Warmachine Wednesdays: BR 2.27.14 (A Comedy of Errors)

So, last week I held my fourth skirmish against my good friend Susan, a quick, enjoyable 26 pointer on some really interesting terrain. I tried to use my phone to capture the truly epic scale of the battles and ended up taking blurry shots not very frequently.

Such was only one of the myriad errors that plagued this particular battle.

The Lists:

Cygnar (26 pts)		Khador (26 pts)
Stryker1		Sorcha1
Squire		War Dog
Ironclad		Destroyer
Lancer		Juggernaut
Minuteman		Widowmakers
Charger		Widowmaker Marksman
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages		Doom Reavers
Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer		Greylord Escort

What I tend to love about Cygnar is that our 'jacks tend to cost much less than Khador 'jacks (because we actually have light warjacks), so we can field more while keeping to a decently low point system.

For initiative, I ended up rolling lower, and was told to go first, possibly because of the advantage I had going second in our previous battle. We arranged armies, set up our advance groups, and began our first turn.

Cygnar Turn 1:

Stryker allocated 3 focus to the Minuteman, spent 2 to cast Arcane Shield on the Minuteman, and kept one for himself. I didn't pull any focus from the Squire on turn 1, as it didn't seem like Stryker needed any extra focus in the first turn for either extra spellcasting or buffing his 'jacks.

The Minuteman moved his six inches toward the Widowmakers in concealment, intending to get as close as possible before firing off two shots from his slug guns. He leapt across the river magnificently, but, sadly, Stryker totally forgot that Snipe would have been of so much goddamn use on the Minuteman for Turn 1, and so the two extra focus on the Minuteman went to utter waste, and he was left standing on the far side of the river with nothing to do but grind his gears.

The Ironclad, Lancer, and Charger advanced their regular move speed, being sure to remain on the Cygnar side of the disputed river, and Stryker and the Squire moved up behind the Ironclad to benefit from blocked LOS from the Widowmakers while preventing the Destroyer from using Arcing Fire to circumvent the Ironclad's cover.

The Arcane Tempest Gun Mages moved into firing position across the river from the Doom Reavers and prepared for their inevitable charge. Thus concluded Cygnar's turn.

Khador Turn 1:

Sorcha, in Khador's first mistake of the game, cast Boundless Charge on her Doom Reavers, forgetting that they can't be the direct target of spells, whether friendly or hostile. This can be seen as a continuation of Khador's misuse of the Doom Reavers, as The Butcher had cast Iron Flesh on them in our previous battle. She then cast Wind Rush and double advanced forward onto the bridge, gnashing her teeth at her inability to use her feat.

The Doom Reavers ran (i.e. did not charge) and totally forgot that Boundless Charge's bonuses only work on a charge. They splashed into the shallows on the Cygnar side of the river- probably a creek, actually- and ended their activation.

The Destroyer and Marauder advanced forward, but were unable to keep up with Sorcha, while the War Dog was able to run and heel to his mistress. The Destroyer fired on the Minuteman, missed, but the AOE was still in the vicinity of connection, but a 1/2 POW roll couldn't penetrate through the Minuteman's buffed armor. Khador then prematurely ended its turn without activating the Widowmakers.

Cygnar Turn 2:

Stryker, now potentially threatened by all those Widowmakers on his side of the river, took an extra focus from his squire, again allocated three focus to the Minuteman, gave three to the Charger, and one to his Lancer. Allowing Arcane Shield to expire, he then turned tail and fled into the forested cover to his left, the Squire following in his footsteps, and popped his feat, Invincibility.

The Minuteman, flush with focus and in wonderful range of his hated enemies the Widowmakers, advanced 4" towards them, then spent a focus to leap into their midst, landing b2b with three of them, and setting off his Flak Field, killing the Marksman and two vanilla Widowmakers. His extended Flak Field range was not enough to kill the closest Widowmaker to him, and so he fired on both remaining Widowmakers, killing the closest to him but missing outright with his second shot. The remaining Widowmaker made its command check, however, and stayed in the fight.

The Arcane Tempest Gun Mages made their command check to stand firm and fired volley after volley into the Doom Reavers, managing to kill three out of six of the main troopers, as well as their Greylord Escort. The Charger killed another, and the remaining two were knocked down but made their Tough rolls. In a last-ditch effort, the Lancer charged one of the knocked-down Reavers but still couldn't manage a kill. After that, the Ironclad stomped into position near the knocked-down reavers, blocking any access they may have had to Stryker.

