B/X Mars Wilderness Encounter Table

 [EDIT/UPDATE] A slightly more polished PDF is available for download now, formatted to make the table useful at the table.

Michael Gibbons goes by the name Aos online and hosts the Metal Earth blog which is filled with gamma-radiated world building. His illustrations are uniquely his own, I commissioned two pieces for DUSRS&S so I like his thick black and white illos. He also released his own comic book, so yeah, another middle-aged ttrpg enthusiast like myself who creates cool shit for their games and also posts them online! If you like Lyn Carter’s spin on the science-fantasy genre you are going to love Metal Earth’s maps and site locations. 

He recently released a collection of these creations in a hardback book dubbed B/X Mars. The title immediately clues you in this is another entry in the thick DIY file which is the OSR. And that it is a setting book. Called Mars. So you are in the world of John Carter here, red sands, swords and laser beams, aliens, etc. This is Appendix N stuff. There are 95 pages of content and loaded with Michael’s great drawings. There is a brief, coherent introduction to the Mars of the past and the all-important present followed by character creation. They are Princess, Warrior, Terran, Thark! (always spelled this way), and Menton. Solid John Carter of Mars stuff. Mind Warp is your “magic” system and is the province of Mentons and fields of “mastery” replace skills. Saving throws have their own titles so one is left to assign them as they see fit if you want to compare them to standard OSR saving throw titles. This is how I broke them down; Death Ray/Poison, Warp/Spells, Entangle/Breath Weapon, Fear/Petrify, Rods and Crown is Wands obviously. Desert gear, weapons of the wasteland, airships, weather, these are the first 22 pages.

Layout is simple two-column with a 12/14 size font and bolded section titles, making it an easy read. There is a generous amount of white space (the book is 11 x 8.5) and I, for one, like this in my game books because I write on them. The way POD page count falls you end up with 5 blank page faces at the back. I could run a campaign with all my notes and prep written in the book with this kind of writing space. I think this is the only setting book I’ve picked up which has offered up this amount of white space. I don’t think this is overly intentional. I think Gibbons is like myself, an ametaur layout guy so each book looks loose. 

Part three and part four of the book is your gazetteer. Like McKinney’s Carcosa setting book, B/X Mars is content to give a detailed description of only a small section of the world. In this case it is a land on Mars referred to as “Zerzura”. The map of Zerzura is a good example of an “evocative” map. The hand-drawn cartography and unique place names do what the best ttrpg maps do, spark adventure ideas! Gibbons has several area maps on his blog you could use for whole campaign maps, all of them he draws spark adventure ideas just looking at them. A bestiary of unique monsters to the setting and a couple of detailed site locations finishes the book up, and like I said earlier, plenty of content you could run your 1st edition Gamma World campaign for years just building off the stuff in B/X Mars.

What it doesn’t have is charts. Specifically random encounter charts. Look, I know, creating tables with your publishing software can be a whole hell of a pain in the ass. Being able to type away endlessly and shape that up into readable content is easy. You will get your book done a whole lot faster if you skip tables, I get it. But OSR begs for random encounter tables. This harkens back to the game’s roots where the next exciting adventure is unknown till encountered by a chance roll of the dice. And is a big omission for an old-school setting book. I am going to correct this by creating random encounter tables for the game and post them below, free, for the world to use. Now, grab hold fast the line and swing from your armed airship into fantasy last-planet adventure with B/X Mars!

Roll 1d100	Wastelands	Desert	Ruins, Subterranean	Mountains	Forest	Swamp
NPC Character	1	1	1 - 5	1	1 - 2	1
Desert Gear	2	2 - 3	6		3
Weather Event	3 - 5	4 - 6		2 - 12	5	2 - 5
Random Faction	6	7 - 8	7 - 10	13	9	6
Thoat	7 - 10	9 - 15	11 - 12	14 - 16	18	10
Banth	11 - 12	16 - 18	13 - 18	17 - 24	24	16
Albino Ape	13	19 - 20	19 - 22	25 - 30	28	20
Crimson Ape	14	21 - 22	23 - 24	31 - 38	32	26
Sllarg	15 - 18	23	25	39 - 40	33
Skraayth	19 - 23	24 - 26	26	41 - 43	35	30
Sand Creep	24 - 25	27		44	36
Kraux	26 - 28	28 - 30	27 - 30	45 - 50	40	34
Nuerowolf	29	31 - 35	31 - 36	51 - 52	46
Siren Spider	30 - 32	36 - 38	37- 40	53 - 55	50	40
Grune	33 - 35	39 - 40	41- 42
Slaves	36	41	43	56 - 58	55	41
Grakkon	37 - 40	42 - 45	44 - 48	59 - 60	57
Tripod	41	46	49 - 52	61	58	42
Martian Dragon	42	47	53	62	60	43
Giant Roc*	43 - 45	48 - 50		63 - 65		48
Near Cat	46 - 49	51 - 53	54	66 - 67	65	52
Leviathan	50 - 52	54 - 56		68 - 70	68	55
Shoum	53 - 55	57 - 60	55 - 60	71 - 72	69
Archeoptron	56	61 - 62		73 - 75	72	58
Jade Wasp	57 - 59	63	61	76 - 77	75	63
Reptoid	60 - 62	64 - 65	62 - 65	78	78	70
Azure Martian	63	66	66 - 68			71
Bone Angel			69 - 73	79 - 80	79	75
Ghost Fish	64 - 66	67 - 72	74 - 75
Dragonoid	67	73	76 - 77	81 - 83	82	80
Dust Devil	68 - 70	74 - 75
Monnx	71 - 72	76		84 - 85
Giant Mummy	73 - 75	77 - 80	78 - 80	86	85	81
Deathspore	76 - 77	81 - 82	81 - 83		87	86
Spore Zombie	78 - 79	83 - 84	84 - 86		89	89
Sky Devil	80 - 85	85 - 92	88	87 - 90	93	90
Stichling	86 - 88	93	90		95	94
Moon Apes	89 - 90	94	94	91 - 94	96	95
Airship	91	95	95	95 - 96	97	96
Vat Goon	92 - 95	96 - 98	98
Kryss	96 - 98	99	99	97 - 98	99	98
Kryss Drone	100	100	100	99 - 100	100	99 - 100

