'Tis The Season Folks!

Getting Back To The Torment

Unfortunately our gaming group is still on hiatus (ah, the joys of Christmas retail...) so I decided to go way back and start looking at some of the things I've touched on before here to try to find a little bit of gaming inspiration.  Took a bit but after doing a bit of digging I remembered my Songs of Torments Reach hack I was working on and decided to dust it off and give it another run through.

So where is all this going?

To a battle report of course!

Once again I had my Guild crew take the field against my Arcanist crew.  A very small game (only 400 points total...) but still enough to try some stuff out.  So how did it go?  Read on to find out!

Sonnia and her small band of enforcers had tracked down Sasha Dubois and her gang at a small cabin on the outskirts of the bayou.

Sneaking forward they hoped to gain the element of surprise... and almost managed to do it!  Sonnia ordered the two Guild Guards forward but appartently they weren't expecting to lead the way and instead did nothing at all.

Hearing the attempted battle cry from Sonnia, Sasha and her crew quickly sprang into action.  Sasha ran over to activate Boomer before taking cover behind the cabin while Taryn took a covering position.  Valeria boldly strode forward and let loose a barrage of shoots at Sonnia but her magical screen proved to be too much as she effortlessly deflected the bullets.

Boomer then thundered forward on his massive iron feet, getting into position to attack the next turn.

Realizing the threat that Boomer posed to her crew, Sonnia moved into the open and let loose a blast of magical flames which sent the metal beast hurling back into the building and knocked him to the ground, but did little else.

Samael and one of the guards opened fire on Valeria but their shoots went wild while the convict gunslinger Jeremiah Smythe quickly moved around the far side of the cabin to try to flank the Arcanists.

 

Valeria charged towards Samael with her guns blazing and pushed him back into the small copse of trees while Taryn clambered over the prone form of Boomer and let loose a couple shots at Sonnia.  Once again her shield proved to be too much and the bullets were harmlessly deflected.

Boomer then sprang into action.  Virtually leaping to its feet, the metal monstrosity charged forward and smashed into Sonnia, sending her crippled form to the ground.

With their leader dead, almost all of the Guild crew paniced and headed for the hills.  In the end only Samael remained and with blood in his eyes he quickly moved to attack his prey.

Effortlessly skirting through the woods, he made a beeline for Sasha and his volley of shots drives her to the ground.

Her quickly regains her composure and returns fire at the trapper but to no avail.  The rest of the crew was also caught offguard and only Valeria is able to react to this new threat.  Even so her shots go wide and Samael remains undetered.

Again Samael opens fire on Sasha and again he forces her to the ground but isn't able to get a solid hit on the Arcanist.  Having realized what was happening, Taryn runs forward and helps Valeria finally take Samael down.

Overall, I liked how the game played out.  I used the ranged combat modifiers from Flying Lead this time and it actually did make the guns more effective over all.  Not too many shots connected but unlike my first play through with these groups they were at least able to try shooting at each other.  I am thinking that Boomer might be a bit too overpowered at the moment.  Currently he has a Combat 5 which makes him nigh unstoppable to most attacks so I think I'll knock him down to a 4 in the future.  I also liked how Sonnia was such a glass cannon.  At range she was virtually untouchable but as soon as Boomer got into hand to hand it was over.

Now I just have to see what other crews I can scrounge together to get to the table.  Several are in the works but none are finished yet.  Still gives me something to do until we can get the group together again.  Until next time...

Talk About A Blast From The Past

I thought I'd do something a little different for this Monday's pictures. I was recently sent this link and I just had to pass it along.

Aluminum Overcast

Yeah, who's going to trust some random link you happen to find on someone's blog, right? There's just a few too many mentally scaring images out there that are the last thing in the world you would want to see but this one is different.

The Aluminum Overcast is a restored B-17G-VE operated by the Experimental Aircraft Association.  This group tours the country and gives people the opportunity to tour or sometimes even fly in this WWII aircraft

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The photos on the site were taken by amateur photographer Bernard Zee and you can find more photos at his home page.  Even if you don't take a look at what else he has there, I definitely recommend taking at look at his shots of the Aluminum Overcast as they are really impressive.

Interested in finding out more about this historic aircraft?  Well I've got a link for that too!  You can find more information about this plane, tours dates, and prices at the Fly The Fortress website.  Hope you all enjoy!

Throwing In A Touch Of Home Brew

For our games of Gamma World and D & D 4e I've decided that I'm going to throw in a little bit of a home brew on the rules. Not sure exactly how well it will work but I like the idea so I figure I'll give it a shot and see what happens.  The first of these has to do with hit points.

