The Press on Nerd’s Variety Cast

 I get interviewed by Jason on all things USR and then some!

Nerd’s Variety Cast

Super Simple Death Save for Dungeons & Dragons

 This is an old-school take and most likely not relevant to 5e of the worlds most popular board game. But for your OSR game it fits the tropes of early play. Also, someone has probably already thought of this and has put it out there. I just haven't seen it yet. 

When the PC reaches zero Hit Points, instead of death they may choose to reduce their Hit Die to the next smaller die size. Only have a d4 Hit Die? To bad, no death save for you.

This means Magic-User and Thief class do not get a death save, they follow the standard zero Hit Points and you are dead. Outside of the Fighter, all other classes have a d6 Hit Die, so these classes get to cheat death once. With the Fighter having a d8 Hit Die they get to save from death twice. 

It should be noted the save is automatic, there is no roll to make. And just to be clear, this does mean, moving forward, the PC rolls this new lower die for all additional levels reached.

Even Heroes Bleed is Back!

 The “Even Heroes Bleed” (EHB for those legions of fans) campaign has been revived, with the possibility of new heroes! 

Continuing my road trip through old school games, EHB uses the BoHSE (Blood of Heroes Special Edition) rules, which is a 2000 retroclone of DC Heroes 3rd Edition from the now defunct Mayfair Games.

It has come to be my super hero game of choice. It does so much which modern claim to offer as new, such as narrative control, meta-currency, rules for social interaction and simple resolution mechanics. I have used it for over 2 years in regular play. Until schedules changed, and it stopped.... May, June I think. 

But now it has resumed with a lead-off solo session with the indomitable Olympian. This adventure falls right after the conclusion of “The Sinister Secrets of Starhold”, and featured Olympian turning his attention to the continued attacks by magically -embued EE’s running riot in Capitol City. Not being magically inclined, the Kordarian Paragon of Power stopped at the last scene of a serious magical attack; the Hunniford Library. There is a librarian knowledgeable in the occult at the library. He hopes to get answers which will help him track down these threats. 

But first he checks in on Donna Hannah, the late Dr Avery’s granddaughter, and now a living elemental of air. She is no longer staying at the mansion, preferring to lead a “normal” life back at CCSU. Everything being all good on the home front, the librarian and super hero concoct a means to track the “Lance of Unending Pain”, the artifact stolen by Black Paladin. But it is going to take a bag of cats....

I love the fully realized campaign games I have been playing since returning to ttrpgs. Without one the blog and podcast seem relatively pointless. Because the general purpose of this blog is to chronicle my journeys into fully realized campaign games I never managed as a kid. Counting them off they are pulp sword & sorcery, age of sail, black powder Cthulhu, B/X D&D, Traveller/Space Opera, and now supers. 

The line up appears to be the Olympian, Mettle, and Pirlvag. Mr. Zoozoo and Bug have scheduling conflicts, and a new player in Vietnam is hungry to join in. The dooms which stalk the peace of Capitol City is about to go to 11!  

Delta Green First Time

 It happens ever so often, I throw out a willingness to run something specific for a one-shot and a few people respond and it gets off the ground for one, two, or three sessions as the particular plot is played out. Most of the times nothing happens. Time doesn't work or no interest in the game proposed. This time I tried something a wincey different, I offered to run whatever a small group of players wanted to to try out. This got three to four people wanting to play Delta Green. Perfect! 

Delta Green is modern conspiracy horror. Federal Agents leading a double life as secret commandos on the front lines of supernatural conflict. Built on the venerable BRP game system from Chaosium, the game puts a focus on sanity damage and damage to relationship "Bonds". Otherwise it is straight-up monster hunting in the Cthulhu Mythos. 

The group consisted of some gents from Kansas and one from the UK. I used the scenario from the quick-start rules "Last Things Last" for the evenings  action. I opened the adventure at Baughman's apartment. The DG agents (two of them) were sweeping the late Claud Baughman's apartment for any Cthulhu contraband the former "Friendly" may have hidden or retained in his domicile. The conspiracy must be concealed! The other two players, as regular uninitiated civilians, show up at Baughman's for their own reasons and an awkward conversation begins. 

