Overstimulation

So many things are happening!!1! OMG!!1!

Gamma Worlded

So Lance, Shawn, Jeremy, and I played some Gamma World the other day. It went quite well I think. We got about as far as Lance, Shawn, and I did when we went to PAX, and it took us about two hours or so. I got a little tipsy on some mead and became easily distracted by shiny things and loud noises, but we had a lot of fun, and that is the important thing. Also, nobody died, which is awesome.

I think Gamma World has a lot of potential to be just a hoot. We goofed off a lot and had a lot of fun I think. The game is pretty rules light, so it is fairly easy to manage your powers and keep track of what is going on. Shawn was able to game with us in person, so that was pretty cool.

My little six dollar webcam gave Lance a pretty good view of the battlefield, unfortunately, Skype does not support free video conference calls, so yeah. I'm not sure how we'll work around the issue of mapping in the future. I am not entirely sure how to resolve that issue. For real, I don't know what to do. I suppose I can scan them and pass them along to Lance and Shawn, I guess we'll try something.

Taking pictures of the Alpha Mutations and Omega Technology cards and text messaging them to Lance worked quite well. My phone takes surprisingly good pictures with a good resolution. However, it is slightly time consuming to draw a mutation and a technology, aim, get a good picture with no glare, then send it. I dunno, even with that, it only took us two or so hours to get through two encounters and some skill use and tomfoolery, so it isn't a horrific delay. 

Gamma World should is fun, and we definitely have enough material to give me time to get some Ravenloft stuff ready. We started out the game with Shawn mowing down a mutant pig man with a pickup truck and then a mutant badger put a crossbow bolt through the windshield into Shawn's face. My Demon Regenerator, Logan Wagner, bamfed all over the place and regenerated all over the place. With a sword. And a gun. Fuck yeah. 

To Do List Mk II

So roughly five or six months ago, I posted a to do list of sorts here on the blog with a bunch of stuff I wanted and needed to do. It really served to kick me into gear to work on a few things I needed to get done. I actually managed to finish all of the stuff on the need list. So, in the interests of progress and efficiency, I'm going to do so again.

Things I Need To Do 
-Take a break from running Hekinoe and run something else. (4/29/2011)
-Get Jeremy excited about DnD/Hekinoe.
-Teach Eric that Hekinoe isn't about being ultra powerful and having no weaknesses.
-Build up a buffer of at least three Hekinoe scenarios.
-Add to the pile of scenario chunks I have amassed so I have more bases covered when the guys decide to go "off the rails" heh.
-Make the wiki more robust.
-Complete something vaguely resembling a campaign book.

Things I (Still) Want To Do
-Play Dark Sun as a Thri-Kreen Ranger.
-Play Gamma World with Cockroach as my primary origin.
-Get Heather to play DnD at some point.
-Create a non-Hekinoe campaign world, to play a Fourthcore DnD campaign in. Not even necessarily a totally Fourthcore barely-a-narrative-there campaign, but just something challenging and deadly and dark, but also fun to run around in killing monsters and looting their shit.
-Run Labyrinth Lord  (or Basic Fantasy, or OSRIC, or Swords & Wizardry, etc) adventure, just to perhaps see if there is anything in the updated versions of the older editions that we like.
-Run a Ravenloft campaign, for the fuck of it.

Yay goals!

Figuring Something Out...

For a while now, I have needed a break. I should have actually taken one when our last campaign ended, but I couldn't stop and make myself do so. I was too excited about the next campaign and how much fun I was having working on it. So I'm trying to figure out how exactly to take that break now that the new campaign is in full swing.

I've gone through a couple iterations of the idea. The first was the background light campaign idea that I was working on for a group of low experience players. The second was an alteration of that idea where it was going to be me, Eric, and Jeremy and our wives. The third was trying to play in Ieanegatniv with Lance and Shawn. The fourth idea was to create a bat shit crazy high fantasy campaign setting based on Josh's 4th Edition test character, God-King Lothorium Axelord. It was pretty ridiculous, hehe. The fifth version is that I've decided to play Gamma World with Shawn, Lance, and Jeremy.

We have the core set of Gamma World, and the two expansions. That is three total adventures, taking players from level one to nine or ten or something along those lines. I like Gamma World, and having the pre-made adventures cuts the work down quite a bit. I am all set to move forward with this idea, like right now, as are my players. However, there is an issue, Lance and Shawn will be playing via Skype.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, Gamma World comes as a big forty dollar box set. You can't buy the rulebook alone so you and your players all have a copy of the rules. Fine, I can handle that. The internets are a wondrous place and I have already found a series of printouts for forty-one of the forty-nine origins. The skills can be explained, and we don't have to worry too much about equipment. Problem(s) solved(ish).