I'm still not 100% sure if Gun Mages could use their Rune Shot abilities against Doom Reavers...as they're not really spell attacks per se, just spell effects...So not sure if that was a fuck up or not. Thus concluded Cygnar Turn 2.

Khador Turn 2

Sorcha began her turn by advancing to the end of the bridge and firing at Stryker with her gun and a Razor Wind attack. Luckily, both missed. The Destroyer moved forward again and tried a shot at Stryker, but again concealment was his friend and caused the shot to deviate to a point where it couldn't hit anything.

The War Dog moved up to heel with Sorcha, and the Doom Reavers stood and attacked the units adjacent to them, dealing little damage when hitting. The remaining Widowmaker moved adjacent to the Destroyer and fired at the Minuteman, missing. The Marauder ambled up closer to Sorcha, but still couldn't match his mistress for speed.

Sorcha concluded Khador's turn without using her feat, Icy Gaze.

Cygnar Turn 3

Stryker began his turn taking another focus from his Squire, and preparing an assassination run, throwing a focus on his Lancer, and two on his Charger. He then cast Earthquare on Sorcha, boosting the attack roll to ensure a hit. Luckily he didn't need to use the Squire's re-roll ability, hitting the Khadoran warcaster on his first try. The AOE of Earthquare knocked down Sorcha, the War Dog, and the Cygnar army's Lancer. Finally, he took a shot at Sorcha, dealing a little bit of damage.

Next, the Minuteman moved adjacent to the final Widowmaker and used Flak Field to kill it outright, wiping out the sniper unit entirely.

The Gun Mages continued firing on the Doom Reavers, killing one and knocking down the other with a tough roll, freeing up the Lancer and Ironclad for an assassination run on Sorcha. The final Gun Mages took a few more shots at Sorcha, hitting, but dealing little damage. The Charger fired both barrels at the knocked-down Sorcha, getting her HP to the red and, finally, the Ironclad stomped over to her and administered the coup de grâce, ending the battle.

Final Notes

It looks like my previous tactic of matching Stormblades against Doom Reavers was ill-advised, as a good group of ranged units had a much more successful career against them. The Minuteman again proved to be amazing decimating the Widowmaker unit, though sometime soon my opponent will figure out a tactic to counter that strategy.

I suppose it's also time for me to invest in another Cygnar warcaster to see how strategies change between different army leaders. I'm really enjoying the shootiness of Cygnar, so perhaps Allister Caine will be my next investment, though warjacks are a hell of a lot of fun, so perhaps Jeremiah Kraye is also a good choice. We'll have to wait and see.

Lastly, this is my fourth victory as Cygnar; my third against my nemesis Susan's Khador. I can't wait for the next rematch.

March Madness OGBC: Day 5

"What other old school game should have become as big as D&D but didn’t? Why do you think so?"

To be honest, as a new inductee to the RPG genre, I haven't had the experience with older RPGs that many of my contemporary bloggers have; however, the above question doesn't specify old school roleplaying game- it just says game.

And so I'm calling back to my childhood and HeroQuest.

HeroQuest is basically the reason I'm into roleplaying games today. It featured adventurers delving into dungeons and ruined keeps to accomplish simple quests and escape with loot. Characters were carried over, and each player received a character sheet for their trouble, so I naturally spent every second I wasn't playing HeroQuest reading through the DM's booklet and checking out equipment tables, magic spells, and dungeon setups.

Looking back, I probably spent more time learning how to play HeroQuest than actually playing it, and looking for it today on Amazon makes me sad it never saw a larger audience, because there's no way in hell I'm paying 400 bucks for it now.

I think the reason HeroQuest failed was because it was filling a niche that didn't really need any more filling. Anyone who was interested in playing that type of game was probably already playing D&D, and therefore didn't really see the point in dumbing down their experience. Hopefully a good number of people used it as a springboard for their eventual run in tabletop RPGs, but at the time of its release, when someone said 'board game', everyone else thought Monopoly. Which sucks.

Monopoly sucks, guys.

March Madness OGBC: Day 4

"What other roleplaying author besides Gygax impressed you with their writing?"

