Contact Information:

jay@vanishingtowerpress.com

Wednesday, March 11

Vault of the Ni'er Queyon Review

Okay, there is a review of this FGU module here.

Quite surprised, as I am only pulling out a review of this dated module because it has sat on my shelf since it was printed in 1982, and once again I am vainly trying to find some useful material from its thin pages. No, that's not true. I'm dragging this old school product out so I can vent. I want to vent a bit on some of the garbage which was put on the store shelves when I was scraping milk money together so as to buy material which would give my friends a good game.

Here is my main beef; the module encourages the Star Master to waste the PC's time as much as possible. That they should be taken along a dangerous, fruitless trek across the galaxy pursuing a red herring. Then once the mistake is discovered, turn around and begin another long and dangerous trek across the galaxy and hope they are right this time.

I feel this kind of direction just frustrated my young, budding gamemastering experience. That this type of tutelage was leading me down a similar path of red herrings and fruitless encounters. Tricking my players and giving them nothing for their efforts. Granted I never got to run this module as the Space Opera rules were so difficult for me that we barely made it through character creation and a spacer brawl before it was back to D&D. I had better luck with Champions with my group cause I was a serious student of the medium and who doesn't like throwing Buicks and garbage trucks at each other.

I don't want to completely trash Stefan Jones' efforts. I think I get what he was after, a quest into an intriguing mystery which takes PC's deeper into the history of the game universe with the promise of a lucrative payoff in the end. But there is no evident compelling reason why the PC's should continue burning tremendous resources in the search.

The encounter of the old man pursued by thugs in an alley I can do. While not ripping original, it seems like the good stuff adventure seeds are manufactured from; that being the characters are free to chose how they want to approach the situation presented. Are they noble and wish to follow an honorable path, to seek deeper truths, to defend the value of knowledge? Or are they interested in being black hearted scoundrels worse than the current adversaries involved, only out for financial gain? But the clues which are to be gained from the book I found incomprehensible. I get that this first book is to lead to a second book which is to eventually lead to the secret vault, but the clues don't make any sense. Go ahead, read em out loud to an audience and tell me they get what you are talking about.

So than screw the narrative. You have a couple of ships stat'ed, two planets described and a some intriguing adventure locations. You should be able to do something with that. When  I purchased this module I did have a copy of the Space Opera rule book (which kicked my ass) and I still had a hard time deciphering how the illustrators keyed the deck plans of the ship. Is a deck plan key just too much to ask? Exploration of the first location, some ruins, will basically leave the PC's coming up empty. Trying to get to the ruins is the more interesting part of the adventure considering the details provided. But the ruins themselves are quite lackluster. Clues to continue come from garbage left behind by a previous adventure party. You could make a more interesting story line by making your PC's garbage collectors in a galactic city coming across a winning lottery ticket and trying to figure out how to cash it without looking like thieves.

The end point of the adventure is the treasure vault itself and it is not much. Bill Willingham's illustrations on these pages are actually the strongest feature of the entire module. The module should have been just about the vault. A detailed, mysterious, imaginative treasure vault filled with art collected by an unknown forerunner race is a cool idea. It begs the question, what would this species consider art? How would future species be able to recognize it for what it is? What importance would artistic taste and creativity from 150,000 years ago have to the current game world, what impact would it have? These are the nuggets that this module promised, but just never even came close to delivering on.

Why did I buy it? Cause I hoped a produced module for the game rules I just bought would help me decipher how best to deliver a great sci-fi rpg campaign. I trusted that Jeff Dee and Bill Willingham as artists on the project meant it was good stuff.

The name of the module is really the best part.

Wednesday, February 18

Seduction, Wagering and Drinking: more than reaction rolls

The following are suggest steps for resolving all three of the different game activities with the USR game system, it should point the CK in the right direction for adventure excitement.


The character makes a contested attribute roll against the people involved.

Relevant situational modifiers and specialism bonuses are factored. Critical success and fumbles are in effect.

The CK adjudicates what a win and a loss looks like.

The CK decides how many checks should be made but the idea is to focus on describing the results of a die roll, not to roll many dice.

Usually no more than two or three attempts at an individual contest can be attempted.

Seduction Example;

The seducer and the victim roll a contested attribute roll against Ego to find out if the victim resists the seduction. The unwilling victim and the seducer can modify their roll with apt Specialism, such as Diplomacy, Seduction, Charm, Court Etiquette, etc. If the victim fails to beat the seducer’s roll, the seducer is doing well and may continue. Otherwise, the victim realizes what’s going on.  Willing participants need not make checks to resist a seduction attempt, but simply give in to their aggressor's advances.

If the victim’s roll succeeds, it means that they realizes what is going on and lose interest, become angry, find amusement in the seducer’s efforts, etc.

