random average

This one will be brief. I'll got into more detail in some following posts.

Tabletop: Galactic

We played our first session of Galactic on Sunday, with three players. It was an good sized group for learning the rules, and we had some excellent scenes -- a shipboard emergency, a big gun fight, a little gun fight, a mexican standoff, and some fun MIND CONTROL.

The mechanics are much cleaned up from earlier iterations of the rules, and want only some reorganization to really come out clear. The strategy you use in the conflicts is a lot of fun and easily as engaging at that level as the crunch you work with in d20 -- it's just a completely different KIND of mechanical crunch.

We got the rules, we laughed a lot, we enjoyed the scenes, and we're excited to play the next session. What else to say?

Oh, a lot more to say, but I'll save that for a post of its own, later this week.

MMOG: WoW

Grezzk: Some new gear becomes available tomorrow in the game, 'purchasable' by using the honor points that one earns by playing the PvP battlegrounds. There are two pieces in particular that I'd like to get that total something like 27,000 honor: a total I believe I hit last night, and if not I'll be able to get the difference in one run tonight, then log on Tuesday and two new epic pieces.

We ran all of Karazhan on Friday with a couple of tanks I've never worked with before. Normally, I target through the tanks for these situations, and that worked GREAT last week. This week, it was an utter horror.

I did about half the boss fights, but it was a frustrating run for me. The Raid Leader I'd snapped at early on (You want me to run without a pet? Okay, you run without a weapon.) sort of made me his pet (pun) project -- get 'im geared up and used to the trash pulls. I think they've just never had a hunter in the guild who gets offended when you suggest they don't use their pets. We did some other runs later that weekend where I did perfectly fine -- I perform quite well when I know the fights, really. The Dark Portal instance is particularly fun for me, even if I'm in charge of the waves of adds, and most of the rest are very comfortable as well.

Running Kara as melee or tanking seems like it would be a lot easier than ranged damage -- it's so damned easy to target the wrong guy and screw everything up on those group pulls.

MMOG: LotRO
Tyelaf the hunter and Geiri the Guardian both hit 24 this week. Geiri is probably my favorite character on there, though Tye is a close second and Finnras (oh captain my captain) a close third at level 18.

This week, Geiri got to tank the Great Barrows up to the first boss and a Cave Troll, atop Weathertop. The group for that run was moving very fast, so i'm not sure how I did on holding aggro on the minor trash, but the boss fights all went very smoothly -- I kept them on me without any wavering.

Also: CAVE TROLL! So much fun.

Posted by Doyce at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No face to face gaming this last weekend (pretty much everyone was gone or busy), but a fair bit of online stuff going on.

Play by Post Galactic
Captain Finnras of the Binturong is shaping up to be a great, interesting, fun character... that I'll probably never get a chance to really play.

Face to Face Galactic
Trying to use email to get done with the last bits of campaign generation, prior to our game this coming Sunday. Some silence from the players on this point, but at least one has really stepped up and given me a fun cliffhanger to start his story off with. Woooot.

Looking at the calendar, I feel a bit of mope. We get a game in this weekend, then I'm gone the weekend of the 30th, then we have the 7th and 14th weekends... one of which is probably iffy... so maybe we'll get three sessions in. Maybe. If only we had more TIME. Eh. A noble effort, either way, and maybe we'll get a chance to keep going after the holidays with the folks who aren't off to another acting gig in some other part of the country.

MMOG: WoW
Pretty much everything I've done on WoW in the last week has been Grezzk. It's not because I don't enjoy playing Kayti, or Theinedera (who I'd LOVE to level up with the speeded up leveling they put in), but Kayti's Alliance-side in a guild I don't know that well and who aren't my level, and Theinedera is on another server entirely (really should move her to Farstriders).

HEROICS
Hellfire Ramparts, Blood Furnance (fail), Shattered Halls, Steamvaults (twice), and Arcatraz.

GRUUL
We one-shot High King Maulgar, AND the guy that "the hunters" are assigned to (Kiggler the Crazed) dies so fast that we have time to switch targets and help the melee dps guys kill their first guy. That has never happened before (granted, it's only our third Maulgar kill, but whatever). The guild Hunter leader is VERY happy about this and personally compliments me on the damage I was putting out.

We don't beat Gruul the Dragonkiller, but MAN it feels like we COULD, if we could just figure out where NOT to be when he shatters us.

KARA, DAY ONE
We take down half the bosses. Attumen the Huntsman (an epic for Grezzk), Moroes, Maiden of Virtue, Curator... and the random "Opera" event, which was Wizard of Oz... so we actually beat Tinman, Dorothee, Lion, Strawman, and Toto all at once, and then Wicked Witch. They're all one-shot kills with no one dying. I am in for every part of this run. (10 people can be inside, but your group can actually be bigger than 10, with back-up people outside to swap in on certain fights where their skills are needed or they need gear -- they keep me in for everything, to teach me the instance. I *did* screw up one pull on the trash before Curator and wipe everyone, and died a few times early on as I figured out what was what, but otherwise it was good.)

At the end of the day, I go to repair my gear... and I notice that I have been given access to a guild-funded repair allowance.

*grin*

KARA, DAY TWO
We one-shot all but one boss (they have to do Nethersprite twice -- I wasn't in that fight), and I do well in everything I'm involved in -- we nine-man Prince, which was cool.

-=-

At the end of this week of stuff, Grezzk has a two-piece "Beast Lord" set from the Heroic runs (which helps me trap stuff better), THREE epic pieces of gear from Kara (when you're the worst-geared guy in the run, you want lots of stuff that no one else has an interest in), hundreds of gold worth of enchants and 'nice to haves' from the Guild Bank... and some personal compliments from the hunter leader and the Guild leader. A couple more heroic runs, and I'll have some more pretty gear from cashing in Heroic Dungeon badges.

