My Events for Mepacon

My events are officially submitted for Mepacon, November 15-17 in Scranton.  We've got hockey tickets Saturday night, so we'll be wrapping up the con at 4 to make it down to the arena.

"Hooked on a Feeling"
System: My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria  Theme Game
Players 6
Welcome to the awesome underwater world of Seaquestria! Can your Sea Ponies overcome another day at the annual Steam Festival! Everyone welcome at the table and Sea Ponies created before play.

To be run Friday 4-6, Saturday, 9-11, 11-1, and 2-4.

"The Octonauts and the Eight Arms of Order"

System: Scavengers RPG

Players 8

Three days ago, the famous GUP-K was found abandoned and washed up on the coast of Cape Hatteras.  Any attempt to contact the famed Octonauts has been unsuccessful.  It's up to you non-elite group of oceanographers, marine biologists, and casual adventure seekers to search for the missing heroes.  Characters to be provided.  All ages welcome.   

To be run Friday 8-12

#RPGaDay 2017 Day 29: What Has Been the Best-Run RPG Kickstarter You Have Backed?

We have come upon day 29 of  #RPGaDay: What Has Been the Best-Run RPG Kickstarter You Have Backed?

I'm more of a miniatures guy when it comes to Kickstarter.  If I see greens or a reasonable production run, I'll bite.

I'm far more fickle with RPGs.  Writing, artists, editing, and printing are all gigantic landmines, even for experienced crews.

I was initially going to go with Scavengers.  I was quite happy with the campaign, the rewards,  the communication, and I'm delighted with every piece of Travis Hanson art on each page.  However, I only requested the core pdf with none of the stretch goals.  I got my pdf seven months late and I was fine with that.  However, the campaign stretch goals have finally been fulfilled after two years.  That borders on old Chaosium Kickstarter territory.

With my skewed nostalgia corrected, I must first give a general shout-out to Golden Goblin Press.  I've backed three of their campaigns and all three have been excellent.  Good communications, delays are counted in weeks, sometimes days, and each item is a quality product.

Specifically, I give props to the De Horrore Cosmico scenario book for Cthulhu Invictus.  Great rewards, great communications, with estimated delivery of April 2015 with the book arriving prior to GenCon (perfectly acceptable with 30 years of waiting for other gaming books).

And because I look out for my fellow gamers, even though I wanted none of the stretch goals, everything that was promised (including a short-story collection) was shipped out by September 2015, and Oscar Rios was busy cleaning up missing orders, missing items in October.   The other Goblin Goblin campaigns were closer to their target dates, but stretch goals lingered on a bit longer. 

Role-Playing in the Octonauts Universe

Back in the early days of the blog, I searched for time to research kid's RPGs.  I took to Princess themes with my own homebrewed T.I.A.R.A, only to recently discover that it's balanced perfectly between Savage Worlds and Princesses and Palaces. 

One of the projects that's remained in unpublished draft form on my blog for years has been trying to emulate the Octonauts cartoon in game form.  For those of you whose TV doesn't permanently reside on Disney Jr, the Octonauts are a team of anthropomorphic undersea explorers with a mobile base the travels around the world. 

From Wikipedia

From Wikipedia:

"The TV show is episodic, with each 11 minute episode seeing them encountering an unusual but real sea creature as they explore strange underwater worlds. Often they must discover a vital biological or behavioural fact about that creature to rescue it or themselves from danger. The stories usually feature three main characters: Captain Barnacles, Kwazii and Peso, with the other five Octonauts acting in supporting roles."

This format makes great fodder for setting up kids' games.  The episodes are short, action-packed, and feature a rotating cast of characters.  But how do we emulate this, so one kid doesn't always grab Kwazii... or better yet, can't play him?

I suggest mining the Scavengers RPG by Metal Weave Games.

Scavengers was a small Kickstarter, full of artwork by Travis Hanson, where the characters were a space battle salvagers flying through the galaxy to get rich.  The setting isn't great for kids, but the basic mechanics

To "Octify" the rules, each character takes on a unique role on the team (Captain, Engineer, Medic, Science Officer, Security, and Laborer).   Each role has it's own unique benefits and flaws, but buy the actual book to see the examples.

