Category Archives: RPG

Thunderbirds the RPG

RPG

What must be two or three years ago now, I got the Kickstarter copy of Thunderbirds the co-operative board game that I had backed. It was all in, so I had all the planned expansions along with the base game.

Much to my shame, the game has never hit the table since it arrived. Despite it being a genre that I enjoy, a theme I grew up with and love, and by a game designer I like.

I’m going to paint an image now that you will never be able to get out of your head. Copious amounts of alcohol will not work.

Yesterday I was looking for something to read in the bath. I love having a relaxed soak and a read. As you know recently I’ve been reading a lot of stuff about RPG’s. Then I remembered one of the expansions that came with the board game was an RPG.

So there I was yesterday morning soaking in my bath, reading the A5 rule book for the Thunderbirds RPG.

The RPG expansion gets you the following for your money:

  • 2 x custom Thunderbirds d6 dice
  • 56 Page RPG Book
  • 63 Card Mission Generator Deck

But as the extract from the rule book shows you can (well they say that you should) use bits of the board game itself to enhance the experience.

The actual system Modiphius have come up with is a very simple d6 system. Which would not actually take much to move over to the Genesys system. The Genesys system would be a great system to use for this.

Instead of the bonus tokens that the rules use for giving a bonus to a dice roll, a story point would work just as well. The limited skills used would easily cross over. The rules use default characters that naturally are from the show. I don’t see transferring these to Genesys characters being a problem.

The benefits of moving to Genesys would be the narrative dice, the improved combat (which is very very simple in the RPG rules) and social encounters. Plus it would be easier to do skill challenges. Which I think would be awesome in this game.

‘The random Thunderbirds Mission Generator deck will help you create exciting missions for your players or help inspire devious new schemes to test your players to the limit!” There are basically tables in the rulebook as well that cover some of the cards, that can be used for generating ideas also. But you are rolling a d6, looking on a table to decide on an emergency to deal with, then repeating for where the emergency is happening and so on. Which having not seen the Android chapter with their mix and match adventure creation, sounds similar in principle. Except instead you are rolling a die, and I don’t see why you couldn’t also do that with the Android stuff.

I don’t see this Thunderbirds RPG as a campaign thing, but more as a one shot you’d run every now and again as a break from a groups regular campaign, or as an intro to RPG’s for noobs.

You don’t really need to use the board game. It helps. But there are some fantastic Thunderbirds toys available (or used to be), especially of the iconic vehicles. I did check out the available figures for the 7TV miniatures skirmish game. Sadly no Thunderbird like ones. Although their Captain Scarlet ones sparked the idea of a spin off adventure. As did The Prisoner minis they had. Oh that would be soooo cool.

Having said all this, the Thunderbirds RPG or a Genesys version is something that interests me because I love Thunderbirds. I grew up watching them. And would love to visit that universe from time to time.

If you’d like a copy of the RPG expansion you can get it from the publisher for £4.99! Plus whatever they charge for postage.

Pick and Mix Your Adventure Comes To The Android Universe

netrunner, RPG

I think the arrival of the Android universe source book Shadow of the Beanstalk for the Genesys RPG system is imminent.

I’ve read online that one or two people who pre-ordered directly from FFG have notification that their order is on the way.

Which I’m hoping means that the copies stores will be sending out won’t be too far behind.

In the last few days a post has dropped looking at the source book from the point of view of the GM.

The original information announcing the Shadow of the Beanstalk only mentioned that there would be a chapter to help GM’s creature adventures.

Finally in the last post we are given a bit more meat to chew over before getting our grubby mitts on the book.

“The final chapter in Shadow of the Beanstalk describes how to bring these characters and situations to life as the Game Master. Through unique social encounters and an adventure builder included in the sourcebook, you can bring the conspiracies and intrigue of the Android universe to your tabletop.”

From the description below that FFG are giving us a system that works a bit like chose one from column a, one from column b, and one from column c, and that’s your unique adventure.

“Through selecting a variety of hooks, escalations, and climaxes provided in the book, Game Masters can create modular adventure frameworks, complete with twists, turns, and moral quandaries for the party to face. These modular adventure acts can be rejiggered and combined in new and interesting ways. A hook can be replayed several times with a completely different escalation and climax, resulting in a wildly different adventure. With enough change in set dressing, even the same old hook can feel completely different!”

From what I can tell we are still getting the three act structure (which will be covered in a bit more depth in an imminent post). Except they are calling them something different. The hook is Act 1, the escalation Act 2, and finally Act 3 is the climax.

In the post FFG give us a bit more info about each of the acts.

“No matter where your adventure is headed, it starts with the hook—a starting concept to get your players moving into a broader adventure. Each hook consists of three major parts; the primary goal, the challenges, and the twist. The primary goal is what your PCs are trying to accomplish, the challenges are what stand in the character’s way, the twist is an unexpected complication that take characters by surprise. These hooks can range from an airplane heist job to tracking down a rogue experimental clone, and they simply form the basis for an adventure.

