40K Friday on Wednesday: Dropzone Commander

The miniature rampage continues ...

I've been interested in this game for a long time and I finally broke down and bought the starter set for my birthday. I am hoping it's the long-awaited replacement for our much-loved Epic games of 20+ years ago.  It certainly feels like it reading the rules and looking at the cardstock modern-type buildings.

It is 10mm scale, and not the 6mm of Epic but it's close enough. Alternating activation, infantry and vehicles in squadron type formations, the aforementioned cardstock city terrain - it feels very much like the old days but with modern rules, modern mini's (multipart plastic kits for many), and a new universe to explore.

I also have to say that it has one of the most amazing starter sets I have ever seen - two decent-sized armies, a nice set of terrain, maps/posters, a full rulebook, a generous set of reference sheets and quick start guides, dice, and even a tape measure! It's a stellar value and I will likely end up with a second just because it's such a great deal.

No I haven't played a game yet but I am painting and building the minis this week and hopefully we can get a game in this weekend. Followups next week!

Going a Little Retro - Epic Returns!

I had a wild idea over the weekend so late Saturday night I dragged out the old Epic Scale/Space Marine/Titan Legions miniatures, set up a table, picked out some forces, and let Blaster and Red discover them Sunday morning.

I went with Orks vs. Space Wolves since those are two armies they play in standard 40K

Orks - 100% painted

Both were about 3000 points which was a small to normal sized Epic force back when.

Wolves are mostly painted. They were the last Marine army I was working on when we stopped playing the game so not all of them were finished. 

This was straight-up early 90's Space Marine - no bloody 40,000, Armageddon, Net, or any other kind of Epic ...

Deployment - neither of them has ever seen this game played or set up before so I "DM'd" while they played.

I was pretty happy with the way it all looked on the table. I was trying to remember how long it's been and I'm pretty sure the last time I played I had at most one kid, which puts it about 15 years back. That means the mini's, the buildings, and that hill with the trees on it are all older than my kids ... there's a weird moment for you. For 40K players - when this game was released there were no codexes for any army if that helps you place it in time.

I won't go into turn-by-turn detail. Since our boards were in use on the 40K table (along with the green cloth) the playing area was a little smaller than standard. Red didn't really understand what it meant when I reminded him "hey if a transport is destroyed the troops on board are also destroyed" which meant that the entire Evil Sunz clan was blown up inside its battlewagons meaning they were broken pretty early when the Wolves (and the Ogryns) charged in. The Wolves ended up winning on Turn 3 and that's where it ended, but it took several hours to get there and we all had a blast.

One note - they really liked the system here - orders, IGO/UGO movement, then alternating activation for combat. It keeps things moving but adds a lot of tension as decisions are made about when and what to activate as the other players makes those same decisions. I enjoyed it too as a change from the 100% IGO/UGO of 40K. The victory conditions are also nicely simple - you get objective points, and you get points for breaking enemy formaitons - the best of both worlds!

The Mekboy is targeted for elimination

Grand charge of the Evil Sunz

The Space Wolf & Guard response

The Gobsmashas make a break for an objective as the streets of Bluesville see a ferocious clash

On the Ork right, the Stompas head for an objective but the Landspeeders are waiting

The Kult of Speed moves in to assist the Stompas

Nob Bikers vs. Land Speeders

On the Ork left the Snakebites seize a second objective. They were soon joined in the woods by Grey Hunters and Wolf Guard for a serious dust-up.

It was a lot of fun and they both spent some time yesterday making up their own forces for a rematch, which spurred me to dig out the rest of the Epic forces and sort through them - just in case. We may have a series of summer battles developing here.

Epic Level Campaiging - Idea #3: Godlike

The last of my Epic Campaign Trilogy ideas is the New Gods campaign.

• What if the reason that the gods have no stats is because they have faded away?
   
• Why do we assume that the gods are more powerful than the Level 32 or 33 demon prince, or a level 34 elemental lord?
• What if upon assuming an Epic Destiny the character is actually filling an empty slot in the pantheon? Or what if they are all empty?

