Look What Came In the Mail!!!

Well look at that, I got a whole weeks worth of blog posts in. Hot damn!

In even more exciting news (for me at least) yesterday I received my order from Noble Knight Games. I've already started digging into the Player's Guide and trying to get them creative juices flowing so I can get a Deadlands: Reloaded game started ASAP.

I've written about this before but the classic Deadlands was where I got my very first start as a Game Master, and the picture of Roland, the undead gunslinger on the book cover was what inspired the Zombiecowboy moniker I still use today. In some ways this sort of feels like I've come full circle. To quote Darth Vader, "When I left you I was but a learner, now I am the Master".

Ok, that was cheesy. But I feel like a kid in a candy store right now. Anyway, hopefully I can keep the blogging momentum up. I'm sure I'm going to have some thoughts to write about on these recently acquired book. Till then, Zombiecowboy out.

That Is Not Dead Which Can Eternal Lie...

...And with strange aeons even death may die.

 And thats sorta what this blog has become, not dead but dreaming. Waiting for the stars to align or some such esoteric Lovecraftian babel.

I've been wanting to update the blog for a while now. However with a lack of actual gaming happening, and the priorities of school and family, I've either been too busy, or too tired.

So whats been happening in the past while?

Well I finished David Weber's “Out of the Dark”. Great read except the ending. One of the first times I actually ever wanted to throw a book across the room. I wont spoil it for you, but believe me when I say Weber gets a good square kick in your nuts on this one. However to Weber's credit I finished the first book in the Honor Harrington series “On Basilisk Station” and it was frigging awesome from start to finish. Next on deck is “The Honor of the Queen”. And of course I still have the first book in Weber's “Safehold series sitting on my shelf to get to as well as John Ringo's “A Hymn Before Battle”. Too many books not enough time and all that jazz.

Currently I'm reading the first novel in Clive Cussler/Grant Blackwood's “Fargo” series called “Spartan Gold”. So for the most part it's a fun read though at near the end its starting to drag a little. Hopefully the ending will pick it up. One thing of note is how all of the novels in any of Cussler's series are packed with great ideas for RPG adventures and campaigns. Particularly if you tear the ideas straight from the books for use in a modern action/adventure setting. Characters, exotic places, interesting historical bits, and crazy plots abound.

Lastly on the RPG front. I recently purchased the “Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition”, “Deadlands: Marshal's Handbook”, “Player's Guide”, “1880 Smith & Robards Catalog” (Explorers Edition all), and “The Last Sons” plot points campaign setting books. In addition I picked up a really nice Texas Hold'em poker set from Walmart. The intention is that I' ll finally get to try out running/playing Savage Worlds and get some gaming going on again. I've wanted to get a SW game started for a while but keep getting cold feet on it as well as “Gamer ADD”, unfamiliarity of the system, laziness, time constraints, etc. Hopefully with the substantial amount of money I sunk into these purchases I will have the motivation to make it happen.

So that pretty much sums up shit around here. I have every intention of updating the blog as much as I can realistically can. I have no intention of writing updates for the sake of updating. So if I have something of note to write I will. Till then you are the resistance. Zombiecowboy out.

Do Zombies Dream of Steam-Powered Sheep?

Over the Easter weekend I borrowed my brother-in-laws Deadlands Reloaded books. The first campaign I personally ever ran was, as it’s referred to today, Deadlands Classic. This was back when it was just one hardcover book with everything a Marshall and/or Player needed to play the game.

All this is to say that I’m no stranger to what Deadlands is all about, and that I was just looking for a refresher course on the setting, and the changes using the Savage Worlds rules. This in turn led to Monday night and my dreams being dominated by cowboys and undead. The dreams weren’t anything worth repeating. Just the kind of weird nonsense that reminds you that you’re in a dream, and you might as well just roll with it.

Deadlands.

It feels as if a bullet has impaled my brain with a Deadlands campaign written all over it. The words on that bullet burn in an infernal red glowing script that only the Devil himself has the patience or inclination to inscribe. My mind has been infected with the blue prints for a Savage Worlds Deadlands campaign, and come Hell or high-water I’m going to need to run it if I ever want to get the poison out.

After reading just a little of the Deadlands books I realized just how over whelming the setting is. There’s just so much detail. I almost hesitate to say TOO much detail. It’s that double edge sword of trying to give your reader everything they need to run a campaign rather than not enough. The problem is that it means that MY Deadlands campaign will end up off the reservation. Not a bad thing by any means, but just that it’s going to conflict with what’s considered cannon in the supplements. To which I say fuck cannon and the horse it rode in on. But that’s just me amigo.