An escalation is a rise, either in the stakes or in the difficulty of the adventure, and it’s usually the point where the waters of morality beomce muddy. There is often a plot twist of some kind that shows the players that the milk run they signed up for isn’t as cut and dried as advertised. Perhaps a third party gets involved in the job—whether it’s a rival corporation or an orgcrime faction, this complicates things for your players and creates new challenges.”

Finally, the climax generally represents how the most powerful organization involved wants to attempt to resolve the issue. This organization is probably a powerful corporation or orgcrime faction, but it could also be a religious group or a government. It could be that a higher-up just discovered the actions of their underlings, and orders a radically different course of action. Perhaps the organization decides to cut their losses, silencing everyone involved in the operation, or maybe they decide to place their bets in court, calling in the NAPD to cause trouble for everyone involved. While the climax represents how the most powerful organization wants events to unfold, the players still have the agency to determine how their adventure will end.

With a full data vault of hooks, escalations, and climaxes to choose from and improvise with, Shadow of the Beanstalk is the perfect starting point to your own cyberpunk adventure in the Android universe or beyond!”

It’s interesting that there wasn’t this equivalent chapter in the Terrinoth source book. Maybe FFG assume that with the wealth of fantasy based content out there that there was less of a need.

But this final chapter does sound like an interesting and welcome addition to the tools that a GM can use for creating their adventures in the Android universe. I particularly like the improvise they mention. Being able to quickly make up an adventure on the fly in response to players decisions will be a great tool to have if needed. I can see it being handy for generating one off adventures for the “gaps” between story arcs of an ongoing campaign.

While I’ve been writing these posts on creating a campaign and adventures I’ve been giving more thought to my plans for my first time as a GM and my first steps in the Android universe.

At about the same time as the source book drops, I’m expecting that the taster adventure will also go up on their website. My guess is that this will be the two part adventure they took to GenCon and Pax Unplugged.

So before I go full knees deep in, I want to see what this taster adventure is like. The plan is to run this first.

Where the taster adventure finishes, and the feelings of the group will dictate the further planning.

For me there are some nice events and themes within the Android universe that I’d like to explore or act as a back drop to a campaign/adventure. I’ll probably talk about those in another post also. FFG have such a rich setting in the Android universe, I can’t wait to share it with others.

Planning the Campaign

D&D, netrunner, RPG


Welcome to the next post in my series looking into planning campaigns and adventures for a role playing game. In particular I’m getting ready to start planning adventures for a party of adventurers in the Android universe for the FFG Genesys system.

I briefly mentioned in a previous post that FFG don’t publish scenarios/campaigns for their Genesys system outside of the initial taster scenario they put up on their website for each source book.

So if I want to run a one shot or campaign using the Genesys system then it’s all on me to come up with the everything (if I’m not using one of the available source books). This is a big thing for a noob GM like me, who has still to run a session.

Luckily as I’ve already established a lot of the work for me will have been done by FFG when they publish the source book for the Android universe. What is left for me to do is to come up with the campaign.

I keep bandying the term campaign around but what exactly is a campaign? The D&D Dungeon Masters Guide defines a campaign as:

“…When strung together, these adventures form an ongoing campaign. A D&D campaign can include dozens of adventures and last for months or years.”

It also gives the following advice in the opening of the campaign chapter.

“The world you create is the stage for the adventures you set in it. You don’t have to give more thought to it than that. You can run adventures in an episodic format,with the characters as the only common element, and also weave themes throughout those adventures to build a greater saga of the characters’ achievements in the world.

Planning an entire campaign might seem like a daunting task, but you don’t have to plot out every detail right from the start. You can start with the basics, running a few adventures, and think about larger plotlines you want to explore as the campaign progresses. You’re free to add as much or as little detail a you wish.

The start of a campaign resembles the start of an adventure. You want to jump quickly into the action,how the players that adventure awaits, and grab their attention right away. Give the players enough information to make them want to come back week after week to see how the story plays out.”

A lot of the campaign chapter is about planning the details of the world that the adventurers will be spending their time in. Which is kind of not relevant to this discussion and my current planning. Although once the Android source book is out the majority if not all of that has been dealt with.

With the definition that I have of a campaign what tools can I use from the comic book world to help with the planning of my campaign? I think that I can. If we treat adventures as an issue of a comic book. A campaign can be seen as similar to an ongoing series, miniseries, or maxiseries depending on how long you want the campaign to run for.

The miniseries and maxiseries have a definite end, whilst naturally the ongoing series just keeps going.

With a campaign length in mind I need to look at story arcs.

O’Neil defines a story arc as “...a story that takes several issues to tell.” Which in our context could be rewritten as “a story that takes several adventures to tell.”

How do story arcs map to the length of a campaign?

If the campaign is one of the finite lengths (miniseries and maxiseries) then the story arc would cover the length of the campaign. For instance a miniseries length campaign being the shorter of the two would most likely have just the single story arc. Whilst the longer maxiseries may have multiple story arcs. Naturally the ongoing campaign will have multiple story arcs, potentially interspersed with single one off adventures. Which may or may not be set ups for future story arcs!

