KODT #108

In the interest of vanity, I just want to let everyone know to be on the lookout for this month’s issue of Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine (#108) which features amongst other things, an article by yours truly. I’m the guest reviewer in this months “Lost Game Safari”. I did a little piece on the Conan Role Playing Game from TSR. So pick up this months issue of KODT and check it out.

So you wanna be a hero?

Here is a link to some “Fast play rules” for the new City of Heroes RPG. Not sure if it’s good or bad, but it is free. So the price is right. Oh, and if you do decide to buy something there, use the link on my web log and help the annual “Toys the Evil DM” program. This year we plan to raise at least $15,000.00 to help keep me in action figures, comic books and DVD’s all year long. So give till it hurts.

Two items today

Day old Dragons
A few weeks ago I posted that although Dragon and Dungeon magazines have moved on to the D20 system, and I am firmly entrenched in second edition AD&D, I still find them useful and relevant to my gaming needs. My main problem with the two magazines as of late is the price. I'm spending about $16.00 a month for these magazines and that’s a good size dent in my comic allowance. The other day I was at my local smelly game store and I saw that they were selling back issues of both magazines for 25% off the cover price. That got me thinking. How necessary is it that I purchase the magazines every month as soon as they come out? I mean it’s not like People magazine where the stories are only topical for that week (who is Jennifer Anniston dating? Is Beyonce pregnant?). The articles in Dragon and Dungeon will be just as useful to me today as they will be a year from now. Granted, that both of the magazines have little industry news bits in them and information on new game releases, but I can get that same information faster online on any of the dozen or so gaming/ comic book websites that I surf. So while I’ll still be picking up Dragon and Dungeon magazine, my days of rushing out to my smelly game store to pick up the latest issue are over. It just makes much more sense to let the issues age and ripen on the racks for a month or two and then get them at the discount.


Serenity in 2,000 words or less

Over on Swartzer.com - Ron Swartzendruber has written a parody of the movie Serenity. It’s a hoot!
BUT…don’t read it until you have seen the movie. Or it will ruin it for ya…. you have been warned.

Where are the Joe's?

Not sure if anyone has noticed, but as of late I haven’t posted much on action figures. The reason being is that I'm still trying to get my “stuff” in order from the move. We had a priority list of things to do at the new house and unfortunately getting my action figure and gaming stuff out of boxes and set up was low on the list. But this weekend I started un-boxing my stuff and finding shelves for everything, I anticipate another full week of “straightening out” before I can start kit bashing again. Keep in mind that during “the move” I’ve still been adding to my collection and buying stuff to bash with, in fact now that I have some room to play in my wife has been really supportive in keeping a 1/6th scale eye for things when we go shopping.

Scarecrow

I just finished Matthew Reilly’s “Scarecrow”. It’s modern military/ espionage action stuff. The pace is relentless and the action does not let up from beginning to end. I enjoy his stories and characters. A quick fun read.

Up in the sky!

It’s time for the annual parade of fan boy superhero costumes. While I applaud the effort most of them fall short, there are exceptions, this is one of them.

"Old School" Gaming

For those of you wishing to relive a bit of your good old gaming days, Paizo publishing (The folks who now do Dragon magazine) have begun releasing a bunch of old TSR titles as PDF’s. They have over 800 products from AD&D, Classic D&D, Gangbusters, Alternity, Chainmail, Gamma World, etc. and from what I can tell each product is only $4.00 each. Personally I like REAL books-but these PDF’s do have their uses. They are portable and you can print up relevant sections for the players and they are way cheaper than going the EBay route (heck, for $4.00 you can download a boxed set to see if you like it before spending $60.00 for the real thing on EBay).

Google me Baby!

Ever since my Yahoogroups debacle I have tried to distance myself from Yahoo as much as possible. Unfortunately I am rather active in several Yahoogroups so I still use that forum quite often. One area that I was able to change was my homepage. I really liked my Yahoo homepage I got it set up just the way I wanted it with news, movie times, email-inbox, weather etc. But since I was no longer using their email service I decided to move on. I tried MSN but I just couldn’t get used to it.
The other day I gave Google a try, I checked their homepage out about a year ago and I cant say I was very impressed it. It was too plain, not fun and jazzy like Yahoo’s. But Google has been making major upgrades to their services on all fronts, and the new Google home page really looks ten times better than it ever had. Lots more choices for content: news, Google search, business, tech etc. movie times, g-mail inbox, weather, bookmarks, and a real cool RSS feed feature that allows me to put a lot of the news sites that I as a gamer geek-boy check everyday (sci-fi news, comic book news, gaming report) and most importantly my own web log, all on one page updated daily! Now don’t start emailing me about how evil or lousy Google is. There will always be bashers that don’t like Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Yahoo, and that’s your prerogative. It works for me and that’s all I need.

