Tales from the Loop post game thoughts

This past Friday I was blessed with the opportunity of running some friends through Tales from the Loop: Roleplaying in the 80's that never was. The game turned out great in my mind and I had a blast running this for The RPG Brewery. The players were fantastic and they all got on board the train. I devised this mystery myself and just thought I'd share my notes with everyone. At first I made a different mystery that was more Lost Boys themed but I quickly scrapped that as I wanted more of a Halloween themed adventure. Luckily the game got posponed and I had time to come up with another idea. I'm so glad that happened eventhough it sucked because I was really hyped to run the game two weeks ago.

If you haven't seen the video yet, I suggest you go watch it here on Youtube. The basic premise of the game was the 1982 classic Poltergeist movie written by Steven Speilberg. Overall I'd say the game went fairly well. I planned for 3 clue scenes but the third one wasn't needed. I did think the game could have gone a little more smoothly but that might just be my own perception. The players said they enjoyed it so it was a success in my books. There was one image near the end of the game that couldn't be seen in the video because we did it all theatre of the mind so VTT's were not used and Skype can't do screen sharing. The players had just crossed through the portal and as they turned around to look at their envrionment they see a tribe of native american warriors on horseback charging straight at them.

If I were to run it again I'd shorten the name of the ride to Troll Tunnel or Troll Twister. A mistake I made during the game came near the end in the showdown. Kelly decided to use her Lead skill for the showdown in order to add dice to the other players dice pools. What I did wrong was let her keep her successes for the total showdown accumulation. The showdown specifically requires the Lead skill to either add to the total success or give additional dice to the other players, not both. At least I know now for future reference. As you can see below, my notes are rather short and just give the truth of the mystery. Everything else was more or less adhoc. I had some ideas but I wanted to see where the players took the game.

Next time on Thoughts Of A Barbarian I think I might do a bit of a science fiction RPG review. I have Stars Without Number by Kevin Crawford in mind but there is another I might do first. I'd also like to mention that the weekend of November 30th Hobbs & Friends of the OSR are hosting an online gaming convention called Hobbsapalooza. Check out this video for more information.

Don't forget to come out and join the Nerds-Interantional at Con on the Cob in Richfield Ohio this November. Our tables will be located in the Atrium near the swimming pool. I'll be running some Lamentations of the Flame Princess and the new Judge Dredd game. I had an amazing time last year and this year should be even better.

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RPGaDay 2017 Day 22

Which RPGs are the easiest for you to run?

In order to answer this question, I think we have to look at the person running the game. When I run a game I'm more of a rules light type of GM. Most of the time when a question pops up about a rule I'm unsure about at the table I'll do one of two things. First would be to make a snap decision. Just make up something on the spot and go back and check it later after the game. The second would be to have the player who asked the question look it up in the book while I move on and keep running the game. This way we don't get bogged down with rules and everyone has fun. With this GM mentality in mind then I can say most RPG's are fairly easy for me to run. As long as the system isn't too crunchy then it should play well enough for me to make snap decisions. Some systems lend themselves more so than others to ease of use. Savage Worlds is one of those systems. I keep coming back to Savage Worlds in my posts not because I'm a fan boy of the system but because it is an easy system to learn, play, and run.

All you have to do is look at how the items and actions are structured within the game and you'll see that most of the time all you really have to do to make something easier or more difficult for the player characters is give them a simple modifier. As an example, I want to make a combat encounter more difficult, so instead of just describing the scene as normal throw in some environmental factors. Lots of games account for these things but in Savage Worlds is as easy as just saying -2 to the roll. Dark outside, -2 to see the bad guy. The room is filling with smoke from the fire your NPC started, -2 to see and make a Vigor roll to not choke on the smoke or take Fatigue.

Let's say you want to make a rare item that your players can find. It's as easy as looking at the equipment tables in the core book and adding a +1 or +2. Yeah, but it's still a Glock 19 with just a modifier added. Well you can describe it as a Glock 19 with target sights and an extended barrel, or you could say it's a high tech phase shifting disruptor which is better than a normal non phase shifting disruptor. I would be very careful about adding additional dice to the weapons though. Usually +1 is good enough and +2 is awesome! Remember that shooting in Savage Worlds usually only requires a 4 to hit.

You can do the same thing with special powers and magic. Just change the descriptor of the spell to make it unique to the setting you're playing and if you want a more powerful spell as the characters gain rank then make an Improved spell. Set the rank requirement to Veteran and add a +2 to the effects. When you look at the way the game works, it'll make sense to you why so many people keep coming back to Savage Worlds once they have played a few games.

