RPGs I have played.

RPGs I have played.

D&D, AD&D – Basic blue Box D&D started it all.

Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World. Hiero’s Journey was recommended reading for Gamma World. To me, reading it sounded like a script for what play transpired in a game session or sessions of Gamma World.

Star frontiers, Traveler.

Gang Busters, Top Secret

Villains and Vigilantes, Marvel Superheroes.

Boot Hill

Games we invented back in high school: Space Pirates and Scout. As I recall pirates was more about ship combat and getting the cargo off the target ship. Scout was role playing and small ship combat.
I once owned rules for Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, Boot Hill,  Top Secret. I don’t recall if I had Star frontiers, or just played it.

I own Mega Traveler, but never played it. I got is so I could have an RPG without grief from my now ex.

I also once had a game about being a carton character, Toon. It was a simople booklet like in the blue box D&D or Metamarphosis Alpha rules. I could never get anyone interested. I lost it in the leaky pipe disaster that trashed a lot of my gaming materials.

24 Hour RPG

Design a campaign in 24 hours.

http://www.24hourrpg.com/

I don’t know which blog I ran across this. The way the blog that mentioned this described it was a new campaign in 24 hours.

As I look at the website it looks like it was only active for 2003, 2004, and 2005. I’m not sure why the owner of the domain would keep paying for the domain name and web hosting if it was not an active contest.

At one point their was a Yahoo Group, but it no longer exists.

Looking at the 2005 entries, it looks like people designed whole new games and rules instead of campaigns based around existing rules. Looking at their rules it is about designing a whole new RPG.

24 hours to design a new RPG? We need more RPGs? What niche does not have rules? The basic mechanics of dice for character stats and dice to do stuff and lists of equipment for the genre, and mechanics for how it all works can easily be done by taking what you like from existing games you have and make your own homebrew game. My brother and I and our gaming group did that in high school 30+ years ago.

Are any of these RPGs doing a new take for rules? Are stats different? If you have stats, can you come up with names that are not synonyms for stats in existing games?

For me, I don’t need another game. I wouldn’t put time to develop another game, unless I thought I had an idea I could market and sell.

Designing a campaign in 24 hours, I can see the value in that. Whether we do a 24 hour marathon, or 24 one-hour sprints, it could be a way to force oneself to focus on designing a new campaign, or new area of an existing campaign. I can see having different categories: 24 hour marathon, 24 1-hour sprints, 12 2-hour sprints. Set a timer for those sprints and an alarm for the marathon. There would be a total honor system.

I know that I have the ability to pull an all-nighter, but my thinking gets fuzzy after awhile and I would lose the ability to focus. It is not the same as running a game session that runs all night. There are notes to guide and ad-lib is not the same as designing a campaign that makes sense/fits together.

The idea of a 24 Hour Campaign Design sounds like a monumental contest to organize. I know I don’t have the time to run a contest. I know I wouldn’t pull an all-nighter for this. With one or two hour sprints it could still take a couple weeks to do this. Perhaps a 24 hour sandbox design using one of the sandbox design structures from Bat in The Attic or West Marches would be a way to structure it.

For all I know, there has already been some sort of 24 hour campaign or sandbox design blogathon or contest in the past.

Interesting ideas. Not sure any of them are my thing.

I wonder what other’s think about these ideas?

30 posts in 60 days on new campaign setting

http://exonauts.blogspot.com/2014/02/blogger-contest-30-posts-to-create.html

 SO HERE’S AN IDEA…

  1. Pick a game–any old rules will do. Stick to one set though.
  2. Dream up a campaign setting–it can’t be anything you’ve previously posted, published, or talked about before. It doesn’t have to be “new” per se, just new to the rest of us.
  3. Create a new blog–yes a new URL and everything, but use your current account so we can tell it’s still yours. Name if after your campaign settting.
  4. Write 30 posts in 60 days. (C’mon, that’s less than 1 a day!) You have just that long to outline the major key elements (setting, monsters, rule modifications, classes, races, etc.). This is straight-up worldbuilding using elements you’d normally talk about on your home blog. But here, you’ve got economize and decide what the most important elements are. Here’s some general guidelines:

30 POSTS TOTAL

  • 13 on monsters or villains, one type or one specific individual per post (so “hobgoblins” is one, a “kaiju” is another, “Vader’s granny” another, etc.)
  • 4 on special treasure, a lost artifact, weapons, vehicles, etc., however you choose to parse.
  • 3 on setting, this is all aesthetic so you’ll want to focus on places, maps, NPCs, the way magic works, how the local ruling space authority, uh…rules the galaxy, etc.
  • 3 on classes with each dedicated to a separate player class.
  • 2 on house rules, specifically how your campaign either strays, modifies, or embellishes on your chosen rule set (posts can be as detailed as you like); carousing rules, etc. all apply here
  • 3 on any topics you like, these help you round out the rough edges and could be additional classes, races, setting, etc.
  • 1 intro post to set up your premise for your campaign (e.g., , declare your ruleset and acknowlege participation in the contest
  • 1 report of actual play, which should include at least one picture, be it from the campaign or actual play; you can make this your final post with a big sign off or you can use it as a playtest, but you gotta play it at least once and record it for posterity

My Take:

I don’t like the idea of a whole new blog. A category on existing blog, yes. Whole new blog to manage/maintain, but only for two months. I don’t see the value. If you have to link it to your current blog, it can’t be to hide it from players.