THONGOR!

In researching for my S&S role playing game Legends of Steel, I thought I had run across just about all the S&S comics that there were. Imagine my surprise when I came across a Marvel title that I had never heard of called “Creatures on the loose”. My local shop was having a 50%off sale and I was looking to fill a couple of holes in my collection, when lo and behold I run across a comic written about an old Lin Carter character “Thongor of Lemuria” (Don’t you just love the names they come up with for these guys?). Any way the issues I found were about a buck apiece, which beats the hell out of the $2.99+ I’m used to paying. So all in all it was a good find. The “Creatures on the Loose” title also offers a run of Man-Wolf stories and a John Carter of Mars clone called Gulliver Jones. It looks like I have a new line to collect. The hunt goes on!

Jeff knows football

So my wife and I are out this morning doing our weekly run for supplies at Target/ Wal-Mart. Around noon we decide to stop by Burger King and bring the boys some burgers home for lunch.
The manager takes our order and after a moment he looks at me and loudly says “So whaddaya think, did Notre Dame get totally robbed yesterday or what!?” Now I aint much of a football fan, I know most of the NFL teams by their names and I played flag football in high school during P.E. but the game never had that much appeal for me. However, I have been blessed with my fair share of testosterone, so there was no way in hell I was gonna look like some effeminate Nancy-boy in front of my wife, this schlep and the truck driver in line behind us.
Obviously there was a college game of some importance that every self respecting American male should know about and one that Notre dame fans should be pissed about.
As I stood there with a dumb smile on my face thinking of what to say the Burger guy says “I couldn’t believe some of those calls’ they just weren’t right.”
So shooting blindly into the air I respond “Well you know Notre Dame is an old school, and there are a lot of powerful men behind these games, men with a lot of money.”
All of a sudden truck driver Earl behind me in line weighs in-“That’s just what I was telling my brother last night- them officials were paid off!”
I nodded sagely to Mr. Burger, collected my 99 cent cheeseburgers and joined my wife at the soda machines, my manhood preserved. Burger –boy and Earl were still talking about the game and my theory when my wife and I left. When we got outside my wife looked at me and smiled. “You didn’t know a damn thing about what they were talking about, did you?
“Hell no.” I replied. “But I’m a gamer, and that was just role-playing.”

Where is my box of Star Frontiers Minifigs??

I was surfing last night and I ran across this group set up for fans of the old TSR game company. TSR was the original company that published the Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) games. They were bought out by Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of the HASBRO Toy Company (Home of GI Joe). TSR released many great games besides D&D. TSR released science fiction games like Gamma World and Star Frontiers, military and espionage games like Dawn Patrol and Top Secret, They also created several licensed games such as The Marvel Super Heroes Roleplaying game, The Buck Rogers game, and the Rocky and Bullwinkle game. Many of these games are considered classics in the industry and were created by folks who are regarded as the experts in the RPG field. Looking over the posts there is potential for a very active forum. If you’re a gamer over 30, chances are you cut your role-playing teeth on one of TSR’s games in either high school, college or the military, so come over to the list and re-live some memories, who knows you might just get the urge to dust off the old Boot Hill game in the garage and resurrect that “Silverado” campaign.

With Great Power

Continuing the thread from yesterday I found a copy of an article written for the Polyhedron Magazine in which Dale Donovan creates a point based character generation system for the Marvel Superheroes role-playing game. I hope this will spark renewed interest in this long forgotten classic. Enjoy.



With Great Power
Campaign Construction, Part 1: Origin
By Dale A. Donovan

Since I began writing this column in issue 163, I've discussed new directions for your MARVEL SUPER HEROES campaigns. Now it's time to address building a super hero campaign from scratch. Starting with this column, I'll cover the elements needed for a successful campaign.

