H is for Halav and Hutaaka (History)

[over the course of the month of April, I shall be posting a topic for each letter of the alphabet, sequentially, for every day of the week except Sunday. Our topic for this year's #AtoZchallenge? Revamping the Grand Duchy of Karameikos in a way that doesn't disregard its B/X roots]

H is for Halav and Hutaaka, both important parts of Karameikan history.

Or are they?

[maybe H should be for "Heck of a baseball game last night!" How 'bout those Mariners, huh? 10 and 2? In what is (supposed to be) Year 1 of The Rebuild? Crazy. Still, I've lived in Seattle long enough to see every brand of Ms failure you can find...they had a hot start last year, too. I shall curb my enthusiasm for the time being; the Sounders, on the other hand, are a whole different story...]

I realize these posts have been running waaaay long. It's rather obvious that I have a lot of thoughts flying around my head (at least regarding Karameikos) and no one with whom to discuss them...other than you, dear readers. But day-after-day walls of text can be a slog to wade through, especially when my posts run the gamut of meandering blah-blah-blah. SO, hear's the skinny on today's topic:

Halav: thumbs up. Hutaaka: thumbs down. Apologies to folks who love B10: Night's Dark Terror.

Neither of these topics are "especially B/X" by the way; the history of the region (other than Duke Stefan's recent arrival) is all documented in later (BECMI+) publications, mainly Allston's GAZ1. As such, the pre-Stefan history could be revamped any way you want it...an ancient pre-Glantrian colony of wizards (with ruined towers dotting the wilderness)? Sure. A dinosaur/reptile person infested jungle only wiped out by the recent Ice Age (but leaving ruined cities behind)? Fine. An advanced empire of tech-savvy faerie folk, now decimated and devolved into their pocket regions (i.e. the places marked "elves" and "goblins" on the B/X map)? Why not? And don't laugh at the idea of
hi-tech elves...check out the info on Evergrun and Grunland in the Alfheim gazetteer.

In other words, there are LOTS of possibilities for the "ancient history" of the region now known as the Grand Duchy of Karameikos...if you're happy to stick solely to the description given in the Expert rulebook and willing to cut the rest from whole cloth. But if you're NOT or (like me) you're lazy, pressed for time, and/or often stuck for new ideas, then you might as well adapt the history as given in GAZ1. Or parts of it anyway.

Most of this history is written by Allston, though he adapts from earlier sources (like Night's Dark Terror) for some of it. And it's not terrible. I'm sorry I even have to write that phrase, but I feel like so often in these posts I'm decrying how boring and awful and vanilla the ideas are...I could stand to be a bit more complimentary towards much of the work that's gone into this setting over the years. If a lot of it is a little bland or cheesy, a large part of the blame has to be given to the standards and cultural mandates of The Company (TSR) back in the period when these books were being published.

So anyway: not terrible. Before I get to my specific "likes and gripes," it's probably best to give a BRIEF ("Brief, JB, brief!") overview of the region's ancient history, as told in GAZ1. Please be aware that dates in Mystara ("the Known World") are based on the first crowning of an Emperor in Thyatia (i.e. "fantasy Rome"); all Gazeteers assume play begins in the year 1000 A.C. ("after crowning"). Got it? Okay.

[brief!]

The Nithian people ("fantasy ancient Egyptian") first sent a small colony to the-region-that-would-be-known-as-Karameikos circa 1500 B.C. ("before crowning;" i.e. 2500 years before start of the campaign). Within five generations (about a century) hard winters, monster attacks, and disease have drastically reduced the population and these "Traldar" people (the clan name of their Nithian tribe) have devolved to a "pre-agricultural" (hunter-gatherer) lifestyle.

[I have a lot of comments on this, but they'll have to wait for a later post]

What now occurs is something first described in the (British) module B10: Night's Dark Terror. An advanced civilization of jack-headed humanoids (the Hutaaka) conquers the Traldar, not through military might, but through "economic and cultural superiority," The humans end up working as laborer/slaves to these more effete/spiritual non-humans in a mutually beneficial symbiosis, until a giant horde of gnolls invade the region circa 1000 B.C. Devastated by the warlike humanoids, the Hutaaka decide to pull up stakes and retreat to their hidden valley in northern mountains with a handful of human followers. The Traldar left behind get organized under a trio of war-leaders, of whom King Halav is chief (the other two are Petra and Zirchev). Armed with bronze age gear, Halav slays the gnoll king in single combat but is himself slain, and the humanoids are routed back into the mountains.

The Hutaaka do not return and, bereft of a unifying force, the region descends into a Dark Age. By 500 B.C. the Traladara (as they call themselves) are widely dispersed across the region and share little common besides a common root language and "The Song of King Halav," their national epic. Their actual history is forgotten with legends of Hutaakan masters and gnollish invaders being mixed together to form a hodgepodge mythology explaining their past. This Dark Age continues until roughly 0 A.C. when the arrival of other peoples to the region (the Callarii elves and Highforge gnomes) help usher in a new cycle of peaceable trade relations and unity against humanoid (goblins, orcs, etc.) tribes. By 400 A.C. the Traladara have established trade with outside nations and by 900 A.C. they've grown large enough that Thyatis decides to "annex" the region before a rival (like Darokin) can do so. Stefan Karameikos III takes over in 970 A.C.

OKAY (*whew*). Now onto likes (and not likes).

