Unmatched, Back On My Radar!

One of my favourite games and the easiest game I have to get to the table quickly with anyone, any time is Unmatched. It is so easy in fact, I can grab it after months away, look at the action card and just go.

Quick run down;

Players or teams each player using a main protagonist (usually 1 sometimes 2 or 3 characters) who sometimes have sidekicks (1-8), fight using a set number of cards (usually 30) on a small map until one side is beaten. Running out of cards equals exhaustion and likely defeat, so the game is limited in rounds, space and tactics.

I have no other game that can be set up in a minute, be played in 20-30, even with new players, can offer an even game no matter the player range (there are some more easy to play and maybe handicapped characters or just do a team game with Amazing Tales).

No matter how the odd match-up, most games I have played have been close, which is not nothing. Squirrel Girl vs T-Rex, Genie vs Robin Hood, all good, different but equal.

It offers an almost infinite variety of matchups and something for all tastes from the goofy to hard boiled. There is even now a genuine solo option (one I am yet to beat convincingly and that is in “easy” mode) and another to come.

Houdini decides whether to Boost his defence card, taking a mild hit if not. The maps are small (half of this one is in the pic), but tricky and always different. The board above is in “stealth” mode on the flip side to normal with less obvious ring colour, but I would prefer an alternate map.

I have almost all the sets, only missing the early (seem mythical to me) Deadpool and Bruce Lee singles and some of the newer ones are yet to be bought, but that is being rectified.

After stopping at Houdini/Genie, I grabbed Legends 3 on impulse, then the Shakespeare and two Witcher sets straight after based on reviews I came across while chasing the L3 ones. Then I pre-ordered TMNT with the trimmings as I love Turtle stuff (remember owning the very first comic and the RPG and other stuff). I am sure Ali vs Lee, Hellboy and anything after are also likely.

One thing I love about this game, which flies in the face of many other competitive games, is the friendly community ready to share ideas, game reports and opinions. Like many tournament style games, there are player and character rankings, regional championships, but more than most fighting games, a lot of people just enjoying the experience and champion less than optimal characters.

X-Wing 2e and the game on the whole died for me when all the design choices made were for tournament play. It was fine in 1e and I still love it, but to many it was “broken” competitively. Legion looks to be going the same way. Unmatched seems to be more robust from the start and suffers less pressure to escalate.

The game has fixed character/deck options, meaning there is no bulk buying then dumping of unwanted resources for the “perfect” deck. The decks are made to a flexible but stable formula and designed to represent their character theme, which they do really well. If you are playing Bloody Mary, Spiderman, Dr Tesla, The Genie or Big Foot, you know it, you feel it.

Dark doings in SoHo. Dracula and his brides (Etsy sourced alternate figs, normally the brides are coloured resin tokens and the toothy guy is more “civilised”), with a little help from a nasty looking Mr Hyde (alt) vs Holmes, Watson (alt) and The Invisible man. Looks one sided, but like all Unmatched games, it ended with a narrow win to Dracula, coming back from early near mauling and after Hyde was bested (as Dr Jekyll). The next game was Holmes v Raptors, a win to Holmes.

With over 50 characters available now and plans for more, everyone should find a favourite. You then master that character and try something new when you have it knocked, but that may take a while and your opponent may constantly be changing.

Google “favourite or best Unmatched character/set/map” and you will rarely get the same answer. The same with “best set to start with” or “most fun character”. Even Deadpool, with a notoriously crippled hand made more for laughs than tournament play is widely sought after.

There are sentimental favourites and these can trump “better” characters even in the tournament circuit where power builds and favourites are usually found. As an example, the Buffy set is widely considered the weakest overall, but only if you go looking for trouble and play outside of that set and even then it still has many fans.

I use it as a themed set or for “weaker” characters to play against new players and still sometimes get a solid win (in fact one of my few wins against the Mothman AI was with an all Buffy crew).

Holmes the clever pugilist, Watson with his revolver and ability to heal, The Invisible man in the background, able to, you guessed it, dissapear and appear somewhere else.

No character is ever entirely useless or dominant. There is a rock-paper-scissors element to the game, but even then, the random card draw, team composition and player skill can provide upsets.

You really can hero your crush character and answer that age old question, “in a fight between X and Y who would win?”, even if “X” is Red Riding Hood and “Y” is a giant T-Rex!

I tend to group my sets thematically (you probably saw that coming).

• Marvel and Modern Mayhem, including Dino’s*, TMNT, Buffy etc plus the Amazing Tales Martians AI.

• Legends of History a the mixed bag that is everything else that has no set themed like Achilles, Medusa, Black Beard, Bigfoot*, Sinbad and The Genie etc. This is Unmatched at it’s most random.

• Into The Woods has literary legends and fairytales with weird creatures like Red, Alice, Beowulf, Arthur, Robin the Witcher sets etc.

• Amazing Tales set and all the 19th and early 20th century with Cobble & Fog, Houdini, Tesla, Bloody Mary, Golden Bat etc and the Amazing Tales Mothman AI.

*There are plenty of cross overs (the Raptors tend to pop up anywhere), but otherwise I find it helps player buy-in to accept these groups and start their careers here.

Things I appreciate about the game is the room in each box for sleeved cards (Star Wars Villainous could learn from this) and the beautiful details. My only mild complaint is the sometimes missed opportunities with maps, when they print a less obvious movement ring set on the back of some instead of an alternate.

What would I love to see?

A Batman series, maybe 2-5 boxes with Bane + Thugs, Bat Man + Robin, Bat Woman + Bat Girl, Joker + Quinn, Nightwing, Riddler, Gordon + Harvey Dent, Green Arrow, Cat Woman, Scarecrow, Penguin, Red Hood, Death Stroke + Ravager, Poison Ivy, Mr Freeze, Two Face, Ra’s + Talia al Ghul, Deadshot, Poison Ivy etc. Every one of these just screams Unmatched (although many of them have parables in the game already).

Others?

The Three Musketeers, James Bond, Indiana Jones, a reprint of the game that it came from Star Wars Epic Duels, Alice in Wonderland, The Lord of the Rings, the list can go on and on.

Why Savage Worlds Won.

So what won out?

I am referring to the post I did recently about looking to delve deeply into an RPG that I have already to re-introduce an old friend and once obsessed RPG-er, while getting myself properly up to speed with a game (you get rusty with neglect, just like any tool).

*

Ok, so I went with 13th Age, my one and only d20 fantasy game system, a DnD heart-breaker, the salve for jaded DnD players, a love letter to house rules.

Then I started reading the rules and realised, like many games I have rejected recently, it is a lot to take on board for a one single theme game and flies in the face of my current direction, which is to master a single system or pair of systems and play any period using it.

To be clear, I have never been a DnD fan. Even in my earliest days, I played Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, D6 Star Wars and many, many others, but never really got the DnD bug. Ironically or more likely unwisely, I have owned a lot of it from the old Red and Blue basic books, ADnD to 5e as well as Pathfinder 1e (a mountain of), Iron Heroes and 13th Age, but most was sold off, hardly used.

13th Age has survived for two reasons.

It is an over the top, heroic version of the old game, designed by inner sanctum designers who house rule heavily and this is the result.

It is fun to read, fun to design/imagine up things and for it’s type, fun to play. Overall a much more pleasant version of DnD (for me).

But, it is still DnD and it is not my one game ideal.

It is still a heavy load in a busy life and at the end of the day, it is less interesting to me than other genres. I felt it might be a soft landing for a lapsed DnD gamer coming back, but he is lapsed and maybe that was for a reason, so let’s try something new!

So, I switched back to Savage Worlds (not D100, I will explain).

Savage Worlds won for the following reason.

It is the one set of consistent rules I can learn and apply to any game, even another existing game with a quick hack.

In a nutshell, I can do a 13th Age or other inspired scenario with one rule set if it is SW, but not the other way around.

No rule set is perfect, especially when you try to apply it to different themes.

Savage Worlds has a rep for being pulpy, swingy and lite*, all of which are true to some extent, but it also has the flexibility to curb or exaggerate any of these easily.

Want a darker and more gritty game?

The Benny, Wild and exploding dice systems are easily reduced, removed or can have added effects built in easily. Want a Benny spent to have a twist, a bit like a “fail forward”, want t limit the exploding dice to once only, want to drp the Wild dice to make characters very ordinary? Easily done.

Want a more heroic game like 13th Age?

Just escalate starting characters to Seasoned tier, which is basically what the 13a designers did. Then add the One Unique Thing, ICONs and the world parameters and you have it. No need even to use classes, just Race and concept, which tend to fall into standard tropes.

How about Rune Quest, SW style? Again, it is the world and background that are important. Character gen is key, especially with Rune Magic. The core of this is the desire to play a game that personifies the world you chose, nt find ways to break it with rule set “X” (or SW).

For me as a GM, there are some real benefits that cannot be over stated.

• Prep time can be very quick. On-the-go fixes are easy, even sandboxing a whole world is doable. Lift and drop from any source is a piece of cake. It is not impossible to play a “what would you like to do” game from scratch, building the world as you go, adding twists and turns as needed. Remember player agency is a creative tool not a hurdle.

• It can absorb almost any source materiel you might want.

• The rules are consistent, especially magic and powers, which tend to do my head in when a half dozen different systems need to be learned.

• Combat can be quick and “theatre of the mind” or a miniatures game.

• Combat is not the only way of getting things done.

What to do?

Learn the Core or Players rule book. This will let you reenact basically any book, graphic novel, RPG or movie you want with a little applied imagination and an open mind.

This was where it started for me. Looking for a Kids on Bikes vehicle, I stumbled across this about the same time the fourth and last (Sci-Fi) companions became available, led to a wholesale adoption of the thing right under my nose the whole time!

If you want to go deeper and into a specific genre, get a Companion, which will add some thematic guidance, more of everything you like and full bestiaries etc.

These, the GM Screen and Core Book and you are done. Over 1000 pages of more, more, more!

For added ease and table presence, there is a ton of official (or not) collateral like themed playing cards and dice, minis, maps, counters etc. My pick would be the accessory box, then get some correctly themed playing cards as extra action decks.

Even though I do have the oversized action deck for SW and SWPF, cheap themed card packs can add a lot.

If you want the work done for you, which switches the dynamic from making to learning, get a pre-made set, like RIFTs, Deadlands, Pathfinder etc. Nothing is ever wasted even if you cut away much of the background.

My one themed set, because it was my first and meant to be my last SWADE foray.

Games I will likely do in SW would be (with companions noted);

• Rivers of London style modern soft supernatural (RPG/Books). HC/FC

• Tales from the Loop/After the Flood/Electric State (books). SFC

• Kids on Bikes (movies). CB (they do Pinebox TX, but too much for what I need)

• The One Ring (RPG/Books). FC

• Delta Green, 1990’s X-Files game (DG, X Files, Cthulhu, Supernatural). HC, SFC

• Warmachine/Iron Kingdoms steam punk (RPG/war game), FC/SFC

• Malifaux weird west (based on the figure line)-possibly with the above. FC/HC

• Everdell (based on the board game). FC

• Mouse Guard (Graphic novels and RPG)-possibly combined with above. FC

• A 1960’s cool-Bond style game (Trouble Shooters RPG, early period Bond, Avengers and U.N.C.L.E books, movie and TV, Tin Tin etc). CB

• Heroes of Normandie Weird War II (based on the board game and Achting Cthulhu RPG-already done in SWeX). AC/HC

• Warhammer style gritty Gothic Renaissance fantasy (based on the 1e books). FC/HC

• A sci-fantasy 1889 style game with Jules Verne science (John Carter books, Space 1889 RPG, Tarzan, War of the Worlds). SFC

• Alien/Mothership hack (RPG’s & movies), more an experiment really. SFC/HC

• A Star Wars style space opera/supers cross over. SHC/SFC

• Guardians of the Galaxy/Marvel style supers game. SHC/SFC

• An Iron Heroes/Conan style Swords and Sorcery game (IH RPG and books). FC/PF

• A Malazan Book of the Fallen sci-fant military Campaign (Malazan Books). SFC/FC

• Starship Troopers style game (The book more than the movies). SFC

• An old school four colour supers game (Batman, Marvel etc). SHC

• A novelty supers game (Mystery Men, 1960’s spoof comics, Kick-Ass, new Fantastic Four movie, Watchmen-less dark). SHC

• A Highlander style “immortals are among us” game (movie, other stuff). SHC/FC

SHC Super Hero Comp, SFC Sci-Fi Comp, FC Fantasy comp, HC Horror Comp, CB Core Book (and nothing else), AC Achtung Cthulhu, PF SW Pathfinder.

Why not D100 games?

Because it they be my easy fall-back, my mood switcher, but unlike SW, the various games are each slightly different. I could had have gone BRP UGE, and converted most others to that, but felt the lighter SW vibe was more approachable and converting D100 to SW would be easier than SW to D100.

* I guess the opposite of this is often hard, predictable and heavy.

Savage Worlds Math, It Works Fine

The original system that Savage Worlds came from was a pool of dice system and worked well, but the designers felt it could be easier, much easier.

They distilled the pool down to a single dice, with a “wild” dice as the PC/Villain equaliser, to add a curve. At first glance I felt it was too easy and slanted towards weaker characters as the “exploding” mechanism, is rolled was too easy, but I have come to change my mind on that.

The core roll to pass is 4, the Attribute dice range from D4 to D12 and the wild dice is D6 (50/50). Double ones crap out, we will call this a fumble and maximums on the chosen passing dice are an explode (re-roll and add).

The Math;

Rolling an exploding 4 on a d4 is 1/3 easier than rolling a 6 on a d6, but it also has a 75% chance of failing completely (the d6 wild dice is 50%) and the fumble chance is 1 in 24 as opposed to 1 in 36 with 2d6.

Double exploding the d4 is a 1 in 16 chance, 1 in 64 chance of reaching 12 (with 2 raises) and an explode. the 1d4 and 1d6 has a 25% + 50% chance of success, almost all down to the wild dice.

An exploding d6 can match the maximum potential of that d4 triple roll with one maximum (and explode), or a 1 in 36 chance (i.e. almost twice as often) of going again. It has an evens chance of a raise anyway and can reach 3 raises with another roll even without exploding, so more effect and more likely to happen. The 2d6 has 50% + 50% chance of success and 1 in 36 of fumbling.

