Setting up an Aces sortie

 Hey Folks, we’re back with another look at Aces. Today we're going to look at setting up for your first game of Aces and looking at the Guided Tutorial mission from Scouring Sands. Buckle up and grab your box and we'll get started.

Force Building for Scouring Sands

Hey Folks We’re back with another article! This week should have a product review on Friday, and a breakdown of the Aces system on Wednesday. Today, however, we're going to do some force building for Scouring Sands. Buckle up, we're off to the races.  

BattleTech: Force Construction Part III (The Deets)

 Hey Folks, we’re back to work on Force Construction again. This is part IV of the process, (refer back to our original discussion here, and part I and II of this specific project here and here).  Today we’re going to finish up the record keeping and last few steps of this process.  If ’you want to follow along, go back and grab those articles, then we’ll get started.  

BattleTech: Force Construction How to Part II (Finishing the Company)

 Hey Folks, we’re back to work on Force Construction again. This is part III of the process, (refer back to our original discussion here, and part I of this specific project here).  Today we’re building our last two lances for the Argyle Lancers.  Let’s dig in and see what falls out of the sky, shall we? ’

BattleTech Force Construction Guidelines (Force Manual Series)

 Hey Folks, we’re back with some helpful insight and advice for folks who are sitting down to build their very own force for BattleTech or Alpha Strike.  The new Force Manual series is an amazing resource for this.  However, it’s BattleTech, (Baybee) and that means its a multi-step process with worksheets and charts.  Let’s try and see if we can smooth out some of those steps to make this process work for you, whether you’re a first time unit builder or a seasoned vet.

Mega Dungeon, Week 3

 Hey Game Fam, we’re back with week three of our Mega Dungeon Dev Blog. If you’re new here, thank you for stopping by however you got here. If you’re a little confused, that’s ok. Check back to the start of these articles here and you can catch back up. For the quick review, we’re working on filling out more of the dungeon and seeing what else this beehive needs. To see what the dungeon looks like when we start, here’s a link to the map over at Inkarnate, and we’re going to dive right in.  

How do i get started with Warhammer 40,000?

 Welcome to the Blog for the first article of what i hope is a productive and insightful new year in the world of games.  One of our big feature events that is starting this year is our Armies on Display activity which we’ll go into much deeper in another article but this comes up every so often and is something that i think is important enough to get a blog post of its own.  How do I as a newcomer get started with Warhammer 40,000.  We’re using Warhammer 40K as a baseline because it is fairly ubiquitous in the hobby, but the basic premise holds true for most games.  Sit a spell under our learning tree and we’ll see if we can’t help you out some. 

Ideas and Thoughts about making your game yours

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with another little chat about games and the way we screw ourselves up over them. We’re going to talk about one of my least favorite words, (Canon) and just how much fun you can have by turning it on its side and doing what precisely you want to do. This is a problematic topic for a lot of different reasons, and we’ll try and give you a couple of ways to interact with it. Buckle up, we’re hopping in the Rambler.

Armoured Justice Posse Set Write Up

Hey Game Fans, today we’re going to talk about the Armoured Justice Posse Set from Warcradle Studios for Wild West Exodus. Before we go any further, feel free to hop over to our Youtube video here to see what’s in the box.  Seen it? Good, now let’s talk about what the people in the box are and what they can do, and see about finding you some add ons to expand out the posse.  Saddle Up, we’re heading into the Dystopian Age’s Wild West. 

Monday Morning Prime Time thoughts (How do you make a character?)

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with another article on one of our favorite topics in the multiverse, Role-Playing Games. This is always an interesting topic that sparks debates, arguments, hate mail, death threats, and the occasional civil discourse. Today’s aspect is an essential one for the hobby, and it’s as individual a process as anything else in the universe. How do you create your characters for your next RPG? I asked this question last week on twitter and i got a ton of answers (don’t worry, I’ll be linking this article to that question so you can pop back and check out the answers from the rest of the twitter-verse).


Today i’m going to sort of walk you through my process for creating characters for most role-playing games. Now some games have an entire process of their own that lets you start at point A, follow the dots and bing bang boom you have a character that’s ready to play. Those are their own sort of animal, and they have a very strong internal consistency for their character creation process. (We’ll talk about one of those later on once we’ve gotten through this process).

