The Circle of Life Swings Back Hard

 

I had started working on some posts last month after taking a break and then things just started to come up.

My father had been fighting cancer for several months. A year ago everything was fine - especially considering my parents age. Then as the 2024 progressed it went rapidly downhill. Over the course of six months we went from "something is wrong" to "cancer" to "hospice care" and a hospital bed in the living room as he could no longer climb the stairs. Then in early November he lost consciousness for a few days and left us on a Saturday morning. It's not an easy thing even when you know where things are headed. There's "this is going to happen" and then there is "it's happened" and crossing that boundary is big. I don't just mean myself here - my mom had to deal with this and after being together for over 60 years she gets to contemplate going on alone. It's a hard thing. 

Yes, my parents got married a long time ago and stayed together for the whole ride - more than I have managed to do - and that means I have had both parents my whole life and my kids have had all of their grandparents their whole lives until this year. Now in 2024 they have lost both grandfathers which is not a great thing to look back on.

The main outcome of this day-to-day has been that mom needs more help with things, particularly all of the things dad used to handle around the house or with the cars or with the technology side of things. That mainly lands on me and so there has and still is some adjustment to how to handle those things and there are still all of the other things to deal with too - accounts and stuff and what mom wants to do with the house and the rest of her life. These are all new experiences but I'm trying to make it more of a positive by looking ahead to how I (well, me and the wife so "we") can try to make it easier down the road for everyone ourselves. I don't have to like it all but I can at least try to learn something from it.

Now for the "circle of life" part

So when dad passed that morning I had let the kids know earlier where things were going and Blaster came back with "we are at the hospital". My son got married a while back and they are expecting and yes, the universe decided to go poetic and so later that night, about 12 hours after my dad departed, my first grandbaby arrived.

I had been hoping dad would hang on long enough to meet his first great-grandkid but but he didn’t quite make it. I like to think there still might have been something as they passed each other with one arriving and one departing but that might just be me thinking about it too much. Insert spiritual passage/song lyric/Star Trek quote of your choice here as a lot of stuff crossed my mind that night.

It made things complicated for Blaster too as he couldn’t be there for the end while he was dealing with the beginning across town. Lots of mixed emotions all around that day.

The ray of sunshine here has of course been baby Nickname As Yet Undetermined who reminds us all that life goes on and the future is still out there. He picked a complicated day to arrive but he made it here happy and healthy and we are all very glad for that.

I have to look at 2024 as a year that is not my favorite one for sure - but had a very wide range of good and bad and one of the most emotionally complex days I've experienced.

Now we start the new one and hopefully we find a more upward trajectory as it goes on.

More to come for sure and more of the usual stuff coming soon.

The New Year's Eve Post for 2022

 

Well the end of '22 finds me in a very different place then the end of '21 ... literally. Somewhere along the way I decided to see how much change I could pack into one year and the answer is "a whole lot".

• All of the Apprentices are now out on their own. It's a massive change for all of us but it's part of the deal and how things are supposed to go. 
• I changed jobs, leaving a place I had been for more than a decade for something new. It was time and it has certainly been worth it so far. 
• As that was developing I also ended up moving from a house I had been in for ten years to a new (old) house with more room more land and more interesting terrain. There was the whole looking part, the getting-ready-to-move part, then the actual-moving part, then the unpacking-after-the-move part and trying to get the new routine figured out. It's been challenging but so far so good. One of the reasons for the move was ...
• I made things official and permanent with The Relationship and getting back into the groove of "couple" rather than "individual" has been a big part of this year too. She's amazing and it's very cool to have a smart, capable, person right *there* as we go through life.

So, yeah, had a lot going on this year - mostly positive and mostly self-chosen (or self-inflicted) but still a lot. Next year should be a lot quieter and should involve a lot of building on what we did this year. 

Fred the Yard Panther on patrol

Looking back at this time last year I can safely say I was not planning all of this. I figured it was probably the last "everyone at home" holiday season but beyond that ... no. 

RPG-wise I mostly ran Deadlands. I ran one session of D&D as a sendoff to the game room at the old house and then one session of d6 Star Wars here after other plans fell through. I usually have a more diverse array of games over the course of a year but with everything else going on it just did not happen in 2022. 

In saying farewell to the old place I thought about the number of hours spent in that room with friends and family and it is eye-opening. If you figure two 4-hour sessions a week. 50 weeks a year for ten years (that's a rough guess between RPGs, miniatures, and boardgames)  it means I spent 4000 hours in that room around a table. That's probably on the light side and it doesn't count the time spent building and painting miniatures in an adjoining room which would add at least a couple thousand more hours on to that. It's one way I spend time both with friends and family and also in solo concentration attempting to accomplish various goals. It's a significant chunk of my time and that's probably why I spend time pondering things here. 

