Retrostar -- now you too can experience 70's Sci-Fi Cinema Role Playing

Retrostar is a great game, and you must buy it.

Okay, okay some qualifiers: it's a great emulator of 70's style cinematic sci-fi. If you are part of that special culture of older SF fans and gamers who can claim to have experienced the 70's then Retrostar is going to speak a language you forgot you knew. In many ways it does for SF gaming what Dungeon Crawl Classics did for fantasy: it drags a unique decade of flavor back to the forefront and shows you how it's aged into a fine, unique vintage over the last 35-odd years.

I'm still absorbing the book, but it's a very minimalist rules system designed to capture the flavor of the cinematic adventures of Buck Rogers, Space 1999, Land of the Lost and countless other 70's-era science fiction shows I either never knew existed or always wanted to watch when I was a kid but couldn't find (I can't say I wasn't allowed to....my parents let me watch pretty much anything back then! But I grew up on a ranch in Arizona, and television was very limited, so finding an SF show to watch was a monumental experience).

A character in Retrostar has three stats: Adventure, Thought and Drama. Other defining traits include background, casting, plot and cheese....yes, this is basically aimed at a hardcore emulation of the subgenre of 70's films in all their glory. The dice mechanic is really simple, and aims at representing what a character can do in the framework of a scene; imagine it being like a game which lets you roll up working scripts in collaboration with a pool of other hack TV writers and you get the idea.

The art is good, and evocative of the era (bell bottoms? check). The book is filled with interesting content, and if you're in the least bit in to vintage SF from that era it's worth reading for the research interest alone. In fact if you value your gamebooks on their readability then this is a must-have.

I'll post more soon about how the system works but for now, go to the website to check out the free Lightspeed version.

Chirak: The Exodus of the Lich King

Quick cure for the politics of game publishing? New Chirak stuff! My notes from a D&D 5E campaign last year....

The Exodus of the Lich King

Premise: Lord Malenkin, self-asserted Lich King of Chirak, has departed from his centuries-long dwelling in the Dryssyrian Mountians. In a matter of weeks, his army of undead was gone, with evidence of a midnight forced march across southern Mercurios, leading to the sacking and pillaging Kunin, Dorland and Arelin before disappearing along the coast where some believe the entire army marched into the sea, or boarded haunted ships.

Lord Antares Nystor  (cousin to Cyria Nystor)of Varkal in the north has been visiting Cradle recently, interested in exploring the dominion that Lord Malenkin appears to have vacated. He has called upon the resources of the Tower of Kaledon in the city, and the goodwill of Lord Prialn, to get this job done.

Meanwhile, there are six forces at play in the region that can cause trouble:

The Orc Queen Getana – a sorceress and priestess of Shaligon, Getana has kept her power by bartering for the protection and aid of the Lich King. She sees him as abandoning her, and now she struggles to shore up her forces where they lack, even as the orcish chieftains begin to cast about for a way to make themselves rulers of the Kraggit. In the interim, she has mounted an expedition to Malenkin’s tower, to seize control of it for herself.

Warlord Moghar – the most active orc warlord, Moghar is seeing this as his opportunity to finally destroy Getana. His wife, Amibdial, is the one spurring him on, to grab power over the Kraggit and to expand territorial control into the territory of Malenkin. He has the Fulmoth Ogre tribe at his beck and call, and the gorloni minotaur mercenary Shadoshan at his service.

Xutolan – the archmage of Tedron in Nubiria, Xutolan has traveled from the Old City of Lobros to claim the legacy of Malenkin for his own. This is not without precedent….for it turns out that Xutolan, who spent much of his youth apprenticing to Malenkin, was informed of the Lich King’s planned departure to Isla Esrosania in Espania some months ago. Scheming to uncover the secrets Malenkin would leave behind, Xutolan convinced Lobros’s priest-king Radamantos to support his planned expedition with warriors and mages. His goal: seize the secrets of the tower in the name of Tedron. His secret goal: find the source of Necrite, a unique magical ore created by the strong tether to the Negative Energy Plane somewhere beneath Malenkin’s Tower….