One of the posts in the thread that inspired this series of posts mentioned the Norse myths that feature Thor and Loki going out on adventures - drinking with giants, etc. Some of them read very much like what D&D characters might do. So what if the "Gods" are really just level 30 characters? Norse, Greek, and even Egyptian gods exhibit very human behavior, interact with mortals in some very direct ways including getting caught up in their politics. They also wander the land and the planes at times, fighting mortals and monsters and getting wounded and occasionally killed. That doesn't sound much like the modern concept of a "God" as an immortal all-powerful entity - that sounds like a high-powered mortal.  Star Trek and numerous comic books and probably many other sources have postulated the idea that ancient gods may have been advanced alien beings worshiped as gods by primitive peoples - why not use all of that?

My proposal for using this in Epic pretty much requires that you be OK with using the planes as an adventuring option. If that's OK then let's roll forth. Some  assumptions:

1.  As long as there are intelligent beings inhabiting the world then there are divine forces driven by their thoughts and passions and beliefs - this is a "gods are powered by belief" point of view, not a "gods are powerful in and of themselves" point of view. Each of these things combines to create an energy in the universe - Divine Power (think white light). Each of them also empowers its own specific power source - War, Music, Sky, Sea, Motherhood, Love, Wisdom - pretty much anything you could be a god of, has a separate stream or "color" of the divine spectrum.
    
2. The energy created by each of these individual forces looks for a focal point, and that focal point is a always a particularly powerful mortal that is attuned to that particular energy. A Barbarian who chooses Demigod as his epic destiny at level 21 becomes the focal point for War. A Paladin who chooses Glorious Spirit becomes the focal point of Honor. A Wizard who chooses Lorekeepeer becomes the focal point of Knowledge. They don;t have to be divine characters, that's just how it works. To put it in more D&Dish terms, the epic level character becomes an Avatar or that force, kind of like how gods in older editions could send an avatar off around the planes to take action. In this world, one of these forces is what allows a mortal to proceed beyond level 20. Without choosing an epic destiny, mortals top out at 20, so by definition (again - for this world) an Epic level character is a god, the personification or anthropomorphizing of a belief. It is this extra power that pushes him beyond what mere mortals can achieve.For whatever reason, this tops out at 30 - you can go no farther in your current form. Beyond level 30 the character becomes one with their force and no longer has a physical form - all they can do is manifest as a spirit and give warnings or advice - think "force ghost" like Kenobi in Empire Strikes Back and you have the right idea. Another angle: "Strength" is eternal, the God of Strength is not.
3. There are physical beings in the universe more powerful than level 30. Some of these are Elemental Lords and they powerful because they were born with the universe and have been in it since day 1. Some of them are demon or devil lords, and they are powered by the souls they claim from foolish mortals when they die - mortals who worship a particular force (in the guise of whatever god they believe in) join with that force, but those who fall to evil outsiders go to power them instead. Long ago (say, in 1st edition ) they were weaker but over the centuries they have grown immensely in power and now may be strong enough to overcome the gods themselves. In any case, 30 is a mortal limit, and these beings are not and never have been mortals.
4. People worship the gods who long ago ascended to become one with their force because they don't know any better - mortals are not  educated in the technical details of life beyond level 20. These old gods can still appear to their worshipers and they can still see what's going on in the universe but they can no longer affect it directly, which is why mortal followers and champions are so important. The gods tend to rise in groups (aka pantheons aka adventuring parties), remain in power for a time, then grow more distant from or less active in the world (as they hit level 30 and begin to fade out). This explains the different representations of gods over time but since it is tied to a particular force much of the religion remains consistent over time, with only the physical representation really changing.
5. This means that the power of a religion, or a group of religions, or even Divine Power in general, tends to be cyclical - Heroes ascend to Epic, take a very active role in the universe damaging things, repairing other things, and just making waves in general. Then they hit level 30 and though they may hang around for a time they will eventually merge with their force and then things quiet down for awhile. Until a new set of gods arise. Often, the spirit of the previous god of that force will take a very active role in selecting a new one through prophecy, dreams, and direct communications with priests and champions of the faith. Maybe the reason those new gods come about is in response to some Demonic or Chaotic stirring in the universe - Orcus starts to upset the balance of things and heroes begin to ascend in response (which is why there's a plot waiting for them at level 21). In short gods arise to solve a problem, but once that problem is solved they tend to get bored and eventually merge with their force out of boredom if nothing else.