Plus, as I already blogged, it really feels like he's part of the guild now. Especially when people can just BS on Ventrilo while we run instances.

It's been a good week. :)

MMOG: LotRO
I haven't done much with Tyelaf since the epic battle with the Cave Troll on top of Weathertop. He's level 23...

... and now, so is Gieri, my dwarven Guardian (tank!). This is where all my LotRO time has been going this week, and it shows -- I've gotten some really nice tanking "Deeds" completed that are increasing the amount of threat he generates, AND the number of enemies he can keep locked on him simultaneously. It's HARD to hold aggro in Lord of the Rings, and there's some assumption that any but the truly crazy/dedicated tanks are simply going to let some of the enemies hit other characters.

I aim to be one of the crazy tanks. No one gets hit but me. Dem's the rules. Generally, it works pretty well, though we have had a setback here and there. By and large, Geiri + Tiranor the hunter = EZ Mode. :)

Finally, Finnras, who is my 'third main' character. The captain is level 17.9, and will be the next person I work on catching up with the other two. Once Kate and I have a pile of people all the same level, we're going to play around with the team ups to see what different ones might be fun.

Posted by Doyce at 2:39 PM | Permalink

After a long dry spell, I feel pretty good with the guild Grezzk joined a couple months ago.

MMOG is Massive MULTIPlAYER Online Game, and if you're solo for everything... well, play Halflife 2, it's really good.

But if you're in and MMOG, It's like that song from Cheers, y'know? It's nice when everyone knows your name. That's where you want to go when you have some free time.

Especially when getting to that point was a lot of work.

So here's Grezzk's play history in a nutshell.

Day 1: Doyce does not play WoW. Doyce hear's that some of the gamer guys he knows in NYC play WoW and are rolling new characters on [server name] to play together. This sounds fun. Doyce buys WoW, rolls up a character, and invites himself along, because he's like that.

Day 2: One of the NYC people shows some doubt that Doyce will stick it out in WoW. (This will be ironic, later.)

Months later: Doyce is moving into in the end-game. Lee has moved all his main characters over to the same server, but the NYC guys have pretty much stopped logging on -- Doyce ALT character is the same level they are. Note the irony from before? Grezzk dings 70 along with Lee's second main, and we start talking about joining some guild that... you know... has people online. At all.

Weeks later: After some actual research, we stumble upon the funny-name-if-you-know-the-lore Scholomance Debate Team, which is a pretty big, active guild on our server. Lee applies. I try to apply, but something weird happens on the forums and I never get a forum ID.

A week later: Two of the officers give me a short interview in-game and bring me in that way, meaning that no one in the guild has heard of me at all via the forums. Lee makes an effort to greet me and chat with me in guild chat whenever I log in, but he's new too, so that doesn't help my 'face time' much. Good effort though.

Two weeks later: most of the guild is either (a) active in the PvP arenas (b) active in the PvP battlegrounds or (c) trying to build PvE teams for the end game raids. (A) I don't do arenas. (B) I don't do battlegrounds as much as most everyone. (C) I'm not 'keyed' for the first of the end-game raids.

I do my research and figure out what I need to do to get keyed, and try to get some help from the guild, but am mostly greeted by crickets. I end up PuGging my way through all but the last two steps of the (very long) Keying process, using my PET to tank the dungeons. I am seriously thinking about looking for another guild, because the point of a guild is group support, and I'm not getting any. In retrospect, I get it -- I'm new, they don't know if I'll be around much, and helping someone get keyed is a pain in the butt -- sucks to put that time in helping someone who leaves (but people LEAVE when you don't help).

Somewhere in there, there's a call for people for a big 25-person raid that we can only barely get enough people for... and which you don't need an "attunement" to do. I volunteer. I do not screw up. We take down High King Maulgar's crazy fight on the second try, and again, I don't screw up (except I didn't know to range-only on one guy, and my pet dies. Eh. Happens.)

One of the tanks does help me out with the last couple instances, and that's cool (Weird too, cuz I never see em on, now.) I get keyed for Karazhan... and immediately can't make any of the raids for the next two weeks. Yeah.

I get back from my away time, and at some point in there...

... how did this happen? I'm not sure.

Oh yeah!

So the first day I'm really back, they're trying to do that 25-man thing again. Turnout is thin -- some folks are gone in November, and we have like 23 people. We do it, and beat the first boss fight, and we fight up to the second boss, wiping a couple times on the trash, get to the entrance of the Big Boss...

... and I walk in too far, start the fight by accident, and wipe the raid.

Everyone has a good joke at my expense -- it's not a big deal, cuz with only 23 people, we're NOT going to beat this guy when we can't even with 25. This is a learning experience. It's okay. They put the "Skull of RAID WIPE" over my head for the rest of the thing, and we do a few runs, and we're done.

So... that's done... and one of the healers wants to do something.

-- People? If you want to get in with a group fast -- any group, any MMO -- make a healer or a tank, and be reasonably good at it. I'm just saying. --

Anyway, they wanted to do something, and I said "I'm game" and they get a tank INSTANTLY, cuz they're a vet and a healer (envy), and it's a tank I've never really grouped with, but okay. We do the thing, and it works great, and there you go.

And the next day, those same two are looking for people, and ask around, and I say yes, and I'm in. And that goes well.

And the next time... same thing... I don't know these instances, but the healer explains em to me, cuz she used to run with a hunter a lot, and knows what they do, and the tank is patient... and we pick up a fourth person who's regular.

And the next time?

The next time, they specifically ask me to come along.

We run one HARD @#@%@#% of an instance (Heroic-mode dungeons are HARD), and wipe about a dozen times, but we win, and it's all good. I mention that, with all the new stuff I have to worry about in a Heroic, my damage was pretty lousy, and the tank says "Yeah, it was."

Then: "But we'll get you up to speed."

*glow*

We do it again the next day. It goes better.

This last weekend, Kaylee is out of town. I have no games going on. I have NOTHING to do.

