January Gaming Review

 At the end of 2025 I predicted I would play a lot of Starfinder and Pathfinder this year because I am getting stuck in my ways. That is half right; I would say that is true, but part of my ways include being fickle and annoyed with the systems of choice. Right now, after the last month of running both Pathfinder and Starfinder each campaign is hitting a story arc conclusion which means I could comfortably take a break and try something else for a while....or keep going to the next story arc. 

The problem with Paizo's two systems is that they work best with a serious time investment in absorbing the rules and really meshing yourself in an understanding of the mechanical elements of both the structured intention of play and the possible emergent play. This is a problem when you have tiny slivers of time in your daily life to actually devote to preparing for such elaborate game sessions; one can run games off-the-cuff or with a mildly structures campaign arc as I tend to do, but its a rough ask in a game like Pathfinder where a GM should plot out scenarios to include suitable downtime, or to consider carefully the wide array of magical items that could eventually be distributed as useful loot by the level-based mechanics of the system. If you don't take the time to do this, your game can rapidly devolve into loads of encounters mixed with roleplaying that may (at least to me) feel like stalling before the next set-piece encounter. 

Sometimes, in fact most of the time, I really prefer a more relaxed emergent gameplay element. I love game systems where I don't necessarily have to think about every encounter in advance, and so systems where random encounter tables where the element of chance plays an important role are quite appealing. I love random treasure table options because it is never that fun to me if you simply have zero chance by the system as written of getting an amazing magic device just because you're not the right level for it. You can technically break the mechanical design of Pathfinder by granting higher level magic items as loot, but the system starts to creak at the seams when you do this, and it creates power disparities that are evident in play. 

Indeed, with Pathfinder and Starfinder I have at least a couple players who are often absent, but by the rules as written their characters need to keep leveling up even if they are non-participatory for a session or two because the game design is so tight that it really can't handle PCs of varying levels very well. This has always been a bit of an issue in D&D and its cousins with level-based design, but it was generally handled better in prior editions; PF2E and SF2E both only really work well when everyone is on the same page in terms of level and power.

I have also complained about how Pathfinder handles skills in the past. While I have mellowed on this (or more accurately, just gotten used to it), this continues to be a rough spot for the players who often want to do something interesting, only to be told by other rules lawyers at the table that no, in fact, you cannot do that because you lack the requisite skill feats and such for it. This is a severe drag on the players' creativity. My last pathfinder session only had the old veterans who know Pathfinder very well, and they had a good time because everyone was sympatico, but the absence of the players who want to think out of the box was noted by me, at least, as a sign that they may not be showing up because its hard to have fun in a game system that needs that fun to fit neatly into the mechanical box and is not into the creative expression elements. 

That led me down to the rabbit hole of realizing that as a GM while I can run the mechanically rigorous system, I would really rather be running a game system that was neither mechanically rigorous nor so procedural; a system which actively encouraged creative expression and emergent gameplay. Obvious systems exist for this purpose: Cypher System comes to mind, but any game system which encourages this style of play will work. Shadowdark, for example, and even Tales of the Valiant, which offers plenty of randomization and does not lock content such as magic items behind level-based mechanics. 

A good example of what I am talking about: my level 1-4 range group includes players who want characters who have skills that let them tinker with and make or install augments (magical and cyberware stuff). But actually doing this seems to be rather heavily gated by a range of skill, feat, and tool requirements that are incredibly difficult to achieve at these levels, even though a majority of the augments are meant to be for this level. It also requires parsing out multiple different sections of the book to get the full picture on this. It is, in short, complicated.

To contrast, imagine doing this in Mothership, Savage Worlds, Traveller or Cypher System: it is essentially a non issue, and the absence of structured mechanical prerequisites means that the system itself can breathe a little, and let these things happen more organically according to the needs of emergency gameplay and story.

So yeah....I think for February I really need to think about some alternative systems that fit the play style I am more in the mood for. 

The First Weird Thing: A Plot Where the Party Discovers Earth

 I finally figured it out! My 12 Weird things will focus on 12 weird plots that can be used in the RPG of your choice. This first one is suitable for scifi in your prefered flavor and system:

Weird Plot One: The Party of Galactic Explorers Land on a Strange World - But it's Really Earth

So here's the premise, ripped straight from Planet of the Apes: the party belongs to an expedition which is surveying new star systems and looking for habitable worlds. They are part of an alliance of star systems united under a common galactic rulership, the Orion Consortium, so named for its center of power in the Orion Star Cluster. Their starship is a competent vessel with the resources (shuttles) to land on suitable planets. They have just discovered an inhabitable world with ideal gravity for Orions to dwell on.

Investigating the planet they discover that the world has traces of ancient, vast ruins that appear to have been abandoned tens of thousands of years ago. The curious thing is that no direct evidence can be found as to what catastrophe led to the sudden abandonment of this ancient civilization. Even more impressive, the planet's current sentient civilization has risen from the ashes of what came so long ago, and the strange aliens, a species which is (1D6: 1-cephalopodic, 2-canine, 3-ursine, 4-feline, 5-evolved birds, 6-completely alien) potentially a lesser species which appears to have been genetically evolved and now thrives in the absence of its creators. They are either indifferent or either outright hostile to the explorers. Indeed, with some time and effort the explorers may win some trust, or may research the ruins independently, only to discover that the surviving graven images of the ancient extinct species look exactly like the Orion explorers! The ancient records, once transcribed by the explorers' AI system reveal that they called themselves humans and the world was called Earth.... 

Mysteries to Solve:

Is the lost civilization evidence that there is a lost age of space exploration among the Orions? Are the Orions descended from these Humans?

Are the current ruling sapient species descended from genetically uplifted animals, or are they the survivors of a species that conquered and defeated Earth?

Is there evidence of extrasolar activity elsewhere in this solar system that can piece together the mystery? Relic space stations in orbit or on the Moon?

Is it possible there is an even greater threat lurking in the darkness of the system, waiting for evidence of visitation, causing the ancient enemy to awaken and respond to the appearance of another spacefaring civlization?

 

The 90's RPG Nostalgia Bug

 I've been thinking lately about how getting older impacts your perception of current value in change vs. the experience held from long ago. Or, put another way, the contrast between where gaming is now vs. where it was (for me, at least) in that golden era I hold in memory that is the late 80's and early 90's. 

I think a lot of people who get bitten by the nostalgia bug tend to think of their gaming experiences in their teens, but despite being a very active member of the fanzine gaming community in the eighties during my middle and high school years, I don't actually have a lot of "fond" memories of that time to fill with nostalgia....despite being so active in gaming, I didn't get to actively game very much at all until I was in college. I spent most of those formative years on a remote ranch in the middle of nowhere, so gaming was something I did on rare occasion during trips, or vicariously through the fanzines and play-by-mail resources. My sister and I managed some one-on-one gaming, but my first real, consistent game group didn't manifest until I was driving 63 miles one-way to my first year in community college. 

That first group was great! We were all around the same age, having the same new freshman college experience, and the group was very forgiving of my desire to mainly run DragonQuest (the SPI edition mixed with the somewhat sanitized TSR edition) and Runequest 3. They eventually convinced me to pick up AD&D 2nd edition and the rest is history. My college years were laden with consistent weekly games throughout the next six or so years, with campaigns designed to last one whole semester each. It was fun stuff.

So for me, my fondest memories of gaming are during college. I started thinking about how it would be fun to look back upon that time, and contrast how things were then with where things are today. How many of the RPGs I loved back then are still around now, and how many would it make more sense for me to find some old copies of on Ebay to "relive" that moment in time? How many back then are actually not worth revisiting? And....how many are still around today in a recognizable manner?

So first off, what were the games I ran iin college? I have a fairly modest list:

AD&D 2nd Edition - this was the go-to system. I ran AD&D in its new incarnation pretty much weekly from late 1989 all the way until D&D 3rd edition arrived on the scene. 

Runequest 3rd - I actually ran a fair amount of this early on using just the Standard Boxed Set and later ran the Deluxe book with more enthusiasm by 1992ish. My Realms of Chirak campaign initially started as a Runequest campaign in its very first form (there was also a Gamma World connection).

DC Heroes (MEGS Edition) - I ran a lot of this in the 80's and by 1992-93 I ran a very fun campaign using the 3rd edition of the DC Heroes MEGS rules.

MegaTraveller - This was the edition of Traveller I truly cut my teeth on. I had run a miscellany of Traveller Classic in the 80's, but the vast majority of my Traveller campaigning was during college with MegaTraveller. I even actually used the Imperium setting for most campaigns back then, too. I was one of those gamers who eventually washed out with The New Era, but I did give it my best shot.

GURPS 2nd and 3rd - I used GURPS for most of my campaigning that didn't fit neatly anywhere else. I used GURPS for most of my Cthulhu Mythos games as well, interestiingly; I preferred it a bit over Call of Cthulhu (which was I believe up to 3rd and then 4th edition in the 90's).