Going to the extreme end, with a d12 roll, there is a 1 in 72 fumble chance, a 50% + 75% pass chance, less chance of an exploding roll, but a double raise is possible on a natural roll at 1 in 12 with an explode! The fumble drops to negligible (but not improbable, about double the chance of a 2d6 roll), so the good gets exponentially better, the wild dice goes from enabler to safety net.

Three raises (sometimes the practical maximum), can be reached by a d4 or d6 in three rolls, d8 and d10 in two rolls, a d12 can get there in two.

If you cap explode rolls to a single re-roll only for a less swingy game, the d4 can reach one, d6 only two, d8 and above can make three.

If, alternatively, you only allow the Wild dice to explode, there is a 1 in 6 chance of 1 explode with 1-2 raise potential, 1 in 36 of another re-roll, 1 in 216 chance of another and 1 in 1296 of another etc.

I also felt the +1 added after d12 was a patch fix (time the d16 became readily available as a step to the d20), but looking at the math above, it becomes a massive, but still controlled boost. The fumble and explode chance of the raw d12 remains, but the success chance goes up to about 50 + 84% at +1, 50 + 92% at +2 etc until rolls are only used to determine raises and fumble/fails and often only Strength is boosted anyway, meaning only damage dice are boosted.

Simple, clean and as it turns out, effective (seems I substituted a d4 for a d20, my bad).

On the surface, the 25% chance of an exploding d4 seems too good, but the reality is, it is limited in effect, more likely than not to fail and as increments of 4 are needed for raises, it has to explode every roll to make any real difference.

I would argue, the d4 benefit is a good levelling tool at the bottom of the tree for those desperate adventurers who “have a crack”, but are of little other real value and the d12 with a “+” bonus is a good way of capping increases.

The effect of wounds is an interesting side case. Wildcards get three wounds with a -1 to all rolls per wound. Extras or Mooks are down with 1 hit, which if you think about it, ties in with every fight scene in every action ever.

1 wound basically nullifies raw d4’s, meaning they must explode to pass and even the Wild dice is a 66% chance of failing. 2 wounds takes the Wild to 85% fail, the d4 an explode and 2+. 3 wounds means any dice under d8 must now explode to pass and even a d12 is at 50/50 chance.

Wounds then, like the subtle +1 after d12 are a logical way of simulating one of my favourite, but often overlooked issues with RPG combat, where wounds actually simulate shock, blood loss and damage, not just abstract hit points.

Rune Quest first used location hit points so an arm or leg could be crippled or a lucky hit to the head ending it quickly, then Traveller introduced a more abstract but equally effective hits that reduce characteristics model, but it all came with on-the-go math, where SW simply does it with wound counters.

For those who prefer the attritional grind of hit point pools, ask yourself if you are ok with rejecting reality for gamesmanship.

An Old Friend Revisiting Role Playing

A friend of mine, probably my main gaming partner at the moment was once a dedicated DnD gamer (1-2e I think), but it has been a while.

My own TTRPG gaming has become quite “hypothetical” lately as most of my gaming group was moved away over time (it’s not me I tell you, just life and such……)

He is a teacher and one of his duties is to mind a rainy day gaming group who, among other things, play 5e. He said to me, when I enquired if he would be interested in RPG-ing again, that it all looked like “too much stuff” compared to his gaming days.

He and I come from the “skinny book, big imagination” era, where most of your collateral was home made of very basic stuff (Traveller with zero illustrations or ADnD with worse than zero).

My first thought was Savage Worlds (my current crush), but immediately after came 13th Age (familiar to him) and after that a D100 game (familiar mechanics for me).

I felt instinctively that 5e would be a sterile, stereotypical and predictable evolution of his old school past and something he had already developed an aversion to (and I had ditched a while back), while 13th Age would both avoid the “too much stuff” issue and refresh the game into a much more mature game, being close to the “house ruled for common sense” version he likely played, all while retaining some familiarity.

Lets look at why;

• It is all in one book (1e), every other book is optional.

• It is conversational, flexible and fun, a soft, but comfortable landing for a returning gamer.

• It is theatre of the mind, not a miniatures game in disguise, much like we used to play.

• It does have the main bits of DnD for familiarity, but is not held back by all the old DnD rule oddities and those it has, make more sense.

• I can do Glorantha with it (even as a sub-state of existing 13th Age*).

• It is less swingy than SW can be (does not have to be), so less character perilous.

• I have two core books and there is a free SRD to down-load for him to study.

• 13th Age Glorantha could launch us into D100 games.

I have little interest in 2e because to be honest, for the gaming I am likely to do, with the open ended “fix it if you don’t like it” mandate it has and the ten years of player input out there, I do not think the added complication of changing would be justified**.

Savage Worlds has it’s own advantages;

• A new and modern game with less mechanical depth up front (but no less depth internally). This possibly breaks pre-conceptions and opens a new gaming mind.

• It is also all in one book, with thematic expansions seamlessly slotting in.

• The ability to change genre, even in the same game with a “RIFTS” style setting.

• Easy GM-ing on the fly.

• A minis game side hustle, which plays into our other gaming.

• Pathfinder as an established world.

• Achtung Cthulhu 1e as another option (for Explorers edition, but an easy fix)

• The ability to do the 13A world if I want, although of all the games I have, this would probably make the least sense.

The hobby has become very interconnected it seems.

Savage Worlds might be a good alternative if he is not as keen on anything DnD based after all. I could actually make it a tactical war game campaign engine (my weird west home brew with Malifaux figs or maybe some Supers), that grows into an RPG experience.

The last option, probably the easiest for me, is to do a D100 game, likely BRP or Cthulhu.

This has the advantages of;

• Some familiarity for him as Rune Quest, Cthulhu etc were around the same time as he last played and unlike DnD, have remained mostly unchanged.

• May entice others as both our wives could possibly be enticed into a Cthulhu/Delta Green game more likely than any other genre.

• Has solo modules for him to try at home.

• Grounded and intuitive system. He and his wife are mathematicians, so a D% game would be an easy fit.

• Can also be used as a skirmish game.

• Cthulhu and co are by far my best supported games with 100+ adventures at hand.

• Also has compatibility with Achtung Cthulhu, so a mid campaign switch to/from SW could be made.

• I am most comfortable with D100 games.

• Feels more in keeping with his (my) past interests and reading.

Yes, he has heard of Ducks as characters.

Option 1 is probably go with 13A as it would fit with his expectations, but have SW and D100 in the wings for later games, or a fast switch if it is just not taking.

*A “lost valley” or other continent, or maybe a gateway to another Age.

**Most stuff is backwards compatible, but some changes do not excite, some are easily done with awareness, some have already been and books like “Dark Alleys and Twisted Paths” or “13 True Ways” are already in the set for their mechanical options and are not as compatible. Basically, I am of the mind that the way I want to play it does not need micro management or “official” changes.

Getting Into Role Playing Games

Ok, this is inspired by this;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9NtdF51GWE

And should probably stay there as all I have to add really is…….. yeah, so that, do it, but it got me thinking about games I have, games I want to play and games I want to make.

So, why game, TTRPG’s specifically?

It is fun, easy, freeform, non-confrontational (if you do it right), flexible and again, fun.

The game requires a Game Master, who empowers the game world and one or more players who explore that world.

Being a GM can be daunting, but it does not have to be. As Quinns says, there is no winning or losing, just playing and interacting to tell a story and some of the best fun is had when you do it badly!

The point he made that hit me over the head like a big friendly nerf ball (with a reality brick inside) was, “the game does not belong to you, the GM, it belongs to the players”.

As a (mostly) reader, collector, reviewer and more occasionally gamer/GM, I needed to be reminded of that.

One example mechanic designed to facilitate this, is the 13th Age “one unique thing”.

The OUT is a true player empowerment tool, one of several in that game, designed to give a platform for players to influence the larger game. Icon relationships are another, backgrounds, even class choices, but OUT’s are the best option when the player tells a story, forms a foundation, that grows into a tree, then a wood, then maybe a whole world.

Too far?

Maybe not.

Character concept 1;

A White Dragon-Spawn Necromancer, who’s previous life was as custodian and soul chaperone to a White Dragon’s mausoleum, an usher to the other side. A speaker with the anointed dead and interpreter of their wishes on behalf of his pseudo-deceased master, she was a holder of many secrets, a cross-roads to two worlds. The catch is, The Stone Thief literally ate the mausoleum and cemetery condemning the souls contained inside to a fate unknown. Icon relationship may be positive or negative with the Necromancer.

This gives us a background (and career for skill generation), a story to evolve with and a reason to adventure, including a hook to the Eyes of the Stone Thief campaign.

Character concept 2;

A constructed sentinel (Forgeborn), freed from an age of silent guardianship by an event that destroyed the hold it was created to guard, left to wander the world looking for purpose. Maybe it is called by The Stone Thief, responsible for breaking the hold, maybe looters took it’s pledged treasure and it is compelled to find it, either way another reason to adventure, a back story and a career (silent sentinel of another age), which may grant some limited knowledge of many languages, customs, races and history as heard and absorbed in its semi-unconscious sentinel state.

Both of these are strong character driven story lines with motives and deep history to draw from. Neither directly affect the mechanics of the game, but they strongly influence the story.

The GM is now on notice of what the characters are looking for in the game, who they see their characters as and their role in the game/world. The GM now empowers these visions within the world as known. What the GM does not do is try to rail-road the player concept into the world as they see it.

As GM, you are physics, history and geography, you are social and political forces, interactions, the voice of many. You are the world, but the world is lived in, it does not control the beings in it, any more than we are controlled by an outer force.

Character concept 3;

You wake up in the desert, with just personal belongings including a magic item (unknown item) that seems to talk to your thoughts, whispering ideas both good and bad and no memory of who you are or why you are there. You do not know your class/career/origin etc, what you know until you try things, then they come naturally, or not.

This one flips the aegis to the GM and player to cooperate in the making of a character possibly of great importance, maybe in the middle of a time sensitive quest, but when will the breakthrough come, who are their enemies and who are their friends? When will the player and character know who they are and what happened to them?

One of my favourite character dynamics was that of Icarium and Mappo Runt from the Malazan Books. Icarium was a being of great power who could, when the compulsion took him, destroy empires. Being impervious to normal forces, the only “cure” found for him was to wipe his memory and provide him with a companion who kept him distracted and unaware through friendship and gentle guidance.

What these are examples of mainly are the need every game must accomodate for player involvement.

Why these examples and this feature?

You do not need just a few mechanics to force player agency. The OUT is an example of a process that can be fundamental to any role playing game.

To get into role playing games takes some commitment and resources for sure, but really getting them is simply realising that the game is made of interactions. Interactions are all it takes and whether they are rules perfect or not, they need to be two way. They need to be shared.

It is easy to fall into the premise that GM-ing is all about telling a story the players are expected to play their roles in, when in reality they are the story. It all revolves around them.

Take that load off, hand-ball some of the resposibilty for world building and story creation to the players themselves. Thus empowered, they will not only help with the creative process, but they will also feel like the world belongs to them, they are making it what it is, it is not just happening to them.

Lets face it, we all feel sometimes like the world is working against us, fighting us or at least not being super helpful. Why would you want to bring all that to the gaming table?

The best games sew seeds of ideas at every turn. 13th Age is for me an example of a game that does that well enough, even a single monster entry or magic item description can get me excited, that I forgive it it’s systemic foundation, the one game I generally dislike.

The Very Good Thing That Is The Savage Worlds Accessory Box

I have bought sooo much RPG stuff over the years and some stands out for both good and bad reasons.

The SW Accessory box is one of those things that just jumps out as a bargain pure and simple. You get;

• An over sized Action Deck. Granted the deck is basically a pack of cards, but still.

• A Status deck (with my only very minor complaint*).

• 25 hard resin Benny/Conviction counters, that cost almost as much as the whole box on their own and are still worth it.

• 4 Power Point discs.

• Some card stands, likely of no value to me, but I may be wrong. They are fragile and space hungry though.

• Templates for various effects (for miniatures).

• Status discs (for miniatures) that align with the Status deck.

• A set of Dice including “Savage Worlds” wild dice.

• A box the same size as the Pathfinder Adventure Path boxes and just as sturdy, which is to say, big enough to hold everything in it and plenty more for years of gaming.

It all costs just a little more than as one of the decks or the Benny counters, so seriusly if you are pondering getting any of these accessories, then spoil yourself to the whole box for a little more.

I realised after taking this I had forgotten the card stands and blast templates. The pack of thematic playing cards is there for scale (and I use them). The provided insert went west quickly, allowing room for a bunch of other stuff.

So, in the box I can fit;

• Action card deck

• Status card deck

• Power card deck

• 3x regular playing card packs

• The GM screen

• The Status counters and Bennys in a cardboard box

• 3x polyhedral dice sets and 4x Savage Worlds Wild dice in another box

• The Power point counters

• The Mini campaign guide

I think I will buy another one!

*My minor whinge is the Status deck box is to small for the deck when sleeved, which the Pathfinder one was not.

Picking A Ride, The Serious Scale Issues Of Star Trek Attack Wing

If you want to have a size accurate Star Trek Attack Wing game, then basically forget it. Many have tried, often resorting to 3D printing or re-purposing ships from different brands like Micro Machines etc, but realistically, you might as well play a different game, it’s easier.

Ship “X” should be bigger then ship “Y”, which is 1/4 the size of ship “Z” and so on, with suspended belief playing it’s role. This is normal I guess as the original designers of these ships do not have to abide by budgets, physics or common sense, CGI cares for none of these, just the desire to impress with their creations.

A 3km wide Borg Cube at correct scale to the Enterprise-D at 430m wide, means your inch and a bit Fed ship needs to face off against a cube 8 times or about 30cm wide and they come pretty close with the big cube, maybe 2/3rds of the way, but it dominates a table and changed the way the game is played and then, what if you want a Delta Flyer “speck” in the fight at roughly 1/344th the size of the cube?

This does not only apply to physical scale, but table presence also. A monster like the Scimitar has 6 primary attack dice, which is good, accounting for a mass of weaponry, “she’s a predator” as Picard said, so in-game comparisons to the Flyer with 3 primary and the ability to carry some serious ordnance make little sense. Even defence, a combination of agility and size can be illogical with monster ships like the D’Deridex and again, the Flyer sharing 2 defence dice.

Even upgrade bars are at odds. Some very small ships have weak upgrade bars, but on the whole size does not seem to matter (as makes sense to the franchise, but not in scale). The Robinson, captured Asssauly Ship has 4 Crew, the Enterprise-D only 3?