Just to state it clearly, my goal with these ramblings is to come up with a system of divinity that fits the game mechanics rather than trying to reconcile two existing, set things. If the gods are "Level Infinity" or off the scale, then a demon prince at level 34 can never really be a threat to them in any way within the game system. That means the reasons for the whole "we have to stop Orcus or the universe dies" start to look a little contrived and it relegates the players to sidekick status at best, even at Epic levels, which is exactly when they should NOT be sidekicks. Instead, if it's "Nope, you're the God of War now, good luck" then they have a whole new level of responsibility and might even feel something of a burden and fear of dropping the ball. That's how Epic should feel  - there is no higher authority.You can't radio Starfleet and ask for help. You can't wait for Superman to show up.You can't assume Elminster is going to clean up your mess.  Using this approach, if the universe dies it truly is your fault.

One fun thing to do - and I would be tempted to wait until the players ask about it - would be introducing them to their Astral Domains. Every god has one, right? So one day they wake up and they just know how to get there. When they do they are greeted by their angels or archons or elementals or whatever type of servants they have, led around the realm by their majordomo, taken to their citadel and shown their throne, and generally made to understand that this is real - they are now the god of X and this is their place. They can learn to reshape it in the form they see fit (maybe as a skill challenge the first time they try) and they can decide who to allow to enter and leave.


There are some problems with this idea. For one, it pretty much means you can't use any of the published campaign worlds as written. I'm thinking if you want to go whole hog with the idea that the Spellplague REALLY messed up the Forgotten Realms you could try it there - the gods faded with it and no new ones have arisen but it's time now. Purists in your game will probably scream, but they probably already screamed when the 4E Realms came out anyway so why not? The default D&D world could work too - maybe one of the reasons  the Empire of Nerath fell was because Erathis faded out and no one replaced her. It might also work in Dark Sun too, but you're talking major changes if you run a campaign set after the ascension of these new gods. Secondly you want to keep it secret from your players, or at least I would. The look on their faces when they hit 21 and pick a destiny and you tell the wizard "OK, you're now the god of magic" should be priceless.  However it means the gods can never physically manifest in the campaign prior to the big moment and for some campaigns that might not work. Thirdly it is quite a different take on things than most Divine hierarchies in D&D so it may not work for your group - that's OK I'm not sure it would work for some of mine. The idea that Thor is someone's 28th level barbarian and Loki is a 26th level rogue might blow too many synapses. But I'm going to do it, sooner or later.

As always comments and criticism are welcome.

Epic Level Campaiging - Idea #2: JLG

Idea #2 is "Justice League Greyhawk" - Looking at 4E, Epic level characters have amazing powers and are very hard to kill. Maybe we need to stop looking at dungeon crawls and start looking at other genres for inspiration - especially other genres that feature high-powered characters....like Superhero comics, movies, and games! If Heroic Tier corresponds to street level super heroics, and Paragon is similar to something like the X-Men, the Epic means you're one of the heavy hitters.What's more Epic than saving the world? Some staples of superhero campaigns that translate fairly well are:

• Alien invasions! So, instead of aliens use demons, or elementals, or dragons. Maybe Elemental Lords have decided to destroy the material plane to return it to the elemental chaos. Maybe the demons have breached an ancient gate and are pouring out of it en masse. Maybe Dragons have been rare in your game before but now they start showing up in flocks like birds - where are they coming from and why? 

• Defeating the evil megalomaniac mastermind .is a pretty common thing in super stories too.  What if an evil god has had enough of "balance" and finds an artifact or spell or forms an alliance that gives him the power to lock away the other gods?  By level 20 or so Divine PC's would be fairly big players in the gods' organization on the plane - they might get one last urgent message hinting at what is happening followed by silence. When things start to change they will take action. When's the last time your 20th level cleric was on the run from something, hunted by enemies who know what he can do and want to hurt him? If you're hurting for plot think "what would Lex Luthor do? What would Doctor Doom do? What would Apocalypse or Darkesied do? The ideas should come soon enough.