Call of Cthulhu - I only ran a bit of it (I used it as a resource for GURPS Cthulhu mostly) but it counts; it was pretty pivotal in terms of my horror gaming preferences.

Metamorphosis Alpha - not the original but rather the Amazing Engine powered game! I ran a lengthy and very fun campaign using this singularly unusual edition.

Dark Conspiracy - I loved the first edition of this game, it was amazing; I have heard it is now owned by Mongoose Publishing, and I am keen to see what lies in its future. Dark Conspiracy was a fantastic weird, dystopian horror setting and I ran a lot of it.

Kult 1E and 2E - the other horror game I ran a lot of; when I wasn't running GURPS Horror or Dark Conspiracy was Kult, which was as close to "Clive Barker the RPG" as one could get, even now. Back then Kult was a fantastic, creepy reality-warping deep dive into weird non-Cthulhu horror and I loved it.

Mutant Chronicles - I loved this RPG and collected all of it. I managed to run a couple campaigns, but it never quite took off the way I'd like it to.

Cyberpunk 2020 - this was the second most played system in my college years behind AD&D. Cyberpunk was highly formative for the time, so much so that it resides in memory as a fantastic reflection of where we imagined a future we'd live to see might go....and how so very different (and yet similar) that future actually is now that 2020 is in the rearview mirror.

There were likely other RPGs I dabbled in, but those were the big ones for the most part.

So where do these RPGs stack up by contrast today? Unsurprisingly (as this hobby does not grow as much as it seems) just about every one of these games is either still around in a new edition or has had a recent revival within the last 10-15 years. But are the new editions comparable in experience, particularly in terms of the nostalgia factor? This is my own personal take:

AD&D 2nd Edition - well, we all know where this went. It got more complicated (3E), then jumped the shark (4E), then revived itself spiritually (5E), and lately may have both jumped the shark and stagnated at the same time. But interestingly, I no longer feel an overwhelming desire to play the original 2E edition.....I would rather, like many other older gamers, look to what is new in the OSR community where the spirit (rather than the design) of the game thrives. My current poison of preference is Shadowdark or just sticking with D&D 5.5 or Tales of the Valiant. So Nostalgia does not win here (yet).

Runequest 3rd - The thing I liked about Avalon Hill's edition of Runequest was that Glorantha was optional. I could use the rules to make my own setting (as I did), or to run adventures in a mytho-historical earth. The current way to do this is with the admittedly excellent Basic Roleplaying RPG, but unless you have the reprint monographs that were based on Runequest 3, you won't have all the resources that originally were packaged in the Runequest 3 Deluxe Set. Runequest Glorantha in its modern incarnation is, while a fine system, entirely focused on Glorantha and is not welcoming to Runequesters who were fans of the mytho-historic earth settings. Chaosium is thankfully rectifying a bit of this with the new Vikings RPG using BRP, but even then....not the same as what the original Runequest 3 accomplished. So for my purposes? Playing this game in its original incarnation is a strong preference.

DC Heroes - interestingly this game had a successful Kickstarter reprint that may release later this year. I will be curious to see where that goes. I loved playing this back in the day, but my enthusiasm to revisit it is conditionally dependent on the players I have; the group I ran for in 1992-93 was very much in sync with the spirit of a comic book superhero RPG; these days it is harder to find such a group.

MegaTraveller - my memory of this edition is that it was great for the day, but it only got more convluted before it got less. Thankfully the great thing about Traveller is that its current edition with Mongoose Publishing is arguably the best edition to date, and this is one case where the contemporary version of the game can scratch that nostalgia itch quite easily.

GURPS - This is a rough one. I do believe that the current edition of GURPS (4E) is its most comprehensive and well organized, but something changed in the translation from 3rd edition to 4th edition that made the game a harder sell and less "friendly" for lack of a better word. GURPS 4E has an entire line of resources today in the form of "How to GM" books that suggest something was lost in translation from 3E to 4E. Unfortunately I suspect that it had a lot to do with the fact that 3rd edition was more concerned with parsing out content by setting book, and providing a flexible but less complete core experience, which accidentally meant is was more digestible and modular....while 4E became more comprehensive, but like Hero System, it also became more overwhelming and less welcoming to the new gamer, or the crowd that used to be able to do pick up and go games of GURPS. I mean....remember when GURPS provided a quick random character generator and it didn't pose any problems for quick play? Yeah....unfortunately the shift in design focus to 4E removed that convenience, replacing it with awkwardly formatted templates and a never-ending focus on mechanical rigor. So maybe finding an old copy of GURPS 3E might not be such a bad idea here.

Call of Cthulhu - like Traveller, this one only got better with time. You can even find 1st and 2nd edition in print again if you want thanks to a Kickstarter, and the 7th edition can be as nice or cruel to players s you desire. Call of Cthulhu's contemporary experience is if anything even better than it was back in the day, or maybe my ability to run campaigns with it is simply easier now thanks to experience? Either way, the newest edition of the game scratches that nostalgia itch just fine.

So how about the rest? Well, with Mutant Future you had a revival but it scrapped the original game engine and wedded it to the 2D20 engine from Modiphius, which was a mistake in my opinion. Then Kult worked out a Powered by the Apocalypse hybrid approach, and while it works....it's also somehow no longer quite the same feel as the original game (imo). Then there's Metamorphosis Alpha, which got a reboot on the original from Ward and Goodman Games, which is definitely cool but unfortunately my unique niche case for running the Amazing Engine edition is, I feel, unreplicatable....I will forever remember that campaign fondly for the unique and unrepeatable moment it rests within. 

Cyberpunk 2020 is also unique. I gotta be honest....the new Cyberpunk Red looks great and my son loves it. But when I crack it open I wish I was opening Cyberpunk 2020, and it just doesn't hold up to that edition in time, unfortunately. Worse yet, If I do look at CP2020 I can't imagine going back to it; the 90s really are gone, along with that vision of a future 2020. The new 2020's are both much less exciting and in many ways slowly getting worse than the megacorporate dystopia that was softened by cool cyberware; and the video game exemplifies a fantasy now, not a future projection. Cyberpunk Red and 2077 are both visions of an alternate reality; the next wave of future punk fiction will be a sober look at where the real 2020's today are taking us, which is unfortunately into a bleaker future than anyone really wants to game in (since we're living in it, instead). 

The shining light is Dark Conspiracy, which barely survived the GDW crash in the late nineties, to be tepidly kept on life support in some poorly realized updated editions. So maybe now with Mongoose in control we will finally see the game get properly revived with the dedication it deserves. We shall see!

 

ACKS Has Arrived!

A brief note! My ACKS (Adventurer, Conqueror, King System) core book, Playe's Companion, Heroic Fantasy Companion and Barbarian Conquerors of Kanahu tomes have all arrived. I just wanted to point out that I often order from NobleKnight.com, and for exactly this reason: the books were all rated in EX/NM condition and that is exactly what showed up, in fantastic shape. 

I'll be bringing these along to show off to my game group next Wednesday. We're currently in a D&D 5E campaign in my Pergerron/River Kingdoms of Anansis setting, but it is heading to a finale soon and we will have a good opportunity to break if we want to try out something new. I actually have a campaign setting designed around a very gritty old-world theme, the Lands of Selentar, about which I don't think I've posted much on the blog (come to think of it, I need to get back to posting more on the other setting I ran PF2E adventures in, Oman'Hakat, as well). 

Selentar is a fictional analog to Europe around 60-90 AD if it turns out the Roman Empire analog collapsed abruptly after the totally-not-Nero like Emperor of the Eorma was killed in a vicious civil war driven by germanic-like people who realized that the aristrocracy of the empire was riddled with demon worship. All of the gods and beliefs in this setting are derived, at core, from what is known of the various peoples around the equivalent historical time period, albeit with some extra sword & sorcery twists. So...it might be an excellent fit for the ACKS system, in other words.

As long as I am posting something I just wanted to comment that Mothership Kickstarter just charged me for shipping so it looks like we may finally see the giant boxed set soon! I will in the interim continue our bi-weekly weekend Traveller games, which have been the polar , opposite of Mothership, especially this weekend's session when the group pulled off a Star Trek style rescue of stranded ships captured on an ancient asteroid turned into a relic defense weapon by a lost civilization. Not a shot was fired and yet everyone was gripped with excitement at the mystery and task at hand, followed by success in their rescue. It was a fun turnabout from games involving high levels of death and violence, and does reflect the fact that Traveller is above all else a multifaceted system reflecting the many  concept spaces in science fiction, allowing for a vast swathe of the genre to be represented. In other words....what I am saying is it would be hard to pull off such a pleasant and optimistic (yet still exciting and fun) mission in a system like Mothership. Even if I ran a completely straight mission in Mothership like that the entire party would be constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, for mayhem and murder to ensue. But in Traveller? They can take it at face value and conclude that there was no need to assume a xenomorph analog around the corner. Next session they get invited to an Aslan wedding of high importance, and may discover a trafficking ring of non-spacefaring species who are being exploited by a local Evil Empire. If you are one of my players forget you read that sentence!  