Putting Together an Adventure (Some Key Terms)

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with another one of these articles about the processes and the ideas that make up the structure of Role-Playing Games.  If you’re familiar with these terms, wonderful, you’ve got a good foundation for building your own games and putting together your sessions, but if these are new, then buckle in and we’ll try to give you some words to work with, and hopefully a process to help you put together your own adventures, encounters, and campaigns.  Let’s dive in.

 

So we’ve got some key terms to look at.  If you’ve seen these before but weren’t quite sure what they meant, we’ve got your back.  Let’s take a look at Encounter, Adventure, Campaign and Session.

 

Formation Building for Alpha Strike

All right Game Fans, we’re back with another article on one of our favorite games, Alpha Strike.  If you’ve kept up with the list to date, you can see that we’ve been cranking out the articles on this topic and it’s because we genuinely enjoy the game.  Today we’re going to take a look at building your first army group, (Alpha Strike calls these formations).  We’re going to be referencing the combat manuals to do this, so if you haven’t picked up Combat Manual: Mercenaries, or Combat Manual Kurita, you’re going to be at a bit of a disadvantage.  So, go get one of those while the rest of us get started.  

Star Wars Dice from Fantasy Flight Games

So i’m sure that some of you have been at the game store and seen Fantasy Flight Games’s full throttled run into the Star Wars Intellectual Property.  I’ve been playing Star Wars in one form or another since 1995, and have loved every iteration i’ve seen.  I’ll admit, i was a little hesitant when i saw FFG’s entry into the line, mostly because the Dice confused the crap out of me.  I don’t like seeing dice fly across a table and not being able to rapidly figure out what just happened.  In the spirit of inviting all of you in, we’re going to take a closer look at FFG’s new dice so you can avoid the wall of confusion.

So yeah, we’ve got some new, interesting dice to identify and figure out just what sort of mischief they are up to.  Let’s look at the evidence.  My friends tell me that every time the dice are tossed, the story evolves along narrative lines, and each roll can change the outcome of the adventure.  

 

 

Yep, I have absolutely no idea what any of that means.  Let’s take a closer look at what the dice are, and what they represent in the game.

Positive Dice Group

The Positive dice group represent the potential positive outcomes associated with a task.  Boosts, Proficiencies, and Abilities all fall within this pool.

Boost Dice:    The Boost Die represents the benefit of having the right tools, the right contact, or other things that just happen to break a character’s way. Thematically they are opposed by Setback Die.

Ability Dice: The Ability Die represents a character’s aptitude or skill when attempting checks.  These Die form the basis of most checks, and have positive, beneficial symbols on them.  Thematically they are opposed by difficulty dice.  

Proficiency Dice:   The Proficiency Die represents advanced training on the part of a character, or can be added to a dice pool by expending a Destiny Point (More on those later).  

Taken together, these three types of die represent the positive chances of success a player has when rolling the dice.  However, a dice pool doesn’t just have positive dice in it.

Negative Dice Group

Setback Dice: The Setback Die represents a host of potential problems that negatively influence the chance for success.  Trying to fix a broken repulsor coil in the rain for example.  These dice are thematically opposed by Boost Dice

Difficulty Dice:  The Difficulty Die represents the inherent difficulty of attempting a particular task.  Repairing the welds on a speeder compared to rewiring a broken hyperdrive, for example.  These dice are thematically opposed by the Ability Dice.  

Challenge Dice: The Challenge Die represents elite levels of adversity and opposition.  Bluffing your way past local guards is one thing, but those are Imperial Stormtroopers, for example.  These dice are full of ruination and can spell the downfall of an action.

These dice represent the challenges and setbacks that are part of attempting an action in Star Wars.  There is another Die, however.

The Force

The Force Die:  The Force Die is generally only used by Force sensitive characters, but it is also used to determine a character’s pool of destiny points at the beginning of a session.  

What Does It All Mean?

Still Nothing

If you’ll notice, Each die has an unusual assortment of lines/squiggles/pictographs that each mean something different.  Let’s break down those symbols and see if we can make heads/tails of this.  

Success: Success symbols are essential for completing tasks as a part of Dice Pool.  They are cancelled out by Failure symbols.  If there are any Success Symbols left, the check succeeds.