I have a few ideas for how I wanted to handle this campaign. Things will start out normal enough. The Posse is gathered for some reason or another. I haven’t figured out this part too much just yet. Perhaps they will work for one of the Rail Barons, a Government agency, or some other seemingly mundane outfit. They start doing normal jobs that involve normal people. The first few forays would be a more or less straight up western adventures, with maybe a little bit of super science thrown into the mix, but otherwise fairly standard stuff.

Then shit starts to get a little weird. Like ogres, onions, or that tranny prostitute you "accidently" picked up, the layers begin to peel away revealing that things aren’t as normal as you first assumed they were. Subtle strangeness begins to crop up again and again and force you to start questioning what in the world is really going on here. At some point, like Neo or Sarah Connor, you cross the inevitable and invisible line. It is the point of no return and once it is crossed you find yourself sucked down the Rabbit Hole. You’ll forever be a changed person and there’s no going back to "normal".

Like I was saying Deadlands has a pretty complex history and story-line. While having all this info is nice I find it a little intimidating and even over whelming at times. I will most likely use portions whole cloth and other stuff I will change to suit my own needs. I’m just hoping Shane Lacy Hensley doesn’t send the RPG Police to my house, beat me up, and take my books away when he finds out.

So here’s some of the things I wanted to do/explore with this campaign:

• Chinese Tong Gangs and an ancient power hungry sorcerer leader ala Big Trouble in Little China
• An Illuminati/Freemason conspiracy
• The Shan, Mi-Go, and some other stuff ripped from Call of Cthulhu
• Undead, lots of undead.
• The PCs begin the campaign seeking a new and better life. They arrive in a newly formed and growing California boomtown. They find themselves embroiled in the affairs and politics of the town. The chance at both fame and fortune become directly linked to the success and preservation of the town, its people, and its interests. Soon the PC's find themselves entangled in a web of horror and conspiracy. It falls to them as pillars of the community to sort through the lies and treachery and fight back the shadows of things "Man was not meant to know".

And that’s what I have so far. But I can feel it all there, lurking heavy in my mind. This could be the mother of all campaigns for me. The Magnum Opus that I have always wanted to run, yet have never been able to succeed at. If I write it, they will play…
　

Back in Black

Hello there fellow Dice Chuckers! I’m back. In some ways I imagine as if this is how a bear must feel like after a long winter period of hibernation.

So what’s been going on in my life?

Glad you asked. I finished up my Call of Cthulhu campaign I dubbed Arkham heat some months ago. I had a blast running that one. But I will tell you one thing. I really didn’t like BRP rules way of handling opposed rolls or combat too much. For the most part things were fairly rules light, which I really REALLY liked. Yet at the same time I did feel myself yearning for rules, combat ones in particular that were a little more robust.

Then I got laid off from my delivery driver job.

This was sort of a mixed bag of good and bad. Good because I was pretty fed up with that job. Good because I needed a change. And good because now I’m on the way to new and better things in my life. On the other hand it was bad, because losing your job is pretty scary shit, and the uncertainty of what’s next can be even more scary. Anyway, I’m taking it one day at a time, and things are starting to look like my future is gonna be so bright I’m going to have to wear shades.

Then I started a D&D 4e campaign.

I dunno. This is the second time I’ve tried running this system and I’m still not feeling it. One of my biggest beefs is that the combat is just too bloody long. Part of this is all of us learning the ins and outs of the rules. But I think the biggest problem is what I call the economy of actions. My players feel that they need to eek out every little last drop of potential from their characters, making sure that they spend every action that they can. Did I do something with my free, minor, move, and all mighty standard action this turn? I’ve read the various ways of trying to speed up combat, but I’m still sort of at a loss of how I should deal with this.

Then there’s the news of D&D 5e on the horizon.

In some ways I hope that this edition finds the middle ground between 3e and 4e. I’ve always contended that while I think there’s a lot of nifty things I really like about 4e I think that they took it too far. I loved 4e’s monsters; I love that combat is more dynamic, and that skills got chopped down. In fact I almost would rather do away with skills altogether and IF you really need to determine something use an Ability check to see if you succeed or not. Otherwise I’ve been going with the rule, the more specific a player is about their characters actions, then the more likely they will automatically succeed at a given task. For example, If your character decides to cut open the mattress to locate the hidden gems, and that is where the gems are actually hidden you will automatically find them. If on the other hand you say I search the room, roll the bones, and hope you pass the appropriate DC for your level.

What’s next?