When working with story arcs O’Neil gives the following bits of advice:

  • ‘…reintroduce characters and locales if they haven’t appeared for a few issues when doing an arc…” Pretty good advice. Players may have forgotten, not made notes, whatever the reason, if a character/locale hasn’t appeared for a session/adventure or two, a brief description or role play to remind them won’t hurt.
  • A rule from his miniseries section that is relevant to what I’m doing here (planning a story arc for a RPG) is “There must be a major change, development, or reverse in every issue. This is just another version of the ‘keep-the-story-moving’ dictum. Something important must happen in every issue of the series. Each must have at least one turning point or surprise. And in each, the hero must either accomplish or learn something.”
  • “Each issue should end on a reason for the reader to continue buying the series” or in our terms, give your players a reason to keep coming back. O’Neil suggests good old fashioned cliff-hangers (those 1930’s serials were experts at this) or something a bit more subtle.
  • “…incorporate a brief summary of what’s gone before.” A good GM does this at the start of each session naturally. Edmund does it on the Facebook event and at the start of the each session.

The first and least sophisticated is as O’Neil calls it the One-Damn-Thing-After-Another. It’s based on one of those 1930’s serials like Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers or King of the Rocketmen to name a handful.

O’Neil actually looks at this in the story structure section, but I think it applies also to the more macro campaign level also. This is just a series of encounters with an antagonist (who will somehow evade capture, or get free for the next encounter). At the macro level we are currently looking at this structure is best suited to the shorter campaign length. As an ongoing campaign it would soon get boring and repetitive.

Then O’Neil introduces The Levitz Paradigm. Which looks great for an ongoing campaign. In the words of the Paul Levitz himself this is…

“a plotting tool I used in the Legion’s heyday to keep track of the many fluid plots and subplots.  The physical ‘device’ is pretty simple, and the theory is one that was rapidly evolving in super hero comics in the ‘80s but which has deep roots in soap opera.”

I’m just going to save my fingers and quote from the man himself off his post. It’s not the most detailed explanation but google and O’Neil can cover the details in more depth for us.

“If the ‘paradigm’ was anything beyond a charting tool, it was a few (sometimes ignored by me, sadly) guidelines:”

“start your secondary plots low and raise them slowly (maybe as a C or D plot before it gets to be a B, much less an A).
every time you visit a plotline, it needs to progress in that visit (if it’s boy meets sheep, one of them should end the scene in an emotional moment, for example).
vary the number of beats before you escalate to an A.

And all of this is, of course, secondary to basic plotting rules like making stakes important to the characters, and flowing plots from the characters themselves.  Or one that I’ve grown fonder of in my recent years of teaching, that what reveals/defines character is choices, particularly choices with costs.”

Within the context of planning a campaign subplots are our means to “set up or introduce the main plot.” So during an adventure an npc may give a bit of information that is relevant later to a future adventure.

I do like the idea of nicking the subplot use from comic books of using them also to expand the world the characters are in, and make the npc’s more three dimensional by showing snippets of their lives. Which could at a later point turn into a story arc that the players get involved in.

O’Neil asks us to remember “Subplots are plots. They must advance toward a resolution, or at least the illusion of a resolution.”

So now I have some tools for planning a campaign from the comic book world. But could I also learn from the video game industry and how they create games like Skyrim or Zelda Breathe of the Wild? Is there cross over with what I have talked about here? This is an area I need to research. In the meantime the next part in this series will be at the adventure level, and planning an adventure.

The Paranoia Version Of How To Plan An Adventure

D&D, RPG

In yesterday’s post before going into the dramatic ramblings about the latest D&D session I promised to use the first half looking at how to plan campaigns and adventures. Or more to the point the process I will use that will involve a few sources out side of RPGs that I think are relevant and I can borrow from.

One of the things that got me thinking that these were valid sources of information was the Creating Adventures Quickly chapter in the 2017 update of the classic Paranoia RPG Gamesmasters Handbook. On an aside I think this is definitely a chapter that James Wallis (one of the authors of the update) wrote, after all this is a subject he knows an awful lot about.

It started off making the following promise that they would present a

“simple system for throwing a small pile of ideas into a coherent narrative that will entertain a bunch of people for three hours as long as there’s pizza.”

Quite a promise. Ok we haven’t got round to pizza at our sessions. But there are lots of sweets, and sometimes due to the start time one or two are finishing off a KFC or McDonalds. But back on track, simple is always good.

“All stories break down into a number of elements. Books have chapters, plays have acts and scenes. That’s all we’re doing here: taking the underlying framework of an adventure – the metastructure – and filling in the blanks. But to fill in blanks you need a blank framework to fill in.”

Ok they hooked me in. Started to relate the planning to something I might be familiar with. For this system all we need is a blank piece of paper, a pen or pencil and our imagination.

The start of this simple system they present is coming up with a theme for the adventure.

“What’s the big idea? What’s the adventure about? Write one line here. Ignore what your English Literature teacher told you: theme doesn’t have to be about big feels and personal growth, it’s just the layer of fertilizer that lets everything else in the story grow.”

This next little bit seems almost brainstorming like.

“Write your theme at the top of the paper. Underneath it, write down the first three things that occur to you as a result.”

Now they move onto the meat of the simple framework.

“You’ve probably heard of the Three Act Structure that is supposed to underlie all movies. We’re going to nick it.”

