A light brush with physics

Posted on April 4, 2021 by First Age

 Or… back to some Traveller.

Back in the day, the Traveller starter set, my introduction to the game, had the most useful starship system travel formulae in the main book, but these have been removed by Mongoose from their versions. There is a good argument that you don’t really need to bother as long as you are within a close enough extrapolation, and that is doubtless true. Nevertheless, to give in to some slightly overwrought verisimilitude, I have dug out the formulae, including both the ‘accelerate to the midpoint and then decelerate to stop at destination’, where acceleration and distance are known but time/duration is required, and ‘pedal to the metal for a set distance (usually the jump point)’, again looking for time/duration.

I picked up both over here.

These are now plugged into a little Google Sheet to give me the numbers to pointlessly exacting detail. Whilst at it I have a jump point calculator forming, based on the simple ‘100 diametres’ rule, but keeping a weather eye on the orbits and the overbearing effect of the star. Oh yes, the stars! Back to looking at star types and relative Sol sizes, what fun. Oh, oh, and gas giant types and some rule that I never knew about that requires a certain manouevre  thrust for skimming different sizes of giant. When did that happen? Is that a T5 thing? Did I miss it before?

Next, a simple sheet that takes the higher of the star 100 diametres and the homeworld 100 diametres (plus stellar orbit), to get an overall safe jump distance for the system for a tyarget world. This assumes the rule that the star’s 100 diametres always counts, and needs to be compared to the relative position of the homeworld that the players are arriving or leaving. Playing with the LT, lower than, function to return the higher of two values.

The nostalgia! It hasn’t been that long I suppose, but hopping down these thought rabbit holes brings back such fond memories of the classic Traveller solo universe building fun I used to have, way back in the 80s. Mostly, I am enjoying drawing gas giant moon systems and finding cool images to use in the game. A side order of Foundry VTT assimilation provides some visual flair and technical enablement that fits the Traveller vibe.

Needless Maths

Character, plot and situation need to stay at the heart of course, most of the above being window dressing, of the delightfully ‘console flashing lights’ variety. I’m enjoyng the lights. The Wavemaker application has provided some nice plot tools. The timeline builder has given me a neat visual way of mapping out the events that have led up to the convention scenario start point, and I’ll follow-up with a mindmap to plot out the interconnections. There won’t be that many, it’s a simple enough tale.

The physics will be invisible to the players, and now replicable with ease thanks to the Google Sheet. The things you do for a forgotten princess.

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Wavemaker for campaign and scenario writing

Posted on April 2, 2021 by First Age

 Thanks to my good friend Dom, I have just discovered Wavemaker a great, clean and powerful book writing application. It’s completely free and shows off the Progressive Web Application (PWA) framework really well.

In additon to the core writng view that lets you set up child and sibling sections that can be moved around your sequential tree of writing you get a load of other tools that are perfect for the GM wanting to think through and create a particular scenario or an over-arching campaign.

  • Home – a place to write your words with a clean interface and logically move them about
  • Datbase Cards – a place to note and group (#tagging) elements that you can then use elsewhere. Images and text
  • Snowflake – build up your ideas by branching them out into sub cards and then folding them back in to a linear structure. Use the structure content in the Writer.
  • Planning Board – as you create chapter  and scene structure in your writing, you can attach notes in a planning board to this. The Planning Board view looks at the notes across the diffreent chapters, with cards for characters, locations scenes etc. It’s highly visual and provides lots of ideas in pone place in a structured way
  • Grid Planner – a quick to use Kanban board to plan and progress your creativity.
  • Mind Maps – spider out your thoughts and see what sort of connected web of plot and connections you make.
  • Timeline Tool – create a timeline for your plot and then export it back inot Writer so that it can be seen in the Writer tree (aceroony)
  • Challenege Mode – Push yourself. Set yourself a challenge to complete a set number of words in a set time. The work only saves when you complete. Nose to the screen. Everything else can F off. 
  • Export options
  • Google Drive synchronisation

Multi platform, browser based (especially some) and fantastic for me as a Chromebook user. My work can be shared across devices to my Windows10 PC ‘work’station.