The Scimitar should be at least twice this size in comparison to the Ent-E and don’t even think of trying to justify a smaller ship.

The big problem is, there is often no solid info to go on anyway, so no matter what you do, there will be more than a seed of doubt sewn. DS9 was a high water mark in tricky scale manipulation, the “hero” ship Defiant playing the role of run-about, scout and battle wagon, it’s screen size seeming to fit the role it’s playing.

Among the biggest offenders were the Klingon Bird of Prey, but Cardassian, Romulan, Jem’Hadar of all sorts and even the Breen were tough to settle on a scale for.

Some timelines fix their own issues, the TOS and TOM ships aligning pretty well as a rule and little enough is known to contradict logical conclusions.

I have reconciled the above issues in my my collection to some extent by going faction and timeline pure, with only a few exceptions that just cannot be fixed, so they are simply ignored*.

This fixes to some extent both scale “to-the-eye” and relative table capability.

The only timeline I have split the field further is the TNG/DS9/Voyager period, split into “TNG battle” and “DS9 skirmish” scale, the Delta Quadrant a little less defined as skirmish, with issues, because (1) I can and (2) I really need to for my own piece of mind.

In DS9 skirmish scale, hull values average 2 to 3 with 4 at the top end (Intrepid, and the tough Cardassian Dreadnaught), shields range from 0 to 5 (again Intrepid, which outstrips even some capitol ships-in the bigger scale). Defence is usually 2 with several 3’s, something battle does not have. Primary attack ranges from 1 to 4, 2 to 3 nominally, with a 6 for the Dreadnaught and some full strength fighter squadrons as standouts. The Dreadnaught is a big model, but is actually pictured by some as quite tiny at 100m. The fighters are abstracted, hiding the fact they are either too large or small depending on the ships.

The feel of this scale is X-Wing like, with attack and defence in balance, hull and shields much lower, Crew holding battered little ship together with duct-tape and hope and manoeuvre means something.

In TNG battle scale, which can be either unique ships or simplified massed battle generics, primary attack is on average 4, with plenty higher. Defence is almost universally 1, occasionally 0 or rarely 2 unless depleted fighters which are at 3, but nearly useless by now. Hull starts at 4 and peaks at 9 for some Borg and shields range from 3 to 7 (2-6 in generic).

All these battlewagons are tough and hit hard, but are generally less agile with little fighters flitting amongst them.

So, Battle is a slugging match, skirmish is a dogfight. faction and timeline boundaries aside, I now have two distinct games.

The anomaly of the D’Deridex being more agile than some small ships is addressed when comparison is removed. Basically the Romulans are sneaky and agile, the Borg are punishment magnets and the rest get a token dice that is effectively doubled with an Evade action.

The Delta Quadrant is actually pretty well scaled, until it is not. A curious (infuriating) mix of skirmish scale with a few anomalies.

The monstrous Kremin ship, the Kazon carrier which can fit their raiders inside, the huge Vidiians cruiser and of course the Borg, are absorbed into a set that also accepts a mix of unique and generic ships, some quite small.

So, let’s look at some troublesome ones.

The Klingon Bird of Prey in the original movies had slight scale issues, but tends to settle on a smallish (closer to medium for the time) generic BOP or group of similar ships varying in size. In TNG, there are serious differences and they are even called out in scenes such as DS9 battle scenes with little and large BOP shown together.

The B’Rel is about 100-150m, probably close to the earlier ships, the Vorcha class is much, much bigger at 450m+. The models are identical as are the cards except for the obvious hull size differences, which is also problematic with a ship four times the size of another similarly designed vessel sharing the same fire power, agility and shield values and only being slightly more robust? This is an example of why the split fleet scales make sense.

• B’rel > DS9 as a tough and lethal ship used by many factions.

• Vorcha > TNG as a relatively cheap, nimble and powerful workhorse.

The Romulan Science and Scout ships are even less convincing. The Scout is always considered small, nimble and with a small crew, maybe even single pilot able. The Science ship is either the same size (same hull value) or same design, but bigger with a crew of 50-100. Opinions vary greatly.

In Attack Wing the scout is harder to hit, but it is a scout. The Science vessel is a non-combat ship so is likely not armoured, maybe explaining the hull value and size confusion? The Science ship is possibly a small enough model to go into the TNG fleet as a little utility ship, but the scout is too small.

On reflection, even though the Romulans could do with a little filler ship and even if it is bigger than the scout, it is still only a small ship with a nimble dial and 1-2-2-2 stats (nothing else in battle scale is this weak or as nimble). I will go with the “they all use the same hull” camp.

• Scout Vessel > DS9

• Science Vessel > DS9

Not even close to right. The D’Deridex should be 2-3 times the size of the Valdore, which may be close to right with the Science ship, or way too small depending on the version you go with. The fighters are accepted as an abstract representation. The Valdore is the only one close to right against the Feds.

The Miranda class is a big enough ship to give the Constitution Refit a scare***, but only with Khan as captain and some subterfuge employed. In DS9 they appear regularly as cheap cannon-fodder and fleet fillers (many died, seemingly exactly the same way!??) and are generally known to be smaller than an Intrepid class, which is the hull 4 “big bruiser” of DS9 skirmish. I am putting it at about the same length as the Nova and it shares the same stats and it fits with the AW model scale.

• Miranda > DS9 (and The Original Movies)

The Intrepid/Voyager. In DS9 skirmish and the Delta Quadrant set, the Intrepid class are “cock of the walk”, not because they are big, but they are powerful, fast and advanced. I cannot put the Intrepid class in TNG battle, because it is simply too small and to be honest too powerful for that set by size/cost. The Intrepid and Excelsior should not be used together, so they become the strongest/weakest ships in their respective sets.

• Intrepid > DS9 as the Fed flagship.

• Voyager > Delta Quadrant as the point of it all.

Queen of the DS9 skirmish seas, the Intrepid is the biggest, toughest and fastest ship in that set, even if the model is a little small. In TNG, it is close to the same length as the Galaxy and chunkier than the Excelsior, which is way too big.

The Excelsior. Only slightly bigger than the Intrepid, it is a smaller model, so fleet it is as the smallest Fed.

• Excelsior > TNG battle and TOM

The Jen’Hadar Attack ship is always shown as size comparable to the Defiant, which is ground zero for the DS9 fleet, so it should go there. The named Battle Cruiser gets a bonus if supported by one, but even Wizkids have shown the scaling up in their Into The Unknown game, so I am going to deal with the BC somehow (a fringe little fleet of 2 Jem’Hadar and a Breen in TNG anyway). There is also the issue of the lone blue paint job and 6 shiny new purple ones, so that is the Robinson, maybe having a longer run than in the series.

• Attack Ship > DS9

One of the worst offending factions. The Battle Cruiser is the biggest, but should be half the size of the Battleship. The Attack ship is even worse and the Breen is a bit of an unknown, but may be about right scaled to the Battleship.

The Hideki conundrum. Hideki fighters are roughly the same size as the Attack Ship, even close to the Defiant maybe. Wizkids made them multi-based fighters and smaller moulds, I guess because the only time they had any screen time was in swarm mode in DS9 and they had zero crew or upgrade highlights, so a tough one to add to the game. It raises some issues in a fleet with or without similarly sized ships. I need them in Fleet for depth and variety, but they also belong in DS9 as the only Cardassian small ship other than the Dreadnaught and Dukat’s BOP.

As fighters, they can go in both fleets, the squadron abstractness is much as Star Wars Armada forces on us and their role accepted as the exception.

• Hideki > both as a squadron

Cardassian Dreadnaught. This is a big, solid model as befits the high Hull and attack value and it’s “0” agility. Problem is, it only 100m long, so less than a third the size of Voyager. It seems Wizkids felt the need to make this and the Bioship below large models to fit their strong stats, but at odds with their actual size.

• Dreadnaught > DS9/Delta, but even then it is too big.

Species 8742 Bioship. Powerful and dangerous, a match for the Borg even, the bioship is a large model, but it is actually a small ship employed in numbers with possibly single crew, basically a giant integrated fighter.

I have always put it into the battle set as they are genuinely a threat to all factions even with small numbers (I have 5), with ship stats of 6-2-5-6. The 5 hull is probably indicative of their advanced and exotic nature not size, but it led me to believe they were fairly true to scale. According to several sources it is about half the size of Voyager at 200m, even though the actual model is actually larger. This is highly problematic.

Ignore the evidence and go with the stats for battle or make then an almost unstoppable powerhouse in a smaller scale Delta Quadrant game (where they were encountered) and ignore the massive scale issues everyone has with the Borg?

• Species 8742 Bioship > Delta Quadrant only

The Ferengi seem small-time enough for DS9 scale, but the D’Kora is too big to use there, so only the little shuttle and an acquired BOP get a run. The Ferengi are a little pointless, generally scenario players, but 3 D’Kora might bother someone.

The Delta Quadrant is the most problematic over all. With no capacity to split the field, some scale issues are unavoidable.

The Borg-all of them, are always too small, but they are what they are. The Sphere “Type 2” is close to ok in scale with a Galaxy, but still way too small compared to Voyager. I do not have the giant Cube, only the Tactical one, a rare medium sized ship in AW, but it is also tiny compared to other ships and a properly scaled cube would be twice the size of the one made.

The Kazon. The Carrier is bigger than a Jem’Hadar Battleship, but the Raider is about the size of an Attack Ship ship, so another impossible ask for the makers.

The Kremin Time Ship is similar in size to the Kazon carrier, the Vidiians are also huge, so the Delta Quadrant needs compromise..

As an exception across the board, the Borg are battle scale, except in the Delta Quadrant or any other hypothetical I might do** (they do get around a bit), with a little suspended belief applied.

These are all in denial of the scale issues still obvious in these more defined segregations, but at least tiny little Delta Flyers are not facing off against monstrous D’Deridex any more.

Ships that sit ok are the TNG battle Fed Galaxy, Nebula, Akira, Excelsior, Sovereign, the Klingons generally (with B’rels in DS9), the TOM ships, Kelvin, Enterprise, if you remove the Xindi Aquatic, DS9 generally.

*Delta Flyer, Kremin Time ship, Kazon carrier, Xindi Aquatic, the Borg generally, all so massive it is a case of accept them as they come or don’t use them.

**The Tac Cube used as a Scout sent to an earlier time line makes for a good “Weapon Zero” or “Planet Killer” David vs Goliath scenario.

***Which is considerably bigger than the pre-refit model.

Wish List Time

I have not played it, not even really had it out for a proper look, but a game that is sitting in an important place for me is “Into The Unknown” (ITU), by Wizkids.

Part board game, part war game, part RPG, it is a crowning achievement, the wish of many fulfilled. It is however, far from finished and the releases are tardy to say the least, but hope abides.

The second box is going to add Klingons and according to the illustration Romulans in some form, but no ships for them. There are some odd choices. Why a second Defiant class? I guess it will fit in with the game’s needs, but why not a Romulan Scout or Federation Sabre, Excelsior or Intrepid class?

What is next?

Lots of speculation, some wishful, some based on actual hints, but what would I like?

A real Romulan presence (my end point if they do it), which may be problematic as the “true to scale” adherence of the game would make a D’Deridex at least twice the size of the Jem’Hadar Battle Cruiser already done (below) or basically fill a box.

The Valdore is a different beast, but tied to the later Movies (with the truly enormous Scimitar). Boy, wouldn’t a special edition Scimitar be a good way to finish the TNG series!

A strong start, but more is expected. At odds with Attack Wing, the Enterprise is bigger, the Defiant smaller.

A Valdore, Enterprise-E and Scimitar would be interesting if a little one dimensional, but again, the Scimitar is likely out of the scope of the game. Ships the size of the D’Deridex, Scimitar and Jem’Hadar Battleship would be the size of the original box, so maybe saved for later special releases if the game takes long term.

On a different tangent, why not do;

• A Voyager starter with Voyager, Delta Flyer, several Hirogen ships, or a Kazon carrier and Raiders or a Borg sphere, (maybe an AI Sphere?).

• The Original Series “five year mission” campaign (Fed, Gorn, Romulan and Klingon one ship factions) with a Tholian web casting set as an add-on.

• The Original Movies (there is already a Reliant class and BOP), with the Excelsior, Enterprise refit, Bird of Prey, K’Tinga and Khan crew (that could take over any ship).

• An Enterprise vs Xindi campaign set (Enterprise, Reptillian, Insectoid, Mammalian shuttle and Andorian).

Something about the ITU style really speaks to me for earlier periods.

With a comprehensive set of crew and characters these could have as much depth as the first core and expansion.

The big advantage of all the earlier periods is, at the scales set, the ships are generally smaller so you could have more or a smaller box set. An original Enterprise would be half the size of the Ent-D and the NX is half of that, most ships in their own space are similar in size and the stories and factions are more character driven than ship dependent.

So, would I like them to continue on their TNG/Dominion War vein or maybe offer different sets?

Bespoke sets for me, but then I would probably wish I had waited and just done an earlier period.

Using Savage Worlds To Hack Another Or Original World

So, you want to “hack” another RPG, book, comic or other idea to run in Savage Worlds (or other generic game), how do you do it, where do you start?

Statement of intent. Do this, because you will be coming back to it for centring.

You want to call out what you are aiming for.

Define the theme, define what is in and out, how does the game facilitate what you need and how does it not. Once this is done, you can create a work list and get to it.

Theme.

This is crucial. You were drawn to a certain world for a reason, so keeping that on track is vital. How is theme defined? Graphics, artwork define the visual theme of a game and wording heroes the specifics. Games like Mork Borg, Mothership, The Mouse Guard or The One Ring are all built around strong visuals, a select style and careful wording.

As proof of this, the second edition of The One Ring is mechanically very similar to the first, but it is visually different enough, that the game feels different for it. The John Hodgson art, reminiscent of Angus McBrides work is aligned to the “old school English literature” look it represents, while the Free League version has the more modern “Scandi” hard and brutal look.

One feels like an homage to the literature, the other feels like a more precipitous, desperate take on the world, more in line with the modern movies. As an aside, that very Scandi-art draws me to Symbaroum, M-Space and others, but is not enough for me to re-buy basically the same game.

