40K Friday: Star Trek Joins Warhammer 40,000

Shown here: Andorian Captain in Artificer Armor with Power Sword.

(I love Star Trek Online but sometimes they do push far beyond the boundaries of the source material)

Kingmaker Update

The adventures of Sir Ivan Zhukov and friends continue - we have completed Part 1 of 6 of the Kingmaker Adventure Path! I mentioned this back when we started in February and we've kept at it all year. We play once a month for 7-8 hours and we've completed ten sessions now. This is my longest campaign as a player in years and it's been a lot of fun.

One of the interesting things is that we're only about 3rd level and that doesn't seem to be a problem for anyone. We're all experienced RPG'ers with varying degrees of Pathfinder experience and we tend to have a pretty relaxed attitude about the game while still wanting to make progress clearing out "our" land.The open structure of the campaign definitely has a sandbox feel to it, with a dash of "mission" to give some direction to those who need it.

It's also fun to watch personalities take shape over an extended time from the player side of the table. It just reinforces my belief that actual play is a much better forge of personalities and backstory then the pre-written novella for most games. Different strokes, I know, but it is definitely my own preference as all too often what a player says about their character beforehand is quite different from how they play their character when the hammer comes down. Although that cam be fun to point out too.

Personal Note: Cavaliers are awesome in this campaign. Given room to run (i.e. Charge!) they are a blast to play both mechanically and attitudinally. It's not overconfidence if you can back it up, right?

I don't want to get into too many specifics as I don't want to spoil things for anyone who hasn't played it yet, but yes, it does live up to the hype, at leas through the first part. As always, your group and your DM will make a big difference. If you can find a DM that wants to run this one for you I highly recommend it!

A Review of "Save Game" for FATE

So, this is the first campaign/adventure for FATE that I've sat down and read with some idea that I might run it in the near future. It's a cool concept that I thought fell a little bit short when it came to execution.

The concept is what drew me in. I mentioned it in an earlier post but here it is again:

A vicious computer virus threatens to corrupt the entire internet, and the only ones standing in its way are the characters from your video games.

8-bit heroes battle monsters and corrupted files—it's Wreck-It Ralph meets Lord of the Rings in a fight for the fate of the world! 

That sounds like a lot of fun, and reading through the first part of the game had me even more interested as the basics of the world and the threat are explained. The additional information in the book is that many of the famous video game heroes already fought The Glitch (that's the virus threat) and lost. They were corrupted and now stand as the first obstacles the player characters will have to overcome, That seems incredibly appropriate for a video-game type of campaign.

Another twist is that while most characters have a set of defined powers some have Hax, which is the ability to go beyond their own abilities and alter the world around them - it's magic, or seeing the Matrix, or whatever you want to call it. There also some feeling that it's related to the Glitch so those who practice Hax are not always welcomed in normal society - well, normal video game society. It is useful in battling the glitch but can lead to problems, a very angsty modern element (potentially) in an otherwise 8-bit videogame type of ... game.

There are some mechanical tweaks from normal FATE.Coins take the place of fate points, stress is tracked in "hearts", and characters lose lives when bad things happen. Skills have certain unlockables that can be acquired during the game. There is a shop which appears identically in each section of the island that sells power ups and recovery items. It really contributes to the atmosphere when the mechanics reflect the world this closely. Just as an example, here's the character sheet:

Once characters are made and the starting situation is explained, the campaign can get going. There are five different areas of the local island that need to be cleared of the Glitch to make your home safe again. Each is ruled by a corrupted former hero and their minions, which may have been enemies or may have been allies in the past, but all are tainted now. The basic structure is pretty entertaining to read and I think a GM with some knowledge of the games referenced could enhance them on the fly and drop easter eggs the players might appreciate. Similarly, the players are going to enjoy this a lot more if they are familiar with all of the games.