I sign up ahead of time for a full Kara run, AND the Gruul's 25-man run. The day before the Kara run, I'm running another instance with these guys and I get a nice piece of equipment that will help me the next day.

GRUUL
We one-shot High King Maulgar, AND the guy that "the hunters" are assigned to dies so fast that we have time to switch targets and help the melee dps guys kill their guy. That has never happened before. The guild Hunter leader is VERY happy about this and personally compliments me on my contribution to the fights.

We don't beat Gruul, but MAN it feels like we COULD, if we could just figure out where NOT to be when he shatters us.

As soon as that is done, we break down into the 10-man Kara group. First day, I'm in all the fights to learn them, and we one-shot everything.

At the end of the day, I go to repair my gear... and I notice that I have been given access to a guild-funded repair allowance that is... quite generous.

*grin*

The next day, we one-shot all but one boss (who they have to do twice to take out -- I was swapped out of the "in-instance" team on that fight). I'm not in everything, but I do well in everything I'm involved in -- we nine-man Prince (the last boss) when one guy gets killed in the first three seconds, and the hunter leader guy was chuckling about THAT, too.

Afterwards, the Guild Leader helps me get nice stuff to 'slot' into my pretty new epic gear, and compliments me on the fact that, although I'd never been in there before, I'd clearly read up on the fights and knew what to expect.

The Hunter leader compliments me some more, and digs some nice stuff out of the Guild Bank to help me gear up.

One of the group's healers enchants some of my new gear for free, saying "My payment is out group progressing through the end game content, and you help us do that."

And it's eleven or twelve at night, and I'm getting ready to log off, and that tank I didn't even know two weeks ago asks if I want to run a Heroic Instance.

And I laugh and tell him he's crazy (it's late for me, and he's on the east coast), and he agrees and says "Well, tomorrow then, just let me know if you need a tank."

Just let him know if *I* need...

Took a long time, but Grezzk's got a home. :)

Posted by Doyce at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, this part is going to be very sketchy. For more information on the characters, the setting, the worlds, and and the factions, check out the Galactic Playtest section of RandomWiki -- Denver Playtest Two.

Players involved were Tim, Chris, Dave, Jay, and Randy.

Tim came up with Nils Belinar, Captain of the civilian cruise ship Isabel's Dream. On the face of things, Nils (and most of the crew) are just folks that are doing this job until they find something better, or get enough money to go into business for themselves. In actuality, most of the crew are 'true believers' who use the harmless-looking cruise ship to prepare for the coming of the Scourge.

Crewmembers include:
* Reverend Ray, ship's priest and head of security, who is a professional rival of the Captains -- doesn't think he's Hardcore enough.
* Brad Janette, student and assistant purser -- one of the crew who isn't 'in' on the hidden agenda.
* Katya, physical fitness leader and mistress of crew discipline, who secretly pines for the Captain.
* Shandar Belina, Nils's brother and head of shipboard entertainment/lead electronics technician

We didn't nail down Tim's first quest, or anything about it (at least I can't find notes on it), but Tim's "Scourge Hint" is that they can read minds -- he comes from a long line of 'be prepared' fanatics who have schooled him to protect his thoughts... whatever that means.

Chris introduced Argon Slash, Captain of the junkpile ship known as Legion. Argon scours the Remnants looking for lost Republic tech that he can somehow integrate into his ship.

Argon, being kind of a nut himself, attracted nutty characters:
* Jake, crew shootist, loose cannon, and Argon's fifth cousin.
* "Pockets" Mulvey, the ship's pilot
* Margo Gray, planetside recon (and survivalist nut)
* Sonja Bellingham, negotiator (and Argon's ex-wife)

His first quest involves finding some tech to diagnose a new Artifact he found and figure out what it does. He's headed for "The Drift" to accomplish this -- a huge unregulated 'space station' composed of hundred of derelict spaceships, connected tenuously together. No cliffhanger as yet.

His "Scourge Hint" is that they have very advanced technology.

Dave revived Allysande Daen, Captain of The Hart of Darkness, a corvette-class decommissioned military craft. This is sort of what I think of as a 'classic' Galactic character -- the Navy captain who resigned her post after a family member (Dad) sends her a frantic and/or mysterious communication from parts unknown.

The crew:
* Smoke, zen engineer -- Yin to Daen's Yang.
* Nestor Wynn, representative of the private consortium who's funding the Captain's new career in the private sector.
* Bosley, her personal aide
* Master Chief Barkin, ball-buster

Her first quest deals with finding out where her Dad was last seen and where he was going -- she's heading to talk to an old friend of her Dad's to find out (I think -- notes are illegible here).

Dave's "Scourge Hint" is "a burning revenge."

Jay came up with "SenEx" Neil Lymon, representative to the Concordant Board, Captain of the Veracity, and currently running for Concordant Syndic.

His crew:
* Lawrence Lymon, pilot and Neil's older brother
* Michael, press secretary
* Sister Bridget, nun/head of security and source of romantic tension
* Clark Lymon, pain in the ass son who needs to be kept out of the public eye for awhile

His Quest:
In a move that's half strong leadership and half publicity stunt, Lymon is taking his ship deep into the Remnants to the Bermuda-triangle-like "Core", which is a source of terror for the Alien clans and rumored to be the home of the Scourge, or the origin of the Republic, or both.

His goal: debunk the Scourge Myth and prove that military spending can be redirected elsewhere when he is elected Syndic.

(Later that evening, he'll be eating crow in a nice orange glaze.)

Jay's "Scourge Hint" is one of the recurring myths about the Scourge -- they they exist entirely along straight lines in what is largely a curved Universe, making them incomprehensible at some level.

Captain Swann, of the Smuggling Ship of Many Names, played by Randy

Swann was found in a survival pod (I missed how she got there) by an Alien clan who, unexpectedly, returned her to the nearest human settlement, unharmed.

