Fallout Genesys - The Institute

Image (c) Bethesda Softworks 2015

We're back with another "DLC" update to my Fallout Theme for the Genesys Role Playing System!

One of the major protagonists in the Commonwealth is the secretive and scientifically advanced Institute. Built from the ashes of the Commonwealth Institute of Technology, the Institute has been around for hundreds of years, advancing technology well beyond anything thought possible even before the Great War that destroyed much of human civilization. This update includes a general description of the faction, some of their weapons and armor, and a smattering of Adversaries. Also, you'll find rules for playing Generation 3 Synths in the Fallout wastelands, either as a spy for the Institute or as a run-away. If you're on the run, be careful of Coursers from the Synth Retention Bureau, they're on your trail and are among the more dangerous adversaries out in the wastes...

You can find a copy of the Institute DLC as part of the overall theme document, linked above.

Now, the DLC has basic stats for playing a Synth, but some players and GMs might be concerned about using those stats, especially if they're trying to keep the fact that the player is a synth secret. The GM might even want the player to be unaware that they're a synth, and play it like the Fallout 4 characters [REDACTED], [REDACTED], or even [REDACTED]. If you wish to do that, simply use the stats for any of the human archetypes presented in the core rulebook. There's no reason to think that the Institute couldn't make a synthetic human with those qualities instead of those of the traditional Gen 3 synth, and it allows you to surprise the other PCs (or even that character's player) with the fact that they are a synth.

I seem to be on a roll with these DLC updates for Fallout. I've had some requests for more adversaries, but I think I really want to get one of the beefier and potentially more fun updates rolling; salvaging, scrapping, and crafting. Once I present rules for that, they'll be incorporated into the rules for creating and managing your own settlements in the wastes.

More juicy bits of web goodness are coming, folks. Until then, go scare a PC by pitting them against a Courser.

May the dice be with you.

Image (c) Bethesda Softworks 2015

Fallout Genesys - Talents and Perks

Image (c) Bethesda Softworks

It's time for another update to my Fallout Theme. Perks have been a staple of Fallout games since the beginning, neat character choices that provide additional bonuses to your character beyond their skill selection. These Perks nearly perfectly align with Talents in the Genesys setting, so it seems like a natural fit to create appropriate Talents from several of these Perks.

The new talents are now included at the end of the compiled Fallout theme setting document, available in it's entirety here.

There are several adversaries I need to work on, and a few missing melee weapons that should be added in to the theme, but I know folks out there are starting to play in this theme, and felt that these Talents would add some neat character choices to those playing in the setting.

More gaming goodness to follow!

May the dice be with you.

Image (c) Bethesda Softworks

Fallout Genesys - Chems and Radiation Healing Rules Now Available

Hey Wastelanders! My rules for Radiation Healing and Chems are now available on the D20Radio site!

• Healing Radiation
• Fallout Genesys DLC - Chems

A full article will be up on the D20 Radio blog in a few days, but for those who follow me here the content is available for you now.

Enjoy, keep that rad-count down, and watch out for chem addiction!

And for anyone who needs it, you can find the original Fallout Theme document here!

May the dice be with you.

Fallout Genesys - Chems, Radiation, and Perks

I've been working on several projects for Genesys lately (in between the usual insanity of the holiday season). Most of them are for Fallout, but some are for my City of Heroes theme, as well as the Wizarding World module I'll be running at GamernationCon 5 in April. For Fallout, I've done some work on Chems, finally wrote up the rules to heal radiation damage with the Medicine skill, and started to outline some new talents tht are taken from Fallout 4's Perks list.

The Chems document is done, sort of. I'm basically considering them a Beta test, as I'm not really certain how some of them are going to play out. The most well-known chems are in the document; Buffout, Jet, Med-X, Mentats, Psycho, and Rad-X. I haven't gone into the extensive list of chems in  Fallout 4 quite yet, because I need to see how these basic ones play out in the game. I'm most curious/concerned with Jet...

Using Jet will grant the character an extra turn at the end of the round. This additional turn does not count as the character's next turn for the purposes of talents and effects. 

I'm worried this could be game breaking, but it might not be depending on how easy Jet is to obtain. Also there are some pretty heavy side effects to being addicted to chems. Jet in particular has some nasty ones when not affected by Jet

Characters addicted to Jet increase the strain cost of any non-free maneuver by +1 and suffer a setback die to all Agility checks when not under the effects of Jet.

I'm hoping that the downside and one-shot nature makes chems useful in certain situations, but not game breaking. Feedback will be necessary and updates may occur.