I think this is one of the things that bugs people the most about D & D.  You hit somebody with a huge sword and they stand there, smile, and then return the favor.  Doesn't really make that much sense when you think about it even for a fantastic setting.  I mean come on, its a frickin' sword!  No two ways about it, that's gonna leave a mark.

What I've decided to do is take hit points in a slightly different direction so that they make a little more sense.  Instead of them representing purely how much physical abuse you can take, they are also going to represent fatigue in the battle.  If you think about it, parrying or dodging that massive sword is going to start wearing you down almost as much as being hit by it.  This isn't to say that the players lose hit points just for moving around or being missed; that would be a little too harsh in my mind.  No, instead this will represent them blocking or dodging the blows in the narrative though they'll still take some damage.  Only hit for 5 hit points?  Well, that's probably at best a scratch and might even just be a solid punch.

So the question is "Where's the house rule?" That comes into play when players (and monsters... gotta be fair after all...) take a massive hit, say equal to their bloodied value.  A blow like this is truly devastating and it makes sense that you're not going to be performing up to par after that. In game terms this is represented by a -2 modifier on all rolls except for damage (seems like that would be a little too harsh).  Of course its not too easy to inflict that much damage in one blow so I'm also going to apply this when a creature becomes bloodied as well.  To me the name says it all; you're bloodied.  You've taken a beating and while you're not ready to lie down and die, you're not going to be as nimble as you normally would.  This also helps the idea of the second wind make a little more sense.  It isn't some kind of magical healing that is flowing through your body, its you pausing in the fight to catch your breath for a second.

My other idea is a little more... dramatic.  Normally in 4e your character earns action points that you can spend to take another action on your turn.  I really like this mechanic as I think it really pushes forward the idea that the characters are supposed to be big damn heroes and helps them live up to it.  In addition to the regular action points, I'm also going to introduce drama points (though I might call it something else...).  

Unlike action points which have a limit on how often you can use them, the drama point is more open ended and can be spent to give you a re-roll any time you want.  Choke on a crucial to hit roll?  Spend a drama point and re-roll it!  Fail that diplomacy check and make an ass out of yourself to the dragon?  Pop a drama point and try again!

So what's the catch?  A free re-roll?  Heck yeah I'll take that!  The catch is that you have to earn them with role play.  It could be something as simple as a good concept in character generation or strong back story to some solid role play around the table later in the game.  This is supposed to be a role playing game after all so why not encourage it?

Of course the real question is how do these ideas work in practice.  Theories are wonderful things but until they're successfully applied they don't really mean much.  For that we'll just have to see what happens when we get back to the table.  Until next time...

Martians And Monsters And Ravens, Oh My!

For some reason just started getting links to movie trailers on my FB page.  Must've clicked something somewhere but that's neither here nor there.  I did what to point out two of the trailers though as they look incredible.  First up is John Carter.

Based on the character from the Barsoom novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the trailer just blew my away.  I must admit that I've never read any of the novels (though I'm looking to rectify that asap...) but visually this just looks stunning.  Here are a couple of shots that I managed to scrap up.

Martian cityscape

Some kind of martian flyer

Just these two look beautiful to me but I really recommend checking out the official trailers here.  Not only do they look to be good to watch but man the gaming ideas you can rip from these!  The crazy thing is there are already miniatures out there for most of the main characters and creatures from the movie.  Where can you find these you ask?  Bronze Age Miniatures.  Not only do they have a John Carter mini in their catalog (though not under that name), they also have the four armed apes and martians as well!  Just an FYI though, apparently the folks at Bronze Age tend to feel that tops are definitely optional for women so don't say I didn't warn you.  Now I just hope that somebody makes toys/models of those martian flyers....

Oddly enough the next movie is not from Disney though they did make it popular the first time around.  This time the story has a slightly different spin as the Snow White appears to be something of a badass.

This is probably a good thing for her too as this time the evil queen isn't just trying to kill her, she wants to eat her heart too!  This is another trailer that looks really impressive and it sounds like an interesting twist on the old story.  No link to the trailer for this one I'm afraid but I definitely recommend checking it out when you have a chance.  Oh, and make sure that you look for Snow White and the Huntsman as there is another Snow White movie called Mirror, Mirror which comes out next spring as well.  Unlike the SW&H which has a dark and grim feel to it, the other one looks like more of a mindless comedic take on the whole thing.

Until next time...