Ever since then, she's had some kind of ... compulsion ... in the back of her mind... like a blinking alarm light. "The Scourge Are Coming."

Her Crew
* Tomas Dupre, latin lothario pilot
* The drunken Dr. Sanjay Rahan
* Spence, 'the kid' and math wiz -- possibly Swann's nephew, or just unofficially adopted
* Ben Venger, hard-nosed black market appraiser

Her quest involves a very personal desire to find out what happened to her during her cryosleep that left her with this weird Scourge compulsion and the recurring dreams she has.

Her Scourge Hint (which wins the contest for Most Creepy): "They love us."

Finally, there's me... all I contributed at the point was my own Scourge Hint.

I chose "Seizures."

First session is Thanksgiving weekend.

Posted by Doyce at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Then Isabel, seeing before all others that the Scourge would indeed be the end of Humanity, did gather up the faithful and lead them across the Wastelands and through many hardships and past many tempting oases, until they came to their new home. There, Isabel said they would be safe, and told the people to persevere, and was gone.

On the nasty, unpleasant world of Caliban, that is the story at the core of the 'origins' tales in most of the religions. There was a great and powerful kingdom/empire/shogunate, and then the Scourge came (why and how they came varies wildly), and the great prophet Isabel led the Chosen on a long trip and left them to fend for themselves in a rough and dangerous place that was, nonetheless, safe from the Scourge. The Chosen survived, and everyone else died. Noah's Ark, but with a LOT less water.

Time passes. Many many many generations of people live and die (often violently) on Caliban, which is a harsh world requiring harsh measures and harsher rules. The world is sparsely but widely settled, and its people are highly territorial, warring with all other territories both for survival and for the supposed evils "they" have committed since time immemorial. Mankind slowly becomes more civilized (or at least more technologically advanced) and, like Earth, people find a comfortable place in their lives for their religion -- maybe making it a central part of their lives... maybe not thinking about it at all.

About five generations ago, someone found a long lost ruins down near the almost-uninhabitable equator. In the ruins are some very very odd documents and... artifacts that contain references to the prophet Isabel.

Many references.

And a lot of math that people are only barely able to figure out -- math and information that seems to be showing the exact location of the great ship that Isabel brought her people to safety in... and that location is smack dab in The Reef.

The Reef... which is an asteroid belt on the outer edge of the solar system of which Caliban is a part.

Space-faring technology at that point in time amounted to a few unmanned rockets being fired into the outer atmosphere. (When fighting your neighbors and survival are your two main motivators for several millenna, a budding space program is not a big priority.)

People were, needless to say, a bit agitated.

Temporary treaties were signed. Much work is done in a surprisingly short period of time. Several territories send ships to the coordinates in the Reef.

They find Isabel's ship.

The five generations since then have seen a lot of change.

-=-

So, the basic legend seems to be true. There was a big ... empire? Federation? Something. A big human-founded republic that spanned thousands of worlds. Somewhere at the height of that, the Scourge came... or were created... or manifested... something. Isabel saw the writing on the wall, got together an enormous generation ship with all the best tech (much of which Caliban techs are still trying to reverse-engineer), and set out to get clear of the impending destruction of the human race.

She passed a lot of really nice, habitable planets and, for reasons unknown, picked arid, barely habitable Caliban to settle on. Humanity had to work so hard to survive in those first years that they lost -- or gave up -- pretty much any knowledge that didn't focus directly on making it to the next sunrise. Society fell apart, scattered, and slowly... very very slowly... rebuilt, and discovered where it had come from; the disaster it had avoided. There is a resurgence of faith, but also a massive drive to analyze all the old texts in light of this new information.

What does mankind do in a situation like that?

They head right back out to the stars, of course.

-=-

In the current time, there are many colonies spreading out from Caliban, funded by the still highly competitive, barely cordial Territories of the home world. Beyond the colonies are the Remnants --- hundreds, maybe thousands of worlds that were once part of the Solor Republic that was humanity at its finest. Left behind are ruins, lost technology, mysteries, and hundreds of Alien clans that still live on those worlds and who were, inexplicably, untouched by the Scourge that destroyed humanity. Some are neutral toward the last survivors of mankind; some worship them like returning gods; most of them shoot on sight (using technology far better than Caliban's), screaming in a rage. It has been well over two thousand years since they've seen a human, and still they remember the pain of when it all came crumbling down.

You play a ship's captain, sailing the void between worlds in search of... something. (What that is is different for everyone, isn't it?) You might be a captain in the Concordance Navy. You might be a smuggler, or entrepreneur, or merchant, or archaeologist, or scavenger, or one of the idle rich, or something else: no matter what, you're the Captain, and when things get rough, it's just you and your crew.

Things are about to get rough.

The Scourge is coming again.

That's great, Doyce, but what do you do?

Well, there are a couple stages to getting started with the game.

1. Create your Captain

This is pretty straightforward character creation. First, you're a captain of a starship. That's non-negotiable. Second, you might be a little sleazy or mercenary, but when push comes to shove, you'll step up and try to save the world. You might be an anti-hero, but you're a HERO... or at least you'll try to be. Figure that out. Figure out what makes them tick.

Of the seven main archetypes (read: overlapping skill packages), pick three that you're reasonably competent at. These include Astronaut, Diplomat, Explorer, Professor, Scoundrel, Tinker, Warrior, and can be combined in any way you see fit. After that, you pick some Edges for yourself (Passions, Talents, and Gear) and your ship to show what's really notable about them in that way.

Once you have that, figure out what change to your situation jolted the captain out of their normal humdrum pattern. Maybe a distress call from a family member or friend. Maybe a weird artifact in a ruin on a Remnant world... maybe someone contacts you with secret intelligence and needs your help... and is willing to pay for it.

Somewhere in there -- or in your background -- should be some hint that the Scourge is coming, and what they are. Tell the GM what that "Scourge Hint" is.

