahuman critter as being a different strain of the HMHVV virus, for example. Ghouls are just ghouls, man!

It's still a bit more fiddly than I'd like, even as it tries to be generic. And it screws up its own math in the character archetypes. But all in all, this was an excellent game. I've written too much of my own not to finish it now (I think...plus, it's coming out pretty fast)...but as I said before, if you have the 1st edition rules and 1st edition Grimoire, Samurai Catalogue, and Sprawl Sites, you really have a fine game on your hands. Maybe the Seattle Source Book for flavor, though it's a little out-o-date (the Sonics are still playing here? Did the NBA award us a new franchise? What about the stupid, deep bore tunnel we're going to be payig off for 20 years?).

Oh, yeah...I also made it down to the Baranof where I played a round of 4th Edition Light in the form of the WotC board game Wrath of Ashadalorn (or something). For a board game it was pretty, "meh." In many ways it reminded me of the superior Siege of the Citadel, crossed with DungeonQuest; however, with everyone playing "against the board" it was a fairly one-sided (i.e. "too easy") game...I was trying to maneuver monsters to kill the other players just to spice the thing up, but with multiple "healing surges" (and healing abilities) there really wasn't a chance of "losing."

Mostly the game consisted of drawing cards in the correct order and following instructions. Hell, one could probably just write a D100 table for each card deck and roll percentile dice, in order, every round.

However, I will say the plastic figurines were fantastic...I wanted to pocket a cave bear and take it home for painting (I did not, though). And I REALLY wanted to see the otyugh or dragon come out of the monster deck (they did not). I was confused by the creature that looked like a Michael Moorcock "Hunting Dog of Dharzi;" what the heck was that supposed to be?

Luke assures me WoA bears only a passing similarity to 4E. Well, it bears a passing similarity to real D&D, too (otyughs and duergar)...however, it's pretty "meh." I'll stick with my own game, thank you...maybe try to get a set of the plastic figures off eBay or something.

; )

Happy 20th Anniversary to Gary's Games!

It's already Thursday, and I keep forgetting to mention that this week celebrates the 20th anniversary of Gary's Games in Seattle...definitely my main shopping location since 1997 or so.

To celebrate (this is the important part of the post, folks) Gary's is running events all week long, each day a different theme, and each theme carrying a fat 20% discount on store items. Today, the theme is role-playing and story and all RPGs are 20% off (time to pick-up so OSR retro stuff...or perhaps Spirit of the Century, finally!). Friday it's card games that are featured and Saturday is board games, each with their own 20% discount day.

For obvious reasons, I don't know what day one would want to buy Gamma World 4E...

I'm not sure 20 years is any kind of record (I think the longest running game store in Seattle is probably American Eagle), but it sure is a loooong time. Remembering back to the game shops I have frequented since 1990, I can think of more than half a dozen that have fallen by the way-side over the same stretch...not to mention comic shops and book stores that carried a lot more than "just games." Of course, Gary's has its own "angle" for staying in business (no, I don't think they are in the habit of blackjacking their competition...), which you could probably figure out if you visited their web site: pugetbridgesupply.com.

Hmm. ; )

Anyway, tonight my usual Thursday night game moves out of the bar and into the neon light of brick-n-mortar wholesomeness. I still plan on getting my drink on before the game (but not a lot, Tim, I promise!) and have something decidedly dastardly planned. No, no...not B2 with guns (that's next week...) but something...well, I'm not going to give it away right now! Jeez! I just hope we get a couple more players than usual (I'm hoping for six or seven, but I'll settle for the five that have already expressed interest).

Now if only I can make it through the rest of work without dozing off...time to coffee up!

: )

3 Days, 3 Games, 3 Different Styles (Part 4)

[continued from here]

The Doc decided to wander off into the jungle of this new and unknown island, despite Buddy telling her not to stray too far from the beach “while we’re working on repairing the plane!” (I made it clear that Buddy had absolutely no mechanical knowledge or engineering skill, and Jao was going to do the work while I checked on the “medicinal” cargo). Sulking because the Doc had disregarded his instructions (the GM tapped “doesn’t get pushed around by no dames”), Buddy decided to take a nap in the cargo hold…though first he recovered a service .45 from its hiding place, tucking it in his waistband. I did have to pay Ogre a FATE chip to keep from getting stinking drunk as he tried to activate my “heavy drinker” aspect.

Doc Walker, meanwhile, was hot on the trail of some purple-feathered whatchamacallit and had long ago lost sight of the beach. She blithely wandered into the typical rope-around-ankle snare trap and was left hanging in the air, until she was surrounded (a few minutes later) by a group of swarthy natives in masks with snake tattoos and spears.

“Mr. Jao? Mr. Jao!”

Using her academic skill, Doc discerned that they were members of an island Snake Cult consisting of outcast tribesmen from a number of different primitive island tribes. Preying on their superstitions, she decided to flash her lighter at them (being a 1920s socialite and “independent woman” of course she smoked!) and managed to completely over-awe them. They gently lowered her to the ground and then ran off into the jungle.