• The War in Heaven - In some comics two alien races may go to war and that war eventually spills over into earth. This works a little differently than the invasion plot (or it could be used as a precursor to the invasion plot) in that the aliens are not interested in controlling the planet - it just makes for a convenient battleground. The PC's will probably not like random battles between an Earth Titan and a Pit Fiend wrecking their home town, especially if they are running things. They may start off like a fire brigade and try to stomp out individual threats, eventually realizing that that's not a long term solution. Instead they have to try and end a conflict between two alien races - and that's a whole different kind of problem than "Kill Orcus". Think of the ways this could be accomplished: 1) Try to arrange direct negotiations between the leaders of both sides 2) pick the side they favor then help them eliminate the other one, with the PC's as valued allies and captains among the force 3) Create an alliance of other parties (maybe other powerful characters or even some other outside race that hates both of the warring races) and wipe out both sides, or devastate them to the point they stop fighting. This allows for the possibility the new allies go too far and begin exterminating the now-weakened warring factions which ends up forcing the PC's the switch sides to maintain some kind of balance. Your aliens here could be demons, devils, elementals, dragons, giants, slaad, or some kind of undead.

Now some of these would benefit from the laying of some groundwork at lower levels. Say you want to make demons a part of Epic play.

• Sometime in the Heroic levels your party is hassled by demonic cultists and their annoying high priest (a recurring enemy) and eventually tracks them down and wipes out a temple to Demogorgon.

• In Paragon play a new powerful force arises on the fringes of their home territory and it turns out it's led by one of the 12 Death Knights of Demogorgon. Skirmishes ensue until the final confrontation with the army and its leader at the climax of the paragon levels. Maybe in one battle their old enemy turns up having been recovered and raised or maybe he's a demon now and leads one of the fights against the group. At this point the PC's may wonder why a demon prince is taking such interest in their homeland - a stealthy approach back in Heroic and now a more direct approach in Paragon. Maybe there's a resource or an artifact the prince is after? Or maybe he's secretly after on of the PC's and trying to lure him into a fall?

• In Epic the demons start popping up, and causing trouble,  maybe kidnapping an important NPC ( a love interest, an apprentice, an heir),  forcing the characters to pursue to the Elemental Chaos and eventually to the Abyss.  The party must fight through a horde of demons before facing off with the big bad himself. If you just want to have a big fight, let the party face off with the remaining 11 Death Knights of Demogorgon first, before the big bad enters the field. At this point you could go for a straight up fight or maybe there's a twist - the prince doesn't want to fight the PC's, he wants their help in defeating some other evil that's too strong for him while he's holding off his rivals. Tharizdun, elemental lords, a titan - there's something else out there that he can't beat so he's looking for help the only way a demon can. There are all kinds of possibilities here with the party having to decide if they want to help a demon prince out, whether to take him out first, or if he's even telling the truth.

One of the challenges at Epic is filling out 10 levels worth of action. One of my solutions if you are going to feature a Big Bad or Bads is to make the lieutenants interesting (and powerful) so that it makes their leader that much more impressive. Maybe the deathknight Vorthax is known for having a skeletal appearance, wearing burned and blackened plate armor, and wielding a greatsword that burns with green fire.His powers use a lot of fire and he mostly fights with his personal Nightmare and a pair of corrupted fire elementals. A different knight might have blue skin and live in a fortress in the frozen north, having a lot of cold powers and fighting with n army of undead. The others would have their own quirks and flavor and be of varying power levels. Think "Supervillains" here if you run out of easy ideas, it could restart the creative engine.

In the example above you could detail out each of the 12 Knights and have the newest and weakest member be the climactic opponent for Heroic tier, the one they face in the final battle that takes them to 11th level and sets them on their path for Paragon. A rationale here could be that rather than living in the Abyss  each knight has to build and maintain a fortress on the material plane and that's what this one was trying to do when the PC's stopped him.