The Chems document and the Healing Radiation rules are published and ready to go, and should be up on D20Radio.com shortly. In the meantime, I'm looking at making some new talents with names and effects inspired by the Perks list from Fallout 4. Thus far, here's what I'm looking at:

• Iron Fist - Bonus Brawl Damage (Ranked)
• Big Leagues - Bonus Melee Damage (Ranked)
• Heavy Gunner - Add Stagger to Gunnery checks
• Strong Back - Increase Encumbrance Threshold (Ranked)
• Pain Train - Bonus brawling damage while in Power Armor when moving
• Demolition Expert - Bonus damage with Blast weapons
• Sniper - “Sniper Shot” from Star Wars RPG
• Penetrator - Maneuver to add Pierce to an attack. (Ranked)
• Chem Resistant - Upgrade Resilience checks to avoid Addiction once
• Rad Resistant - Reduce Radiation damage from all sources by 1 (Ranked)
• Medic - Improved use from Stimpacks and RadAway
• Gunslinger - Bonus Ranged (Light) damage (Ranked)
• Rifleman - Bonus Ranged (Heavy) damage (Ranked)
• Commando - Maneuver to remove the increase difficulty from Autofire attacks
• Blitz - Make melee attacks against targets at Short range
• Bloody Mess - ????
• Better Criticals - Bonus to Crit Rolls (Ranked)

I love the idea of Bloody Mess, but I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what it could do in Genesys, other than just "MOAR DAMAGE". It's going to require some additional thought. As far as what else is coming for the Fallout Theme, I have more weapons and equipment coming, along with more adversaries, attachments, rules for establishing settlements, and scrapping/crafting rules. Some of these will be pretty direct adaptations from similar rules in the Star Wars RPG, but there will be some differences. They can't port over directly, and do need some tweaking to fit into the Fallout world.

I figure these tasks should keep me pretty occupied over the winter months. It should hopefully distract me from starting some more Theme adaptations. A Rifts theme is really itching to get some attention, but so is a Battletech theme. A poster on the FFG forums is working on one but it feels too much like he's trying to make the Battletech rules fit into Genesys; which is not a direction I would take with it. If I work on one, my direction will be "how to play Genesys in the Battletech universe"; trying to capture the essence of the setting without it getting too bogged down in complex rule adaptations.

...and now my brain is working over how I'd do it; I'm hopeless.

Ah well. Something to toss on the growing pile of stuff to work on later.

May the dice be with you.

Genesys - Fallout Theme

It's November 30th, the official release date for Fantasy Flight Game's newest game, Genesys. I've been raving about this system since it was announced, and am excited and pleased that this date has finally arrived. Not only because it means I'll soon have my hands on a physical copy of this wonderful game, but also because I can finally share my latest evolution of "Edge of the Wasteland", my Fallout hack for Edge of the Empire that I wrote back in 2015.

Over on the D20 Radio blog is my latest article along with a link to my 20 page Fallout Theme for Genesys. Head on over to D20 Radio and check out the article there, and be sure to download a copy of the theme for your personal use.

I've been working on this document for months, testing it and tweaking it. I'm pretty proud of the final product, and look forward to adding to the material over the next few months. More importantly, I'm interested in hearing back from folks who use the theme and their experiences with it.

Naturally, I'm eager to throw this down in front of my own gaming group and get more adventures in the wasteland going.

So here's to Genesys and a big congratulations to Sam Stewart and his team at FFG! Thank you so much for this game and I'm looking forward to running many adventures with this tool-set.

May the dice be with you.

Edge of the Wasteland - A Fallout Hack for Edge of the Empire

So anyone who's been following this blog for any actual length of time, or anyone who's attended GamerNationCon these past two years, is familiar with my Fallout Hack for the FFG Star Wars Narrative Dice Setting. Backers to last year's GNC Kickstarter got access to these documents, and since it's been a year I figured it was time to share those documents with the masses.

This is the setting that started it all; Sam Stewart found the game "enlightening" when he got to play it (he got to play the Vault-Dweller, Artie Drake). Six months later, I'm getting an invite to playtest "Genesys", so it must have been really enlightening.

Anyway, since these documents were written, I've taken everything I've learned along with the Beta Rules for Genesys and re-written them. I've done a lot of cleaning up, reformatting, balancing, and rewriting to conform to what folks will see in the Genesys rulebook when it drops. So think of this as a "Prototype" for what Genesys could be, and take it with salt as to what to expect when the game launches later this year.

Edge of the Wasteland and Module 1: "A Better Man"

Feedback is always welcome, with the caveat that much of the information here is obsolete (power armor is pretty different now, for example).

Decisions, Decisions - What to do with a buffet of projects?

I find myself in an odd situation. I've got a lot of projects that need to be worked on, but I'm having trouble settling on what to work on. Not really writer's block as much as "writer's distraction".  The other issue is that this blog falls into that category; I should be writing meaningful posts to the blog, but sometimes I'm just not working on anything that is of interest (or in my mind isn't of interest) to anyone outside of my play group.  Or outside of my head, in some cases.

Maybe an exercise is needed to clear my plate; see what I've got on my mind and go from there.