That's your captain. What next?

2. Create Crewmembers

While you were coming up with your own captain, everyone else playing (and really, there shouldn't be more than four players, absolute maximum) are coming up with THEIR captains. All these captains are going to be having their own adventures in the big push to the big showdown with the Scourge, so what are you going to be doing while everyone else gets their turn?

You're playing their crew, that's what -- playing their foil and making them awesome by turns.

After everyone sort of introduces their captains, you go around and everyone makes up crew for each captain. You 'stats' are:

- Your name.
- What you do on the ship.
- What your relationship is to the Captain. (Professional? Rival? Unrequited Love? Active Romance? Romantic Tension? Family?)

Your involvement in the captain's scenes, as well as the ebb and flow of Trust and/or Doubt you have in the captain is going to heavily influence their success.

3. Make up a world
This is pretty simple. Everyone, including the GM, makes up a world out there in the deep of space. Maybe a colony. Maybe a remnant alien world. Maybe a space station... some sort of big 'place' that an adventure could happen on... you determine population, environment, and even any weird rumors about the place.

4. Make up a faction
Pretty much the same thing again, but this time in regards to the major players in the Galaxy. Alien clans. Crime syndicates. Religious cabals. It's all up to you.

Are you getting from this that each 'run' of Galactic is going to have a setting, tone, and flavor very specific to that game and that group of players? You should, because that is very much the case.

5. Make up a connection
This is someone the Captain knows who will (perhaps grudgingly) help them out sometimes. Nothing more need be known about them but their name and what they 'do'.

6. Define your first Quest
What's this? The GM doesn't come up with everything for every character? Does it SEEM like that would be likely in a game like this?

For your first quest, you define:

- What you basic objective is. ("Find my sister.")
- What benefit you might gain that will help you against the Scourge. ("Some kind of weapon." or "Some kind of knowledge.")
- A world that will figure prominently in this Quest.
- A "Cliffhanger" scene that you will start you quest in -- something that requires a decision be made.

The person on one side of you picks out a Faction that will be involved in the quest. The person on the other side comes up with a 'personality' NPC who will be involved.

The GM then takes all that and comes up with "the rest" before you play.

It's a very structured game, this Galactic. Each Captain has three quests that drive toward the Big Showdown. The fourth quest is the confrontation with the Scourge, wherein you either beat them, or humanity is wiped out.

Hopefully, your captain and (most) of your crew lived long enough to get a shot at saving the world.

And that's what setup is like. I did most of that this weekend with an unsupportable five players (hoping that I can always get at least three available each weekend between now and mid December).

In the next post, I'm going to talk about the game that the players and I came up with.

Posted by Doyce at 12:26 PM | Permalink

So I'm musing about game mechanics; have been for the last couple weeks, actually, because I'm playing a lot of Spirit of the Century, editing a MONSTER of an old-school-style game called Robots and Rapiers, getting ready to run Galactic, and wishing I'd had more luck playing PTA and Dogs.

So all those systems are bouncing around in my head, and I start drawing comparisons.

Here's an observation:

Lots of games have Edges. By "edge" I just mean "that thing on your character sheet that lets you tweak things in your favor." Call them Aspects, Traits, Talents, whatever... in play, they let you tweak results.

There are really two ways that an "edge" can be invoked:

Mode 1. They can be used to give you a intial, "pre-roll" boost to your chances of success, thereby increasing your odds of winning a conflict. Primetime Adventures does this with both it's Traits and Fan Mail. Spirit of the Century pretty much does this with Aspects (they come in after the roll, but before the roll *counts*).

Mode 2. They can be used to stave off or lessen the sting of failure. Galactic's "Edges" do this. Traits you bring in after a conflict has already started in Dogs in the Vineyard do this. "Doom" in Conspiracy of Shadows does this. The appropriately-named Survival Points in Dead of Night do this. There are many others.

Now, my point is this: your final numeric result using 'edges' in either of the two ways above might be exactly the same, but the modes feel different, and that feeling seeps into the tone of the game you're running. pushing either toward adventure-heroic (mode 1) or the survivalist-gritty (mode 2).

I'm not talking about the game's power level. It doesn't matter if you're giving folks one 'edge', or five, or ten -- I think if they're implemented in the style of Mode 1, the game is going to have a kind of "let's be awesome" feel, and if you're using them in the style of Mode 2, it's going to have a kind of "let's survive this" feel.

What does that mean? I think that means that, even if you have a mechanically-perfect 'hack' to the Spirit of the Century rules to use it for zombie-survival-horror, unless you change the way you can invoke Aspects, the system itself will be subtly encouraging you and the players 'be awesome and heroic.' It's not the number of Aspects you give people that matters, but how they can be used that will affect the tone.

Now, let's say that you have a group sitting at the table who (a) totally gets the tone you're going for, (b) agrees to it and (c) actively works to support it. Can they overcome the subtle whispers of the game and run an horrifying zombie-survival game using, say, straight Spirit of the Century?

Yes. Without hesitation, yes. The rules are only one voice at the table, and can be drowned out easily but other voices. It's really no different -- or less jarring -- than when one PLAYER is working toward a different tone than everyone else.

You just can't throw popcorn at the rules and say "knock it off."

Posted by Doyce at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I was going to write up a post about the character/universe generation for the Galactic game from this weekend (a complete campaign I'm foolishly trying to cram into the space between here and mid-December), but I wanted to transfer everyone's notes up to the wiki first.

And reading their [censored] awful handwriting, I am now totally [censored] blind, so you'll have to wait for the update until I learn how to read braille.

I thought *my* handwriting was bad. Holy hell.

Anyway, the stuff I sacrificed my eyes to transcribe is on the wiki here.

Posted by Doyce at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Figured I'd split this up into two posts, since I have a lot to post about the face to face Galactic game.

If you want to know why the post has the title it does, you'll have to read to the end.

Right then.

