Cattle Barons

Still working on game prep for the cowboy & dinosaur game. Okay, let me re-phrase that. I've got most of the initial encounter set up, with hints and rumors to bring in some of the bigger fish, so to speak.  The 3rd person has finally gotten his extensive character background set up for me, all told in the first person. Almost wanting to give him even more XP as there were a few NPCs to play with and allude to later. In fact, he also managed to rope in the other two players, so now they all know each other. It was not how I was planning on bringing them all together, but that also works. I just need to make some minor adjustments to the 1st session. Sadly, no scenario survives contact with the players, and they have not even started yet!

At this point, I've got a lot of background on most of the characters, and enough on several NPCs to start to at least be able to riff along where the game leads. For the most part, I am lucky that this group really enjoys the role-playing aspect of RPGs. not to the Vampire: The Masquerade level, but we really enjoy playing out characters and NPCs. I still need to generate and print out my cheat sheet to track the main players and all that, but I still have a bit of time.

One of the things that did come up while talking about this was land barons. And cattle barons. I neglected to even throw any in there! Of course, we have one player an old Indian who has some prize herds of triceratops. Old ancestral grounds out towards the Dos Diablos, two large buttes to the west of Aurora but several days ride (still not sure about the scale of my maps, and I can't keep using speed of plot so may have to figure out a bit more detail).

(a few hours later). Came up with some back of the napkin times and some fluff that will eventually have some game time. Probably.

Pawnee Tribe at Dos Diablos

Jack Looking-Horse’s home area where he raises the triceratops. It is several days west of Aurora, and the yearly dinosaur drive to sell some of those to Aurora has become a tradition the last few years, though not without some folk not being happy buying from Indians. The tribe has a deep and hidden artesian well that provides water for the herds and is well protected. Looking-Horse and a few of the tribe usually show up a few days in advance to gauge the feeling of the town and to determine how many dinosaurs should make the trip. He then returns to Dos Diablos which is what the American and Mexicans call Pitku Ckussat (Pawnee for Two Spirit if I am using the correct Pawnee translation. The Pawnee do not make maps so the Spanish name is what is on the map)

I've added 1 Jack Chisum who has moved from Texas (real life cattle baron) to the Bliss River, which is about 20 or so miles above those mesas that Jack Looking-Horse calls home to the tribe & his huge triceratops herds. There is occasional friction between the cowmen and the dinomen, and being Pawnee Indian does not help. While not part of the initial adventure, it has potential down the road. Especially as Hawbones actually pulled one of Jack's teeth before it festered a couple years back. This was before he found out who the man was (in real life Jack Chisum died in 1884 from a jaw operation to remove a growth; in our alternate old West he is still alive in the 1885 time we're running this in).

The document is getting large, and a lot may not be used. It is really just helpful to me to sort of organize the things and get some feels for the period. If I had a laser printer I may print it out, but ink jet is so expensive! I will have to look into getting a laser printer - they can be had for pretty cheap and the per page printing cost is a lot less than ink jet.

I still need to work out a combat flow chart or guide: combat is one of the worst things I run. Probably why I like The Fantasy Trip: it has a very concise combat system. Of course, it is from the microgame, but the basics and advanced options all work really well. And not theater of the mind, which a lot of this combat will be. Though I may do some screen shares as I did in the previous Apex game, and have tokens for everyone so they know at least the relative positions of things. 

The camp they will find:

And wanted posters - this one is from an on-line creator, I think I can actually do better with Publisher

Hopefully I'll come up with several for the game and at least screen share. Should they enter the sheriff's office. Which come to think of, I also made a map of. What can I say- I like maps!

Solo Traveller - Leaving Hendar 227-1105

 Having spent most of the week bouncing around in the low gravity, hauling a trailer that bounced even higher, it was good to get back to the port. There I found that Captain Laux had managed to somehow get a 6-month contract with some Vargr noblewoman, a Lady Khu and her bodyguard, a rough looking Vargr named Araegougzadharaegougzadh Oerrghingghong. As none of the humans could quite pronounce his name, he said to call him Ara. Even I could see the disdane on his face.

We loaded the herbs up and settled the remaining debts at the port to prepare for lift-off. I walked over to the admin building with the captain and we actually hand-wrote the log info and our destination, the additional cargo we had picked up, as well as our 2 long-term guests. Walking back, I asked Lynwood just how Lady Khu was on Hendar.

"Her previous transport had significant jump drive issues" he said, gesturing to the only other ship at this class C port. There was a lone air/raft sitting next to the engineering section, but I could not see any workers or anything from this distance. "As the local authorities are, shall we say a bit more relaxed, and the No Refunds is in good working order, I was volunteered. There is bonus pay, and this should not affect our routing and trading. Lady Khu is simply on what amounts to a sight-seeing excursion. Apparently, some pack or another are thinking about migrating here. This far from the Extents the Vargr are not overly common, and some remember raiding that some of their corsairs are inclined to do. As we've a bit in the way of protection, as well as being a good deal faster than most merchants, seems we're a good fit to play tour guide. And who knows - it should give you something more to write about."