I also mentioned 40K last year and while I have yet to play a game in the new place I have started building and painting again. I clear-coated some of those Necrons earlier today and will do some more tomorrow. I also decided to dive back into Age of Sigmar as I unpacked things and I'll talk about that more here next year. 

As far as the next historical game, well, the rules for Victory at Sea arrived today and I'll start reading them a bit later and over the rest of the holiday weekend. No I did nothing really with Flames of War this year. or Kings of War, or Bolt Action, or Armada, but with the new place and a more regular schedule I have hopes of touching at least some of these next year.

Blaster and I did manage to play another round of C&C Ancients this year and we are just about to wrap up the first campaign of Rome vs. Carthage which we started, um, as described in this post. Yeah it's been awhile. To celebrate I picked up the Revolutionary War version of the game to go along with the other 5 or 6 expansions for the Ancient version. Hopefully we can finish it before he starts bringing me grandkids.

One other thing that did hold over from last year is Battletech - yes Battletech! We played multiple games earlier in the year at the old house and we have played multiple sessions at the new place as well. It's been fun dragging old friends into playing it with many comments along the lines of "I haven't played this in 20 years". I expect this will continue at its intermittent pace next year as well as several of them have now bought the current boxed set and started painting mini's. I'm still calling that a win.

So for now my gaming year wraps up with a session of d6 Star Wars that kicked off a campaign, the next-to-last scenario in the C&C Ancients book, and building & painting my Necrons, Chaos Warriors, and Fyreslayers with a pile of rulebooks and settings waiting to be read into the new year. Moving means going through your stuff and for me it reminded me about some things I had let go dormant and rekindled interest in some old options while inspiring some looks at some new ones.

It's been another good year. More to come.

The Summer Update

 

Well it has been a while since I posted anything but that up there is not a direct commentary on the blog. That said it feels like it's time for a general update at least. 

It's been a busier than usual year. The apprentices have finished up the college run and are making their ways out into the world - I suppose I'll have to pick a new title for them at some point. I've officially picked up a new co-pilot. We lost one of the canine companions. Mostly ups with a few downs. The Deadlands campaign has been steady though it has been on pause for a bit because of the annual convention obligations of some of my players and also because the Tower is preparing to translocate!

After ten years at the current location it's time for some new scenery and preparations have been underway for a while now and this kind of thing definitely interferes with keeping a regular schedule and with regular blog updates too as it turns out. Once we are settled at the new site I expect things to pick back up again. Right now minis are being packed, not painted. Dice are being stored not rolled. I've packed 46 boxes of RPG books and boxes and binders alone (U-Haul "small") and I'm not quite finished with that yet. My friends have said several times over the years "man if you ever have to move all this ..." - yes, well, that time has come and no I'm not asking them to help 😀

With it down to just me and my in-house editor and the animal companions there was an opportunity to make some changes ... so we are. 

Things should be settled by late September or early October and getting back to normal. In the mean time this seems like an opportunity to maybe possibly catch up on posting about the Deadlands campaign when my back is tired of packing and lifting and moving things so there might even be some updates here over the next few weeks. 

Anyway there's the news of the day/week/month/year. As always, more to come ...

 

Magic Monday

So Blaster got back into Magic: The Gathering with some of his friends last month and once he started talking about it I realized I haven't bought a pack of Magic cards since before he was born so it's been ... a long time.

I played MTG with my friends back in the mid 90s when it first became popular and it became a regular thing for 3-4 years. We would usually play a few rounds as a warm up before one of our RPG sessions

He and Red got into it back about 7 years ago and played it a bunch up at a local store and I did get my old cards out to show them how to play once they expressed an interest but I didn't go buy any new cards - I pretty much let that be their thing.

Now though ... I figured why not? So I picked up some of the new cards and looked over the rules - they haven't changed much - and decided to jump back in. For now I'm just playing him and talking to some friends about it but with a big release coming up at the end of the month I might actually venture out to a store for that.

Rules-wise the biggest thing I see is that it's just tighter all the way around. I mean, the rules should be pretty tight after 25 years+ and they are. They seem to be pretty good at anticipating conflicts and unclear areas and spelling those out nicely.

The main format is "standard" which is basically using only the newest sets in head to head two-player games. There are others - Blaster's favorite is "commander" which is bigger decks in a multiplayer format and the big wrinkle is only one copy of each card other than basic lands. It's almost a completely different game than standard so there are some interesting options within the Magic "family"

The biggest difference I see is the support - wow what a set of cottage industries have sprung up around this game! Sleeves. Deck boxes. Play mats. YouTube channels. Podcasts. I mean 40K has a lot of stuff growing up around it but I didn't realize just how much there was for this card game.