The most important aspect of any role playing campaign is the player character. In the MARVEL SUPER HEROES game, you can play either pregenerated Marvel Heroes or you can create your own using the character generation systems in the rules. Detailed below is a "purchasing" system inspired by the other two major super hero role-playing games on the market, DC Heroes by Mayfair Games and Champions by Hero Games. Using my system, the Character Point (CP) System, players can built their ideal heroes within limits set by the Game Master. This system is flexible, so GMs should be wary of canny players who seek to take advantage of that flexibility.

Character Point System
The MARVEL SUPER HEROES Advanced Set Players' Book, page 5, details the steps players should follow to create their own heroes. It is reproduced with minor modifications below:
* Create an origin
* Determine primary abilities (FASERIP)
* Determine secondary abilities (Health, Karma, etc.)
* Ascertain special abilities (powers, talents, and contacts)
* Fill in the blanks (hero and character names, background, etc.)
The Players' Book suggests you start with an origin for your hero. However, I recommend you decide which type of hero your PC will be (altered human, mutant, etc.), then create the origin. Be sure to note all the special aspects of each type of character except which column of the "Generating Primary Abilities" table the hero's abilities will be rolled on. You will not be using dice to determine your hero's abilities. Do not feel compelled to fully detail your hero at this point. Save that for the "Fill in the Blanks" stage.

Determine primary abilities
Each player will now be given a number of Character Points (CPs). This number is determined by the Game Master and can range from 200 to 600 CPs or more. Let's say your GM gives you 300 CPs to build your hero. You would now "buy" your primary abilities (FASERIP) by spending CPs. Purchase primary ability scores on a point-for-point basis. So if you want your character to possess Amazing (50) Strength, subtract 50 CPs from your point total. Do this for all seven primary abilities. You can purchase ability scores other than the normal rank number in each rank (For example, you could buy Amazing (46) Strength instead of Amazing (50) and save four CPs to use later.) Just remember any skimping like this will be reflected in your final Health and Karma scores. Don't be too extravagant with your spending here, as your CPs will also be used to purchase your Resources level, powers, talents, and contacts. I don't recommend spending more than about half of your CPs at this stage.

Determine secondary abilities
Total up your Health and Karma points. Add those two figures together and they should equal the number of CPs you've spent so far. This is a good way to check your math. Now buy your hero's Resources rank by spending two CPs for every point of Resources (If you want Excellent (20) Resources, it would cost you 40 CPs.). A player does not buy and cannot modify his hero's Popularity score, as it is a function of the hero's origin and the public's perception of the hero.

Determine special abilities
Since each special ability (powers, talents, and contacts) is purchased slightly differently, each is discussed separately.
Powers: Each hero now buys powers and their ranks. All powers, except those with stars, cost 10 CPs each, and starred powers cost 20 CPs. Purchasing powers gives the hero the ability to buy ranks in those powers. Ranks for powers without stars are purchased on a point-for-point basis, as with the primary abilities. (If you wanted to buy the Flight power, it would cost 10 CPs. You can now buy a power rank for that power. Let's say you wanted to fly at Excellent (20) speed, it would cost you 20 more CPs. So buying the Flight power and an Excellent (20) rank cost you a total of 30 CPs.). Starred powers, because they are more powerful or more rare, each cost 20 CPs, as noted above, and their ranks are bought at a rate of two CPs for each rank number. You purchase both powers and ranks so that five powers, each at Good (10) ranks will be more expensive than one power at Amazing (50) rank. The hero with five powers is much more versatile, and he should pay for that.
Limitations: Page 9 of the Players' Book gives a list of possible limitations for powers. Players can buy one limitation per hero to gain more CPs. Use the maximums listed at the top of each list of limitations on page 9. This determines the number of CPs gained from taking a limitation. For example, taking the limitation "Power can only be used three times/day" from the list "Maximum of Excellent" for your Flight power would gain you an additional 20 CPs, as it is an Excellent rank limitation. Points gained through limitations are the normal rank numbers for that rank only. All normal rules regarding limitations apply. Subtract all CPs spent on powers and ranks, and add any CPs from limitations to figure your hero's new point total.