This is a big part of the game, and really any session of Delta Green, coming up with valid, palatable reasons disparate individuals would work together on strange, deadly shit, let alone trust each other. We spent some time going around on this until we were all satisfied the opening made "sense". After that the game went pretty straight forward, they followed the breadcrumbs, uncovered contraband, confronted by new adversaries looking for something at the second site location, and uncovered the true horror that waited for them. 

With bodies being burned and contraband secured the session wrapped up with enough material still open to play another session. Or at least we agreed to play another session. Talk about a possible continuation of a campaign was floated but none of us saw the time nor availability, so talk of a campaign was tabled, for now.

The second session opened right where we last left off. We discussed whether players should get a skill check roll for chance of improvement to skills used last session. We decided not enough time had passed to warrant experience checks. The PCs also discussed their next move, which was nothing more than returning to Capitol City to their Handler and turning over the goods. The trip was immediately interrupted by more villains trying to ram them off the road. They failed Drive rolls so their 1995 Crown Victoria  fishtailed into the guard rail coming to the stop. Their attackers demanded some of the contraband from the footlocker they took from Baughman's cabin. The PCs declined. This prompted the villains, one of them at least, to open up with a military-grade assault rifle and try and kill the lot of them. After much ammo was expended the thug with the machine gun was cut down and the Crown Vic was noticeably shot up. The women in the SUV, the last remaining villain, sped off in her suburban while the PCs debated whether to scope up the body in the road and speed after her, or just speed after her.  They chose the latter. They decided there was nothing to tie them to the dead guy in the road (they are rural West Virginia at this point) so running down the last living mystery assailant was the best play.

This second car chase goes better for the PCs, They come out on top and the woman is critically wounded (they blew her foot off with a shotgun). She just would not come quietly and tried to shoot her way out of her predicament. And cast magic! She had spoken some strange words, spells it appears. Had made one of the agents see nightmarish hallucinations and one of the civilians to shoot their handgun at an agent. As the session wound down we roleplayed the aftermath. The cops, their Federal Handler, the actual SAIC of the FBI offices in Capitol City, was brought in and we had a chance to go over consequences and next actions. I truly enjoyed playing their handler as they hashed out the events at a roadside stop under cover around some wet picnic tables in a morning drizzle. Smokes were smoked, and things supernatural hashed out. We roleplayed the civilians being introduced to the conspiracy and joining the "cause". At least long enough to find out what their prisoner/detainee wanted out of Baughman's stuff and what she intended to do with it. 

All heady stuff, and a successful short-run adventure arc. What did I think? Well, I am well versed in the BRP game system and its many custom games using it, so as the Game Master I didn't have to fuss over rules much. I could spend time on maintaining fidelity with genre being played. Which is good because their is a lot to consider and hand-waving all these plot complications away is very unsatisfying way to play Delta Green. But once the PCs have settled into a good (enough) reason to get in a car with each other, armed with guns, and go out to a cabin in the woods.... well, the session can go for another couple of hours at least without bringing up another set of complications which has to be dealt with in the same manner. I had the usual tension of making sure I shut up often and force the PCs to talk to each other, not me. The more I could keep the conversation on their side of the table with me out of it was an intentional action. Really in a game set in "real-life" settings their is less as a Game Master you have to describe, feed into the Theater of the Mind engine environmentally-wise. Sights, sounds, smells, we all no what a wet highway and damp woods smell like. Which is a plus, because the action is not so much set-piece, site location exploration. It is interacting with people and getting away with what you are trying to do without getting arrested and trashing the character's life.

So I find all modern games, set in contemporary earth must have strong, interesting NPCs to interact with. Feats and gunfights are cool. But when the players start talking in character with each other, arguing really, the game is playing well. As the GM I found my job was to be mindful of when I should interject and prod some forward action and when best to stay out of it and let the players talk their way into their next actions. Horror is tough. The intro adventure provided in the quick-start rules offers a good set up for players to get right into the complications the game sets up for the PCs. The end horror element is good. It's reveal was built up well and came at the right time in the action. I would have no problem recommending Delta Green for those wanting to play contemporary horror roleplaying!