Walker walked briskly back to the beach. “How are the repairs going? Where’s Mr. Buddy? Look at this purple-headed whatsis I found…it’s a lot fatter than I thought it would be from my books!” This she jabbered at Jao as Buddy crawled out of the hold. She seemed stubbornly unaware of the gathering troop of Snake natives marching out of the jungle.

Ah, hilarity ensuing…Doctor Walker understood a number of languages, and after trying some out found one of the Snake outcasts spoke some Spanish, and was thus able to act as a translator between herself and the Big Chief. The Chief had decided he wanted to woo and wed this imperious temptress with her fire-making ability. Dr. Walker (thinking fast) told them that she couldn’t possibly wed anyone without the approval of her brother (indicating Jao despite the lack of family resemblance) and that the chief would have to best him in a test of skill (brawling) three days hence…only on the condition that the chief could provide her with a large enough hut to meet her opulent requirements. The chief agreed and she was henceforth known as Ula-Ani (“White Bride”) Walker.

Walker was hedging our bets, as it would take at least another day for Jao to fix the Monkey and hopefully we’d be able to get out of here before the contest day arrived. In the meantime, she also wasn’t afraid to use her newfound status to arrange for a tour of the island, especially the breeding grounds of the purpled-feathered bird species in which she was so interested. She would be accompanied by her “servant” (indicating Buddy), who surreptitiously hid the pistol in the back of his pants, beneath his shirt. Jao stayed with the plane.

Ogre then did a “cut scene” to narrate something “out-of-frame” and unrelated to what was going on in the player characters’ vicinity. Apparently, the chief’s brother was something of a rival and he had decided that the chief’s distraction with his new bride-to-be was the perfect distraction to stage a coup. He organized his own loyal warriors and sent them out with two missions: kill the “brother” at the plane, and kidnap the Ula-Ani Walker!

Back to the plane, then…two spear-wielding natives charge out of the jungle at Jao. Fortunately he has feet of fury and is unafraid to make like Tony Jaa and bust some heads. Combat is a little drawn out, though mainly due to a quick rules explanation (successes each round fills life boxes, eventually over-flowing and allowing the player to put a “temporary aspect” on the opponent…like “stunned” or “knocked cold.” Better successes or tapped aspects can be used to both speed this process and assign more permanent aspects, like “knocked into a coma” or “killed dead”). It’s a good warm-up to see how things go (especially as Jao is a fairly capable combatant), and then we move on to the dust-up in the jungle.

Buddy, Walker, and the Spanish speaking guide are on their way back to the jungle when 10 snake cult dudes pop out of the jungle and try to grab the Ula-Ani. The guide beats feet out of there and Buddy pulls his pistol and shoots a guy in the face…he’s not going to mess around with obvious hostiles, and he’s no great shakes in the athletics department. Ula-Ani tries to over-awe with her lighter again and scares one savage, but another grabs her. Jao is running pell-mell through the jungle but it’s going to take him a couple rounds to get there. Meanwhile, Ogre is rolling the outlaws as a single “mob” opponent (with a lot of life boxes!).

Now, I did NOT give Buddy a very high skill with pistol…only +2 which would be “low professional,” slightly better than amateur/hobbyist, but in need of practice. In order to actually beat the snake dudes’ defenses, I was tapping aspects right-and-left and making up new ones on the fly (though remember we were limited to 10), and tapping the natives’ aspects as well. For example, they had an aspect of “foolhardiness,” which was good for a shot in the face, and I added “twitchy trigger-finger” and “history of dealing roughly with natives” to my own character sheet. I could only tap an aspect once in a given round, but I was able to tap it every round if I wanted (provided I had the FATE chips remaining) and this helped me shoot down several foes.

The doc, meantime, was showing again that she was no wilting flower, grabbing a machete from one of her captors and making good use of that classical education (“fencing”). As Jao arrived and started kicking ass, and Buddy gunned down anyone that got too close, Ula-Ani Walker carved her way through the would-be kidnappers spattering herself with blood from head-to-toe! Hoo-boy! Jao and I exchanged a glance as the good doctor turned into some sort of meat-hacking butcher!

Running low on bullets, Buddy reversed his grip and belted one of the last few natives across the chin. My “fists” skill was no greater than my firearms so I tapped another aspect, “heavy drinker” (figured I’d been in some bar fights) to fell another one. Walker chopped down the last of them and tapped a couple aspects to enable adding a “severe” aspect to our foes. In this case, she tapped the snake cult’s “superstitious” aspect and deemed they had been “cowed into worshipfulness” at her battle prowess…basically that she was the warrior goddess whose coming had been foretold in prophecy! Thereafter, she was known as the Opti-Ula-Ani…the Bride of the Island…and the snake cult was pretty much putty in her hands.