I LIKE the whole Song of Halav idea. Despite the Czech-ish name (Vaclav Havel portmanteau?) this is just the Arthur myth retold with gnolls in place of invading Saxons and Hutaakans in place of the priestesses of Avalon. Sure, it's not super-original, but it's still a classic concept, and like the Arthur myth it is so far back in the pre-written history of the people that it's easy to embellish it (and, as a DM, determine what parts are fact and what parts are myth). It's the kind of thing you can hang big campaign ideas off of...can we find King Halav's tomb or sword (Excalibur?) or whatever. Likewise the shared identity that comes from this national hero-legend is cool. While I still ask the question why there isn't more revolt/resistance against the Thyatians (the second coming of the gnolls!), Allston offers the idea of a Halav mystery cult, whose priests/prophets are longing for Arthur-Halav's return...and who are preaching that Archduke Stefan may, in fact, be the reincarnation of their ancient hero king. Whether or not it's true (or a well-orchestrated bit of political opportunism) is left for individual campaigns to figure out. Regardless, it's a nice bit of fluff to work into the setting.

King Halav's last battle.

Also: gnolls are badass. For folks into Warhammer, they can be perfectly re-skinned as beast men, but I tend to like them as is. Even Yeenoghu is pretty awesome, at least in his first appearance (Ye Old Monster Manual).

That being said, I am rather "iffy" on the whole Halav & Co. as actual Immortal patrons of the region. I'm just not the fan of the Immortal rules that I once was...neither Mentzer's original BECMI set (the "I" in BECMI) or Allston's later Wrath of the Immortals, both of which I've owned for years (and used in the past). I just don't like the idea of codifying the gods and immortality...or maybe I just don't like BECMI/RC's particular formulaic approach to doing the same. The gods (or "higher powers" or whatever) should break the normal rules...or, at least, give DMs the leeway to do so. Same holds true for "artifacts" and relics...but now I'm digressing (sorry).

The part of GAZ1's history that I really dislike is the whole bit about the Hutaaka. It's not that I don't dig the whole pre-history, human-servitor-race to nonhuman mythology/fiction thang...I'm a fan of Lovecraft, Karl Wagner, etc. But this particular brand of the trope feels messy to me, for a number of reasons.

But I don't feel like enumerating them all (and I said I wanted to cut down on the length of these posts). I suppose, DMs running Karameikos as their campaign setting might get a kick out of throwing Night's Dark Terror at their players and then getting a "big reveal" with the Lost Valley of the Hutaaka and the real history of the Traladaran people. But, jeez: B10 is designed for low level characters, so it's not like there'd be a "big build up," establishing the confused "mythic" history of the land prior to said reveal.

And, dammit, it's just not a very good reveal anyway. I'm sorry (I guess I am going to go into this a bit), dog-headed mystics? Really? Finding out humans were force-evolved by completely inhuman creatures (a la the Mountains of Madness) or star-traveling lizard folk (Warhammer) or some sort of weird fallen angels (Nephilim) is far more interesting than these pseudo-Egyptian dog-people. Damn it, Stargate was more interesting! Conquered by "cultural superiority?" Are you kidding me?

And there's just a lot of inconsistency here: why didn't the Hutaaka come back after the gnolls were driven off? If Petra had the ability to raise Halav (per the background) why didn't he unite the Traldar into a nation afterward? Why didn't Petra and Zirchev? If the Hutaaka were such pushovers, why did it take the traldar slaves in the Lost Valley another 900 years to revolt? If the Traldar had adapted so much of the Hutaaka culture, why didn't they have the ability to write down their own history? Why end up confusing the dog-people with the jackal-people? And why do we have these terrible Gypsy stereotypes?

Here's the other thing: the Alfheim gazetteer established that elf tribes (Callarii and Vyalia) settled in Karameikos circa 800 B.C. and that elves live about ten times the length of a human (expected lifespan is 600 to 800 years with some elves living to 1000). Since this is smack-dab in the middle of the Gnoll War, what part did the elves play? Why didn't they keep records? Why didn't they play a more important role in keeping the region civilized and "out" of the Dark Ages? Yes, I understand that Alfheim was published after GAZ1 and that Allston's history has the elves arriving nearly a millennia later (and thus not being witnesses to the early days of Traladara), but even that strikes me as weird: this advanced species of intelligent, magic-using humanoids arrives from a far-off land and the barbaric, iron age villagers are just like "whatever." Come on, man! At least if the elves were there FIRST (before the humans) they might be treated as "spirits of the forest" to be worshipped and/or feared...but then, would they put up with the Hutaaka? Even if the Hutaaka had exited 200 years before, I'd think a highly intelligent species (the elves) would have been curious enough to follow up on these creatures before the trail got any "colder." Two centuries is hardly "ancient history" to a species that lives three to five times that long.

But maybe it's just me. Maybe I just don't like 'em. Probably I just don't like anthropomorphic animals in my D&D game (I'm not a fan of X1's rakasta species, either). Anthropomorphic animals are fine in their own games (Mouse Guard and Albedo being prime examples), but mixing them in with humans just isn't something I tolerate very well.

All right, that's enough for today.

War is Hell, Gaming is Fun

People who have been following this blog for awhile probably have at least some idea of my feelings on the subject of war: namely, that there is no such thing as a “good” or “just” war, and no excuse or justification for invading another’s country with the intent of doing violence. Ever. People that do this are assholes, pure and simple.

