Anthropomorphic USR Rides Again! Session Report #4

This session brought two PC's out of Capital City and away from the shores of Lake Eerie to the hot desert country of southern New Mexico. One of the PC's was new to this “side” game I run when the regular session of Clockwork & Cthulhu is running light of players for the scheduled game. He was a bit skeptical of playing a homemade furry animal and other strangeness game, but threw himself in with gusto. Since Anthropomorphic USR runs on the (U)nbelievably (S)imple (R)oleplaying chassis he had a character made up in around five minutes or less. So Bob the Platypus joined Gorilla Dave and the agents of CHROME in their attempt to get to the bottom of the PC's kidnapping from the zoo, their genesis into enhanced beings, and who is behind all this madness. CHROME, understandably, finds secret underground genetic labs complete with nuclear reactor rather dubious. Not to mention posing unacceptable safety concerns for the two million plus inhabitants of Capital City!

I used the PC's Specialisms as jumping off points for starting the session. Bob chose Detective +2 Wits as one of his Specialisms so he was put to work pouring over the data CHROME had gathered from the destroyed lab and the zoo's security cameras and computer logs. The result of this research revealed the zoo's security system was hacked from an IP address in Moriarty, New Mexico. This happened to be the last known whereabouts of Cybermind, a notorious criminal computer hack. If Special Agent Scott Roger Scott could tie Cybermind to the zoo kidnapping he would be able to do what the FBI failed to, bring this international bad guy down!

The PC's were outfitted in the latest CHROME livery, stretchy combat suits which provided +2 Damage Resistance. Bob armed himself with a short katana and an auto pistol while Dave stuck with his robot-head helmet and acidic poo-flinging powers. S.A. Scott was in charge per usual and assigned four other agents to round out the squad. They boarded a chartered jet out of Capital City airport and flew down to Albuquerque. Bob and Dave wanted to approach the target at night, so after the sun set they rolled out of town in a nondescript van provided by the Albuquerque field office. Their ultimate destination being the abandoned amusement park and ghost town of Snake Gulch.

I started making my USR hacks in an attempt to leverage my existing setting books while at the same time doing away with crunchy rule sets. For Anthropomorphic USR I am digging through my old Champions material I purchased in the early two thowws, more for nostalgia than anything. Some of you may recognize Snake Gulch as from Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth. Coupled with the Millennium City source book you would think I would have all I need to run some fantastic Supers action. They both retailed for $24.99, but scored them each for $10.00. The game store in my parent's town was going out of business so everything in the place was slashed. Both books are rather nice to look at. Glossy cover, fine production values and each one over a hundred pages long.

I had to really dig through these Hero published books with a highlighter to find useful text. Text which would invoke the feel of four colored comics. There wasn't much to highlight actually. Many maps of locations, stats of the major NPC's to be met along the way. The usual long and pointless backstories of the villains, snore. This is the adventure, the city book, well maybe more useful. It gives me a street map. What? There is organized crime in the city? Street gangs? I never would have thought!

I have to say the DIY OSR products being produced over the last six or more years have really shined a light on the poor utility of standard RPG products that are usually on offer. Once you use Vornheim, the Complete City Kit in like every game you run the pages of useless information in your usual city guide can just make you angry. I recently used AugmentedReality, The Holistic City Kit For Cyberpunk Games, majorly influenced by Vornheim, (at PWYW it way punches above its weight) to prep for my next Classic Traveller session. It took me seconds with random rolls on a few tables and I had an adventure outline, all hooky, which could sustain open, sandbox play as well as providing enough color to breath life into my game environment. It seems a game like Champions, which Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth and Millennium City were written for rests on the thick, crunchy combat rules. No need for imaginative content because the game will grind to a halt as soon as combat starts. It's what I remember back in high school and it is what I experienced again at GenCon last year. Which misses out on a lot of what supers role playing has to offer. So I guess on my list of RPG projects to complete now I must add Supers City Kit and Supers Secret Hideout Kit to give poor GM's like myself a chance out there. A chance to do what we do best; take some interesting game elements and run fast with your players, letting them move the action and drive the story. Once you strip the stats from Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth you are left with a predictable railroad led by bread crumbs to standard set pieces. Ugh.