The characters made their way back to the beach where they found that the plane had been stripped of several pieces…including a tail fin and the pilot’s chair…in order to build the Opti-Ula-Ani a suitably luxurious hut. Walker was actually pretty happy at how things were turning out, and had all but decided to take the chief up on his marriage proposal, but Jao and Buddy could see our hopes of getting off the island slipping away.

I added one more aspect (“can get down and party with anyone”) and spent a FATE chip to take control of the narrative. Over the years, Buddy had found he was able to adapt to pretty much any culture’s form of “low entertainment.” Despite the lack of common language, he was able to communicate that a victory party was in order to celebrate putting down the rival snake cultists and the upcoming nuptials…and he broke out the orphans’ “medical supplies” for the occasion!

Once the entire tribe was passed out stinking drunk, Buddy and Jao (who did not drink) were able to liberate the pieces of the airplane and get ‘em back to the Monkey. The next morning, a hung over (but apparently happy) Opti-Ula-Ani convinced her new husband to let us go, and even paid us a hefty bonus on our standard fee (including the cost of the orphans’ medicine), so long as Jao agreed to return some day and collect her memoires for publication (“Jao? Jao?! What about me?”). Jao of course agreed, and gave the bride-to-be a polite but firm handshake before getting into the Gold Monkey.

And then we flew off into the sunset!




*whew!* This has turned into a VERY long blog post and because of that I decided to break it up into two separate entries. Some random notes about the game:

- I, of course, had a blast and greatly enjoyed my cynical character. I left out some stuff (for example his Big Mouth almost getting him speared by the friendly natives while Buddy and the Doc were on their sightseeing excursion, and his chuckling every time Walker insisted he call her “doctor.” I did try to play him as a lovable loser who’d “just been raised wrong;” mainly selfishly self-interested rather than mean-spirited.

- The other players seemed to have a good time, too, and we all had good chuckling moments. There was plenty of give-and-take around the table, and more than a little laughter at everyone’s antics.

- I found Spirit of the Century great for this kind of character-driven pulp. The “aspect” mechanic really forced us to make our characters’ character front-and-center in the game. Especially when it came to tasks (like fighting) where we weren’t very good. Neither Walker nor Buddy were fantastic combatants, so we had to find ways to cleverly use our aspects in order to succeed at things.

- On the other hand, Jao was so capable at the things he attempted (flying plane +5, fists +4), that he really never needed to activate his Aspects…and his characterizations were thus a little less extreme than Walker’s and Buddy’s. It would have been interesting to see Jao get into some sort of social or mental conflict.

- The bribing with FATE chips was great fun, and it helped both Carol and myself that we were willing to put our characters in trouble (and often) based on various Achilles heels. We often suggested our own temptations to the GM, rather than wait for Ogre to issue them (though he did a fair share of issuing temptations himself). Making “flawed” characters helped in this regard…I don’t remember any temptations made to Jao by the GM.

- I liked the streamlined chargen process a lot (even though my Harry Dean Stanton aspect never got used). It was fun “discovering” aspects of a character IN-play, instead of creating the guy from scratch before-hand and then having to play to those expectations. You know what I mean? I had a basic character concept, and then added flavorful and useful aspects, as needed, all of which strengthened my character concept. That was better (for me) than just adding all those aspects ahead of time and MAYBE (or maybe NOT) finding ways to make them useful in the game.

- ALSO, because the character grew out of play, I have a much stronger idea of who Buddy Kowalski is, now, based on the experience of play. This is one of the things I really like about long-term Dungeons & Dragons campaigns (at least, when there is real “role-playing” involved), but it is more difficult as the D&D system does not support the creation of characterization. In SotC, the whole system is based on EXPLORING that characterization. And because of that exploration, I would have no problem playing Buddy again, hamming it up, getting in trouble, etc.

- Would the game be good for long-term play? I think I could get a lot of mileage out of “Buddy Kowalski” if we were to do a series of adventures, but I’d be a little afraid of Jao being relegated to “sidekick” status. Let’s face it…being good at fighting and flying is a lot more interesting in a movie or video game than in an RPG where combat is based on a handful of abstract dice rolls. But who knows? Maybe Eric had a kick-ass time taking those savages to town. Despite getting roughed up a bit, I was satisfied with Buddy’s ability to hold his own…and that was my only concern regarding combat anyway.

- And speaking of combat, I’m not sure I was entirely sold on the combat system, which Ogre raved about. Now, when we spoke afterwards he assured me that the full system was a lot of fun, with people using stunts and aspects to roll up big numbers on opponents and throw all sorts of cool aspects on them. However, I’m not convinced I can fully embrace this. I prefer standard rules for taking characters “out of action” rather than just “adding aspects” (temporary or not) to them. I’d also prefer to see all types of conflict do “damage” along the same damage track. We had a physical damage track, a mental damage track, and (for the natives that Walker was trying to over-awe) a social damage track. It would have been simpler and easier to have a single damage track where ALL damage (regardless of type) could be applied. Walker stopped trying the over-awe (and went for the machete!) so that we could “gang up” on the mob’s physical track. Personally, I think damage is damage is damage…but whatever, that’s not the way this game works.