I'd definitely have to go with Sandy Petersen, principal author on the Call of Cthulhu ruleset. While impressed with the breadth of material he could pull from the mythos while still adding in enough crunch to make a game, what's really impressed me is that despite being a Mormon, he publishes these amazing games in a medium that has been demonized by the media as leading to satanism and suicide. I think this quote pretty much sums up a) why he sounds like a pretty cool guy and b) what people who have a problem with these types of games should be thinking about. He's talking about Doom in this quote, but it can translate to Call of Cthulhu pretty easily as well.

"I have no problems with the demons in the game. They're just cartoons. And, anyway, they're the bad guys."

Hard-to-Kill: Figuring out Healing

This post is in response to Keith Davies' article On Hit Points and Healing, as well as his follow-up. I'll be approaching from a BRP standpoint, as I'm currently converting 2e AD&D Dark Sun to a BRP system, and am willing to take whatever help I can get to create a unique feel to the conversion while retaining the cinematic edge that I so enjoy infusing into my games. I'll be aping some of the format of the original articles, to hopefully add cohesion for those who want to read them all.

The original blogs create the concept of Hit Points as Hard-To-Kill points, a measure of when a character has taken so much minor physical abuse that the next attack would strike a vital spot on them. It's a unique way of solving the issue of the massive amounts of hit points higher-tier D&D characters obtain through level bonuses, and I was curious to see how it converted to BRP.

To summarize: in theory, there are two types of damage; described as 'normal' and 'real' damage. Because my most recently played videogame was Resonance of Fate, I'll be calling them 'scratch' and 'direct' damage.

Normal/Scratch damage is light, superficial injury that hinders you and wears down your ability to defend yourself effectively from attacks. This can take the form of unarmed strikes (being punched in the face), armed attacks (a leg gash from a sword, a ringing blow on your shield arm from a mace, etc), or even energy attacks (being singed by dragon's breath). Your hit points, in this case, aren't just a buffer of meat or fat for soaking hits, they also represent your ability to turn lethal strikes into grazes. You still bleed, but your organs remain intact. For the time being.

Real/Direct damage is what happens when your Hard-To-Kill runs out or is circumvented somehow, whether through a critical hit or an attack that you are particularly vulnerable to. In BRP, I'd argue that impaling attacks, critical hits, and attacks dealing enough damage to cause a major wound would fall under Direct Damage.

In most games, you'll be taking Scratch damage more frequently than Direct damage, and the argument posited by Keith Davies is that with each short breather you recover your Scratch through rest or light care, but Direct damage requires actual healing to be performed (or in-game healing mechanics to take over) to recover hit points.

Those are the basics, let's jump in!

Out-of Combat Healing in BRP

Now, there are three 'normal' ways for a character to be healed in BRP outside of combat: First Aid, Natural Healing, and Medicine.
-First Aid: For each separate wound, a character can attempt a First Aid roll to immediately heal 1d3 points of damage.
-Natural Healing: At the end of an in-game week, a character recovers (potentially another) 1d3 hit points.
-Medicine: Each week as the in-game healing is rolled, a character can use Medicine on a wounded character to give them an additional 1d3 hit points recovered that week.

Therefore, the first week after the injuries are sustained, a character can regain 3d3 hit points, followed by a further 2d3 per week until fully healed.

This method of healing is workable for protracted campaigns where there can be a goodly amount of downtime between combats, but in high-battle systems like D&D (or Dark Sun), you'll be taking consistent wounds and needing to track the days between healing rolls, creating a significant amount of crunch not only for the player to track, but the GM as well. Incorporating Scratch damage that heals during one's first breather outside of battle is an concept that's been touched on in systems like 4e, where a short rest and expenditure of healing surges gets you back to full health.

But at the same time I hate 4e, and the way it incorporates healing is stupid, because I hate it. Nyah.

Recovering Hard-to-Kill (or Scratch Damage)

In all seriousness, 4e's short rest is decent-enough mechanic blanketed under convoluted terminology, and I want to make it better. Luckily, with enough house-ruling, anything can be made better. So let's look at this scratch damage, and this resting time frame. Obviously, a person needs a goodly amount of rest to catch their wind when they're wiped. You don't fully recover from a 400 meter sprint or 3 minute round of intense boxing in just five minutes. So let's change that to a minute of rest per Scratch damage HP being healed. There isn't much worry to be had there in terms of time-constraints, as hit points don't increase in BRP like they do in D&D, and therefore the time it takes a person to get their second wind (groan) shouldn't change much over the course of their career.