During the Paragon adventures there could be several quests involving contact or conflict with the Knights until at Epic levels the group realizes they are the key to defeating Demogorgon and targets them systematically. They wouldn't be the focus of the campaign until early Epic, but they lend both continuity to the campaign and a sense of accomplishment as these long-term evils of the campaign world are slowly extinguished  The characters become mighty heroes righting wrongs and establishing themselves as the defenders of the world, then face off with a major threat - the master of these immortal terrors himself.  At that point it could be a straight-up fight or the DM could throw in some twists as outlined above.

Overall I think it's a valid approach to running Epic adventures. It could begin as a more reactive approach to things - superheroes tend to be more reactive than proactive anyway - but it doesn't have to stay that way for long. Once the threat to the city/kingdom/world has been identified then they can go on the attack to resolve it, hopefully leading to a satisfying ending to the campaign.

Epic Level Campaiging - Idea #1: MANG!

I've been reading this thread at EN World about Epic Tier play and there is an interesting mixture of opinions in it. There also seem to be a few people throwing up their hands and saying they can't see how to make it work due to campaign impact, lack of enemies, or a disinterest in planar themes for their game. I had some ideas on all of those so I have outlined three ideas for Epic play, the first of which is below.

Note: If you have been running a campaign for 20 years and have players that have been running the same characters for that long then you may not want to do any of these. I think that after a few years a campaign achieves a certain comfort level and those involved, players and DM alike, would be loathe to upset it too drastically.  Also, Epic play is designed (in 4E anyway) to have an end point. This is a totally different attitude than many old school campaigns that were intended as an open-ended sandbox kind of thing that had no planned ending - as long as someone was interested, the campaign would keep rolling along. Neither one is wrong, they're just very different and I would say incompatible at a basic level unless people are willing to risk shaking things up. This particular one is a concept that the world could recover from though - read on:


For those who really don't like the extra-planar element, how about this:  Your PC's have achieved level 20, defeated major evil, and secured a comfortable life for themselves as rulers or leaders of the kingdom. All is good and no one is terribly interested in attacking the Abyss or baiting Tiamat or giving Ogremoch a bath. Then one day a large chunk of rock floating in the sky is sighted off the coast of the players' continent. It moves inland, casting a shadow across the land, then disgorges all manner of flying creatures and ships that begin terrorizing the kingdom, then a magical projection informs the populace that they are now part of the Empire of Mang the Unmerciful. Cue dramatic music and player reaction!

Yes, this is Epic Idea #1 "Mang the Unmerciful" or the invasion from across the sea.

First, who is Mang? Mang is a higher-level Epic character who has chosen the path of the Dynast or the Empire Builder and is working hard to make it come about. He has legions of troops from all kinds of races the PC's have never seen. He has strange magic they have never encountered. He has seen it al land done it all and nothing will surprise him. He has a destiny to fulfill and nothing will deter him, either.

Alternatives: none really. You need to make this guy up, probably just like a level 30 PC. You could have a ruling council instead of a single leader, but  then you lose the epic destiny angle. unless you make it an adventuring party. Heh. That would enable a series of smaller climaxes as each one is confronted and defeated leading up to the final defeat of the last few characters at the end. It could be a fun alternative if you're had a lot of singular bad guys at lower levels

Second, How does it start? If you want dramatic build-up, let Mang start with a neighboring kingdom, maybe an ally, or maybe an enemy. Let him make an example of them. This should be an alien threat and it should use none of the conventional featured monsters of the campaign thus far and it should utterly dominate. Later, conscripted conventional forces will add a little horror to the campaign as the defeated are added to Mang's unstoppable war machine. The initial actions of the PC's are likely to be reactionary - gather forces, gather information, find out what's going on - but at some point will become proactive as the invasion proceeds. There could even be an initial setback as the PC's kingdom is conquered, their cities are razed, and their armies defeated. They may have to retreat and regroup.

Alternatives: If your world is completely mapped then Mang is from one of the moons. Your world has moons right? It's right there in your notes - it's just that no one cared enough to ask about them before. If not then maybe he's from the Hidden Moon that no one speaks of - clearly an evil place, perhaps tainted by the Far Realm.. Going there is probably dangerous. If he conquered it then he is clearly a major major badass and probably has powerful backing.