I must admit, good art sucks me into a world, my return to Pathfinder through Savage Worlds is in large part thanks to Wayne Reynolds art and some of my worst money sinks and near misses have been art based (Iron Kingdoms, Symbaroum, Tales from the Loop etc).

This then moves to fonts, graphic design and wording. If you want to engage people and keep them there (including yourself), then sticking to the feel of the original is important. Keep it on point, keep it brief, be fair and sympathetic to the original. The key I guess is to invisibly insinuate the new system into the original.

This may seem to be too much, but it is not really hard to do and helps keep the vibe on.

Mechanics.

Char-gen is logically first and most important aspect of the change. If you are making characters that fit into the world you want to play, half the battle is done as the mechanics will follow.

Like all games, Savage Worlds has its own mechanical structure. This is generally a boon for conversions, because it is designed to be used generically. It is not however a perfect fit for all themes without some work. The designers give you the tools, but they are choices that need to be made.

All I can say here is adhere to the limitations and feel of the original as much as possible. If you go full game “X” over all, then you are likely changing the original into something else entirely.

It is perfectly possible to make a realistic and dangerous world like Middle Earth fit with Savage Worlds, but the “look” may jangle. This is where theming comes in (see above).

Work out the parameters of your conversion, go back to your mission statement, make lists if required (what is in or out as suits).

Take for example, my own journey into Weird Western games inspired by my Malifaux miniature collection (all 1e metals). Deadlands by SW has some good ideas, but is not my cup of tea. I am especially not keen enough to dump massed clumps of money into a made world.

My version is a softer, more “New Orleans Noir” touch on similar themes. Weird inventions, some rare but genuinely powerful undead and monsters tied to Voodoo and Indian spirits, spirit magic etc, but not to the level of Deadlands. Basically, I want a more grounded but fantasy d100 take on Deadlands, but still use SW.

This is where SW shines. Take the core, turn to the Horror, Fantasy and even Supers or Sci-Fi companions when needed and you are set. Many of the monsters are even pre-made, or are only a few simple changes away.

Using the Companions and the Core only, I will lift out the elements that fit, maybe rename some to make sense to the world and remove what does not. This is easy, they show you how. It is the core of it.

Specific conversions of another work are also pretty easy generally, they just take understanding and effort. The simplicity of SW helps here.

Edges and Hindrances, skills, powers are there or if not can be added. Maybe rename some if you need, otherwise go as written.

Mouseguard for example, is a lovely system, but for a group familiar with SW especially for a quick game, it is just more to learn. It has “Wises” as skills, so I change the name. Parts of MG not represented are easily added, like sponsors and family, which then become elements of tests and other mechanics.

This is probably the most difficult bit, taking mechanics that are considered defining elements of another game and making them relevant in SW, such as the social and travel aspects of The One Ring. If in doubt, use the original as much as possible.

OK, putting it to the test.

Mothership hack for SW.

I will make a simple char-gen pamphlet or page inserts with basic mechanical changes to copy and replace the original. It is rules lite to start, so a replacement needs be no more. Most rule exceptions can be called out here such as the use of bennies etc.

To make the game feel perilous, I may remove the Wild Dice, Bennys, and/or remove/cap exploding dice.

The “classes” would be retained as backgrounds with skill packages, but some flexibility is allowed.

The Fear/Panic mechanic is a big element of MS, but the Fear mechanic in SW Horror is also fully developed, so I will go with the SW version for cosistency, but to be honest either would work.

The combat mechanic is actually pretty close with 3 wounds, but Bennys remove much of the “oh crap, your dead” vibe so probably none or fewer Bennys or a Benny-Fear test trade or just remove Benny wound soaks. Any of these may work, the system is flexible enough.

Styling is easy enough, it is graphic, stark and often duo-tone. The tone of the writing is similar, to the point and minimalist, with a little attitude. The Art is powerful stuff and for my own use*, I will re-use some or similar or just use the original source. You could even take any image and give it the “black and white line drawing filter” treatment. For adventures, all that is really needed is a major character and monster conversion sheet.

It would likely be easier to hack it for D100 I guess, seeing as it is a D100 derivative to start with, but I am looking for a different feel.

This works fine, just create the gear they are wearing in SW (most is in the Sci-Fi companion)! The key is in the visuals.

Why hack?

The reason is of course, so you can play the game you want with the rules that work for you, in my case a set of consistent rules that can be applied to a variety of genres. SW and D100 are my rides and both have generic rule sets available, you just need to fit the world to the rules and you are golden.

This is the only way I roll as a rule, always wanting to “improve” on the original anyway.

My “to hack” list;

• Mouse Guard in either*. Scale is a big deal in MG, the little mouse has to land a killing blow on the enormous snake or it is all over. SW can deal with that or a D100 (Mythras) game with hit locations maybe. SW with wild card normal sized characters vs “extras” monster sized animals could be an easy fix.

• The One Ring as D100 or SW*. D100 has the hard edge and feel, but SW can also do it as a wholistic switch.

• Trouble Shooters (a D100 game) to SW. The D100 version is good, but a SW version would have more character “squishiness”. This is a rare case when D100 tries to do SW, so a reverse makes sense.

• Tales from the Loop, Electric State (books) in D100 or SW*. The Loop is probably a SW fit with walkers etc, Electric State as more of a d100 gritty humanists game.

• Pulp Cthulhu done pulpier with SW. The Horror Companion even has a Cthulhu section and I once had a full Cthulhu splat book for Explorer edition.

• 13th Age to SW. This is similar to the PF variant, but with 13A elements. Basically do generic fantasy with 13th age bespoke bits like the “one unique thing”, Icon relationships, world influences etc. Ironically, this may even end up being more complicated than the original in places, but easier thanks to system consistency.

• Iron Heroes (a DnD 3.5 hack) to SW with Kev Crosley art. Most of what IH was about is in the wheel house of SW anyway.

• A Symbaroum inspired “giant ancient wood-meets corrosive, self interested society” game in either*.

• An Iron Kingdoms style steam punk game in SW (Sci-Fi/Fantasy companion), maybe with a Malifaux cross-over.

• Something with street level super heroes, possibly Marvel in SW and Batman in D100 (Destined).

• A John Carter-1889 Verne style game with either*, but SW makes the most sense.

• A Malifaux style weird west game (with above).

• Achtung Cthulhu (1e), which is a SW/Cthulhu 6e dual game already, just needs updating.

  Lots more of course, even fleeting ideas that float across my mind as I see things, but all easily done.

*interesting to see the difference.

*all this is for personal use, not to share or sell, so no laws broken.

The Glory And The Sacrifice Of Generic RPG's

I have always been drawn to generic RPG’s.

I accepted this as just a thing, nothing unusual, nothing out of the ordinary, just one of many genres, the “non” genre tied game.

Generics have been around for almost as long as role playing. It started with fantasy, well medieval combat first, then fantasy, but as soon as any other style was conceived, be it sci-fi, horror or super powers, there was a desire to cross these over, to be more flexible in sub-genre and approach, to apply proven mechanics to another story base line.

I have been distracted lately. Several 60 hr weeks, regular 12 hour days and the relentless grind of the winter sports season has made me restless for something hobby related, which of late has been TTRPG’s (it rotates between minis games, TTRPG’s and board games).

This has led to looking at so many new and old games, but all roads have retuned to the two I have settled on, the bedrock D100 system and the newer and more modern Savage Worlds.

SW is a re-visit, but I bought into it this time, and the intent seems to be sticking firm, to be my light, generic, problem solver, my “anything” game, not a commitment to any specific game style or theme.

This is the game that can do anything on a light scale, quickly, cleanly and logically and if I want more it can grow with me.

The plus side to this is my moods and game desires change regulalrly. I get excited, obsessed even, buy something to address the itch, maybe several things, then move on. I usually revisit this mood space, but not always and rarely with the same gusto.

This pattern, once recognised, is now short circuited whenever I can. Knowing you have a problem is of scant use if you do not deal with it.

Generic games are a way of tackling the problem a different way, a better way.

Example;

I bought the Tales from the Loop, Electric State and other Stalenhag books for their evocative art, intriguing stories and originality. I then got drawn naturally to the TTRPG’s, which are aesthetic clones of the books and have the right feel.

The family of game mechanics are well generally respected in the right space, but different to anything I currently have and that sets two hurdles in my way. A new game to learn/teach and another set of expensive and highly focussed books.

These are the constant allure-repel reflexes.

• The promise of more good, new horizons, new systems, pretty art.

• The reality of mood limited use, frustrating systemic dislikes, likely failure to take.

Many games have fallen at these hurdles, like Symbaroum, Mork Borg, Death in Space, Warmachine Iron Kingdoms, Electric State and co, all because I am seeing the trend of chasing “shiny new” is ever faster becoming the reality of “shelf filler”.

Fuelled by The Loop books, I searched my existing collection of games for something that might do the “kids on bikes” style and settled on Savage Worlds and D100 as the two systems that could handle it. SW can do most styles, but leans towards Hollywood/Netflix style (16mm, E.T. Stranger Things), while D100 (probably M-Space) games are more grounded, more realistic and fit better with slow burn styles like The Loop and Electric State.

SW was the chosen one, basically because it felt right, had the actual mechanics for KoB games called out in the core book and was otherwise unused. It led to purchasing the four companions for more info and more themes.

Hard to argue with that.

At this point I realised the other, bigger benefit of generic games outside of being flexible.

Generic games give you a frame work, a core structure to build from, but they do not do all the heavy lifting. This means your imagination provides the rest.

This is how TTRPG’s started. A skeltal at best rule structure and tons and tons of imagination. The say “no two DnD games were the same” in the early days of the hobby was an under statement. They had to be different, because the bulk of the game was applied player and GM creativity, nt 200 page tomes on pre-written history.

In other words, every game had its own mechanical divergences (house rules), its own mood and theme, its own story line that grew in the telling. No Sword Coast, no Forgotten Realms, just participant input and creative agency.

A party met at an inn, in a village, in a kingdom, travelled to “X”, to do “Y” for a reward, then did it again until the kingdom, the continent and even the world were mapped out. Like any forms of free-form growth, you will never see two the same, no matter how familiar the root stock.

This is how Runequest became so deep, becoming the ultimate in “already made for you” worlds. It to grew from humble beginnings, but decades of accumulated knowledge has turned it into one of the most “known” worlds in role playing.

So much depth, which occasionally I like, but it tends to be more of a reading excercise with my own ideas springing from it.

I knew down deep that I was dissatisfied with RAW games, everything made to go like fast food. Umpteen editions of Traveller with the same Star Ships, Careers and Races are a comfortable fit, but they are so rigidly set in stone these days, they are a sort of reality.

Don’t get me started on the stereotypes DnD has made mantra.

Popular culture has become two things. The ever rarer “true original thinking” and the far more common “drawn from accepted tropes”, Harry Potter being probably the most successful of these. basically nothing in HP was original, it was just perfectly realised as a palatable version of itself for the masses. Elves, Undead, Giant Spiders, Wizards, Dragons, all done before, but HP just did it coherently, logically and with an engaging and consistent story.

Ok, back to the point.

Perusing the last of the SW companions, Sci-Fi, which not my favourite of the four, but likely the best of them for useful info, I came to realise, TTRPG’s for me are now two things. Highly mood and genre specific one-shots or short games and/or longer games, probably made up of lots of the first type. The “Styles of game” section really made realise that my mood shifts are not occasional and predictable like seasons, they can come mid-game, mid-sentence some times.

I am now more drawn to inspiration than facilitation.

Mothership is a good example of a game that can be easily hacked into main stream D100 or SW and is basically a one-shot engine, but as a bespoke game, if it were your only one I had, it would be prone to getting same-ish and illogical after a while, the trap of very specific games. You need to hold true to the tenets of the theme, the system and the mood, or they become useless.

A generic game, as long as it is easy enough to apply and generally fun to play, can be any game, any mood, any theme.

I now realise, part or most of the reason I like generic RPG’s is because I like the ability to create and make my ideas come alive in a way that others can share. Books I read, even games I play often spur ideas of things I would like to try, so looking at The Loop as an example, it excited me, then the idea of the game by the same name, no matter how well realised, put that flame out.

On the other hand I dislike and always have disliked, taking the ideas of others as rote, realising their vision, especially if I do not believe in some or all of it. Almost all, to be fair, give licence to diverge from the game as written, but it is often hard, when all roads lead to this vision and yes, you have paid (sometimes heavily) into it.

I recently did a quick survey, one of those on line things (should have known better). It was predictably trying to sell me something dodgy, but the questions, probably AI made or stolen, did allow me to realise that I have always rebelled against the flow. I cannot read a set of rules without wanting to either go back to old ideas of my own or modify the heck out of them.

I shoot small format Olympus for professional sport, shoot single shot not burst, went Panasonic for video when the world went Sony, use strictly manual flash and lots of other oddities, but that is me, always bucking the trend. Creativity comes from not accepting or repeating the same as has been done, but evolving, changing, taking chances.

Nice Try Savage Worlds........ , But No, Not Today.

I have embraced Savage Worlds as an alternate system for my occasional TTRPG games.

It has an element of “make it up as you go” and “draw from any source” flexibility with a genuinely capable and generic system.

There is a lot more to it if you care to go there, but in Australia especially, I am finding getting hold of it more than frustrating. That frustration though, may have saved me.

The game has four levels to my thinking.

Level 1 is the core book, plenty to do any genre with a little work. How much work? As much as you need to fulfill the vision you have. Want to just bounce off an idea*, then Core-RAW is plenty. Want more, then put in the time to flesh it out.

Level 2 is adding the Companions. These expand the rules, the options and the thinking of the core book to allow you to go deep into Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror or Supers, or thanks to the systems basic tennent, any mash-up of these. My original “itch to be scratched” came from selling the original Sci-Fi and Supers companions, much slimmer volumes, that gave me the best Guardians of the Galaxy vibe I had access to.

Level 3 is collateral. The game is theatre of the mind or table top tactical as yuo wish to play it. The latter needs stuff, lots of stuff. As a miniatures and long time RPG gamer, I have lots of “stuff”, from DnD 4e tokens and maps to a crate of Malifaux 1-2e minis. Lots of stuff. It also uses cards as reference and game tools, which again I have.

The temptation is to go full “Savage Worlds” and get all this stuff, something I did with Savage Pathfinder, because I thought it might end there, but the reality is, any deck of cards, something shiny for “Benny” tokens and a reference sheet or two will do. This is dangerous turf. It starts small, just a pack of cards or two (or four or twenty), some figure “flats”, some “Bennys” and before you know it, you have spent more on fluff than on the original books, often fluff you do not need.