There is actually one interesting bit. The opening gambit is set at an old west theme park. I got rid of the original Viper staff and replaced the characters with automatons. Old and unused the PC's came at the place at night and started poking around. Bob headed straight to the Sheriff's office. After listening to the automaton brag about the good old days running with Wyatt Earp and the like Bob liberated the robotic sheriff of his badge, hat, boots and six shooter. A three foot platypus with spurs a jingling now hit the streets of Snake Gulch, bad ass Ape and several CHROME agents in tow, determined to sniff out the bad guys!

They eventually entered the saloon where they found tracks into the cellar. Here the automatonic poker players activated, started accusing each other of cheating, and one stood drawing his smoke wagons squaring off with the PC's. The novelty of the situation quickly wore off when the robot started squeezing off live rounds. After taking out the stiff limbed robot it did not take long for the PC's to find the secret cellar entrance to a more modern part of the theme park. With different use of their Specialisms and reacting off of their die rolls they eventually penetrated secure doors and found what could only be described as a complex computer lab plus living quarters. Surely this was Cybermind's secret hideout. But where was he? 

The PC's did subdue a man in army fatigues, horribly disfigured, green skin, frothing mouth filled with fangs, the usual. He was able to draw blood on Bob the Platypus. Hopefully he isn't infectious. A difficult hand to hand struggle ended with gorilla Dave dropping the bed on top of the disfigured army guy. The ID scan done by the CHROME agents came up empty. Was this Cybermind? Has he been so transformed the ID scan cannot recognize him? Two of the CHROME agents carried out the unconscious stranger while the rest of the squad penetrated further. Here the PC's encountered the central computer room, in alert, plus all the wires in the room, from the computers, lights, generators, bound into a central form crackling with electricity. It forms facial features and speaks! “My specimens, my children you have returned!”

Now your average Champions combat, let's see, with two agents, two heroes and a big bad could take like an hour to run. We had six minutes left in the session. Instead of counting hexes, tracking endurance and stun the PC's could concentrate on how to take out their unknown adversary. The strange creature could make multiple attacks, striking out with various electrical cords. One of the CHROME agents was fried to death before Bob the Platypus, still wearing a cowboy hat and badge, was able to cut the main power cable. Gorilla Dave soaked damage from electric cord creature so it took a coordinated team effort to take down the creature. Here the session ended and began my game design deliberations.

There is a few things to tweak and/or modify with my rules set. That is to be expected. The big takeaway, for me, is to stop looking at adventure and game books for game and adventure material. Unless they are being done with this OSR spirit, of trying to facilitate the GM at the table in real time, the shit is useless. Today's session got more mileage out of the PC's leveraging small bits of color than anything else out of these once expensive game books. For source material I need to go to source material! Much like I did with USR Sword & Sorcery the best bet for good gaming “stuff” is go read the actual comics which got me excited in supers to begin with. That and making stuff up myself, Nuff said!

Classic Traveller Session Report #2

The PC's secured the facility with no loss of life, to themselves. The combat procedure was followed a bit more accurately this session and the trained PC's laid down whole sale slaughter on the opposition. Seven unidentified attackers were slain and one was captured. Carbines are not nearly as effective as Rifles and Shotguns in Medium Range combat. It also was apparent a knife in a gunfight does bear out the old adage.

Unfortunately three other unidentified attackers escaped on a boat out of the lower level with a package believed to be the body of a scout. This deceased scout was from the bizarre “pick-up” mission on Xxcarvis. The first ever adventure arc of Traveller I ever ran. These unknown attackers appeared to have passed unmolested into the facility, apparently by this same boat. Once in the lower dock area killed the two security guards on hand and collected the research staff at gun point. Once the research staff was locked into the live specimen holding cells the staff members were gassed to death with some fast acting nerve toxin. Also located on site was a high-tech device capable of shutting down power and communication within the facility. This device was the cause of the communications black out and power loss to the colonists water supply.

The PC's were able to get the water systems up and pumping again so the VCL owes them a solid. After reporting back in to their Chief in Vanders Omni security forces from Kazawan City were sent on site. The PC's were relieved and allowed to return to Vanders.