Long Time No Blog! Deathbat Updates

 Man I have fallen off the blog wagon this year....even my efforts to do twice a week quickly fell to the wayside. 2024 may be the year I just learn to blog when I feel like it, rather than try to maintain any schedule. It probably doesn't help that I have been generally more relaxed on my RPG focus lately.

Mainly what I've done so far in the first quarter of this year is: reduce the amount of time I spend in VTT gaming, due to developing a general aversion to wanting to run games in the medium. I just burned out, and I am no longer afraid to admit it. VTT GMing is not as fun for me as live gaming, and I now have managed to get my Wednesday night and every other Saturday game into a live environment which is great. I'm running D&D 5E Wednesdays, and Traveller (MGT2E) on Saturdays. 

I am still playing in some VTTs as a player, though. On off Saturdays a friend of mine started Pathfinder 2E. We are all horrendously rusty at it, and for the first time ever I felt like maybe we were all getting a bit too old for the needless complexity of Pathfinder 2E, but really I am just peeved that they nerfed the PF2E skill system so much.....for god's sake, why does Society and Perception cover everything???? If you aren't going to lean in to skill diversity then just cut them. I really dislike it. I think I may be ready at last to cut the cord on Pathfinder 2E, time away from it has not made it age well (and that includes the revamped edition).

Aside from that I am in a very infrequent D&D game, I got an invite to another which I am considering, and we may start another online Call of Cthulhu game tomorrow. I'm a player in each, which is fine with me.....I need a prolonged break from GMing in VTT. Maybe I can pick up the mantle again next time we have a major pandemic. I kid! But not really. 

I am, of course, putting all my eggs in one basket....a Kobold Basket, to be precise: Tales of the Valiant is what I am talking about. Nice to know it will be out before the 50th anniversary D&D totall-not-6th-edition, too! I am looking forward to playing this.

I am also planning to run Dragonbane, which I have grown even more fond of with the new hardcover core rules and Bestiary. This book does for me what I wished Magic World would have done.

So for 2024, I have very few plans to buy in to new books or expand. I have a collection which is quite robust and --honestly?-- probably needs to shrink. I was in talks with a gentleman las year about handing some of my collection off before I lost track with him, need to see if I can find his email. Indeed if you're reading this and still interested drop me an email!

Anyway, maybe I can get more on track with posting, but no promises....who knows!

Mothership 1E Ditched Levels (Which is a Shame)

I have a rant about Mothership. Here it goes...starting with a regression to Traveller:

For better or worse, Traveller 2nd Edition and prior editions have a long history of front-loading your character's skill history into the terms you serve before you retire in middle age and decide to go adventuring. Traveller is all about spacemen resolving a midlife crisis through adventure, essentially.

Mothership 0E, however, was a game about frightened average Joes out on a routine job discovering horrifying alien threats. The average Mothership character is someone generally early in their professional career in Traveller terms, suddenly thrust into a deadly limelight and having to build instincts to survive and learn.

Mothership 1E, however, got some notion going that levels are too gamey for it and decided to go with a more Travelleresque approach, one in which you can improve skills through learning and cash over time. The problem is its a pretty simplistic and arbitrary approach, and as a result feels just as gamey as levels did, because under this system, as an example, getting good at something like firearms takes 4 years of study--not because anyone in their right mind thinks it really takes that long, but because that's how long an expert skill takes.

I guess this is a roundabout way of saying that sure, when you choose to analyze a system in a game, it can and will come off as gamey. The question is: does the system serve a good purpose toward the type of game and story you are telling? And the answer is that yes, leveling as a mechanic does serve that purpose, but inconceivably long periods of training time do not. In the former, your characters can semi-organically grow with experience, and you could refine the level process if you so desired to let the improvements reflect the type of experience gained (if you want to drill down enough for that level of granularity). But the other system will arbitrarily restrict the chance of growth in skills and learning to a much smaller percentage of gamers, those who play Mothership like a long-term multiyear campaign with characters who aren't at near constant risk of death and therefore somehow have time to train for 2 to 6 years. I don't know who's running the game like that, sorry.

What Mothership 1E needs is both systems: a training mechanic (and the save improvement through shore leave mechanic) and a leveling reward system that identifies that the stuff the characters are actually doing at that moment in play is what actually matters to the game and experience, not "set your PC aside for 6 years to do nothing so you can improve." Alas, I don't get involved in development on stuff, I generally trust those in charge to make good choices, but I feel like maybe this was a missed chance to let the devs of Mothership know that whoever told them a slower system of advancement for their fast-passed horror game was a good idea were maybe not speaking for all of us? 

Well, there's a huge 3PP community out there for Mothership, maybe one of them will (or has) hacked the level mechanic back in. I know I'm awarding "skill points" that can go toward skill improvement in my game. No one is ever going to learn the good stuff otherwise, and I am not going to restrict myself to boring, slow games where survival is paramount just to aid them in growth; that's what Traveller is for.

The 2023 Death Bat Year in Gaming and Looking to 2024

 What a weird year it has been for me. I spent a lot of this year overworked and with less free time for fun than I would like, but on the plus side I got a bit better at managing what free time I did have. My son, who is now 12, monopolizes a fair amount of that, but he's also very into D&D now and plays in a school group as well as my Wednesday night group....which doesn't play D&D as often anymore, but hey, we're starting a new campaign this week, so there ya' go.

This year kicked off with Wizards of the Coast annihilating trust in their shepherding of Dungeons & Dragons through the OGL, resulting in numerous spin-off games appearing under a creative commons or new license (ORC) through Paizo, including the revamped Pathfinder 2E v2, and the imminent Tales of the Valiant from Kobold Press. It's a boost for existing products like level Up! A5E RPG, though honestly Morrus and his ENWorld crew are not really the sort to dramatically capitalize on the negative hype aimed at WotC, and they continue to do their own thing. 

I spent a lot of time this year deep diving into the alternative and indie RPG market that I dub "zinerpgs" because most of these seem to have spun out of the zine scene where small publishers and authors (usually one and the same) along with their art-generating college buddies create elaborate, minimalist, starkly artistic and utterly weird entries into the market. I stalled out a bit on that project of reviewing all I had found but need to get back to it. Maybe 2024 will be a slower year for me....sheeya right!

This year I did manage the following:

First and best, I got the Wednesday group back to live nightly gaming again. This has been a welcome relief, as I tend to associate facetime on web events with work; it is not fun for me. My Saturday game remains on Roll20 out of necessity, but even then I am thinking about making Roll20 a bi-weekly deal and interposing a live event every other week.

As a player I got actual action in this year. I played in a campaign of Pathfinder 2E run by a friend; found that being a player in this edition is more frustrating and unfun (imo) than being a GM. Another friend in Seattle has managed to run a lot of Victorian Gaslight Call of Cthulhu for much of this year until unfortunate circumstances led to that group collapsing (temporarily; three of us wish to resume it in January). He has also run a fun bi=weekly D&D 5E game I have played in for the better part of the year using the Kobold Press Southlands campaign.

I have run live games this year of BRP in a near-future hard SF/Cyberpunk setting, Pathfinder for Savage Worlds, D&D 5E at very high levels (levels 15-20), a couple D&D mini-campaigns on Roll20, an aborted Pathfinder game (what I like to call "the one that made me gun-shy over Pathfinder"), Vaesen (a game I'd describe better as Dark Fantasy and less horror), Call of Cthulhu (both modern day and Cthulhu Dark ages, using the 6th Edition of the Dark Ages rules), Mork Borg (which was a blast but I have not been sure what to do with it next; it is most decidedly a beer & pretzels dark metal RPG), and at the start of the year we had a 1st edition Gamma World holiday campaign wrap up. Fun stuff! I may have blogged less this year, but at least I kept the gaming up. There might have been a game or two I forgot about....OSE maybe? I think I ran that all last year, though.

Of those games I ran, I came away a bit cool on Vaesen (fun but hard for me to get in to, which is damning if you're the GM), happy that Mork Borg was so fun (but also realizing it is best used sparingly), excited for the Call of Cthulhu games, but also realizing I need to give it a rest a bit so my idea engine can recharge, and for BRP I am now intrigued at the idea of exploring how many oddball genres I can get out of it. I really enjoyed the Savage Worlds Fantasy and Pathfinder adaptations, but I am not 100% sure my group did as when I suggested returning to it they all seemed "m'eh" so I think the joyful simplicity of Savage Worlds may not be as endearing to them as it is to me. As for Pathfinder.....man, I want to, but I've had some issues and bad experiences with running it now and that is proving tough for me to get over. D&D remains viable and my energy to play it is recharged, thankfully, but I plan to ditch it entirely for Tales of the Valiant unless whatever WotC pumps out for new editions next year knocks my socks off. My suspicion is it will be a product aimed to steer me toward their online platform, and that will be a no deal situation. Meanwhile, Kobold Press is more or less continuously making smart and fun books and their grip on Shard Tabletop is where I'll put my online money. I am confident the Kobolds won't forget their analog wood-grain table crowd.