There isn’t a valid reason for taking someone’s life in the name of war. No person’s life is more valuable than another. An American soldier does not have more “right to life” than a person from Afghanistan or Iraq. We (my fellow Americans and I) are no more “valuable” than other humans on this planet. There is no such thing as “acceptable” casualties or losses of life. And the acts of few psychotic criminals (e.g. “terrorists”) is never a reason to hold entire nations accountable. That’s as insane as shelling Lockport, NY with artillery because it gave birth to Timothy McVeigh.

It’s the 21st century. Kids are raised not to hit each other. Corporal punishment is no longer administered in schools, and rarely in homes. Most 1st-world nations have banned capital punishment. All countries have laws against perpetrating violence acts against each other. While many religious texts (including the Bible) have passages that say when it is “right” to attack others, most contemporary religious leaders are preaching peace and Brotherly Love to their congregations. Humanity has the means to be united in spirit…war is a leftover relic from our barbaric past, one that should be removed like an enflamed appendix.

[and, yes, pacifist though I am, I understand there are sticky situations that may require the use of force…if wholesale genocide is being committed against a culture or community that is unable to defend itself, is military intervention warranted? Possibly…it’s just as evil to stand back and allow the slaughter of innocents as it is to preemptively attack someone you think MIGHT attack you in the future. I also do NOT think a nation should disarm itself to the point that it cannot protect its own soil from outside invaders. As I said, invaders are assholes]

So that’s what I believe. I acknowledge that not everyone sees things my way.

Now while I hate and loathe war and violence in “real life,” it still holds a place for me in my imagination and at the gaming table. I enjoy war games and “playing war,” as long as no one is actually dying because of it. I have one pacifist friend who would turn up his nose at this…he abhors anything that glorifies violence and killing, and would probably see role-playing as doing just that. My take is a little different.

Acknowledging the evils of REAL war, one can still learn from it; we can learn from its history, and how it has impacted our present lives, as well as (hopefully) learning from past mistakes. Also, it provides an entertaining outlet for some of the darker parts of our human nature…we do have adrenal glands after all, and playing a game at the table is better than shooting real people.

In addition, the conflict and drama in violent role-playing games isn’t JUST about the violence (or shouldn’t be, anyway…but that’s another post). RPGs give us the opportunity to “struggle mightily,” just like the heroes of myth and legend. We are allowed the opportunity to live as those types of struggling heroes when we sit at the gaming table…we are forced to use our wits and our virtual strength, just as Heracles did against the Nemean Lion. However, unlike Heracles, we face no threat of ACTUALLY dying in a game. We are allowed to join in the struggle, creating our own myths and stories through our vicarious “adventures.”

And if we want to tell myths and stories about the hell of war…well that’s a good struggle, too.

So having got the whole anti-war preamble out of the way, let’s dive right into Revised Recon from Palladium, a game I managed to pick up used for $4 the other day. This may just be the best $4 I’ve ever spent at the game shop.

Recon (I’ll drop the “revised” – just be aware that I’m talking about the 2nd edition of the game) is…well, frankly it’s fascinating. It is also a damn good game…perhaps the best single game book I’ve ever published from Palladium. And, no, there are no cyborgs in it.

Let’s talk about the fascinating first: wow. This is a game that could ONLY have been published in 1986. I mean, I can’t see how they would get away with some of this stuff today. But in the mid-1980s…with the Rambo movies and Chuck Norris’s Missing in Action series, not to mention Reagan’s New Cold War…this game really seems to be a “sign of the times” in which it was written.

And yet it’s not some cheesy, Hollywood-cinematic RPG.

Recon is a game of modern warfare, specifically set in the Vietnam War. That’s that war in the 60s-70s that you see so many movies about with American G.I.s slogging through jungles. If RPGs have wargaming roots, this game is both a return to those roots (I mean it is a WAR game) and is an UPDATING of those roots: this ain’t no Napoleonic/Medieval warfare. And it sure ain’t Civil.

What’s fascinating is that it is written close enough to the war that the author could well have had older friends/siblings actually in the ‘Nam…Siembieda is of an age that he probably grew up watching the war on television, not just seeing Oliver Stone movies.

And the book appears meticulously researched. More than any other Palladium book I’ve seen (and I’ve blogged a bit about how much effort goes into those Rifts world books) there’s a ton of information on the history of the fighting men in Vietnam, the equipment they used (more historical weapons and vehicles are present than perhaps even Godlike…certainly more than I’ve seen in any other Palladium game), their procedures, their training. Heck, it’s the first game book of Palladium I have that has both a real bibliography AND a suggested reading list for information and inspiration.

Now back to the 1986 part: the game is definitely American-centric. The introductory paragraph says it all:

“To put it simply, this is a game where the good guys are the US troops and their allies. All the game players are good guys. The bad guys are Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese Army Troopers (NVA). The Mission Director ‘plays’ the bad guys.”

There’s no “grey area” in this game regarding who’s the black hats. If you want to know what this game is about, check out that front cover where the grunt is coldcocking Charlie with the butt of his rifle while the guy in the tree is WEARING A RICE PADDY HAT. ‘Cause, you know…those hats were as much a part of the VC uniform as the army’s green socks…wouldn’t want to be caught up a tree without it!