I’m going to be using this for my D&D 4e planning and some one shot planning for conventions.

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Dungeons & Delvers – Core Rules

Posted on March 31, 2021 by First Age

 

A contemporary dungeon crawler fueled by old school rules, flavor, and aesthetics, lovingly re-imagined and revised.

Yes, what I really needed right now was another D&D variant…

The most recent version of Dungeons & Delvers has emerged out of Kickstarter after a rather long wait. Mostly this was due to the time it took to work through the book and apply so many of their own art pieces. I backed it a long time ago. Needless to say were the Kickstarter to commence today I wouldn’t look at it , only because I’m currently running with three D20 games at the moment.

So, what do we get with this D&D, with this variant? I’m going to bullet point it out for you:

  • 515 page, full letter sized hardback with no index. Digest sized two books also available.
  • Full colour, but not glossy pages
  • Ability Scores are just bonuses in the usual range – array or 4d6 and discard lowest on a table with other variants.
  • Choose Race. Some weird ones in there including Cambions, Cthon statues, Ishim angels, Kobold gnome like people and some standard fare. Bonuses, languages, resistances further refine the character.
  • Choose Class. 12 of the usual ones.
  • Wound and Vitality Points. Vitality is defined by class and level and reflects near misses, bruises and minor scratches points you have more of and return quicker. In combat they are your first buffer before having to dip into your Wound points. They are more serious, you have more of them and they return slower.
  • Low bonuses – warrior classes get roughly +1 to hit per 4 levels and +1 damage per 3 levels. and multi-attacks
  • Willpower points to spend on powering spells with a random drain cost and more spend for more effect.
  • Skill list is a bit of a blend of a few of the D20 ones and 20 in all. Skills have ‘Perks’ which specialise your skill with lots of additional effects and use cases.
  • Skill point per level to buy a skill or a perk
  • A short crafting system
  • Armour provides a bonus to standard 10+DEX AC. Armour also provides some Damage Resistance (absorbtion)
  • Critical Hit tables for different damage types
  • Lots of other useful tables and lists
  • Roughly 150 monsters. Morale is a thing.
  • Magic Items and equipment

It looks to be a highly playable version of D&D, with lower, manageable, bonuses with lots of tweaks and carefully applied variations. And no, I don’t really know why you’d play it over 2, 3, 3.5, 3.75,  or 5e. Or indeed any other version that you fancy. Though it does look nice and cute and a lot of fun.

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D20 Cognitive Overload

Posted on March 14, 2021 by First Age

 I sometimes make a rod for my own back; some may even say it is of Deadly Casting. At present I am running three different D20 Fantasy games: True20, D&D 4e and Pathfinder 2e. Each of these games are terrific and deliver a different experience at the table. True20 particularly stands out as different, just as it did back in 2006, delivering a high fantasy experience with an ever present sense of vulnerability, having discarded the Hit Point bloat trope of classic D20 games. I am mindful of the similar style and feel of 4e and PF2e. They are both super-heroic player character high fantasy games with a super tanker load of options and widgets built around fairly sleek tactical play. I love them all.

At the same time I am really enjoying playing out D&D 5e adventures in gloomdark Barovia. Dom is running an excellent game in a well developed setting. Our group approach is fairly gung-ho and out to resolve the place by toppling the evil vampiric count in the centre of it all. I think this game has pushed my capacity to juggle multiple iterations of D20 beyond my limit. D&D Beyond, if you like. Concurrently I am juggling variations in sub-systems such as Initiative, Criticals, Saving Throws, Action Economies, Attacks of Opportunity, Spell Management, Healing, Aiding Another, and the list goes on. They are all close, designed variations of similar themes, but they are all different, and I do sometimes get muddled. My groups are all fantastic gamers and make everything fun and rewarding. They also carry some of the game rule load, so that I can manage the games I run, or manage my player character in the case of the Barovian Strahd.

Of the games I am playing, I have to admit that 4e may well be my favourite. I’d like to go deeper with it, and the campaign that we have commenced could have long term legs, affording an opportunity to delve into the Points of Light back catalogue whilst pushing the game rules to see where it takes us. Both Pathfinder 2e and True 20 games have something about them too, with Pathfinder being 27 sessions in, I can tell you that it delivers a sustainable and fun rules chassis for heroic fantasy long term play. It’s tremendous. True 20 has given me a D20 edgier expression that I have been adapting for the long term as my Truer20!