WoW

Thienedera
Who's this? I haven't mentioned her before. This is my level 20 blood elf paladin on Kel'Thuzad -- a full-PvP server. I've been wanting to level up a tank on the Horde side, and while I'm still trying to get into playing a bear-form druid, I still REALLY LIKE paladins, and I already have a lot of experience playing a protection-specced pally on Alliance, so I'm working on Thienedera now.

The patch coming out on Tuesday is cutting the XP required to level from level 20 to 60 by 20%, and increased the XP from quest rewards, so I wanted to get her to level 20 to really set her up to smoke through the levels in a hurry. That meant getting her up 3 levels this weekend, which... I pretty much did just on Friday night -- there's a reason they didn't speed up leveling from level 1 to 20. :) In the process I was invited into a Guild and ... was really really surprised by a very supportive group. There are no 70s in the guild, but they're a very good-sized group and the leadership seems really really focused on helping out everyone and really helping the group progress as a whole. That's neat. I'm pleased I'll be part of a guild like that as try to her up.

Also, I might have to make use of WoW new renaming service (which take all of 2 minutes, apparently). Kaylee informed me that Thie's name is "Casey", so I might have to rename her. :)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Grezzk
After a couple weeks of fairly light play, I got Grezzk on and did some fun stuff. Said fun stuff included a run of not one or two but THREE five-man dungeons that I've actually seen before, and participating in Gruul's lair, which is the first of the 25-man raid-dungeons in the game -- a pretty short one that only takes an hour or so to do successfully, or longer if you're still trying to beat the last boss.

The first instance was done as a favor to a friend of mine who is not in my Guild. He's a tank, and a nice guy, and needed someone to provide damage in the Auchenai Crypts which, to put it simply, is my least favorite instance on Grezzk (I think I'll LOVE it on Kayti -- it's MADE for AoE tanking). He talked up his guild a lot to me, how smart and quick they run things, and I'm at least five levels too high for it, so I figured I'd come help out.

Yeah, we team wiped probably 8 or 9 times. It was awful. I was pulling aggro off the tank with just my autoshot running, and ... ugh. It's a miserable mid-level-60 instance and they didn't have the people they needed for it. Sucked.

-=-

The second instance was with my Guild in one of the wings of Tempest Keep known as Arcatraz. "Wings" is a particularly-apt name for it in this case, as Tempest Keep is actually a series of ornate palaces floating in open space -- you can't even get there without a flying mount. Arcatraz is essentially a prison for horrific critters that some bad people are keeping locked up, and whom someone is now releasing to wreak havoc -- you must stop them, yadda yadda. I'm not sure, but I believe Arc is considered the hardest wing of Tempest Keep, which would then presumably make it the hardest five-man instance in the game (Again, the Crypts have my vote for MOST ANNOYING, but it's not even a level-70 dungeon).

This is a particular FUN and FUNNY dungeon to run -- there are two bosses in about the middle of the instance that have been working together so long that they really really HATE each other and each actually cheers you one as you kill the other one. The bickering and the cheering is done with some FANTASTIC voice acting. Also, the last guy in the run -- a kind of powermad toady -- is voiced beautifully by Curtis Armstrong, and always cracks me up.

This run went really well -- it was a good group and everyone was guildies and on Vent together, so while we were a little tired and not too talkative, it still went really well. I found I was STILL pulling aggro off the tank (who is geared very very well and knows his job), so I'm not sure what happened there. Normally I don't have aggro management issues like that, but maybe I'm starting to get into the DPS range where I churn out so much damage I have to routinely pull back a little. Would be nice if that's so.

In any case, I was EASILY the top damage dealer in the group according to the DPS readouts which, considering I was running with some serious Guild vets, made me feel good. I also did a little chain trapping, which makes me happy when I can contribute in that way.

-=-

Saturday, the Guild was running the 25 man raid-dungeon Gruul's lair. How to explain this...

There's a giant that the Ogre tribes worship as a god. (For good reason.)

You go to his lair. You beat through his elite guards to the first main room. In it is the High King of the Ogres, and four of his closest advisors. These advisors are also full-on raid bosses in their own right. They are all standing in a pack AND HAVE TO BE PULLED, TANKED, AND KILLED SIMULTANEOUSLY BY FIVE DIFFERENT PEOPLE.

Kiggler the Crazed uses ranged magic attacks on whoever he's fighting, and doesn't hit too hard -- anyone with decent health and a healer along for the ride can tank them -- you just need DPS to kill him.

There's a warlock who summons demonic pets the size of a bus and fears his tank all the time, so that's a total pain. The fear is an AoE, also, so he has to be fought FAR AWAY from all other groups.

There's a mage who keeps up a fire aura so nasty that it will kill ANYONE in melee range in a few seconds, so you have to take him down with nothing but ranged attacks.

There's a priest who, unless interrupted by rogue stuns or silences or something, heals everyone ELSE, a LOT.

And there's the High King, who just hits really frigging hard.

So you need

1. Someone to pull the High King off in to a hallway and basically solo tank him (with a healer or two to keep you standing, until everyone else is dead).

2. Someone to keep the fire-mage guy busy.

3. All the rogues and other melee guys killing the priest as fast as possible.

4. A tank (or two) on the fear-spamming demon-summoning warlock.

5. A five-man team of hunters, mages, and one priest to keep Kiggler the Crazed busy, and then make him dead.

It is one of the most complicated pulls around, and if the pull is good, and you kill everyone in a smart order, the fight is easy -- if the pull is bad, the fight is very... short.

I got picked to pull and tank Kiggler the crazed this time -- my second time in the run. Then when he (hopefully) dies, I'm to send my pet after the priest or warlock while simultaneous attack a different guy (the fire mage) and, when everything else is dead, join the whole raid in killing the King.

How'd it go? We killed everything on the first pull, and all 24 or 23 of us were standing at the end. We're getting pretty good at this. I was really happy to be the guy in charge of pulling and at least initially tanking Kiggler, and really pleased to be in what is, so far, our best fight against the High King and crew.