I’m not of Asian descent but I wonder what people who are would think about this.

Or some of these other interesting bits of ugliness: like randomly rolling for height and weight with Westerners (i.e. Americans) having a range of 5’ to 6’6” while “indigenous people” (whether from Vietnam, South America, or “other Third World Hotspots”) only run from 4’11” to 5’8”. It’s a class war between the tall and the short apparently.

ANYWAY…let’s disregard this stuff and get to the game itself. I mean, I knew that any game about Vietnam was going to be at least slightly irritating (to me, see above) but I wanted to see how Palladium handled modern warfare.

Pretty darn good, as it turns out.

First off, the Recon system is quite a bit different from the normal Palladium engine. Oh, there are conversion notes for making Recon soldiers into Heroes Unlimited type characters…but for my money the Recon game system is superior. I’d prefer to convert HU to Recon and no, that’s not a given option.

Character creation is fast and easy…as one would hope in a game where players can expect characters to die regularly. Each character has three characteristics (Strength, Alertness, and Agility) and a handful of skills chosen based on a character’s military occupation. Some military occupations have minimum requirements…like a high strength if you want to be the heavy weapons specialist.

Strength measures one’s carrying capacity and health (i.e. hit points). Alertness measure’s one’s ability to observe and detect stuff (like ambushes and booby-traps). Agility is your ability to fight in hand-to-hand, throw grenades, climb, disarm booby-traps, etc. All are based on the roll of percentage dice, and this represents the character’s percentage chance (for Alertness and Agility) of accomplishing things covered by those characteristics.

Skills are a much smaller list than standard Palladium and all are pertinent to the game…there’s nothing extraneous, nor are there any “ability boosting” skills. All skills are determined by random dice roll. This is awesome. I liked it with HackMaster Basic and I like it even better here. Everyone goes to boot camp and learns how to shoot and service the M-16, but not everyone is equally good. Roll D% and that’s your skill (though most skills have a base minimum…for example, no one has an effectiveness with assault rifle lower than 30%. If you want more skill, you can use more skill selection to increase the effectiveness. There’s nothing for the player or Mission Director (GM) to “look up” in the book later…you make a note of the % on your character sheet and that’s it. Simple. And again, most pertinent “skills” that might be found in other games’ skill lists are simply subsumed into Alertness and Agility. Only skills specifically trained/learned in Basic are available as picks.

Experience points are gained similar to the XP gained in normal Palladium, however, there are no levels. Points gained may be saved or spent to improve characteristics and skills. Again, I find this superior to standard Palladium, especially given the limited selection of options for expenditure.

Alignment: again, wow. Recon uses a completely different alignment base than other Palladium games, very much reflecting personality types found in professional soldiers in our modern world. This is, hands down, the best alignment system I’ve seen in ANY role-playing game…as far as “encapsulating the character’s personality in a nutshell for easy identification.” There are no mechanical effects of alignment, but all are appropriate to this specific game (another example of system does matter…in a big way!). The alignments are: Idealistic, Idealistic-Pacifist, Opportunist, Opportunist-Righteous, Opportunist-Karmic, Malignant, and Malignant-Psychotic. Wow. Just reading them makes me excited to use them in the game. How many alignment systems get YOU jazzed?!

Combat is made to be fast (it’s a lot more stream-lined compared to other Palladium games), realistic (there are hefty penalties for any kind of shooting combat unless you ambush your opponents), and deadly (no one’s walking away if you get hit by multiple bullets). It’s also abstract, not using detailed maps or even keeping track of ammunition. Basically, it plays the way I want to play firefights in the jungle…and for me, that’s a good thing.

[a note about deadliness…in Recon you roll up TWO characters in the beginning of the game…this is similar to my previous favorite War RPG, Albedo…but Recon chargen is a LOT faster than Albedo]

Not only that, Recon provides rules for artillery strikes, helicopter gunships, and calling down the napalm. Some people might be put off by the idea of playing the radio operator in the squad, but Siembieda points out these guys are the equivalent of the party wizard, able to call in huge amounts of firepower if they’re kept protected.

And that’s part of the coolness of Recon. Some people have compared D&D to “fantasy Vietnam” play, where a party has its specific squad members, each playing a vital role. Recon is ACTUAL Vietnam fantasy and it’s done well, with your small unit having the right skills and abilities to scout the jungle.

And it doesn’t just have to be played in Vietnam. As the game points out, it can be used for any kind of jungle or 3rd world conflict, and there are rules for converting your players into mercenaries (um…”security contractors”) to fight around the world. The game states you can fight guerillas in Central America or help the Freedom Fighters of Afghanistan against the Russians (hey, maybe YOUR guys are the ones that trained Bin Laden!).

Okay, okay…back to the point. I said this is the best game Palladium’s ever published and I meant it. It is STAND ALONE. It tells you HOW TO PLAY. It has random MISSION GENERATORS in a style that echoes the best Old School games. It has several ADVENTURES and optional scenarios. It has RULES FOR TANKS and PATROL BOATS as well as DESERT SKILLS FOR MERCENARIES, in case you want to play a private contractor in some Mid East conflict, or other.

To me, Recon is a great, no-holds-barred WAR role-playing game. If you want to explore the stresses and struggles of war with a traditional RPG (instead of a mainly psychological indie game like Carry or Grey Ranks), this is the one to get. When I wrote about Albedo before, I said I wished it could be adapted to something OTHER than anthropomorphic animals in space (not because I have a problem with Anthro-Animals, but because I WANTED a human war game). I don’t wish that anymore.

