Role Playing Styles (Stage One)

This is not a comment on that GNS rubbish, but rather how people play an actual character. It came to me because one of the students has left my Wednesday afternoon group citing sporting commitments. His brother (also in my group) says that the real reason is that I won't go back to dungeons and dragons. I don't think that is the real reason either. I think the real reason is that he has realised that he is not role playing at the same level as the rest of the group; he is still at stage one.

Stage one
In stage one things seem fairly simple. The bad guys are bad and need to be killed or punished. The victims are innocent and need to be protected or rescued. And a character class is what defines how you play a character. Fighters fight, rogues steal and so on.

Stage one players often sit back and wait until their character can have an impact on the game so that they can shine. Unfortunately such one dimensional characters are often of very limited use and the players become bored very quickly, often contriving situations where they can use their character's skills. The game is often slowed down by these players as their characters pick fights in taverns or attempt to steal from the local merchant.

This idea of stages makes me think about my own progression as a role player. What is stage two? Is it to do with alignment? Where do skills, background and personality come in? Is there a continuum? Hmmm.

Role Playing Gamer syndrome 4

Sunday night we went around to Mike’s to play his Sci Fi rpg. The game is kind of like the Firefly TV show, set in the Alternity universe, using Spirit of the century as the engine. The first session worked out well. We knew our characters because of our zero session (I am going to insist on zero sessions from now on) a few weeks before and we knew how we knew each other as well.

We didn’t really get much done because in true role playing fashion, we hit a civilised place and split up immediately. Anything we needed to do required us to contact each other via radio and so formulating simple plans took longer than was strictly necessary. So when the problem finally presented itself to us, we were all in separate parts of the space station; meaning that our expertise was stretched ridiculously thin.

I wonder why it is that in any game, in any genre, as soon as the characters come in from the wilds, (be it dungeon, deep space, the sewers or a frozen wilderness) they feel the need to scatter to the four winds and disappear alone into the big bad city. Am I the only one seeing this happen all too often?

Flames of War: What did we learn?

After the hardcore match on Saturday, Martin and I played Flames of War. He tried out the Brits this time and I stayed with the Germans. Over all I think we learned two things.

One: House to house fighting is tough and brutal.
Two: Mortars are fantastic, except when they are in the open and can be seen by a heavy machine gun.

After seeing off the Insel Affen, we moved to the North side of the village to make sure they didn't come back.

Here is the machine gun crew that shot the enemy mortar team.

Trollbloods vs. Protectorate of Menoth Hardcore

Last night I played a hardcore match against Martin. The only rule we ignored was that the miniatures had to be painted. I understand that painted miniatures are an integral part of a real Hardcore match, but in game terms it made no difference. We played 7 minutes turns and the objective was to kill the other persons Warcaster/Warlock.

The forces:

Martin (Menoth)
Amon (Warcaster)
Crusader
Revenger
Devout
Avatar
Exemplar Seneschal
Rhupert Carvalo
Reclaimer
2 Units of Knights Exemplar
Vengers



Me (Trollbloods)
Borka Kegslayer (Warlock)
Dire Troll Blitzer
Dire Troll Mauler
Earthborn Dire Troll
Trollkin Champions
Trollkin Longriders
2 Fell Callers



I would love to write a battle report, but there were so many rounds in our 90-100 minute game that I would get it wrong to try and recount it. What I will do is mention the main events.

Left mid table
The Vengers circled round our left flank but they were very cautious, possibly too cautious, so I charged my Longriders straight into the avatar. The fight there lasted the rest of the game, with the Avatar really messed up by my charge that it lost its ability to move. The Devout joined it and so the remaining longriders focused on it as they were out of the 1/2 inch reach of the Avatar. After a couple of rounds they managed to destroy the Devout's ability to move as well.

