Tag: star wars

The Time, where does it go?

I swear, this year is just flying by.  It’s been an eventful year, with a slant toward the frustrating rather than the good or bad.  Have had a lot of weather-related damage to the house and have had to have the roof and front porch replaced entirely, have been fighting the lawn mower pretty much all summer to figure out why it keeps breaking belts, and have had various other things come up to fill in the gaps, but I won’t go into details here.

I’d rather focus on how my RPG projects are faring since it’s been four or five months since I last updated here.  I’ve not been idle, though my focuses have changed and evolved…or my brain has just jumped around like a cat chasing a laser pointer, take your pick.

01

The I-89 Megadungeon Project

I had to put this project on hold back in June.  I still like the idea, but I kept running into the same problem:  lack of excitement.  By this time, I was making progress into the sixth level of the dungeon, but my excitement began to wane.  I realized this was due to lack of development for the setting and a lack of inspiration for the design of the level itself.  

For the setting, I had never really delved too deep into it, my focus being more on my science-fantasy setting at the time, along with my actual tabletop gameplay being fantasy-focused.  So, the post-apocalyptic vibes just weren’t flowing.  I began to lose interest in the level as I’d had it originally planned, because things just started to seem far too similar to previous levels.

Basically, I was working on a secret underground military base, but it felt a lot more like the hidden government facility I’d just finished the month before, basically more office-like and less top-secret military project.  This was during the height of the Great Lawnmower Saga of 2023, so I had been feeling a little drained in general, and just decided to shelve the project for the time being and focus elsewhere, and pick it back up later once the ideas started flowing that way again, and likely with a complete redesign of that level.

02

My TTRGP Games, and A PF2e Rant

I’ve kept up with my actual tabletop games pretty consistently thus far.  The Abomination Vaults game I’ve been running is still moving along at a steady pace.  The players just finished level 4 during the last session, and are beginning some additional content relating to the town’s Founder’s Day festival, which is tying in with the need to retrieve four items that once belonged to the founders.  I’ve been keeping track of the players’ progress daily in game, and it has proven very useful in providing additional ideas for new encounters and enemies outside what the AP itself offers.

For example, just last session, the players came across a message scrawled on the door of their home talking about the “New Blood awakening”.  I’m making things a little more exciting by not having the denizens of the dungeon be entirely cut off from the outside world with new allies that share their goals.

As far as my playing experiences, I’ve been in an Age of Ashes game for a while now as well, and have been having fun with that, though it is proving to be quite the challenge since we’ve only got three players.  Even though we’re dual-classed characters with a free archetype, it’s not enough to make up for the lack of a fourth person and those three extra actions in each combat.  We just hit level 11, and after scouting out the dungeon we have to tackle next, I’ve got doubts about our chances at success.  There are some encounters in there that will be rough for us on their own, and it’s very easy to have encounters multiply there from what I’ve heard (it’s the Quarry dungeon for anyone familiar with the AP).  Thus far, we’re considering our options for a commando-style strike, teleporting into the room with a particular boss and taking them down hopefully without alerting the rest of the dungeon, grabbing the artifact we need to progress the story, and then getting out again; since we’re using milestone experience for that game, it’s really the smartest play.  However…due to one character having a very strict anti-slavery stance, and there being quite a few slaves being held captive in the first chamber of the dungeon…our plan has been complicated immensely.  Likely we will have to try two strikes, but we’ll see how it goes next session.  TPK is always an option, lol.

The two games mentioned here have both been Pathfinder 2e games, and since we started with the system earlier in the year, I’ve had my opinions shift a bit on the system.  While initially it seemed pretty fun, I’d heard repeatedly from one particular player that being a caster was just not fun in the game; he’d played multiple casters in these games and others I’m not part of, and had nothing good to say about them.  I thought he was just bitching to be bitching, as he’s been known to do that before.  Having seen casters in action from both sides of the GM Screen, however, I’m leaning toward the camp of “casters suck” in PF2e. 

To put it simply…it’s not a lot of fun if you’re expecting your magic to be effective against enemies.  If you’re playing mostly a support caster buffing the party, yeah, you’re probably going to be having a blast, but the way these APs are setup, don’t expect to feel the same if you’re trying to damage or debuff enemies.  The way the numbers work, you’ll be lucky if most enemies only Succeed on their saves against your spells and debuff attempts.  For example, in the upcoming dungeon, most of the encounters are on the high side of the difficulty scale, and thanks to the numbers, most of the monsters will be able to get a Success on their saves by rolling 5 or better, and most of the time, that means half damage, or they get no effect from the spell at all.  If they Critically Succeed, well, it’s just no fun at all.  I feel like my spells succeed maybe 1/3 of the time at best, whereas the martial characters are hitting enemies successfully at least half the time, if not more.  I’ve dove into the debate and researched what I’m “doing wrong”, but no matter what explanations I’ve seen to the contrary, it just isn’t fun when a system that is so tight in the math, where every +1 modifier can make a difference, is so geared against me as a caster.  My numbers are behind the martials on my spell attack rolls, and I have no way of increasing those numbers through item bonuses like they do.  I can try to debuff monsters through skills, sure, but it’s usually not enough to matter in my experience (true, I guess the dice rolls are just against me most of the time), and trying to affect them with magical debuffs is just an exercise in futility most of the time.