Well, first on the docket is getting a new job obviously. That’s more or less sorted out, and I have a number of different things I’m working on. My finances at this point are OK so no need to worry. Not yet anyway.
On the gaming front I’m thinking I may finally give Savage Worlds a shot. There was also some discussion of a Star Wars Saga Edition game, or variant setting using those rules but I’m still sort of on the fence about that. I have been giving a lot of thought to writing my own rules system since I cant seem to find that one system that really satisfies my needs behind the screen.
Lastly I think it’s time to get back into the Pen-Monkey saddle. Words they don’t write themselves. So I should probably get on that while I have a little more free time than usual.
　
　
　

Big Trouble In Little China-Six Shooters And Sorcery Style



Lo-Pan, loves the green eyed ladies

 I've been strongly considering running a Savage Worlds powered weird western game for the last little while now. In this post I describe some of the points that I would like to see if I ran this. It was mostly me just thinking out loud. What was interesting was that  Jamie over at For A Fistful of Coppers suggested in the comments that it sounded like a western version of the 1986 movie Big Trouble in Little China.

After thinking on it, it totally made sense what he was saying. That movie was and still is a huge favorite of mine. Yes, it's a little cheesy at times, but it's funny as hell, and it kicks all kinds of ass.

So then I start doing some research and I discover that according to it's wikipedia page the original script for Big Trouble in Little China was indeed intended to be a western. That's wicked crazy, but makes sense on so many levels.

So yeah, if I'm going to sum up what this little weird western campaign will be about to my group it would be imagine playing in a campaign in which the movie Big Trouble in Little China and the Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns had a love child together. Add in a few pinches of Lovecraftian horror, and a measure of Robert Rodriguez and Antonio Banderas, and you have my new campaign in a nut shell.


Chinese Beholders Priceless



Savage Worlds: Explorer's Edition

Last week I finally buckled under the pressure and picked up the Savage Worlds: Explorer's Edition rules book. Let me tell you, I wish that I would have picked this thing up a long time ago! It's fricken awesome, like sharks with laser beams attached to their foreheads awesome! For shizzel my whizzel.

One of the things that strikes me about this book is that it's only 10 bucks to own. That, and it also comes in 6.5" x 9" format. It has a 160 full colour, glossy pages, looks sharp, and is well organized. The book features a nice table of contents, as well as a full page index in the back.

All that stuff aside it has all the rules that you need to run virtually any genre you want! The rules emphasis what the designers call the three F's. Fast! Furious!, and Fun! All three of them things that I've been looking for in a game system for some time. Well maybe not the Furious part, but it sounds like a good thing, right?

I guess one of the reasons that I hadn't picked this up before was the fact that I had played the original Deadlands RPG. In fact Deadlands was one of the first RPG's that I ever ran as the Marshall, or game master, or as the call it in that system.

One of the things that I thought was cool about Deadlands was the "stuff" aspect to it. By that I mean all of the dice were important, not just a d20, and whatever your damage dice was, but ALL of them. In addition you used playing cards for initiative, and poker chips as a sort of action points system. The problem was three fold as far as I could tell. Number one, I found the system itself was a little clunky. Two, I was new to game mastering, and well, when you your new at something you tend to suck. Lastly, three, the weird wild west can be a little difficult to run. There's a lot of stuff going on that you as the game master needs to do, understand, and this isn't helped when your American history is weak, and your player's don't really "get" the genre.

So I ran a brief Deadlands game, and then moved on from there to try and do new things. I had always wanted to get back to it one day, but I just never had the motivation, or desire to do so. Eventually it sort of fell into the background as D&D, and d20 games became the poison of choice for our group. Fantasy it would seem would be what we were destined to play for a long, long time.

Anyway the point here is that these Savage Worlds rules, are a much cleaned up and refined version of those old Deadlands rules. The skill system is very tight, and theres not a lot of dicking around with lots of points, and best of all all dice rolls are balanced with an additional "Wild Die" that allows the heroes to have a better chance of success. The other thing I find really nice is how the Edges and Hindrances work. This system seems easy to use, well balanced and thought out, and covers pretty much everything you need to cover most genres.

In fact one of the things that the designers point out is that bloating the system with new skill, edges, powers and other non-sense is a bad thing. That you should attempt to use what you have and not go over board creating reams of material you don't need , or wont use. The reason I love this so much is that I'm tired of rules bloat! D&D 3e suffered from it, and so does 4e. In fact lot's of systems just keep pumping out useless material be cause players like it, and because they need to make money selling us stuff. I'm not knocking this, it's just as a GM I have come to find less is more. Lets keep it simple, mmm K?