We entered the ship, walking up the gangway. I secured the ramp and hatches and walked up the stairs to my station behind the bridge, across from Ewo. A few moments later, we were airborne and heading for space. It was nice to be a standard gravity finally. As we were heading to the jump point, sensors picked up a vessel heading in. I hailed them, but other than a curt reply, the crew of the Equity was not very communicative. From the transponder ping, Ewo said that they were a subsidized merchant, probably here to drop off supplies and pick up the half-printed cash for its final preparations and distribution in the league.

A couple of hours later, we left the real universe and entered jump space. Giving me a week to try & keep her Ladyship entertained and fed. 

Well, I managed to get off of Henday, and off to Llamma. I'll do the in-jump rolls and things next post. 

Now to see about the wheels within wheels. Why was Lady Khu on Hendar, and is she really doing a grand tour of the League. Putting on my referee hat, let me expand on the as-yet-to-be-defined goings on. Captain Lynwood is a merchant, yes, but he is linked to my old Antares Ship Builders and Traders corporation, which is an Imperial corporation. He owns his ship, and is free to do what he wants. But he does get information and brokers available from Antares which I've yet to touch on. And so far they have been operating almost at a loss: trade is complicated and it is not always easy to make credits: I could not get a good roll for selling those medical supplies (which worked out well: for such a small population, despite literally making money, they probably do not have actual capital for such a purchase. 

Lynwood and company are not spies per se, but rather information gatherers and brokers. He does report back to corporate headquarters every 6-18 months, and does gather intelligence on what is going on. He also has contacts which I am going with I've not covered in the game notes so far. Playing solo the impetus for working through plot lines is a lot different than running an actual game (my notes for the Cowboy game are a continued work in progress but so far almost 40 pages. Though a lot of that is copy/paste and images, I do have 2 random encounter tables for the 1st few sessions worked out). Anyway, Lady Khu is actually one of the contacts as she is approaching the League from a different perspective and social strata than our merchants. While she is a Vargr noblewoman, she is also a vice-president of Antares (and now I need to see if I can find my old company hierarchy. I did that after getting Book 6, Scouts, and decided I too could use a company structure). She is gathering high-level trends for trade as well as anything else. Information is also a commodity.

Egg, the Vargr engineer, may be a double-agent. He is ex-Imperial Navy. As such perhaps not as retired as you think. And he may be in cahoots with Lynwood, or just using him to help track the comings and goings in the League. The League of Independent Planets only has a couple high-value worlds, but those are worth watching as some of that technology is coveted by the Imperium.

Next "session" I may have Malik going over the books and see that there is more credits coming in than expected. It also helps that the ship is technically a fast courier / trader. And honestly is not set up for a high passenger at all: the 6 double staterooms are mostly used by the crew. But we'll just fake that for now.

And finally - I've been trying to us a hex map program, Hex Kit, for the GM maps so that I can have encounters and things mapped out. I was reading an interesting blog post about mapping in games, and that you have 2 maps. The pretty (and incomplete) players map that just the relationships between places but won't have all the details. And the GM map which has a scale and all that so you can tell exactly where the players are and what they should be encountering.

Anyway, Hex Kit does have some nice desert type things, and I just downloaded another tile set and saw it had a dinosaur in it! Perfect for encounter marking for the Cowboy & Dinosaur game. That would be starting in a couple of weeks.

And my initial notes & encounter tables for that section of the desert (or perhaps anywhere in the desert, not just this particular spot)

The trail is relatively fresh, but will take a few hours to follow to the bandit’s camp. I may want to roll for some random encounters on the way for those on foot/dino/horse:

1	Rattlesnake
2	Pack of desert wolves
3	Small herd of dinosaurs (roll on dino-table below)
4	Single dinosaur, wounded (roll on dino-table below)
5	Nesting dinosaur (roll on dino-table below)
6	Herd of bison

1	Magyarosuarus (p139) HP: 36  Defense: 10 Reduction: 4 Attacks: Stomp +4 1d12
2	Triceratops (p138) HP: 48 Defense: 12 Reduction: 4 Attacks Horns +4 1D10 Stomp +4 1d6
3	Chasmosauris (p138) HP: 40 Defense 12 Reduction 4 Attacks Horms +4 1d8, Stomp +4 1d6)
4	Ultraraptor (p137) HP 28 Defense 12 Reduction 2 Attacks Claws +8, 2d6
5	Ornithomius (p137) HP 20 Defense 15 Reduction 1 Attacks Claws +7, 1d10
6	T-Rex (p140) HP: 90 Defense 15 Reduction: 6 Attacks: Chomp +12, 2d12