Anaxon – this young green dragon wishes to live in the region and make all who dwell locally bow before its might. Taking Malenkin’s tower his own would just be a feather in Anaxon’s cap.

Chardalys – the Dragosian nobleman Chardalys is keen to learn the secrets of Malenkin for himself. He has hired a dozen of the roughest and most infamous mercenaries in the Pellucid lands to work for him, and he is playing for keeps.

Synnidath - Aside from the above five, the Xernethians have been probing the region, realizing that Malenkin’s disappearance frees the land from two centuries of undead hordes but also destabilizes the region between the elves and the orcs. The ranger Synnidath is current exploring the area with his modest band of elven warriors.

Complications:

The Necrite Mines – one of the reasons Malenkin chose this location two centuries ago was its positioning over a natural rift cluster, which included rifts to the Negative Energy Plane and the Shadow Plane. These mines operated continuously for two centuries, providing the rich magical ore called necrite, a substance of chilling value in alchemy and necromancy. With it, Malenkin forged a large undead army and tethered this region to the rifts, creating a lingering, permanent shadowland around his own tower.

In the end, the rifts remain and will continue to influence the land, but the mines ran dry. Eventually necrite will form gain, but it will take centuries for the substance to reappear. In the interim, the mere presence of the rift to the Negative Energy Plane insures that very few creatures which die in the region of the tower stay dead for long….almost any corpse within ten miles of the tower will rise again as a zombie within 1D8 days.

Castello Mordrovario – this ruined castle is almost unknown to all, but rested a mere ten miles from Malenkin’s Tower and was the point of power for his undead army. The castle lies dormant now, save for a colony of rogue ghouls led by the vile Medichern, who moved in after word of Malenkin’s departure spread. Medichern was a free willed undead who broke the mental thrall of Malenkin long ago. He is keenly interested in seeing if there is some way for him to gain greater power, but he lacks the mind for greater sorcery.

The Undercity of Grom’dahal – this is the orcish bastion and city where Gretana rules. Grom’dahal is a deep and impenetrable fortress, and the place which warlord Moghar must crack if he intends to gain control of all the Kraggit orcs.

More Threats to the Tower of Malenkin:

Queen Sepitaire, General Heidolan, King Flabbag and Warlord Doomgar

The queen of the Eradariin of the north in the subterranean Empire of Zyphente has marched on Malenkin’s tower to the south. She has with her the greatest eradariin general of the dark, Heidolan, a ranger and acolyte of Shaligon. King Flabbag, the goblin lord has allied himself with her as well, and the Kraggit orc warlord Doomgar has also thrown in. Together they command a force of ten thousand, marching to sieze the entire region in a massive power coup in the Lower Deep.

Sepitaire has a reason for he resire to take the tower: she had a vision from Shaligon herself suggesting that the tower was necessary to the survival of her kingdom of darkness. The Horde of Piscrael is rising in the east, gathered around the mountain if Piscrael’s Blight, and it marches first to ensnare the Mother of Monsters in the region of Correnstal…the land will be purged of all who dare stand against the demons. The tower will let her unlock the secret to saving her people from Piscrael’s abyssal army.

Citra, the Banshee Queen

The elven woman once in love with Malenkin was turned into a dark being of power in the shadowfell, and she seeks her revenge. Her long effort to escape back into the world of men was partially what preceded Malenkin’s sudden flight from the region; she has grown immensely powerful after allying herself with Morrigan, the Raven Queen. She is forming a new army of the dead, and plans to seize the tower for her own purposes….

Senior Engineer Taazel Ven’Sproket and Arcane Administrator Yadeena Hazel’Trike

The gnomes of Epinfael near the Pallath Esamanthis have a great interest in reclaiming the tower, for they know it is actually an ancient homunculi grown to near infinite dimensions, a being which spreads wormlike through many dimensions; the paltry portion in this planar realm is but a tny portion of its total essence. They seek to recover ownership of this ancient legacy of the Mythrics that they may properly study it. The armed contingent arrives by dirigible with 200 gnomish marines and 60 gnomish arcane artillerists.  