Savage Rifts 

Supposedly, Kevin Siembedia finally unclenched enough to allow another company to take his Flagship setting and adapt it to their system (because the Palladium system is SO stable and fun to play). Pinnacle Entertainment Group, makers of Savage Worlds, will be kicking off their Kickstarter for "Savage Rifts" on the 26th.  I'm going to be watching this with guarded interest. I like the Rifts setting, or at least I think I do. I also liked X-Force at the time, so what do I know? I'll check it out, see if it's worth backing. The problem is that Palladium Books is still going to be part of it, and their last kickstarter hadn't completely gone well for those backers (Robotech Tactics). Maybe it'll fail, and maybe I'll have a non-FFG system game to bring to the next GamerNationCon. We'll see.

Star Wars: Relics 

My new Wednesday night game, via Roll20. Thoughts and feedback I can give about the Roll20 Edge of the Empire API; it's fun, but it's a little more involved on my side of the street. The embedded character sheets allow a player to go to a skill, or a weapon, and click a d20 emblem and have the program toss the dice for them. The difficulty can be set via the GM's "Dice Pool" window, with me adding or subtracting boost dice, setback dice, upgrades, downgrades, increases, decreases, you get the idea. I think the PCs can do that too on their side. The way I ran it last time; I set up all of the modifiers and difficulties and the PCs just hit "roll".  Next time I might try it by just calling out the modifiers, and leaving it to the PCs to set it up on the rollers on their end.  That could work.

Star Wars: Another Longshot

The game has been going on for a bit more than a year now.  PCs have earned (on average) about 300 XP. The plot has moved in directions and I feel like I've got a grasp on the interests of the party. I think it's high time I get the real plot going; it's been a lot of set-up and background work thus far. I need to hit both parties with what's really been going on in the Hagen Sector behind the scenes.  There's been a threat forming and it's time for them to come out of the shadows and drop the hammer on someone.

The game hasn't gone where I envisioned, nor where I wanted it to, but that's okay. It's sort of gone where I pessimistically expected it to, with neither team wanting much to do with the other. Could be a PC familiarity issue; some of the most objectionable voices to the other side are those who don't know the players personally.Then again, some of that is just attributable to how the plot developed, how the background universe is aligned, and how words and deeds have colored the views of the other group.

I still enjoy running each group, and I will continue to do so. I just don't know if very many crossover-games are in the cards going forward, either in this campaign or the next one.

Fallout 4

I'd be a little remiss if I didn't talk about the video game I'm most actively playing at the moment.

So Fallout has released the open beta for it's new Survival Mode; and it's pretty serious. No fast travel, reduced carry weight, the need to balance sleep, food, water, rads, and disease management. Bullets have weight now, and everything a lot more lethal.  So much so that when I tried to take on the Deathclaw in Concord, it killed me in one shot. While wearing power armor. Which forced me to reload to a save about an hour earlier, because you can only now save when you sleep. No saving just before you start something dangerous.

It's very lethal, and is sort of fun to play on a masochistic level, but it's not for me. I don't have the time such a run would take, having to travel everywhere in-play. There are methods of faster travel in the game, but they're deep into the storyline.  And I don't want to micro-manage my character to the point required to enjoy the game.  Hell, my toon got insomnia and nearly died of thirst because I was so busy crafting in Sanctuary! Not for me, I'll stick with playing on Normal Mode and leave survival Mode for folks who have the time.

The Next Campaign

I've been gathering ideas for a while now for "Phil's Next Game"; I've been jotting down "important facts" and "inspirational words" for a few months now.  For more than a year, I've been acquiring miniatures I'll want for certain characters, certain enemies. Certain elements. Things I've read about elsewhere that stuck a chord in my head as something I'd like to explore in a game. Here's a smattering:

• Fortress Cities - Less Arcology like Chi-Town in Rifts, more "walled city" like Dominion's Vegas 
• Laws of Magic - Like in the Dresden Files
• Ruling Council of Wizards - Also like the Dresden Files
• Illithids - Reaper Minis makes these awesome Chronoscope figures called Bathalians; pretty freaky alien/mindflayer/zerg things. I think I want to use them in the campaign as an invasion force of some sort.
• Dragons - Inspired by Eberron, dragon alignments will not matter. Instead any "color" can be good or evil.
• Giants - If In include these guys, I think I'd use them as "relative giants", as opposed to 20-50' tall humans. Make them 9-10' tall, they'd certainly be giants, relative to humans, but I don't have to invent reasons for Giant-sized buildings.
• Power Armor - Because POWER ARMOR, dammit!

There are other points I've written down too, but they're more "plot revealing" that I'm willing to share here.  Quite likely I could get away with running this idea as a Rifts game (possibly even with Savage Rifts, above), but when I include what I want to do and why, it makes Rifts more and more of a poor fit.