Then we went on through another hallway full of tough guards to Gruul. This was really tricky and actually raid-wiped us once. Then we got to Gruul. People were told where to stand once we got inside. People were warned not to linger at the doorway when the fight started, or you'd be locked outside the chamber of this huge bastard...

... and I walked in a step too far, Gruul triggered, came over, and wiped us all out. &**&#$(&*@# . Dammit. Wiped out the raid. @#$@#%.

Anyway, we tried one more time, but folks had to go after the one try -- we have yet to beat this guy, so I'm not going into all the stuff that happens in the fight, but suffice it to say it makes the fight with High King Maulgar look like a summer cotillion.

-=-

Peole were still on Vent after the raid was done, and some of us needed a run of another instance, so five of us reformed and ran and did that instance. I dunno if we were overgeared or what, but I've run The Black Morass before, and won... and this was a breeze by comparison. A BREEZE. 18 waves of dragonkin coming in through randomly spawning portals and trying to kill this guy behind us... with waves 6, 12, and 18 bringing along a full on Boss as well... and we smoked it. It was good and, again, among a group of vet characters, I was WELL in front on damage-dealt. I feel like I'm ready to sign up to participate in the (10-person raid, 13-boss, "task force in a box") raid dungeon "Karazhan".

I feel like I can contribute. I think I might do that this Saturday.

LotRO
Saturday night (yes, after running Gruul AND the Black Morass instance), I got onto LotRO and Kate and I were running around the Lone Lands (the uninhabited region all around around Weathertop for miles and miles. We're in a tricky place with Tyelaf and Tirawyn -- lots of "need a fellowship" missions in both the Barrowdowns and Lone Lands, and not much else -- in short, we've hit a wall we need some help to get over.

We were on no more than 10 minutes when Kate spotted someone on the Looking for Fellowship channel asking if people wanted to join them for "Clearing Weathertop" (which involves exactly what it sounds like -- defeating the orcs and ... OTHERS... that infested the area Weathertop after the Ringwraiths recently visited there.

We joined, and found out there was another player who also had the in-game voice chat enabled (a built-in push-to-talk tool that we use instead of Gtalk). We started chatting and coordinating that way, and eventually got the whole group on the tool, so we could get really teamed up well.

This was a GREAT group -- one of those once-in-a-hundred pugs that just clicks. We had a great tank, some decent damage, and two Captains who, although not healers as such, do an excellent job of healing "morale" as long as you keep WINNING.

This was where I was really glad that I've played most of the classes by this point. The thing with the Captain-class heals is that they only become available when you DEFEAT AN ENEMY. If you just look at the skill list for the class, you see a bunch of heals and think "okay, they can heal, we're fine."

And that works great when you're fighting packs of five or six orcs -- bad guys are dying all the time, so their heals (and a number of defeat-dependent buffs) are available much of the time.

As I said, they're really good when you're WINNING.

BOSS fights, when you're fighting one BIG thing, for a LONG time -- they loose access to a LOT of those abilities, and become, basically, a mid-range damage dealer, which is bad.

And we had to kill a number of bosses.

So I've come off several hours playing WoW, where hunters can't shoot things from too close in, and LotRO hunters have a HUGE range on their bows, so I'm WAY WAY WAY back.

And we fight our first boss, and I see that health levels are starting to drop all over, and finally the boss dies, and a heal goes up, and then his minions die, and we're fine again.

Hmm.

So... the next boss guy... I switch to a minion. Hunters are like well-armored Blasters in CoH -- we hit FRIGGING HARD. So I start on a minion, pull him to me, beat him up, and he dies in the middle of the boss fight.

And... I see a heal go up. I hear the other captain on voicechat say, six seconds after the kill, and one second after the "heal power" opportunity has dropped "dang, missed it." She wasn't expecting the kill, so she didn't know all those buff powers were going to come available all of a sudden.

I kill another minion right about when the boss dies... so that doesn't matter so much.

We get to the top of Weathertop.

There's the big boss guy. None of us have ever been here before, but we're ROLLING through the thing, so we (read: they) all charge in. It's a toughish fight, but we win.

IMMEDIATELY after that, an OMG CAVE TROLL STORMS UP THE HILL AND ATTACKS!!!

This guy has half-again as many hit points as the boss we just killed, we're already down on power, and his had more minions. ACK!

So I shoot him a bit, and we're getting POUNDED on. He smashes the whole group and everyone but me (who is WAY WAY back) is stunned. I switch targets off him so he doesn't decide I'm his new target while the tank is knocked silly.

I'm on a minion. A HA!

I shoot the minion a lot. In the face. Health scores are plummeting and NO heals are going up, cuz nothing's dying.

Just as I'm about to kill the minion, I get on Voicechat and shout "Captain! Heal opportunity is coming up... NOW!"

The minion dies. Beautiful green light floats up from everyone.

And we FRIKKIN' KILLED A CAVE TROLL! WOOOOOOOT!

So. Damn. Cool.

We had such a good time with that we all just stayed in group all night and cleared Fellowship-only missions the rest of the evening. Good stuff.

So what's with the post title?

I was in voicechat a lot this weekend. By and large? Everyone in charge was female, which I think is just unspeakably cool.

The leader for the Tempest Keep run? Female, as was the main melee DPS.

The Raid Leader, one of the tanks, and main healer on Gruuls? Female.

Pretty much the whole damn fellowship in LotRO were female -- both Captains, the Tank... (And as much more of LotRO are 35 and up, it was a good group for that reason also.)

It was just a neat thing... and really made me appreciate the mental energy that that brings to a group.

Posted by Doyce at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We need more Starbucks: the character, not the coffee. An interesting take on probably the most believably religious character in genre television. Very nice ideas about bringing that kind of portrayal to your gaming table.