The rest of the book is the actual campaign, and this is where I felt a little bit of a letdown. Each area is covered in 5-6 pages, about half of which is character stats and pictures. The area descriptions are very short and there is nothing close to resembling a map which seems to me to make it trickier to describe the environments the characters are operating within. Also, while I might expect statblocks to take up a chunk of a Pathfinder adventure, I was surprised to see them featured this way in a FATE adventure. Sure, characters are important, but I was hoping for a little more material to connect them to each other and their lands. As I mentioned before a GM that knows all of the referenced game can turn this into something special but going only by what is in here I thought it was thin - thinner than I would like.

Also, for an epic quest story (as described above) there is a distinct lack of a climax. I've read through it several times and I can't find anything that describes what happens after the last of the five areas is freed. There is a discussion of how to continue the campaign into new virtual islands and there are some good ideas there but I was looking for a wrap-up scene (a cutscene?) that brings this part of the story to a close. NPC reactions, a change in the color of the land or sky, the return of some of the corrupted characters to their old selves - none of that is really covered.

Anyway, considering it's a pay-what-you-want PDF, it's definitely worth a look if you're at all interested in FATE and videogames and the possibility of combining the two. I think it's also an excellent example of how the game can be customized to fit a particular genre/theme/concept. There are a lot of good parts and ideas here even if you don't take the fight to the glitch. Even with lack of a finale, I really like it and I'm sure I will be doing something with it, even if it's a little different from the campaign as written.

Morgansfort - The Western Lands Campaign for the Basic Fantasy RPG

To get to the point this is a much better adventure and starting point than JN1. It has a wilderness map, a base town, multiple low-level dungeons to explore, and even some named NPC's - with some personality traits mentioned in their description. It's an old school adventure so it has all the trappings of old school dungeons - puzzles, traps, wandering monster tables, rumor tables, and lots of the quirky things found in the old classics.

Why is this so much better than the Chaotic Caves? Because although it feels very much like the early edition adventures, it's not a direct rip of any of them in particular. There are goblins, undead, and giant insects, sure - but the maps and encounter descriptions don't read like they were cribbed from something else.

What makes it good? The whole thing instead reads like it came from someone's campaign and it feels very useable, a distinctive quality of a lot of the old adventures. They weren't weighted down with background overkill. They had just enough to whet your interest - a sentence, rather than a paragraph, or a page. They tended to be less about plot and more about exploring and overcoming the challenges within. They were meant to be dropped in to your game and run and this book clearly follows the same path.

I would run this with any of the old school systems if I wanted a solid area for kicking off a campaign without writing one up myself. It looks to me like it could be adapted to 5E pretty easily too if that's your inclination.

If you want an inexpensive older D&D-type fantasy RPG then this plus the BFRPG rulebook is a solid way to go.

Motivational Monday

The Chaotic Caves for the Basic Fantasy RPG

When I picked up Basic Fantasy, I also picked up "The Chaotic Caves", a beginning adventure for the same system. I had a longer version of this review written, but I scrapped it as I think I can make my point with fewer words. Let's compare this adventure to "The Keep in the Borderlands", home of the Caves of Chaos:

• One-page-square-gridded wilderness map in both? Check.
• Kobold lair in both? Check.
• Goblin lair in both? Check.
• Hobgoblin lair in both? Check.
• Bugbear lair in both? Check.
• Gnoll lair in both? Check.
• Undead lair in both? Check.
• Two Orc lairs in both? Check.

Now there are a couple of variations - the bandits and lizard men are moved into the cave area in "JN1" instead of being wilderness encounters as they are in "B2", and the ogre lives in a separate mini-dungeon instead of in the caves, but let's be clear here: this adventure is a straight rip-off of B2.

It's not an "homage" with a few nods to the old module. It's not a conversion of it to a new system. It takes almost every element of the most-published, most-owned, most-read, and most-played adventure in RPG history, rearranges some of them slightly, and then is published as a new adventure for a new system. It's a terrible way to do things and to me it looks really bad.

