SG-13 Episode 3

In which our heroes finally recover what’s left of SG-26, and meet a new friend…

While the survivors of SG-13 were recovering from their Wounds, SGC was not idle. On their return to duty, they were advised that UAV reconnaissance had found something looking like a giant termite mound, made out of debris and ichor (or “bug snot”, as Anna charmingly described it), wherein the giant cockroaches (which you and I know as kafers, though the team does not) lurked.

Tactical sense kicked in, and the team hoofed it through the forest (so that the noise of the quadbikes wouldn’t give them away) to lie in wait outside the mound and gather intelligence. Their patience was rewarded when the bugs emerged, bringing forth prisoners for exercise: One SGC survivor, and a feline humanoid (Giulia’s PC). Grenades and burst fire dealt with most of the bugs, leaving two for Giulia (who has put almost all her skill points into Fighting, took the Two-Fisted edge, and is therefore quite brutal in hand to hand). With no more ado, they retired through the stargate and sent back a bomb-laden UAV to deal with the mound.

Giulia’s PC, which is essentially a Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirl, then persuaded SGC to let her join the team, on the basis that her race is powerful and advanced, and would look more kindly on Earth if she were not dissected in Area 51. Who knows, this may even be true.

The scenario went much more quickly than expected, since based on their past approach I thought they would enter the mound in person. (Can you say dungeon crawl? I knew you could.)

Quote of the mission: Giulia, who introduced her character by saying: “I’m a pirate monster! Rarrgh! Arrrgh!” (To see why this reduced us to hysterics, you need to see The Tiefling and the Gnome.)

SG-13: The Next Generation

A couple of days after the last D&D trip, Nick decided he wanted to roleplay “something futuristic”. Since the late 1970s I’ve felt that the main challenge in running SF games is that players lack the instinctive grasp of the setting which they soak up at the mothers’ knees for the mediaeval period thanks to fairy tales; so the first question was, what was the SF setting we jointly knew best? That turned out to be Stargate SG-1, so out came my Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition rulebook (never travel without it) and some dice.

This, you see, is the thing I like best about Savage Worlds; you can run it with almost no preparation at all. While Anna created Dr Benjamin Brightman, archaeologist with the Jack Of All Trades and McGyver edges (and that turns out to be a scarily effective combination), and Nick created The Captain (team leader, ace driver and pilot, who may someday get a name as well as a rank), I was musing on two things: The recurring enemy and the immediate plot.

Every SGC team needs their own unique recurring enemy. After a few minutes thought I settled on the Kafers, from the 2300AD RPG. These will give Nick something to shoot at, as they are implacable foes of humanity, and Anna something to puzzle over, namely why are they implacable foes of someone they’ve only just met? It was the work of seconds to file the serial numbers off Orcs, give them laser rifles and Barrett .50 rifles (described differently, of course), and determine that to mimic the well-known stupidity of Kafers at the start of each encounter, they should begin each combat Shaken until they recover. Job done.

As for a plot, well, 95% of all SF episodes begin with a response to a distress call. So I decided that SG-26 had gone missing some while back, but that now the village where they were last seen on a mediaeval-level world had been burned down and the inhabitants massacred.

Not just the first few sessions, you notice, but a complete campaign and characters created in less than half an hour. I love this game.

A quick Persuasion roll allowed them to take quadbikes through the stargate, to a planet looking like a stretch of Canadian forest (because they all do). A certain amount of thrashing around and significant casualties on both sides ensued. Nick quickly learned that Kafers are a problem easily solved with grenades and automatic weapons, so long as you lay the groundwork early; Anna is still puzzling over how they speak English and why they hate her so much.

Surprisingly, I found that giving the NPC team members a tag characteristic and a couple of edges, and placing them under the players’ control, gave them an almost instant, but genuine, emotional bond to said NPCs – there was genuine regret when the first couple died.