This is almost all good, but there are casualties. The most recent one seems to be my capacity to play my 5e character effectively. I think I may be letting the group down a bit by my sub-optimal rules play.  I can turn on some elvish charm when the moment requires and I have a sense of my position in the group team and role interplay, but I think the weight of all my other gaming has pushed me into only a light understanding of the character’s sorcerer abilities, which at critical times have undermined group success.  I could fumble excuses about Roll20 sheet design, folding away powers that I missed, but there is no excuse. I should know what my character can do and push these to the limit, not least because the setting is bleak and unforgiving. A heavy and challenging real life work load probably compounds my congested cognitive faculties.

In our 5e game, I sense that most of the opposition we face are considerably more powerful than us and I have felt for some time that we are always a session or two away from a TPK. Our last session was very close to, and perhaps should have been a TPK. Mid-way through, myself and another player simply accepted the inevitability of it and decided to go down fighting. It was a calm moment in a difficult session. However, we would be more effective if we harmonised our abilities as a team to get at the opposition, as is essential with all these D20 team games. I will have to step up a little bit more to play my part in that. It’s not a ‘rock up and just enjoy the play’ kind of game. It has setting depth and just enough rule depth for me to have to get my overstuffed brain around it.

At North Star I plan to run a session of Traveller, which will take me right of the D20 mold and will be a nice refreshing change.

Enjoying the gaming so very much, but I think I have reached my processing limits. It may be time to dial back on one of the games to let me be more excellent at the others?

Posted in D&D4e, Games, Pathfinder, True20 | Leave a comment

Jumped back In to Traveller

Posted on February 19, 2021 by First Age

Some playing about with my new Foundry VTT has propelled me into Jumpspace and back to Charted Space, through uncharted technology. North Star will open soon enough. I had been holding off thinking too much about it as I thought Seven Hills Convention would be in April. But no, it has jumped into early June instead, which puts me of a mind to get my route set out for mine and Dom’s science fiction convention in May.

The Foundry community are great. The TwoDsix system delivers a very good Cepheus/Traveller implementation to get you up and running. I’m bringing back a slightly revised roster from my 2014 TravCon game for another outing.

TwoDSix System on Foundry VTT

The System is setup to allow you to add in your own items, so I have been adding a few skills and equipment honed for the MGT2e rules.

Really, I’d like Mongoose Publishing to provide supported content for Foundry, allowing TwoDsix to further embellish the system with a compendium of content. As it is I can crack on without, but the easy drag and drop of correct entries would be terrific.

Still, all fun and good gaming.

Posted in Conventions, Games, Traveller, VTT | Leave a comment

Traveller Hull Points – 2016 but not in 2020

Posted on February 18, 2021 by First Age

 I’m planning to run some Traveller online, either on the Role or Foundry VTTs.

Something I have noticed is that in between printings of the core rulebook, the Hull ratings for common starships have been removed. During playtest (all that time ago!), I asked for Hull Points to be added with the common starship stats in the core rulebook so that starship combat could take place without the need for High Guard.

Now, they’ve gone again.

2016

2020

Different paint job too!

I have High Guard, so it is no loss to me, but seems strange to remove them.

Here’s my current online avatar, courtesy of my son’s Cameron first digital drawing!

Anyway back to thinking about North Star…

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D&D4e II & True20

Posted on February 12, 2021 by First Age

 Second session coming up of our 4e mini campaign. Fortnightly is too infrequent, and I miss the game. With luck we’ll get the full roster of the ‘Sturm und Drang’ company to attend to create maximum mayhem.

Sturm und Drang – changing Nentir Vale forever

I am enjoying the buzz and it is inspiring me to try and raise my game. I have D&D4e masters in the player roster and don’t want to embarrass myself with some poor rulings, so am trying to keep tight on the rules if I can. We have an ‘in character’ text chat on Discord too, to round out some of the roleplay that we can’t squeeze inot the 2.5 hour session. The game will be fun and look foward to it.