Level 4 is going heavily into the sub-settings SW offers. Deadlands, Rifts, Pinebox TX, Lankmar, Necessary Evil, Pathfinder, the list is near endless, especially if you go back into the 20 year history of the game.

I have just talked myself out of going fully level 4 in everything, partly because the cost in Au would be crippling ($200+au just to get the hard to find Deadlands Box). It started with DTRPG offering Savage September, a 40% discount on all things SW, that led to a desire for the hard copies of some of these and looped back to pdf’s, then a split, then a different split, then a meltdown (not really, but I could see the seeds of obsession).

In Savage Pathfinder, I am Level 3-4 through and through. I committed early and thought at the time it would do.

Lots of stuff, new and old. I re-purposed a swathe of 4e tokens and battle panels and some PF map packs with this one, so a win all around.

In SW generic, I am happy at Level 2, the Core and the Companions, because that is the point of it, to be my pick up and run system, my trouble shooter, my alternate, not another bottomless money and time sink. To my mind, when it comes to the companions, you get them all or none and stick to the core.

Ed. Ok I did order some card packs, players books and the accessory box, because they are genuinely useful.

*Often all I need, to run an adventure for another system, flesh out an idea or run an introductory game.

Savage Times Sometimes Call For.........

So, once upon a time, I wanted to run two core TTRPG system families.

A grounded and realistic system and a pulpy, tabletop and fun system.

Kind of a Yin and Yang dynamic.

The main group was the D100 family, which included at the time a ton of Call of Cthulhu 4-6e, BRP’s Big Gold Book with tons of bits, Mythras/Legend and friends, Delta Green etc. This would handle serious, realistic and grounded games. It grew and is still growing.

Almost enough.

The second system was the foil to that, the true alternate, the mood and play style switch-out when the need took me. It was Savage Worlds Explorers edition Deluxe (SWEx-D?). I had lots of it and some older stuff that was more or less compatible. It was pulpy and lean, complete with exploding dice and character “squishiness”.

My favourite element of the system is the clean sub systems for almost anything. With minimum fuss it could handle, often in slim volumes, the things that make genre like Sci-Fi or Supers games different.

D100 games can also, but with more system weight and less of a feeling of a pulpy, semi-table top game. D100 games tend to change as they handle specific genre, SW basically does not.

I must admit, I never really clicked with it, because I felt the system makes more sense when you play it than read it, so some elements did not sit right with me without a solid playing group. These have been addressed in the new SWADE edition either directly or with acceptable options.

I also prefer D100 or D6 mechanics on the whole.

I like how D100 rolls are effectively game invisible, just a roll, nothing too complicated and D6 rolls are of course the most familiar, but a change is needed or wanted sometimes.

I have a very long and complicated relationship with dice mechanics. I like clean and logical systems, tend to avoid overly “clever for their own sake” systems and ones that hero their “thing” over narrative game play. Dice, cards etc a just a tool for game outcomes. SW manages to have an inoffensive balance of mechanical simplicity with added clever elements, while still being very different to D100.

Between the two families they covered most genres that interested me, almost mirroring each other and on occasion, like the 1e Achtung Cthulhu books for example, could use either system (CoC 6e, SWEx-D).

Ancient Rome, space opera, hard sci fi, high fantasy, low magic fantasy, normal, super natural, super hero, Cthulhu horror, regular horror, western, weird western, pirates, weird pirates, you name it, they both offered something in each space, usually differently and often one genre fit one system better, but not always.

SW got dumped at a time when I needed to rationalise. It was always the poor step child of the two, I struggled to connect with it and it was a thinner offering overall. I had even stopped collecting it.

It was also going through its own mild edition war at the time (which got worse with SWADE). I felt one system could do it all and it can, but I also felt there was something missing.

Later, I was compelled to buy SW Pathfinder as it is both a SWADE update and had the (also discarded) Pathfinder 1e feel, complete with the Wayne Reynolds art.

Pathfinder without the layers of cruft or SW focussed on a well liked franchise? Both good, better together.

Two re-found games in one, no bleed, no temptation to grow…….. yeah, right.

I went all in, all the cards, all the collateral, maximum tactile support.

My feeling was, seeing as most of my games these days are introduction or casual games with a casual crowd, this could be a very approachable and user friendly intro to TTRPG’s set.

Even these, which can be replaced by a cheat sheet.

This grew, but within limits of the Pathfinder range only.

There are other considerations though.

The AP below is under a tight licence meaning it must run much the same as the d20 version. This is a shame as SW offers a lot more ways to get things done than the usual attritional encounter economic of DnD.

Instead of a grind with occasional and loose role play elements of a d20 game, SW could truly mix up the play, add benefits and outcomes. The Runelords AP is a good resource, but I will hold off on any more, maybe even getting the much cheaper PF 2e pocket version of Crimson Throne (1/4 the price), as many say the conversion is easy and the play much the same.

I even grabbed the first Adventure Path, helped by the fact I already had the map pack (most of them actually) and some 4e collateral. It is a bit d20 dungeon-grind in play, but that is only if I let it be.

At some point last year, probably a time of weakness fuelled by boredom or/and a good deal, I picked up the new SWADE core book. It survived another clear out (just), got a skim read or two, sat on a shelf and basically took it’s place as “reserved for later, or possibly never”.

One of many generic game systems out there, but becoming one of the main ones.

D100 games can do most things, but sometimes I just want something else, something lighter, something more tactile and table friendly, with less granularity and a pulpier vibe and lastly, an escalating, mixed dice mechanic. It felt ok that it was sitting there amongst my few D100 exceptions, a little under done, but there.

Trying to avoid even more bespoke systems when chasing a “Kids on Bikes” format* led me to pick up SWADE again and it not only filled that niche perfectly, but revitalised my interest in games other than D100. D100 for this genre fit in some cases, like a grounded and low-fi Tales of the Loop game, but the whole 16mm, ET, Stranger Thinks style was too pulpy.

I have to admit, it is sitting better with me this time.

Re-reading the same core rules in the new book just felt like an old friend returned, not a tome of foreign concepts. It was better, more confident and well polished.

I do not want to invest any more time and money into multiple game systems, especially when I usually end up disliking them on some level and do a d100 (or SWADE?) hack.

The Loop/Electric State/Alien series, all with the similar dice mechanics came close, but so many games, so much money and still limited in scope.

SWADE does break my soft “no big glossy hero books that fail to be as perfect as they claim” rule, coming in a nice A5 glossy form, avoiding the pretension of many.

SWADE was a better option in many ways, not the least of which was overall cost and although the core book could do most things I wanted, I was tempted by the potential….

One thing led to several others, specifically being the four companions.

A deal was found which softened the blow a little, the four books coming in at about $250au (down from about $320). Still a lot I guess, but if you compare it to the cost of just the core books for several bespoke systems, it is a steal.

You are not just buying an alternative to a fantasy, sci-fi, supers or horror game, you are potentially buying an alternative to all of them. Sure, every game has it’s own feel and mechanics, but between D100 and SWADE, I have covered the two extremes and the bulk of the spread between.

The big win of course is a consistent system that compliments its other offerings without compromise. Pick a genre or genres, choose your setting rule exceptions and go. A non D100 way of doing the same.

Each book for about the same as the entry point into a base bespoke system, devoid of an anchor and so much more and if you like to do your own thing, tinker, invent, create and blend. It’s a very good place to start.

Can D100 games do pulpy and light?

Yes, but it is a stretch sometimes thematically and often means shifting into a specific sub-system like Troubleshooters or Pulp Cthulhu. Even then, it rarely touches on Hollywood pulp, just less precipitous D100.

Can SW do hard and gritty?

Yes and probably better than D100 does pulpy. It is a lite game mechanically, but can be hacked and made brutal, exaggerated by its swingy-ness. Remove Bennies, the Wild dice, limit exploding dice and it becomes harder, more grounded, nasty even. Some of the spot rules in the Horror Companion are down right gruesome, even by Cthulhu standards.

A real test for SW would be using it for the sci fi/horror games Mothership, Death in Space or Alien, the ultimate “don’t expect this to end well, just quickly” platforms. SW with bennies traded for sanity checks and no wildcard dice might emulate the harshness of Mothership and would likely absorb the stress mechanic also, or with the Horror Companion’s own fear mechanics.

Taking elements from these games, like the art, “fluff” tables and ideas is easy and weightless, so the feel of the games stays intact, the mechanics however, become more consistent and complete.

Looking at some examples.

Kids on Bikes.

SW; Stranger Things, 16 Millimetre, ET, classic era teen angst with complications and “see what happens” stuff, peril being implied, but only an end point.

D100 (M-Space); The Loop, Electric State, The Labyrinth. More serious, contemplative and grounded teen age, peril more up front and real.

Fantasy.

SW; Pathfinder (as made), Mouse Guard (fixes the scale issues), high or weird fantasy or fantasy/supers/sci-fi cross-overs (Marvel Multiverse, Malizan).

D100 (RQ, Mythras/Legend); Normal or weird history, old school revival (Classic Fantasy), The One Ring converted, future history (Dark Tower), low magic and more serious cross-over (Dresden Files etc).

Horror.

SW; Pulpy, over the top or semi comical feel, lite theme “monster of the week” with a sinister twist, like Supernatural, EVIL, Rivers of London (which I have in d100!) even a gonzo take on Mothership or a surprise normal-to-horror game like From Dusk Till Dawn or The Thing.

D100; Dark horror, Cthulhu, psychological or grim like the X-Files, grounded-fragile characters and jaded desperation, like Delta Green, Most Cthulhu, historical horror, Sigils and Signs.

Sci Fi.

SW; Pulpy space opera like Star Wars (have a fan hack), sci-supers cross over (Guardians), KoB cross over, sci-fantasy, themed sci-fi (because it’s easy and comprehensive), like Pacific Rim, Starship Troopers (book or movie), Alien, A Quiet Place, Battle Tech, early cartoonish or naive Trek (TOS/animated), later “action” Trek (Strange New Worlds, Discovery), The Stainless Steel Rat, Electric State (movie).

D100; Hard sci fi like Blade Runner, middle period cerebral Trek (Movies to TNG/Enterprise), The Loop and Electric State (books).

Supers.

SW; Pulpy and street level, most cross over themes, most Marvel. I have four Marvel systems to draw from, none of which I have any intention of playing, but they make a great library for comparing capabilities.

D100; Gritty and dark street level, DC Batman, or Watchmen, very character fragile. Ironically for me, the only supers game I might play is the D20 DC Heroes game (Mutants and Masterminds for DC)!

General thoughts.

SW; for intro or pick up games, mash-ups, loose or open ended themes, rpg-skirmish combinations, one shots, blockbuster tributes, quick conversions and make-as-you-go games. I will avoid specific themed books, using this as my tool kit, “wing it from scratch” set.

D100; for deep campaigns, character driven, fully prepped, low combat-high stakes, grounded and heavily themed settings. This is best when a theme is baked in, but the grounded implication of D100 games adds depth.

*

The last puzzle piece is the table top skirmish side of SW.

It is effectively two games in one, being a table top mini game evolved into RPG territory.

As an example, I was just reading reviews for Five Parsecs from Home, a solo, semi TTRPG/war game, basically a linked skirmish game with back story creation system. Another big expense for a single setting game, which the SW core can probably handle just fine and with even more options.

I find when a non RPG tries to add in RPG elements, there is always added complication and compromise (Gloomhaven, When Nightmares Come, Five Parsecs etc). Some like Captains Chair or Into The Unknown hold more onto the procedural framework of a board game, then get immersive within it, others just bog down.

A true TTRPG just does it better, faster and easier by adding a free form GM dynamic.

I have large collections of Heroclix and Wyrd (Malifaux) figs and have been working on alternate games for a long time to support them. The SWADE Companion’s can so simply give me the skirmish rules I need to do games like Hellboy, Marvel, DC Batman, Martian exploration, weird west, alien or monster invasion etc and at different levels and themes.

The systemic pay-in is about the same as any other single system (like Super Mission Force for supers), in one unified set, with RPG depth.

So, lots of games avoided by committing to one (or two with D100)?

I am truly looking forward to finally getting both feet wet in the SW universe. I know what is coming as I have had it before in some form, but the increased consistency and substance will be greatly appreciated. Nothing is ever perfect, but the SWADE edition is pretty robust and the few glaring annoyances I struggled with have been filed off.

At some point you need to commit, work with what you have, fix what you need and get on with it.

Maybe a Mouse Guard mini campaign, a RQ hack, a Guardians style sci-supers, a Malazan Book of the Fallen or Dark Tower Sci-fantasy far future setting, or maybe something completely different?

*The One Ring, Mouse Guard, 13th Age, Marvel Multiverse, Traveller. I have mostly turned my back on d20 games as, among other things, they tend to be platforms for fights and fights only. D100 games make fighting dangerous, so you go looking for other solutions (i.e. skills) and SW also offers a lot more processes inherently.

**very much grounded in 1980’s hard sci fi tropes.

It Just Keeps Coming, So When Does It End?

So, my “end of this” posts become ever less plausible.

Attack wing keeps popping up and I keep stressing the small stuff.

At last count I have 15 more ships and several card packs coming.

Wizkids had another half price clearance, so I jumped on another original Starter Set, a Blood Oath and To Boldly Go faction packs.

Ebay produced some reasonably priced OP card packs, Kruge’s BOP, Kohlar’s Cruiser, the Reliant and other bits and I got the very last $10 clearances from a local retailer to fill out a number of fringe fleets.

Lots of Excelsior and K’Tinga class in the mix, but they are the bread and butter f the franchise.

I am sitting on a well priced, but still insanely expensive Chang’s BOP, that will cost me close to half what I sold a chunk of my original collection for, including Chang and the Reliant.

This is the breaking point for me.

I will not spend $100au for basically three cards I do not have, any of which I could replace with a glue stick and a little effort (Chang gets a free Echo action and his BOP gets to fire torps and remain cloaked, both easily enough done in other ways).

The completist side of me, rarely denied, is getting put in the corner on this one.

The fact is, there are only so many combinations of abilities available within the scope of the games mechanics and sometimes a few ways of skinning that same cat (sorry cat lovers, figure of speech).

More Klingons generally, have been the key, but hair splitting is not needed.