- It was a blast, though, all around and I was well satisfied with my first play of a true pulp RPG. I wouldn’t mind playing again…though it’s hard to imagine I'm clever enough to come up with a character as fun to play as Buddy Kowalski.

; )

3 Days, 3 Games, 3 Different Styles (Part 3)

Spirit of the Century. Now THIS is a game I’ve wanted to buy for a while…pretty much since I read a review on RPG.net about how it’s the best pulp RPG on the market. Or something like that. It’s just that money in my pocket has yet to coincide with presence of book at game shop.

I’ve written before, often enough, that I have something of an obsessive-compulsive psychology re superhero games. The only reason I don’t own more pulp games, though, is because there are more superhero RPGs on the market.

I love turn o the (20th) century pulp. It may be my favorite genre of all time.

And I mean like EARLY pulp…pre-WWII stuff. Yes, yes, Indiana Jones is all well and good, but I am sooo tired of Nazis being the bad guy goon du jour. Give me other craziness, not the damn Krauts AGAIN. SHeesh!

But I’m digressing (sorry)…PULP is where it’s at, IMO. I pick up games like Adventure! and Hollow Earth Expedition (HEX) and Cadillacs & Dinosaurs (post-apoc, I know but…) and Indiana Jones (which I actually returned to the store, as I found it too dumb…as a game SYSTEM, not just because of the Nazis...).

Not that I’ve ever had the chance to play…or run…any of ‘em. : (

But whatever…when I hit the Story Lounge on Sunday, the GM gestured grandly to a list of indie RPGs on the wall and asked what I was interested in playing. With Spirit of the Century on the list, there really was no other choice for me.

Plus, it seemed something of a favorite for Ogre as well (“Ogre” was the name of the GM. He looked about what you’d expect, except younger…about my age. Apparently, he was a bouncer downtown for a number of years, but he assures me his nickname is older than that). Spirit of the Century uses the FATE game system (which I believe is available as a free download on-line) with quite a few adjustments. The authors of SotC are the same folks who put out the recent Dresden Files RPG, another game I have not played (I’ve never read the books, nor seen the TV show, either), but which Ogre lauded considerably, stating the designers had really refined the SotC rules, making them all the sweeter.

Well, I didn’t care about playing “the only sorcerer listed in the Chicago phone book.” I wanted PULP…Depression-era pulp. My only caveat:

“No Nazis, please.”

Easy enough.

Besides Ogre and myself, there were two other players sitting at the table. Eric, who was both younger and thinner than myself (making him by far the skinniest kid I’d seen in the RPG section of the convention) might have been in his late teens or early 20s and looked nothing like a shiny vampire. The other player…God help me, I completely failed to catch her name, and couldn’t tell you it even if you held a Luger to my head. Dammit.

Well, it’s not all MY fault…she came in the middle of character creation (or rather, at the end of it) and my head was already elsewhere. Since I can’t just keep referring to her as "the girl," I’ll refer to her by her character name: Walker. Sometimes “Dr. Walker,” sometime “Ula-Ani Walker.” We’ll get to all that.

First, let’s get back to my introduction to Spirit of the Century. Unlike my Traveller and PDQ games, there were no “pre-generated characters” for SotC. Hell, there wasn’t any pre-set adventure either. Like more than a few indie games, the point of play is to have a kick-ass adventure based on the characters you’ve designed specifically for the game…it’s not about exploring some clever scenario or dungeon that’s been dreamed up by the GM. This made the game feel much more free-form and open than either Traveller or PDQ…and yet the game was still very “tight” due to its focus on the player characters at hand.

Ogre explained how the standard chargen works in SotC and how it can take a whole game session in and of itself. For the Con, he used a shortened, streamlined version of the chargen, and it worked quite well for a one-off game. It goes a bit like this:

Every character is composed of three types of traits: Aspects, Skills, and Stunts. Aspects (of which your character has 10) are descriptors that define who your character is and what he does, like “two-fisted heiress” or “Hong Kong action hero” or “has pockets full of money” or “the best shot in all of Africa” or whatever. Aspects were important, as they could be activated, or “tapped,” (through the expenditure of FATE chips) to get re-rolls or bonuses to rolls or impact the narrative of the game. They could also be used as “ins” by which the GM could tempt your character into doing detrimental things. For example, if your character is a “ladies man” and his friends are in a fight outside the bar, the GM can tempt you with a FATE chip to stay in the bar, chatting up the girl next to you instead of running outside to help. When an aspect gets tapped by the GM in this way, you can refuse the temptation (and the FATE chip)…but only by paying a FATE chip of your own.

Skills are, well, skills and there is set list (and thank God it is a SHORT list). Characters get 15 skills total…one at +5, two at +4, three at +3, etc.. Any skill you don’t have is +0.