Triumph: Triumph symbols count as Success symbols, but, it’s also possible to spend Triumphs to make extremely positive consequences occur beyond simple Success or failure

Advantage:Advantage symbols represent incidental benefits beyond success or failure.  They cancel (and are cancelled) by threat symbols.  They other thing to keep in mind regarding these symbols is that they are always beneficial, even if the check itself fails.

Failure:Failure symbols represent difficulties that prevent success from occurring.  If more Failure symbols show up on the dice than successes, the check has failed.

Despair: These are the supercharged versions of Failure Symbols.  They count as Failures, but the GM can also spend them to make extremely negative consequences occur as well.

Threat:  Threat symbols represent unpleasant consequences or side effects.  These symbols cancel out advantages (and are cancelled by them as well).  The effects of these dice occur whether or not the check was a success or failure.  

The Force Die has white circles (the Light Side of the Force) and Dark Circles (The Dark Side of the Force), but those are governed by slightly different rules we’ll cover later on.  

So now we’ve got some dice, and we know what the symbols mean, let’s see if we can explain this again.  

Example 1:

Dafro the Enraged, (A Twilek Smuggler with anger management issues) is attempting to outmaneuver the TIE Fighters that are actively looking for a freighter matching his.  So far, they’re at the edge of sensor range, but they could find him at any time.  

Dafro has 3 agility (which means he has three green dice) and Piloting 2 (which means he can upgrade 2 of those green dice to yellow dice).  Avoiding a Tie Fighter Patrol is going to be an average task for the sake of this, which means we’ll be adding two purple dice to the pool.  Dafro’s player will pick up his 1 Green, 2 Yellow, and 2 Purple dice, and let them fly across the table.

Example 2:

(From my old friend Chase, who’s been playing this version much longer than i have. His example is much more nuanced and discusses possible outcomes of the dice result)

“Dafro has 3 agility (which means he has three green “Ability” dice) and Piloting 2 (which means he upgrades 2 of those green dice to yellow “Proficiency” dice). The Game Master decides that a single, opposed, Piloting check will be required in order for him to avoid a Tie Fighter Patrol. The Patrol consists of 2 Tie Fighters in a Minion group. They have an Agility of 3 (This means we’ll be adding three purple “Difficulty” dice to the pool) and as a Minion group each Minion after the first upgrades the check (changing one of those purple dice into a red “Challenge die”) due to Piloting (Space) being one of their Group Skills. Dafro’s player will pick up his 1 Green, 2 Yellow, 2 Purple, and 1 Red dice, and let them fly!

The Narrative Dice will then help tell the story of what happens. Does Dafro succeed in outmaneuvering the Empire? Just a simple success or failure could happen but with Narrative Dice many other outcomes are possible. Success with uncancelled Advantages could allow Dafro’s Player to indicate that one of the TIEs pushed their engines a little too far, earning a black  ‘setback’ die in any further Piloting checks. Even succeeding, if enough threat symbols are left uncancelled, the GM might say that the Empire has tagged Dafro’s ship for inquiry! Failed but with advantage? Perhaps the Ties are on his tail but Dafro’s Player asks if he could spot a cargo ship that he could fly near to try and get them to back off on the next round! Failed to avoid them and generated threat? Dafro’s anxious maneuvers got him nowhere but fast, with the GM having each threat becoming a system strain dealt to Dafro’s starship from overtaxed systems. A Triumph generated by one of his yellow “Proficiency” die could represent Dafro’s Player having one of the TIEs colliding into some space debris and disabling or destroying their ship, taking them out of the encounter. A Despair rolled on the Red “Challenge” die could mean GM has the TIEs call in backup and a third TIE joins in their Minion group! Since Triumphs and Despairs do not cancel, it is possible for both of these outcomes at the same time. And these are only examples, let your imagination flow through you!”

What happens after the dice are rolled is a matter for another article.  Now i know that our Good Friends over at Hyper RPG are gearing up for a Star Wars RPG show, and if i can read (There are 0 guarantees on that), they are doing Character Creation this week.  I’ll try and put together an article on character creation and what all those numbers mean for next week’s article.  

Happy Gaming, and remember you can fall into Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars Rabbit Hole here, https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/#/universe/star-wars

Game On, Game Fans

Filling in the Background (Character Building advice for Call of Cthulhu)

All right Game Fans, we’re back to finish up our character building for Call of Cthulhu

We’ve Rolled our Attributes, generated our statistics, picked a profession, and assigned our skill points.  We’re coming in on the home stretch but we’re at one the most important parts of constructing a character, building the Backstory.  Let’s take a look at Building a Backstory, Call of Cthulhu style.  Call of Cthulhu gives you a lot of leeway for building a backstory, and they offer a variety of tables to help inspire you.  We’re going to use that narrative tool for building a backstory, to give you folks at home an idea of how the tables works.  