You then spread out 15 dice amongst the following skills (Minimum of 1 and Max of 5 in each):

• Talking
• Fighting
• "Sea Feelings" (Psychology)
• Science!
• "Sea Tech"
• Medic
• Fitness

The number assigned is the number of six-sided dice you roll for that skills.  5's and 6's are considered successes.  The tougher the task, the more successes are needed to accomplish something.

That part that intrigued me the most with Scavengers was Danger Points.  If you failed your skill roll, you could keep the 1's, 5's and 6's you rolled, and re-roll the remaining dice.  Additional successes are added to the first ones, but each 1 from that second roll earns that character a Danger point.   In Scavengers, earning your 10th danger point meant that that action was immediately fatal, regardless of result (luck has finally caught up to you in the unforgiving emptiness of space). 

In the world of Octonauts, that's a bit excessive, so I offer this less dangerous alternative.

Characters may Push their rolls at any time, but they MUST push their rolls if they failed for a third straight time.  Danger Points are still earned on 1's, but if they earned 3, the character is out of commission (knocked out, captured, in trouble), and the player must choose an available crew member for the rest of the game. 

If there's too much success, up the difficulty number.  Too little, make it easier. 

I'm thinking this game would be great for large paper stand-up minis for the Octo-Pod, the crew, the  GUP underwater vehicles. and the sea creatures of the week.  

Cool high stuff like this is from Tobsen77

Of course, the audience for this game isn't looking for high quality models.  A little arts and crafts goes a long way too.

The required disclaimer: This post is not meant to infringe on the properties of Silvergate Media, Meomi, Disney, or even the folks at Metal Weave games.  Watch the shows, play the games, buy the toys and DVDs. Play with them with your kids!    Just don't try it with Jake and Neverland Pirates.  That show always got on my nerves....

#RPGaDAY2015 Day #1: Most Anticipated Forthcoming Game

For me, the 2015 version of RPGaDay kicks off with a whimper.  I'm no longer the young crazed gamer of twenty years ago, ready and willing to jump onto the next cool system.  In fact, outside of the D&D Starter Set for 5e, I don't believe I've purchased a new RPG since Hackmaster Basic was released in print. 

The funny thing is, I have a monthly post called Apathy of the New Releases that covers the monthly solicitations via Alliance's Game Trade Magazine.   Despite enough product from Paizo and Fantasy Flight alone to make the average gamer squeal in delight, I rarely find much to go into my money-is-no-object want list, much less my practical one.

As of this writing, there is only one game that's coming out that I'm waiting with jittery anticipation, and it's not going through regular distribution channels yet.

Scavengers is an RPG  about exploring derelict space ships and getting rich off the loot!   There's role-playing potential, but with randomly generated derelict ships to salvage, there's the "cool dungeon" effect I remember as a young D&D gamer.

The big points that drew me to the game:

• Random generated dungeons, I mean, ships
• Simple mechanics
• Game Balance - As the scavengers get more experienced, they accumulate Danger Points.  Too many danger points results in death/grievous injury.  It's a nice balance for the level of risk/reward.
• I should be able to use this system for some personal non-published games involving children's programming by a large mouse with castles in Florida and California. 
• Art by Travis Hanson.  I absolutely love his work, having pledged on the Tanner Jones and the Quest for the Monkey Stone on Kickstarter (available here).  

I pledged for the pdf copy of the rules during the Kickstarter, I did get the "Demo Copy" of the game in pdf this past week, and it only heightened my anticipation for the real thing.

Scavengers Update

In the midst of my strange rant about Chaosium, Kickstarter, and idiots in general, I mentioned how the Scavengers RPG was running behind, but they were getting the final ducks in a row, and communication had been pretty good.

Lo' and behold, what showed up yesterday afternoon, but an update.  Outside of finalizing the commission of the cover (a little late, no?) everything is progressing nicely. 

They did provide some more color interior art.  This one is my favorite:

It's so everydayman...  Actually it's looks like Mom and Dad scavenging with kids. I like that. 

They also provided a demo copy of the character sheet. 

Click to Enlarge

Between this and the rough draft of the rules provided, I feel very comfortable running a game with the family be it Scavengers, or using the dynamics for a "Sea Ranger" game that won't infringe on copyrights.