After reading it, imagine bringing that kind of 'real' religion to, say, a Dogs character. FUN. :)

Posted by Doyce at 2:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yes, I know it's not the end of the year yet, but since the holidays typical kill my gaming, I'm simply looking at the last 12 months, to take a look at what kind of face to face gaming I got done.

November, 2006
- A year ago, today, I ran the first/last game for the guys out in NYC. It was the "freebooters" scenario for Shadow of Yesterday.
- I also started up a play-by-post Mountain Witch game that sadly died of asphyxiation during the holiday doldrums. More sadly, in cleaning spam out of that forum last week, I accidentally deleted all the gaming-related posts. :(

December, 2006
- Nothing

January, 2007
- Got together with the locals and made up characters for a clockpunk Shadow of Yesterday game.

February, 2007
- Nothing.

March, 2007
- Nothing again -- I didn't even post weeks in review for these two months. Sheesh.

April, 2007
- After two months of a big fat nothing, I am *rabid* to play, and fly to Chicago for Forgecon Midwest. There, I get to play Heroquest, run a game of Shadow of Yesterday and the Mountain Witch, and playtest Galactic with Matt. After I get home...
- I start up the Primetime Adventures "Weird War Two" game, and had the pilot session.
- I run the second (and apparently last) session of the clockpunk game.

May, 2007
- Nothing. Scheduling people for games continues to be a nightmarish endeavor.

June, 2007
- Stealing from the very best, I pick up on the NYC crew's gaming plan, which is basically "have a huge group of players, and run a regular game for the first five who say they can attend." I start a Spirit of the Century game and sign up 13 other people. Only one has not played to this point -- most everyone has played at least two or three sessions, and EVEN I GOT TO PLAY ONCE! Success!

- I also start the Nine Princes in Pulp game this month.

- I get in the second episode of Primetime Adventures: Strange Allies -- "Djinn" -- it goes swimmingly awesome.

- Dave starts his Ill Met by Gaslight PTA game.

July, 2007
- Not one but TWO different FULL EPISODES of Spirit of the Century

- Another session of Nine Princes in Pulp -- unfortunately, pretty much the last one, as we've yet to get back to that.

- Dave runs PTA again.

August, 2007
- Spirit of the Century and the ever-rotating player pool wins again.

September, 2007
- Nothing in here. How odd.

October, 2007
- More Spirit of the Century: Two new episodes, both on Friday nights. How unusual. And lots of fun.

- A session of Dead of Night: "Zombies At(e) my Homecoming Dance" Still need one more session on that.

November, 2007
- Flying in the face of history (and sanity) I'm trying to start, play, and FINISH a short Galactic game during the months of November and December. Chargen is this Sunday. No other gaming is on the docket yet, because Galactic is going to take scheduling priority, but I do intend to get in some more Spirit of the Century and finish the Dead of Night game.

Analysis, after the cut...

First, some self-directed bitching.

1. When I look back at my play schedule, I'm a bit shocked at how little gaming I'm actually getting in. Fifteen actual game session in a whole year? And over half of them are Spirit of the Century games, which started halfway through the year -- if that had been the only gaming i did after June, it still would have tripled my gaming for the year. That's pretty damned pathetic.

2. How sad is it that I can get a regular game going with 13 players, half of which I've never played with before, but...
a. I haven't run even one session of "Dave and Margie's" Mortal Coil game.
b. I have only run two games of the PTA game for Dave, Margie, and Randy.
c. I haven't run Dogs in the Vineyard in over a damn YEAR
d. I've played all of three and a half sessions of play with Lee and De in the last twelve months.
e. I've run two (lackluster) games involving Kate in that time, and played in three other games with her in that time... one of which resulted in her character's death. :P

... in short, that i can't get a regular game happening with my closest friends and gamers.

I mean...

Damn, I need to dust of the Settlers of Catan boxes -- at least when we were playing that, we were seeing each other more than once a month.

Okay, on to analysis.

1. Large player base + whoever shows, plays + regular game times = WIN.

If you can't get your 5 regulars players to show up regularly, get 13 who are semi-regular, and mix and match. Is there any surprise here that I started playing Halflife2 this year, in addition to WoW and LotRO? Halflife2 is always there, ready to play, and with the MMOs, there's always someone around to play WITH, even if you're just chatting with them on the OOC channel while hunting dragonkin half a continent away.

2. I like the Spirit of the Century rules a whole lot. I have things i would like to do with them, like...
a. Low-power heroic fantasy, a la Tolkien
b. Survival horror

... but for now, I'm just happy that I have ONE regular game that's actually... you know... regular.

3. For more regular, reliable games, it seems wise to get a broad player base and then just play with whoever shows up. This is fine for Spirit of the Century or Heroquest (and maybe Mortal Coil), because of the way the game mechanics work, but it's unworkable for Primetime Adventures, Galactic, Dogs, the Mountain Witch, and a number of other games I would really love to run (and PLAY!) -- everyone involved NEEDS to show up for those games, every time, or you might as well pull out your Bang! deck or set up for a Settlers game.

4. I want to run those games that need the reliable, small group, but... well... it just doesn't seem doable... historically.

5. I'm maybe going to join an online Skype-based game of Inspectres -- if that seems remotely doable with a virtual tabletop for dice rolling, I'll definitely be looking at something like that to run games in the future, just to pull in an even broader group of potential players.

Barring that... well, the SotC game is working, at least. (Not to self: introduce the "Blocking" mechanics next game. :)

Posted by Doyce at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The Zombie Fluxx card games combines a great love and a great hate of mine.

Love: Zombies. Man, I likes me some zombies.
Hate: Fluxx. I'm goal oriented enough that the constantly shifting 'win' requirements in Fluxx actually give me a headache (and remind me of a few too many bad I.T. projects).

I'm torn. I want to order a deck, but it might only be so I can set it on fire.

Posted by Doyce at 7:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)