I DO wish it provided rules for converting other Palladium games to the Recon system. I’d love to run a scenario similar to the movie Predator, and Recon is just the system to do it.

Live From Hell

There is no pain quite like back pain.

Oh, there are lots of painful things in this world that are probably of equal or greater intensity. Childbirth. Getting knee-capped with a 9mm. Having white-hot pokers used to put out your eyes. Being kicked in the balls repeatedly.

But as far as pain with no obvious source of external stimuli? Back pain is right up there at the top. At least with other illnesses and injuries, you can pass-out and sleep for awhile. I've been unable to sleep for two days as there is no position I can lie in that doesn't cause intense, shooting pain through my upper back and neck...well, at least when I "relax."

A couple years ago, my wife and I did a pilgrimage/hike with my father-in-law in Mexico. We later calculated the distance was about 60+ miles, all of which is walked in a day and night without stopping except for the occasional short meal break. I had thought, no problem, I walk a lot and I have the endurance to go for 20+ hours without sleep. I'll be tired, but I'm in good enough shape to do this.

In retrospect, it was the craziest, most dangerous thing I've probably ever done. There was no trail, no road...no path. People knew the way because they followed other people that did it for years, or who lived indigenously to the area (and didn't own vehicles), or because people from nearby towns/villages would come set up stands along "el camino" to sell snacks and drinks.

We crossed several mountains. In the pitch blackness with fading flashlights (no stars because of the cloud cover...it was rainy season). On sheer, flat rock or loose rolling gravel. Just hoping there would be no rain and no flash floods. And hoping there would be no injuries...because there was no way an ambulance would find you or that any chopper was going to land and airlift you out.

So anyway...I started the trek in heavy duty "blister-proof" hiking socks and boots from REI (these were worn through by the end, by the way). Stupidly, I was favoring my left leg through most of the day due to a slight tenseness/soreness in my right ankle and my problem "trick right knee" (it gets "tired" quickly due to starting the fencing sport a little too late in life - my mid-twenties). By midnight/1am, my left leg was shot to shit...I could not bend it or put weight on it without collapsing in pain, and so I was forced to rely on my right leg...my bad leg.

Around 3am or 4am we finally made it down the last, longest mountain. I don't know if the thing had a name or not; I just called it Goddamn Mountain. Because every time I stepped down on my right leg I would swear and curse the f'ing thing. By the time we finally rolled into the town at the end of the line, both my legs were shot to hell, and it would take more than a week for my right knee to fully recover from the experience.

The thing is, it was the longest and most excruciatingly painful experience I ever had. Normally, when you are "in pain" you stop what you're doing. You take your hand out of the fire and ice it. You walk off the sports field and take a break. You sit down and have a glass of lemonade. You pop an aspirin and try to take a nap.

On the pilgrimage, I couldn't stop...there was no option. The busses that would take us back to our original town was at the end of the trail...and as I said, no team of medics was going to air-lift me out of the jungle. I just had to keep walking, and keep feeling the pain. I wouldn't call it a "character-building" experience. Would you call being a tortured P.O.W. a "character building" experience? No...but it's a testament to the limits of human endurance that people can survive and sustain on-going physical suffering when there is no other option but to do so.

My back pain of the last couple days has been nearly as bad. Despite seeing a chiropractor for the last six weeks (three times this week!). Despite the emu oil and super-strength muscle relaxant ointment and popping Ibuprofin like candy and drinking lots of water and drinking lots of alcohol and acupressure release and...shit it hurts!

So what's the point of all my whining? Well, it seems to me that, in general, RPGs don't model pain very well.

Which to me is well...nearly an unforgivable sin. I mean pain and suffering is so much a part of the "adventuring experience." We stub our toes, or our thumbs, we get blisters and headaches, pull hamstrings and groin muscles, suffer all sorts of pain and injury and illness. Haven't you ever picked up a bit of a sniffle camping outdoors? I have...and it colors everything you do the whole next day.

Real life adventures can be a pain in the ass. And part of the heroism inherent in partaking in an adventure is enduring these aches and pains and inconveniences.

I always think of the early chapters of Tolkien's The Hobbit...how everyone, especially Bilbo (but even Gandalf and the sturdy dwarves), are miserable and complaining once the weather turns foul. As a kid I could totally relate to this, because every single camping trip I went on it poured rain. Cub Scout and Boy Scout outings or family trips, regardless of the time of year, it was always wet and miserable. That's just part of growing up in the Pacific Northwest (at least on the west side of the mountains). And while we could laugh and have fun reminiscing once we were back home, it was always a damn miserable time out in the woods. Especially if you added injury on top of it all (burns, cuts, scrapes, blisters...as well as the occasional concussion or broken limb).

Most players look at their hit points on a character sheet kind of like we look at our gas tank on a car. "Uh-oh...getting close to Empty. Better pull over at the next station and fill up." You don't want to run out of hit points in the dungeon anymore than one wants to be stranded on the highway with an empty tank. But as a simple resource, "hit points" don't do justice to the pain and suffering of the adventure experience.