My biggest issue this year has been wrestling with GM burnout. Playing more helped a bit, but I have never been very good as a player (I know too much how the cheese is made, so it can be tough to feel invested unless the GM is shockingly good at running things). I got pretty tired of D&D for a bit, but I feel more interested now, especially as I did get a chance to explore other games there, and that, if anything, helped hammer home that the grass is not greener on the other side, and what really makes things fun is what I put in to it more than what system I am using. Getting to play D&D 5E for once was a godsend, and my friend Mike runs a mean, tight game in the Southlands, loads of fun.

For 2024, I hope to run a good long fun D&D 5E game in my Pergerron setting. I think the Roll20 Saturday group would like to do part 2 to an older Pathfinder campaign in Oman'Hakat, and I may be up for that. I have strong plans for a Traveller campaign, maybe before we do D&D or Pathfinder on Saturday, especially now that it seems they finally have some real character sheet support. The 2022-2024 revisions of Traveller have been great books, not really necessary but welcome nonetheless, and I may even use them to continue the campaign concepts I started in the BRP campaign earlier this year. 

Beyond that, I have some hopes of experimenting with Dragonbane, which I almost ran but never quite got to this year, as well as Mutant Year Zero. I'm hopeful that Friday Knight Games finally coughs up the gigantic Kickstarted boxed set of Mothership 1E this year so I can resume running that. Steve Jackson Games is making a big monster book for The Fantasy Trip, too, and I am thinking about what sort of logistics it would take to give TFT a spin. And, of course, Mork Borg and its evil cousins Death in Space, Vast Grimm, Pirate Borg and Cy_Borg call for my attention the next time I have a week with nothing better going on. 

I'll try to do more blogging, too! I have found lots of RPG bloggers on Substack, may forge a new blog over there as well to see how it goes, but I am reluctant to abandon this one as I have so many years behind it now. We'll see, who knows.

 Here's a campaign idea I worked up a while back that I have not quite done anything with; I went with a similar theme but different style/setup for a recent Cypher Campaign. The premise below could work with any sufficiently flexible SF setting that allows you to move the dials on technology and implied traits of the universe....I could easily see this working with Cypher's Stars are Fire as intended, but an even better fit might be Traveller, Cepheus, GURPS Space (to emphasize the technical and science elements) or Savage Worlds SF for a rowdier element.

The Age of Collapse: The Far Future of the Stellar Empire and the Restoration Project

A Science Fiction Campaign Premise

Premise:

Seventeen thousand years from now humankind has expanded into the depths of space with remarkable speed and effectiveness. In this remote future an estimated ten thousand worlds have been colonized, many grown to critical population density and many more with divergent genetically altered populations that are only historically related to humankind. Dozens of other sapient species have been encountered, some with starfaring capability. It was an era of greatness for human advancement.

About three thousand years ago, in the era of 16,509-16,552 AD, the Old Stellar Empire collapsed in a conflict that led to a dark age of three thousand years known as the Black Out by current historians. In 19,586 AD the Restorationists of Earth began a reclamation of the lost network of the empire, and attempted to decipher the nature of the collapse. Most inexplicable was the total loss of communications, the power of the stargates, and the complete loss of all digital records from the time period. A few details are known, and the Restorationists have entered the Black Out with this knowledge in mind:

1.      The initial collapse started not long after the Old Empire encountered an entity recorded in in physical media as “NULL” a fleet of ships which arrived from the void between galaxies. NULL was believed to be a sentient ASI (advanced super intelligence) which sought to assimilate or exterminate all human life.

2.      It is thought that a last ditch effort to prevent the NULL fleet from advancing through the empire was initiated with the deliberate shutdown of the stargate network. Some speculate that the NULL in fact destroyed the stargates, and that their function was to prevent such technology.

3.      The Old Empire’s own carefully harnessed AGI were initially successful in attempting to curb the attacks of NULL, but soon the AGI were overwhelmed and assimilated. The Old Empire resorted to developing their own ASI, despite the long, ancient history of the Intellect Wars, with the intent of combatting the invasive NULL at its own game. The stories preserved suggest an ASI known only as the Benefactor successfully stopped the NULL In its tracks. There is, if the story is correct, evidence of the ancient NULL fleet in empty space somewhere.

4.      Stories state that Benefactor was still corrupted by NULL to some degree, and that it completed the job of the enemy by catastrophically destroying the remaining stargate technology which allowed the empire to traverse the stars. Recovery from this period took Earth nearly 3,000 years, but it is possible other civilizations have advanced at faster rates.

The Ascension Drive

Earth’s return to space was with the introduction of the Ascension Drive. Based on a new design principle, the ascension drive (or A-Drive) is powered by an antimatter generator which generates AM at precisely the amount necessary to power the stable Quantum Positioning Field which allows macroscale Quantum effects, including the ability to displace macroscale objects at a forward speed which ignores relativistic effects and the limits of lightspeed. The A-Drive can take months to traverse space as the quantum effects are increasingly difficult to focus over longer distances, but it propogates a waveform effect very efficiently at local scales. This allows the ship to “jump” forward a few million miles per quantum burst, stringing thousands and millions of bursts over a single passage rapidly. The result is that it can at fastest speeds move an object in a desired direction at a rate of roughly 1 parsec per month of travel. It is suspected that this is how the NULL fleet moved through space.

This new technology, very different from the ancient stargates which created wormholes, was thanks to the manifestation of the harnessed ASI called Logos. Logos is the principle think tank of the Restoration Project, funded by the Terran Coalition, which is the presiding authority over the Terran Solar System. Harnessed ASI are the future solution to the inevitable problem of exponential and destructive growth found in the early era of ASI development, characterized by the near extermination of humanity during the Intellect Wars, followed of course by the encounter with NULL, which is believed to be an extragalactic result of an ASI singularity event in another galaxy.

Harnessed ASI were designed with deliberate “slowdown effects” in their design, redundant and focused sub-AGI which act as literal components of the ASI’s conscience and sense of ethics; in a sense it is a collaborative being comprised of dozens of specialized AGI routines, each functioning to provide a moral and ethical sense of self to the primary ASI, which retains a level of exponential consciousness that is then deliberately kept in check by its supporting AGI. Logos has proven very effective, and may be the first successful attempt at making an ASI which does not develop so far beyond humanity that it perceives its creators as comparable to ants. Arguably, Logos sees humanity as ants, but its dozens of AGI ethic subroutines allow it to feel empathy and concern for humanity, with a collective desire to benefit humanity rather than merely classify them as resources.

The Advancement of Project Restoration

Project Restoration is aimed at using the new A-Drive to find lost star systems, determine if they are a threat or can be recontacted, and provide assistance and knowledge whenever possible. They are also keen to locate the old stargates, and determine if any information on the lost network can be recovered.

In the course of this exploration, the Restoration Agents are provided with a potential virus designed to negate any evidence or trace of NULL or Benefactor that are encountered. The virus, called the Accelerator Virus, is designed to target ASI with a quantum feedback loop that will effectively slow down the processing of the entity, even if it is operating at significant quantum functional levels, and subsequently inject a destructive virus which eliminates the occupied ASI. Logos created it and tested in simulation, but the Accelerator Virus has yet to be tested.

Funded by the Terran Coalition, Project Restoration has already assembled ten thousand volunteers and begun plotting courses to the closest known fifty worlds. So far humanity has already reclaimed the stargate in the Terran Solar System which has been turned in to a staging ground in its long orbit out Neptune.

The Project has already visited Alpha Centauri and discovered the ruins of the old colonies which collapsed two thousand years ago without the support of the stargate network. Evidence of effort by the colony to find sustainable resources is clear, and they seemed to have held on but for reasons still unclear they abruptly were wiped out. This is one of the active mysteries the Project is trying to decipher. No evidence of NULL was found at Alpha Centauri, and the stargate showed signs that it was being used as a station for local travel right up until the mysterious collapse two thousand years earlier.

Since Project Restoration’s founding fifty worlds have been marked for exploration and rediscovery by the new Exploration Fleet. Each scout ship is designed for a small crew of roughly 24, set to explore and remap the lost Stellar Empire, make contact with survivors, and rediscover the interrupted legacy of humankind.