For the streamlined chargen, we didn’t worry about Stunts at all, and we only picked about half our skills up front (the others were added in play as necessary). As for Aspects, we all still had ten, but we only picked three to start, adding the rest in play as and when appropriate. The three Aspects we needed to choose:

Our High Concept
Something About Us That Gets Us In Trouble
As Played By The Actor [blank]

In hindsight, I can see that my lack of experience made me choose less than desirable choices for these categories. First off, I had a fairly strong concept of a character in my head...and I had a damned hard time articulating it. Take Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, and have him played by perpetual sad-sack Harry Dean Stanton, and you start to get the idea.

My character was an American ex-pat, probably fleeing at least one if not two ex-wives, working as a smuggler and profiteer...jingoistic about American (e.g. capitalism) values, even while a shiftless double-dealer himself. His "trouble" aspect was "big talker" that could might sometimes help, but often got him punched in his big nose. He had few real "skills" of note...he could lie and swindle (probably mainly women of low self-esteem and uneven prospects at anything better), and was happy to take advantage of drunks and...well, most anyone so long as he could find an "in." So long as he didn't have to work too hard for it.

Your basic jackass, I suppose...though at times a lovable one. In many ways, he was kind of the mirror-opposite of my Traveller character, who had been a "smooth operator."

Oh, yeah, his name: "Buddy" Kowalski. His enemies just called him Kowalski. He introduced himself and insisted that friends and prospective clients call him "Buddy." Most folks ended up calling him Kowalski.

Now as a CONCEPT, this is a fine and dandy character to play in a role-playing game. The hard part with SotC is that the Aspects are actually supposed to be used actively. How and when would I ever use the Aspect "as played by Harry Dean Stanton?" Answer: I didn't. Maybe if I'd ever had a scene with an estranged wife or disappointed child. But such a scene never came up in our session.

By contrast, Eric's Aspect "as played by the action hero Tony Jaa" was useful more than once...generally when kicking ass.

Both Eric and I started with our actor FIRST to determine “who we’d like to play in a pulp film” (I understand the game is more about pulp serial novels, but when you ask for the name of an actor, well…). Before Ms. Walker showed up, we thought it might be some sort of “buddy” story…him with the Asian martial arts guy, me with slightly shady, fast talker dude.

Walker’s player (dammit, I’m just going to refer to her as “Carol;” understand this wasn’t her real name)…CAROL came at character creation with a different approach. When she arrived, we had just decided we were island-hopping, smuggler-types in the South Pacific (a la the old TV show Tales of the Gold Monkey). Carol created her character primarily by WHAT she wanted to play and secondarily by HOW the character would fit into the scenario. Only after that did she try to figure our an actor (and had a semi-rough time of it).

Carol’s character, DR. Walker was some sort of 1920s equivalent of a marine biologist/oceanographer/something-or-other…basically, she was an educated socialite tourist studying and cataloguing island flora and fauna. Dr. Walker was played by Sigourney Weaver (reprising her doctor role from Avatar), and was pushy, no-nonsense, self-righteous, and independent. She had hired Eric and myself to furnish her tourism/scientific excursion.

Erik’s character, Jao, was the hot-shot Thai pilot (I made it clear that Buddy had absolutely no idea how to fly or fix the plane, even though it was his livelihood…a true ne’er-do-well!), who…for some unknown reason, never explored…had teamed up with Buddy. Jao always did the “honorable thing” (this was his “trouble” aspect) was great in a fight (Thai kick-boxing), cool under pressure, quiet and polite.

Buddy, well…is ne’er-do-well too strong a term? Carol and I decided that Buddy and Walker did NOT get along (he was a chauvinist of the true 1920s type without being suave or romantic, and couldn’t take a woman “doctor” seriously). He would often call her Ms. Walker to which she’d loudly correct him…whereas she’d call him Mr. Kowalski despite being told repeatedly to call him Buddy. His relationship with Jao was fairly good. Originally I told Eric I was going to call his character “Jerry” regardless of his actual name (‘cause that’s the kind of guy Buddy is...) but this didn’t pan out. It was just too funny to whine “Jo-oW!” at the poor guy on a regular basis.

In Spirit of the Century, everything gets defined by aspects to a certain degree, which can then be tapped by the players or the GM. This included our plane, which we decided to call “Gold Monkey.” Ogre asked each of us to contribute an aspect to it:

JB: “Second-Rate.”
Carol: “Over-Loaded.”
Erik: “One-of-a-Kind.”

The Gold Monkey was a flying boat. Ogre set the scene that we were tied up to a dock at a small island in the Philippines. Jao was minding the plane, while Buddy was trying to round up some additional cargo to take with us (this was my idea, and probably a leftover from that whole “twofer” deal in the Traveller game). Dr. Walker was at the Doc with Jao waiting impatiently to get underway.

Buddy found another American ex-pat…a retired Navy man and a drunk sitting in front of a warehouse with several cases of rum for sale. I haggled him down to 75% of what would’ve been fair, playing to his sympathy as a fellow American amongst savages, etc. and basically taking advantage of the guy. After money changed hands, Buddy wanted delivery down to the docks. The old sailor wanted Buddy to pay him if he had to haul his rum, too.