Oh ok I’ve heard of that structure, and one or two more (which when we start to look at story structure in a later post we will cover). It was this sentence that got me convinced about using external sources to help me with the planning.

“The three acts are: 1. Setup; 2. Confrontation; 3. Resolution. Each act has a job: Act 1 establishes the status quo, gives the central characters a problem or danger … The core of Act 2 is rising tension. Act 3 is discovering what’s really going on, thinking you’ve fixed it, realising you’ve screwed things up completely, really fixing it…

In proper screenwriting something important should happen at the moment Act 1 transitions into Act 2 and the moment 2 becomes 3. These are the Act Breaks. However, we are not writing a screenplay.”

That is a good basic and brief breakdown of the three act structure. There are books aimed at writers that look at this in much more depth. And for shadowing once more a future post, so will we.

So in this simple system they have us do the following.

“Divide your paper into three columns. Number them. At the top of each one write three things that happen in that act, either a key moment (‘find the grubby slippers’), a set-piece (‘big fight with the warbot’), or important information to be discovered (‘learn about Gehenna Incident’).

For an experienced GM that’s enough and the rest can be laid at the door of Make Some Shit Up. The rest of us may need a bit more hand-holding, a bit more detail in the metastucture.”

After that they apply the typical structure of a Paranoia adventure to the three acts. Which is for my purposes of little interest (until I finally decide to run a Paranoia one shot of my own design).

However this seems like a great simple brainstorming system. Applying a framework such as the three acts helps organise those thoughts. But it also could help generate ideas by providing a prompt or focus.

Naturally after this brainstorming/planning there will be more prep involved for us inexperienced GMs. But I’ll save that for a future post, I’m sure we will cover it at a natural point in this series of posts.

Dram the destroyer of goblins

D&D, RPG


In this first part of the post and it will be a running theme for the next few posts, I want to look at planning campaigns and adventures.

I’m not a GM, I don’t have tonnes of experience. But once the Android source book drops for Genesys I want to run a campaign in that universe.

Which as you have seen in some recent posts I’m getting together source material and inspiration to use in creating my own campaign and adventures in that world.

To help me in this mammoth task, I’m calling on not just information from within the field of RPG’s but also from comic book writing. Which in-turn makes use of the cinematic/tv world.

To me there are a few similarities between writing a comic book and a RPG campaign. Both are episodic, and usually have an over arching story that ties everything together. So the tools for one should be usable in the other. And we will see how that goes and if it holds true as I develop my campaign, and adventures.

Below are a few of the sources I will be calling upon for this series, and my journey in creating my campaign.

So now you know the direction this section of the post will be taking over the next few weeks. Although as I write this, it may spin out into it’s own dedicated posts as well. We will see how the mood takes me.

And now the moment you have all been waiting for, the dramatic retelling of the latest adventures of Dram, halfling wizard.

As the blood of the recently departed hobgoblins was pooling on the ground next to the corpses. A discussion was being held by the group as to what to do next.

Dram needed to recharge and recover from the stress and strains of casting all these big spells. But Grull, Ace and the gnome decided that they would compete in some foolish demonstration of strength by trying to throw the remaining three hobgoblin corpses into the pit.

Out of the three taking part, the smart money would have been placed on Grull winning this. What chance would an elf and gnome have against the hulking brute of muscle that was Grull? But what can only be described as a shock result, Ace won. Grull slipped and fumbled trying to toss his corpse (yes that could be a halfling euphemism). The gnome was more of a drag the corpse into the hole. Ace picked his limp hobgoblin corpse up, and threw it through the air and into the hole as if he was throwing a bag of spuds.

With the hole now full with hobgoblin corpses, the three competitors decided they’d set the pile of bodies on fire. With the aid of Nick and a fire bolt spell they finally got the burning pile of hobgoblin flesh they wanted.

Dram wasn’t impressed. This was wasting time and attracting attention. They really needed to be moving on and finding a safe place to rest.

They left the carnage behind them and faded into the forest. Hoping to avoid any more trouble that might be on the path they were following.

Finally the group made camp roughly a mile south of the ambush in a clearing. It was going to be a long, cold night. They couldn’t risk a fire. Wrapped in his fur and blanket, Dram drifted off into an uncomfortable slumber.

Dawn broke, breaking the darkness of an uneventful night.

The things I have to do, thought Dram as he chewed his cold breakfast of jerky.

After breaking camp they approached a castle. A castle that looked like it had seen better times, and was now in much need of some repair.

Ace went off scouting the perimeter of the castle looking for entrances, and see if he could spot anyone inside.

After a few minutes Ace returned and retold what he had saw and heard. There was a man and women arguing inside. Plus he had found a couple of entrances.

In hush tones the group discussed how they were going to get inside.

Eventually after much indecision they started to stealthily edge their way round through the trees to an iron door. Sadly Nick and the gnome were what can only be described as clumsy and loud. A travelling troupe of entertainers could have been more discrete.

While observing the iron door, and once again trying to formulate a plan. Ace crept up to check the door out. He heard voices the other side. That blood thirsty gnome wanted to rush in the front door and fight whatever came out.