Taking Hits (Scratch vs. Direct Damage)

So if we have a mechanic to separate types of damage and how each are healed, we should have a set of qualifiers for when a character would take each type of damage.

Scratch Damage: A character potentially takes scratch damage any time an attack connects with them. Whether that damage is registered as Direct Damage is determined by a series of qualifiers.

Direct Damage: Attacks that should deal direct damage are as follows:
-Critical Hits; the attack was either executed skillfully or your character botched their defensive roll. A blade slips between the plates of your armor or you accidentally weave into the strike, instead of away from it.
-Impales; similar to above, except only with piercing weapons. Your armor/technique is ineffective and did not prevent the weapon from driving into your innards. Heh, innards.
-Major Wounds; attacks that deal damage equal to half a character's total hit points. These attacks, if they had a little less force behind them, could have been Scratch Damage, but the inertia behind the blow transfers so much power that it slams into a shield arm or through a barrier of armor, severely damaging the body part beneath.
-Kryptonite; Not literally, of course, but attacks that deal damage that a particular character is vulnerable to obviously deal direct damage.

Moving on.

Hit Points as Mana

Now this is a gem in itself, perfectly lending itself to the Dark Sun setting (and even to BRP a bit, as well). The original descriptor was of a mage using his own life force to fuel his spells, and to be fair, the original D&D games don't have a "Mana" mechanic. But BRP does. Magic Points are equal to your POW, but what if you expend all your MP and still want to cast spells? Well, then you dredge them from your life, of course. And, of course, this always causes Direct Damage, because you're eating into your life essence to do so.

This works even more amazingly with the concept of Defiling in Dark Sun, because casters can drain the life from others around them to fuel their spells. A POW vs POW on the resistance table can represent who successfully resists being defiled, but the rest of the surrounding figures take damage. This has the potential to be overpowered because you could drain HP from enemies with the casting of the spell as well as the spell itself, but on Athas, everyone wants to kill mages. You might get one spell off before everyone in your immediate area swarms you under or pincushions you with arrows. Hell, your own group might murder you.

Final Thoughts

Obviously, this type of modification to the hit point rules requires a re-think of how much fluff you want in your games, because you'll need to describe in more detail what's happening with each attack. However, I'm optimistic about its use, and don't mind going the extra mile, especially when, say, you can use hit location dice to assist in your descriptions. It's likely there will be some things to iron out during gameplay, but chances are they won't be too strenuous, and the new hit point system won't make BRP too easy. Because if it does, well, I'm just going to have to post again and fix that, wont I?

March Madness OGBC: Day 3

"Which game had the least or most enjoyable character generation?"

As a CharGen fanatic, it would be difficult for me to find a character generation rule I disliked, so I suppose I'll focus on the game with the  most enjoyable character generation I've experienced. And, because I've enjoyed it so recently, I'm going to go with Pendragon's Knight creation.

Pendragon was a BRP mod before it took on a life of its own, and that may contribute to my utter enjoyment of the CharGen. There is seemingly less glut with the character sheet, as most of the dice rolls are based off a d20, so you'll be working with a range of 1-20 for each Skill, Trait, Passion, and Attribute. But first, let's go over each, because just about everything in Pendragon's character generation informs some of your player Knight's backstory and family history.

Traits:
Pendragon is the first game I've seen to utilize an alignment mechanic more in-depth than Lawful/Chaotic/etc. In Pendragon, your "alignment" is based off a series of dichotomous traits that range from Chaste/Lustful to Valorous/Cowardly. Each trait is given a set number x between 1 and 20, and the opposing trait receives a value equal to 20 - x so, for instance, Sir Pace has a Lustful of 13 and a Chaste of 7. Each trait informs you of how your character's actions would default in certain instances.

Passions:
Arthurian Legend is all about passion, being swept up in one's love for their lady or liege, or their hate of a certain dismembered black-armored knight voiced by John Cleese. Passions indicate who or what your character feels strongly about, whether the Love of your family drives you or the defense of your Honor, and it can empower your abilities on occasion to superhuman levels.