Likewise, hit points are, in the main, a measure of the combat/fight-worthiness of a character. Once your hit points are depleted, you're no longer able to fight effectively...you're out for the count and probably winging your soul off to its final reward. Things that do hit point damage (falling, traps) reduce a character's ability to put up a fight...but that is ALL they measure. They don't measure fatigue (which is represented, in B/X D&D, with some small penalties for over-exerting oneself). They don't measure one's willpower or ability to withstand toxins/intoxication (these are in part represented by saving throws and sometimes by ability rolls against Con or Wis).

I've seen some RPGs that try to measure pain and suffering, all with mixed (and for me, unsatisfactory) results. Deadlands (1st edition) couples pain with fatigue in its Wind resource. White Wolf's early games (Vampire, etc. al), had pain and movement penalties associated with levels of damage (At "mauled" person loses two dice and can "only hobble." At "crippled" you lose five dice and can "only crawl"). Albedo has both physical damage levels and mental (stress) damage levels caused by firefights and combat. Violence had both life points and pain points (and each weapon in the game had a different dice roll for each).

But none of 'em really capture the debilitating nature of suffering. And certainly my favorite adventure RPG (D&D) has none of these. Which I think is too bad.

I know some readers have no interest in modeling the minor aches and pains of "real life" in an RPG adventure game, just as I have no interest in forcing PCs to "roll to see if you have a full bladder and need to find a bathroom." It's not "important" enough. It's not "dramatic" enough. It's not "heroic" enough.

Damn it...there IS heroism in pushing through the pain. I feel like a goddamn hero just sitting here and typing this meandering post! Aaarghh! My frigging back!

All right. I'll drop the subject for now...especially as I have no idea (at this time) at how I would model pain and suffering in an RPG. But I will be thinking about it, and if I come up with any scratch rules, you better believe I'll be returning to the subject.

Though I'll try to keep the whining to a minimum.

; )

Companion In War

Welp, while I should have been in bed early last night, catching up on some much needed sleep, instead I was awake till close to 11 reading my the copy of Structural Integrity that the gracious TimeShadows was generous enough to mail me. Very kind of her, and much thanks I heap upon her!

Structural Integrity is a supplement for Albedo PC, or as it is sub-titled, a “Companion for Albedo Platinum Catalyst.” And quite the companion supplement it is…it certainly exceeded all my expectations, not only by offering rules for the use of vehicles, but also additional rules for creating new animal species characters, squad and company compilations, as well as more information and insight into the culture and mindset of the Albedo universe.

The book is thick and meaty, jam packed with variant (optional) rules and info. I’m not sure of the exact page count because it starts on page 177, picking up right where APC left off. I get the feeling that this is information that was intended for the original game and got left out for space considerations. Which is fine…you can run a perfectly decent squad left APC game with NONE of the info in Structural Integrity. The stuff in SI just adds depth to the game…such as details on officers and supporting cast personnel, or details to make combat crunchier. There are only one, maybe two new “marks” (the APC equivalent of feats/skills) so it’s not like anything is going to be majorly missed by SI’s exclusion from an Albedo campaign…all that tank and fighter combat can go on “off-camera,” as it were.

But if you do want to run a game where the PCs are part of a tank platoon or an aerodyne wing, this is pretty much a must-have.

Now I’ve blarged before that I’m always on the look-out for a good war game (“war” in games and fiction are the only type I support), and I think APC is the best so far. It is so damn thoughtful in its approach…whoever wrote this either spent A LOT of time and energy researching various fields of the military, specifically logistics and mechanics…or they had a career in multiple branches of the armed forces. I mean, for a complete and utter civilian, I know quite a bit about the mechanics of warfare, but it would take me a looooong time to compile it into anything as useable and thoughtfully laid out as the author of SI. This was a major labor of love for somebody, and it is extremely well done.

I just wish it had a different or more generic setting. I don’t have anything personally wrong with anthropomorphic animals (many of my favorite comics as a kid fell into this genre: Rocket Raccoon, Samurai Penguin, Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters). But it still feels a bit juvenile (not quite the right word) to get worked up in an RPG over the pathos of death in war of, say, a talking squirrel.

Is that being too mean?

Anyway, the problem is the game is so tight (and I mean that in every sense of the word) that it can’t really be adapted away from the animal setting. FOR EXAMPLE: If I wanted to run a kind of Harlan Ellison Man-Kyben war I suppose I COULD call the rabbits “kyben” and the EDF “humans.” But then I’d have to rename the animals as human archetypes (like “Bruiser” and “Runt” instead of “Bear” and “Mouse,” for example). Or even worse, re-name animals as different ethnicities or countries of man (wow, that’s just asking for an ass-kicking…which animal gets assigned to France or China?).

Instead of stereotyping real humans, one could change every animal into its own separate species…so rabbits become Kyben, tigers becom Kzin, bears become Klingons, or whatever. But aside from being a tedious exercise, pretty much resulting in the same thing (it’s just as hard for me to feel pathos for a dead “Romulan” as a dead squirrel)…well , what’s the real difference between a lion-headed humanoid and an anthropomorphic lion anyway? Nothing, as far as I can tell.

So you might as well stick with the animals. I’m sure my nephew S would approve (though the game might be a bit too crunchy for him). Besides, I could probably get behind some beagle paratroopers (based on my pets of course)…let me assure you, they would LOVE to hunt some rabbits “behind enemy lines!”