Klingons never go to waste, especially K’Tinga’s and BOP that can theoretically fit into many periods (TNG/DS9, TOM, TOS, Voyager maybe even Kelvin).

The number of actual Fed ships and some others are getting silly (6 Akira class), but I have plans to make a few “assimilated” Borg versions, using up some of my excess cards, ship multiples and deep cuts.

Is it finally over for real?

I think so this time, running out of room.

Runequest, Do I "Get" It And Does It Matter?

Runequest is being accumulated, maybe even collected.

Collection is of course the lesser of two stages, the bigger and better one is playing it with friends.

For the bulk of my awareness of table top role playing games (TTRPG’s), D&D has held little interest, being the home of the ubiquitous “murder hobo”, game-ish abstraction and over popular fantasy stereotypes I grew tired of a long time ago and Runequest which was too weird by far.

Weird?

Runequest is a curious mash-up of Ancient Greek, Babylonian, Persian, Indian (sub-continental), Indian (American) and Celtic cultures as realised through 1970’s era eyes. Compared to D&D, which standardised Tolkien-European fantasy ideas into mundanity, Runequest is highly original, or more to the point anti establishment at it’s cre.

The game mechanics, world building, setting and the overall feel of RQ is clearly and openly not a D&D clone (as intended), more of a revolutionary departure, a path taken in the earliest years of the hobby by creators who shunned the “normal” fantasy baseline.

On the other hand, it shows it’s early, if naive roots proudly. Place names like “Apple Lane”, “Trade Think”, “Soggy Bottom”, “Woods of the Dead”, “Old Vampire Cave”, “Bloated Bear Inn” etc smack of 1970-80’s era early gamer on-the-run thinking drawing from prompts of that time like fairytales, personal experience, TV shows and an Ameri-centric take on popular fantasy culture, while at the same time being intimately and authentically small world, almost too true to not be real.

This is contrasted with a vastly more mature and thought through mythos and pantheon drawing on Indian (sub-continent), Indian (American/South American), ancient Mediterranean/Arabic and some original stuff, as well as an expanded and expanding world view. It is however a heavy load and something you have to pay into (the designers say not, but the reality is, you buy it, you buy into it).

The latest edition is heavily rooted in RQ culture. It is the Glorantha RPG no doubt. Early attempts to make it generic, the most generic probably being Legend which is a derivative of a derivative, a game that has effectively moved into the more traditional Euro-fantasy time/realm and shed all RQ ties, but is still an echo of RQ like most D100 games. The latest edition is a full wind-back with a mild refresh.

Do I get it?

Not really, not yet.

Like a lot of unfamiliar things, the more I read, the more I normalise it, but it is a world that was made for other’s needs and has a lot of baggage. Oddly the baggage is seemingly complete, but at the same time incomplete. “Your own Glorantha may vary” is the catch phrase that frees the players and designers from regimented adherence, but if you do not are you playing Glorantha as it needs to be played or is it just a skeleton of a system?

On top of that, it is not complete and completion adds more and more layers. Tough choice or the work done for you? This is always the way and something I have always struggled with.

Pay into the overhead of an established world or flesh it out as you go?

Runes, Gods and Goddesses, Hero wars, Hero quests, Satarites, Sword and Sandal technology etc are becoming more settled slowly, but some things like the Broo, are much more appreciated.

I realise the breakthrough will likely come when rolling it out to others, that point when you switch from student to teacher and that roll-out will be in the form of one of the excellent introductory adventures.

They give you the best helping hand I have come across in the GM pack and Starter set. I managed to pick both up for a little over $70au (about $40 U.S.) and have at hand (ignoring the RQ:G Core and other books I have for now), over 300 pages of rules, guides, adventures, maps and support.

Before this came a long forgotten RQ 1e campaign not long after it was introduced to Australia (giving away my age), some RQ2, but as a generic game, Legend, Mythras and other D100 games as well as the excellent and slightly more approachable 13th Age Glorantha. The last entry was the seed for the orchard that is now.

13th A:G is a complete contradiction.

My avowed dislike and rejection of all things D&D has two exceptions;

The One Ring spin-off Adventures in Middle Earth was the ideal low magic, low fantasy 5e salve, but I decided recently to just stick to TOR as the basis of a d100 game and let that one go and funnily enough, I have since embraced TOR fully without the distraction.

13th Age was over-the-top D&D mashed-in with a world I had little interest in Glorantha.

In a lot of ways, 13A:G is more D&D than D&D is. Old school values, with clean and high powered new school (within limits) mechanics that are all about play for real players at real tables by actual 3e and 4e edition designers. All the stubborn constraints that make D&D stale, boring, clunky, abstract, predictable and vanilla* are enlivened with simple but effective “house rules” or rejected outright.

Both “cure” the D&D malady differently, but the sheer audacity of their close hew to the oldest game in the genre, without succumbing to the stereotypes required, pleased me.

I will likely never play 13A:G, but that was never the point. It was to be mined for resources for my own 13A game (Dragon Pass as a location somewhere on/off the maps edge, with Runes as ICONs due to some type of ancient residual power from a previous age), but it can now also serve as a source book for RQ proper.

I must admit, the itch I need to scratch at the moment is the “kids on bikes” style game. Trying to avoid getting “Tales From The Loop”, mainly because the original book has plenty to inspire and the system is not D100, something I am trying to standardise my gaming to**.

Ok, getting off topic here.

Runequest for me is a comfortable bit of once uncomfortable, a slightly intriguing journey into a new landscape, but a stretch of somewhat tired mind-scapes.

The alternate path is also to use the RQ:G resources that attracted me to the system (Bestiary, Red Book) as the foundation of my own game, which will be the subject of another post.

*Yes I have owned most editions and played bits of all. Always the same experience, just a little different each time.

**M-Space with some “soft” rules (from Troubleshooters, Rivers of London etc) and game advice gleaned from TFtL itself will work, mostly about the “scale” of children’s minds and their world perception, I just need to get it done.

The Final Frontier...........

No, not space, but something that has been annoying me for a while and finally addressed (first world problem I guess, but here goes).

The differences between Attack Wing and X-Wing are many, really only the broad theme and system style are similar, the specifics are often quite different.

I dislike X-Wing’s fixed pilots, find squad building less forgiving and some points values are off in 1e especially.

Attack Wing feels like a bigger ship game with fewer movement actions and generally less dynamic ships, but builds deeper.

I do not have a favourite, they both do their jobs fine and the things I would like to change in one are often addressed in the other, so between them they satisfy.

Attack Wing however has one element I find more annoying and illogical than usual in both a game play and a simulation context. I dislike the action bar limitation for cloaked ships, but there are plenty of upgrades that address that.

A unique ship in AW is like an XW named pilot card. The ship gets an ability, sometimes a little illogical, but I can deal, they get more upgrade slots and cost more.

They also get a shield value boost.

Inversely, a generic ship costs (usually*) a flat 2 points less, has fewer upgrade options, no inherent ability (basically a thematic 2 point upgrade), but also suffers a -1 shield value.

Also, when a ship has no shields (NX Enterprise), the generic still gets no ability and fewer upgrades, but at the same or no cost reduction. This just fails to impress.

Why?

I can see no logical reason for the reduction in shields. Primary weapons, Hull and Agility stay the same, so why are shields reduced?

For a poultry 2 point dispensation you lose on three fronts, all worth at least 2 points of pain or in some cases you lose two and do not take the hit because there is no shield value to reduce. This means the ship ability and upgrades are of no value?

The shield reduction can be a 50% hit or in more powerful ships as low as a 15% reduction (i.e. again, no consistency) and fewer upgrades can make the ship nearly useless (the Tholian vessel cannot even function fully as a generic with either the ability to cast webs or another weapon).

The triple hit make generics just a very poor option, usually only taken when you run out of others.

I have adjusted some point values across my fleets for consistency, usually in line with Wizkids own adjustments (or sometimes in reverse, depending on the period), especially on “0” shield ships, but in some periods where uniques and generics mix, weak ships just get weaker and thinner pickings become frustrating.

The fix has been to upgrade shield values to the same value across the class.

Not in all periods, like TNG battle, where generics are used for large actions and uniques for scenario games, but for TOS, TOM, Voyager and Enterprise periods, where generics and uniques mix, it makes a huge difference. I have also run out of numbers to re-purpose.

For bigger TNG fleet actions I use generics with lower shield values. These ships are more powerful anyway, so less is easier to handle.

I have also tried to mix up repetitious upgrade bars, usually not adding more upgrades, just a better range of options. This addresses things like the Xindi Insectoid Boarding Party Crew card having no ride on an Insectoid ship as they have no crew slots. Odd considering they have a full nursery on board, are as big as an NX class and provide the boarding parties!

Uniques are now just named ships with a built in ability like any other upgrade, usually cheap for what they offer, but that is ok to define their named status.

After a coupe of Vulcan faction packs and an OP brick, I have a lot of these (8), so upgrading them and adding some variety makes sense.

Generics are now a cheaper option worth taking and a few are even capable of combinations of upgrades that no other ship in their fleet has.

*Interestingly in their very latest releases Wizkids have started to adjust some generic values to as much as 4 points less, but still often not enough and a fix very much too little, too late.

Turning Zeros Into Heroes And Other Strange Ideas

When you buy a ship pack for Attack Wing, you usually get a “0” cost, skill 1 captain. For some factions I have up to 20 of these rarely taken “fillers”. They are not useless, but unless you are a tournament player looking for a cheap support ship, a “blocker”* or something to transport a clever gambit, who really wants to save a few points and fore-go a decent captain with a skill?

My intention is to have as few of these generics as possible, especially for the unique ship sets I have collected. There are lots of semi generic 3-7 skill captain cards around, so as long as they make sense and end up in different eras so there is no cross-contamination, no harm done. Semi-generic improved captains are not new (Somraw Captain, Tholian Pilot, Gorn Pilot, Xindi Councellor etc), so why not add as I can.

From here you must understand that;

1. We never play tournament games so those expectations are irrelevant (although many tournament players use any card from any era on any ship anyway, so same-same).

2. I rarely use Mirror universe ships as they are so limited (and of little interest), so these are “raided for parts” or re-purposed. Many of these have become useful to flash out the few Mirror ships I do use, or replace missing options in non-Mirror factions.

3. I hate being obsessed by hard to get, overpriced card stock with dodgy pictures and yet more ships, just to get the right text/cost/name, when the game is based on a quite fluid fiction franchise. A writer can simply come up with any name that sound ok, and its canon. For my game then, why can’t I?

4. I want to get I all I can out of the game. I paid for these bits, so I will use all I can get from them. No harm is done regardless as long as I work within canon and common sense.

5. No character may be on the table twice unless they are from a Mirror Universe faction and then the same limitation applies by faction, or rule 1 is in play**.

6. Much of this is only possible because Wizkids were quite consistent with their card layouts. They use the same font in about four sizes, there is always some black to cut into (then black pen the edge to hide the cut). They place most text and number boxes in the same place and they are usually the same size, especially for ships. There are exceptions, but not many.

Many cards are just a waste, or could they be a fix for the many holes I see in my set and as for chasing official offerings, after scanning the interwebs, freight alone kills of my desire to chase OP or rare cards.

Examples;

Somraw Captain of which I have four, is a decent 5 skill generic Klingon, except for the Somraw bit.

Two have become Klingon Captain and added to the TNG/DS9 sets, one has had his ability changed, the top pasted on an excess K’rell from the Gr’oth, the text of that card gifted to an excess TOM Gorkon from the Kronos 1 set and the last was left alone.

When I sold my Chang’s Bird of Prey, I lost a skill 7 Chang (you still get a skill 6 in the K1 pack and I have two of those). This was fixed using a Koloth card from the Gr’oth pack with a decent talent, an Elite slot and skill 7.

So, 4 captains from 4 identical cards, another Gorkon and Chang option and a re-used K’rell card. I then added a couple of 3 or 4 skill with ability captains to a couple of generics, one generic is clearly the Christopher Lloyd Kruge, so he got a small boost.

The Klingons in my TOM set are much better balanced now with 6 named captain options and some new crew.

A pair of Kronos One’s, both with tweaks. The one on the left is the TOM period one with cloaking, but now two points cheaper to be in line with cheaper Federation opponents and the other K’Tinga class I have. The one on the right is the TOS brute with the highest primary in that set at it’s original value, but it has no cloak.

Picking up some steam, I fixed my Andorian problem.

Only two ships is workable, but a single unique captain was not. A generic captain and a spare Talas crew card got promotions and I did a second Shran option using a logical Hirogen card. Both factions are militant and have similar ships, so the talents tend to line up well. I also re-badged an Andorian Helmsman from an Avenger Mirror pack and the TOS Mirror set got the Orion Tactician.

While I was at it, a generic Hirogen picked up a Gorn left over and I renamed an Alpha Hunter to Alpha Prime (I have 6 Hirogen ships, five now named).

Ok, what else needs fattening up or adjusting?

The Enterprise era Vulcans have several named ships added by using a mash-up of existing names (Ni’Val > Ni’Pra, Kir’Shara > Re’Karr and the like). I may revisit this for more variety.

Some license taken and I think one actually stumble close to an actual Vulcan word.

My ISS Avenger from the Enterprise period became a USS Voyager NX-04 and the original Enterprise card (with Free Hull Plating) is now out of date with the new one available, so the later model NX-10 Federation is born, with Hull Plating as standard and named in honour of the burgeoning Federation (I was tempted to make it the Archer, but used both my cards).

The NX era ships now have four named versions with almost a dozen captains.

Under close scrutiny, I could have been more precise, but they can be popped off and re-laid if needed and in play, nobody notices. The neat ten was from an excess Iden captain card. Wizkids have been consistent with font and sizing.

My Regents Flagship is now a pure Klingon giving me a second Negh’Var. Who the “Regent” is matters little in that volatile and ever changing Empire. Might come up with a different name for that one (Gowron or Martok?).

Plentiful excess Koraga’s are fine, now about the only BOP easily found still. There are plenty of names to use and in some cases, they can become B’rels (only their Hull value and the dial used needs changing).

This also fixes my Chang’s BOP stand-in, which from memory was a B’rel with a K’Vort dial, so basically convert a K’Vort and we are away. The ships ability to fire Torps while cloaked can be covered several other ways.