Next: the levels of the tower

Welcome to Eastern Chirak

Welcome to Eastern Chirak

The map below is of Eastern Chirak...for the next several columns I'll be posting stuff going on in the SE corner, in Mercurios....I have a more elaborate map and will post it if I can find time to scan the sucker in!

Edition war fatigue sets in early

I concede that I am really, really tired of edition wars, and all of this discussion is reminding me of the crap that went down during the pre-and-post MRQ days (never mind the D&D edition wars). I hate it, and it turns me off of any version of RQ as a choice very quickly. These days I have Fantasy AGE, D&D 5E and Pathfinder to enjoy, which are three systems around which no barrel full of contention is spewing (for the most part), as well as a ton of miscellaneous retroclones. I'll probably back away from all of this noise and quietly watch from the sidelines for the next year or two, while jealously guarding my BRP Gold Book and Magic World tomes. (Oh, and maybe find time to play the hell out of what is now being called The Design Mechanism House System)

The Glorantha Problem (or: defining "opaque" settings)

I was thinking about why all this teeth-gnashing and fanbase smashing is going on with Chaosium, Runequest, the Design Mechanism and other innocent victims (i.e BRP's Gold Book and Magic World). Ultimately, it all boils down to a single source of contention....really, it does!

Glorantha.

Now, the problem with Glorantha is not that the setting is, in and of itself, not an interesting, exotic affair that has a dedicated core of fans....it does. Glorantha is, indeed an exotic, unusual setting. It's probably close to Barker's Tekumel in many people's eyes, or at least settings like Jorune or Talislanta. Worlds that are sufficiently exotic that the rules of play are bent around the frame of the setting to support it (rather than, say, a set of rules on which one drapes the setting). Because of this, Glorantha has a reputation: it's the setting you choose when you want something really weird and different, something which is not in the least bit conventional. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this, of course....other than the fact that Runequest has been presented as a more universal system for 31 years now since Runequest 3 was released in 1984ish, where the default setting was actually Mythic Europe and Glorantha got a supplemental book that added the setting to the rules.

This was hardly even a problem back in the day because Runequest 2 hardly included enough information to do more than get a vague sense of what the world of Glorantha was like. I ran scenarios ostensibly using the map, but my attention do detail ultimately led to adventures set in some corner of my own world (look for the location of Blackwell in the World of Lingusia). But of course that was 1982....and in the intervening years game design has changed, along with the "minimum expectations" of gamers and their settings.* As such, we all sort of anticipate that the next Runequest will have the following criteria:

1. It will be a setting with a system wrapped around it (maybe)
2. It will be heavy with Glorantha-focused content; so instead of a chapter on world building we'll get a Glorantha-focused chapter on the setting. Instead of charts and tables for general fantasy medieval adventuring we'll get charts and tables for Glorantha. Instead of all-purpose cultural details (which really are an artifact or RQ3 and later) we might get cultural details on Glorantha locales.
3. RQ4 will maybe....at best...focus on a specific era of Glorantha, which as I understand it has several ages (such as the second age of the setting that Mongoose's RQ focused on).

So....what that means is that it will be one of those games. Like Earthdawn, Empire of the Petal Throne, Talislanta, and others, in which what you are buying in to is a complicated setting, not necessarily a toolkit rulebook. Problem is, toolkit rulebooks are all the rage these days; the idea of a core system of rules which then supports multiple settings is very much a part of contemporary gaming culture. Runequest will be designing against this principle. That could work out well for them, sure....but it might backfire, too. Especially because Glorantha has a reputation among many gamers as being a difficult setting to penetrate. Few "setting-dedicated" rulebooks do well.