Dr Brightman also has the Arcane Background (Weird Science) edge, which Anna decided represents the half-understood Ancient devices he tinkers with; and that since he doesn’t really know what they do, we should determine their powers randomly when they’re first used. Surrounded by Kafers at the end of the second trip through the gate, she pressed the button, and a quick die roll gave us the Stun power in her first device, which was probably the best one for the job, as it set them up nicely for the NPC team members to shoot.

The party are now resting up while they recover from their wounds, as they still haven’t recovered the missing team (although they suspect that the Kafers have something to do with it). In the next session they should meet Giulia’s character – she has of course created a “furry”, which gives the team what I consider to be the optimum genre trope for its membership: One warrior/team leader, one scientist, one honourable good-guy alien and one expendable red shirt to show them how the monster works.

D&D in Sicily

No, so far as I know there is no huge underground cult of D&D players in Sicily, more’s the pity; but while we were there, and visited both by Giulia’s boyfriend (errm, fiance now) and Nick’s friend Buster, the dice came out for a few sessions.

Under the Village of Harken, Part 3 (28 July)
As you’ll recall, Nick and the girls were last seen just bursting into the lair of the Big Bad. Who should they find in there but Buster’s Drow PC, arguing with the Big Bad? In true pulp fashion, they recognised each other instantly as natural allies and set about the underground minions with a will, with the Drow joining the party. (“We are the good guys, right?”)

Tomb of the Novirate Council (30-31 July)
Not having much else in the way of scenarios with me, I made up a small dungeon (the titular tomb) and off we went.

The party made its way past a nest Kruthiks (which nearly ate them), and found the old puzzle of the two guard statues guarding a T junction (one of which always lies and the other always tells the truth); this they got wrong, but Drow infravision gave them disturbing clues of the nature of the trap down the “naughty” corridor, and they went down the “nice” one instead.

Here they found a selection of statues of various gods (which they vandalised), and the puzzle from Die Hard 3 about using 3 and 5 gallon jugs to  make a 4 gallon weight. This they did get right; not in the way I expected, but the solution worked, so fair enough.

Beyond the door opened by this puzzle they found more than enough giant spiders, which would have resulted in another TPK (Total Party Kill) except for the heroic actions of Giulia’s cleric (crawling round healing her webbed colleagues one by one despite a total lack of Stealth) and the inspired knifework of Tenchi’s rogue.

However, Anna’s ranger was dead of poison by this point, so pausing only to collect 64 spider legs (in the hope of selling them to alchemists) they crawled off to the nearest large city (Holyport) for resurrection.

Holyport (3 August)
The Temple of Bahamut in Holyport agreed to raise Anna in exchange for certain financial considerations and on condition the party did one little job for them, namely recover a relic stolen from pilgrim caravan by minions of their old nemesis Szartharax the white dragon.

The kobold minions and their rockslide trap at the cave entrance were dealt with swiftly and pitilessly, and they charged on into the lair just behind the alarm.

They’re learning. The NPC wizard, Veon, was parked outside the range of the dragon’s breath weapon with orders to keep zapping it until it dropped. The drow and the rogue, both of whom have at-will powers that slide their foes, ran to diagonally opposite “corners” of the dragon and started a game of impromptu dragon ping pong – fighters attack, rogues attack and slide it back past the fighters who then hit it again with attacks of opportunity, lather, rinse, repeat. That was a clever enough idea that I thought they deserved to get away with it at least once.

Packing up, I decided to change the campaign name from Holyport to Nentir Vale. The reality is that I have limited time to play, and I’d rather use it playing than designing scenarios; until I know D&D 4E well enough to play it off the cuff, that most likely means using the published scenarios, so really it is yet another Nentir Vale campaign, at least for the moment.

I had considered running the Treasure of Talon Pass module next, but doing three modules in a row where the end of scenario boss is a young dragon seemed a bit repetitive. So, next up is H1, The Keep on the Shadowfell, which has the advantage of being a free download from Wizards.

The One Ring

I am now returned from my summer holiday, although my sense of perspective has been restored to such an extent that it’s taken me a week more to update the blog.