Suddenly the iron door opened a fraction. Something peeked out. Closed the door, and the noise of bolts falling into place could be heard.

Through the front doors it was then.

Nick turned into horse and trotted up through the front doors of the castle, whilst the rest of the party from the cover of the trees watched on. Dram used his staff to cast Mage Armour.

Two goblins appeared and tried to capture Nick. I suppose fresh meat is in short supply in these parts. Horse is good as any to a goblin, thought Dram.

During the goblins failed attempts to capture Nick they spot Dram. Luckily Grull and Ace were quick off the mark. Ace kills one with an arrow, while Grull dashes forward and throws his javelin into the other killing it.

Using Grull as cover Dram ran up and stood behind Grull. But as he stood there he caught a shadow moving to his left. Dram cast magic missile at it. The shadow disappeared.

Ace and Grull enter the castle where Nick is. As the rest of the party join them, Ace is listening at a door. He hears voices the other side.

After much mumbling amongst themselves a plan is formulated to lure the occupants of the room out and ambush them.

Grull, Ace and Dram hide in a small side room, while the others went to hide in a similar room the opposite of the hallway. Except the gnome. He decided he was going to hide nearer the door. But he didn’t. The gnome set off a trap that collapsed the roof where he was, blocking that section of the hallway off.

Luckily for the gnome he managed to drag himself out from under the rubble before a goblin rushes out of the room they’d heard the voices in. Grull, Ace and Dram go unnoticed as it rushed passed them. Sadly the second goblin was not as lucky, as Grull kills it instantly with his axe, and then rushes into the vacated room. The luck of the first goblin didn’t last as Ace put an arrow in it’s back, killing it.

Dram followed after Grull into the room. Inside Grull was staring down a goblin. Dram tried unsuccessfully to cast a charm spell on it. But Grull was doing a pretty good job of intimidating it. So Dram worked his way down a passage way behind them and peaked round a corner.

In a hall that was obviously used for meals, were about six more goblins as far as Dram could count in the brief moment he had. Unfortunately one of the goblins noticed him. Dram cast darkness on them. And went back to Grull to warn him.

In a half hearted effort Grull managed to dislodge some of the passage roof, creating only a partial blockage.

Out of the darkness and over the top of the rubble a goblin appears and swings at Dram. But the goblin misses. It was the only chance it would get. In response Dram kills it with a magic missile, and uses a final one to bring the rest of the roof down. This time the passage was fully blocked with a small gap at the top.

Grull runs out of the room to go help the others, leaving Dram in the room with the goblin. This was enough to give the goblin a little bit of courage, and fancy it’s chances with Dram. The goblin throws its scimitar at Dram but misses.

Ace rushes in and grabs the goblin by the throat before Dram can react. Dangling by it’s throat Ace starts to interrogate the goblin.

During this interrogation Grull enters the room, and expresses his disappointment in the goblin to the goblin.

In the meantime Dram formulated a cunning plan. He got Grull to lift him up so,he could see through the gap at the top of the blockage. Dram then cast burning hands. Flames shot from his finger tips into the darkness of the hall. They could hear screams from the room. Dram repeated the spell. It was followed by more screams, then silence.

Grull was impressed by this magic. And started formulating plans about using in future encounters.

After extracting some information from the goblin, apparently there is an owl bear in the castle. Ace killed it.

Dram joined the others in the hall way. Scattered on the floor were the bodies of some hobgoblins. It looked like the others had been having their own fun. Why hadn’t they waited for him? Now his companions were looting the dead. Such scavengers,

With all that casting of spells, Dram was in much need of a rest. Would the others agree?

And we leave our adventurers there until the next instalment.

Getting in the mood for the Android Universe

netrunner, RPG

By now I think I’ve established that I’m a fan of the Android universe, and cyberpunk in general.

This post is nothing but notes for myself to remind me of films and tv shows that are in the cyberpunk genre, or touch relevant themes, that I want to rewatch.

One or two of the movies will have been I’m sure a major influence on the Android Universe.

I’m not claiming these are the best examples of the genre, they are ones I’ve seen (apart from Alita Battle Angel – which isn’t out yet, but I love the manga and really looking forward to this) and enjoyed.

There is even a troll poster amongst them, because I meant to put the original in not the remake.

Which movies would you recommend to add to this list?

Android Story Ideas Part 1

RPG

During the past week I joined a Facebook group for running Genesys Android Universe Games.

I was hoping that there might be illicit copies of the two part scenario that FFG ran at GenCon and Pax Unplugged showcasing the Android Universe and the upcoming source book.

Alas I was disappointed.

If I have one complaint about the Genesys system, particularly once they have released a source book is the lack of scenarios.

I understand why there are none for the actually Genesys Core Rulebook. After all it’s a generic rule set. The intention is that using the generic rules you go off and build worlds and run your campaigns in those.

However when they release source books for Terrinoth (their fantasy setting) or the upcoming Android Universe (their cyberpunk setting) they put out a “taster” scenario on the website as a pdf (I’m making the assumption FFG will put up the two part scenario they have been using), and that’s it.

It almost seems like bare minimal support for the systems compared to the likes of WotC and D&D.