I like to define Glorantha as an "opaque" setting...very difficult to penetrate. Glorantha has an appeal to gamers who feel that something is not worth their time unless it has at least two of the following traits: it is obscure, it is academic and/or it is difficult to master/understand. Glorantha fits all three criteria.

Runequest 4 could avoid this problem by providing the skeleton of the Glorantha setting and still retaining "toolkit" elements. 13th Age does this....it has a world setting implied in the rules with some robust chapters providing necessary details, but the rules also assume you can and will do your own thing with it. As such 13th Age walks a fine line between predetermined world and open toolkit in it's design. RQ4 could do the same.

If RQ4 remains a dedicated book for Glorantha then there's a lot of content it won't need: Glorantha has defined cults and gods, for example; so we wouldn't necessarily get rules on how to make our own. Gone also will be other rules we've come to appreciate, such as designing orders and guilds, magic systems which may or may not be supported in this revamp of Glorantha, and specific magic systems retooled to reflect the Glorantha-specific flavor, making them hard to extract for use with non-Glorantha settings.

And of course the book will be big, and thick, because Glorantha is a monstrously large setting defined in countless obscure tomes. Dedicates to the setting love it...but you have to really, really love it to hold to such a commitment. Sure, RQ4 could garner lots of new fans, but the problem is that there are an enormous number of RQ fans out there who have been enjoying the system without a core setting for three decades now; and a lot of us specifically liked how Glorantha was carefully excised from the core rules for four of the six editions of the game.

This all ultimately points out that the return to Glorantha, while fine, is the real problem here; we're all about to get a combined rulebook and setting that no half of RQ's fanbase don't really want, haven't really wanted since about 1984. And of the other half, the Glorantha fans who do want a return, I am unsure of how many are going to really want to return to Runequest as a system when they also have HeroQuest, which has struck me for years now as a great example of the system designed to support the setting. Is RQ really that suited to Glorantha? I seem to recall that even Sandy Petersen said it wasn't (quotation missing until my google-fu gets better).

There has always been something of a split on this, though. I suppose we will now get a chance to see if a re-Gloranthified Runequest based on RQ2 will take off and be a success.....and I guess fans of RQ the toolkit system (but not Glorantha) can see where the Design Mechanism goes.

EDIT: worth mentioning that in the end, Runequest was Sandy Petersen's Greg Stafford's baby originally, as is Glorantha, which according to Designers & Dragons conceptually predates D&D's arrival by many years. I can't fault him for wanting to bring it all back in a form he wants....I'd be the same way. (fixed my gaff.)

My own preference....well, we have a lot of choices out there, and in the end games don't go away until people stop playing them. I'll continue to reserve my feelings on the matter until we see what 2016 brings us.




*Look at how many people complain that the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is too skimpy to run Forgotten Realms scenarios. I personally think it's loaded with useful GM stuff, plenty of campaign material.

On Runequest 4 (after some thought)

After thinking about this for a day and reading some new information I realized that I am actually pro-RQ4, so I decided this entire post needed massive revision. 

So apparently Chaosium's new direction will be a Runequest 4th edition, referring to the 4th edition of the RQ game done by Chaosium (but still really a 7th edition for everyone who's been with the game since MRQ). The 4E version will however use RQ2 as the springboard/base from which it builds. I admit, this intrigues me.

Meanwhile, Design Mechanism will continue to support Runequest 6, which will get a name change.

I absolutely agree with Akrasia that this could fragment the base, but I'm not sure what can be done about that....we have exactly the same problem with D&D, which is fragmented between five (well, seven really) editions of the base game plus countless OSR retroclones and inspired D&D-alikes, so the fact that Runequest will have two coterminous editions....not to mention stuff like Legend and Renaissance....strikes me as business as usual for this hobby, which tends to be recursively derivative to a fault.

ENWorld Article

Whadda week!!!

No posts immediately...I've been offline a bit, as well as busy beyond reasoning. Aside from the complexities of work, I've also moved residences this weekend and otherwise been too preoccupied to do much more than keep pushing to get things done with loads too large for the deadlines that must be met. Now....PC is back online, the calm is setting in a bit....still stuff to do though. More soon!

