Sir Christopher Lee sings!

The horror, the horror.

Missing you (in combat)

Typicaly, in most of the better roleplaying games I've been in, combat goes somthing like this:

DM: Ok, Dave your up!
Dave: I try to hit the Orc. I rolled a modified 22! If that hits, the damage is 9 hit points.
DM: Great! You cut down the orc like a sheaf wheat. Lou, your next.
Lou: I attack the other one. I rolled an 8.
DM: You miss. Its the orc's turn.

Many things cause an attack to cause no dammage, too often attacks that cause no dammageare just dismissed as a miss. but in reality many things cause an attack fail. Here are some examples to spice up your combats.

1. The Whiff. Simply put, the target isn't where you expcected it to be. You swing your weapon and hit nothing but air.

2. The Dodge. The target moves out of the way of the attack, good for a dextrious enemy to use.

3. The Parry/Block. The target activly puts something between the attack and himself, most often a shield or a weapon. It tends to be very common for people with shields, or ones that use two weapons but not limited to them.

4. The Glance. The attack hits the target, but skipps off the armor. Some armors are designed to make sure no hit lands cleanly.

5. Absorbed. The atttack hits but does no dammage. This could be that the armor is thick, such as on a dragon. It can also be used for any type of worn armor too.

6. The Graze. The attack hits and causes no damage or superfiacal damage. I'd use this for an attack that just barely missed, maybe descipbe a cut on the cheek or the ear.

Anything else would be a normal hit, so take my advice. Go out and making missing exciting!

Watch this space!

With Gamma world, and other products, coming out from Wizards of the Coast, I'm trying get some my specific questions answered. When I get an answer, I'll post it here under Coming Soon. It might become even a new feature, so watch this space.

GMing

After my life settles a bit, I'm planning on starting light campaign with a few friends. In selecting which game, as usual, I am not starved for choices. Here is my list so far with minor notes, in no real order.

1. Savage Worlds, Nescessary Evil. I've always liked Supers and having the PCs play villains appeals to me. As does the buy in price of the basic rule book, a scant $9.99. It has one drawback, one of the potential players is a bit of a power gamer with supers.

2. Savage World, Slipstream. Pure retro sci-fi based on the serials of the 30s and 40s. Lots of options for PCs and swashbuckling fun, but the drawback the one the 'for sure' players suffered "Bad GM Syndrome" in a sci-fi game. The Savage Worlds rules are light and easy to learn too.

3. Dungeons & Dragons 4e. Say what you want about 4e, but I like it. It plays well and it's easy to run. Also the fact that it's very board gamey works to my advantage as a lighter fun game. The main drawback is the cost of the PHB, $35 bucks is a lot of money these day, but I can run it using my own books to start.

4. Gamma World. Yes, that old classic. A new edition is due out in the fall as a stand alone product using the d20 rules. With the game being so new, the drawbacks are unknown.

5. Star Wars:Saga Edition. I've run this before and the players had a great time. Straight forward rules, and a setting known to most of the population of the US. Unfortunately, the publisher has dropped the license due to the economy. The rules are falling out of print.

That's how it stands at the moment. D&D is leading the pack, followed by Slipstream, Star Wars, Nescessary Evil and Star Wars following close behind. Where Gamma World will fall into the mix can't be guessed yet.

Predators

Awesome!

Little Known Fact-Ohio

The state of Ohio has a field of strange energy emitting from the soil. These 'Xenia Rays' are known to the powerbrokers in Columbus, and to a lesser extent the ones in Lima. Long term residents have built up an immunity to these rays, but visitors experance weird dreams of an ancient ruined city with red and yellow banners on the walls. To combat these effects the architecture of the Pro-Football Hall of Fame is designed to channel the Xenia Rays to the Van Allen belt, but the energy keeps growing. The Rock & Roll Hall of fame was built to counteract the growth but the levels are growing.

Studies have shown that the energy will spike in December of 2012. Is this mark of next age that the Myan predicted? Can a new Hall of Fame be built in time?

We will see but I tell you this.....

This is FACT!

Game of the *ahem* week, Heroes & Heroines

I admit, I am not doing these every week but I also have a job. Neener, neener, neener.


Next Game, Heroes & Heroines.
Author: James E. Freel III
Status: Very very out of print.
Genre: Generic Supers
Year: 1992

I have a soft place in my heart for this one, because H&H is the first game I successfully ran a campaign. I learned some important lessons from those sessions but I will go into those on another post.

This game came out when comic books hit surged in popularity in the 90s, with a simple idea. Make a generic game, then publish licenced source books from publishers. Sadly, no source books came out. I came across this game in the discount rack of my FLGS.

The rule book is slim, and the game is very rules light. Creating a hero is a mix of rolling and point buying. Heroes have 5 stats, Bench press weight, IQ, reflexes, Agility and Stamina. There are over 230 powers in the book, nothing special here except for quite a bit of overlap in my opinion. (i.e. Energy Blast, Fire Blast & Force Blast all could be rolled in to one power.)

The combat rules take up just 7 pages and are quite straight forward. Simply put, compare attack rating vs. defense rating on a handy chart and roll over that number on a d20 to hit.

After combat comes weapons and experience, nothing special to note here really, except that exp is based on the build points of the NPC beaten. Then a section on animals. Except for mythical beasts, the section does not give any info on how to grant experience.

Next is the obligatory adventure, where the superheros need to fight an evil wizard at his castle. Yes, an evil wizard, not too super heroic but with two of the regenerated heroes being name 'Alex' and 'Tina' its par for the course.

Lastly is the character sheet. One sheet and quite basic, but I've found thought play its too small for a typical hero fit all his info.

I would of like to have seen a few additions to the book. The game lacks stats for a generic baseline human, so you don't gain exp for beating up goons that are robbing a bank. There are two villains, two goons and the afore mentioned three heroes but there could of been more given. Finally, the weapons list lacks any sort of bow, so if you want a Green Arrow/Hawkeye type you'll have some extra work to do.

There are sourcebooks for the comic 'The Maxx' & 'Deathwatch 2000' but I have only seen them on ebay. There may be others as well.

I have found, through game play, that this is a good supers game. Yes, it has a few drawbacks but it plays well. If you are willing to put put some time it to world creation, it can be a nice long term campaign.