Even Heroes Bleed is Back on the Air

 

I mean, the Vanishing Tower house game has been going steady. We are live streaming the session. But it has been a year since I downloaded a recorded session and created an edited audio of the session for snappy play back! 13 months actually. Since an edited audio of the session is the only thing I can stomach to listen, I have got myself out of my omnipresent god-like vision which has me aware of everything which is going on in the Capitol City universe. Not good. This is a supers game so the subplots and NPC threads are like a busted can of spaghetti-oos on vinyl, spread out everywhere!

It was not too long into the recording before I was made aware, again, of the sticky points in the game we go around on. In the case of DC Heroes, it is about turn order, initiative, and surprise. Since I have not been editing the audio of live plays on a weekly basis, our last game (two nights ago) got caught up in these same issues again. We had been not holding sessions through the holidays, so on return to the table it was a processes of uncovering our common arguments. Like, I am editing a session from September 22. On the listen through of our in-game rules discussions, I was made aware of how I was fouling-up calculating knockback. This is one example of how I use recorded game sessions to step up my "game". It has been the best way to correct poor decisions I make during play. You hear the misstep, you cringe, and then it falls out of practice. 

Per usual the  playback reminded me on campaign "fact" we all have agreed on and the ones we all seem to have forgotten. For example, my players were arguing about why they could not do shit with the magic house some of the heroes part-live/part-guard at the mystical Avery mansion. I informed them every time they interacted with the magic house there was a character of mystical abilities and/or had occult lore. That was the key, the house is magic, it takes a magic user to know the proper buttons to push to get reactions. They backed down because I dropped my "this discussion is at an end" statement, "Play the tape." Nothing establishes better what everyone actually said and agreed to during a game session then the recorded audio. I also believe it is the fastest way to improve your roleplaying abilities, listen to what you sound like!

Space Acid, the Mothership Mod

No need to write up a Space Opera retro-clone, just use Mothership as the basic rules chassis and modify from there. Then you are just creating a setting book instead of this comprehensive rule book. And it is really simple to do. Just add the 2 new character class options I have outlined at the end of this blog post!

Psychedelic Science-Fantasy

Space Acid is a science-fantasy roleplaying game. Science-fantasy stories often feature scientifically logical worlds with hard science-like explanations for supernatural elements. They may also include alternate or imaginary science and technology that is not possible based on known scientific laws.

A hybrid genre within speculative fiction, science fantasy simultaneously draws upon or combines tropes and elements from both science fiction and fantasy. In a conventional science fiction story, the world is presented as being scientifically logical, while a conventional fantasy story contains mostly supernatural and artistic elements that disregard the scientific laws of the real world. The world of science fantasy, however, is laid out to be scientifically logical and often supplied with hard science-like explanations of any supernatural elements. For this author Heavy Metal magazine typifies the best elements of the diverse world of science fantasy. For yourself it could be much different.

No matter, this kitchen-sink rule kit should provide more than enough tools to capture the spirit of your campaign. If you ever need inspiration for your next Space Acid adventure, thumb the catalogue of movies, comics, music, books, and magazines which brought this genre to life in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. There is literally a bottomless reservoir of material to draw from.

1.2 New Character Classes

Character creation follows the standard one-page procedure outlined in the Mothership core rules. There are two new character Classes to choose from. They are the Clone, and the Fixer. The Clone uses the Android Class but may freely choose the 3 Trained Skills they begin with. The Fixer uses the Teamster Class, but with Max Health being 3x Strength (not the normal 2x).

 

How to be a Professional Game Master

 Like many things in this hobby, you just need to get up and go at it! I'm "in-between" jobs right now so I decided I needed to generate some income via my life long passion, TTRPGs. You are going to need, want, and should set up a profile on startplaying dot games.

And a thumbnail. A really good thumbnail. Since people have only one way to see choices and make selections your front end pitch has to beat thousands of others vying for the same euro and dollar.

Move to a foreign country. Unless you already live somewhere that doesn't use the euro or dollar as their currency. Then stay right where you are and rise to the top 20% of income earners! Living in a third world country with their own currency will make the money you make from players exponentially "more";

Constantly churn options. If an offering isn't getting any hits you need to toss it and put up something new. The internet is a loop, continually spewing content like a news ticker at the bottom of your television screen. You need to be constantly feeding this loop with intriguing and flashy offerings. 

5E and Curse of Strahd. Be prepared to run a whole lot of this. Whatever WotC/Hasbro is doing you need to be right in their back pocket mimicking. In fact it is best to consider yourself a Mimic. An alluring trap which can change faces instantly. Then hang on with all you got and never let these people go. You need to shadow their life constantly and..... no, no, no, none of that. 

But marketing, marketing, marketing is the nit to crack to get steady money from the gig. I have been up and posting just this last week and have had one gig. This is from doing it all wrong and just winging it, like I do any game session. Hopefully I can turn this into some regular cash money so I never have to leave the house! Or where pants for that matter.

II Corp Continues to Struggle

 As this shot of Turn 28 shows, I have still not got a foothold any where along the Allied line. 

Looking at the start of turn 31 and it appears I have not made much of a dent in the Allied lines, because I haven't!

 The Allied troops have moved to the right of Wellington's line. His center is getting thin, and the fight for the highest point of the battlefield has seen several cavalry charges, intense artillery barrages, and infantry getting into sharp firefights. We both call this area the "Valley of Death!". I did take Hougomont, and received the Morale boost (20+ points), but it is because my opponent "gave" it to me instead of making me fight for it. There was some engagement with the skirmishers, but I foresee this location staying French.

Now it is turn 35, about 5:45 in the afternoon. The Prussians are on the board, and I have yet to puncture Wellington's lines. I'm poised to get elements of both I and II Corp into the Allied formations, but I think I will have complete army morale collapse before I can get the Imperial Guard into the fight.