Today I find myself with a new group. What's interesting is that we recently started a steampunk campaign that would have benefited with these rules greatly had I, or the current GM been aware of just how simple, versatile, and easy they are to use. I'm seriously starting to consider running a new Deadlands game because of it. All in this is a kick ass system, and book. If your looking for a game that is simple to learn and easy to find on your local game stores shelves, I highly recommend you pick this up. And remember it's only 10 bucks, so how can you go wrong?

Savage Worlds + Charlie Sheen = Winning!

Pinnacle games recently announced that this August they are releasing a deluxe hardcover edition of their flagship system Savage Worlds. This is one of those systems that I've really wanted to play for some time now but just haven't yet had the chance to try out yet. So many games, not enough time. Sounds like a James Bond movie, doesn't it? Anyway, Savage Worlds is a universal game engine, meaning that it can be used to power whatever game you want. The reviews of it have been freaking great and their is a shit-ton of material for it out there. Most importantly to me how,ever is that it's the game engine that's now used to power the Deadlands setting.

Deadlands was one of the first games that I ever participated in as a game master, and not a player. My campaign was brief, and ended in a way that left me unsatisfied, yet always yearning to go back to it one day. I feel like that time is now. I've learned a lot since then, and while I've never read the new rules I think that they probably make things run a lot smoother. From the sounds of it this edition will add in more material and other cool stuff as well as clarify the older rules. So it's looks like this August Daddy is going to do a little shopping.

On a funny note I found these edges ( I guess this games version of feats for d20) on the Pinnacle site. Who knew that Charlie Sheen would turn into so much game fodder for us nerds the Cult of Sheen.

10 New Edges with Sheen

Take your games where they've never been before with these ten new Edges, and be sure to enjoy your April Fool's Day!

Tiger Blood
Requirements: Novice
Your character either naturally has tiger blood in his veins or is able to absorb it through consumption (drinking it). You gain a +2 bonus to Vigor rolls to resist poisons and drugs.

Adonis DNA
Requirements: Novice, Tiger Blood
Your genetic structure has strands from the gods and attracts the rare people attuned to sense it. You gain a +4 bonus to Charisma when dealing with characters that have the Hindrance Quirk ("Adult" actor).

Fire-breathing Fists
Requirements: Seasoned, Tiger Blood, Fighting d6
You can shoot fire from your fists. To use this ability, use Fighting for an attack roll and place a Cone Template in front of your character. Every character touching the template must make an Agility roll opposing the Fighting result or takes 2d10 damage (and potentially catch on fire). After using this ability, roll Vigor and suffer a level of Fatigue on a failure. You may shoot fire from both hands using the standard multiple action and offhand penalties, but you must roll separately to avoid the Fatigue effect.

10,000 Year Old Brain
Requirements: Novice, Smarts d10+
Your character is capable of acts of will by using pure intellect to overcome them. When spending a benny to reroll a Spirit roll, you may choose to use your Smarts die type instead.

High Priest
Requirements: Seasoned, Spirit d8+
Your character has been inducted as a high priest and gains +2 Charisma with members of his religion.

Vatican Assassin
Requirements: Veteran, High Priest
Your character has been promoted to official Vatican Assassin. You gain the right to kill anyone on the Vatican hit list, and a +2 bonus to Intimidation against those on the list or who are in danger of being put on it.

Warlock
Requirements: Heroic, Vatican Assassin, Smarts d8+
You have been taught the secret magic of the hidden hierarchy of the Vatican Assassins. You gain one power you can activate with a Smarts roll, and you have Power Points equal to twice your Spirit die type. Regardless of any listed range, the power has a range of Touch and requires using one hand to activate as the magic is at the fingertips.

Feast on Troll Bones
Requirements: Novice, Tiger Blood, Vigor d8+
You have learned to absorb the strength of trolls by consuming their bones. Any time you eat troll bones equal to twice your Vigor die type in pounds, you may make a Natural Healing roll.

Rock Star from Mars
Requirements: Novice, Filthy Rich
Your character has a nearly indefatigable sense of self. Opponents no longer gain a +2 bonus to affect you for a successful Test of Will, though you can still be Shaken on a raise.

Duh, Winning!
Requirements: Legendary, Tiger Blood, Adonis DNA, Fire-breathing Fists, 10,000 Year Old Brain, High Priest, Vatican Assassin, Warlock, Feast on Troll Bones, Rock Star from Mars
You may spend a benny immediately after any roll by the GM to make it a critical failure, or you may spend a benny before any roll you would make to automatically succeed as if you rolled a raise. However, following either of these uses, the next roll you make is unavoidably considered to be a critical failure. To use this ability, you must say “Duh, Winning!” when turning in your benny.