I'll be posting up some more about returning to MTG after 20 years - it's an interesting adventure so far.

Greatest Hits #30 - Modern Marvels Session 3 - Enter Hercules!

The third session of one of my favorite campaigns ... and I'm sure we played a fourth that I never wrote up! I'll have to rectify that!

We had a chance to get a game together but not all of our Pathfinder crew was available so we settled on ... Marvel Heroic! I ran it as a continuation of our previous games which you can see here:

• Session 1
• Session 2 
• Link to the campaign discussion that started it all

Yes, it has been a couple of years since we last played. I wasn't going to let that stop me - the boys are still interested, I have notes/recaps, and I'm making more of an effort to finish things I start 

With Paladin Steve joining the campaign he was going to need a character and I had one in mind as soon as the option to play Marvel came up - Hercules! He's brash, he's bold, he's unquestionably a good guy, and while his usual approach is to punch things he almost lives like he's playing in a big game - I knew my friend would have a good time playing him and that he would add a lot to the team. Steve took him on with no hesitation.

Apprentice Blaster continued with Black Panther while Apprentice Who continued with Colossus.

In a cut scene, Zeus summons Hercules then tells him that foolish mortals are monkeying around with the Serpent Crown again and it's time to intervene. "Go and get it before they hurt themselves or do something even more foolish" is the gist of the conversation. Herc is more than ready to help!

Emerging from a mystical gate hidden deep in a cave the prince of power isn't exactly sure where to go but the closest landmark to him is a large structure best described as an ice fortress. Closing in on it he notices two flamboyantly dressed men also approaching the place and decides to introduce himself as only the mighty Hercules can!

A brief but loud conversation (complete with backslaps and strong handshakes and promises of shared drinks later) ends up with Herc's new friends "Black Panther" and "Colossus" agreeing to investigate the ice fortress as they too seek the Serpent Crown.

Seeing no obvious entrance Hercules challenges Colossus to a contest - "Let us smash our way through this ice" - basically the first one to something interesting, like an interior room, wins.

This is one of the reasons I love Marvel Heroic's milestone system - it directly ties XP into character traits like this in a really fun way.

Swinging away, the two mighty-thewed heroes bash a tunnel into the ice and The Mighty Hercules is just mightier enough that he smashes into a large open cavern/room first! Black Panther follows at some distance, mostly trying to stay clear of flying ice chunks. Emerging from the tunnel, they see a large ice/stone room with a throne-like seat. A man sits upon the throne:

He has long, shaggy hair, an equally unkempt beard, a yellow costume, and a blue cape. When he shifts in the chair, they see an S upon his chest. They have no idea who this is. Warily, they approach.

"I do not know who you are or why you have disturbed my solitude but go now and you may leave in peace. I wish to remain alone, not to fight, but I will fight if I must."

• Hercules is confused - he doesn't really understand brooding
• Black Panther is interested but wants to know who this guy is before getting too involved
• Colossus is concerned and breaks out the armchair psychology

Colossus only gets so far before the multiple mentions of the "terrible things I've done" starts to get in the way of further conversation. Befuddled, Peter pauses ...

...and Hercules takes over! Falling back on what he knows best Herc touts the virtues of wine and song and comradeship and beating badguys and good times and drink and winning in general. Faced with this unstoppable torrent of optimism, the stranger's "... almost godlike assurance that he’s guilty" is overwhelmed by Hercules Godlike Positivity!

He stands, brushed the hair out of his face, walks over to Herc, smiles, and puts a hand on his shoulder: "Perhaps you are right old friend. Perhaps I have forgotten how good life can truly be. Perhaps it is time I returned to the world. Thank you." With that, he flies straight up and out of the room into the sunlit sky.

Hercules is extremely pleased with himself. Panther still wants to know who that was. Colossus wants to know what he meant by "old friend". Still pondering, they head for the large skull-shaped mountain in the distance, certain that their goal lies there.

At the foot of the mountain they find a village - a primitive village. As the heroes approach, a group of inhabitants gather. Many have obvious mutations. A four-armed giant of a man moves to the fore and points back the way the party came - "go".

Hercules asks for the ancient custom of hospitality. "Go".

Herc asks again. "Go".

Sensing trouble, Panther fades into the nearby foliage.

Annoyed, Hercules announces/lectures that it is customary for villagers to welcome travelers with food and drink. "Go".

As the last straw breaks, Herc punches the village champion. The mob gasps! Panther moves out of the bushes and into the village, leaping to the top of a hut.

Wrong heroes, but you get the idea

Then Colossus punches Hercules and a huge brawl erupts!