It is deinitely a case of double fortune that I have a great set of Greyhawk True20 players too! Lovely interplay between them and I must say that I am such a fan of good old True20. We managed to get through a large chunk of an adventure, interposing some broader connecting pieces and some NPCs that could recur and prove meaningful if the game develops in some possible directions. I hope we can finish this adventure soon, get some leveling out of the way, and work out some more of the background tapestry.

Good gaming!

Posted in D&D4e, True20 | Leave a comment

VTT Juggling

Posted on February 12, 2021 by First Age

 With 2020 firmly dominated by the Lets Role Virtual Tabletop (VTT), I am looking at a more mixed experience during 2021. Lets Role provides a great simple VTT for tactical maps and tokens. It lacks player Audio Video (webcams), which is a must for me, so it is always going to be competing with other offerings. I’m backing the Lets Role Kickstarter, partly as a “thank you” for all the good times, and to continue to use it as it develops further throughout 2021. I really must get proficient at the system builder as I could then make the sheets I really want for it. In reality that’s unlikely, so that will again limit its usage.

Role VTT arrived last year and has now embedded itself as a default for gaming. It lacks many tactical map features and focuses on the audio/visual experience for the players. This platform is, for me, the most exciting, as it gives point and click building tools, great AV built in, and a lovely community. This one is not going to have deep integration with game systems, but will provide a light and attactive platform to play personable games. I will be using it a lot.

I don’t run D&D5e, so some of the appeal of Roll20 and other Beyond options just isn’t there. I’m not much of a fan of Roll20, much to the bemusement of some fo my gaming chums. I’m happy to play on it, especially as I have persuaded our group to switch on the V bit of AV. I really do like to see everyone integrated intot he VTT experience. A new 28″ 4K monitor means that I can run Diescord video in a stripe next to a VTT as a makeshift solution, which is useful for Lets Role. 

For the deep and heavy integration with more complex systems I’m looking at Foundry. There’s an upfront investment of money and then a follow-up investment in time to master the fiddliness of it. It’s sophisticated and has some very clever integration, but it is pretty much community driven and I am iunlikely to get to grips with the coding to make me self sufficient. It’s a balance and I am teetering towards getting it. One module lets you take a Paizo purchased Advemnture Path PDF and import it direct into Foundry as a series of assets. That in itself is a massive timesaver for me. I blanche thinging about the amount of time I’ve spent creating assets for our Pathfinder 2e game. On top of this is the capacity to import chatrcaters from the Pathbuilder2 Android app. Blimey!

Despite all the capabilities it is still a teeter, a waver, and probably a wibble on the way. I like clean, elegant, and simple. My two above have that, Foundry has at least two of them. Still, if I’m to run deep systems then Foundry could prove to be the right tool. It also has some community work underway on D&D 4e. I might endup using Foundry for my regular Pathfinder game and leave it at that. If I start to master it then I may migrate more to it.

As it falls right now, I think Role will prove to be my default, as I can create sheets with it. There will then be options for me to weave in more features through Lets Role, or go full on VTT with Foundry. I’m off next week so will lok at Foudry, possibly acquire, and start to build in my Pathfinder game for a start in mid March.

Exciting to have such great tools available. My online gaming is set to continue strongly throughout 2021 and beyond.

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Will it be another F20 Year?

Posted on February 4, 2021 by First Age

 Last year’s gaming stats confirmed a dominent display of D20 fantasy games of various hues had been played and GM’d. I suppose that a year with the numeric 2020 really should see the d20 predominent, though really I should be playing a lot of Modiphious 2d20 games if I was doing it properly. Pathfinder 2e, D&D5e and True20 all made strong showings amongst a smattering of others.

Games as of the close of next weekend

Well, this year has got off to an even paced start and it certainly seems to be continuing the D20 trend with a big fantasy theme going on. All the games have at least some legs for the year.