Unfortunately, we have the deck of Alpha Mutations and Omega Technology to deal with. I can't just recite the cards to Lance and Shawn every time they wonder what they're capable of, and waving them under the webcam probably isn't too helpful either. Lance and Should could buy and construct their own decks, but then we play right into the Evil Corporate Hands of Wizards and buy boosters. I am brandishing my fist in the air. The best solution I've come up with, is to either make some manner of Excel spreadsheet and share it with Shawn and Lance so they can peruse it when "drawing" cards, there are like eighty cards though, and I am looking to work as little as possible in this outing. Or, I can just send them an email or lengthy text with the contents of the card, and they can collect them all. Like Pokemon!

Ok, so all the Gamma World issues are more or less resolved, what now? 

I guess I should probably read the adventures and we should play. Heh.

Gamma World

I recently attended PAX East with a few of my friends. While attending a panel, my friend Shawn was lucky enough to win a free copy of Gamma World. Long story short, instead of playing some Dungeons & Dragons Encounters at some tables that were set up, we opted to break open the game and have Lance and I play around in the set.

It was fun.

The game is zany as Hell, and also a bit rules light. There are a lot of 4th Edition staples in the game. The power system, defenses rather than saving throws, hit points based on Constitution score (rather than the Constitution modifier), and so on. The skills are further stripped down from 4th Edition, obviously you don't need stuff like Arcana and Dungeoneering in a world that does not include magic and dungeons full of aberrations, although a lot of Gamma World enemies could definitely double as 4th Edition aberrations, there is a Dogdamn land squid for Pete's sake. 

There is also a land shark. It, like the bulette, makes me oh so happy inside. 

The setting is pretty broad, some time ago, something happened, possibly science related (I vaguely recall reading somewhere that a super collider was involved), and mashed all the alternate futures and timelines and eras of the universe into one ball of madness on earth. It was then dubbed Gamma Terra or Gamma Earth, and chaos very quickly followed. 

Your origins are your key feature, they determine whether you are just a mutant human, a hawk man, a swarm of rats, or a giant cyborg cockroach. I was a Doppelganger Felinoid called Lyano, I could use cat claws and summon alternate selves of myself. Lance was an Android Pyschic, he could grab stuff really hard and use mind bullets and whatnot. Anyway, your origins (you roll for two, a primary and secondary), determine two of your scores, which type of mutation you have affinity for (Dark, Psychic, or Biological), and also what skills you may have a bonus for. They also determine your powers and critical abilities. This isn't like 4th Edition where you have a shit ton of options for powers, you get an at-will or encounter power for each origin and a few others as you level, you never have more than a few, even at level ten, which is the level cap at the moment.

The equipment section is pretty much my favorite part of the rules (excluding crazy origin combinations), you have a lot of leeway in that area. There aren't like fifteen different types of armor, just three. Light, heavy, and shield. It is left up to the player to determine how that armor looks. Is your heavy armor composed of a 55' Chevy Bel Air hood and road signs? Or is it thick slabs of tire rubber bolted together and tied to you with chains? The weapons are just as simple: heavy and light attacks, heavy and light melee weapons (like a signpost or a knife), heavy and light guns (like a .22 or a .45), and heavy and light ranged weapons. (a thrown bowling ball or a thrown knife). Light and and ranged stuff tends to use Dexterity, while heavy stuff tends to use Strength. Pretty straightforward and intuitive, and again, it is up to you to determine your weapon or attack's nature. 

Your starting equipment is randomly rolled, as is your skill bonus. You roll a die, which determines how many times you may roll on a very broad table. You can end up with things like fuel, toy cars, boats, horses, or laptops. Or trucks. The table doesn't go to deeply into what stuff does, other than miles per gallon and passenger capacity for trucks and "you'll figure out what it can do" for everything else. Lance and I had two horses and a boat and some generators. We probably should have tried to make some kind of cyborg boat horse generator that shot lasers. Next time. 

I said before that the skills are pretty light. You get stuff like Mechanics, Conspiracy, Stealth, Interaction, etc. Your origins determine your bonus in two skills, and you roll for a random bonus to a third. The equivalent would be being trained in a skill in 4th Edition. There are only a few skills and it is pretty easy to figure out what they do.

You also roll randomly in stats. Your origins determine your ability scores to a certain extent. Each origin has a ability associated with it, Dexterity for Felinoids, Intelligence for Doppelgangers, and so on. Your primary origin ability stat is 18, your secondary is 16. If both origins have the same, it is a 20. Everything else is 3d6, no rerolls, in order, do not add anything. I rolled a 7 for Strength and a 5 for Constitution, which isn't as bad as it would be in other versions of the game. All the powers and stuff are like 4th Edition and you can use Intelligence and Wisdom and non-Strength scores and such to make attacks. 