Talents: All skills listed under the Weapon, Fighting, and Mystical or Mental Skills tables, and all starred talents cost 10 CPs each. All other skills cost 5 CPs each (buying Chemist costs 5 CPs, while the Medicine or the Guns skill would cost 10 CPs each). Subtract all CPs spent here to get your hero's new CP total.
Contacts: Unless the GM specifies otherwise, each contact costs 5 CPs. Don't detail each contact now, as contacts often work best when chosen during an adventure with the GM's O.K.

Fill in the blanks: There, you're done. If you have any CPs left over, it's up to the GM what you can do with them. I suggest simply adding them to your hero's Karma points. Beginning heroes often don't have much Karma to spend on their first adventures. Don't forget to modify your hero as per the origin you picked for him earlier, and round out your hero with his heroic and character names, background, job, costume, how he gained his powers, why he risks his life as a hero, etc.

Character advancement
All normal game rules on character advancement apply. Character Points are used only during a hero's creation and do not apply to the character's future advancement. For example, you cannot pay 10 CPs for a power and not buy a rank for it during the hero's creation.

GM-imposed Limits
Test this system by creating several characters. You'll realize then, if you haven't already, that the system is flexible and can be abused unless the GM lays down some guidelines. The GM could impose spending limits on primary abilities (no FASERIP scores above Amazing (50), for example), powers (such as no more than four total), power ranks (no power ranks above Incredible (45)), power limitations (one limitation only, no limitation ranks above Incredible), and even the number of talents and contacts.

Breaking down Marvel characters by using this system can give GMs a good idea on what limits to place on character generation for their campaigns. Using the characters listed in the Advanced Set Judge's Book, for example, Invisible Woman, Marvel Girl, and Wasp each add up to about 300 CPs. Spider-Man, Thing, and Vindicator (Heather Hudson) each add up to between 450 and 500 CPs. Magneto adds up to almost 700 CPs. Discuss with your players the kind of campaign you want to have and then experiment with different point totals before deciding how many CPs to give your players. For Avengers style campaigns, I'd suggest 300-350 CPs per hero. For low-powered, gritty, "realistic," or pulp campaigns, I'd give out about 200 CPs. If you want to play a high-powered or cosmic campaign, I recommend handing out at least 500 CPs.

This system also allows GMs to built customized villains. By tailoring the number of CPs each villain is built with, a GM can gain a good handle on how well the villain should perform against the heroes. (For example, three 500-CP miscreants, 1500 CPs total, should do pretty well against five 300 CP heroes, despite being outnumbered.)

Next time, I'll continue to discuss PC heroes, including examples of building heroes with this system. Try this system, then write me and give me your impressions.


Normal Human Hero Generation
Punisher, Shang-Chi, Silver Sable, and the original Union Jack are all examples of normal-human heroes.

-Normal humans add one rank to any three primary abilities (or three ranks to any one, or two ranks to one and one rank to another ability), provided their abilities do not exceed maximum human limits.

-Normal humans automatically gain three additional talents (these do not count toward the maximum rolled on the Secondary Abilities table below).

-Normal humans gain one additional contact. Again, this does not count against the number of initial contacts rolled on Secondary Abilities table.

-Normal humans have no innate powers; any powers rolled must be incorporated into their equipment and have a maximum rank of Incredible for whatever power effect they have.

Abilities
As we've altered the Origins, we also have to adjust the numbers for the Generating Primary Abilities table on page 6 and the Generating Secondary Abilities table on page 7 of the Player's Book to allow for the greater levels of ability that compensate for the lack of powers. Remember to roll for powers (equipment), talents, and contacts separately on the Secondary Abilities table. The Secondary Abilities table below is for Normal-human heroes only.

Power Generation
The number before the slash is the number of powers the hero currently possesses, and the number after the slash is the maximum number possible for the hero. Remember most vigilante heroes are nonpowered personally, and hence, all power slots represent specialized equipment. Just about any power in the MARVEL UNIVERSE has been artificially duplicated by some scientist or other. Even the rare mental powers have been recently created by Spider-Man (Emotion-control gun used against carnage and crew) and the Black Knight (psi-screen armor that protects vs. mental and psionic attacks). Determine powers as you normally would in your campaign. Power ranks are rolled on the Random Ranks table above.