The seducer can try again, but must subtract 2 from their roll each time the victim beats their roll. 

This penalty is cumulative, with a duration of 24 hours.                

Sunday, February 15

USR Gunslinger Character Sheet

I've gone and made up a character sheet for USR Gunslinger with the idea of writing up a rules hack of TSR's Boot Hill. I've posted it to my Summonings page here at The Vanishing Tower.

So this means I will actually have to write up these rules some time soon or I'll just have characters running around with no rules to govern their behavior. Now that sounds like the Wild West...

Tuesday, February 3

USR Sword & Sorcery Play Aids

The Summonings page now has links to download your USR Sword & Sorcery Character Sheet, and USR Sword & Sorcery Campaign Notepad pages... sweet!

Friday, January 30

First Strike explained...

At least as it applies to my USR Sword & Sorcery campaign. The Equipment List includes some weapons, such as the flail, which come with a "first strike" attribute.

First strike weapons allow a character to make an initial melee attack without their opponent being able to inflict any damage against them, even if they win the contested attribute roll. This initial attack roll is made in conjunction with the character's regular Action roll for the combat round, in effect, giving the first strike weapon two attack rolls versus your opponents one.

Once engaged in melee a character cannot make a first strike attack. If two or more characters are attacking each other with first strike weapons, no one can make a first strike attack.

First strike does not apply to ranged weapon attacks.

Wednesday, January 28

LotFP Language Rules for USR Sword & Sorcery

My players came upon a book, and, after a year of play, for the first time I had to know if any these motley louts could read. True to their sword and sorcery roots these adventuring heroes have yet to approach any task without crushing blows, and flashing blades. Illiteracy among them all was a real possibility, so I ruled that none of them could read. But that didn't feel complete. I mean, what is the chance that they are all illiterate?


I needed a mechanism to decide an unknown question such as this and James Raggi's LotFP rules for language is the only one which ever struck me as a functional, in-game method for literacy and language questions. So the following is how I've hacked them to suit my USR Sword & Sorcery game.

Language Rules for USR Sword & Sorcery

Most PCs are assumed to begin play being fully fluent in their native tongue.

They are literate as well if they can pass a 6+ difficulty roll against their Wits.

Any specialism which can modify the results, good or bad, should be applied. Any specialism which implies literacy (scribe for example) would confer automatic literacy in the PC's native language. Any other modifier the CK wishes to impose can be added to this initial literacy roll.

When a PC comes into contact with another language their chance of speaking the language is determined by passing a 6+ difficulty roll against their Wits. Did they make it? If they did then you need to determine if they are literate too. Make another Wits roll against a 7+ difficulty.

To learn an unknown language takes six months of full immersion, fluent in two years. A language can be taught by a tutor, but that takes two years of at least five lessons a week (at 3sp a lesson) to become comfortably conversant, and fluency does not come until being immersed in the language.

Sunday, January 11

Messing Around with Amoeba Wars

This simple Avalon Hill game sits on my shelf, and I always want to use it as a light weight gateway game for people who may have never played "wargames" before.

Problem is, I've also found it to have some game flaws which I've really wanted to remove and make the game more enjoyable.

There are a few stabs at it on Board Game Geek, but all raise some issues just as much as they try to solve some of the game's perceived problems.

What are these problems? The biggest complaint about the game is "turtling", a strategy where a player makes no moves each turn slowly building up his space armada in his home solar system and then making a single late game push to the center and the win.

Another issue is turn order and how with 5 to 6 players there is much down time in between your turn. Some players have made stabs at changing the turn order mechanics to create more interaction amongst players around the board. For new players to the game I don't think this is much of an issue. The novelty of the game and figuring it out has a tendency to create interactive banter around the board. This issue is more of one for veteran I feel because the game, despite its evocative title, lacks some personality which can bring down the excitement for veteran players.

This is where I've decided to launch my attack on reviving this 80's nostalgia nugget from the grave and getting it on the table. To give the game some additional personality. Amoeba Wars attempts to create some personality for your colored counters with the inclusion of Special Power cards which, as an optional rule, each player gets to draw one randomly at the beginning of play. While drawn secretly, once you use it the rest of the players know what you are packing for the rest of the game and can compensate.

Instead of using XXII. Optional Player Powers rule as written, I propose you get to draw a Special Power card when you have captured production points. 

One production point gets you one Special Power, two gets you two Special Powers, up to four production points gets you three Special Power cards. Once the cards are all gone, no one can get them anymore. This should also have the additional benefit of making the Turtle Strategy less viable as a neighboring player can accumulate some significant power through expansion while the turtling player twiddles his thumbs. Power which can put this strategy farther out of reach of success, hopefully. 
You should be able to put the power into play as soon as the card is acquired, and acquiring new cards will keep opponents guessing on what one is packing. 

We will see.