Left rear table
The Vengers threw caution to the wind as the rest of the battle was unfolding without them and advanced to close to the Earthborn that I had left back to watch them. On my next turn he charged in and ate the first Venger with his first attack. I riled him and left him outside the control radius of Borka. In my next turn he frenzied and polished off the remaining two Vengers that had done him some damage.

Mid table
I charged my Blitzer into the Revenger and trashed it, while the Gobber on his back nailed a few knights with his machinegun. Unfortunately, the knights charged in their turn and slaughtered the poor old Blitzer. I sent the Mauler in who took out the Exemplar Seneschal and what was left of the Revenger.

Right mid table
The Champions advanced and were charged by a half strength unit of knights and the Crusdaer, but because of some luck, the ones that were taken out made their toughness rolls and stayed in the game. A Fell Caller charged the Crusader as well, but did little to it and was soon dead.

After we tore each other to pieces over the course of about ten or 11 rounds the game came down to Borka Kegslayer, vs. Amon one knight and the Reclaimer. That was it, there was nothing left on the table Borka moved out of combat with the Reclaimer (not worried about the free strike, which Martin didn't think I would do) and blasted Amon to pieces. Then for good measure (spite) I shot the knight.

Victory! The closest game I have ever played. All I had left was my Warlock and Martin had a Reclaimer.

Daunted by those Flames of War

The guy from my FLGS (Mage Store) gave my number to another guy, by the name of Andreas, so that we could meet for a game of FoW and he could teach me to play properly. It was a good idea and I found that we were interpreting the rules quite well, with only a few things that we had omitted.

As an introductory game though, there were a few pros and cons:

Pros first
1. Andreas is a polite and courteous player.
2. He explained things well even though English is his second language.
3. His miniatures are superbly painted.
4. He let me make some tactical mistakes so that I could learn from them.

Now the Con
1. We played almost 1900 points. It looked very impressive with all the tanks and infantry lined up and waiting to go, but as a beginner, I was a little daunted by the thought of a 600 point game, let alone more than three times what I was expecting.

Anyway, i am playing again on Saturday (600 points) and will take this new knowledge with me to knock Martin over the head and finally win a game of FoW.

In other news I am coming along nicely with my own miniature painting, with 10 stands of infantry almost complete.

In other other news, I am also playing in Mike's sci fi game on Sunday. Yay!

Super Hero Role Playing

This post is way longer than I wanted it to be. I was going to fill this blog with wargame battle reports, so I thought, why not a rpg battle report. Oh well.

Last night we played Derek’s Mutants and Masterminds game and as always it was a well thought out and interesting game. The heroes are played by me, Alex, Stefan and Mike and in no particular order are:

Air Fist: a powerful telepath and psychokineser.

Caliber: A high tech weapons and equipment gunfighter.

Warspite: A Three meter tall, flying armoured suit.

Surfer: A drug induced body control specialist.

The group has been hired by billionaire Douglas Reed to form the core of a team of super powered warriors, to combat the growing menace of what the government has termed, ‘People of Mass Destruction’. The main antagonist is known as Thunderbird in the press and is a robotic suit of power armour that was the first prototype of the Warspite suit.

Thunderbird (who has recently taken to calling himself the First Born and indicating that Warspite is his younger brother) has developed a nanite that can control animals, making them very aggressive; it even works on humans. Luckily the nanites are detectible under UV light, so the group has so far been able to contain any microscopic invasions of their HQ.

Last night’s session revolved around us stumbling around in the dark, trying to figure out how to track down Thunderbird. In the comic books there is always some kind of weird science way for the heroes to track down the villain, but we are stumped. Our only lead was the word ‘Collider’, that Air Fist was able to pull from the mind of an unwitting pawn of Thunderbird. When combined with the image of Northern San Francisco, we worked out that Thunderbird was interested in the particle accelerator at Berkley.

The three human agents (posing as potential investors) entered the science complex (while Warspite loitered high above) to talk to those in charge and find out why Thunderbird would be interested in the collider. Outside, Warspite’s pilot was in direct mental link with Air Fist and was feeding the appropriate scientific questions to him…Warspite has a science background.