• The big mutate drops, flattened in one punch by the mighty Hercules
• The mob charges the mighty Hercules
• Hercules grabs his jaw - "so that's it, eh?" and slugs Colossus back
• A sniffing sound at the base of his hut causes Panther to leap into action against a particularly animal-like mutate
• One mutate with an oddly shaped head tries to mess with the King of Wakanda's mind

Hercules versus Colossus quickly becomes Herc versus Colossus versus the mob as the two titans beat on each other without regard for the swarm of bodies around them. Colossus feels Hercules struck without provocation while Herc feels that the villager was rude and insulting and so the punch was completely justified. over the next few minutes they agree to disagree and to handle the mob together and they quickly bash the primitive brutes into submission.

Panther's leap from the rooftops dispatches his wolflike opponent in one move. Feeling himself under mental attack he picks out the mental mutate and the "Peerless Strategist" faces off with a "Super-Genius". It ends a minute later with Panther reversing a surprisingly strong attack and knocking out the mentalist.

As the heroes gather together Herc is hit by a psychic attack - it wasn't just the one mentalist! Seeing a woman peering from the door of a hut Herc throws a rock at her, cursing her interference! Panther joins in and throws a rock and insults her as well. Somewhat reluctantly, Colossus does the same thing and the woman runs out of the village, crying out in fear and shame.

The heroes pause to catch their breath.

Then Hercules punches Colossus, and the heroic contest resumes. Panther watches silently, arms folded, tapping his foot. Herc eventually wins using some Greco-Roman wrestling tricks Peter had never seen before. It ends with a handshake, much backslapping, and promises of drinks together.

The skull mountain awaits ...

Greatest Hits #29 - Modern Marvels - Session 2 "Into the Savage Land"

Second session of one of my favorite and all-too-limited runs with a great game ...

We open with a Transition Scene: Knowing they were dealing with a magical artifact the team contacted the only expert they knew - Dr. Stephen Strange. He traced the location of the item to Antarctica but could not pinpoint it. He offered to teleport the heroes but admitted he was not sure he could return them given the fuzziness of the signal. He gave them a card - "Nick Fury - Director of SHIELD" - and suggested that they contact this person and explain the situation. He would be interested in the situation and it was likely he could provide transport.

I decided Strange was at least sort-of-known as an expert on the occult to local NYC heroes, even the new ones.

Meeting with Mr. Fury the next morning he had already talked to Strange and agreed that the threat should be pursued. He shares that he has a file on all three of them and is willing to "deputize" them and provide them with transport to the Antarctic. 

Castle bows out at this point - he has a war to wage here, not at the other end of the world.

Apprentice Who decided that he wanted to take a different hero for this mission

Iron Man says he has to check in with his employer first and heads out. 

Apprentice Red had to go to work earlier so he was not available

Fury announces he's bringing in another "resource" to help out as he doesn't want Panther going alone and can;t spare any of his normal agents. He introduces T'Challa to Peter Rasputin, code name "Colossus". They jump into a (Flying Car? Does SHIELD still use those? Momentary confusion, ended up giving them something like a quinjet. I figure it's an earlier version that Stark has developed and the more advanced one will eventually end up used by the Avengers.) SHIELD jet and head south - waaay south!

Apprentice Who decided he wanted to try out Colossus instead of Punisher so now we have an interesting situation where Colossus has ties to Nick Fury and SHIELD - do the other X-Men fit into this too or is it just Peter? What about Professor X? Is SHIELD behind the X-Men somehow? We will have to explore this some more down the road a bit.

The estimated location of the Serpent Crown has been loaded into the S-Jet's Nav system so navigation is not an issue. Panther makes an easy Vehicles check against the Doom Pool. 

Unexpectedly, in the middle of the icy wasteland the whiteness gives way to a verdant green valley! This is where the Crown is located! Is it responsible for this tremendous climate change?

Attempting to get the lay of the land they spot 3 areas of interest: a mountain with a skull carved into it, something that looks like some kind of ice fortress, and something that looks like a modern-ish installation. The jet is acting up so they decide to land an equal distance from all three structures to minimize travel time. The VTOL system engages and they land in a clearing, in the jungle ... in the middle of what should be Antarctica.

Scene Distinctions now in effect: "Dense Jungle" and "Dangerous Flora and Fauna"

Feeling that the jungle is at least something like familiar territory, however unexpected, Black Panther debarks the jet and climbs a tree to take a look around. Colossus loiters near the jet and is suddenly jumped by 3 velociraptors! Shifting to metal form the "Russian Farmboy" uproots a nearby tree and tree-slaps all 3 of them into next week! Panther looks down in amazement - he didn't even have time to jump out of the tree.