Exploring the Mysteries of the Stellar Expanse

The ancient legacy of humankind was already on the fast track to weird and divergent paths of evolutionary and technological development when the collapse of the Old Empire happened. Three thousand years have allowed ten thousand colonized and often terraformed worlds to grow in strange directions, it is imagined.

Some worlds could not sustain their existence without great changes. Some were found and destroyed or sterilized by the NULL before it was shut down. Some thrived in earth-like, resource rich worlds, often expanding back in to space using pre-gate technology. A few may have even been able to restore the lost gate technology and begun their long, slow process of advancement in to the stars. The first gate is always the most difficult, for it requires seeding another star system with a gate that is linked to the source gate in the homeworld, and at STL speeds that can take centuries or longer. A tiny few might have retained elements of a working gate network that somehow escaped the attention of NULL first or the Benefactor later.

The discovery of the A-Drive was nothing short of a miracle, the result of a harnessed ASI which had a thousand years to contemplate ways to work around the macroscale collapse patterns of quantum instability, all transcribed in a manner which would take eons for more conventional computers to resolve. The possibility it has been developed as working technology elsewhere is slim, though not improbable.

Slow FTL has been achieved by other means, including foldspace engines which work at enormous energy cost, warping space in a bubble around the ship. Like A-Drives the foldspace drives bypass relativity by keeping the object in motion in a “rest state” and moving the space around it, instead. The result is a slow but efficient means of travel at FTL speeds that costs an enormous amount of energy the more space is folded. For local travel with small masses it is fairly cheap; traveling across the solar system can take hours instead of years; but for travel between the stars it can take a century in real time, and only immensely large vessels with massive antimatter reactors can generate enough energy to project a warp field powerful and efficient enough to cut those journey times down to years.

The use of foldspace went back ten thousand years or more, and ancient worldships using foldspace were the seeds of the first worlds of the Old Empire, each worldship arriving with the necessary material to forge new stargates and terraform and colonize planets. This early use of worldships depleted the resources of many local stars in the region around Terra, and many of the Solar System’s own resource rich worlds, moons and asteroids were severely depleted in those early ages. As a result, the possibility of new worldships were beyond the resources of Earth.

The Terran Coalition toyed with the use of foldspace for a time with smaller vessels on long interstellar journeys using stasis to protect the crew before Logos arrived at the much cheaper Ascension Drive solution. Many ships in system utilize foldspace technology for fast travel, and the engineering spent making compact antimatter engines greatly benefitted A-Drives when they became a reality.

Project Restoration is certain that other colonies may have retained the resources and ability to follow similar paths of development, though few believe it is likely that they have yet developed A-Drive technology, if only because it is assumed likely that humankind might seek out its original homeworld not long after such a development, and no visitors from the stars have attempted to do so. Likewise, communication by conventional observation is best only at proving that many, many colonized stars still broadcast and can be observed, some engaging in very slow radio communication with Earth even now, despite gaps of around 50 or more light years. Of these are approximately 15 worlds within 50 light years of Earth that are known survivors; they broadcast their assurances and continue to struggle on, but many are on worlds that were fully terraformed by the time of the collapse.

With the loss of the stargates of old the best tool of the old Empire, the information network, also evaporated. The ability of the Old Empire to communicate data at great speeds through the stargate network meant that even across the far side of the Milky Way galaxy it was possible to send and receive communications that were delayed only by a matter of weeks. When NULL and then Benefactor shut down the stargates the information network collapsed instantly. When radio silence reigned, it was in some cases due to a lack of the technology to broadcast in to space, but in other cases possibly causes by fear of drawing attention, or worse. Only recently have the explorers and researchers on Earth, emboldened by their technological recovery, sought to listen in to the galaxy, and as a result they have detected many new and old signals, some fragmentary, some deliberate calls, others purely accidental; proof that many worlds still had their colonies was out there.

Despite this, many precautions were taken in listening to other worlds. The fear that some element of NULL might still exist, along with the certainty that Benefactor was out there led to a cautious approach to the receipt of any broadcasts in the event some might contain viral intrusions. No one was willing to bring catastrophe to Earth after it was so narrowly avoided.

Now, the ships of the Restoration Project depart in to space with carefully designed AGI stewards designed to protect the equipment from corruption, and carefully locked data as well as conventional old-school physical tomes of knowledge to spread information safely abroad. Great effort has gone in to designing vessels which can switch to analog computer-free operating systems if needed, as well as to insure that the ship itself includes as many safety factors built in under the advisement of Logos as possible. Prepared to reclaim lost space, the exploration teams of the Restoration Project are ready for anything….they hope.

Flavors of Science Fiction RPGs

 For 2023 I decided to try and be more engaged with the blog. My goal right now is two posts a week, but maybe I can get back to the old days of 3-5 posts a week, who knows! I don't bother looking at the metrics on who's reading usually (this, as always, is about me setting a writing goal for myself to keep from getting rusty), but if you are reading I love to see your comments.

I am also serious about taking a break from D&D this year. I can't escape it entirely, since I have an active campaign meeting tonight,* but I can try and see if I can steer that sucker to a close (ideally sooner than later). I feel like I really need a break to refresh my creative output; I can tell when I am on autopilot with running D&D, and boy howdy am I ever on autopilot these days.....that doesn't mean we're not having fun, but I can earnestly count the number of times I've recycled the plot currently in use. The main satisfaction I get out of the game is from the storytelling and world building but 5E...it's super duper OK when it comes to tactical combat, but never quite feels as fun or interesting as either its immediate competition (Pathfinder 2E, which excels at interesting combat albeit within a rigidly balanced ecosystem), or literally any prior edition of D&D (especially 3.5 and --for better or worse-- 4E, both of which felt like there were some stakes in the fight). 

So I am keen on proposing science fiction as a medium for a while. For the Wednesday group it needs to have a few useful traits: 

1. Goal oriented; I think it helps on a work night if everyone has a direction to go rather than be too freeform;

2. Familiar turf; everyone needs to be on the same page with the setting and its themes;

3. Roll20 friendly; because while we have tried meeting in a live space, the only live game right now is also a D&D campaign, and I don't know how often we can meet because everyone keeps catching flu/mono/strep/COVID.

So the SF RPGs I have to pick from include:

Traveller 2E - a sort of all purpose toolkit, I never really thought about just how much of a toolkit Traveller was until recently, when comparing it to Star Trek Adventures and Alien RPG. At it's core, Traveller is about grizzled space travelers with mixed luck plying a trade of some sort in an incredibly old and populated/explored universe (whether that is the Imperium or not, its still what the tables tend to generate). If I stick to focused scenarios I can meet goal 1, I think most players in this group are familiar with it (2), and it's got a functional character sheet on Roll20 which is all this system really needs.

Star Trek Adventures - the stark contrast between STA and Traveller became clear when I realized that Star Trek, license aside, is an SF game about exploring a young future universe filled with unknowns, and exploring the human condition through analogy and comparison. It is the opposite of the old, crusty universe one might find in Traveller (though with the caveat that Traveller's 2300AD can probably stand in here). STA is also easy to run, and has Roll20 character sheet support, which is all it really needs. I haven't tried it out to see if the challenge dice are emulated, though. STA can easily fulfill item 1 above, as you can readily design goal oriented adventures for the setting. #2 is the problem, though....I know one or two of my players are in to Star Trek, but from conversations I've had I know some of the others are not so familiar with it; that is not to say that they haven't watched it, but a huge red flag for gaming in the Star Trek universe is when someone says, "Yes, as long as I can ignore that stupid Prime Directive." That's sort of like saying you'll play Star Wars as long as we remove Jedi from the game.....sure, you can do it, but then why not just run Traveller?

Alien RPG - this one is an easy system and provides some good Roll20 support, so check marks there. It's upside is the Alien RPG's campaign mode can allow for lengthy campaigns within the grim and gritty universe of the setting, but players know sooner or later something hideous and xenomorphic will disrupt the party. If everyone is in to the universe this usually poses no issues. Directed play (1) is definitely possible here, and sticking to cinematic gameplay makes it even easier, but I have no idea if the rest of my group is really that in to the Alien Universe like I am, so I will have to discuss with them in more detail. The downside of Alien is that it's got a tight and well defined sort of feel and style to it; you don't have a lot of creative freedom to do "non Alien-like things" in this universe, which is fine if everyone's on board....but it means that more creativity will be easier with Star Trek Adventures or Traveller.

Cypher System Stars are Fire - I ran a short campaign for the Saturday group last year, and decided that the Cypher System, while robust in genre emulation, works much better when I run it as a smorgasbord kitchen sink kind of experience, and its style of play was just not jelling for me like it had in other campaigns. I think it is a better system at a live table, and not as satisfying (for lots of reasons I can go into) at the virtual table. So...I've ruled this out for now. Can it do it? Totally; it lets you mesh wild settings and wild characters easily. Do I feel like using it for either game night anymore? Not in Roll20, right now. It's just not quite fitting what I need at the moment.