Out of nowhere an invisible force began attack Warspite, causing him to spin out of control toward the ground and severe the mental link with Air Fist.

Air Fist and Surfer left Calibre talking to the real scientist and exited the building quickly to help the beleaguered Warspite, who had managed to control his descent enough to avoid crashing. It turned out that the invisible attacker of Warspite was a being with the ability to control air and as Air Fist and Surfer attempted to help their armoured friend, a man suffused with light and breathing fire attacked them.

Meanwhile, Caliber left his meeting and pulled the fire alarm so that the civilians in the complex could escape the super powered battle that was just beginning. He then ran around to his vehicle to retrieve his weapons and armour so that he could help his friends. Warspite seemed to have the air being in a bear hug and was literally squeezing the life out of him, so his comrades turned their attention to the flame belcher.

Surfer knelt down and placed his hand upon the asphalt of the car park and moments later, dagger like, stone fingers erupted from the ground beneath the flame wielder, knocking him down and stunning him. It seemed that the fight was almost done; until the sound of splintering trees announced the arrival of the enemy reserve.

Smashing his way out of the nicely sculpted garden stepped a large man, who seemed to be chiselled entirely out of rock. He immediately headed toward Air Fist, who seeing this new threat, grabbed the brute with the power of his mind and began to squeeze, causing the big man to stumble. It seemed that Air Fist had the better of this new assailant, but then the stone man steadied himself and then picked up the pace toward the psychic hero.

With Warspite now on the ground and distracted by his own fight and Surfer moving to make sure the fire wielder was out of the battle, Calibre realised it was up to him. He could see the strain on Air Fist’s face as he put everything he had into stopping the onrushing juggernaut; but it wasn’t going to be enough. Pausing in his quest for his weapons, Calibre pulled out his neural dampener, a device invented by his brother, that was designed to temporarily disrupt individually targeted super powers. Taking aim at the large stone man, he thumbed the control stud. A thrumming noise reverberated across the car park and the big man went down.

Clearly in pain, the big stone warrior struggled back to his feet as Calibre slid over the bonnet of a nearby car to get to his own equipment more quickly. Opening the door, he snatched up his paired pistols in time to see Air Fist go down as if he had been shot. Blood sprayed from his friend’s side as Calibre watched the seemingly unstoppable rock coated assailant turn toward him. Air fist slumped to the ground, all attempts to deal with the fight out of his mind as he attempted to staunch the bleeding from the large gash above his right hip.

The stone man leaned down and gouged out a handful of blue black asphalt as easily as if it were wet sand. With a twist of his torso and a flick of the wrist, he sent the debris he had gathered spinning in Calibre’s direction. With barely a moment to spare, the gunfighter dropped to his belly, the car park fragments imbedding themselves in the panels of the car behind him. So that’s what happened to Air Fist, thought Calibre. Taking aim, he fired off a quick double shot, scoring a hit on the left shoulder of the titan and spinning him around and down out of sight behind more cars.

From the western side of the car park, water began to pour into the already debris strewn area of battle. From out of the pooling liquid a woman grew as if she was made of water.

“You were warned!” she yelled as she made a double armed sweeping gesture toward Warspite and the weakening air creature still in his grasp. A Tsunami of water engulfed the struggling pair and swept them aside.

The state of play had changed dramatically in the last few moments thought Surfer, as he stood up from the fire wielder, now writhing in agony from a low blow. Warspite was gone. Swept away by a momentary torrent of water. Air Fist was down and it seemed only barely managing to stem the flow of blood from his injury. At least he had Calibre he thought as he rounded to face the remaining two villains.

Putting his hand to the ground he made his sharp, stone shaped fingers, lance upward beneath the rock armoured man who had proven so dangerous. Unnaturally resilient skin turned the jagged finger shaped weapons as if they were paper and the man responded by stamping his foot, sending a seismic shock through the ground that sent the pair reeling. The liquid woman advanced menacingly to stand beside her compatriot and gloat over the coming victory.