The Somraw has had a few generations now, but means “muscle” in Klingon, so a common theme. The Ves Batlh (“Honour Sword”) gets a second life as a Vor’Cha and the Hiro Kyan is completely made up Marquis hero.

The Marquis are a bit of a “one ship wonder” faction (without the long gone A Motley Fleet or rare OP packs) and I have four of them. I have added a Chakotay and Hudson option and of the 3 generic captains there is now a skill 3 (ex-Gorn) captain with free “Salvage” upgrade which feels like a Marquis thing, a (gnarly) scar face from a Mirror DS9 generic (prime candidate for Ramming Attack?) and the last is left in reserve.

Bit stuck for ship names, so I went with Hiro Kyan, maybe named after a famous Marquis freedom fighter?

Almost an entire excess crew of Marquis have been recruited into the Voyager Feds (most pics have them in Federation uniform anyway and they are all canon!), adding to that range and also crewing the Val Jean as a hypothetical Delta Quadrant ally. Seska and Dolby also had no Voyager versions even though their pictures are Fed uniform.

My TOS Feds were a little thin, especially now they have three unique ships, so the sole generic captain got a promotion to skill 4 and a free “1” move using an Admiral Gardner from the Enterprise series. Not a great skill or ability, but a mid range hole filled and ships in TOS are limited to speed 4, making his potentially the fastest ship in the set. I even re-badged and skilled a Mirror Kirk as his pic is a good “action” Kirk.

This, I realised too late actually used up my last skill 1, so I converted an excess Mirror generic with Pike picture into a Fed. No point in having no skill 1 fillers.

A second TOS Mirror ISS Enterprise is now USS Independent (not an actual ship name, but the class description on the generic Dauntless). I have used generic Federation, Dreadnaught, Hunter and Independent so far and they fit in fine.

For fun, I turned a Captain Spock from the Mirror pack into a Federation variant, a good option for the Vulcan crewed Intrepid in an expanded fleet. Not totally settled on the pic and I gifted a spare Live long and Prosper, or I could have used that pic.

I did the same with an excess Chekov as there is not one at all in the TOS Fed range (!?) and the picture and ability are close enough for the Prime universe. This is problematic I guess if the two Enterprises ever meet, so I will simply remove the clashing cards (or will I……).

I have no use for most Mirror packs with the exception of the TOS and Kelvin ones, so plenty of re-badging, pack swapping and the odd personality salvaged from the discards. Apart from Chekov and Spock above, I also found a use for Sisko, Black and Worf.

I recently found a set of “Red Shirt” and “Red Alert/Full Alert” OP cards on ebay with reasonable freight, which filled out the TOS crew slots. I can now fully build-out all of my TOS Fed ships, even a generic.

While I was at it I made a TOS Romulan Praetus and Klingon Somraw from Enterprise era cards (they have close to or the same stats), then came an Enterprise era Gal Gath’Thong.

My last butchered Gal Gath’Thong card has become the Gal (or Ga, not sure yet) on an excess Vo scout ship. Vo, Pi and Ga, sounds reasonable.

There is little I can do with the Xindi, Kazon, Borg single era factions, but needed fixes have been found and variation added, including a named Xindi Reptilian, the Dominus (part Dominion, part Praetus). I then added the Xindus Prime, which is part canon, a second named Insectoid ship. They also gained a captain or two.

This was one of those cases where the penny dropped a little slowly. I cut up all my Orassin’s quickly before I thought of using them with different names, but no real harm done. One came the Rassin Bajoran scout, the other may become a Romulan Galorass or a Klingon.

I then picked up another Ships of the Line faction pack.

This pack gave me excess Saber, Promethius, Sovereign and Akira class ships, so there is now a Dreadnaught (Cardassian drone > Promethius), Hunter (Alpha Hunter > Da Vinci) and two I am sitting on. I was going to do the Raider (ex-Saber), but smudged the card, so I went with Ni’Var, a Vulcan word for duality or of two worlds, which feels right.

I will sit on the rest for a while or maybe gift them to a friend.

These all feel right and fit well. I now have two Sabre and Prometheus models, so three choices of named ship each make sense (the Sovereign class already has 4 and Akira’s are plentiful). The Ni’Var also got a new upgrade bar, hero-ing Tech as fits the Vulcan title. My second Cerberus will become a TOM Excelsior class.

My second Reman warbird has become the Shinzon.

I was lacking names in a similar large font, then realised my second Shinzon Captain card would never be used and it fit perfectly, so why not, surely his complicated ego warrants it? It has a fitting ex-Borg ability to split its Primary attack and I changed the upgrade bar slightly to favour tech over Crew.

I then promoted an excess Reman Viceroy to a skill three captain with free Reman Bodyguards (ex-Vrax from Enterprise) so my second warbird can have an on-theme subordinate captain. The Remans can now be a strong faction on their own in a Romulan civil war game.

Lots of excess Romulan captains like three Enterprise era Valdores have had their abilities spread through other eras. Multi-era factions are great for this. His card is cheap with a mid range skill and a very Romulan talent (outflanking attack bonus), so it gets a new face in an era or two.

Later periods are mostly just points adjustments and consolidations (usually in line with Wizkids), but a Somraw (Klingon for “muscle”) replaced my second Koraga (third on the way). My Romulan Scout and Science vessel costs now make more sense as do most periods.

This I have done by period, for example; the TNG battle sets are all using the new lower points costs, the DS9 named set is using the older ones.

Really the only cards that cannot be re-used are name specific ones like Lojur.

A second layer of card once sleeved is effectively invisible, so cosmetically it is better than anything short of Photo-shopping the cards and re-printing them, although I have learned to double check card tones and size as the new and old ones can differ slightly.

So far, I have added almost 100 new options, fixed points costs and balanced fleets across my collection and even made a few dream builds, all out of what was effectively excess junk stock and all without changing an original of each. Conservatively, doing this with second hand and OP packs would have cost hundreds of dollars.

It has not stopped, because now I have a second wind chasing up all the commonly found remnants for parts and conversions.

*In X-Wing and Attack Wing, low skill pilots/captains are often called “blockers” because they have to move first, allowing them to foil the plans of better pilots/captains, by simply getting in the way.

**Rule 1 is used for some weaker faction games and allows upgrades up to the value of the ship point value to be bought even if they are over the icon limit. Only upgrades equal to icons available may be active at any one time, changing from face down to face up after dials are set. Inactive upgrades are dormant so cannot change status etc (no firing torps, then switching them out for another weapon and reloading them while inactive). Captains and crew may be duplicated on the same ship if they are the same faction, but if any effect disables or removes one, all versions share the same fate.

Skill Based Or Level Based RPG's, Or Maybe a Little Of Both.

I am on record as being a DnD disliker. I will not say hater, because I do not like that currently over used label and it is only a game after all, it’s not life threatening, no harm is done.

The things that leave me cold with DnD (all editions, I have tried….) are;

• Levels as an illogical measure of experience and growth and an unbalanced tool of empowerment. Sudden jumps in power, especially for things the character never uses! By using them, you basically tier life. All you are doing is limiting the range of opponents worth fighting, but the mechanics stay the same (but the math grows).

• Hit points and Armour Class as an abstraction of what it is actually like to be hit with a large, sharp (or not) metal object in a specific location. This leads to untouchable characters or match-ups with little hope and a bizarre dynamic of 100% operational capability until wham it all goes at once, none of which make for a good game (see above). Try to kill Smaug in one shot with a weapon that cannot possibly deal enough damage to bother him, or better yet, stick a pin in your eye and see if it is (a) 1 point of damage you can ignore or (2) it takes an eye and f%#king hurts!

• Class systems as an artificial limitation to character building and development. It is nice to have a career and some limitations to opportunities, but it is not for nothing most games since have abandoned this artificial limitation.

• The above combining to create a “power build” obsession and a worshipping of the game mechanic over character centric play. I just cannot grok the “my character is a # level “X class ” and a # level “Y class and “Z” race” as a sentence starter and never have.

• It champions tropes and stereotypes that have become so embedded, they now seem more normal than normal.

• The system is based around, promotes and sanitises combat as the main means of driving the story and reduces outcome fear. I will admit, some D100 games are very brutal and unforgiving, but there are ways of reducing that without making combat a boring mechanical process and often not fighting is the best answer. Fear equals excitement and satisfaction in overcoming it and it comes from real threat.

• Loot and XP driving player ambition. The “murder hobo” is a DnD creation depicting a band of wandering killers taking what they want to whom they want for materiel gain.

• Other sub-systems not specific to, but often found in levels games like spell slots/Vancian magic or per encounter/per day limits have never been a comfortable or logical fit for me or generally. I have the D100 Lyonesse setting book. It has a right to Vancian magic.

• The system claims to be new and improved every iteration, but never changes it’s dated core concepts. Constant change, but no real change, a recipe for frustration.

• The company itself has turned into a cynical money making monster worthy of smiting in it’s own right (funny how we become what we abhor). Slay that Dragon!

• It is often not an easy or fun game for a GM to run, nor the best experience possible at the table and it is rarely as much fun as it is portrayed (depictions on Stranger Things, Big Bang etc either fudge or exaggerate it to make it look exciting).

• The reality is, it often does not even simulate it’s own art or the fiction it draws from (I remember one illustration showing a single arrow hitting the eye of something big and mean with predictable results, but the rules do not support that happening in the game). Try smiting Smaug with a single bolt. Not gonna happen.

• It is not, as it pretends to be, the only game in town but it still dwarfs the combined revenue and profile of all the others. It often feels like you have to go through the “initiation” of DnD to discover better options.

Reality is just not like a DnD game.

Ok, a game can be what ever it needs to be, but most role players are after more than a game experience. They are looking for a forum for their imagination to fly free, not a set of un-intuitive and confining rules that railroad them into a seemingly set path of expectations.

Your experience differs? If so, then go you, but I would have to say, if you can make DnD that good an experience, then just wait until you try something better!

Options?

I once used E6 restrictions with Pathfinder 1e, which is an old idea based on a long forgotten article postulating that Gandalf was only a 6th level Wizard. It capped and slowed character growth to 6th level, using incremental advancement within each level (more feats etc) and then some sort of non hit point growth after or even skipped hit point growth all together*. It was a waste of 70% of a class’s options and the books they came in, but felt right and “big bad” enemies could be higher levels, but they paid a terrible price to get there. It effectively made a levels based game a skills based one.

*A favourite twist, was to use the Traveller idea of applying critical hits to characteristics directly. Hit points became a buffer, but crits actually reduced your characters capabilities.

Other options are almost infinite, because TTRPG games should be that, almost infinite in scope, play styles, becoming launch pads for imagination and ideas.

If you want to play DnD conceptually, which is to say, DnD like you think it is or should be played, there are several games that fit the mould, most without the elements I and many others dislike, but some embrace them.

Here are a few that even I can abide.

Savage Worlds Pathfinder/Fantasy manages to do two things. It refreshes a DnD heart breaker, the 3.5 based Pathfinder 1e game, while removing the limitations of a level based system. It has levels, classes and experience points in a way, but they are flexible or even optional. It also has realistic and gradually applied advancements and workable class-less characters.

Some DnD 4e bits re-purposed for Savage Worlds Pathfinder.

It is a simple linear roll skill based system with level based concepts integrated and clever tools to handle roll curve and dice pool ideas.

It also gets rid of massive lists of spells and feats by using a more flexible core menu of powers with trimmings added and these even cross over into other genres..

Adventures In Middle Earth is a 5e game based on the bespoke and excellent The One Ring game in turn based on The Lord of the Rings, a low magic world with a right to the standard tropes, because it established many.

I gifted mine recently in a clear out, with no regrets as even though it was a good implementation of DnD (low magic, thematic classes and yearly adventure seasons that aligned roughly with levels vibe which combined to remove many of the negatives above), it was still DnD and I kept the original non level based game in preference.

13th Age. This is the other take on fixing the broken thing that was DnD 4e, actually created by a pair of 3 and 4e lead designers who did not play the game as they designed it! The usual suspects are present, but there are “house rule” twists.

Your characters start as world changers with an established name, so the more interesting classes are launching pads for destined characters, not just for pigeon holing all-comers. You are “Berrick, the Thief of Shadow Port”, the limitations of a class are instead the bespoke powers of the few.

Skills are handled by a loose and flexible background system and levels are fewer (10 in 3 tiers), a little like a high powered version of E6. Gradual and incremental improvement is promoted and experience points effectively ditched. Basically, the designers are still married to the DnD core structure, but have house ruled their own game to a better place and then shared.

There are other cool elements like the “one unique thing”, but at it’s core it is DnD, just with the cruft shaved off.

I think I like it because it is an honest take on the strengths of the game and realistic mitigation of its shortcomings. It is to me almost more DnD than DnD, so I get it, jump in boots and all.

*

If you really cannot get the dated abstractions of a D20 level based game right in your head, there have been logical, realistic and intuitive options from pretty much the beginning of the hobby, in fact the only game that has stubbornly held on to all these tropes is DnD, but even it has managed to change significantly enough to be incompatible across editions. Pretty much each edition of DnD is it’s own game and personally I don’t like any of them.

Probably my fondest memory was of the old Red Box basic DnD set (I had the Red and Blue books from memory), so simple and elegant, but written within the limits of the system, making no pretence otherwise.

A farmer as a warrior? All good in a skills based game.

I remember years ago a friend introduced me to original Traveller and it made sense. We then moved to CoC 2-3e, then another branch of our friendship group tried to get us both into their ADnD group, but neither of us could commit. We had seen the light. My friend settled on Champions as his big system, I gravitated towards other D100 games like Cthulhu, Warhammer Fantasy and 2d6 Traveller (oddly not Runequest, the progenitor of it all). Funny to think that even in the 80’s there were people in the hobby that just did not do the “big one”.

It frustrates me a bit that the earliest salve to the levels/class/experience point game structure is still around today almost unchanged and has created a massive family of compatible games, but still gets negative the “old mechanics” or “linear roll under” labels!

DnD is a linear game and older, just not well enough done in the first place to remain effectively unchanged, 5 times and counting!

Below is a list of related D100 games collated by another, wiser source;

https://elruneblog.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-big-list-of-published-settings-for.html

DnD came from a miniatures game and depending on edition still tries to be that more or less, D100 games were RPG’s from minute one, but they can struggle to do the RPG-war game dynamic. Some games, like Savage Worlds do manage to successfully straddle both game types.