Endgame's End Game

 Putting down for posterity the events which concluded the racially motivated arsons adventure arc in my The Blood of Heroes (tBoH)supers roleplaying game. The portable drive got jostled during play and stopped saving data half way through. What I have is going up as an episode for the podcast, but much needs to be shared here.

Bug and Mettle drop back into the halls of the closed radio building and force their way into Endgame's control room where the mobster has the brainwashed Shamrock Bane film crew. It is all set up for round 2 against Troll and more special ops soldiers when Endgame takes their offer of de-escalation.  The gangster can't believe it at first but eventually comes around to the fact the PCs mean what they say. Turn over Shamrock and they will walk away. Further, don't sell guns and terrorize people and the PCs would leave Endgame unmolested long term. 

If Bug and Mettle can keep the other players in line as well Endgame is content to "play" along with the PCs. The value in de-escalation to overall profits is not lost on Endgame and he can't turn down the numbers. Of course he believes he can get another chance at killing the PCs down the road.

Before the PCs return to the city with their traumatized friend a mysterious black helicopter appears over the radio station and fires several Hellfire missiles into it. The attack copter delivers its full payload of 8 missiles before flying away. The building is nothing but a smoking pile of rubble. Nothing could survive the collapse if they were inside. It could only be assumed Endgame and his minions were still inside at the beginning of the attack. Troll could survive though and this EE proved it by mutating further, gaining more mass, size and power! The heroic duo coordinate abilities and put the kaiju-sized villain down before he can destroy the suburbs. 

This prompts a call to Bisbee Sharp and the FBEE, see if the feds could clean up their mess. It is not a pleasing idea to the SAIC. He resents getting led around by the nose by the PCs as they smash Capitol City gangs. The PCs have been effective, but the cost in lives and property has turned the public opinion against EEs and the government's use of them as law officers. Bug and Mettle promise they are going to bring peace to the streets if left alone to do their work, but Bisbee has yet to see the full fruits of their labor. 

Shamrock Bane is turned over to the staff at New Bedlam Asylum to heal her mind. She gets transferred along with the serial arsonist the heroes helped the FBEE apprehend. Troll is packaged in the EE containment truck and driven north to the STARHOLD downport. Their holding cells are the strongest the FBEE has right now to contain powerful EEs.

And that is kind of it. The rest of the session was spent going over the connected events so far and considering where the game goes in the future. Plot-wise it will be searching for Creepazoid and his pals Backtrack and Leatherneck. These EEs were encountered in the very first episode of tBoH Capitol City campaign. Pretty cool we are going back to a cold story thread and following the string. Like most of the plot elements in the campaign world, Creepazoid and the story behind it is not really formed. I am not modeling the entire campaign setting, only where the PCs are and only what has relevance to the action at hand. Pretty standard GM techniques. 

With the deflation which comes with an adventure arc concluding I almost talked myself into taking a break. I have been running an online game of some sort non-stop since 2012. I am definitely feeling burnout and challenged to be enthused for another creative work out which is running a ttrpg is. But thankfully I reminded myself this isn't just for fun. There are a tremendous amount of new emotional frontiers to experience and ideas to engage with and so little time! It took me about 5 days to get out of the funk, the ennui. But once I had a plot situation worthy of engagement in mind the sheer determination to win at all creative costs has been sustained. Tally ho!

Clash at Einghiem - AH Napoleon Game Turn cont.