Lingering questions remain; who were these guys, why did they steal the body of a dead scout, and do the PC's even care?

Playing Classic Traveller delivers much what I would expect in an old-school rpg. Don't look to the rules to run your game. The mechanics are there to support interesting play. Not make it for you. The referee better come up with interesting stuff to do and your players better be up for a challenge and willing to find their own motivations. As a table top rpg should. I think we have suitable mysteries on hand to pique the player's interest and I will lean on the random generation procedures hard coded into the system to keep things moving, but if you want your game to be interesting you need to be interesting. Or be real good at finding interesting sci-fi stuff to rip off and run with.

Athan Kirk Wins the $200.00 Writing Contest

I posted a request for submissions for one of the adventures which will be included in the upcoming release of Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery. I received three total submissions; one from Garrett Norman, another from Machine Mandala and the last at the deadline by Athan Kirk. I also received derisive comments from the peanut gallery along the lines of being exploitative, breaking laws and going to get myself sued?!?

Garrett Norman put it best; "...don't let the whiny redditors who wrote 500 words on why your contest sucked instead of 1000 words for a contest entry get ya down."

Athan wins hands down because he submitted an 11,858 word, 34 page adventure submission! Talk about over delivering! 

Thanks to all three of you for participating in this writing experiment and congratulations to Athan, Vanishing Tower Press' first paid writer! 

Turning a page in Clockwork & Cthulhu

The PC's settled their affairs with the Pale Lady's Trans-Arcana penetration into the material plane off the coast of Great Yarmouth this morning. Hero and Improvement points were awarded and they returned to Norton Manor, the now defacto headquarters of these secret agents of Parliament known as C.l U. B., the Clockwork Underground Bureau. One PC death was incurred during this four week (game time) adventure arc and one PC was ordained into the order of Righteous Soldiers, a recognition of his single-minded willingness to deliver death to enemies of the Parliamentary cause. 

For some reason I feel wiped out. Drained. Not that any of the sessions were any "harder" than the rest to run. More that it feels like I have wrung much imaginative juice from this mortal frame to fuel the campaign world. This is with using published adventure material as well. It certainly helped with the heavy lifting of world building. This is also a gaming first for me; a long running campaign. It is deeply satisfying and my belief that under all the entertainment value easily recognizable with TTRP'ing is a legitimate art form is validated.

As the game moves on to another chapter the challenge is clear; continue doing what I am doing, but make it BETTER. What does better mean? Now is not the time for me to come up with the answer. I need to reflect, drift and daydream now. Running a campaign is both a marathon and a sprint. Twenty four miles of fascinating road, some of it has to be run fast, uphill, both ways. On the surface TTRPG's are simple. It taps into the incredible enjoyment from oral storytelling and group collaboration. One thing leads to another, la-de-da la-de-da.

I've learned custom random tables for your world and setting are a godsend for the flagging mind during a session. Hacking published materials with your own ideas relieves the burden of coming up with the endless stream of NPC's needed in your world. I've also discarded the idea that the system really matters. I think when folks are having lovely flame wars over different systems and different editions it is a deflection from how demanding being a game referee is if you want to do it well. Most people don't want to face up that they may suck and they need to make changes. It is sooo much easier to say the system is broken, or it doesn't do this or that well. Rubbish. Here is my analogy to try and make my point; the fine art known as painting has three components. Color, texture and shape. Pigment on the end of a stick is applied to a flat surface. That is it. But from simple ingredients the bottom of this form has never been reached. Some who really want to be a painter won't make it because they will suck. "It wasn't for me." "I like photography better." folks may say as they flit through mediums looking for recognition. I've found it is better to soberly recognize your ability, and figure out for yourself what success looks like. For me it is to challenge myself to do better. Don't get hung up on results. Pursue with dogged determination and be open to the surprise of invention. You are conquering fear, nothing more, nothing less.  

So after this little stream of blathering thought here is my ask; when you feel drained from the work and fear you can do no better what do you do to get geared up to viciously attack your old way of doing things and blow your mind with the next discovery with your long running campaign?