This was creative action and an awesome roll by Who backed up by some pretty vivid descriptions of what he was doing and a nice justification of how  "Russian Farmboy" applies to fighting dinosaurs in Antarctic jungles. The answer is that he pulled up a lot of trees working on the farm and used to swing them around like baseball bats for fun - sounds good to me!

Fortunately for Panther's ego, 3 more raptors emerge from the jungle, this time circling and approaching more warily "Surrounding" the metal man. (Imposing the "Surrounded" condition on Colossus) Panther leaps out of the trees, sinking his daggers into one of the beasts - he's never fought dinosaurs so he's not taking any chances.

Line of the night, Apprentice Blaster:"... that's a d6 Weapon for my daggers because I'm going to stab him, then a d8 for Enhanced Strength, because, uh, I'm going to stab him really hard ..."

The remaining 2 dinos attack Colossus whose steely skin resists their tearing teeth.

Apprentice Who learns the awesomeness of the "Invulnerable" SFX: Spend a Plot Point to ignore physical stress or trauma unless caused by electromagnetic effects" - yeah. The dinos don't have a chance after that. The kid gets pretty giddy because he has about 5 Plot Points when he discovers that.

Colossus finally gets to go and sensing his chance he leaps into the air, snatches a Pterodactyl, lands back on the ground, and proceeds to beat a raptor senseless with it.

He wants to use the "Dangerous Flora and Fauna scene distinction to do this - WTF? I made a face, and then it was pointed out to me that he's playing a metal man fighting dinosaurs in a jungle in the middle of antarctica. I decided to allow it Heck, that one is right out of the basic book and dangerous doesn't have to mean only to the player characters..

Black Panther goes next and throws a dagger "really hard" and takes down the remaining raptor.

T'Challa is pretty vicious in melee

Raptors handled, the heroes turn to discover the face of a huge T-Rex peering at them from behind some trees - then it emerges from those tress and steps on their jet!

"Threat to Wakanda!"

'Denied! - with the jet destroyed he's stuck here just like you so Wakanda is safe!"

Colossus is kicked like a football into the jungle when the beast charges. Panther runs up the dino's back and looks for a good place to execute his tried and true anti-dinosaur strategy. Then with a roar of full-throttle boot jets, Iron Man flies in!

Apprentice Red is home now and jumps right in!

The Unibeam charges up and unloads - doing absolutely nothing! Those Rexes are deceptively quick! 

A ferocious furball of snapping jaws of giant teeth, punching metal fists, stabbing daggers, and more metal punches end with a T-Rex on the ground and 3 slightly battered heroes still standing  The Doom Pool ends at 2d6 and a d10. In the distance, three interesting structures beckon ...

Notes: Progress continues and this one went much smoother. The basics are down. I added the scene distinctions this time and they actually saw use! I am using elements of both the RPG.net campaign I mentioned in Session 1 and the material in the basic rulebook that is Act 2 of Breakout - if you have it you might as well use it!

Blaster got in a bit of a rut with Panther's dagger attacks and I pointed out he might as well play Wolverine, but he did handle the plane stuff and did some scouting around as well.

Plot Points flowed freely - Apprentice Who rolled three "1's" at one point - and the Doom Pool was rising. Who sat on his quite a bit to keep his new favorite ability going. Red and Blaster got pretty comfortable with theirs, spending them on stunts and adding in extra total dice too.

I really like the concept of "Scene Distinctions" as a way to include the setting and the scenery in the game mechanically. I think any location deserves at least one and they will be a part of my notes from now on.

I'm still figuring out Complications. I went with "Surrounded" as the three dinos closed in but as soon as Panther dropped one the question came up: Is he still surrounded with only two? I said he was but then once we're down to one it doesn't really make sense anymore. There's a fairly subtle note there that I think a complication really has to apply only to the target, without requiring anything further of the inflicting party, or it can fall apart in the next round. Typically I think the target should have to use some kind of effect to offset or counter the Complication but against weaker foes it may just be easier and quicker to wipe them out in spite of the complication, rather than wasting a round to undo it. I need more practice here.

I also need more practice using Hordes (like the raptors) and Large Threats (like the T-Rex) as I thought it was all clear then once the game started I got a little fuzzy on how it all worked. I'm sure we will see more of each type. 

Finally, we all  still keep forgetting to use an opponent's condition against them. Hopefully we will get past this eventually.

The best part - we kept laughing all through the game as it was a blast. Something about the Marvel thing combined with the mechanics of the game leads to a very different atmosphere when we're playing this one, even over ICONS and it's fairly relaxed structure. I think it's that Marvel is something we all are familiar with to some degree and so we all "get it" when someone makes a reference or does something interesting with a "known" character. I can't really pin it down just yet but it's just a lot of fun.

Next up: Exploring the Savage Lands! What could they possibly find down there?