Skills:
Skills are pretty standard fare now in RPGs, and thus are grasped easily. A higher number is a skill is always better, and lets you know how effective you are (on a scale of 1-20, remember) at performing a certain activity, like Hunting or Flirting. What I really enjoy are the eclectic skills that seem to have little value at first. Falconry is a personal favorite: utilizing birds of prey in the hunt is a fantastic touch of the setting, as is the in-game recognition of the differences between Flirting and Romance, two completely different skill sets.

Attributes:
Lastly, attributes are brought in from BRP almost entirely, with the notable exception of the INT attribute, which has been excised in favor of a player using their own, out-of-character intelligence. Of note, however, is the APP attribute, which was originally in BRP as a throwaway attribute; it is now almost a necessary attribute because a negative APP costs you honor in Pendragon, which is basically the system's XP.

Now, along with the big 4 character creation sections, there is also the option to randomly determine your wealth level, family traits, vassal and family knights, and the ability to generate a home manor for your character, which evolves throughout gameplay.

So yeah, Pendragon is kind of awesome in the CharGen sense in that you're performing light CharGen almost every single session. So cool.

March Madness OGBC: Day 2

"In what system was the first character you played in an RPG other than D&D? How was playing it different from playing a D&D character?"

Again it seems I'm going to have to dodge my inclination to talk about Pathfinder and the absolutely epic tale of Alfonse Mycroft, because of my still-held belief that Pathfinder is still basically D&D, but empirically better.

Therefore, I'm going to talk about my first game of Call of Cthulhu as a player, where I ran a shipping magnate named Simon Bailey with David Larkins of the RPG Corner as the Keeper of Arcane Lore.

The first deviation from playing a D&D character came with the setting, 1920's San Francisco. The second deviation was when I realized that I could use actual historical knowledge to create a backstory for the character; and thus Simon Bailey started with a 50% in rifle (which he never used), because he served in the French Foreign Legion during the Great War.

Playing an investigator, rather than an adventurer, opens up different avenues for character interaction, as you're focused more on negotiating relationships and solving mysteries with your wits, rather than your sword blade. Brute force is all-but passé in the 1920's, after all. I spent more time thinking about Simon's daily life as well, because as a Call of Cthulhu character you choose an Occupation for your toon, or PC, or 'guy', and therefore- unlike D&D- your occupation is not "adventurer" or "investigator" (usually). Chances are, you're investigating in your free time, and the rest of your days you're working as an antiquarian or professor or beat cop. It's a dichotomy that presents an interesting requirement for roleplaying that isn't commonly utilized in Call of Cthulhu games, mainly because most of them are short-form.

Finally, playing a Call of Cthulhu investigator incites various emotions to its player, as you're essentially running a doomed character. Madness increases throughout play, especially as you delve deeper and deeper into the Mythos, and your range of control over them becomes smaller and smaller as sanity rules take over your play more and more.

All in all, it's a great deviation from the D&D "norm" of roleplaying.

March Madness OGBC: Day 1

So here we are, starting off a month of non-D&D gaming trivia about my sordid roleplaying past. What dark secrets will be revealed over the next 30 days?

Fucked if I know.

"What was the first roleplaying game other than D&D you played? Was it before or after you had played D&D?"

Welp, it's time to harken back about five years and talk about Pathfinder. Or is that too close to D&D, being basically 3.75?

Fine. Then let's go back four years and talk about Call of Cthulhu. I honestly don't remember how I got into CoC, it's a blank spot in my memory that likely has to do with Yog Sothoth's Bradford Players actual plays. I was happily enjoying alternating my time between 4e and Pathfinder, and listening to Actual Plays by Penny Arcade about Keep on the Shadowfell, and decided to look for other RPG podcasts. And I found Horror on the Orient Express, which was fantastic. Characters that weren't heroic, trying to stave off madness and indescribable horrors, while solving mysteries in 1920s Europe?

Sign me the fuck up.

Speaking of HotOE, I'm super looking forward to the re-release of the campaign, and will be playing through it later this year, courtesy of the Esoteric Order of Roleplayers. Along with Call of Cthulhu 7th, which is another landmark for me, an updated system that I'm actually looking forward to, because it doesn't entirely throw out the previous system's rules.

Oh man, I can't even go through a non-D&D blog without sniping D&D. I may have a problem.