“Come on, pal, weren’t we just talking about how hard it is to find good help around these parts? I’m sure you’ve got a couple locals you trust as porters…me, I’d have to hire some guy off the street who’d probably steal from me! Can’t you extend me a little professional courtesy?”

Feisty Coot (incredulous): “YOU were in the Navy?”

“Well, the Merchant Marines…”

I made it clear Buddy had never done ANY kind of military service, ever. But he made his deceit role just fine, even without having to tap aspects, and the old Sea Dog hauled my rum to the doc, gratis.

Where Buddy would eventually arrive to face a fuming Dr. Walker.

“MISTER Kowalski –“

“Buddy, ma’am, just Buddy.”

“MISTER Buddy, how DARE you leave me waiting here when I’ve paid good money to retain your services to Truk…”

“I’m sorry ma’am, but it can’t be helped…things aren’t like the States and we’re on 'island time;' besides we have this shipment of medical supplies that just came in at the last minute…”

“Medical supplies?! What ARE you talking about?”

“Orphans, ma’am…we’re ferrying much needed medical supplies to an orphanage on Truk…JOW! Make sure those medical supplies are stowed safely…those bottles are fragile!”

And so it goes…we finally took off after making sure the “medical supplies” were secured along with Doc Walker’s scientific instruments. And off we flew…almost immediately encountering some sort of tropical storm. While Jao wrestled with the controls, Carol and I decided our characters would “help” by yelling panicked directions at him. Well...Dr. Walker told him how to fly, while Buddy yelled at the Doc to stop distracting Jao (distracting him myself with the argument). Eric had to make several rolls in an attempt to work up from “Crashing with Repairs Needed” to “Landing safely with Repairs Needed.” Fortunately, despite our distraction (for which we both received FATE chips, tapping “independent woman” and “big talker”), Jao managed to bring us in for a landing with only minor repairs necessary.

[to be continued here]

My First Gaming Convention - Day 3

Today was the third and final day of the Dragonflight XXXI convention. I had nothing scheduled to run today, and before Friday was not even sure I would bother attending. After all I wasn't sure I was going to even enjoy myself...which of course I did.

And Saturday night, I was even feeling a might angsty about the whole role-playing thing. I had called my buddy, Kris, that night to tell him some of the hinky feelings I was starting to get (on which I will elaborate in a future post)...not vibes given off by the con or the con-goers themselves, but negative feelings I was starting to have in reaction to some of the things I was seeing. Though it wasn't enough to deter me from going back after the fun I'd had. In fact, today I even showed up early (around 11:00).

All right, all right, I'll spare you the suspense: today was the best day yet.

Really. Perhaps not as many different subjects of blog posts came to mind, but that might be because I was too busy enjoying myself. After learning of the live auction that would be going on from nine to noon, I really wanted to get down there early, though I promised myself I would not buy anything. And I didn't, but oh man...they had this un-painted 1979 Ral Partha miniature set: an anatomically correct balrog with four nubile slave girls that I could've have for $10!...but I was light on cash today anyway and they weren't taking cards, so I was able to keep my vow. Oh...and the stack of 1st edition AD&D modules that were going as one lot got sold before I made it to the auction, which is the only serious temptation I saw.

Still, I love auctions (much to my wife's chagrin)...they bring out my competitive spirit something fierce...I want to win!...and it was fun to watch the collectors and the hoary old grognards and the dealers all compete with each other. Having a little knowledge of how Gary's buys and prices used games, I could see the vendors' minds working as they judged whether or not they could recover their money and net a profit...on eBay or on-line. Most of the stuff went for bargain basement prices. One lucky chap bought a bin of board games that got bid up to $70, I'm almost sure because of the 3rd edition Blood Bowl set that was included with it (I was tempted to bid myself). I snuck a peak in the box when he was perusing it and it turns out he got a score, as there were minis from not just the set but also several boxed teams (I saw undead and skaven) as well as multiple "big guy miniatures" (at least one ogre and a troll), all primed and un-painted. That's over $100 to a BB collector (like myself) right there...plus the other board games in the box.

Anyhoo, that was great fun but after realizing my resolve was strong enough to resist temptation (and thus I was just being gleefully masochistic hanging around) I decided to move down into the gaming depths.

Before I did, though, I found a whole ballroom of Warhammer and Warhammer 40K that I had completely missed prior. At the time, most appeared to be packing it up, but I spent several long minutes admiring the love and care the players had put into their armies for the convention. If I'd known about THAT, I may have been tempted to bring my own minis down...ah, well...

Today, I also brought the new digital camera and took a few (blurry) photos which I may post to the blog in the coming days. I loved the giant battlescapes and wargaming set-ups, the Circus Maximus chariot track someone had lovingly constructed, the huge ocean map that featured hundreds of miniature sailing ships in some sort of armada on armada action...