Are FFG caught in a chicken and egg situation? More people would use the system if there were more readily available campaigns/scenarios. But FFG need more people playing before they produce more campaigns/scenarios. A vicious circle.

I’m not even going to mention about GM screens, or range of miniatures. Ok the Terrinoth one is easier to do, re-use D&D/fantasy stuff or use models from Descent. But Android? It’s much harder to find cyberpunk miniatures. However there are some out there.

Anyway back to the Facebook group I joined. I came across the following post:


Genius and so obvious!

So I decided to look at the other none lcg Android games to see if their premise would potentially make a good setting for a scenario/campaign in the Android Universe.

The most potential in my opinion out of the remaining games was…

Android the Board Game

“In the futuristic city of New Angeles, five detectives are investigating a vital murder case. They are:

• Caprice Nisei, Psychic Clone

• Floyd 2X3A7C, Doubting Bioroid

• Louis Blaine, Corrupt Cop

• Rachel Beckmann, Estranged Bounty Hunter

• Raymond Flint, Troubled P.I.

In Android, three to five players each take on the role of one of these detectives, and are given two weeks to solve the case. They investigate the murder by traveling around the map and following up leads to discover evidence that they can use to convict the suspect who they believe is guilty. In addition, they attempt to uncover the conspiracy behind the murder and deal with problems that spring up in their personal lives.”

This gives you a party structure for the campaign (I probably wouldn’t use the characters, just the roles), plus if you have a copy of the game, or can get one there are cards etc within the game that can be used for ideas for the victim, suspects etc.

Mainframe

The abstract game Mainframe is all about hacking/running during a particular event in the Android universe. The implications were explored in the card game in the Flash Point cycle.

“For twenty-three seconds, the world’s largest bank and backer of the world’s most important currency goes dark. Trillions of credits are lost, stolen, or simply erased. Each corp blames the others. Economies, industries, lives collapse. And that’s just the beginning.”

Until the source book becomes available, with I’m assuming it’s enhanced hacking/running rules, I’m not sure how viable a scenario of a group of runners hacking a server is. So the twenty-three seconds event may or may not be a viable setting.

However the Flash Point cycle could make a great back drop to a campaign. I’d like the flavour sheets from the data packs for this to help flesh it out. But also the FFG webpages for the data cycle could help out on this front.

New Angeles

This is too high level. “New Angeles is a political game in which four to six players assume the roles of the megacorporations of the Android universe. The players cut deals and forge temporary alliances to gain leverage and financial superiority over their corporate rivals, all while trying to maintain order and profitability in their home city of New Angeles.”

I think the only take away from this game is you could have the players part of a corporate team going on missions to protect and advance their employers.

One thing all these games have in their rule books is a nice introductory bit of flavour text that can be read to the party at the start of the scenario/campaign to help set the scene.

In the second part of this post I’ll look at the Netrunner cycles and deluxe expansions.

Up the beanstalk!

netrunner, RPG

I have a soft spot for the now deceased Android Netrunner lcg, despite having sold out of it at what retrospectively looks like the right time.

I loved the game play, it was so thematic. The whole runner aka hacker vs the big mega corporation. Trying to infiltrate their way into the corporate servers and steal their agendas. And it really felt as the runner that was what you were doing. Whilst as the corporation you were trying to stop the runner and protect your agendas.

The whole Android universe that it was set in was so rich, and dystopian. It had the whole Bladerunner aesthetic to it. Classic cyberpunk. Which I’ve been a big fan of since the mid eighties.

At some point in the near future (hopefully) FFG will be releasing their Genesys RPG source book for the Android universe, Shadow of the Beanstalk. I’m rather excited about having the opportunity to visit the Android universe again. Especially if I can convince some-one else to GM. But in reality it will most likely be myself being the GM. So I thought I would do a post about sources of background information (or should that be inspiration?) for the world of Android that GM’s and players a like can use.

We’ll start with the published fiction. I think all these are available digitally. FFG have been producing these rather nice novellas (read short stories). The physical versions of you can find them are hardback, and nicely produced. The stories are around 90-100 pages in length, with a short author bio. Then a few pages of background info about the Android universe relevant to the setting of the story. Which is rather nice for what we want. I’ve got Monitor and Exodus and they are quiet enjoyable stories. Oh and it should be noted Undercity isn’t out yet, but available to pre-order.

The novels are much older, I’ve not got hold of physical versions (which I’d love to do at some point). Plus I’ve only read Strange Flesh and Free Fall. Which I found very enjoyable.

But the one book you do want is The Worlds of Android. FFG describe it as the

“…definitive guide to the Android setting and its unique vision of the future. A beautiful, 272-page hardbound setting guide and art book, The Worlds of Android features full-color art, stunning gatefolds, and a polyphony of narrative voices that convey the immense diversity of human experience in the rich, fictional universe made famous by Android: Netrunner and the Android board game.”


I totally agree with that description. Naturally I haven’t seen the Shadow of the Beanstalk. But I’m assuming this will be the perfect companion to it.

With the data packs and deluxe expansions (iirc) there were flavour inserts. Which might be useful. One or two were extracts from the novels. They might be worth trying to track copies down. I do regret not keeping the ones I had.