Still shopping around for a system to run it in. I have just about everything I'd need to run it for Savage Worlds, but SW isn't...as interesting to me. I kinda want something that has hit points, and SW doesn't.  Not that it's a dealbreaker, just that it's something to factor in.  SW may actually let me do more of what I want as far as advancement and character options go; it really opens things up, with no "levels" or "caps".

Star Wars does that better, in my opinion, and I love the system, but it is definitely designed for a Star Wars setting.  Trying to convert the SW RPG to it is doable (as was evident down in Texas with Fallout), but I'd probably want to revamp the Magic/Force system. Plus I'd need to rewrite a few things.

FATE is right out. I like everything about the FATE system and concept except the actual die rolling.

I could do what Jay Little has done, run another system stock standard and just roll some Boost and Setback dice into the mix. Use them to create narrative elements. That's a possibility.

I dunno, like I said; still hunting.

LARPing Approaching

I've got the first session of Crossover starting in 2 weeks or so. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm running out of time to get my air-brush skills up to scratch, or even started really.  This weekend looks like a great weekend to get some painting done for the Nerf blasters I've got commissions for, and to finish up a couple enhancements to my own.

Should be fun. Hopefully I'll expound about it in a few weeks.

I think this helped a little, getting things out of my head.  Definitely needed it.

We'll see how the week goes.

May the dice be with you.

4DoGG; Because 3DoGG Wasn't Awesome Enough

Well now...one week ago I was kicking off the first module in my schedule at GamerNationCon. I had a wonderful time down in Denton, gaming with the Gamer Nation at Dallas Games Marathon for what may be the last time (not as ominous as that statement sounds, but more on that later). The con was exciting, exhilarating, exhausting, and exceptional. Everyone brought their "A Game", their best attitude, and their awesomeness. Attending was a great way to cap off my "March Vacation" and made me feel like all the work I'd done for it for the last few months were worthwhile.

The Con

I said this last year, and I'm going to say it again; this con is the best gaming con I've ever been to.  Small, intimate, with a lot of gaming to be had. RPGs, board games, dice games, panels; you name it, they got it. And with 150 people attending you feel like you know everyone within a day and that they rate at the very least as "drinking buddy" by the end of the con. All of the alumni of Gamer Nation Studios and their comrades threw an awesome con; GM Chris, GM Dave, TG, Brev, Bradshaw, Tim, Kat, Hudson; hats off to all of them for knocking this con out of the park.

It was great to get to talk with Star Wars Saga Edition and D&D 5E Developer Rodney Thompson (and welcome him into the Rebel Legion for those efforts), and to hang with Christopher West from Maps of Mastery; both of them were the Convention Guests of Honor. Chris got to sit in on my Hunt for the White Spring module, and saw how much his maps make running my con-modules a snap.

Con Friends are odd friends; guys and gals that you see once a year, maybe twice if you're lucky. I had a few come back, like Sam, Keith, and Sterling; it was awesome seeing those guys again and hanging with them. I made a few new ones this year, and hope we're all able to make it back in 2017.

Knights of the Rebellion (or Cliffhangers Rule)

I ran two modules at GNC2016 for Star Wars; the Guns of Nova Rain and The Hunt for the White Spring. Each got run once, back to back on Thursday and Saturday. Both modules have "Knight-level" PCs; they have +150 earned XP for Nova Rain, and +180XP for White Spring.

In the Guns of Nova Rain, the PCs are an elite Rebel Strike team sent to Makeb to climb a 2km tall mesa and disable or destroy a trio of cannons that prevent the Rebel's 5th Army from being extracted. This was the 5th and 6th times this module was run, and in both instances the PCs did something no previous team had done. The 5th run utilized the vehicles in the base to take out the guns, and the 6th run blew the entire goddamn mesa apart "somehow" (there's a chance you may play it in the future, so I'm not going to give away how that can be accomplished).

In the sequel, The Hunt for the White Spring, the PCs are racing against the clock to find a lost Jedi Cruiser from the Clone Wars laden with lost treasures from the Jedi Order. Three of the PCs from the Nova Rain team return (well, four actually, but one is an NPC in this module), along with 3 new ones; two Force Sensitives built from Force and Destiny careers and an Ace Pilot who used to fly Consular-class Jedi Cruisers during the war (not Force Sensitive, just a damn good pilot). The adventure has twists, turns, a Mad Max style chase, and a seemingly fun encounter at the end where half the group has to deal with a stowaway while the rest try to outrun an Imperial Light Cruiser.  I only got to run this one twice, and both times the groups highly enjoyed the experience.

And I even teased next year's module and left my White Springs players in a cliffhanger.  Coming to Gamer Nation Con 4 in 2017; Revenge of the Jedi, the final chapter of the Knights of the Rebellion story arc.

Edge of the Wasteland (or Did The Minutemen Send You?)