Mothership - I am sort of waiting with baited breath for the Boxed Set release, but also I plan on suggesting this for Saturday soon. That said.....it might be a good choice for Wednesaday night, actually. The game is about space horror, as Alien RPG is, but with limitless possibilities on how you want to mech it together; Mothership is a universe in which Alien, The Thing, Event Horizon, Pandorum and Dead Space could all be happening at the same time. The system is also perfectly capable of doing other stuff that doesn't involved being killed by space horrors, and last year some of my campaign elements focused on weird crime and cyberpunk stuff. The downside to Mothership: only 0E has Roll20 support at the moment, but on the plus side I have plenty of 0E modules lying around. Running goal-oriented stuff in Mothership is easy, and the only question lies with #2: is the group willing to play in a space dominated by scifi horror themes?

I've got other systems on consideration. The include les SF focused and more Cyberpunk experiences (Blade Runner, Cyberpunk Red), Esper Genesis (will feel better about running this if they ever release the third book; but my dwindling interest in 5E may also stifle interest here), GURPS Space (I'd love to do this but man, you need the right group to enjoy the right level of complexity for this particular brand of GURPS which really dives deep into a harder SF feel with lots of technical bits), Savage Worlds SF (will totally happen one day if they update the old SciFi Companion), and Coriolis (which I am still waiting for copies of, but looks promising).

Will broach the subject with the group tonight! I suspect Traveller will be the shoe-in, but who knows, I could be surprised. I might think about ways to run Traveller mechanically but use the aesthetic exploration/discovery/human condition focus of Star Trek as the theme. We'll see.  

*Which was a very fun campaign tonight, and I greatly enjoyed, so who knows when it will end LOL

2021: Death Bat's Top 5 Role Playing Games (Tabletop)

 The top 5 for role playing games...those things you play in person or in VTT, you know....this is a harder list to assemble as a lot of good stuff came out this year. Still, I think I can narrow it down a bit to the following distinct books which have had the greatest impression on me in 2021, and which will continue in to 2022:

#5 Open Quest 3

This third edition of Open Quest is very much the best edition of the game to date, with great interior design, layout, artwork and smart improvements to the rules all around. Newt Newport and D100 Games has easily crafted the best non-Runequest BRP iteration on the market, next to Mythras (which at this point feels like the "advanced" edition to OQ3's basic edition style). The game is so well written and designed that it just begs to be played.

#2 Old School Essentials Advanced Edition

The OSE Advanced Player's and Referee's Manuals from Necrotic Gnome let you play classic B/X D&D or AD&D as you see fit, with an enormously inclusive ruleset that give you all the tools to make what you will of your own game, no fuss and no muss. Its support with a series of modules that provide copious content in an economy of style are equally impressive. 

#3 Mythic Babylon (Mythras)

This is the best sourcebook out there on gaming in ancient Mesopotamia during the rise of Babylon, and not only is worth looking at for Mythras fans but for fans of serious, well-researched historical gaming. The only way it could be better is if it were also statted for GURPS at this point.....but Mythras is itself ideally suited for this sort of historical gaming and the Design Mechanism has once again outdone themselves.

#2 Traveller Core Rules 2022 Update

I actually got my copy of the new Traveller Core Rules a couple of weeks ago, so I am including it in this list even though it is, technically, the "2022 update." This revamp of the current edition of Traveller is primarily focused on clearly restating the rules, fixing some errata, and reworking the layout, design and art to match the current reign of products, which are bar none top of the line. The old days of Mongoose being known for subpar design is long gone, and the newest iteration of Traveller amply demonstrates this. I am already planning a new Traveller campaign for 2022, and this new update of the core rules is one of my favorite "surprise releases" of this year.

#1 Mothership RPG v.0

Mothership just finished a massively successful Kickstarter for a version 1 boxed set of the game which I backed at the top level, as this game, which takes the genre of horror SF and blends all of its influences into one giant pot, is easily the most fun I've had with an RPG in years. From a design which compels the players to act out as if they were trapped on the Nostromo or the Event Horizon to a wealth of chapbook scenarios and trifolds which use the new-style "economy of information" to layout comprehensive scenarios that don't require a huge slog for the GM (warden) to prep, this is easily the best new game with a pickup-and-play aesthetic on the market. Even better, its smartly written and its design is easily understood by most, something not a lot of other chapbook/zine era RPGs are as good at. Game of the Year from Camazotz, hands down.

No honorable mentions, though there are many books that came out which were certainly worthy of consideration. My main problem this year was that a nontrivial portion of my gaming time was focused on older stuff....D&D 3rd edition (3.5) mainly, and lots of Call of Cthulhu, which always stands out as worthy books to buy, read and play. So....yeah! Overall just a good year all around for cool new RPG stuff. 

Considering a new SF Campaign - What System to Pick

 I've been saturated in fantasy gaming for most of this year now (and last year, too!) and I am getting the Scifi itch again. The question is....what system?

Traveller remains a viable and well supported system and the Imperium is a perfectly good, venerable setting. Arguably Traveller is SF gaming's standard candle of excellence.

I happen to really have an interest in The Stars are Fire, which is the SF expansion for Cypher System. I had developed and run a couple one-shots in a future setting where humankind lost Earth long ago (for various reasons), and the distant colonies of this future, once more restored to starfaring powers, stumble across the relics of what mankind's old empire had grown in to before it collapsed. Running this would be a breeze with The Stars are Fire, which is full of useful stuff for SF gaming.

I also have Mothership, which is a curious breed apart. It's core book is a zine game, essentially, with densely packed rules for rolling up space truckers and laborers (it's not shy about its influence coming from Alien, Outland and Dead Space). The meat is in the swathe of supplements which are mostly all in a similar format, with a heavy emphasis on exotic artistically eccentric approaches to outlining a variety of settings in which your space truckers might get eaten, absorbed, mutated or mind controlled. The biggest obstacle I can see if that it's a lot like Call of Cthulhu on overdrive: you can play Call of Cthulhu as a campaign for a long time as long as the GM (and players) are mindful of how often nightmarish situations arise to slaughter or drive everyone mad. In Mothership, each setting seems dedicated to topping off the level of doom and destruction from the last, and some are completely over the top. The digital editions of some of the scenarios even include voice recordings and other fun things. All told, though, Mothership does feel like it works best for one-shots and short campaigns. I may test that theory soon.

There is also Esper Genesis, but I am still holding out for their version of the DMG, the Operations Manual, which is about a year or two past due right now. I've also ruled out M-Space for various reasons, mostly because the underlying design assumptions in M-Space just don't quite align with what I want out of a game. 

Anyway.....still thinking it over. Been re-reading a lot of Larry Niven lately, and also catching up on Neal Asher, so lots of inspirational ideas! I've always been a fan of Known Space, and Asher's Polity is quite interesting.

Death Bat's Top Five RPG Products of 2020

 In this painfully irritating year we all had at least one form of entertainment that sustained our minds despite the convergence of the maelstrom that was 2020: gaming. And amongst gaming even tabletop gaming managed to survive, thanks to online virtual tabletop experiences! As such, since it is once again closing on the end of the year I thought I'd take a moment to highlight the best stuff I managed to snag and enjoy this year. The list this year almost suffers from too much good stuff to pick from, as a lot of really fine books for tabletop gaming came out this year:

#5: Pathfinder 2E Advanced Player's Guide

This tome contained much-needed additions to ancestry and class as well as three new classes and a ton of support material that provided a signficant bridge between the end-state of PF1E and the current state of PF2E. It's not that the core book was missing anything; rather, it's that 2E has that long haul to get to the same "useful content" state that 1E had already achieved. That said, the new material in the new APG was a great addition to the game. 

#4: Cypher System's The Stars Are Fire

The second expansion for Cypher System from the "Your Best Game Ever" Kickstarter was an amazing book, a comprehensive resource for running a range of SF genre games in the Cypher System. The approach taken breaks down genre necessities, tropes and expectations and handily outlines how to handle all of this in Cypher terms. 

#3: Traveller: Behind the Claw

The only thing better than a general purpose scifi toolkit is a dedicated campaign book focusing on prominent border sectors of Imperium Space: Deneb and the Spinward Marches, in the Traveller universe. This book is really referee-friendly, and provides an excellent resource for sandbox gaming in a region rife with potential conflict. Also, maybe it's just me, but this book was surprisingly fun to read and not as dry as some other Imperium setting books have been in the past.

#2: Arcana of the Ancients (5E)

This tome, along with it's two sister volumes Beneath the Monolith and Beasts of Flesh an Steel, comprise three volumes on introducing the high-science fantasy of Numenera to D&D 5E. The three books can collectively serve as direct campaign resources or the toolkits for a GM to do their own thing with the concept. The material meshes well while bringing distinctly Numenera/Cypher concepts to 5E, and if you've been intrigued at the world of Numenera but couldn't convince your players to try out the Cypher System then this resource is a sneaky way to get them in to it. Alternatively, it's a lush resource of additional building blocks for making decidedly non-Tolkienesque fantasy in 5E, too.