I’m not sure I will be blogging on this topic. I know I won’t be any time soon. I can see the value of using the topic ideas and counts on certain topics to help build a framework for a campaign fast. I may use this for ideas, but use a NoteTab outline.

What are your thoughts on this?

The Awful Green Things From Outer Space

The Awful Green Things From Outer Space is a TSR board game by Tom Wham. I have my original game. I only lost one weapon effect chit over the 30+ years I have had it. I just made one from the boarder for the card stock chits. Tip: Always keep the boarder for cardstock chits so if you lose some, you can easily make new ones that are the same thickness. All the pieces are still in the pre-ziplock sandwich bags from the 80’s. All the original five red minidice are still there too.

When looking for a Wikipedia link, I discovered that the game is back in print, thanks to Steve Jackson Games. the SJG version is here. You can find a PDF of the SJG rules online. They have added other combat options for outside the ship. I have not read the full rules, but it looks like it takes some of the devastating effects of a totally random game out of the mix and gives the crew more options.

My son, David, came over Saturday to spend the day with me, since his girlfriend is out of town for ten days. Also his dog, Picard, a pit bull, and my dog, Lucy, a lab-pit mix were both going stir crazy because of all the cold and snow. When they get together an play, they are quiet and peaceful for the next two days.

David wanted to spend the day playing boardgames. He did not want to try rolling up a new character and try solo adventuring. He did not want to try Waterloo (It is only in a list of Avalon Hill Games on Wikipedia, there is no separate article.), or Imperium. I always beat him at Risk, so he wanted to try Awful Green Things.

So while he took the dogs out to do their business and run and play, I got out the rules and read them quickly and got out the crew pieces and made placements. I would have let him change the placement of the crew for those that had alternate placement options, but David wanted to be the green things. So he separated them into adults, babies, eggs and fragments and rolled a die for starting, and he rolled a 5, then rolled a die for placement. The AGT basically cut the ship in two. One of my crew was trapped in a room with the only exit into the area with the AGT. David knows strategy pretty well and he played the AGT very well. He grew the right group of AGT into the best next category for continued expansion.

Every game is different in such a way that any advantage of the AGT starting with a lot of adults can easily be offset by weapons effects. However, the weapons effects are random for every game. There are some great area of effect weapons, but they can either have no effect or make fragments, which is another way for the AGT to spread. I had a couple crew grab rocket fuel, but I drew the “no effect” chit. At least that was better than fragments. For the Comm Beamer I drew “3 dice to kill”. Unfortunately, he only had adults in most of the areas I could get those crew to and I could never roll a 16+ on 3d6.

Since we just jumped in and started playing, and we had only played the game once together over five years ago, the last time I had played; I did not pay attention to the Electric Fence and Fire Extinguisher being available in any area. I finally noticed this towards the end of the game when the AGT had trapped the captain and three other crew in the central corridor with them totally surrounded and cut off from the means of escape. I did have the Mascot and two crew get away in saucer and the scout ship saved another crew member. I drew well for the Electric Fence and Fire Extinguisher effects. The Fire Extinguisher did “5 dice to stun”, and the Electric Fence did “4 dice to kill”, but it was about two rounds to late to make a difference.

Once the AGT had eaten the surrounded crew, I then had to roll to determine the fate of the crew that escaped. The crew in the saucer were within a year of running out of food when they contracted a fatal disease and died. The crew member in the scout ship managed to make it home.

David was amazed at how easily he beat me. He usually doesn’t beat me very quickly or easily. I pointed out that the totally random nature of the effects of weapons and number and placement of AGT’s made every instance of the game unique.

We only played the one game, but I suspect we might play it again sometime.

My brother, Robert, and I played this game non stop for dozens of games in a row. We laughed at how ridiculous it was for some of the random effects. Robert is an artist and he even made a few of his own comics about the crew and AGT. I remember one where he had all the crew amazed that something killed all the AGT, and one crew said, “Sarge farted.”, and it showed Sarge blushing. LOL good times.

Below are some pictures of the setup from Saturday’s game:

 

Cover
Cover

Back
Back
Story
Story
Game Board
Game Board
Setup
Setup
State Of Game Before The Effects Of Fence And Extinguisher Known
State Of Game Before The Effects Of Fence And Extinguisher Known
Weapons Effects
Weapons Effects