Plus there was some great flavour text on the cards. It would be worth googling for card images and making notes of ones you like. Especially for npc’s that your players might come across.

So there you have it some sources for extra background information for an amazing universe. I hope that helped.

Baby Kraken Have Surfaced

D&D, RPG


Finally the Table Breaker dice that I backed on Kickstarter arrived. I say finally, but that’s me being impatient once I knew that they were coming.

In reality the dice are two months early. I shouldn’t be getting these dice until sometime in February. However thanks to a bit of good luck and filling in my backer details early, I was, along with 140 other lucky regular backers getting our dice early along with the early bird backers.

I went with the black and red colour combo. It looks cool, but more importantly it’s very readable. I’ve seen some dice that the numbers are not that clear.


The dice are beautiful, and have a nice weight to them. The whole presentation is really good. The metal storage case can have the foam for the dice in the lower half removed and be used as a mini dice tray. My only complaint is that the hinge seems a bit too wobbly.

But how did I ended up with these amazing dice?

It started as a joke! Longtime sufferers will recall that last year The Usual Suspect broke my folding gaming table. Which meant that one or two of my supportive friends in my hour of suffering, used that opportunity to make jokes at my expense. Some would consider this cruel, but it was good natured banter in reality.

The day after, my friend Bouncy posted a screen grab of a kickstarter page for these dice on the club Facebook page. I missed the intended joke totally, and went off looking for the dice, cursing my friend for not including the link. Naturally I liked what I saw and backed the project.

It wasn’t until much later in the day when Jonathan commented on Bouncy’s post that he had only just got the joke, that it dawned on me also. Wow how slow was I? But it was funny, and had also cost me money. Well it would do (the Kickstarter hadn’t finished at that point), I could have backed out of backing the dice. But they looked really cool, and the name was cool also. So I let it ride.

I suppose you would like to hear what Dram got up to in the first session of the New Year. So read on for more in the adventures of …

Dram Tactical Genius


Our party of adventurers awoke the next morning, sore, beaten, but more importantly not stinking of poison.

While the others in the group pottered around, Dram did what was second nature for him. He made and ate breakfast.

Breakfast was followed by a boring discussion about what to do next. Ace and some others in the group wanted to go to Cragmaw Castle. No one seemed on board with Dram’s idea about seeing the dragon again. Which seemed the more exciting option. Where was the fun going to some castle? Apparently there was some guy they had to search for there. Who might have a map to a lost mine. This really didn’t sound as much fun as Dram’s idea of seeing the dragon again.

Out voted, the group broke count and headed off towards Cragmaw Castle.

They were travelling light and fast. Which for a halfling was more like jogging along to keep up with these big folk. How that gnome and his heavy armour was keeping up he didn’t know. In the distance Dram could here the wings of the dragon flapping as it flew above it’s domain. Which for Dram was a constant reminder of the excitement they were missing out on.

Early evening the group pitch camp near the edge of a woods. After the evening meal, before settling down for the night. There was another debate about the path to take. Sarmyar made an incredulous remark during it that Dram had to pick her up on. She had remarked at one point that she wanted excitement, to which Dram responded “but you turned down seeing the dragon again”. That put her in her place he thought.

Sarmyar and Ace took first watch. Dram snuggled up under his blanket and fur skin blanket, and drifted off into a slumber.

The next thing Dram knows he is being woken by a commotion, Ace and Sarmyar had awakened the camp, they were under attack.

Dram could make out shapes and flapping. He cast darkness to hide and give him time to prepare his defences.

Unable to see, Dram felt around for his staff. With battle noises filtering through to him. Dram used the staff to give himself mage’s armour.

Fully protected and now ready for action, Dram made his way out of the darkness. The rest of the group were still fighting these creatures. Magic missiles flew from Dram’s hand as he guided them to hit the creatures attacking Nick, Sarmyar and the gnome. They dropped to the floor dead.

Dram had once again saved the day.

As they waited for the darkness to disappear. Dram looked at the creatures corpses. He recognised the small, leather winged blood sucking stirge.

The final watch after all that excitement was carried out by Dram, Grull and Nick. Which was rather boring, and uneventful.

As the sun rose in the sky, slowly warming up everything it touched, Grull and Sarmyar disappeared off to do a spot of hunting. Dram naturally made breakfast.

After breakfast had been eaten, and Dram’s thoughts had started to turn towards second breakfast. The hunting couple returned with a boar over Grull’s shoulders. Second breakfast was going to be awesome.

After breakfast Ace had the bright idea of taking a short cut through the woods to Cragmaw Castle.

Light was dappling through the overhead canopy. The walk was rather pleasant. The party hit a path that they decided to follow.

Suddenly Sarmyar disappeared into a hole in the ground. Dram reacted instinctively casting feather fall to save Sarmyar.

As the party gathered round the hole in the ground, hobgoblins appeared out from behind trees and bushes. Arrows flew through the air. One struck Dram.

There was only one response Dram had to this. Misty Step. Dram disappeared and then reappeared the other side of the hole Sarmyar had fallen into. Before anyone reacted or could do anything, for the second time in two days Dram was engulfed in a wall of darkness.