For now here's some awesome videos you should check out.

First: where art, transhumanism, shoggoths and body horror converge:

DIFFUSION from Kouhei Nakama on Vimeo.

Second: Singularity....a short film good enough to compete with a lot of full productions out there. Netflix should hire the makers of this film to do more like it.

SINGULARITY [short film] 2015 from The Bicycle Monarchy on Vimeo.

Next: this is a slightly NSFW stop-motion tale of undead pirates, and a man's love for a nude witch with an octopus hat....this should not be missed. I like to think this is all happening in some demiplane near the Shadowfell:

Goutte d'Or (full film) from Happy Flyfish on Vimeo.

D&D 5E: Deep One Hybrids

Pathfinder's Bestiary 5 has some awesome new additions to the menagerie within. Here's a conversion of the deep one hybrid to D&D 5E for your enjoyment...

Deep One Hybrid

CR 1/8 (25 XP)

CE medium humanoid (human, aberration)

Initiative +0       Perception +4 (Passive 14)

DEFENSE

AC 11 or 12 (with leather armor)

HP 11 (1D8+3)

OFFENSE

Speed 20 feet (30 feet swimming)

Melee Attack dagger +3 (5 foot reach), 1D4+1 slashing damage

Statistics

STR 13 (+1), DEX 10 (0), CON 17 (+3), INT 10 (0), WIS 16 (+3), CHA 8 (-1)

Languages: common, abyssal

Senses: dark vision 60’

Skills: Swimming +2

TRAITS

Transmogrification: a deep one hybrid experiences a rapid transformation at roughly age 60, turning into a true deep one in 1D12 months. (More on true deep ones to come).

Sea Longing: deep one hybrids are tethered to the sea. When 10 or more miles away from large salt water bodies for more than a day the Deep one must make a wisdom save DC 18 or suffer the loss of 1 wisdom. The deep one hybrid can only recover these lost wisdom points through magic (such as restoration).

Take to the Water: deep one hybrids are proficient in swimming, and swim at a base rate of 30 feet. They roll advantage on initiative and dexterity checks when swimming in the water. A deep one hybrid can hold his breath for a number of minutes equal to his constitution score.

Classes: Deep one hybrids usually have a class, typically fighter, rogue, cleric, warlock or wizard.

Deep One Hybrid Characters:

Ability Scores: Deep Ones add +1 to Constitution and Wisdom but are -1 to Dexterity

Languages: deep one hybrids learn the common tongue and either abyssal or your suited dialect for deep one species.

Slow: deep one hybrids move at 20 feet on land but 30 feet in water.

Vision: deep one hybrids have dark vision for 60 feet.

Natural Armor: deep one hybrids have thick, rubbery skin and insulating fat, giving them a +1 armor bonus.

Final Change: Deep one hybrids suffer the effects of transmogrification (see above).

Sea Longing: deep one hybrids also suffer from sea longing as described above.

Take to the Water: deep one hybrids are proficient in swimming, and swim at a base rate of 30 feet. They roll advantage on initiative, swimming and dexterity checks when swimming in the water. A deep one hybrid can hold his breath for a number of minutes equal to his constitution score.

Sample Deep One Acolyte (level 2 cleric)

CR 1/4 (50 XP)

CE medium humanoid (human, aberration)

Initiative +0       Perception +4 (Passive 14)

DEFENSE

AC 13 (with hide armor)

HP 15 (2D8+6)

Storm Wrath (reaction); creature within 5 feet that hits you must make a Dexterity Save (DC 13) or take 2D8 lighting or thunder damage (choose); ½ damage on save; can use this 3 times before a rest.