Third - Resources? Say you're playing in a normal campaign world like the Forgotten Realms. Well then Mang's troops include a whole bunch of Warforged ala Eberron and a bunch of monsters and races from the Dark Sun books. Banned the PHB 3 in your campaign? Make the enemies Psionic! The main thing is to give the warlord's forces a feel of being totally alien. Imagine a group of players fighting Drow for the first time ever in the form of a 20th level hit team coming to assassinate the king. Darkness dropping everywhere, plentiful use of poison attacks, female leaders - it's a whole different thing from say orcs, ogres, and giants. Plus, if the divine figures prominently in your world then the Emperor may have whole pantheon of gods backing him - alien gods the PC's know nothing about, or a pack of Elemental lords, or even an Infernal or Abyssal power.I like the Alien Gods idea best  - keep the players guessing. Make it a Far Realm power and blow their minds.

Alternatives: What, you don't want to drop a bunch of Warforged Battleminds on your PC's? Ok, then use extra-planar race but make them non-extra-planar. Githyanki would be great here - alien, powerful, and mean. They don;t have to be specifically from the Astral plane - they are from "a distant kingdom". Mang defeated their lich-queen and forced the entire race into servitude which the race hates but they have no choice. this easily leads to an adventure to rescue the lich-queen of the githyanki, setting the race free and robbing Mang of one of his most powerful troop types. heck, they might even join the PC's army with a good diplomacy roll...

Fourth -  What do they do? The players have to get away from the initial invasion or turn it aside then either join it or try to stop it. This is about the time they should be choosing their Epic Destinies - Demigod? Maybe you are the "Fist of Ares" chosen to lead his armies. Archmage? Maybe you are the Arcanist Supreme, defender of the world against the threats of the corrupted magic of the Far Realm. Trickster? You are the Ultimate Rebel, focal point of the forces of Chaos to resist this eruption of Law and restore the natural order of things.  Once destinies are chosen then the players should be full of ideas - teleport to Mang's homeland and find out his enemies and weaknesses; Gather a force of dragons and make a direct assault to capture one of his smaller floating fortresses to begin fighting him on even terms; craft a magical artifact capable of blowing his floating fortress out of the sky; unleash the tarrasque to give him a different problem  to deal with; Rally the faithful across the entire continent to gather an army as large or larger than his -there are all sorts of options so let your players do some of the lifting here. It should be epic - think Star Wars, with Mang's floating fortress as the Death Star and you're on the right track..

Alternatives: If they decide to join him then the campaign then just got really interesting. The PC's get to pay back all those other power=players that snubbed them in prior sessions. The Epic destinies could be tied up with recruiting allies to join the fight -the abyss, the nine hells, archons, elemental lords, the primal spirits, etc. Other sources of inspiration here involve anything that covers a struggle against overwhelming forces: Babylon 5, Lord of the Rings, Terminator movies (hey time travel), Space Cruiser Yamato - inspiration is everywhere.  Think "missions" rather than wandering around type adventures and it should be good. 

Fifth - How does it end? Well it could end with the last surviving PC having a sword-duel with Mang on the top of his fortress as it slowly falls out of the sky, but that can be hard to arrange. It could be a raid on dragonback to fly into the interior of the fortress and destroy the magical engine that powers it or infiltrating the rock, drawing off the elite guard, then facing off with Mang and his second-in-command inside the palace. Perhaps Mang is slain as the apparent climax of the campaign then the alien god that lent him its power manifests over his dead body and an even bigger fight is on for the finale at level 30.

Alternatives: A lot of this will depend on what your players do but there does need to be a way for them to win and it does need to be more than poisoning Mang's drink IMO. Serious damage should be done, depending on how much you want to hit the reset button at the end. This is a good way to "change the map" and set the world up for a New Age, which might even be the next campaign. Maybe one of Mang's lieutenant's escapes with a smaller fortress and some troops and becomes the main threat for that next game at the lower levels, becoming a permanent part of the new landscape, along with new races and new magic types and items.