The Heimlich Codex

I tend to bring in characters and things from my games to other games. Usually NPCs, though Sir Zay has managed to get played in D&D v5 as well as a d20 (I think!) game, where he almost died. Years ago, when I first introduced my group to The Fantasy Trip, the patron NPC had an uncle who was along. My player's character, a Halfling Knight, was making eyes at the Dwarf. Her uncle / bodyguard was making a different set of eyes on the errant knight. There were some fun moments in the role play. Ever since then, Heimlich has shown up in many of the games I run or show up as an NPC attached somehow to my character when I play. A few years later, he is still coming up and, per an email conversation, I've decided to make the Heimlich Codex:

This mighty tome shall have all the Heimlich's in all the worlds. So far, he has shown up in The Fantasy Trip, Corsairs, a d20 Vigilante game as my character's uncle, as an Old West d20 game as my partner (who was almost killed), and I am pretty sure I stuck him in the original Apex game as well. The current game I am working on he is the uncle of my main NPC for introducing everyone to Aurora and the Cowboy & Dinosaur game (and she is essentially based off of Ellie May from the Beverly Hillbillies, so I have some mannerisms to at least try to use). We're switching to Klingons to finish up playing some Star Trek, and yes, my Klingon character will have an Uncle Heikl'Ick, son on Swaa'Ne (emperial tithe collector) 

The original NPCS here:

What appears to be a young female Dwarf, Glorirnolsia (Glori to her friends. They are not her friends yet) is a city mage. She requires a special mushroom to work on a magic item she has a commission for. 

She is well dressed and at times appears a bit absent minded. She is about 4 and a half feet tall and somewhat slender for a Dwarf.

She is always accompanied by two other dwarves who act primarily as bodyguards, although they seem to show more deference than a bodyguard would normally show.

And it turns out I either did not stat her out or I cannot find her character sheet (and I do all these digitally, then maybe print if I am going to use them at the table. And stick into a notebook. Sometimes). While she is a mage, she is also of royal blood. I've not really worked out any of that in my version of Cidri, leaving that sort of thing vague so I have a lot of wiggle room to make things up to help with the stories we're telling. It never came up, probably as I did not play her as well as I should have to indicate she was a posh Dwarf of a royal family.

The 2 other Dwarves include her Uncle Heimlich, technically named Hanarlig ThunderAnvil, the original Heimlich (which is the Common version of the Dwarven name Hanarlig. And actually, because I was relying on memory, Hanarlig somehow turned into Heimlich. I am really, really bad at getting names straight!) 

And he also is currently stat-less. The tome shall have a character sheet or info per page. I expect it to be a fun endeavor. Almost like, if anyone recalls, the Thieves World RPG (wiki link here) set that had stats for 9 different games so you could use that supplement across a swath of RPG universes. So something similar to that but instead of a town, it is a small subset of characters that revolve around the universal Heimlich.

What I also need to do is come up with a common theme for the Heimlich Codex: in most cases he is explicitly an uncle, and a protective one generally. And always for a girl or young woman. So I may expand out the Codex to include that other person as well for completeness. 

And only tangentially related, I had a magic bookshop in the Apex game. Thinking I'll also have that in various universes, just not spell it out. Aurora now gets a bookstore, and if I can dig up those notes, I think it is a small Italian. Who could be not human but under a fey glamor or something. Maybe - I just won't make it stand out.

And I am giving platelets this weekend - I do this every few weeks (I've low platelet counts so I cannot give as much as I'd like to). It is a good thing to do as it helps people with cancer most of the time. And free cookies and juice! Been doing it 20+ years now. My little bit of helping others (and getting the aforementioned snacks) Always try to do something nice for others when you can. 

Anyway - I need to also work up my Klingon character, and I'd like to make some progress on the Solo Traveller. There just is never enough time! Or at least time that intersects when I want to do that.

And finally - there is a misspelled tag, Heinlich, that may help me (and others!) find our Heimlich in the various game updates I've posted. You can search in blogs which is really nice: use the word cloud to the right, and clicking on Heinlich gives you this list basically. I may have to go back through the posts to find other mentions of the great and mysterious Heimlich and update the tags!

Characters, Levels and Getting Into Character

We've been playing the Star Trek RPG. While I love Star Trek, a lot because of both the essentially optimistic view of humanity as well as really cool spaceships, playing as Starfleet characters can be fairly limiting in many ways. Of course, this all depends on the type of game play: for exploring strange new worlds, it would work pretty well. In interacting with things outside of the Federation, sometimes trying to maintain the Starfleet codes as portrayed in television, can be difficult. TV episodes do not translate out well as an adventure I fear: if we have to make die rolls and fail (and I fail a LOT of my die rolls!) then it becomes either a railroaded adventure to get to designated end point or we're no longer following the episode (rarely do characters get the same plot armor as TV characters!).