I ran my Edge of the Wasteland module four times during the con; three scheduled times and one late night run from 10pm to 2am. Everyone...EVERYONE played their character masterfully. Gotta admit that the Saturday night run was my favorite; it was for the five Patreon backers of D20 Radio with Sam Stewart from FFG as the sixth. Even so, not a single run went poorl, everyone had a good time, and I hope I gave Sam a different perspective on the potential of the system he helped create.

Nod to my Local Legion(s) CO Erich who recorded the audio interludes and news reports for Vault 20 Radio, they worked well, my friend. 

Artemis (or Why the Hell Haven't We Done This Before?)

Okay, local peoples; why the hell haven't we done this before?! Artemis Bridge Simulator; you get together with 5+ friends with laptops, a big TV and a computer to act as a server, and frikkin' BE A BRIDGE CREW. Captain, helmsman, fire control, engineering, comms, science, engineering, even fighters! Go blow up attacking fleets, protect freighters and space stations, mind the black holes and asteroids, HAVE FUN!  I finally got to do two hour-long missions, and it was a blast. 

And it's fun having Rodney Thompson and Sam Stewart as members of your bridge crew.

(And for the love of god and the last time; HEADING ZERO THREE ZERO, NOT THREE ZERO ZERO...you know who you are)  ;)

Fallout - The RPG (or Please Don't Sue Me, Bethesda & FFG...)

Folks have asked me (many folks have asked me) if I'll be making the house rules I used available for the general populace. Yes, I will be; the only question is "when?" I need to get some stuff done in April, so May is looking like the soonest I'll have time to get the stuff down into some decent, shareable pdf format. Races, career recommendations, equipment, scavenging, crafting, and adversaries; these are all things I want to refine before release. Come to think of it, I might release in sections; section one will be character creation and some basic gear. Section two will be Adversaries. Section three will be advanced gear, crafting, and scavenging. Yeah, that's a good sequence to do it in.

I just want to make sure I do it right so I (nor anyone else) gets into any trouble.

GamerCred (or GamerNationCon Merit Badges)

GamerNationCon has a "game within a game" that runs from convention to convention, the accumulation of GamerCred pins for various feats of nerdity and geeky milestones.  You can see the entire list here, at least the most recent "active" list.  Many pins have retired, and assuredly some of these will retire too.

You can use GamerCred for a variety of things; the most common is to get early access to event registration. But even at the Con folks are able to get stuff or participate in certain events. I think this year was the first time GamerCred could get you free bottled water.

The one goal I set for myself when I got to GNC this year was to finally earn the Iron GM pin. To earn it, you have to run 30+ hours of RPGs. This was feasible this year. Last year when GNC was only 3 days, it was much less so. The con opens at noon on Day 1, 9am to 2pm every other day, and the last day you only have until 2pm because the con ends and the auction starts. To earn it last year, you would pretty much be running games from open to close and have to have someone bring you food.

 

This year, they added an extra day and didn't increase the hours needed to earn Iron GM. Thursday and Friday I ran two games, ran three on Saturday, and one on Sunday. They were 4 hours each. 8x4=32.  30+ hours of running role playing games = Iron GM Phil. Achievement Unlocked, pin earned.

I actually ended up with something like +80 GamerCred over last year, meaning up at about 140 GamerCred. I don't really have to worry about needing early event registration; I think I'm one of the largest  contributors to the Event list. Still, it's all about your cred, right?

The GNC Auction (or The First Hit is "Free")

During GamernationCon, you earn XP for playing in events. Usual rate is 10xp per hour of gaming. The reason you want XP is to use that XP to bid and buy things during the GamerNationCon Auction, held at the end of the con. Many, many folks will pool XP to be able to bid on some highly-sought-after items, like the special GamerCred pin that's worth 100 GamerCred. Bidding can get pretty intense and fun

The swag someone can walk away with is not insignificant. Game Companies have donated a swath of product to the Con. Rodney donated a 5th Edition Players Handbook and a copy of his Waterdeep game. FFG sent down a bunch of books and games, including the newly released Special Modifications and a core set for Armada. Chris West donated his entire printed collection as one item up for bid, and I think it went for over 800 xp. A Professional painter from Reaper Miniatures who loves doing Star Wars conversions of his company's minis.

Thanks to Jon Steven and Eric Benders, my brother an I were able to snag all three converted minis and the Armada core set. Sam Stewart helped us get the last of the three painted minis; the Miralukan Sith Marauder. He had a caveat for me though; I have to bring a module next year that features her as the BBEG.

Challenge Accepted.

GNC Episode 4: A New Hope

Sadly, the Boys gave us some bad news at the end of the con. Dallas Games Marathon is losing it's lease at the end of the year. They're not sure where or even if they'll be able to move to another location that would allow them to continue their business model. At this time, the fate of Gamer Nation Con 2017 is uncertain, but the Event Organizers have Hope that it will work out. So in about a year, we'll be descending on the Dallas Forth Worth area somewhere to get together and game with the great Gamer Nation at GamernationCon 4: A New Hope.