And I could probably feel pathos for a dead beagle.
: (

Doing War "Right"

As I've mentioned before, I'm not much into real war, but in fiction and gaming I love a good war story. I'd go so far as to say that with regard to science fiction, it's pretty much the only type of story I'm interested in.

Now I say "pretty much" because I've become a Firefly fan in the last year (which is actually more of a "post-war" film of the "American Civil" variety) as well as a fan of the speculative fiction of S.M Stirling (The Sky People and In the Courts of the Crimson King; both a bit "cold war" type)...oh, and I'm on the second book of the Asimov Foundation series. But all of these are new to me...as in new in the last year.

For most of my science fiction needs, I enjoy a good war story.

And hell, it doesn't even have to be a novel. Short stories are fine (for me, they seem the truest form of the war story, as every soldier has a story or two, but how many make a novel length career of their military life?). Whether we're talking Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Steakley's Armor, or even the Warhammer 40K books (again, the short stories are the best) from GW's Black Library...they're all good.

A series of unrelated short stories used to tell the story of "a war" is one of my favorite types of speculative fiction. Of course individuals have different perspectives...perceptions are as varied as people themselves. And just as there are a myriad of different people, there are plenty o different stories to tell.

The image above is from a graphic novel that illustrated many of Harlan Ellison's Kyben War short stories (a subject he returned to in a variety of mediums, including novellas and tele-screenplays). It's a great piece, and one that I hope to stumble upon one day for my collection (while I've had the chance to read it, I don't own it myself). Hell, if Ellison wasn't so notoriously vicious when it comes to riffing off (or "ripping off") his work, I'd be tempted to write a game or screenplay of my own (I think Run for the Stars would be a great short film...but who would play Benno Tallant? William Hurt would be good if he were 15 years younger...).

Whenever I pick up a new sci-fi RPG, I check to see how it fits into my potential for role-playing military or war stories. This may sound pretty bizarre, but it is what it is. Truth be told, I don't buy that many sci-fi RPGs. Albedo Platinum Catalyst fits the bill pretty well, I really dig its system, but I want something more humanocentric...well, something WITH humans, anyway (which APC does NOT have). Traveller is a great game, but it's more for telling those Firefly-esque POST-war stories (you do your stint in the military during character creation, the GAME is about "life after"). Mutant Chronicles (the RPG) has similar issues.

Problem is, while every sci-fi game out there has "combat rules" (few RPGs don't) most simply use small scale systems, whether abstract or heavily crunch (and most fall closer to the "crunch" side of the spectrum). And that doesn't work for army level skirmishes, at least not well. Problem is, if you want to play a game with decent warfare rules, you ned to play a wargame, a la Warhammer 40,000 or similar.

But while WH40K is loads of fun in and of itself, there's no real role-playing to it. No matter how attached you are to a particular special officer or "hero-type," no matter whether the game includes rules for advancement (as Rogue Trader did) or whether or not you use funny voices for your individual mini's...it just ain't the same.

Which is a shame. What if I want to role-play something like All Quiet on the Western Front? Or Saving Private Ryan? Or heck...even The Flight of the Eisenstein?

Hmm...I just realized I've mused about the potential (and perhaps futility) of sci-fi "military-esque" games before, though in relation to the "bug hunt" (a la Aliens). Perhaps there IS a way to play this type of game as RPG, but the key is to play it as a true campaign-setting...i.e. the individual players take part in a loosely related series of military short stories.

Kind of like the "galactic war" as a mega-dungeon, huh?

[just by the way...one reason I'm even thinking about war games again is my musings on how to make a sufficient mass combat system for my B/X Companion]

Paul Kidd's Revenge

So after recently posting about my wanting to play military scifi and reading Dyson's post about military RPGs he's sampled, I figured it was time to put my head down and finally take a look at Albedo 2nd Edition, which I picked up for $6 in the "used" section of my local game shop. Hrmmm...not quite what I was hoping for.

The Albedo Platinum Catalyst game (the newest version of Albedo) is quite slick in its game mechanics and the way it handles military role-playing; that's kind of what got me jazzed about the whole thing (other than the idea of totally hating on rabbits; my beagles can relate to the urge).  What I did NOT like about APC was that it's an incomplete game...it leaves out vehicle rules to a degree I find unforgivable in a military game. You're required to purchase the supplement if you want air or armored combat rules.  Being a convert to the Old School and Indie game movements, I like my rules more self-contained.  And when my local game shop doesn't even carry the supplement...well, that sucks to a high degree.

So enter Albedo 2nd Edition, a more or less complete game INCLUDING the vehicle rules.  I had hoped it would be compatible with APC...unfortunately, at first read it seems remarkably dissimilar. 

Albedo 2E IS a complete game. In fact it fills in things that are left out of APC that I really wanted to know (like do these animals reproduce with each other? what are their lives like outside the military? etc., etc.).  It provides combat rules for handling air, space, and land combat.  It has more equipment lists and descriptions and a LOT of illustrations of the gear. Since most (all?) of the art comes from the comics, a lot of the illustrations are duplicated in both games, but I'm fine with that; all are indicative of the flavor of the game.