 I arrange the Allied units on the battle board with little to no choice in arrangement. Since all three spaces (left, right and center) need to be filled all three of the allied units are committed to battle. It is a mix of all three types; cavalry, artillery and infantry. The French are four units strong, two infantry and two cavalry. The forces are arrayed as such:

As mentioned in the previous post, to achieve victory in battle a player needs to advance and control any one space in their opponent's line.  I move 3 of the French units onto the "middle ground" of the battle board and engage the enemy cavalry unit and the artillery battery. There are attack modifiers for cavalry units and artillery has a ranged attack and other combat rules, nothing complicated, and the most of the rules you need to know are printed right on the battle board.

The French assault is doomed from the start. The Allies score an artillery hit before engagement and after melee the French losses total 3 hits to the Allied forces 1 hit. This all but destroys any hope of knocking the Allies off the field of battle before reinforcements arrive from the next town over. At the first opportunity I pull back what units I can as the Allies move two more infantry units from nearby towns on good roads. 

The balance has well past shifted now the force array is 5 units versus 4 units, and these 4 units are one step away from obliteration as it is. If you look carefully you can see all the steps the French force lost while doing negligible damage to the Allies!

With the battle concluded and my retreat successful (you need cavalry units to "safely" withdraw) the game turn advances. No need to waste time dithering, the play of the game is fairly obvious at this point, set up battles with your opponent when you can funnel more troops into the contest and smash them on the field with an equally punishing retreat from battle.  The final moves I make before I stuff the game back into its box and place it back on the bookshelf are to throw as many units at each other as I can. This ends up low and behold, in Ligny!

The French split forces and move enough units to displace the two Allied cavalry units and the large French cavalry force slides west to be within 2 spaces of Ligny. So the French will be pouring reinforcements into the second and third battle turn from 2 roads and the same for the Allies.

I'm not going to set up the battle board and grind out the engagement. I think the point, and playability, of the game are apparent. I see Napoleon giving a great game session. Players will get a chance to outmaneuver one another and the decision can come about through a massive battle where you wipe out your foe! I think this game will keep players engaged from start to finish! 

First Superhero Campaign Arc Comes to a Close

First post of the new year is about endings. Specifically, the first “campaign” arc of Even Heroes Bleed has concluded with a tacit acknowledgment of the fact opposed to some earth-shattering conclusion or epic battle.  In a sense, perfect for the moment.

Perfect in some significant changes have come to the campaign city because of the PCs actions and there are numerous plot hooks and adventure seeds trembling in the breeze waiting for the PCs to pursue. In no small order they are,

1. What is going on with Starhold? Two weeks ago saw the tragic loss of the Starhold shuttle during a regularly scheduled flight to the orbiting prison. Without a space shuttle for transport any EEs charged with criminal activity will have to be imprisoned on earth and earthly facilities have not been thoroughly tested against EE powers and capabilities. The recently defeated Troll is an example of such a conundrum. He is currently being shipped to the Starhold downport facility. Hopefully the building and personnel will be sufficient to keep the criminal EE incarcerated. Also, the passenger on board the shuttle when it exploded was not a nobody. It was the son of Dr. McKeever, the missing scientist on the federally funded COVID-24 task force and now believed to be an EE himself called Metereon (Me-ter-on). Knockout was also a member of the research team, and she is still missing, fate unknown.

Codename Wolf, McKeever’s son was carrying an alien meteor shard. The shard, found during an EE operation, was gaining mass hourly and Wolf was the only person capable of lifting it and moving it around. It was decided by the Feds the safest place for it was in the weightlessness of space on Starhold. With the shuttle explosion it can only be assumed the alien meteor shard will return to earth’s surface.

2. What is going to be the fate of BAM! addicts? With no more access to the drug these drug sufferers are experiencing terrible withdrawal and lashing out murderously. This would not be more then a mental health crisis but for the fact some addicts violently explode while others have gained enhanced abilities. Murderous drug fiends with superpowers loose on the streets may end up Capitol City’s worst problem yet.

3. What will the mayor do? Mayor Umpstead has declared all EE’s illegal within city limits, and he is aware the PCs know he is behind the arsons and real estate scam. Can he really maintain a truce with the PCS and conduct business as normal? One must think not.

4. What will replace the Baltimore? Bug had secured the North Elmview slum as a haven for the homeless, off limits to criminals and cops. Now that it is in ashes where will Bug and Mettle take their homeless wards?

5. Where did the black helicopter come from in this last episode? Yes, the classic black helicopter paid a visit over Endgame’s hideout launching Hellfire missiles and reducing the building to smoldering rubble. Military grade for sure, but who is pulling the strings on this weapon of death? And did Endgame survive the attack?

And finally, 5. What is up with those weird creatures from the first episode? You know, Creepazoid, Backtrack, and Leatherneck? Bug is convinced these strange beings are more victims than evil aggressors and our hero is wanting to find them and find out more about them. It will take a journey into the sewers of Capitol City to find answers to these questions.