I shall gloss over the actual events (overeat, lie on beach, lather, rinse, repeat) and our protracted battle against the Killer Bedbugs of Doom (but let me tell you, the advice not to let the little devils bite is sound indeed). For the outstanding news of the holiday is this:

Giulia is engaged!

I’m at a loss for further comments, really, so here is a picture of the ring and some dance music. (OK, I lied about the dance music.) The green thing just visible is one of numerous green confetti we acquired for a surprise engagement party for the soon-to-be-newlyweds – an Italian tradition, green confetti for the engagement and white for the wedding. These are not your pieces of multicoloured paper, but almonds encased in coloured sugar.

The One Ring

I hope they will be as happy as I have been, and if they were more happy, I wouldn’t begrudge it.

Beneath the Village of Harken, Part 1

The party’s adventures continued last Sunday… Having assimilated the lesson that diplomacy works better before you open fire, and having been hired to eliminate a nest of goblins, our merry band of heroes barged in on the goblins claiming to be a travelling band of chefs sent to pay homage by serving the them a meal.

OK, I thought, goblins are not the sharpest tools in the box, couple of good dice rolls… let’s see where this goes. Idaho Caramba, the ranger, started laying out food on the table. How would this be cooked, the goblins wanted to know? By magic, Idaho explained, it’s all part of the service. Gather round the table and our wizard will cook the food.

You can see this coming, can’t you? Burning Hands, followed by screams and violence. One slightly singed goblin escaped towards the next room, to be hacked down by the warforged fighter in the doorway. The session ended just as the warforged looked up from the body to see the rest of the goblins looking on in surprise and alarm. Nick is now trying to persuade me he can take an extended rest before tackling this new group, so that his Brute Strike power will regenerate. I think not.

Notably, for the first time on record, Giulia’s character didn’t get mortally wounded. Not even a scratch. She still isn’t hitting anything, though.

The 15 Books Thing

A challenge from Facebook; list the first 15 books you think of in 15 minutes that will stay with you forever. Here are the ones I came up with, and this will cross-post to Facebook so it should turn up there too…

• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks
• Dune by Frank Herbert
• How to Make War by James F Dunnigan
• Secret Service: 33 Centuries of Espionage by Richard Wilmer Rowan and Robert G Deindorfer
• Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinlein
• The Empire of the East trilogy by Fred Saberhagen
• The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien
• The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
• The Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley
• The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner
• The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
• The Star Fox by Poul Anderson
• The Winds of Gath by E C Tubb
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M Pirsig

Interestingly, unlike Anna (who generally doesn’t read anything written after 1830) I see all of mine are post-1930. These are just the first 15 I thought of; I notice Conan, Sherlock Holmes and Dracula are missing, despite also being tales that will stick with me forever.

Scrub Up Good, Don’t They?

Here’s a picture of Anna and Giulia at the recent wedding of their friends, Jonathan and Esther…

Anna (left) and Giulia at Esther and Jonathan's wedding

TPK

For the first time since 1978, a Total Party Kill!

Or it should have been. But given that they are all first level in a points buy system, they could all regenerate their characters exactly as written. And a recurring nemesis is much better from a story perspective; so having reduced them all below zero hit points, and not being much better off itself, the dragon limps off to dog their footsteps in later adventures.Lessons for the party to learn when cornering a young white dragon in its lair:

1. Don’t massacre all its minions, throw spears at it, and then try to negotiate afterwards.
2. Don’t allow the party wizard to be stunned by dragon breath and then spend the rest of the encounter continuously failing his saving throw – do something about it.

Come into the Dungeon, Maud

I’ve cracked. I said I wouldn’t play D&D 4th edition, because it didn’t feel like D&D anymore; but now I am playing it with the kids, and we’re enjoying it.

It was Nick who changed my mind. I moved from D&D 3.5 to True20, and then to Savage Worlds, in search of a fast, fun game that I could run with minimal preparation. Nick stopped roleplaying about three sessions in to the Savage Worlds campaign, and when I eventually asked why, he explained that the combat system wasn’t complicated enough to interest him. I didn’t see that one coming. Then it turned out that one of his closest friends was already playing 4e, so off we went.