Once again whilst hidden, Dram used his staff to give him mage’s armour. He was ready now for this battle. The noises of which were making their way through the darkness. It sounded exciting.

Dram slowly made his way to the edge of the darkness. Poking his head out he saw the pit directly in front of him, now half full with hobgoblin corpses.

There were two hobgoblins attacking a dire wolf. Nick had transformed again and as usual getting himself into a sticky situation. Dram casts magic missile and directs them at the two hobgoblins, then fades back into the darkness. Well you need to see something first to hit it.

Dram repeats the manoeuvre. This time there is a single hobgoblin left attacking the dire wolf, and a cleaved hobgoblin corpse between the dire wolf and Grull. That lone hobgoblin took the full force of the magic missile. It’s body slumped to the ground, expired.

Gnomes are such carrion-scavengers. Our “paladin” was true to his race, and rushed over to go through the pockets of the hobgoblin that Dram had just killed.

Dram was concerned about Sarmyar. He didn’t think she had bumped her head from her fall, after all he had saved her. Which she could have been grateful about and at least said thank you. Maybe she got hit on the head during the excitement of battle. That’s what is had to be. Why else would she keep going on about a dust cloud, and waiting for it to disappear? There was no dust cloud.

The gnome went over to Grull and showed him a bit of paper that he had found on the hobgoblin corpse.

Feeling brave Ace went looting the remaining bodies. Who then starts handing out pieces of paper to the rest of the group.

Dram looked at the piece of paper handed to him. It was a wanted poster with his likeness crudely drawn on it. “I’m going going to send that back to mother, she’ll like this”, spoke Dram to no-one in particular.


If Dram thought gnomes were carrion-scavengers, Ace was going to make what the paladin had done look like the height of good taste.

Ace started hacking off one of the hobgoblins heads, and then tied it to his belt using the remains of the hobgoblins hair.

With that image firmly in your mind we leave our adventurers for another week.

Use Any Miniature Systems

miniatures, RPG

One trend or genre I seem to have stumbled upon In recent weeks is that of miniature rules that you can use any 28mm miniatures with. These are rules that you use whatever you have lying around, and don’t rely on you having to buy starter sets, or construct “armies” from only official models, or buy lots of extra specific rules aimed at specific army types.

The first rule set I came across in this genre was via my friend Duncan. He tweeted a link to the rules for Last Days: Zombie Apocalypse. Duncan knew with my liking of Zombicide that it might be of interest to me.

It’s the ideal entry point for me, because I can use my Zombicide stuff. It even got me painting minis (mainly zombies so far) from Zombicide (although I need to get back into the painting mood, not been feeling it since the Summer).

So Last Days is a zombie survival skirmish game. Both players have a squad of survivors that will be fighting it out with the added threat of zombies roaming about on the board.

The rules have about 5 scenarios for you to use as the basis for a skirmish or to string together into a campaign. Plus there is a planned expansion coming out later this year I think with further scenarios in, and whatever else they decide to include.

The game plays on a 3ft by 3ft play area, uses d6 dice, some miniatures, terrain, tokens or something to act as the tokens, and a tape measure.

The latest one to find it’s way to me is the Rangers of Shadow Deep system. This is a fantasy based solo or cooperative rule set. Which as far as I know makes this kind of unique. There aren’t many systems as far as I know that play solo, or are cooperative, if any.

The rules come with 4 missions that have sub scenarios, plus an additional campaign setting. So a lot of play there already, plus you can buy a cheap mini expansion single mission.

For playing this, it differs from Last Days in that it uses d20 dice instead, and is mostly played on a 2.5ft by 2.5ft area. Otherwise you have the same themed requirements.

For me not being a massive miniatures gamer, I’m coming from a zero starting point. Which means I’m having to build up slowly the necessary bits to play with.

For Last Days I’m in a better position than I am for Rangers of Shadow Deep. Last Days allows me to use all the stuff I have for Zombicide. With the Walking Dead miniatures game I can pick up stuff for that to re-use. And that is what I have slowly been gathering bits for.

On the fantasy front I have zero stuff to repurpose. Although stuff like trees (once I have them) can be shared. So when funds allow I’ll slowly build up what is required.

If you are into the miniature based gaming it’s likely that you already have a lot of stuff you can use.

For me I’d like trees, bushes etc, I’ve looked into the cost of buying and boy is that stuff expensive. There are tutorials online for creating my own. But (there is always a but) I don’t have the tools, skills or time. Excuses I know. However I’m struggling to paint as it is at the moment.

One drawback for me, is these games require tokens. Luckily for Last Days I found some pre-made ones. I’m hoping that I can find a kind soul that has also produced some tokens that can be bought for Rangers of Shadow Deep.

I’d love to be playing these games. But I need at least the unpainted stuff to be able to. Last Days is the one I’m closest to being in that position for. So these games are a side project for me, as I slowly build up what is required.

But I think both of these would appeal to the none miniatures gamer because of that lower entry point, of any mini will do. You don’t need lots of minis, these are squad based, so up-to 5 or 6 (depending on squad construction) should be enough for a player. The rules aren’t overly complex in my opinion. Plus the rule books are less than £20 in both cases.