Take a fight against a golem during one of the earlier games in the Age of Ashes for example:  all of us failed our Recall Knowledge checks on the golem, so we had no idea what spells would affect it at all.  This led to me hitting the martials with a buff or two, the cleric/champion trying desperately to keep himself and the fighter alive while they were getting pounded, and my summoner pet doing everything it could just to keep the golem knocked down and flank, because it could barely hurt the thing.  To put it mildly, the fight was a slog.  The second golem fight not so much, since we made our checks, but then the last golem fight was another slog, because we failed our checks again and had no idea of its weaknesses, and nothing I did affected them until I hit them with a cold spell.  This didn’t damage them at all, but did slow them, so I just spammed Ray of Frost the majority of the fight while knocking them over with my pet, until I had to pull the pet back, because, even though all summoners are masochists, they have limits, namely their shared HP pools.

I’m enjoying the game, but I’m growing very frustrated at how my experience as a spellcaster has been going, and everyone I’ve spoken to in my circle who has played the game feels the same way, and has similar experiences to share.  And yet I keep hearing that I’m doing casters wrong because I’m not supporting enough or debuffing enough, and that casters are super fun to play.  Well, I’m not seeing it.  Maybe it wouldn’t be so noticeable if we’d actually encounter some lower-level threats from time to time, but pretty much everything we encounter is close enough to our level that at best it’s 50-50 on my success rate or worse.  But even that isn’t a guarantee; one of the fights last game had a group of enemies using stats from another enemy we’d encountered 4-5 levels earlier fighting alongside a pair of golems we’d failed our knowledge checks on…these supposed “mooks” either got Successes on their saves or Critical Success when I tossed out a big AoE spell to start that fight, so across five or six enemies, I got a total of about 12 damage.  Yeah, really not feeling too great about that…  

03

NEW TTRPG Developments

Though I’ve been playing mostly Pathfinder 2e (and one lingering D&D 5e game which is…meh; I don’t care for 5e), my developments on my own TTRPG projects continue in other directions.  I’ve renewed my interest in a custom version of the Star Wars Saga Edition system.  I feel like this is a great option for a more cinematic-action styled sci-fantasy game, and after having played PF2e for several months now, I have changed my course a bit on revamping the system for my own needs.  Basically, I’m implementing PF2e’s Three Action Economy.  Since both PF2e and Saga Edition are rooted in D&D 4e mechanics, they mesh really well.  I’ll be reworking the SE Force powers into spell effects, and removing the condition track, replacing them with PF2e-styled conditions.  Overall, I don’t think it’ll be too difficult to do at the core level, but will take a bit more work to tweak spells and certain abilities to replace mentions of the condition track.  I’m hoping to try a play test in the next few weeks to see how it performs at an early stage.

I’ve also been developing with an eye to the Old School as well.  With my apathy toward D&D 5e already high when the Great OGL Kerfuffle of 2023 happened back in January, and my faith in PF2e as a viable replacement waning based on my experience as a caster, I’ve been looking hungrily toward trying an OSR campaign using Castles & Crusades.  The more I read into the system, the more I like what I’m seeing.  Things are just so simple.  It really does feel like an evolution of AD&D 2e (which is where my group started way back in the late 90s, though it was only a year or two before we jumped to 3e and stayed there for ages).  After seeing how PF2e has so many rules dictating exactly what you can do, it’s refreshing to see a minimal character sheet that isn’t filled with practically no restrictions.  You can try anything you want, and might even succeed if you describe it well enough or roll high enough; that simplicity is what really sells the OSR games to me.

As such, I’ve taken a renewed interest in evolving my fantasy setting over the last few months.  I’m working on some new characters and ideas to try some solo hexploration gameplay to help develop the actual campaign setting areas for the players, and have been working on renewing some old characters from my previous games and stories to work them into the newly evolving setting, while putting my own flavor into the classic fantasy staples (elves are more like vampires from the classic Vampire: The Masquerade setting, for example, in which they tend toward grand, long-running schemes to control everything behind the scenes the older they get).  Thus far, I’ve got the groundwork in place for the Curse of Cypress Isle (a hex-crawl island exploration adventure in the style of the classic Isle of Dread adventure, flavored with aspects of the real-world Oak Island treasure mythology), the Muckenmyre (a new area of the world, a massive swamp area with some interesting characters in the costal town of Grimbridge), a newly started northern area with some flavor of Skyrim (I’m using my Skyrim gameplay to try out building up an adventure using inspiration from various sidequests and moments in my current playthrough), and of course, the city of Arcavarlon, which I will continue development on as I further expand my campaign setting.

