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Month: March 2017

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Published on 1 Comment on D&D 3.0 – Sylmore Campaign

Hey, I spoke too soon! I found some stuff from the old D&D 3.0  game I ran after the Mars campaign concluded. This was a really good campaign, maybe the most successful long campaign I've ever run (although there was a 1st edition game I'm still proud of).
...continue reading "D&D 3.0 – Sylmore Campaign"

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It's bothering me that I seem to have all this material for games I never ran, but for the games I actually did run I can't find any record! There was a D&D 3.5 game I ran for years (the Sylmore campaign) ... can't find a thing about it except for one scrap of background information about the Norse religion.

Anyway, here's the start of a campaign handbook for yet another game that I never ran. This time, it's a D&D 3.5 game. Path of Swords Campaign Handbook. (You can see that I was inspired by Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed here.)

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This was a campaign that actually did get played ... sort of. The whole thing was a train wreck from beginning to end. We were using the Realms of Cthulhu ruleset (a Savage Worlds variant), but even though I had run Savage Worlds before, and correctly, I for some reason got some pretty basic rules incorrect for this campaign. Also, I was trying to create an atmospheric, pulpy, spooky, investigation-driven game, but only succeeded in making an incomprehensible mess. Eventually, players stopped showing up and the campaign mercifully fizzled out.

Still, some of the enormous amount of written verbiage that came out of this game is moderately entertaining.
...continue reading "Call of Cthulhu – The Crowninshield Investigations"

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Another RPG campaign that never got played. This one was for Mutants & Masterminds. The central idea was that this would be an episodic campaign using pre-generated characters representing the major Marvel super-heroes. Each game session would be like a comic book issue, with each issue introducing plot points and puzzle pieces leading to a big finish to the campaign. So, I created an outline of six “issues” for three different Marvel groups: the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the Avengers. I figured an advantage to that approach would be that whatever players were playing that session would have a choice of the three. Once enough of the “issues” got played, there would be enough story elements revealed to play the grand finale. Each “issue” would be short enough that two of them should be playable in a game session.
...continue reading "Mutants & Masterminds RPG – Marvel Super Heroes"

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Another campaign that never got off the ground. I wanted to run a sci-fi campaign but was undecided whether or not to use Savage Worlds (which I was somewhat familiar with) or Traveller's new edition (which I knew nothing about). So, I ran two play-tests, one with each system. The first (Traveller system) attracted two players, and the second (Savage Worlds) attracted just one player. So, that one fizzled right out the box. I've included some of the background and miscellaneous stuff I wrote. ...continue reading "Traveller Campaign"

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  1. Worlds that do not trade with other worlds are poor and have low technology.
    • 1st Corollary of Law 1: Poor, low tech worlds are in constant danger of extinction.
    • 2nd Corollary of Law 1: Exceptions to this law tend to be extremely nasty.
  2. You are not the first traveller to arrive in this system.
    • 1st Corollary of Law 2: If you don't know what happened to previous travellers, you are asking for trouble.
  3. The people that built your ship assumed that you would always be fully supplied, have a full fuel tank, and not have more than the recommended amount of cargo and passengers before entering hyperspace.
    • 1st Corollary of Law 3: The most important knowledge a traveller must have is how to bend Law 3.
  4. Human beings are short-sighted, paranoid, selfish, greedy, and delusional.
    • 1st Corollary of Law 4: This is the primary source of profit for travellers.
    • 2nd Corollary of Law 4: This is the primary source of danger for travellers.
    • 3rd Corollary of Law 4: This applies to your crew, too, so watch your back.
  5. Always be prepared to nuke the site from orbit (a.k.a. Dead men tell no tales).
    • 1st Corollary of Law 5: Remember that everyone you meet is trying to figure out how to kill you if they decide they have to.
  6. Exposure to hard radiation does not give you super powers. It simply kills you.
  7. Gravity is a harsh mistress.
  8. Don't touch that.
    • 1st Corollary of Law 8: If you think you can profit by touching that, go ahead, but be prepared to be wrong.
    • 2nd Corollary of Law 8: Much better to order a crewman to touch that.
  9. Never forget where you landed the shuttle.
    • 1st Corollary of Law 9: When on a planet, always conduct yourself in such a manner that you are on the shuttle when it takes off again.
    • 2nd Corollary of Law 9: Always remember that your captain can probably recall the shuttle on autopilot.
    • 3rd Corollary of Law 9: It doesn't do any good to be on the shuttle when it returns if your captain is simply going to throw you out the air lock.
  10. It's good to be the Captain.
    • 1st Corollary of Law 10: Your entire crew knows this.

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I wrote this several years ago in a fit of fannish pedantry. Utterly useless, of course, but kind of fun (at least to me).

Star Trek Timeline

Every Star Trek series since the original has subtly, or not so subtly, shifted the historical assumptions underlying the Star Trek historical timeline. Even the movie series introduces different implications than the original series. This timeline is an attempt to show a conjectural Star Trek historical timeline that views the original series as canon, without regard to subsequent interpretations. There will be some borrowing of ideas from later series, but only as a means of filling out incomplete information. The following is an outline of the historical data from ST:TOS, followed by conjectures based on ST:TOS, and then the complete timeline chart.

...continue reading "Star Trek Timeline and Strategic Analysis"

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Another game that never was. I was going to run a Savage Worlds cyberpunk game, but it never got off the ground. This was an essay I wrote for myself as a thought-starter and background information sort of thing.

The Technological System is nothing less than the sum total of the organization, techniques, drives, and capabilities of modern existence. In the Technological System, efficiency is king, trumping nationalism, economics, even biology. That which can be made efficient thrives; that which can not withers. That includes ideologies, historical conflicts, cultures … and people.
...continue reading "Cyberpunk"

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For the Dreadmire campaign, I had the idea that there was this huge port city somewhere off in the void. It would be the source and a way-point for trade goods and people, and a source of rumor. Going there might have become a goal for the PCs. I never really developed any of this stuff, but the ideas are still interesting, at least to me.

 

The City “T’sai-shen”

Cai-shen

The Chinese god of prosperity, both of religious Taoism and in the syncretist folk religion. He has various magical powers, such as warding off thunder and lightning, and ensuring profit from commercial transactions. As a historical figure he is identified as Zhao Xuan-tan (Chao Hsüan-t'an), "General Zhao of the Dark Terrace", from the Qin Dynasty. He attained enlightenment on top of a mountain. He also assisted Zhang Dao-ling on his search for the life-prolonging elixir.
...continue reading "C’ai Shen"