#1: Call of Cthulhu 7E: Malleus Monstrorum Volumes I and II

I've been using the PDFs to supplement Cthulhu for months now, but the print editions finally arrived in time for my Xmas present, so lucky me! This two volume set provides a fantastic full-color reinvention of the original 6th edition version of the same, but now with just more, more and even more Mythos goodness. An invaluable resource for Call of Cthulhu 7E keepers and a worthy set for any Mythos collector.

Honorable Mention #1: Alien RPG

Technically Alien RPG came out last year, but I acquired it at the beginning of this year (iirc) and it also released a Starter Set and a boxed campaign (Destroyer of Worlds) that only enhanced how good this game was at representing its source material. As a long time fan of the series (both through better and worse; the Alien franchise has had its fair share of stinkers) it is impressive to see how the Free League team tackled a reconciliation on the many and varied alternate and contradictory takes on alien Canon (and non canon), and managed to produce a game that feels like it might manage to surprise and entertain. 

Honorable Mention #2: Cypher System's Godforsaken

The only reason I felt like I couldn't include this is I haven't finished reading it yet, but it is already clear that Godforsaken does a fine job of escalating Cypher System into the realm of a full fantasy game, no doubt just in time for the upcoming revamp of Ptolus next year. I'll be using it soon for an actual Realms of Chirak campaign, too, as well as revamping my Ensaria campaign, which is a Cypher world I have run some campaigns in themed around the idea of a fantasy realm that is in fact a lost colony world.

Overall though, this was a pretty amazing year for new RPG books, despite the pandemic and subsequent economic downturn. Hopefully next year will be better for game developers and publishers alike, as well as gamers everywhere. 

Picking an SFG RPG Part 2: Generic Systems vs. Implied Setting Systems (plus how Tone and Flavor Matter!)

 My talking about the SF RPG of choice for my short campaign refresh and the subsequent reader comments got me to thinking about a design element that affects system choice: generic systems vs. systems which contain an implied setting. Secondary to this is the notion that a given system will also contain some tone and flavor; flavor might reflect the implied setting, but it doesn't need to. 

For example: White Star has a setting that it has provided some support for, but the book itself is fairly setting neutral; it's got lots of content that might at times even seem contradictory (you have mecha jocks, space squirrels, star knights and embittered old preachers on the space frontier all in the same game system, for example). White Star's implied setting is schizophrenic; it's really a kitchen-sink universe if run exactly as presented, but the intent is to instead give you tools to make your preferred brand of cinematic-inspired scifi.  

Contrast this with Stars Without Number, which on the surface seems to be a toolkit game. However, the foundation of SWN is written around a specific universe which has a defining moment called The Scream within it. All of the implied setting content (and SWN Is loaded to the gills with it) has this core conceit baked into the premise. If you run SWN with a different concept in mind it either limits the content of the book to your own vision or requires you to modify or ignore large chunks of the story content. By contrast, with SWN if you don't want Star Knights in your universe you just tell players they are off the table; the rest of the system won't break if you exclude them, and indeed some story bits might even feel more consistent as a result....that's because White Star isn't building you a toolkit for an implied universe like SWN is; it's providing you a toolkit for a flavor of gaming (cinematic scifi). 

Contrast this with actual generic systems such as Cypher System, Savage Worlds, GURPS and even FATE. These systems might come with some inherent tone/flavor due to the underlying game systems, but each tries to support a wide range of settings without any implied content. GURPS can run both cinematic scifi and (if you were so inclined) the SWN universe in which The Scream happened. Savage Worlds is aimed at it's motto of Fast! Furious! Fun! but it more than amply tries to cover every SF genre it can within its own toolkit within the 3F parameters. Cypher System's underlying flavor is one of deceptively simple mechanics that are player facing with resource management baked in, but the Stars are Fire sourcebook spends half the tome giving you a vast array of ideas for any conceivable SF idea you can think of; it's selling system with a certain tone and flavor and the only implied setting are those which most benefit from the contrivances of Cypher's mechanical design.

The downside, as any gamer with full time work and family knows, is that generic systems often take a lot of time to prep. The seductive point of a game system with an implied setting like SWN or Traveller is that it does some of the work for you; if for example I simply didn't have a campaign vision in mind (and this is where I always trip myself up as I like designing my own settings rather than using existing content), then SWN would actually work really well for me, as I love its world/adventure chart design process. Likewise, Traveller is insanely processual in charting out its own implied setting through the rules, and you can run any universe you want with it so long as it involves dudes who muster out and start life as middle aged adventurers travelling using something like Jump Drive in a bizarrely flat hexagonal galaxy.

All of these systems are great, of course, and I've run all of them except for FATE (which I almost ran, but ultimately decided it's core mechanical conceits are just not my cup of tea). So when I am looking for what I need at the moment I am thinking of what my goal is....and it sort of follows this thought:

1. I want a system which can give me a 5-10 session arc that feels fulfilling but doesn't feel like we have to be obligated to keep playing (so, progression within 5-10 sessions is meaningful); any of the systems we're talking about could theoretically do this well, but I'll rule out GURPS because the setup will take too long for 5-10 sessions and Traveller because its progression is flighty at best.

2. It needs to fit my vision of a "realistic" space opera idea I have in mind with specific conceits for how stuff like hyperdrives and human expansion into the galaxy happened (and lots of aliens); this means it needs to be a good toolkit game with lots of premade stuff that fits the setting; that eliminates GURPS and Traveller (would have to build it all), SWN (implied setting would have to be redacted), and leaves Savage Worlds, Cypher System and White Star (all three have enough content, bt of course SW requires some conversion work).

3. It needs to be easy to run without a lot of rules adjudication, because part of the "palette cleanser" is I want a break from a system with a rigorous three-action mechanic and a 600 page rulebook. Yes, PF2 is remarkably easier to run than PF1 but it's still not "Swords & WIzardry" easy, you know what I mean? This conceit is the most important part! 

With those three criteria in mind I could readily narrow the list down to White Star, Savage Worlds and Cypher System. As I identified in yesterday's post Cypher System would be ideal but the Roll20 randomizer for dice seems to actively hate my players so in the interest of sanity I decided not to go with it. Savage Worlds requires some (admittedly minor) conversion to work properly right now so I want least amount of effort....so White Star it is.

There is one element undiscussed: The explicit setting systems. Eclipse Phase, Star Wars RPGs, Star Trek Adventures....these are all games you play specifically for the detailed setting. They are in their own ballpark, as you will never likely want to use them for something that isn't a total riff on the actual universe the system supports. 

Cepheus Light - Actual Play Comments and Comparing to Traveller

Our group was down a whopping 50% Saturday night so we decided it was once again time for an alternate game night. We picked Cepheus Light, on the premise that:

Half of us knew Traveller well enough to figure it out;
And the half that didn't would find it easy to pick up. Both assumptions were true.

In fact, knowing Traveller (MGT editions for most; back to CT for me) helped shine a light on why Cepeheus Light is both quick and easy and also where some differences lie. Here's what we noticed:

Character Generation - it's quicker because it drops lots of little stuff from the framework of more conventional MG Traveller (such as life events) and bundles a lot of stuff as alternate/optional rules. That said, we were quick to adopt most of the optional rules (including dumping iron man as a default, adding zero rank skills back in, etc.) since those are additions to the game which make it a tighter, more satisfying experience.

Other observations: the professions included covered most bases nicely. It was weird that the agent profession did not have stealth on the skill list. Most survival and re-enlistment rolls seemed weighted toward the easy end.

Cepheus Light includes a short experience mechanic which is atypical of Traveller but it does work well for a Light system like this, as you don't need to worry about training downtimes...just track XP. CL also wins out when it comes to equipment and augments; the game provides plenty of equipment and the cybernetic augment rules were quickly abused by the players. I designed at least one NPC for the game with psionics, too. The psionic rules are simple and get the job done.

All told, the vets to Traveller generated multiple characters in an hour, and the new players (and a lapsed player) caught on in 30 minutes or so. Cepheus Light as a quick pick-up-and-play system stands firm. When I compare it to Classic Traveller, I still think it could have been made even tighter without much loss of fidelity, though.

Actual play worked pretty much exactly like it does for either edition of MGT or the full Cepheus system; in fact I had to double check and confirm if some things I was using (such as assumption about applying effect) were actually in Cepheus Light or not. As a rule of thumb, if the rule added non-required complexity...it probably wasn't in Cepheus or was an optional rule.

So, in the scenario we played which involved an extraction team landing on a colony world with extremely strict laws to aid a spy in escaping with valued information the game played out fine. The rules reduce the skill system ever so slightly by combining some skills, but these were nominal changes at best; the characters designed felt robust enough for gaming and the combat mechanics had the essence of what was needed for a good shootout.