I’ve got a lot of ideas, and I just have to get them out of my head and onto the screen!

04

Onward to the Future

Well, I think I’ve gone on long enough for now.  That covers the major updates on my gaming projects.  From here, I’ll say that I’m going to attempt to get back to posting updates here more often as I go, detailing the various settings and locations within them, as well as my continued experiences as a player and GM.  

The best of luck to you on your adventures!  Thanks for reading, and keep your eyes peel for more soon!

 

Perhaps the biggest struggle I’ve had with the #Dungeon23 challenge thus far has been simply deciding on what system I want to use for the game.  It shouldn’t be that difficult, but for whatever reason I’ve struggled to commit to a particular system to use as a base for building up the adventure.  Moving into the fourth month of this project and so far I’ve got a very generalized description of monsters and loot throughout the levels I’ve done so far, leaving a lot of room for improvements later on.  Yet, I’m quickly realizing that I need to settle on something sooner rather than later if I want to scale these dungeon levels appropriately.

 

Multiple Systems

Of course, the ultimate goal would be to make this megadungeon project compatible with multiple systems, with encounters and loot geared toward each one.  That is certainly on the radar, but very much at the fringe of the screen at this point.  I would eventually like to have the dungeon and setting made for some type of d20 system as the primary game, the reason being that is where most of my TTRPG experience has been (I started off with the Fuzion Dragonball Z system back in the day, moved to AD&D 2nd Edition, and then in 2000, my group fully jumped board the D&D 3rd Edition / d20 System train and rode it off the rails until 5th Edition launched…then went back to Pathfinder 1e for several years more after we didn’t like 5E).  I’ve experimented with other systems throughout the years, but always seem to gravitate back to some form of the d20 System in the end.  It’s just how I’m wired, I guess.

 

The Post-Apocalyptic Feel

Whatever system I choose, it needs to have the proper post-apocalyptic feel to it.  I wouldn’t want to make this system out for something like Mutants & Masterminds, for example, though a post-apocalyptic superhero setting has appeal of its own.  I also wouldn’t necessarily want to spend time learning a new system, either, hence the draw for something d20-based.

The setting for the I-89 Megadungeon is intended to be something like the Fallout series (pre-Bethesda, anyway, not counting New Vegas), but instead of an Atomic Age feel, I’m going for more of an 80s post-apocalyptic feel, like what would have happened if it was the height of the 1980s, you’re living on a post-magic fantasy world, and then the entire thing comes to a screeching halt as somehow, magic is suddenly rediscovered and mixed with nuclear weapons that obliterate the known world.  So basically all those fun 80s post-apocalypse movies.

With that in mind, what systems have I used in the past that not only play well, but would allow the gritty feel of the setting without having the players running around like superheroes? (Looking at you, 5E, now GTFO, and let the door hit you on the way out!)  Let’s have a look, shall we?

D20 Modern

Always a great choice in the d20 system space, D20 Modern has a lot going for it.  It has its own apocalypse setting book for one, and for two, I’ve played or ran multiple games with the system.  I’ve spent quite a bit of time developing homebrew content using the game, too, as I was heavily involved in a Resident Evil game for it back when the Wizards of the Coast website had forums, and ones that didn’t entirely suck at that.  Heck, it even has its own Fallout game with the serial numbers filed off in the form of Exodus.

While a good choice, Modern has some problems.  Namely, it doesn’t feel quite modern anymore, given that it’s built off of the original 3rd edition / d20 system rules.  The system could definitely use some polish, at least to advance it up to 3.5/Pathfinder standards (skills, grappling rules, that kind of thing), and the existing content is rather dated (sidenote:  anyone else remember when the FN 5.7 pistol was the most OP handgun you could get?  Interestingly, the 5.7mm is having a bit of a resurgence now, but it was nowhere near as powerful as the game made it out to be…anyway, back on track…), but that doesn’t really matter in terms of an 80s style post-apocalyptic setting, does it?  I’m just thinking about building characters and monsters in the 3rd edition era and how long it took to do, usually due to skill point distribution, and I really don’t want to go back to those days.

