Thursday, May 31, 2012

Kings of Orion - Review

Just a quick discussion of the previous campaign:

  • I liked the credits/"richie" based economy. It was an attempt to move away from the "boon" economy of the previous Knights of Orion campaign while keeping the feel the same and minimizing bookkeeping. I would do that again in subsequent modern/future campaigns.
  • I love starting in the middle. Each episode started "in medias res" with the PCs in some sort of fight. It just gets everyone focused on the game that much quicker. It also serves as a sort of aid to help guide the action.
  • The rules for equipment worked well. Removing all armor-piercing from guns and replacing it with extra damage worked like a champion. Anyone who didn't wear armor was basically dead from the high-powered shooting anyway. It all worked so much quicker and easier.
  • The armor piercing for melee weapons worked out, too. My only wish was that I could get PCs into powered armor by the half way point in the campaign, and my pacing didn't work out that way. My making melee weapons the favored method of "cracking the shell" on powered armor, and making powered armor rare and special it made melee combat relevant even in the futuristic age.
  • I still enjoy writing dramatic opening interlude playlets. At the very least, it gives players a glimpse into the dynamics on the "bad guy" side. It makes the game more of a movie IMHO.
  • The "dark secrets" didn't work so well. It fractured the group and resulted in a train wreck around session six. It was interesting to try, and I liked how it added a "second level" of roleplaying to the table, but in actual play it was too distracting.
  • I had too many leads. We didn't get to things like "Why is there a span-kee on Wellfleet?", "What's up with the vampires on Wellfleet?", "Why is Wellfleet haunted?", "What's up with the Confederation of Sleestak?", "How can we use all the house diplomats to transmit messages to their respective houses?", "What is up with the cult of Slag-Bah?", "How was the Tower of Infinity created?", and "Where are all the machines?" -- I guess when it comes down to it, we don't have enough time at the table to go sniffing after mysteries only on their own merit. In the future and mysteries I set up will have some sort of bait to them.
  • Tuesday, May 29, 2012

    Tuesday, May 15, 2012

    Traveller Wiki

    In preparation for the new campaign, I've created a new wiki on the Lords of Hack site. Feel free to make entries on the Traveller wiki. You should have received your logins by email. I plan to bring a computer to the gaming table for our Traveller adventures, and I'll be updating the wiki as we go.

    Thursday, May 10, 2012

    Lord Grover Back-up Plan

    We never did tell Andrew our back-up plan for Lord Grover.  It turned out he was pretty cool and was willing to cooperate with us, but we were perfectly prepared for him to be a jerk.  If he had shown us the slightest jerkiness, the slightest bit at all mind you, we were just going to kill him and frame Lord Boothe.  We even had a fake "note to his friends" all written up that said he was afraid Boothe was coming to kill him.

    Tuesday, May 8, 2012

    Hexographer

    Have any of you tried this Hexographer program? It is pretty awesome! So awesome in fact that it makes me want to get back into the Dawn of Worlds world-building game. If I set up a wiki and a way to share hexographer files, would anyone be interested in contributing toward creating a fully-formed fantasy world of our own making just over the Internet?

    Monday, May 7, 2012

    Session 7 - Epilogue

    I feel bad that this campaign has been so splintered. With me having to cut sessions short, and dropping weeks due to vacation and illness things just haven't gone quite as planned. However, I suppose an 8-session campaign isn't bad.

    It was rewarding to get back into the swing of things. I loved Marlon's character jumping from platform to platform on the skyscraper opening scene as well as Dave's inspired piloting of the Mavorian jump craft. Grodd became awesome comic relief, and Bob served as the counterbalance and foil.

    We'll end this campaign next session, wherein I have a few more secrets to reveal. It will start out with a struggle for the Tower of Eternity, and end with the defeat of Templar Wrathbone at the hands of the player characters.