  • I’m playing in the 5e Curse of Strahd. I have no idea how long we have to go to resolve the story, but due to other people’s schedules we can only do fortnightly and I sense that this may play through for a good chunk of the year.
  • The Pathfinder 2e is a continuation of my Shattered Star campaign, with a player swap about to take place. We have decided to play on and we will be moving into the Age of Ashes arc at about 7-8th level. Always hard to predict, but this may well play through for the rest of the year on a weekly cadance.
  • True20 in Greyhawk is fulfilling my desire to run a game back in the gameworld that I started in but re-imagined using a different take to the 3.0 SRD. The West Marches style has foxed people and hasn’t generated the critical mass, but it has legs and will continue in a more ad-hoc way for a while yet I think.
  • DMing D&D4e is a left field, unexpected additon to the game roster that came almost out of nowhere. I have a great group of players, some in-character text chat happening independently of the VTT sessions and a super version of the game; albeit a sacred cow slaying different take. Fortnightly for now, but I’d very much like to see this move to weekly if it creates enough energy and interest. Exciting. I can see me running a lot of 4e.

One facet of this D20 juggling is a real need to up my game in bterms of rules mastery. The context switching is slightly doing my head in. Interesting that the game wheer the rules seem to stick most accurately is the 4e. There is an incredible clarity to the game and a succinct and effective description of traps, poisons, NPCs and monsters. Really well done.

Most strangely I have also been looking at True20 for some SF action too, which would make the D20 dominance complete. I think Traveller is going to have a showing too, so will be interesting to see which way I go.

I could talk about a possible move to the Foundry VTT, but I’ll save that for another post.

It’s all good gaming!

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First time D&D4e DM

Posted on January 31, 2021 by First Age

 Well, 12 years too late (it’s never too late), I am now a 4e D&D DM, having run my first session last night on the Role VTT with a great group of players. If you are only counting official D&D editions, then this is the first time that I have DM’d for 36 years. It went rather well.

D&D4e on the Role VTT

The setup for the game was simple and directed to get us started in the Nentir Vale, the official setting for 4e. this is not a heavily lore infused setting, it is a lightly drawn place of danger as empires have fallen, leaving lots of space for heroes to make a difference between the fragile points of light in a shroud of many dangers. Having said that we have access to all the collated lore of the lifetime of 4e, as compiled by a dedicated fan. The PCs are nicely thought out and gelled well together. 

The player characters (hoping Toitham will join next time)

4th Edition is a ton of fun. Plenty of roleplay to get us started and introduction of some NPCs that either brough out elements of character or signposted to developments in the setting. The interations throughout helped bring the game into the setting, whilst also delivering a great game too.

Some of the opening cast of other characters

We had our first tactical encounter battle, with the heroes fending off some buzzing stirges that swept into the line of settler caravans to feed hungrily on anything they could find, including the horses.

This edition is noted for its combat and this flowed very well, perhaps at first level the options are that bit more limited, but as far as I can tell all the good things held up in play. All characters had lots of good things to do and looked and felt heroic. The rules elements were tersley and clearly expressed, making interpretation quick and enabled us to move through the gears fairly quickly. No, the combat wasn’t that quick, it was our first time out and we were also getting used to Role, but it was exciting and meaningful and fun, which bodes well for the rest of the campaign. I really enjoyed running that fight. Some Daily powers were burned as were Action Points, those stirges were tricky.

Role VTT held up pretty well. We had some sound hiccups that required some reconnecting, but it was great to have large video boxes for all the players so that we could all see each other. It felt more like us being around a table as a consequence.

To help me manage multiple same monster tokens I have created a series of small tokens that are just numbers. I assign them onto other tokens to help me keep track. It’s a bit cumbersome and would be much easier to have a text box accessible from a token to keep track of status changes. Things worked well enough though.

A good start, and I now appreciate, in play, that I have a great edition of D&D on my hands. I’ll be running it at a convention this year, by request, and look forward to discovering more of the game through play.

On the way into the game yesterday I discovered the old Masterplan tool, which still runs and, with all the libraries included gives you the tools to design encounters, spending your XP budget, and output the monsters to HTML that can then be picked up elsewhere. Blimey, that is also going to be very useful indeed. I could also talk a bit about Notion (https://www.notion.so/), a great note taking and organisation app, but that is the subject of another post.

Posted in D&D4e, Games, VTT | Leave a comment