Hopefully.

I'll miss DGM. It's a hell of a place.  A hundred foot wall of boardgames, practically everything a board game geek would want to play, all for free. Massive rooms for table games and rpgs. A back room fit for an Artemis bridge and allows folks to watch the fun. And a 7/11 right out front. It was perfect. If I never play there again, I'll pour one out for DGM next year.

If you can make it to GNC 2017, go. Please. You won't have a bad time. You'll game the most you've ever gamed at any con; yes, even GenCon. You'll hang out with folks from the industry.

Big thanks to my buddy and Legionnaire Brother, GM Chance, for allowing my brother and I to crash at his place.  Thanks, Chris!

Finishing Moves

So, what now, now that GNC 3: Beyond Thunderdome is in the bag.  I'm back to working on Another Longshot as my main game. The house that hosts one of the groups just made a table insert that's a 32" flatscreen TV, so we can throw pdfs of maps onto it and scale it up for 1" minis. That should be fun to play with. I'm also working on my Roll20 game's first story arc, the Swords of Tython. I've got some special interest in the Swords of Tython story because I might turn that into the next adventure arc for my GamerNationCon modules after I finish up the Knights of the Rebellion storyline.

April is also going to be a month where I refine and finish up my preparations for my return to LARPing. Getting my character Gatewalker ready for Crossover will be high on my mind; I've got some armor detail to finish, several blasters to paint, and I have to learn how to use an airbrush for doing my make up.

It'll be fun, and I'll be sharing it all here.

Oh, and I'll be finishing off Year 40 this month. It wasn't a bad year.  Let's hope Year 41 will be even better. 

May the dice be with you.

Rebel Legion Members and Honorary Members at GNC 2016

Gamer Nation Con: The Pre-Game - Fallout: Edge of the Wasteland

My third and final module this week, Fallout: Edge of the Wasteland.   I got to playtest this module and have made some changes to it, but for the most part I think it's ready to go. 

Here are the PCs that are wandering this particular corner of the Wasteland.


Artie Drake, Male Vaultdweller from Vault 66 
Smuggler/Charmer

Charismatic, talkative, personable, but his big mouth got him assigned to a Wasteland Scouting Mission by the Overseer. Cunning and agile, he’s almost as good with a laser pistol as he is with his silver tongue. He was told not to come back until he “made contact with another vault” or “found something really useful”.

Hearing about Vault 20 on his Pipboy’s radio, he and his sister traveled south in hopes of finding it.

Features: Artie's talents lie in his natural Charm. When that fails, he's pretty handy with a laser pistol. Be sure to use Inspiring Rhetoric to help allies and Disarming Smile to hinder foes.

Gwen Drake, Female Vaultdweller from Vault 66\ 
Technician/Outlaw Tech

Rough and burly in spite of her size, always looking out for her younger brother. Smart and strong, she’ll use her wrench to fix a generator or to bash the head of a feral ghoul. She elected to be exiled with her brother because “there’s no way he’d survive out there by himself, nevermind find something useful…”

She is reluctant to go investigate a vault that is supposedly a refuge for ghouls and super mutants, but if this means she can keep her brother safe as he completes his “quest”, she has little choice in the matter.

Features: With her mechanics as high as it is, look for opportunities to utilize it in any given encounter. Scrounge for parts or items when you can. She's a good melee combatant, and could really ring someone's bell if she's able to hit with both her wrench and her Ripper chain-sword.

Natasha Stone, Female Knight of the Brotherhood of Steel 
Bounty Hunter/Gadgeteer

A part of Paladin Danse’s expeditionary recon team to the Commonwealth. Her squad was sent west to investigate the ruins of two of the largest universities outside of Boston; Worcester Polytechnical College and the Commonwealth University at Amherst. Her team found that Worcester received a direct strike from a nuclear bomb and was reduced to a radioactive crater.  As they left the ruins of Worcester, the team was attacked by a mated pair of deathclaws. Only the Paladin and the team scribe survived, and the Paladin did not leave unscathed. One of the Deathclaws breached her helmet and put out her right eye.

Determined to continue their mission, they elected to soldier on.  Hearing about the broadcast from Vault 20, they proceeded north to investigate. Stone is agile and has an intimidating presence. She operates a T-45b suit of Power Armor with a compromised helmet, damaged in the same attack that took her eye. 

Features: Stone's greatest asset is her power armor, but her strong will and ability to intimidate others is an asset too. She is absolutely deadly with her laser rifle, and would be more so if she wasn't suffering a setback to most checks thanks to losing her eye.

Marvin Wright, Male Scribe of the Brotherhood of Steel 
Colonist/Scholar

One of the more brilliant minds in the Archive House, Marvin has a very detached view of the world.  Everything is a puzzle or something to be studied, even if doing so is likely to get him killed.  Smart and strong willed, he has a tendency to state interesting, useful, or annoying facts at any given moment in spite of any danger he or his allies may be in.