With a sickening thud, the body of the air creature landed at the feet of the water woman, accompanied by the amplified voice of Warspite,

“So comes the end to all the tools of Thunderbird.”

With a deeply vibrating hum, his gravity rifle discharged, hitting the woman in the solar plexus and sending her to the ground unconscious. The combined attacks of Calibre and Surfer were enough to distract the last attacker, the man made of stone, as Air fist managed to stop the blood flow from his torn open side. Gathering the last remnants of his psychic reserve, he unleashed a powerful blast of pure mind energy at the brute who was already reeling under the relentless assaults of the Calibre and Surfer.

With a thud, the stone giant collapsed to the ground. The heroes were breathing heavily and one of them required medical attention, but they had bested their foes.

The perfect blend of orc and elf

School is back in session and so the games club is back and it's bigger than ever. Mike is running warmachine games in the room next to me and I am running an rpg based on the Lord of the Rings.
Originally I was using the d6 (Fantasy) system, but none of us was enjoying it; it seemed clunky, which was strange as I remember playing it years ago and enjoying it.

So, I threw out the d6 system and converted the characters that had been made to a system of my own devising. Is it perfect? Nope, not by a long shot, but it ran smoother and faster and the kids enjoyed it, so I will tweak it and continue to use it. The Lord of the rings game is really just a quick story arc designed to take in 5 or 6 of our Wednesday afternoon sessions, before we move on to other games. It was also designed to attract new players to the club.

The background to the game is that the war of the ring is over and was won when Sauron reclaimed the ring. Since then the world of men has crumbled, the elves are gone and the dwarves are under siege in their fortress halls. The surviving peoples live in small, hidden villages in forests and rugged hill lands to avoid the orcs on the look out to finish them off.

Last week the group heard about an elven boat that was seen going back up the river Anduin in the direction of Lorien and Mirkwood. They followed that clue down to the river, because the elves were all thought to have left for the west. They ambushed some orcs that had destroyed a village the night before and that is where we left off.

Today's game was good. The characters went on with the fight that we were stuck halfway through and finished it quite quickly. They killed the ten or so orcs, with only two injuries in the group and went on to search the orcs and their encampment. What they found confused them. All of the orcs looked as though they had more elf blood in them than orc. They still had orc coloured skin, lank greasy hair and sharp teeth, but apart from that they could have passed for elves.

However, after discovering the elfy orcs, they decided to head further into the hill lands to try and find a hidden village. In typical rpg party style, the idea was put forward by one player and because no one else had a better idea they went with it. Oh well. I will have to find a subtle way to put them back on track.

Flames of War

In the old days I would have been seriously turned off a game where I rolled such bad dice and was then appropriately annihilated. Possibly I have matured over the last few years because while winning is fun, having fun is more important. Martin and I played our intro game to Flames of War tonight and his Soviet forces rolled right over the top of me. I'm sure we made plenty of mistakes and I had (possibly) the worst dice rolls ever, but none of that mattered, it was just a good fun game.

We are going to play again next week and he is now seriously considering which force to play and consequently buy. The front runners at the moment are the British and Soviets. I don't care which he buys. I am equally happy to play Festung Europa or Stalingrad.

Here is a pic of my PaK 38 guys that I have finished.

Flames of War

I am playing my first game of Flames of War tonight and I am a bit over excited about it. Martin (my opponent) has also never played before, but with the years of experience we have with all manner of other games, I'm sure it won't be too difficult.

I picked up a Grenadier Kompanie box set during the week and Martin has indicated he would like to try the Soviets; so Stalingrad it is! Painting the little (15mm) buggers is something I had not tried before and it is vastly different to the 28mm I have become accustomed. I imagined it would be much more difficult to paint the smaller soldiers, but the lower amount of detail means that I am turning them out quite quickly.