The Final Frontier

December 12, 2023 at 8:54 am (RPGs)
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On the roleplaying game front, I’ve been facilitating a Star Trek Adventures campaign (via Discord). The campaign is set roughly at the end of Strange New Worlds season 2, and before Kirk’s turn at the Enterprise, so very classic (as parsed via SNW to be fair … and some early Starfleet Technical Manual, and maybe some Star Fleet Battles).

The campaign is centered around the crew of the USS Anubis, a Hermes-class starship recently retrofitted and upgraded to a Saladin-class destroyer. Posted to the frontier, with Starbase 11 being their local Starfleet lifeline.

It’s been a ton of fun – we’re really enjoying the system and setting. I keep an updated listing of the “episodes”, and think the listing sort of looks like what you’d find in an old-style TV guide listing.

Episode Listing:
“Frontier Diplomacy Blues” (Pilot; Sessions 1-3): The newly refit USS Anubis rescues a kidnapped Federation Ambassador.
“Collisions” (Session 4) : The Anubis intercepts a comet threatening Starbase 11, and makes First Contact with an alien race.
“Ghost Town” (Session 5) : A team of officers from the Anubis crews the USS Longshot, and responds to a colonial distress call to find an Extinction-level event.
“Vent Quin Rend Fou / The Wind That Drives One Mad” (Sessions 6-7): While dealing with Tarkalian flu outbreak, the Anubis finds the lost USS Aeolus drifting in space.
“Transport Burst” (Sessions 8-9): The radiation burst from a supernova causes the Captain and Chief Tactical Officer to disappear during transport. The crew races to restore ship systems and their missing command staff while facing down a damaged but still dangerous Klingon D-6.
“Fire From The Titans” (Sessions 10-12): An exploration of an ancient power source puts the crew of the Anubis in conflict with the development of two pre-warp civilizations. The crew races to save an alien species from themselves and their long-dead ancestors.

Good gaming, and may you all live long and prosper!

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Discovering Heroes of Adventure

September 1, 2023 at 9:53 am (RPGs)
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I recently discovered the Heroes of Adventure rpg, thanks to the fine folks at the Mr. Mean Speaks community. Heroes of Adventure (or HoA for the rest of the post) is a free, minimal(ish) fantasy rpg by The Nameless Designer. They’ve put out three core books (64 pages each, which makes my old school heart warm) – the basic trinity of Players Handbook, Referees Guide, and Monster Book.

They’ve also released a series of four supplements, including an introductory module (The Lair of the Mutant) and a sandbox (Fortress on the Wild Frontier).

The rules strike me as a clean unified mechanic (a d20 plus a d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12 for things a PC has abilities/talents/skills in) vs. a target number from 5 – 30. I found the presentation to be clean – almost a bullet journal style of delivery – and it really clicked with me. The rules are pretty present in the PHB, and the GM book is mostly a wide ranging resource set of tables and support.

I ran the Lair of the Mutant for a group of 4 earlier, and really enjoyed the experience. Having only downloaded the rules a few days earlier, I nonetheless felt I had a good handle on the rules, as well as the nicely outlined and presented adventure. The game in play felt D&Dish without being just a D&D retroclone (not that I don’t like me a good retroclone).

With a $0 price tag and generous Creative Commons license, Heroes of Adventure might make an excellent choice for budget minded players or club play. For introductory purposes, I’d recommend included some references for GMing – HoA doesn’t spend much time introducing the chops (and there’s enough resources out there that I don’t think it’s a capital crime).

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Where the Cold Wind Blows – Old Gods of Appalachia

August 14, 2023 at 9:12 am (RPGs)

My local game store (Black Diamond Games) brought in the recently released Old Gods of Appalachia rpg (MCG; $69.99 US; 416 pp; full color), and I treated myself to a copy. I’m glad I did, and spent the last day or two rooting around both the rpg book and the inspiring podcast, Old Gods of Appalachia.

I recently completed a several years campaign of Call of Cthulhu, and while taking a break from GMing the horror genre at the moment, Old Gods of Appalachia (or OGoA for short) seems a likely candidate for me getting back to the genre. As an old hand at the Cthulhu Mythos, I find OGoA refreshing (and dark) – it’s more contemporary that Lovecraft, has a different regional American folk lore focus, and doesn’t have the Mythos sort of tying things up. OGoA is much closer to the ghost stories and campfire tiles of my youth, and vibes closer to folk lore than the Mythos of the Outer Gods and such.

Not that it doesn’t have some parallels – Those Who Sleep Beneath and the Inner Dark both get at that same sort of alien otherness to humanity, but with entirely different … and perhaps more familiar notes. There’s less academia and more common folks minded.

I also grabbed the Player’s Guide ($19.99; 32 pp; full color) since I do better with printed materials than digital. It’s essentially an extract of setting material from the core rulebook, plus five pre generated characters (which are also available for free download).

I still have miles to read, but my sense if that if you have friends who enjoy the horror and investigative horror genre, are perhaps a little too comfortable with their library use and little too cozy making the walk from Arkham to Kingsport … well then, you might want to send them on an excursion along the Appalachian Trail. There’s some folks there I think they’ll be dying to meet.

Be well, and good gaming!

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