 

Puzzle Quest (Dungeon Mastering Advice)

All right Game Fans, today we’re going to talk about Puzzles and how to include in your encounters.  Puzzles are a staple of the fantasy genre and really came into their own with the rise of video games. Puzzles can include Movable blocks, hidden floor panels, and other combinations of environmentally based scenic elements  that can be manipulated to effect a change in the environment of the area.  They also represent password protected areas or barriers that prevent movement forward (The secret door into the Mines of Moria, for example).  Let’s take a closer look at puzzles and some of the best ways to incorporate them into your game, and some suggestions on puzzle traps to avoid.  

 

Open Legend Character Creation and Basic Rules

Open Legend is the new hot Universal Role-playing Game from Seventh Sphere.  We’ve talked about it a couple of times so far during their Kickstarter campaign, and today we’re back with a look at the Core mechanic (I do like games that have a core mechanic, “One mechanic to rule them all” so to speak), and the character creation process.  Open Legend is a story first game, and anytime the player or the GM pick up the dice, it’s always for a specific, story driven reason.  Let’s take a closer look at the core mechanic, and the character creation process.

 

Shadowrun: Anarchy (Time to Bake the Cookies, Part III) Keebler Harder

All right Chummers, we're back with the third and final part of our character creation example for Shadowrun: Anarchy.  Shadowrun: Anarchy is the brand new, rules lite, story heavy alternative rules set for telling stories and playing games in the Shadowrun Universe.  It's a story telling focused game, and the mechanics of the game are built for players to tell awesome stories that look and feel like Shadowrun.  Now Last time, we were working through the many steps of building your own character, and got through the first five or so.  If you're new to the blog, check out https://zardozgames.blogspot.com/2016/10/shadowrun-anarchy-time-to-bake-cookies.html for the first part of the article.  If you missed the second part of the series, check it out at http://zardozgames.blogspot.com/2016/10/shadowrun-anarchy-time-to-bake-cookies_24.html Let's dig into the chrome and the meat of building a character.

Shadowrun: Anarchy (Time to Bake the Cookies, Part III) Keebler Harder

All right Chummers, we're back with the second part of our character creation example for Shadowrun: Anarchy.  Shadowrun: Anarchy is the brand new, rules lite, story heavy alternative rules set for telling stories and playing games in the Shadowrun Universe.  It's a story telling focused game, and the mechanics of the game are built for players to tell awesome stories that look and feel like Shadowrun.  Now Last time, we were working through the many steps of building your own character, and got through the first five or so.  If you're new to the blog, check out https://zardozgames.blogspot.com/2016/10/shadowrun-anarchy-time-to-bake-cookies.html for the first part of the article.  If you missed the second part of the series, check it out at http://zardozgames.blogspot.com/2016/10/shadowrun-anarchy-time-to-bake-cookies_24.html Let's dig into the chrome and the meat of building a character.

Shadowrun: Anarchy (Time to Bake the Cookies, Part II)

All right Chummers, we're back with the second part of our character creation example for Shadowrun: Anarchy.  Shadowrun: Anarchy is the brand new, rules lite, story heavy alternative rules set for telling stories and playing games in the Shadowrun Universe.  It's a story telling focused game, and the mechanics of the game are built for players to tell awesome stories that look and feel like Shadowrun.  Now Last time, we were working through the many steps of building your own character, and got through the first five or so.  If you're new to the blog, check out https://zardozgames.blogspot.com/2016/10/shadowrun-anarchy-time-to-bake-cookies.html for the first part of the article.  Let's dig into the chrome and the meat of building a character.

Shadowrun: Anarchy (Time to Bake the Cookies)

All right Chummers (See, we know at least one piece of Runner Slang), we’re back and taking a look at creating a new character for the Shadowrun: Anarchy rules set.  We’ve talked about how characters drive stories, and today we’re going to show you how to build your own.  Remember this is a collaborative storytelling game set in the Shadowrun Universe, so let your creativity run wild when you come up with your concept (You’ll see how whacky we’re going to get).