Here's why: If someone wants to play B2 they can just get a copy of B2! How about putting together something new for your new interpretation of Basic D&D? There is nothing even slightly new, innovative, or interesting here. Just as one example of the kind of thing I mean here take a look at The Haunted Keep here at Dragonsfoot. It takes the starter adventure from the Moldvay Basic book and expands it into a full 3-level dungeon. There is a nice combination of respect for the original material, connecting to something familiar, and new material.

When 3E came out one thing that was really popular for a time was the conversion document. These took an known adventure, typically a well-liked AD&D adventure like the Saltmarsh series, and put all of the stats for the creatures, magic items, and some relevant skill checks into a document with a numbered key that could be used alongside the original module. Something like that would have been welcome here too.

The closest analogy here that  I can think of is this: Have you read The Lord of the Rings at some point? After that have you read the Iron Tower trilogy by Denis L McKiernan? Did you walk away from it thinking you'd just read a lesser version of LOTR? That's the same feeling I had here. I think there is plenty of room to do something connected to KotB and the Caves of Chaos, but it's not this.

The copyright date on this one is 2009-2011 so this didn't come from some dark age - eBay and PDF's have been around for a while, as have used bookstroes and Noble Knight Games and other places.

My final point: As a level 1-3 adventure, a lot of people coming back to D&D type games in general and new to your game in particular might pick this up as their first expedition. Is this what you want them to play? Is this the best you can do? Shouldn't this be something that makes a strong positive impression rather than an edited version of an older starter adventure. I can see how people might like Basic Fantasy as a game, I don't see how the people creating it can be happy with something like this as one of their main starting adventures.

The Basic Fantasy RPG

I haven't really looked over a new OSR game in a while and then I came across this one while wandering around Amazon.  My "recommendations" have a whole lot of dungeon-y dragon-y type stuff so I didn't have to wander far. The price is certainly right (it's under $4 as I write this) and with Prime the shipping is free so what the heck. I've read it now and have mixed feelings about it so I thought I would share.

First up it's a pretty complete version of Basic/Expert-style D&D. It's not level capped, it has a fair selection of monsters and magic items and rules for cross country travel, followers, strongholds, etc. There are some odd choices regarding mechanics: race and class are separate but race has very little mechanical impact on a character - it mainly serves to limit class choice. The number of spells per level is ... small, but after looking back at my Cyclopedia's lists it's comparable so it's really only lacking compared to AD&D's lengthy lists. If someone is looking for an inexpensive one-volume B/X style game then Basic Fantasy certainly works.

The thing that bothers me though is that this is not really a new game - like a lot of OSR games. The vast majority of it is B/X D&D with a different editing job and some changes in mechanics for no clear reason. AC is ascending instead of descending, but it uses the old type of saving throws. Race and class are separate but  but there are some new restrictions on ability scores and hit points that shift them back to being very close to the old "race as class" approach. Thieves have the same old percentile skills fixed by level but the percentages are off by a few points from the table in the Cyclopedia, and not consistently! Some are higher, some are lower, some by 10% and some by 1%! Why? It boils down to what looks like someone's house rules or personal preferences, not some kind of effort to publish a truly new game with reverence for an old style, and at that point I have to ask why? Why take someone else's house rules for old D&D instead of making and using your own?

My questions aside, it does seem to have resonated with at least a few people. There is a fair amount of support on the website, much of it provided by players and DM's. All of the rules are free there so the only reason to pay for the book is to get a printed copy. The whole system is run as open-source and mainly non-profit, which is commendable enough. The people driving it don't seem to be terribly hung up on touting their own greatness which is refreshing as well.

In the end, I want to like the game but I keep coming back to this: I'm not sure what the point of this one really is. If I like the original, why wouldn't I play the original? This one is basically someone else's house rules, it's not strictly compatible with old adventures due to the mechanical changes, and it leaves out a lot of the later expansions and mechanical refinements. Sure it's simpler than 3E or Pathfinder or 4E but it's not simpler than other old school rules including the originals! It's not terribly challenging to go get a copy of the old D&D Basic or Expert rules if that's what you like. I see 3-4 sets on Ebay right now for $10 or less. The PDF is available on DNDClassics.com for $5! Heck, if you want the uber-original the Cyclopedia PDF is only $9.99! I know the PDF's weren't always available, but eBay's been around for a long time now.