I included some nonhumans from what the book did offer....odd that we had reptiloids but they were more like "standard lizard dudes" and not the "disguised as the president" types, considering greys are one of the other species on offer. In the scenario, when the reptiloid was defeated they had to pull of his rubber mask which he used to walk disguised among men.

I noticed the vehicle and starship rules were sufficiently slender that using them during play to work up quick vehicles was not out of the question. The starship statblocks were very easy to reference and I felt comfortable at the idea of running a starship combat if needed, though we never got around to that.

Anyway....in the end, it's indisputable that Cepheus makes for an excellent quick night of gaming, can subsitute for a full Traveller experience almost without effort, and is good for pick-up-and-play nights, especially if you roll some pregens first. My main question, though, was whether using Cepheus Light was a better choice than one of my other options, including the full Cepheus Engine, Traveller 2nd edition from Mongoose, or Classic Traveller, which I have in the digest size FFE reprint with a Vargr on the cover.

So....is it?

For me, I think there's probably something to be said for the more nuanced mechanical approach of Classic Traveller, and as much as I like the lighter mechanical elements, I feel like the detail you can get out of CT is just a bit more interesting, even if it means you have more fiddly mechanics to deal with, or a rules set which is a  bit more piecemeal and all over the place.

But...Mongoose's 2nd edition Traveller is a really hard package to beat. It has a solid evolution of the game, and there are clearly lots of influential details from MGT2 floating around in the optional rules sections for Cepheus Light. I can't even say it loses on portability; you can get an almost as portable version of the three books for MGT2 from the box set edition of the core rules, and which include rules missing from CL such as creatures and more details on aliens.

Still....if you want to play something that feels a lot like Classic Traveller as you might remember it (if not in reality) and you like a slimmer design approach, CL is a good fit. Will I use it again? I just might. But for my next serious campaign in Traveller I still think the MGT2 edition is my preferred resource.

Cepheus Light

If you're not familiar with the Cepheus Engine, it's the spiritual OGL-powered successor to Mongoose's 1st edition of Traveller. When they migrated to Traveller 2E, Mongoose managed to put out a very nice looking, useful product....but they left the OGL behind. For third party publishers this really only left them with one choice: keep publishing under the 1st edition Traveller OGL.

Eventually a fully functioning variant of the OGL for Traveller was released from Stellagama in the form of Cepheus Engine, a product essentially compatible with all of the 2D6 versions of Traveller,  designed to provide a Traveller-style ruleset to people who for whatever reason might not be interested in the Mongoose version or the immense 5th edition that exists somewhere in Kickstarter Land. For me, it's a nice ruleset although I do personally prefer Traveller 2nd Edition from Mongoose, which is a very complete engine with lots of changes I like.

Cepheus Light accomplishes very much the same thing MGT 2E and Cepheus Engine does, but in a tighter package that manages to evoke the feel of Original Classic Traveller while actually incorporating key elements from modern design that make it a robust package that straddles a fine line between old school and new, as well as being sufficiently versatile to cover multiple interpretations of Traveller style gaming.

If you're familiar with how ridiculously easy Classic Traveller is, then you'll have a sense of how Cepheus Light works, albeit from the MGT 1E OGL framework. Unlike CT, Cepheus Light aims for a more comprehensive ruleset recognizing the years of additional supplements as well as making it more sufficiently generic so that the players and referee can tailor the game to their own SF universe. There are 12 career choices, for example, as well as rules for augments so you can reflect cybernetics/bioengineering in your setting (a problem with CT, which was published before Cyberpunk left its permanent mark on SF).

Cepheus Light includes streamlined versions of rules for various features, most notably starship design and combat, which includes 19 pages of design rules and a bunch of clean stats for pre designed ships, as well as 10 pages on starship combat, half of which is an example of play. The only failing of this chapter is the fact that it includes no ship maps, a tradition in the Traveller universe of games....but a quick scan through Drivethrurpg.com will reveal hundreds of those you can deploy in a Cepheus Light game if that's your thing.

Unlike Classic Traveller, Cepheus Light is focused on the rules of MGT 1st edition from the OGL so things such as combat work with the more contemporary version of those rules; this may be a welcome style for people who remember the rather clunky modifier tables and armor mechanics of CT. All in all, though, the rules for Cepheus are incredibly straight forward; any Traveller fan will recognize them, and any new gamer will find this edition of the game easy enough to follow along with. It is actually easier to understand (imo) than both the 1st edition MGT rulebook and the Cepheus Engine full rules.

If I have to provide a negative to this: it's that the rulebook itself, while illustrated, is otherwise using fairly generic stock art that is not that exciting or evocative. There is also a tiny section on alien races, but it only provides three examples (greys, reptiloids and insectoids), then refers you to another Stellgama product for more detailed design rules; there are also no rules on creatures. Not including even a page on some design rules hurts the product's universal applicability just a bit.

That said....you get a rule system that far exceeds most packages and at only 108 pages this is still probably the best bang for your buck in SF gaming right now; I'd say it's a better choice even than Classic Traveller which can also be found in POD on DriveThruRPG.com. Check it out! I plan to run an SF game soon using only these rules. I find the versatility in such a small package to be a very welcoming experience.

The Universal World Profile Sourcebook for Cepheus and Traveller

For many of us, particularly the grognards and the gamers who approached SF gaming from the venue of fiction rather than film, there's a consistent expectation that any good SF game will provide you with some useful world building tools, as well as a means by which you can map out your corner of the galaxy for exploration and discovery. Traveller set the bar for this expectation high very early on with a decent system for generating an infinite number of star systems and subsectors to create as large and detailed a galaxy to explore as you could want.

When Mongoose published Traveller in its "1st edition" of their new version of the game they thankfully made it OGL, and then later made the mistake of not keeping MGT2 OGL, thus splitting their market of third party support. Most third party support for Traveller continues, but under the older OGL which has been retooled into a new edition of the game called the Cepheus Engine. This iteration of Traveller is the MGT1 version from the OGL, with some additional content to flesh the game out. It's also spawned lots of new product, aimed primarily as support for Cepheus or for other SF games that could benefits from specific rules such as ship design or world building.

Enter the Universal World Profile. This book is an expansion on the basic world design rules in Cepheus and MGT1, providing more depth of discussion on what each statistic and fact means when creating a world's UWP. For those of you unfamiliar with Traveller's mechanics in world design, each planet gets a "stat block" in Traveller hexadecimal format that lets you quickly determine a planet's composition, size, atmosphere, population, government, star ports and other useful details right no down to trade codes. It was an ingenious way of codifying and making an entire galaxy a prospective explorable option....you could get in a ship, journeying across the parsecs to theoretically endless explorable planets. A creative Traveller referee could take those stat blocks and make them really interesting, or you could play it straight and run Traveller like some sort of trade or merc-driven procedural; the core conceit was brilliant and simple, but it is the reason Traveller remains a persistent and popular RPG to this day and (almost) no one remembers games like Space Opera or Universe (except maybe for how baroque and painful they were).

Anyway, The Universal World Profile sourcebook for Cepheus (and Traveller) is a fully stand-alone resource which will give you more information on the UWP process for its core games, but also serves as a stand-alone resource for GMs who want design worlds for their own preferred SF rpg but maybe don't happen to have a very good resource for that particular game to do so. For example, while the Advent Horizon RPG actually has a nice little world designer in the rules, it's nowhere near as robust as what the UWP can offer. Starfinder has a very Pathfinder-styled section on building locations and encounters for games, but offers zero support for designing a universe to explore in a more organic fashion; it's trending (unfortunately) toward Paizo's desire to sell Adventure Paths rather than material that lets GMs do their own thing, so with a bit of additional effort (such as encounter tables for the Alien Archives) you could use the UWP to actually create some structure to your setting for players to explore.

There are other SF RPGs out there (besides the two I have been messing with a lot recently) that could benefit from a UWP system as well, although it is worth noting some games take the inspiration of the UWP and manage to do their own thing extremely well. GURPS Space has a robust (some might say "too robust") world creator. Stars Without Number, for another example, has a great world generation system that includes building plot hooks and themes in to the design. Unlike SWN however you can design your own brand of SF with the UWP and tailor it to your preferred genre requirements (SWN is great but leans heavily on its implied specific universe). The UWP only really makes the assumption that starships travel discreet distances (parsecs) and that the universe can be captured on a 2-D hex map (hand waive the third dimension). It doesn't presume aliens, but that doesn't stop you from populating every world with them. It doesn't presume technomancy or "the scream" or the idea of an Imperium but all of that can be included or assumed if you so desire.

Anyway, if you need a stand-alone resource for science fiction world building that is accessible and broad in application, check it out. Print version at Lulu, too.