Before I forget, make sure to check out The RPG Brewery's Twitch channel tomorrow night. Jamie is starting a test run of Cthulhu type games with two of his friends. They will be starting session 0 of either Trail of Cthulhu or Call of Cthulhu where they will go through character creation. Also, go join the Nerds-International Google+ community. It's a great collection of podcasts, live plays, blogs, and other nerdy stuff. Click the link below.

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Savage Robotech

Thoughts on Savaging Robotech

When I was about 9 years old, my older brother Rob, introduced me to the Role Playing Game. My first experience was with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. After my friend and I concluded our short campaign I wanted something different. As I looked around my local comic book store I saw a book with two robots on the cover in a snowy landscape.

The SENTINELS in large print on the cover drew my attention. Upon closer examination, I discovered it was a Robotech book by Kevin Siembieda. I immediately recognized the name as I routinely watched the cartoon and thus this was the very first RPG book I ever bought. Thirty years later I eventually got back into RPGing. Like most people, my first thought was D&D. I found a local game group and got back into it. Then I started to get bored with D&D and d20 in general. So, I started scouring YouTube for live plays of different RPG’s and came across one called The Enigma Equation: The Last Parsec.

Ever since entering this rabbit hole known as Savage Worlds, I’ve been trying to figure out how to translate Robotech into Savage Worlds. When I heard that Pinnacle convinced Palladium to allow them the opportunity to create a Savage Worlds Rifts setting I was hopeful that it would allow me to make Savage Robotech a reality. My first thought was to look at the Rifts: Savaging Your Favorite Rifts Ideas. Specifically converting O.C.C.’s to the Savage World’s platform. It was recommended in that 17-page pdf to use the Custom Race’s section of the Rifts: The Tomorrow Legion Player’s Guide. It also states that “For O.C.C.s based on the use of Power Armor or even Robot Armor, you’re much better off going the M.A.R.S. route.”. At first, I looked at the custom races option and a friend of mine told me that the custom races in The Tomorrow Legion Player’s Guide is very similar to the Science Fiction Companion’s custom races. So, I decided to compare the two.

Custom Races Comparison

Science Fiction Companion (SFC) and Savage Rifts: The Tomorrow Legion Player’s Guide

Everything in the SFC is included in the Rifts players guide except the section on how to incorporate Super Abilities which references the Super Powers Companion.

The Rifts player guide added Bad Reputation, Cyber Resistant, Distinctive D-Bee, Non-Standard Physiology, and Restricted Path negative racial modifiers.

Well, Eric Lamoureux was right. They are very similar.

M.A.R.S.

Mercenaries, Adventurers, Rogues, and Scholars. This is the framework that I think is best suited for Robotech and is located on page 27 of the Rifts: Tomorrow Legion Player’s Guide (I need to find an acronym for this). It does include a Robot Armor Pilot package but that would only cover the Destroid Pilot O.C.C.. I would still need to make a Veritech Pilot O.C.C. which I think would be doable with the Personal Concept Option package on page 28. Ok, so now I’ve decided to use the M.A.R.S. approach, I have to figure out which edition of Robotech to use.

Palladium’s Robotech RPG

Yep, you guessed it. There are two versions of Robotech RPG from Palladium. The first version which ran from 1986 to 1998 consists of 8 source books, 4 adventure books, and 2 Robotech II source books. The second version of Robotech titled, The Shadow Chronicles, runs from 2008 to present and consists of 6 books total. This newer version appears to have renamed and condensed some of the O.C.C.’s from the original version. The Shadow Chronicles starts you out somewhere around 2038-2039 with the Invid occupation of planet Earth. The human race has been betrayed by an unexpected traitor and there is now a new threat to contend with. I think I’ll start with this newer version but also use the older version as a resource. I like the starting timeline of The Shadow Chronicles because I think the Invid are a better enemy for player characters. The Zentradi and the Robotech Masters are just giant humans after all. The Invid aliens provide a much richer aspect to the game. Just in case you didn’t know, Palladium Books has started to release their older RPG books on OneBookShelf, the parent company of DriveThruRPG and RPGNow. Welcome to the third millennium Mr. Siembieda. Unfortunately, The Shadow Chronicles is not yet available as pdf.

Final Thoughts

As much as I love the Robotech universe, I don’t know if I’ll actually get around to seeing this come to fruition. It’s been over a year since getting into Savage Worlds and Fantasy Grounds and I still haven’t completed this pet project of mine. Who knows, maybe, just maybe, Pinnacle Entertainment Group will persuade Palladium to make Robotech. If anyone has any ideas or thoughts on savaging Robotech I’d love to hear them. 

I'd like to take this time to thank Jamie Pierson for inviting me to join the Nerds-International community. Jamie is the remarkable host of a show/podcast called The RPG Brewery on Twitch and in his next episode he will be interviewing the acclaimed author Margaret Weis. Go check out his YouTube channel.