And then I got down to the nitty-gritty: gaming.

I went straight to the shadowy corner where the freakish role-players had been sequestered from the rest of the Con and went to the sign-in sheets to see what was being gamed and what was open for sign-ups. I was actually anticipating trying to get into a Savage Worlds games to see what all the freaking fuss was about. Yesterday it appeared that SW had sucked more than half the non-RPGA role-playing attendance into some huge-ass game, and while it hadn't looked very interesting to me, it might be worth learning about. I know next-to-nothing about Savage Worlds.

But there was no SW going on and nothing else really that interested my attention, save the "Story Lounge" running indie-games which had been on the agenda for every time slot of every day so far. This time I looked a little closer at the sign-up sheet and saw that Story Lounge was being presented by Emerald City Gamefest, those nice folks from Greenwood with whom I'd played PDQ on Saturday. I decided to give this a shot.

And promptly spent the next 20-30 minutes looking in vain for their table/room. Apparently, I thought, one must pass some sort of mandatory IQ test if you want to play indie games at the convention...those arrogant bastards!

Finally, I realized that the maps posted to the walls were not only NOT to scale, but were completely inaccurate. The Story Lounge was in one of the board rooms down a DIFFERENT shadowy hallway from the other RPG tables. Sequestered from the sequestered.

Well, at least I didn't have to go play in the parking garage like the LARP people.

Having finally found the board room that was the "Story Lounge" (a very nice, private room with a long wooden table and plush office chairs...a real lounge, completely unlike any of the other RPG tables), I was able to observe the end of some crazy-ass RPG about insane people fighting their own dementia and inner demons (or something). It was the type of weirdness one might expect.

After they finished, the two players went back to working the convention (they were Con volunteers) and I and two new people settled in to play Spirit of the Century...a game I HAVE heard a lot about, but have neither owned nor played. It's one of those games where availability of money and availability of product have yet to coincide for Yours Truly. Needless to say, I was stoked and the game was a blast...the best time yet.

I'll write up a full game report review later.

While the guy running the indie demos was not a member of the EC Gamefest, it does turn out that he lives in Greenwood as well AND lives about 2 blocks from me (!!) AND he's unemployed...which means he's available for gaming on Fridays. Sweet.

He gave me his email address...he seemed very normal.

Finally, one of the other players in the game, a nice young lady from a different indie-type gaming group told me that her group runs a game at the same Greenwood coffee shop as ECG every other Saturday...why the hell have I not met any of these people before?! However, the name of her group (she's from the Capitol Hill neighborhood) completely slips my memory at this time.

Still, that's plenty of contacts made for this weekend. And they all seemed like very nice, very happy people.

As for me...well, I went home after that. I do hope to see these folks again, if only to get my game on. It's funny that I seem to live smack-dab in the middle of some sort of Seattle Gaming Mecca...completely un-wittingly. These are not youngsters, nor are they aging grognards, but rather folks about my own age, give-or-take a decade. I suppose I've just had my head buried in the sand...or buried in the blog, perhaps.

Which reminds me...I did absolutely no self-promotion at the convention. Whether this was due to bashfulness or distraction...well, who knows. However, while I had my B/X Companion on display at the table when I was hoping to run a game (Friday and Saturday) I did no hawking of my goods while playing...hell, I didn't even mention I'd recently completed work on a game book. And, no, I did not mention I have been blogging for fifteen months and over 600 posts, either. What am I...some kind of narcissist?

; )

Mmmm...anyway, it's getting close to midnight and I'm well enough to go back to work tomorrow which means I need to be hitting the hay. I'll write more later this week...well, probably tomorrow. So stay tuned.

Dungeons in Space Part 2

In which I gush about another out-of-print RPG.

I don’t know how many of you have owned, played, or are in any way familiar with the (Swedish?) RPG Mutant Chronicles. Yes, it was made into a rather poor film on the SciFi channel starring Hellboy and that guy from Hung (wow, do I watch a lot of TV or what?). For what it’s worth, the premise of the game is much better than the premise of the film…’course, as I said the game is still out-of-print.

[though per Wikipedia, the rights have been picked up by Paradox Entertainment, another Swedish company though one operating out of the USA]

The game setting is A LOT like the Warhammer 40,000 universe, save that it takes place entirely within our own solar system, there are no aliens (there ARE demons), and humanity has not yet been united by a single religion of humanity, instead being factionalized by a number of mega-corporations. The gear and the tone, however, are even closer to WH40K, though, and prior to GW’s own Rogue Trader RPG, etc. I would have pointed to Mutant Chronicles as the closest thing to a WH40K RPG on the market.

While the 1993 RPG may be (currently) out of print, the MC setting has been recycled and re-used many times over the years: in addition to the film, there were several novels, comic books, a collectible card game, at least two miniature/war games with the associated minis, a video game, and a board game.