Star Wars Saga Edition

I enjoyed the hell out of the Star Wars Saga Edition system, and still do for the most part.  At the time it came out, I thought it was an amazing game, and felt like a proper evolution of the original d20 System.  I liked how the classes were talent-based, and you could have a crew full of soldiers, and none of them would be the same.  The way they handled the Force, while somewhat flawed, was fun and seemed like a great basis for a magic system that could be further expanded upon.  Combat was usually pretty fast (until higher levels, but that is one flaw that you just can’t get away from with the d20 system) and enjoyable.  There was just so much going for it, and the fact that it was developed as a precursor to D&D 4th edition got me excited for where the system would go.

And then it was pretty much forgotten, as 4th edition went off in ways I didn’t care for (in fact, as far as I know, there were only one or two campaigns of 4E ran by my group, though I never played a single one; my first look at the core books had me going to Pathfinder, as did the rest of the crew).  There was an attempt to crowdfund an E20 universal system based off the game that was ultimately a failure, and that was pretty much the end of it.

I actually ran two Fallout campaigns using the Saga Edition rules, and it worked well.  It was still pretty gritty given the lack of Force powers for speeding up healing, the combats were fun, and it didn’t take me nearly as long to build up monsters and NPCs due to the way the skill system worked.  There are still issues certainly, but at its core, I think there are some great elements here.

Savage Worlds

I’ve also used Savage Worlds a few times, a couple games of Deadlands, and then a short-lived Fallout campaign.  I’m not nearly as experienced with Savage Worlds as I am with the d20 systems, but I did enjoy my time with it as a game master.  There was plenty of fan-made Fallout content available at the time that I modified for my own use, and adding in some elements from the Deadlands books made for a great Fallout game set around New Vegas and larger expanse of the western United States.  Savage Worlds biggest advantage is its speed, as it’s amazingly quick to build out NPCs and monsters, and gameplay can be deadly, just as it should be. 

While I’m not opposed to using Savage Worlds for this dungeon, the system just never felt quite crunchy enough for me, like I just couldn’t quite get as deep into building a character as I’d like in something like d20.  That’s just me having stayed in that wheelhouse for so long, and I’d likely feel differently if I just had more time with the game.

The Homebrew Hack

Last year, before the whole OGL thing broke loose in January, and before I was dealing with some medical issues that stopped me from working on the game for a while, I was in the midst of developing my own homebrew system and a campaign setting to go along with it, primarily for my sci-fantasy setting and my own replacement for Star Wars (thanks Disney, for ruining that for me, btw).  The post-apocalyptic 80s setting where this megadungeon is located was meant to be the test bed for the game, and I even went so far as to run a single session using the initial system.

What was this system?  Well, at its core was the Saga Edition rules with a few modifications, namely no Force powers or Jedi, and some modifications to the Skill Focus feat to help mitigate how unbalancing it could potentially be, making armor act as Damage Reduction instead of making you harder to hit, and with a sprinkle of Savage Worlds/Deadlands thrown in (specifically the fate pot and drawing cards for initiative).  I’d made a few notes about feedback from the players (specifically the need for improved ways to heal given the intensity of the combat, made more intense by the absolutely horrible dice rolls they suffered that night), but have yet to return to working on the game.

 

A New System?

Since I got fired up in January after the Great OGL Debacle of January 2023 (because let’s be honest, WotC hasn’t finished screwing up yet, and there’s a lot of time left for them to do worse things), I’ve been doing a lot more RPG-related projects, and the idea of developing my own custom system is still there beneath it all.  I still like the Saga Edition system gameplay, and elements of its design, and since you can’t copyright game mechanics, well, it’s ripe for plunder.

Since the start of the year, I’ve been researching other games, some in the OSR like Castles & Crusades, but have specifically been diving heavily into Pathfinder 2nd edition.  I’ve just recently started up an Abomination Vaults campaign and am getting ready to try it out from a player’s side in an Age of Ashes game.  There is a lot I like about PF2e already, but until I’ve spent more time with it, I can’t say for sure if we’ll be sticking with it. 

What I can say is that it has brought back thoughts of developing my own system and has given me some new inspirations.  PF2e has a lot of elements that remind me of the Saga Edition system, and apparently has a lot of 4th edition D&D in it as well, which I’m more open to these days.  I’m wondering how the Three-Action system of PF2e would work with Saga Edition (as it was basically this already, but with more restrictions, specifically having standard, move, and swift actions), and in my head, I’m not seeing a lot of negatives.  The skill system of Saga Edition is very much a precursor to the way PF2e does its skills.  I’m thinking various elements would mesh fairly well, so it may be something I explore more in depth soon.

That’s about all I’ve got to say on the matter right now, though.  I’d be curious to hear of any suggestions you may have for systems to look at that does the post-apocalyptic setting well, as well as any thoughts you might have on my idea for combining gameplay elements into a custom system. 

Feel free to reach out to me on that Twitter thing what I made! 

Till next time!