Greatest Hits #28 - Modern Marvels - Session 1

One of my favorite systems of the last 5-ish years and one everyone who has tried it has thoroughly enjoyed ...

----------

This campaign began a few weeks before the announcement that the latest Marvel RPG was kaput. I'm pretty disappointed with that as I think with some time the game could have made some serious inroads amongst that section of the RPG playing crowd that likes different mechanics, narrative play, and has at least some interest in superheroes. Unfortunately it won't have any more time, but I've rarely let a game's production status decide whether we play it or not so this campaign will be going on for some time. I've sketched out 6 events with around 3 acts each for our "Season 1". As long as the boys are interested, we will continue.

I am totally stealing the campaign concept from this thread on RPG.net. The more I read it the more I loved the idea so that's what I used. The main conceit is that the time is now but the Marvel Universe is just getting started - the Fantastic Four have been around for about a year, Tony Stark's bodyguard about the same, there are some rumors about a secret mutant group running around, and a few costumed villains have appeared and robbed banks and the like but there's been no big, open, super-event to bring it all together. SHIELD is a covert organization that has been assigned to stay on top of these new powered types and find out what's going on.

Our initial cast:

• Iron Man, played by Apprentice Red
• Black Panther, played by Apprentice Blaster
• The Punisher, played by Apprentice Who

(Of course this means that our version of the Avengers may end up with Punisher as a founding member. It's weird but we will manage.)

The legendary Serpent Crown is about to be placed on display at the New York Museum of Fictional History. A private party for donors and bigwigs associated with the museum is the kickoff for this exhibition.

• Black Panther is there because the name "Serpent Crown" triggered some vague memories of some old Wakandan legends. He is not in costume but is instead attending as a Wakandan diplomat.
• Tony Stark is there because it's a party and there will be free drinks and he might want to buy the crown for his collection.
• Frank Castle is there because he figures someone is bound to try and steal the thing or maybe just rob the patrons and he can make a very public example of anyone who tries this.

(Yes, I made the boys come up with reasons for their characters to attend. They did a good job)

There is some general hobnobbing then a group of large men shove their way to the front of the large room. One seizes the crown from it's display case (SMASH!) , places it on his head, then announces he is their new ruler. His men begin pushing the crowd back.

Frank gets the party started right by pulling dual .45's from beneath his long coat and unloading on one of the thugs in a very Matrix-esque move.

T'Challa pulls up his hood, sheds his jacket, then leaps onto the platform, claws out. He attacks and wounds Paul Destine, new holder of the Serpent Crown!

Stark steps out into the hall, opens his briefcase and armors up!

The villains go next as Destine and Sidewinder take on Panther, Cobra goes after the Punisher, and a woman starts herding the crowd to one side of the room.

(Here we learned about bad decisions and the interesting MHR initiative system as the bad guys got to go twice before the heroes got to go again at all)

Punisher and Cobra are tied up in a duel of guns and fangs and Frank declares war on these serpent guys. Panther declares Destine a Threat to Wakanda and is in a brutal close-quarters slugfest with him and Sidewinder who constantly teleports behind the beleaguered king.

Iron Man rockets into the room and is promptly grabbed by the female villain's stretchy arms - Anaconda!

After a momentary struggle he breaks free and blasts Destine with his repulsors. Enraged, Destine flies up (another power of the crown) and smashes a display case over Iron Man's Iron Noggin' - which does absolutely nothing! Seeing his chance, the Invincible One fires up the unibeam and blasts Destine with maximum firepower!

In mid-air Destine, realizing this is not his time (and realizing he has d8 emotional stress and d10 physical stress) raises his arms, begins to chant, and then he and his 3 minions disappear in a flash - gone!


DM Notes: This was a straight-up fight as we get back into the Marvel system, but it was a lot of fun. There is a learning curve with the game but it only takes a session or two to get the basics down. I really could have added some scene distinctions like "panicked crowd" or "large high-ceilinged exhibit hall" but we didn't really notice the lack. I was mainly focused on getting the basics of the system down - totals, effects, plot points, and the doom pool - so we left a lot of the flashy stuff for next time. We also kept forgetting to use an opponents stress dice, but we will be watching for that next session. By the end Punisher & Panther both had some stress and Iron Man had none.

My goal was to get the doom pool to 2d12 as soon as possible so I could end the scene before Destine was defeated as this would make the next scene and the rest of the event a lot tricker to set up. It's nice to have a mechanic to do that beyond just "the DM says he leaves" - there are actual mechanics at work in building up the pool and mechanics for spending those dice. It ads a little structure to it and puts a clock on the scene that everyone can see - Nice!

