Board Game - Federation Commander

Back in my board gaming days prior to getting involved in the role-playing hobby, a game my group was big into was Starfleet Battles. The game gradually added so many rules that eventually most of the group gave up on it.

A couple of years ago one of the old group reintroduced me to the off-spring of SFB in a cleaner, simpler, and to me more entertaining version called Federation Commander.

The rules simplifications and the updates to charts, tables, and the full color laminated ship system display cards really helped return this old favorite of mine to being playable once more.

Several days ago I decided to start working on a set of campaign rules for playing out a war between any number of the star faring empires available in the game. Instead of using a map with the empires pre-placed, thus creating situations where some are clearly outnumbered by enemies and others have it easy, I am working on a mapless strategic variant. Hopefully once I can put it together in a playable form I can post the rules here for review and comment by readers that might have interest in making use of them.

One thing about these strategic rules . . . it doesn't require all of the players to be at one place at the same time, just the ones in any particular conflict. And it uses a neutral referee to allow for the fog of war that makes grand strategic games much more interesting. As long as at least one person has the needed rules and game components and is willing to lend them out or travel with them to where the combatants plan to meet, this can be accomplished.

Thieves World

While digging through some of my stored gaming stuff I turned up a second edition of the Thieves' World adventure pack boxed set. Released originally in 1981 by Chaosium, it included a wall map of the city of Sanctuary, a map of the district known as the Maze, and an underground map of the tunnels beneath the Maze. There is a Players guide, a DM's guide and a book detailing personalities from the novels.

There is informaton for using it with multiple game systems including AD&D, Adventures in Fantasy, Chivalry & Sorcery, DragonQuest, basic Dungeons & Dragons, The Fantasy Trip, RuneQuest, Traveller, and Tunnels & Trolls. 

Among the notable designers of the day that helped with it are Dave Arnesson, Eric Goldberg, Rudy Kraft, Wes Ives, Steve Marsh, Marc W. Miller, Steve Perrin, Lawrence Schick, and Ken St. Andre. Some of the names are readily recognised and some are still quite active today.

For what it provides I would be willing to call it the Ptolus of its day. I wonder if Monte Cook was thinking of this at all when he decided to convert his campaign to book form.

The more recent incarnation in book form produced by Green Ronin focuses more on events taking place in the later books while the original was still very much tied to the earliest anthology from Robert Asprin and crew.

I won't go into to much now, but after giving it a re-read may post some additional thoughts.

  

Monster - Burning Cube

Embuk kicked and swam for all he was worth through the cold waters of the underground lake. He prayed that the horrible creature could not cross the water.

A trail of ashes behind the thing were all that remained of his companions Maluk and Zefram. They had tried to fight back after the cube-like monstrosity slammed into them at the intersection of hallways. They had not noticed it coming.

It was as the rumors had said, a wizard had dropped his powerful wand of fireballs only to see it engulfed by a massive nearly invisible cube of slime. Now, imbued with the elemental energies of the wand the creature wanders the caverns and worked hallways beneath the ruins incinerating its victims.

Zefram had struck it full on with the point of his spear only to suffer a retributive blast of flames gushing from the wound. Maluk fared no better, though he did not become paralyzed, the thing wrapped itself around, absorbing him. Within its transparent form he burned to charred cynders over the next several seconds, writhing and screaming the whole time.

Embuk fired his crossbow and sadly sealed Zefram's fate as another gout of fire burst forth and down Zefram went. The thing lurched forward over his fallen companion and Embuk ran.

Burning Cube (unique monster)
Number encountered: 1
Movement: 60 (20)
Armor Class: 8
Hit Dice: 6
Attacks: 1
Damage: 2d4 kinetic + 1d4 fire
Save: Fighter 3
Morale: 12 fearless
Special Defense: Attacks that break the membrane (piercing and cutting) cause a gout of fire to burst in a 10 by 10 foot area immediately in front of where the attack hit. Damage from this attack is 2d4 and a failure to save vs breath weapon indicates an additional round of burning for 1d4 damage unless extinguished.
Enveloped creatures suffer 2d4 fire damage every round until freed or dead.
The event that cause this cube to become a burning cube took away the paralytic and acidic nature of the original cube.

Feeling uninspired today

I sometimes envy people that can appear to stay switched on 24/7 365. I'm definitely not one of them and this weekend has brought that point home.

Even with a list of topics I want to get around to and a couple of draft posts that need finishing, I am just not feeling the right energy for a gaming post.

Oh well, maybe the step back will prove beneficial since I have plenty to do before the weekend when I'll be running session #6 finally. Here's hoping the loss of momentum doesn't negatively impact my DMing.

A Quick Hurricane Update

The coast of North Carolina is taking a direct hit as expected.

This link is to a Google page tracking the path of Irene.

Based on that image, my location should get even less wind and rain that previously expected.

Batten Down The Hatches!

Irene looms on the horizon, her darkening clouds driving before them hot tropical air, moist with the hint of mayhem to come.

Ok, enough of that.

Where I am located here in Fred-neck Maryland we aren't expecting a direct hit like the Northeast. According to the weather channel website earlier there's only a 10 to 20% chance of tropical storm strength winds of 40mph or over, though we are expecting plenty of rain. The odds of Irene turning inward toward this blogger's homestead because she is unhappy with the OSR seems rather limited.

Ragardless I will post periodic updates on the weather for as long as I have electricity. I'll also try to post some gaming stuff as well.

The Joy Of Creative Players - The right tool for the job.

Harkening back to the group from the 2nd edition game I remarked on previously, here is another moment of outside the box thinking from the players. It caught me by surprise and that made it important in many ways for the players and myself.

The party was early into the chase for the thief that had stolen a very important item. They had chased the goblin into the woods and Otis had just caught up when both he and the goblin plumetted down a brush covered hole into an underground ruin. Otis had been knocked out in the fall and when he came to there was a bloody smear leading from where the goblin had been, through another small room, and out a doorway.

The rest of the party had caught up and after tending to Otis they were searching the dimly lit chambers. Among some fallen stonework Otis discovered a dagger that was missing the hilt and pommel. Picking the blade up by the rags that were wrapped around the tang he felt strange and found he could see better in the sparse lighting than a moment before. He had come into possession of an interesting dagger whose magic and drawbacks would come into play later in the campaign.

Deciding that the bloody smear was not just a ruse and that the goblin had not taken a hidden exit, the party lit a torch and started out from the door into a long hallway. They were met immediately by a volley of arrows and fell back.

Unable to see far enough down the hallway to spot their attackers they began to grow frustrated until Otis urged them to move the bright torch to the far side of the room so he could get a better look down the darkened hall. Dagger in hand, he peered from the doorway and determined that about 100 feet away was a pile of debri behind which a couple of small humanoids were crouched guarding another door.

The goblins were taking cover behind some barricades and firing shots down the long hallway keeping the characters pinned in the room and away from the door they believed the thief had escaped through. Applying their brains to the task, they took the door off the hinges and used it like a gigantic shield while moving down the hall. Then the used it to bridge up and over the barricade of junk so one of them could charge over into the enemy position.

In a few brief rounds they had defeated what otherwise would have been a dangerous combat for them and forever changed my ideas about what players were able to come up with given the opportunity to think about it.

Now when I design a dungeon environment myself I always try to include opportunities for out of the box thinking and hope players will surprise me by doing something even beyond what I had imagined.