In Rune Quest and other D100 games, this sh&t is real! Illustration like this in D20 level based games always make me chuckle as the game mechanics abstract this massively. Check out the text also!

Using skills not levels as the base of the game means you do get better at some things incrementally and over a wide (100+ point) range, but only when you use them.

Nobody gets so powerful they are impervious to the efforts of lesser beings, so fear comes from the reality that you are never truly safe.

Hit points are fixed, low and often assigned to a location. Get hit in the arm and the arm can become useless, take a blow to the head and it’s possibly all over, only armour on the right location can stop or reduce it. It seems real, visceral and not abstract.

Classes are removed, so character flexibility is more realistic and logical. Want to be a warrior who plays an instrument as well as a bard, a wizard who is half decent at swordsmanship (like Gandalf), a thief who can track, a star ship pilot with good computer and blaster skills, a grizzled army veteran with an interest in the occult or fine art? Go ahead, no illogical corralling here. Try to find in fiction or real life examples of such limited character types outside of their own.

Another old favourite and also an early game option that has remained more or less the same is Traveller. Using a skill and 2d6 system it is less granular than a D100 system, has a dice roll curve and is clean and logical. One thing I really like is the ‘characteristics as hit points” idea, something I prefer to most other options as it cleanly replaces both hit locations and the debilitating effects of wounds.

Play what you want, I am no judge, but if you are stuck on DnD and feel there may be more out there, well there is. Like an Earth bound wishful traveller, there is a whole universe to explore.

Options At Hand For A "Kids On Bikes" Game.

I have a hankering for a “kids on bikes” TTRPG experience.

My interest in supernatural TV series and movies has been mixed, at the moment manifested through the EVIL series and Tales from the Loop book and there is always an itch to do something in a TTRPG.

After resisting the desire to buy a new system* I decided to go with something I have.

Monsters and other Childish Things.

Junior Supernatural or Evil with a bit of Alien thrown in, it is a d10 dice pool system, specifically about kids with imaginary friends that are neither imaginary nor especially friendly. It has the right demographic, but is limited to that specific dynamic and is slanted towards the grim end.

Hmmm… maybe a little dark? On revisiting it is a little like Mothership meets Delta Green for (grown up) kids.

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition or SWADE.

This leans towards the golden era** of Super 8, E.T, Stranger Things and has a lot going for it. The core book alone has genre rules, a pulpy feel, low lethality options and enough flexibility to handle pretty much any KOB game I would want. It even has an illustration of kids on bikes and includes young and very young character generation tools.

Yeah, hint taken.

The game is also a great game for kids feeling like kids playing a kids game, a bit like the representation of DnD on Stranger Things, if not the reality.

I have had some SW around for most of the last 10-15 years, but rarely got enthusiastic about it. Not sure why, but with the exception of Pathfinder for Savage Worlds, a much better take on that world for me than the over weight d20 version and the core SWADE rules kept for I guess, just this type of thing, I have sold or gifted most of it away.

On a hunch I kept a ton of this stuff from my DnD 4e collection and they are perfect for SW Pathfinder.

With ample “Bennies” and a limit on skills and physical characteristics, you can create a younger adventurer easily, cap lethality, create or modify edges to suit and story build on the fly. The powers rules are super flexible and deep enough in the core book alone and the bestiary is decent, especially for making your own nasties.

This has cemented itself as the main contender and led to the purchasing of the four companion books. This is a more polished and consistent take on SW for me, used as a tool box, not setting anchored.

M-Space/Vampire Wars.

Great for more serious games like Tales from the Loop, Electric State, Dresden Files, or The Laundry Files.

There are excellent Robot and AI rules in the Companion and the feel is more grounded, moodier, darker. I am yet to see any clear guidelines for generating child characters, but in the world of D100, soemone, somewhere will have it covered.

The issue of lethality always comes up with D100 games, it’s in it’s DNA, so yes, guns and the like are lethal, kids and guns do not mix, so simply don’t mix them except at the very top threat level.

Ironically the higher lethality of weapons adds to the feeling of dread while decreasing the likelihood of them appearing in the game. In this game the absence of weapons and the danger posed by a simple kitchen knife would set a bar of acceptable expectation.

Basic Role Playing UGE.

Another D100 set, so most of the above applies. More flexible in system options than M-Space, it also sports a decent supernatural bak log, with plenty more available (a massive Cthulhu, Delta Green and BRP collection). Maybe Pulp Cthulhu or Rivers of London for some ideas and I can lift the M-Space robot rules as well.

Maybe kids on ponies or Penny Farthings?

With D100 games, POW would be higher with kids (open minds), skills and physical stats down.

Troubleshooters

Finally an outlier, this is a D100 game about adults, but of all ages and the naive, low mortality, clean and classic 60’s vibe is attractive. One of the sample character is basically a Pippi Longstocking clone with attitude, so late teens would fit fine.

Maybe a Scooby-doo or Famous Five vibe?

I am thinking Savage Worlds at this point.

It has the right feel, the need to be used and I need to get on board with the system so my SW Pathfinder set also gets used. I will use The Loop and Electric State for ideas (the books not the games or the TV show) and use every last bit of the core book and the companions yet to arrive.

*Tales from the Loop, Electric State, Kids on Bikes.

**80’s-90’s.

To Go To The Oldest Of Lands, Finally.

Runequest.

One of the oldest TTRPG’s, the progenitor of the D100 game system, which has remained quite consistent for over forty years, the first and possibly best anti-DnD game ever made, has finally made it’s way into my collection.

The inevitability of adding this ancient tome to my otherwise comprehensive D100 RPG collection has never weighed as heavily as you would expect, but I guess when all else has been addressed, it was always going to happen.

Never one to ride the horse others choose (in anything really), I glanced off DnD several times, I owned something of most editions (even a lot of some), but I rarely played it, preferring something different to the thematic and mechanical stereotypes it pushed**.

Traveller was my first TTRPG of any type, Call of Cthulhu 3-5e my first great love, Champions 3-4e was my supers game and most things D100 have been played and kept.

It is hard to resist the call of the “big one”, but every time I tried it, I hit a wall of disengagement and predictable disappointment in the system, it’s style and it did not fix my need for something that actually excited me.

On holidays in Hobart, looking for something to buy and finding absolutely nothing left in Attack Wing, Armada or X Wing :(, I grabbed the Savage Worlds World Builder cheap and another Osprey “blue book” a TTRPG/war game cross-over “When Nightmares Come”.

The second one was typical of some Osprey games, mixed reviews, steep price, no real relevance other than some itch scratching* all with an unknown system, so after lunch and a little googling, I decided to return it and went for the RQ:G core book, only a little over twice the price and a much bigger and better known product.

I had already purchased the Bestiary the year before on a trip to Melbourne to flesh out my D100 monster options, so the “B” came before the “A”, but they were done none the less.

I was aware of the risk, which I quietly accepted.

I guess it was always there, lurking in the background. Ironically I bought the 13G book for more 13th Age goodness to draw from and RQ started with the Bestiary for the needed D100 monster stats. Pattern forming.

I have plenty of RQ rooted games, like RQII/Legend by Mongoose, RQ6/Mythras from The Design Mechanism, Open Quest and even 13th Age Glorantha, but I have not played a pure Glorantha based D100 game since some time in the 1980’s when a friend had the original RQ. Even then we decided to circle the Glorantha stuff as “a bit weird and not really for us”, because of course, we thought we knew it all back then. Our game and later iterations of RQ predictably drifted towards what we now know as fantasy stereotypes, but the were fresh ideas back then.

I have Jackals from Osprey (a much better effort from them), which was meant to be my salve for RQ style games, like that ever works. I was also hoping for the seminal and long promised Mythic Greece source book for Mythras, but that seems to have gone quiet. I really thought Jackals or Mythras would be enough here, but all credit to it, it got under my skin.

Always room for more good.

I started reading RQ:G and it is a little like discovering a long lost half-cousin. I am also warming to the craziness and originality of the setting. Parties full of Ducks, smart Trolls that might eat you as you sleep, Rune wielding cultists worshipping gods they may well meet and a licence “to make it your Glorantha”. Who could want for more fertile story telling soil?

The art is as always, top notch.

The reasoning behind it’s creation, the long journey to now are a little like my own journey through TTRPG gaming.

Solid early thoughts, rejecting the already established norm, through various periods of sporadic output to fully absent patches, then a rampant re-emergence, but with consistent thought processes through out, RQ has survived because it works.

One criticism of RQ:G is the “old” system it uses, but apart from nostalgia and familiarity, both worthy ideals, it has consistency and it works. Better this than an equally old system, without the logical base that it started with and one that has not stayed consistent for decades, while also failing to evolve into something better.

Some may prefer Mythras, others a simpler BRP or Open Quest path and it is not impossible to use those mechanics if you wish. Seriously, just paste on the RQ bits you want. All good, all possible, very d100.

Core book bought, mated with the Bestiary and that could probably have been enough with 13AG as support reading, but some googling and it seems the GM Pack and Starter Set are both “best in show”, providing plenty of adventures and resources (over 300 tightly presented pages), a dozen fully formed characters and maps, lots of maps. Plenty to flesh out the game enough for my needs.

This and the GM screen pack are actually plenty to play RQ for many sessions and if you do go further, nothing is wasted.

I found the Starter on the Chaosium site, pdf included, always handy to have with printable elements, then the GM pack and the Weapons and Equipment Guide which I remember reading a good review of. Basically a 2 for 1, so they were added.

Control needed now, I need to set some boundaries.

………………..

I then got the Red Book of Magic. Never one to go too deeply into Magic tomes, there are 150+ spells in the core book already and like all things in RQ, a little goes a long way, but the book gets rave reviews, holds 500 odd spells and is by most accounts a clearer, tighter, more coherent read.

Beasts, spells and gear, the solid trio

The three core support books, but what I really noticed was a growing thirst for more world lore.

Even though 13A:G is possibly better for higher power RQ games (i.e. Hero Quests), just the depth of information and the variety of subject matter (like Pregnancy and Bless Pregnancy spells!) are all germs of scenario ideas in keeping with the granular and grounded feel of RQ.

The GM and Starter pack adventures are high quality and really do help you get a handle on this strange and deeply developed world, but after some research along the lines of “best adventures for…”, the Pegasus Plateau looked like the next step. Along with that, to support sand-box play and add background, I went for the Dragon Pass guide, which I know may lead to more books like it, but that is ok.

Ducks! Worth the Dragon Pass guide just for these guys.

So, while travelling on Adelaide, I found several games shops, again no X-Wing etc, but the The Lunar Way was front and centre and I must admit to a soft spot for that enigmatic empire. Bought, as nothing else appealed after several shops were visited. I then researched what this new door opened and bought the Light Bringers and Earth Goddesses as they are all gold mines of info and flavour.

The big three. There are more of these now and possibly in the future, but these will support character gen and story background. At the end of the day, they are just a good read. Glorantha is all about Gods and Runes, so reading these gets you in the right head space.

Done?

Think so, possibly more world guides, but maybe not.

The Glorantha sourcebook and guides just look like too much background info that for me will add little on the table. Everything bought so far will empower actual game play, I do not need more tomes of complicated cosmic family trees etc.

As for the rest, well I am going to take the advice of the designers and community and make my own way. From the foundations of what is in the Core book and the above supports, I will carve my own path as many have in the past and will in the future.

*Tales From The Loop, kids on bikes adventure itch that is. This will probably be done using M-Space or The Comae Engine and the actual books as inspiration.

**4e was the worst offender, dozens of books, all bought with my “collectors” hat on, then dropped cheaply and easily one day. 13th Age is the only exception, mainly because it is more DnD than DnD and a paragon of it’s system family, while also being that “other” horse (mule/zebra etc).

***a colony of exiled Human and Dwarf folk, fleeing from an unassailable enemy who have invaded their home to the fabled “New World”, a land of lost civilisations, primitive powers and new perils as they try to force their jaded and corrosive “civilised” ways on a land of ancient power.

A Benevolent Federation Or Resisting An Evil Empire?

When it boils down to it, the real difference between Star Wars and Trek are their core perspectives.

One is the perspective of the resister, the rebel, the rogue, the other is the enforcer, the diplomat, the conformist.

Both have bits of each other to be sure, but the core concepts are strong and entrenched. In SW rule breaking is the norm, it is expected and needed to drive the story. In ST, breaking the rules means a lot more as the rules are real and they are on our side, so rebelling means much more, but it is also entrenched as a core concept.

Which do I prefer?

The loyalist in me leans towards the Trek perspective as well as the “perfect future” it promises. I think also the direct connection to our real history helps, probably why I was drawn to Battlestar Galactica also.

Some Dominion War action.

Mechanically, from a gaming and viewing perspective, the big ship and crew dynamic also suits me better than dogfighting small craft. I also lean more towards big ship combat over fighters in other genres, so it looks like teams over individuals, another theme in my life.

Star Wars came first with me, I have no early memories of the original Star Trek series, or if I do they pale in comparison to the perspective shifting first Star Wars movie. The “reality” of early SW ate alive all of the other squeaky clean SF offerings like Buck Rogers. Logan’s Run or the slightly unsettling early sci-fi like Land of the Giants or Planet of the Apes.

I still remember the effect a dirty and worn X-Wing or Falcon had on me. It was simple, tactile, logical.

It felt real.

I worshipped all things Star Wars, I had the figures, built the early Lego-usually made from scratch, played TTRPG’s with a lean towards that SW feeling like Traveller or even the early Star Wars game.

Trek came later and I resisted to some extent. The “nice” and cerebral nature of Trek was nowhere near as cool as the warlike SW universe to my younger self. My early memories were of it being dull, lacking action and therefore fun.

Over time and thanks to the presence of more Trek around during the SW draught, hindered by the mess that was the Prequel trilogy which I had zero interest in (it felt very un-real), Trek won me over and as I matured, a more mature Trek perspectives also made more sense.

It suddenly, felt more real.

The most recent offerings from the two franchises have done nothing but reinforce my perspective. I had mixed feelings about the first two Picard series, but loved where the third went, Strange New Worlds is my favourite series at the moment and the recent movies were excellent. Star Wars, or rather “Disney Wars” has been in contrast, a mixed bag at best (oddly I seem to like the animated stuff more than the more recent releases).

One is a fight for freedom against a Nazi-like oppressor, the other is life in the future, meeting new races for good, bad and otherwise.

There is no right or wrong, Star Wars is one of many interests, but for me Trek means something more.