Talent Generation
The character's number of initial talents are rolled on the new Secondary Abilities table. The number before the slash is the initial number the hero possesses, while the second number is the maximum potential number of talents; this maximum can be exceeded only by bonus talents from the character's Origin. Determine talents as vou would normally. Talent ranks are rolled on Column 1 of the Generating Primary Abilities table in the Player's Book. If the player rolls less than the corresponding Primary ability, the hero gains the talent with the ability's standard rank number i.e., Good (10), not Good (8).

Contact Generation
Each hero gets a number of initial contacts as rolled on the new Secondary Abilities table. Normal-human heroes get an additional contact due to their origin.
A hero does not have to establish all his contacts at the start of the campaign-the others can appear as need be or as the result of role-playing. For each established contact, the hero must provide a name. Characters with secret IDs can assign contacts to his heroic ID, his secret ID, or both. The secret ID has less risk to the hero, because if your contacts don't know you are a superhero, you cannot be called upon by them to perform heroic acts.

Example character
Now that we've got the mechanics in place, let's try them out and create a new heroine for the MARVEL UNIVERSE.
Origin & Abilities
I've already determined that the character's origin is a Normal-human hero. Therefore, using the new table, I generate the following ability scores:

Roll Ability Initial Rank & Number
97 Fighting Incredible (36)
22 Agility Typical (5)/Excellent (16)
64 Strength Good (8)
53 Endurance Good (8)/Excellent (16)
76 Reason Excellent (16)
88 Intuition Remarkable (26)
32 Psyche Typical (6)

Our new character's Health is 76 (total of Fighting, Agility, Strength, and Endurance), and her Karma is 48 (total of Reason, Intuition, and Psyche).

Normal-human ranks table (Column 6)
Rank Initial Rank Normal Human Human Max. (If result exceeds max., reroll.)
Feeble 1 01-05 -
Poor 3 06-15 -
Typical 5 16-50 -
Good 8 51-75 -
Excellent 16 76-85 Max. human Strengtb
Remarkable 26 86-95 Max. Endurance
Incredible 36 96-00 Max. Agility
Amazing 46 - Max. Fighting, Reason,Intuition
Monstrous 63 - -

Normal-human Secondary abilities table
D1OO Powers Talents Contacts
01-10 0,1 3/6 2/4
11-35 0/2 4/6 2/5
36-65 1/2 3/5 3/4
66-85 1/3 4/5 3/5
86-95 2/3 2/4 4/4
96-00 3/3 3/8 4/5

Powers, Talents, & Contacts
I roll three times on the Secondary Abilities table. A 30 for powers grants her no powers, but leaves the potential for two (of technological origin) later. A 38 for her talents gives her three talents as well as the three from her Origin for a total of six. She has two more talents pending, to be gained through game play Finally, a 59 on the contacts column allows her three contacts in addition to the one from her Origin gives her four contacts right now.

She has no powers now, so I don't need to worry about them yet.
Before choosing her talents, I need to think about her background. I think I'll give this heroine an espionage background, so I'll give her the following talents: Detective/ Espionage, Law enforcement, Martial arts A and C, Guns, and First aid.
In keeping with her background, three of her contacts will be with the FBI, her college criminology professor, and SHIELD. This leaves one contact left to be determined through role-playing.

Background
I've decided this is a female hero with no secret identity. Given the good physical and mental abilities, the character's a fighter and a scholar-I choose to make her a young college graduate and neophyte SHIELD agent.

The rest of her origin, including her motivation and codename, are up to each Judge and whatever she wishes to do with the character. We've quickly generated a character on par the Black Widow.

Marvel pulp

I was looking for unrelated item over the weekend when I ran across an "old friend" in the back of a closet: my box of Marvel Superheroes Role-playing Game stuff. Not the SAGA system one, but the original game by TSR from back in the 80's. My friends and I loved that game! It was very basic and free flowing. Many of my more "Refined" gamer friends scoffed at the game as amateurish and simplistic, to them Champions was the only true superhero RPG. Now I enjoyed champions as well, but I remember it taking FOREVER to get through a combat between 5-hero pc's and a group of bad guys and their leader.

