Month: July 2016 (Page 2 of 5)

Star Trek Adventures!

July 22, 2016 / Stan Shinn

I am a huge Star Trek fan, and I am very eagerly looking forward to this game. They have playtest registration in August, and if they have playtest packets and adventures by September, it could be that I would like to try running this system. Maybe as a Ragnarok Group thing, or in Thursday one-shot opportunities. System looks like it has potential — sounds like the narrative style that I really love but with the back-end crunch for players to keep it interesting beyond the first dozen games. Basically, Edge of the Empire but without issues for color-blind GMs, which makes sense, since the same guy that designed Star Wars Edge of the Empire (Jay Little) is designing the Star Trek implementation of the 2d20 system. 🙂

Links to find out more:

Modiphius’ Chris Birch Talks About The New STAR TREK ADVENTURE GAME! http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3573-Modiphius-Chris-Birch-Talks-About-The-New-STAR-TREK-ADVENTURE-GAME!
After Over A Decade, Here Comes A Brand New STAR TREK RPG! http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3570-After-Over-A-Decade-
Here-Comes-A-Brand-New-STAR-TREK-RPG!#.V4-Wb1f5xBw
2d20 For Infinity | UbiquitousRat.net http://ubiquitousrat.net/?p=2857
A review/description of Modiphius’ 2d20 system, the engine for their new CONAN https://plus.google.com/+GregGorgonmilk/posts/5JS4A98kknH
New Star Trek RPG Coming from Modiphius! https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?786364-New-Star-Trek-RPG-Coming-from-Modiphius!

Star Trek 2d20 rules will be slightly different, but to get a taste of the system and for the Star Trek production values, check this out:

INFINITY RPG FREE Quickstart – Modiphius | Free Products | INFINITY | RPGNow.com http://www.rpgnow.com/product/159673/INFINITY-RPG-FREE-Quickstart

Leviathan Session 03: Hunting the Mega-Rhino

July 20, 2016 / Stan Shinn

The heroes are tasked with hunting down a mega-rhino creature which doesn’t show on IR sensors. After camp setup and recon, they encountered it during the night. The extensible tail whip took John’s character and smashed him into a tree where the creature then proceeded to head-bash him. That left a headache!

Between a Mega-Rhino and a Hard Place

Running Long-term Campaigns in Big Universes

July 20, 2016 / Stan Shinn

Running Long-Term Campaigns in Big Universes

Here is an interesting post that touches on one element needed for long running campaigns: a big universe where you’re usually saving a region of the world/universe (as opposed to dealing with X-Men style extinction events that literally save the world).

Having a shared universe. Not required, but I think its cool to have the ability to hand to baton off to another GM for a while, or even have multiple campaigns running at the same time in different parts of the universe.

The other things I find that helps for long term campaigns is having a rule-system that is geared for long-term play. D&D 5e, Traveller, and Chaosium d100 games all fit the bill in that they scale nicely to higher levels and you don’t have the power-creep that D&D 3e/4e and to some extent Savage Worlds do where combat starts to drag at higher levels. Also, other games like Fate are better suited for shorter term campaigns. I believe Fred Hicks said on social media at some point that most campaigns he runs are in the 6-12 sessions range, and I think the game design reflects that.

On that note, here’s how I think the most popular rules systems in our group map to ideal campaign length:

Fate — 6 to 12 sessions
Savage Worlds — 20 to 40 sessions
D&D 5e / Traveller / Chaosium d100 — 45 to 100+ sessions

GURPs might fit into the latter as well as other systems I’m less familiar with.

Leviathan Session 02: Stochastic Effects

July 16, 2016 / Stan Shinn

Last game the heroes made it to the big city. The electric fences went down; who would have thought? 🙂

An A-Pex terrorizes the city. Can our intrepid heroes save the civilians?

Emory lands the killing blow! His character poses for a shot 🙂

Later, the heroes go to repair a power generator and are ambushed by Natural Order (N.O.) terrorists. One survived: what will the characters learn once he regains consciousness?

50 Fathoms: Session 25- Donga Lives!

July 16, 2016 / Jeff Messina

Donga Lives!

Characters:

Kaliferous: Kraken mage
Rodrigo: Human priest and water Mage from Earth
Crow/Kadian: Atani guardian of the Great Tree
Kukukachoo Grael guest star Cook and Whaler

Date: 7-16-16

XP: 2

Recap:

The Crew decided to head to Tressa the Red to find out if she had any leads on the Sword of King Amemnus. While traveling they spotted smoke off the coast of Torath-Ka and discover it to be a primitive human camp along the shore which was uncharted.

They decided to investigate but was attacked by an Ukak summoned megalodon named Jinka-Tahn.This armored beast seemed unstoppable, normal shots were simply bouncing off its hide. The giant shark attacked the ship and was about to take a large chunk out of the hull when a combined attack by Kal, Rodrigo weakened the beast and the keen aim of Kukukachoo brought the beast down by sinking both harpoons into its eyes killing the shark instantly.

They arrived to camp Victoria to discover a bedraggled but living survivors of an expedition funded by Bruno Baltimus and Edward Lazenby. The expedition had erected a fortification and was able to keep the local Ukak tribe at bay but was running low on gunpowder and provision. Their leader, a big game hunter from Earth, Angus McBryde decided to seek out the Ukak Shaman and end the attacks before his people lost the siege.

The Crew decided to find and help Angus and treked through the hot dangerous jungle for several days, drained to the point of exhaustion the Crew found Angus who stubbornly refused to leave without killing the Shaman and rescuing some of his men the Ukak had taken captive.

They arrived just before the Ukak Shaman started sacrificing the men in their Blood Pools but were too late to stop their death. Sacrificing their life the Ukak were dragging the captives into the Pool in an attempt to summon some great beast. Right as the last Ukak warrior was slain he managed to one last person into the Pool.

The Pool bubbled and frothed as the form of a Giant 60’ tall Ape, Donga arose! The huge Ape instantly slayed two of Angus’s men and took aim for Kal but between the Crews combined attack and Kukikachoo’s enhanced Grual battle balls the heros managed to slay the beast before he struck again (GM note: Very lucky!)

Yet again the Crew foiled the foul blood magic of the Ukak and survived to tell their tale.