4e is still complex, but once you ditch the idea of character sheets and start thinking of a character as a collectible card game deck made of power cards, it actually plays pretty quickly, especially if you print off the cards and literally play your character as a deck. It needs much more prep time than Savage Worlds, but as long as I’m using WotC commercial scenarios that’s not too bad; the new encounter layout in things like Keep on the Shadowfell helps a lot.

Currently we’re partway through the Kobold Hall adventure in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. The party consists of a warforged fighter with a greataxe (Nick), a longtooth shifter cleric (Guilia, who likes being a furry), a dungeoneering ranger wielding a whip in either hand (Anna), and an NPC wizard, who rounds out the party with the traditional four classes (fighter, cleric, wizard, thief – or in this case, ranger) and whom I intend to play as my PC if he survives long enough and we start playing random dungeons.

Session 1 – 10th May 2009

The group was hired by the Lord Warden of Fallcrest to get rid of the kobolds raiding caravans along the Kings Road. This led them to the ruins known as Kobold Hall. As Dungeon Master, I learned that while the Player Characters do massively more damage than in previous editions, even dinky opponents like kobolds now have enough hit points to soak that up; and that the combination of free shifts and bonuses for mobbing up on PCs means kobolds are now actually dangerous – they only failed to kill Giulia because of her shifter regeneration while bloodied.

I’m not sure if the designers realised that kobold cowardice (they flee if bloodied) meant the scenario created a tidal wave of kobolds falling back in front of the party until they could flee no more, then falling on them to fight like cornered rats. I did approve of the encounter room layouts, which encourage PCs to try jumping over pits of sludge. Of course, they all fell in.

Session 2 – 17th May 2009

Further into Kobold Hall, and the DM discovers what is more fun than a giant stone boulder rolling down the corridor towards the PCs – namely, a giant stone boulder rolling down the corridor towards PCs who have been immobilised by kobolds using their Glue Shot power.

Oh how we laughed. Well, I did, anyway. Evilly, of course.

We started sprouting house rules in this session. First, my usual d20 one; we don’t roll for initiative, we just assume everyone rolls 10. Second, based on Anna’s reaction to Giulia being glued to the floor in front of a rolling boulder, we determined that pointing and laughing at a colleague’s misfortune is a minor action. Finally, I (re)introduced my normal standing orders for NPCs; there is a list of options, in descending order of priority, and each NPC takes the highest priority option possible for him:

1. If threatened by ranged weapons, take cover.
2. Buff or heal oneself or an ally. (Only one buff per character though, or NPC clerics do nothing else.)
3. Make a ranged attack on the enemy with the worst armour. (This means they always shoot the spellcasters if at all possible, which are after all the most serious threat.)
4. Charge, flank, or gang up on foes and make a melee attack on the one with the worst armour.
5. If allied to the PCs, move towards the one with the best Charisma.

Fear not, players in my Play By EMail campaigns; I shan’t change the rules on you again. Savage Worlds still works better for those.

Arrivederci Roma

Last weekend Costanza and I ran away to Rome for a few days, to visit relatives and see the sights. We saw half a dozen of Costanza’s aunts and cousins, and visited the Colosseum, the old Forum, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, St Peter’s Square, the Cistine Chapel, and something which may (or may not) have been Caesar’s tomb. Five days isn’t enough to do the place justice; you really need several weeks. I was vastly amused, however, to see that all the public works – street lamps, rubbish bins and so on – are still emblazoned with “SPQR”. Perhaps the most intriguing thing, though, is that buildings from modern to several thousand years old are interspersed freely, in some cases built into each other, with edifices of one age using those of an earlier time as foundations, or even supporting walls.

Here’s a picture of us at la Bocca della Verita, the “Mouth of Truth”. The legend is that what you say must be the truth, or it won’t let your hand go. I told it I was lying…

La Bocca Della Verita