OFFENSE

Speed 20 feet (30 feet swimming)

Melee Attack morning star +3 (5 foot reach), 1D8+1 piercing damage

Ranged Attack Sacred Flame +5 (60 feet), 1D8 radiant damage

Statistics

STR 13 (+1), DEX 10 (0), CON 17 (+3), INT 10 (0), WIS 16 (+3), CHA 8 (-1)

Saves: wisdom +5, charisma +1

Languages: common, abyssal

Senses: dark vision 60’

Skills: Swimming +2, insight +5, religion +2

TRAITS

Transmogrification: a deep one hybrid experiences a rapid transformation at roughly age 60, turning into a true deep one in 1D12 months. (More on true deep ones to come).

Sea Longing: deep one hybrids are tethered to the sea. When 10 or more miles away from large salt water bodies for more than a day the Deep one must make a wisdom save DC 18 or suffer the loss of 1 wisdom. The deep one hybrid can only recover these lost wisdom points through magic (such as restoration).

Take to the Water: deep one hybrids are proficient in swimming, and swim at a base rate of 30 feet. They roll advantage on initiative and dexterity checks when swimming in the water. A deep one hybrid can hold his breath for a number of minutes equal to his constitution score.

Cleric Traits: Spell Save DC 13, Spell Attack +5; tempest domain

Channel Divinity: once per rest the hybrid may turn undead (DC 13) or destructive wrath (deal maximium thunder or lighting damage on a spell effect)

Cantrips Readied: guidance, resistance, sacred flame

1^st Level Spells Readied: bane, protection from good

The Deep One Hybrid Acolyte is a Worshipper of….(Roll D12):

1: Olhydra

2: Dagon

3: Scylla

4: Charybdis

5: The Kraken

6: Davy Jones

7: Moander

8: The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

9: Cthulhu

10: Chalchiuhitlicue

11: Dakuwaka

12: Nammu

New Batman V. Superman Trailer

This trailer is much better, and sheds more light on what the film will be about....



So...The Zuckerberg Luthor is okay, I can live with that. Zod as a reanimated Doomsday? Interesting. Wonder Woman's surprise appearance: amazing. Still keen to see what the new Aquaman is going to be like. (Also still wishing they tied all of this to the Flash/Arrow continuity....sigh)

It's starting to look like 2016 really will be a great year for DC fans!

D&D 5E; Some Useful Monster Templates

Useful Monster Templates for D&D 5E

Templates work for certain monsters in D&D 5E, but we don’t have many specific examples that can be used to quickly modify existing monster stats. Here are a couple useful templates you can use to quickly enhance existing monsters…..with an emphasis on modifying otherwise normal animals.

Large Creature

Apply this template to small or medium sized creatures that have larger versions rolling around out there….

Requirement: creature of small or medium size

Modifications: change creature to large size. Add +4 to strength and constitution, which means +2 to attack rolls, damage rolls and +2 HP per hit die. Change each hit die to D10s, which means add an additional 1 hit point per hit die if going from D8s (or 2 if from D6s). Increase any natural melee attack damage by 1 die type.

Awakened Creature

Apply this template to natural beasts which have gained human-level intelligence or been magically enhanced.

Requirement: an unaligned beast of 6 intelligence or less

Modifications:  Add +4 to the creature’s intelligence, add the common tongue (understanding if not ability to speak) and add +2 to wisdom if the wisdom score is also 6 or less.  Change creature’s unaligned status to an alignment of choice (or default to neutral).

Zombie Creature

This undead template lets you quickly convert any beast into its undead counterpart.

Requirement: any creature can benefit from this template

Modifications: reduce the creature’s intelligence to 3, wisdom to 6 and charisma to 5. Add damage and condition immunity to poison, and darkvision 60 feet. Add the Undead Fortitude trait (see the zombie entry). Add +2 to constitution and +2 hit dice of the creature’s type and adjust hit points accordingly.

Zombie versions of creatures may not retain any spell-like abilities or powers, subject to DM consideration. As a rule remove the power if it requires intelligence or cunning to function. A zombie mind flayer, for example, would still be able to extract brains but would lose its mind blast.