He was sent along on Knight Stone’s mission in hopes that actual field work would impress some sense of responsibility and restraint on his clinical nature.

Features: Marvin's Intellect can be a great boon in any given encounter, look for ways to leverage Knowledge skills to place the party in a stronger position. He's good with his Auto Pistol, but there are likely better weapons out there to find. Finally, his skill with computers is rather high, keep an eye out of opportunities to affect encounters in your favor with it.

 

Morgan Fisk, Female Ghoul Wastelander 
Explorer/Scout

A wandering trader from the mid-west. Her home town was destroyed by a radicalized faction of the Children of the Atom who set off a bomb in a nearby silo.  She was the only survivor, and transformed into a ghoul as a result of the blast. Setting out on her own, she believed she could only rely on herself. Agile and sharp, she eventually found companionship with a similar social outcast and elected a begrudging, yet deepening partnership (and friendship) with Percival. The two of them were moving east towards Boston when they heard the radio transmission from Vault 20 and decided to go and investigate. Maybe they could trade for some supplies at least.

Unable to fully cope with her new condition, Morgan has become addicted to alcohol since becoming a ghoul.

Features: While not really skilled at stealth, Morgan is rather good at it thanks to her gear and her talents. With a high Cunning, she is naturally good at Deception, Perception, and Survival. She's also skilled with most weapons one can find in the wasteland. Due to her ghoulish nature, Morgan can actually heal wounds from one Radiation source, if need be.

Percival, Male Super Mutant 
Hired Gun/Marauder

Once a servant of The Master until his downfall, Percy escaped the battles against his kind in the west. Traveling alone, he happened across a comic book store and a tale about King Arthur in the year 3000 A.D. In that book, the character Percival was a human who was mutated into a giant, monstrous humanoid brute. Simple minded but still possessing a noble heart, the comic book Percival fought valiantly alongside King Arthur. Percy, feeling      an undeniable connection with the character, devoted himself to that           cause; to be a noble knight and fight against the evils of the world.  

Meeting up with the ghoul, Morgan Fisk in his travels, the two of them have wandered near the area of Vault 20 to investigate its seeming sanctuary for all outcasts.

Features: Percival is a melee monster and a walking tank, he should be up front drawing as much attention as possible. Remember that the shield he carries is a weapon too, and using two-weapon fighting to shield bash an opponent can be quite a handy seat up to a bumper sword strike. Look out for challenges that are bested physically.

Power Armor Rules - Supplemental

After some feedback last week, I think I've trimmed the rules down to a manageable level; one that conveys the spirit of what I'm looking for without being wordy or clunky as it was before.

I didn't have room to include the table that determines what location is Compromised on a Critical Hit, but I should be able to fit that in on the equipment card.

You can click on the image to see it's full size.

Not sure if I'm going to have a blog post next week.  Definitely not the next week after that. I've got a lot of writing to do and not a lot of time to do it.

Especially since I was an idiot and went and proclaimed I'd write the sequel for "The Guns of Nova Rain" and bring it to GamerNationCon 016.

I'm such a fool.

May the Dice be with you.

Edge of the Wasteland - Power Armor Rules

Another week, another blog post.  I know I didn't have one last week, with good reason.

I didn't write one.

*ba-dum crash*

I'm still trying to squeeze in posts when I can, but I've got a lot to do and I'm running out of time to do it. I've been pouring a lot of my writing energy into the "Edge of the Wasteland" module I'm writing for GamerNation Con. It's almost to the point where I can get a playtest group together and give it a go for 4 hours to see how it shakes out.  I figure one more weekend and it'll be ready for testing.

Power Armor

Part of what I'm writing for that module involves rules for one specific character; the Knight from the Brotherhood of Steel.  She's tromping around the Wasteland of the central Commonwealth in a well-loved T-45b power armor suit. As I've mentioned before, Power Armor changed dramatically between Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. Fallout 3 it was basically stat boosting armor.  Fallout 4 it's practically a vehicle. It boosts stats, sure, but it's also an environmental suit, it runs on a limited-use power cell, it is loaded down with enhancements and customization options.

I want to keep some of that for my module, but I also have to take into consideration the reality that the person playing this character will have about 5 minutes to familiarize themselves with these rules. Simplicity may be the necessity.

I pondered making Power Armor a Silhouette 1 vehicle, but after a lot of consideration about the complexities of vehicle-scale interactions with personal scale combat, I elected to make Power Armor act very similar to normal armor. There are some changes, though, and some complexities.