I don’t know which was published first, but my first introduction to the Mutant Chronicles setting was the Siege of the Citadel board game. This was circa 1995 for me…I had graduated from college and suddenly had a bunch of spare money burning a hole in my pocket, which led me to a rabid frenzy of wargaming and miniature purchases. SotC is NOT a wargame, but it does have plastic miniatures, which I dutifully painted up to look like the characters on the box (for the most part, all the Mutant Chronicles products have excellent, excellent artwork).

Although Siege is a board game, it has some RPG qualities to it…each player is responsible for a team of “Doomtrooper” (a pair of warriors) each of which is somewhat customizable with equipment. The team improves over time, gaining experience points for killing monsters, and credits (money) for completing mission objectives. The experience system translates directly into increased effectiveness in-game with better chances to hit, and better ability to resist damage.

While there is no “game master,” per se, players of the board game take turns playing the antagonist “Dark Legion;” the demonic denizens of the Citadel to which the Doomtroopers are laying siege. Even though the DL’s Doomtroopers are not present during the mission, the DL player can earn XP and credits by damaging/killing the other players’ Doomtroopers or thwarting them in their mission objectives. Doomtrooper teams can be antagonistic to each other (they all work for rival mega-corporations) or somewhat cooperative in defeating the Dark Legion player…most games of SotC are a good mixture of both.

THIS is the “space dungeon” I was referencing in my original post.

It would be fairly easy to turn Siege of the Citadel into a B/X like dungeon crawl RPG. To me, it reads as if the designers said “if we wanted to run a Dungeons & Dragons game that included power armor and heavy weapons, what would it look like?”

It would look pretty much exactly like SotC.

Here’s the gist: it’s the far future. Earth has been used up, but the mega-corporations have colonized many of the planets in the solar system (the Moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus, and the asteroid belt). A group of Imperial Conquistadors accidentally break an ancient, alien seal on the mysterious “Tenth Planet” (Nero) unleashing a demonic horde to plague humanity.

In addition to insidious infiltration and corruption (of both human spirit and technology) the demons have huge war machines and churn out plenty of monsters, some bio-engineered from normal people, including human corpses (yes, there are undead legionnaires, in addition to cybermantic monstrosities) all housed in huge mobile citadels similar to the “crawling towers” found in Rifts Wormwood. These citadels dot the planes of Mars and the jungles of Venus, spewing forth creatures and engines of destruction to wipe out the human cities on these distant worlds, even as they push in towards Holy Luna.

The Doomtroopers are crack special forces types drawn from the elite soldiers of each mega-corp, charged with infiltrating the citadels and bringing them down from within by dint of combat skill and massive firepower. They are humanity’s proactive defense in the fight against demonic encroachment. Each Doomtrooper team consists of a pair of fighters, one expert in hand-to-hand while the other is a fire support specialist.

[within the Mutant Chronicles RPG and certain expansions to SotC, players can also be members of the Holy Inquisition of the Cathedral of Luna…think assassins, librarians, and inquisitors of the WH40K universe]

Does that not sound like dungeon delving in space? No you don’t get gold directly from the “dungeons” you’re raiding, and any “magic items” found are likely to be cursed and best left alone. However, your team WILL get rewarded by their employers (the Cathedral or the Cartel of maga-corps) as well as growing in power and ability. Also like D&D, improvement of effectiveness is somewhat linked to the acquisition of new and better gear, such gear being made available to the teams that perform better.

And who doesn’t want to hose a bunch of blade-toting zombies with a micro-gun?

The Mutant Chronicles RPG is a lot more than the Siege of the Citadel board game…it is a hugely detailed futuristic world/setting. Perhaps to its detriment…there is SO much information there, so many splat books, so many options, that it can be a bit over-whelming to decide how best to situate the campaign (no, it’s NOT as dis-jointed as Rifts). The fact that it has kind of clunky combat (for my tastes) coupled with a combat-heavy atmosphere, and yet a “story flavored” (a la World of Darkness) fiction-heavy quality to the writing kind of kills it for me. Oh…and the skill system of course. Especially considering each new splat book offers a handful of new skills to incorporate into the game (much as the BECMI gazetteers did for Mystara).

But I think it would be pretty easy to turn it into a basic 64-page RPG. And I do mean “Basic” a la the Tom Moldvay or Holmes edition rules. I wouldn’t take this one OUT of the dungeon…er, “citadel.” The adventuring classes (Doomtroopers, Inquisitors) lose the need for their turtle shell/carapace armor – not to mention panzerknackers, chainsaws, and heavy flamers – outside the subterranean setting. For a combat-heavy dungeon delve in space, the Mutant Chronicles really fits the bill.

Of course, my version won’t include a skill system.
; )

[by the way, any new readers who missed it before might find my Chronicles of Mutation micro-game to be of interest. This is NOT the Doomtrooper/Siege of the Citadel setting, but rather “urban adventuring” in the MC setting. Characters are freelancers working for the Cathedral helping to root out heretics and demon worshippers. You can download the one-page micro-game here]