Gamma World also has guns and I really like the rules. Guns fire ammo, Gamma World doesn't get into energy cells or bullets, you either have ammo or you don't. You have two options: conserve ammo, or spray and pray. If you are conserving ammo, you may only fire a gun once an encounter, but you'll still have ammo at the end of the encounter. If you are not conserving ammo, you can fire your gun as many times as you want during an encounter, but you are out of ammunition at the end of the encounter and will have to find or barter for more afterwards before you can use your gun again. I like it, it is pretty simple and easy to manage. I gave up tracking ammo a long time ago in my Hekinoe

I want to take a moment to mention that you have a lot of leeway to just decide things in the game. It is a really cool feature. If you get the Hawkoid and Seismic origins (and this is pointed out in the books), it doesn't mean you have to be some weird earth eagle man from underground, though you can be. You can say you're a gargoyle if you want. If I had wanted to, I could have said that my double from the game we played was one of my Felinoid's eight extra lives that could pop back in time to help me out. ...That is actually a neat idea, I regret not coming up with it then. Oh well. There is a lot of free reign in this game and that is an awesome feature, and only adds to the zaniness I spoke of earlier. 

Zaniness. Even in the earliest incarnation of the game (back when Gygax and his son worked on it), the game was not super serious. It was about mutants and lasers and bat crap crazy radiation induced mutations from alternate dimensions mish mashed with this one cause all manner of shenanigans. Lance and I fought badger and pig men and giant lion bat things by shooting lasers, throwing bowling balls, summoning alternate selves of myself,  and using a blow up doll. 

Is it any wonder that Shawn TPKed us? Is it any wonder that we were laughing and giggling and having a super fun time?

Alpha Mutations and Omega Technology. This is a button issue for me. Every encounter, you have random mutations that can affect your character, in addition, you can draw Omega Tech cards after some abilities. These are loot basically. For instance, my Felinoid had a mutation affect it called Stink Glands and Lance had a tech card that was like a Fusion Rifle or something. The mutation cards can be overcharged for an additional effect, you make a d20 roll and add a bonus to it if you have one (some origins gain a bonus to certain overcharge rolls). For instance, Stink Glands gains the ability to do poison damage in addition to its other effects. If you fail overcharge rolls, the mutation goes haywire and you end up with a penalty of some kind (-2 to attack rolls for Stink Glands). Omega Tech doesn't operate the same way, but there is a chance you could deplete an item's charge and end up with a broken Fusion Rifle or Freeze Ray, you can still use the item, but it is very much less effective. 

Now, the button part of the issue, you can buy booster packs for these mutation cards and technology cards. No. We are already letting Magic: The Gathering get way too involved in 4th Edition with all these power cards people are  bringing to the game and the Harrow Deck or whatever it is being sold now. I played Magic, Pokemon, and the World of Warcraft card games. I love Munchkin. I dig games and card games. I do not dig Dungeons and Dragons, or even a variation of it, having a collectible card game as a main component of it, especially not when you consider the amount of power creep that occurs between sets of Magic: The Gathering. Lance and Shawn have advised me to just not buy boosters packs and just use the cards out of the deck. I can live with that, but I still don't like this trend. 

There are no feats, or classes, or even that many levels. It is essentially a stripped down version of 4th Edition, but what it loses isn't that important. There is a lot of flavor packed into the game where the rules were removed, and I like it. I tend to favor complexity over simplicity in most games, but Gamma World's flavor is robust enough that I have a rollicking good time playing it. 

So yeah, if you want some crazy fun and think the 4th Edition ruleset is a solid ruleset, Gamma World might possibly be for you.

To Do List

There are some things I need to do. Here is a list of them, because I like lists and need to write things down. They're listed in order of importance.

Things I Need To Do

-Finish the Dogdamn Rebellion campaign arc. (Completed: 11/23/10)

-Clarify and write down all my house rules so everyone can finally know them all. (Completed: 1/17/11)

-Finish the first scenario of the next campaign and the newerish mechanics that go along with that. (Completed: 1/18/11)

-Make the list of traits more robust and easier to read. (Completed, More or Less: 1/17/11)

-Add more Flaws. (Completed: 11/18/10)

-Add more Hekinoe specific feats. (Completed, More Or Less: 1/22/11)

-Complete the campaign book.

Things I Want To Do

-Play Dark Sun (as a Thri-Kreen Ranger)

-Play Gamma World (as an Android Cockroach)

-Run a one-shot Shadow Chasers/Darkest Night Detective Agency adventure of my own devising using Gamma World.

-Play GURPS (as a Brain In A Jar, or as Reginald the Sentient Tumor)

-Run or play the 4th Edition Tomb of Horrors adventure as a one shot.

-Run Laura and my wife through the 4th Edition Red Box adventure.

-Look into alternate options for the wiki.

Edit After The Fact: You'll notice that some of these have a date of completion that occurred before this post was posted. This post is a few weeks old, and having it here is helping to inspire me to crack the whip at myself.