Fun moment: As we're getting started the boys are checking out milestones and figure out that if Stark drank too much at the party (he gets XP for this), then Punisher could call him weak and pathetic for doing so (he gets XP for that) then Panther could declare Drunken Iron Man a Threat to Wakanda (XP for Panther) and so everyone could gain some XP before anything else happened! They thought that was both very funny and pretty cool.

Greatest Hits #18 - A Reminder to All Captains - Count Those Drones!

Pretty sure we've played since this fight but it definitely left me scarred for a while

So we played a little Federation Commander over the weekend ...

Contact!

I took the CC Yorktown and the old CL Arizona out on a "keeping the cats out of the yard" mission against Apprentice Blaster's Kzinti BC and CM.

End of Turn 1

My idea was to have the CL stay in close and play wingman to help keep the drone wave off of the CC. Things went well until Turn 2.

Middle of Turn 2

Each of my ships had launched a drone on Turn 1. The Kzinti launched on Turn 1 and early on Turn 2. As we closed in we lit each each other up with phaser, photon, and disruptor fire. After some close-in maneuvering, I realized all four Kzinti drones were going to hit the CC on the same impulse. I managed to turn off so that two were hitting the #2 shield and two were hitting #3. "It's only four drones, I can handle that". This was a tremendous error and shows just how rusty I was.

So the drones hit, I line them up for defensive fire and say "OK, four drones - " and Blaster says, no, that's four drones. "What, I have four drones out there-" No, there are eight drones he says. "OK, eight drones-" no, eight drones on this shield, eight drones on that shield he says. "Wait, those are four drones PER COUNTER?!" - yes, he says, "I wondered why you weren't shooting at them before."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

Apparently at some point a few weeks ago I told Blaster to use one counter for all the drones he launched the same turn at the same target. He remembered this, I did not. I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts I didn't notice that his pair of ships with 8 launchers had only lunched 4 drones over 2 turns - at least going by the number of counters on the board. The outcome was pretty bad. I did manage to stop 7 of the 16 drones. I stopped two more with tractor beams though, and when I lost the tractors those two hit the ship as well. Been a long time since that's happened to me.

At the end of Turn 2 the CC is in pretty bad shape but still has some teeth. It's not going to outrun anyone but with a fresh shield towards the enemy and some charged phasers I should be able to stop drones long enough to get some more shots off.

(I did manage to rip up the Kzinti Battlecruiser before this happened - overloaded photons are still nasty up close (even with only 2 left) - but not as badly as the CC was hit)

Turn 3 was pretty much the game. We were still in close but I was reloading photons and the Kzin had disruptors and drones ready to go. The poor Yorktown did manage to turn a new shield but did not have enough phasers to stop the incoming drones. After a final volley of phaser fire the CC went down hard.

On Turn 4 the CL disengaged with no internal damage other than armor, ending the encounter.

Notes:
It's been a long time since I marked off that many boxes on a Fed CC and an even longer time since I've actually had one blown out from under me. It was largely stupidity on my part with the whole counter-counting thing. All I can say is I won't forget that anytime soon.

One tricky thing with drones vs. old-school SFB thinking is that given the turn structure a drone can move 3 hexes before you will ever have a chance to fire at the thing. This makes the job of an "escort" quite a bit tougher as once the drones close to zero range only the target can shoot at them. That 0-3 hex range is where phaser-3's are most effective, and it can be tricky to make that work, especially on slow moving ships. I'll be puzzling that out more, especially since Blaster seems pretty attached to his missile boat Kzinti ships.

A dislike: Federation drone racks in Fed Commander are terrible. Most ships only carry one, and it's the hybrid-loadout type, i.e. the G-racks from SFB. Now in SFB they are fine  - against the Klingons I could load up with all anti-drones, giving me an 8-shot defensive system. On the Romulan border I could load all drones, giving me an extra offensive system. In Fed Commander the Feds go halfway - 2 drones, 4 ADDs. Against drone-heavy opponents I can burn through the ADD ammo in half a turn and against non-drone opponents I only have two shots and then have to reload. It's inadequate either way. Beyond that, with only one drone on the ship, any halfway decent penetrating volley will kill it anyway. I've played a few battles with them recently and I'm not loving them at all.

Not my lights, but a nice set.

One big like: The Federation Old Light Cruiser - It's not terribly expensive, it has a lot of power, a solid phaser suite, and it can take at least one good volley from any direction thanks to the armor. I've always had a soft spot for these ships and so far they've worked pretty well. Sure, I expect to lose both torpedoes and the drone rack on any significant amount of internal damage but with 8 phasers and 30 power I should have enough energy left to move and take some shots afterward.

Greatest Hits #10 - New Games, Old Games, New Gamers, and Old Gamers

I think this is still completely relevant, even if we have another layer of editions for some games on top of what's discussed here. 