Anyway, we're switching to Klingons which opens doors a bit more, as long as we act with honor! The game master figure this will take most of June, so I need to finish the work on at least the possibilities for the Cowboy & Dino game (there are a few posts detailing my somewhat zealous approach to game prep!) But what comes to mind as I am getting the player's characters is that a couple of them are playing older characters. As in grandfather aged characters. 

While this is great - variety in characters is good. What makes it complicated in my mind is that we're using the Apex rules, which is a class & level game. I want the players to at least start on the same level (either 2 or 3 - waiting to see what other world-building they bring in; see this post for my reasoning for that).

My issue stems in how a 60+ year old can have the same basic skill set as a young 20-something year old (one of the players is playing a young woman). You would think that an additional 40 years or so of experience would have given him more skills. While I applaud the character and what he wants to do, to me there is a mismatch in skills vs age. 

Now admittedly, age does not always bring on more wisdom and knowledge. But he is playing an Indian grandfather in the Old West, so one would think Jack Looking Horse would be a bit more skilled than young Miss Molly Slade. Of course, perhaps the age is getting to him, and he is actually declining in skills and abilities - in Traveller-speak, failing his aging rolls.

(an interesting  image choice - that was my Call of Cthulu character I used a few years ago - the joys of character art searching!)

While Traveller handles this nicely: you want an older character? Survive your terms of service and don't fail too many aging rolls, and you have an older character. Traveller is in many ways a bit more balanced in terms of mixing and matching characters: while skills are important, I truly believe Traveller is much more about the role-playing versus skill checks. While skill checks are necessary, they are not as dominant as they are in other games. Case in point: the Star Trek game we seemed to be rolling for everything. It may have been a quirk of the game master, but the way the game is mechanically set up seems to want to make rolls for a lot of things. While some people do like that, I tend to run mostly rules-lite games and rolls are mostly in combat or doing something extraordinary. In Traveller, while I do make them roll a navigation (sorry, astrogation!) check, it is used more for chrome: the higher the roll, the closer to the 100D mark. A failure does not equate with a mis-jump (well, unless they are within the 100D or they have not kept up with ship maintenance), it just sets you much further out (and may be adding that 10% time spent in jump space).

For Apex and most games that have character levels, you level up as you experience life and adventure. Perhaps old Jack has led a very sheltered life, and Molly a much more exciting one (well, I did read her backstory and yes, it is a bit more exuberant than Jack Looking Horse's written background at least). I am still thinking about how to reconcile the wide age ranges I am expecting in this game. The 3rd player has promised me his write-up, and I've a feeling it too is an older character. I may end up having the older characters level 3 and Molly level 2, but that does not seem entirely fair.

In looking at other games, OSE for instance, a single level difference does not make a whole lot of difference per se (though level 2 OSE characters are not likely to die from tripping over their own feet!) But 2 or more level differences leads to an imbalance of characters. While I am pretty sure my current group can handle it with aplomb, I wonder if this is an issue for other gamers. I do know in one of my Traveller games we had a multi-term characters as well as a single term barbarian. While the barbarian could not do a lot, it was a matter of how the players embodied their characters and played them. I'd like to think we all had a good time. See this initial post of the roster of characters, and the character cards I made here. Osrum the barbarian only has Survival-2, yet the player and the rest of the group had a good time despite some major skill (aka level) differences. 

And finally: this is not really an issue other than my interpretations of the mechanics. Where older characters should have higher levels. And saying that out loud, maybe it does not really mean that. Levels are really indicative of experience. So perhaps I am making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Regardless. one of the great things about my group is their characters. We all try and come up with interesting characters that usually get along (we had a rough start with a new player who was trying too hard in some of his character portrayals, but eventually he figured out how to play in our group and has had some delightful characters). In fact, one of my favorite character groupings was our Conan game: we played a family, designed that way while we were doing character creation. And this is where the level issue also came into play: I was an older veteran, getting back home after years abroad as a mercenary. Yet skill-wise, I was the same as the not yet 20-year-old nephew and twin nieces. While I did not mind that at all, one would think a veteran would be a bit better at fighting. Of course, with my dice rolls, it does not really matter!

Sorry - re-reading this I seem to have meandered even more than usual. In the end, for me, it is not the character sheet telling me what the character can or cannot do, but it is about discovering that character as you play. The supers game was a good example of that: Verner was mostly a blank slate to begin with, then the backstory grew along with his powers. And R'Rell was starting to take shape in my mind. I'm just slow to get into character, and hoping to slip back into some of my older characters at some point.