  

Soak Rating

Player characters can wear anything when they enter Power Armor as long as they are not Encumbered, at the GM's discretion. While wearing Power Armor, the Soak rating of the Power Armor replaces that of the character while is its worn. This is a total replacement; it does not add to it, nor do any of the Character’s Characteristics, Talents, or Abilities add to the Soak rating of the Armor.  When the character is struck by an attack, subtract the Soak of the Power Armor from the damage and apply the remaining amount to the character's current damage total. The exception to this is if the attack strikes a location that's "Compromised".

Critical Hits and Compromised Locations

Critical Hits against a character in Power Armor are determined and activated as normal; the attacker must score enough Advantage to activate the Crit Rating of their weapon, or spend a Triumph to generate a Critical Hit.  

When a Critical Hits is scored on a character wearing power armor, that hit removes the Power Armor's protection of a limb, head, or torso instead of inflicting a Component Critical. The location struck by the critical hit is now "Compromised". Any attachments or modifications granted by a Compromised location are lost until that location is repaired.

Roll 1d10 to determine location struck:

1-3    Torso

4       Right Arm

5       Left Arm

6-7    Right Leg

8-9    Left Leg

0       Head  
  

If the location rolled is already Compromised, the hit scores a Critical Injury against the wearer, and the Critical Injury result is determined as per the normal rules in Edge of the Empire. 
 

Aiming at a Location

A specific Location can be targeted by using the Aiming at a Specific Part rules on page 201 Edge of the Empire. If successful, that targeted location is struck (arm, leg,torso, or head). If the attack generates a Critical Hit, the Critical Hit is applied to that specific location and that location is now Compromised. If the attack hits a location that is already Compromised, the attack is applied to the wearer against the Character’s Soak, not the Power Armor’s soak.

Repairing Power Armor

Repairing a Compromised section of Power Armor requires a Hard Mechanics Check to fix. You also need to have a Power Armor Repair cradle or other heavy lift, a tool kit, and a selection of salvage. The difficulty of the check is upgraded twice if attempted without such a lift, and cannot be attempted at all if missing a tool kit or salvaged metal/replacement parts.

Falling in Power Armor

Power Armor allows the wearer to fall from great heights without much injury, as long as they land right. Characters wearing Power Armor treat all falls as 1 Range band shorter (Long range becomes Medium, Medium becomes Short, and Short falls inflict no damage). Additionally, the character may spend 3 Advantage or a Triumph on their Coordination or Athletics check when reducing falling damage (page 215, EotE) to reduce the fall by an additional range band.

The Fusion Core

In Fallout 4, all Power Armor requires a Fusion Core to operate. The Power Armor draws power from the disposable Fusion Core, and the rate of consumption is determined by the actions the wearer makes. The Core’s fuel charge cannot be replenished; once it’s gone, it's a dead battery. The Power Armor can only be refueled by installing a fresh Fusion core. Spent cores can be recharged from a generator or other power source, regaining a number of points per hour per the generator’s power rating.

 

All Cores start with 100 points of fuel.

Actions In Power Armor and Fuel Costs:

• 1st Move maneuver on character’s turn - 0 Points
• 2nd Move maneuver on character’s turn - 2 Points
• Move Maneuver during another character’s turn - 2 Points
• Falling - 1 Point (Suit expends energy absorbing the landing)
• Jet Pack (if one is installed) - 1 Point per range band moved.
• Suit-mounted Energy Weapons (if any are installed) - 1 point per use 

This is all I have for now. There will likely be other actions that drain the suit, but this is all I have right now.

I'm on the fence about having the Fusion Core be something for the Brotherhood Knight to worry about for my module at GamerNationCon. If I use it, she'll probably start with something like 40 points of Fuel; an amount that will may tempt her to use it during early engagements but may make her rather stingy with her actions towards the end of the module. That or she'll say "to hell with it", run it dry, and either find a way to recharge/replace the Fusion Cell or ditch the suit. 

Here's the example suit for the Brotherhood Knight in the adventure.

T-45b Power Armor    

Soak: 10    Fusion Core: 40/100 

Effects while Worn: +1 Brawn, Applies 3 Setback to all Agility Skill Checks (except Ranged Combat Checks)

Equipment: 

Helmet COMPROMISED - Spotlight

Torso - None

Right Arm - None

Left Arm - None

Right Leg - None

Left Leg - None

There's a spotlight attached to the helmet, but since the helmet is starting the adventure Compromised it's not working. If the Knight can get the helmet fixed during play, the spotlight will become usable again.

Another Settlement Needs Your Help!

The adventure is coming together pretty well, I'll admit that. I've got the outline, I've got the detailed write-up about half finished, and if I push it should be good to go by Monday. Then I have to figure out maps, create the character sheets, and it's set.

Then I can determine if I have time to write up the sequel to last year's "Guns of Nova Rain". I finally figured out what I want to do for "The Hunt for White Spring", but I have to decide if I have the time to get it finished for March, with a 2 week loss of writing time for when I'm on vacation.

My life is so rough at times.

May the dice be with you.