Barking Alien had a post yesterday inspired by a post from Monsters and Manuals last week that started some wheels turning for me. Rather than restrict it to a comment on those worthy blogs I decided to make it a post here as it goes to the heart of what I do with the hobby. So go read those really quick if you haven't then come back here for the next chapter.

Noisms uses the phrase "the tiresomeness of new systems". I sort of get that, but for me the "tiresomeness" usually comes in with new editions of games I already have that don't really change anything. Especially when they come out far too quickly. Truly "new" systems are interesting to me. For example:

• Third edition D&D was amazing at the time - such a radical revamp of the game that still felt like the game!
• I thought D&D 3.5 at only 3 years into the new system was an annoying money grab on many levels, even if there were some areas that could stand to be tuned up. 
• Pathfinder, 6+ years after that, with a stated goal of re-balancing and reexamining the whole system without completely changing it made sense to me, even if it wasn't completely new. 
• Fourth edition was so much change I hated it at first but I eventually came around and got to like it for its strengths and it definitely felt like a completely new game. 
• Fifth edition I am not settled on. There are innovations there, but there is a lot of change that I am not sure is an improvement. I need more time with it, but I enjoyed reading through it to see what had changed.

Did you miss this one?

There are other examples:

• After 20+ years of picking up Champions books I skipped the latest edition because I just didn't need another slightly tweaked set of Hero rules. 
• M&M 3E was a fairly significant revamp to M&M 2E - recognizable, but not instantly compatible.  
• ICONS was a very different approach to supers and I loved it. Mixing elements of Fate (which I did not have at the time) and Marvel Super Heroes (which I love) with an emphasis on simplicity and speed made a very entertaining mix and introduced me to some new ways of doing things.
• Marvel Heroic then came along and turned everything upside down with a radical new approach to Supers that I still think is one of the bigger innovations of the last ten years. It's completely different mechanically than the others I mention, but still feels at least as much like a superhero game as they do. 

There are many older games I like just fine. I prefer older versions of Gamma World, for example. If I wanted to play a "pure" cyberpunk game then CP2020 is what I would reach for on the shelf. For Star Wars I'm doing d6 or Saga Edition, not FFG's new stuff. One of the primary reasons may be that I almost never feel like I have exhausted the possibilities of any system that I like. Run a game for a year and I probably have a dozen new ideas for campaigns that I will never get to run. About the only reason I would skip an old game is if there's a version I think is truly better mechanically, to the point it's not worth the hassle of that older version.  

There are many newer games I prefer - Marvel is one example. I like Mongoose's edition of Traveller probably best of all. Newer is not always better, but it's almost always worth a look. Icons is better to me than Heroes Unlimited. 

Sure, there is some attraction to running a game that I already have, that's not being expanded every month by a publisher in the form of $35 hardbacks, and that I know like the back of my hand. I'd happily run that game, and I have.

However, I also like to see what's new, what someone is doing with an old setting that has new mechanics, or someone tweaking old mechanics to use with a new setting. Just, show me something innovative or interesting, don't just sell me the same old thing with a couple of tweaks (40K, I'm looking at you). Push me to the point I dislike it at first and that it takes a second or third reading to truly grasp it. Take a good setting and system and streamline it like Deadlands Classic vs. Deadlands Reloaded. Take an old setting and give it a new mechanical overlay like DC Heroes to DC Adventures. Do something completely different like Numenera. In short give me a reason to care, something new to chew on besides replacing d20 rolls with 2d10 rolls or changing up the skill list. 

As BA mentions in his post, it's an ongoing experience, a learning experience. I don't ever expect to find that one perfect game - I pretty much reject the concept - but I do think some games can just be flat out better than others and I acknowledge that someone may have a way  of looking at things game-wise that is awesome that I would never have come up with myself. That's part of what makes it fun.

Coda: The preference for existing systems is not restricted to the older generation:

• When FFG's Star Wars games came out I talked with them about getting a copy of the Beginner Set to try it out. "Why?" was the response. "We have Saga and it works just fine" - and this is coming from the then 14-year old. He didn't want to be bothered with learning the new system, he just wanted to play the one we already had. In contrast he hated d6 when we tried it because for him and his generation the prequel movies carry a lot of weight and the d6 system just is not good for that. Of course, neither is "Edge of the Empire" and that's probably at the heart of it. Saga best fits his vision of Star Wars and that's that.
• He likes pretty much every edition of D&D (and Pathfinder) but he's cautious about 5th and would just as soon play one of the older editions as spend time figuring out yet another version. 
• He will play pretty much any superhero game if he has the chance and recognizes that Marvel Super Heroes, Marvel Heroic, M&M 3, and Icons all have a different feel and likes that he has so many options.