How is this better than B/X D&D? To me, it's not. Heck, If I want tweaked old school D&D then Labyrinth Lord is closer to Moldvay Basic than this if I want "authentic", and its Advanced Edition Companion is a much more comprehensive effort to add in some of the player character options from AD&D. For this particular niche, I don't see myself using it a whole lot.

When would I play this? Maybe if someone was running Basic Fantasy specifically and I was really looking for an old school game, I'd give it a try. I don't really dislike it, I just like those other options better.

Bonus Note: Basic Fantasy is home to the greatest character sheet ever designed:

So ... it's not my cup of tea, but it clearly works for some people and if this particular flavor of D&D got you back into a game then that's cool. I'm going to look at some of the other material out there for it too and I'll post those thoughts here as well.

Book Review: Star Trek Online: The Needs of the Many

This is a different kind of book: It's a Star Trek novel (there are plenty of those) but it's tied to the MMORPG. That's an unusual case. It's also unusual in other ways.

For one, the book is set in 2409. Original Trek took place in the 2200's, and Next Gen Trek was set in the 2300's, so this book (as is the game) is set in the future of the original timeline and recaps much of the "future history" after the last Trek movie set in that timeline - Nemesis. It includes nods to other Star Trek novels as well, from the Vanguard series (TOS era) to the Titan series (TNG era) which is a nice touch.

The other unusual aspect is that it's not a novel, or at least it's not a single coherent narrative like most other Trek novels, nor is it a collection of short stories. It's written as a series of historical interviews looking back at the past 30 years or so and covering specific incidents in Trek history over that time. From Data's return to the breakdown of Federation-Klingon relations to conflict with Species 8472 and many others, there is a lot of interesting material here.

The format though is a problem. It reads more like a series of blog posts than a narrative or set of short stories. It doesn't even read like a history book - I have plenty of real-world history books and none of them choose this particular device and for good reason. Each one is an interview with character X on development or event Y. Some of the characters are well known, like Worf or Geordi LaForge, while others are not. The presentation comes across more like the notes that a historian would use to write a historical account of something rather than what they would actually publish.

As far as sitting down and reading it front to back, well, it was tough and this is mainly due to this choice of structure. The writer doesn't spend much time with any one character or one event, so this is much more of a survey/overview and there's not much depth there. While there are several parts I thought were fine, there were several segments I thought would make an interesting novel by themselves, or at least a good short story.

The silver lining here is that if you were looking to run a Trek RPG set in this time period, this format gives quite a few interesting ideas with just enough context and ties to the existing Trek universe to let a GM run with them and turn them into something interesting. Having all of the trappings of the TNG era Trek with further progression of the timeline to take those big characters off of the main stage  and one interpretation of the future history of Trek to use as a backdrop - that has a lot of potential for a good campaign.

So, to wrap up:

• As a novel, especially compared to other Trek novels, this is terrible
• As a tie-in to the computer game, it's interesting and does let you know how things got  to where they are in the setting if you're new to it
• As a source book on the Trek Prime universe circa 2400 it's actually pretty good

A Superhero Kickstarter - Valiance Online

Valiance Online is a City of Heroes successor project, an effort born in the wake of the shutdown of the City of Heroes MMORPG.

The Kickstarter page is here. I think it covers things pretty well. If you're interested in superheroes in general, and computer/online  games where you can play one in particular, this is worth considering.

This is the second of the three known successor projects to go to Kickstarter after last year's City of Titans successful run.  Now normally I'm not big on pimping things online but I'm happy to spread the word on this one as I had a blast playing CoH and the team here seems really interested in creating a similar experience. Plus they appear to have made enough progress to get some gameplay video in their pitch.

Full Disclosure: I've backed it. I don't know or have any relation to the people working on the team but I am interested in this kind of thing so I am putting some money into it.

Motivational Monday