Well anyway, many aficionados of Pulp genre gaming state that a pulp game should be quick in resolution and give the DM lots of latitude in order to make the play over the top and heroic. That got me to thinking as I scanned through my well-worn rulebook; I wonder if anyone has tried to apply MSHRPG to a Pulp setting? I took some of my favorite Pulp Player characters from other systems and applied them. With a little tweaking they made the transition just fine. I'm thinking a low powered supers campaign set in an alternate earth 1930's. By low powered I’m talking characters like the Spider, the Green Hornet, Union Jack, The Rocketeer, and maybe a Mandrake the Magician-style spell caster (That way I can use the nifty "Realms of Magic" supplement).

The Pigeon Lord

I think one of my funniest gaming experiences involved an old roommate of mine named Dave. Dave loved Psionicists. One day Dave and his fellow adventurers were trying to instill confidence in some local farmers they had been hired to help out (can you say Magnificent Seven?).

Well Dave the Psionicist decides to impress the yokels by demonstrating his Psionic powers of mind domination. I tell him that it might not be a good idea to mind control any of the farmers so he should try it on an animal or something. He asked me if there were any birds flying around. I said sure there is a pigeon on the roof of a nearby hut. He then proceeded to attempt to mind control the pigeon.

He failed his roll three times in a row. We were all laughing our Asses off. Dave got mad and said one more time and if he failed he would mind blast the pigeon.

Dave rolled one last attempt and got a critical failure. Everyone just about died laughing. I ruled that the pigeon now controlled Dave. So there was the groups Psionicist pecking at the ground and cooing. A few moments later the bandits attacked the village and throughout the battle all Dave could do was flap his arms and run around cooing.

He never lived that down.

Serenity

The worst part of the whole “move thing” that has consumed my life for the last few weeks was that I missed the opening of the Firefly movie: Serenity. I have faithfully followed “Firefly” since it’s plagued run on FOX and have been plugging it to everyone who would listen to me ever since. On Sunday I finally saw it. I laughed, I cheered, I even got misty-eyed. What can I say about it that the critics haven’t? It was a great movie, a fantastic wrap-up for the “little show that could”. Life isn’t fair, and some things just boggle the imagination, an intelligent, witty, character driven show like “Firefly” is canceled in its first season and yet inane shows like “Yes Dear” are still killing brain cells in primetime.

Marvel Magic?

I never played Magic: the Gathering card game, but If they actually came out with these cards I could easily see myself going down that self destructive road real quick. Marvel Magic?? I don't know too much about it, but it sure looks cool.

Legends of Steel

Legends of Steel is moving along. I found that I need to clarify the mechanics and give more examples of how they are used. I usually feel that the rules are clear and need no further explanation. But what I have been trying to do is bring myself back to the perspective of someone unfamiliar with the rules or even with role-playing. When I first envisioned LoS it was a game for folks who already had a grasp of role-playing and it’s various concepts. But as I review the game I realize that I need to explain things in layman’s terms so that everyone at the game is clear on what the rules are and why, So most of the work on the game in the last couple of weeks has been in adding clarifications and examples of concepts like skill resolution, combat and other areas. It’s also becoming more apparent to me that LoS has the potential to be a multi genre system. With a bit of tweaking the game could lend itself to any “cinematic” type of play from Pulp to Space opera. More on that later…

Dr. Mindbender & Joe Karma

“Joe Karma” is what you do to help a fellow GI Joe collector who is in need of a certain item or hard to find figure. It works just like regular Karma only in that the good things that come back to you are Joe-collector related. As many of you Know Hasbro has suspended the 1/6th scale line of GI Joe figures. Two of the last remaining figures of that line to be issued are “Dr. Mindbender” and “Sgt. Bazooka”. These figures have been released but alas in only certain areas of the US. Meaning those collectors outside of those areas have to either pay out the nose on EBay for them or rely on the good graces of fellow collectors who live in the areas where the figures are available. Like many others I went on the various collectors boards and sent out my distress signal. Luckily for me a buddy on one of those lists answered the call. Not only did MG send me both the figures in a matter of days, when I asked him for a total so that I could compensate him for the cost of the figures and postage, he told me not to worry about it, or to send him something in trade if I was so inclined. That’s Joe Karma, and it works. I’ve passed a bit of it on from time to time and here I am a recipient of it in kind. Needless to say my buddy MG will be getting a package in the mail soon from me. Joe karma is a concept I learned while collecting Joe’s, I'm sure other hobbies have similar traditions. If yours doesn’t, try to start it. It’s a good feeling.