However, the rules of 2E are quite a bit more complex and cumbersome than the rules of APC. The systems are a bit over-worked, and not well organized, and I could feel my brain blurring over just reading the chargen process, let alone the combat system (a heavy mix of you-name-it skill based task resolution merged with plethora-random-tables including detailed multi-dice-roll  hit-location system).  Having to keep track of armor points on various areas is madness for any game more complex than BattleTech or Elf Quest, in my opinion.  What with penetration ratings, fatigue, pain/suffering, etc. you have a system as complex as DeadLands or (nearly) The Riddle of Steel...but not as succinctly written. Also missing are some of the niftier aspects of APC, like the 5-PC squad character creation and the "all critters are basically the same" mentality (there are now major differences between, say, a mouse character and a bear character).

Thankfully the vehicle combat rules seem much simpler than the rest of the rules...in fact they seem fairly similar to WH40K (no more complex than the 2nd edition rules).  They do have a bit more "scifi" feel than the rest of the game, but not overly much...there's still no powered battle armor or tactical laser weapons (eat your heart out Mongoose Traveller).  It shouldn't be too hard to 'port something similar into APC (should I decide to start up a game), but in re-writing the simple vehicle rules of a crunch-heavy game...well, it feels like it would be just as much work to hand-craft my own rules for the more elegant APC.

Ugh.

Anyway, the non-rules parts of Albedo 2nd Edition are written well and, as said, address a lot of the role-playing aspects of the "critters" (as the PCs and NPCs are called) rather nicely. I think the world creation stuff is excellent, dealing with the politics and social mores of individual planetary societies with a few simple rolls...and describing what those rolls mean. The disposition (Personality) mechanics are quite cool, and while I like the Drive and Clout rules of APC, I wish some of the "random role-playing personality" stuff had been included in APC, if only for NPCritters.

The writing was different enough, that I bothered to check out the author of Albedo 2nd Edition and was surprised to find the game was designed and co-written by Paul Kidd.  I can't say for sure that this is the same as the author of the White Plume Mountain novel, but if so it is an amazing string of coincidence to be reviewing two such works by the same author within a week's span.  I mean you wouldn't normally equate militaristic anthropomorphic animals with Blackrazor would you?  I sure as hell wouldn't!

Sunday Evening Musings (mostly about Aliens)

I've been relaxing all day, today...meaning napping, watching TV, going for walks, humorous off-line reading...basically enjoying a lazy Sunday.  

I am a man of eclectic tastes. I was driving around yesterday evening, picking up Thai food and listening to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde on the radio, then coming home to check out the Mutant Chronicles movie on the SciFi channel to see if it was in any way true to the RPG. 

Right now, I am watching the classic film Aliens (this time on AMC), thinking about how to adapt it to Traveller.  

Is there an RPG that effectively mixes Action-Horror with Military-SciFi?  Not that I'm aware of...the Mutant Chronicles RPG tried, but eventually gave it up for a miniatures-skirmish game they now bears its name.

The thing is, its difficult to emphasize the action-horror aspect without introducing a hefty dose of mortality into the game.  But in RPGs, players are supposed to be the protagonists of the story...which means they shouldn't be dying in droves.  That's why board games like Space Hulk provide the player with multiple soldier-pieces.

[visited teardown today...still trying to work out their legal issues with THQ, dammit]

Albedo actually uses a similar approach with it's multiple PC squads (each PC has a commanding officer PC and 4-5 follower PCs...like henchmen or grogs controlled by the player).  As I haven't had a chance to play it, I can't tell how the system would work in practice.  I think it sounds like a cool idea, but then I picture 3 players each controlling 15 characters and it seems like a lot to juggle.

3:16 is a cool SciFi war RPG...a razor sharp satire of WH40k warmongering (actually, more similar to the original Rogue Trade rules, which I found to be semi-satirical anyway).  But the role-playing of the game is more concerned with the larger issues of "the War" rather than the terror of war. Inspired by films like Aliens and Starship Troopers, the game itself feels more like John Steakley's book Armor in play...which is not really what I'm looking for.

What I want is something like old school D&D, truth be told...basically an on-going campaign of bug hunts from planet to planet centering missions ("adventures") on a small party of soldier-mercenaries ("adventurers").  Some may die on campaign, and be replaced by younger guys, some may retire (or get promoted).

I just can't imagine that there's enough there for an extended saga.  While there's fun to be had, there's no sense of discovery as there is in D&D. Magic items? New monsters? Traps and tricks?

Even Gamma World, with fewer "character options" then D&D has more exploration inherent in the game system...ancient ruins and sealed installations? Technological artifacts? Crazy-ass mutant monsters? Weird societies?  That's D&D, though in a "non-magical" setting.

I think that exploration component is what keeps folks coming back to certain games.  So even though I like the idea of playing a "space marine" facing near insurmountable odds with tremendous firepower, I can't see how that type of game would have lasting appeal...for myself or others.  This is always a consideration of game design.

Hope your weekend was a good one!

Free RPG Day...

...and I completely missed it.  Jeez!

I was actually in my local, participating game store Saturday and (in my defense) they never mentioned Free RPG Day, and I completely forgot about it!   Too busy with my new purchase, I guess.

However, I went back to the game store today (told you it was a long weekend), and was able to pick up a little swag: 

• Bonus Bestiary by Pathfinder featuring some old AD&D monsters now written up for D20 (no big whoop, since I no longer play D20, but I may use them as inspiration for B/X monsters).
• Quickstart Rules and Adventure for White Wolf's Geist the Sin-Eaters. What the f---? This is the "7th storyteller game set in the World of Darkness?"  I thought that was the Hunters Hunted? Or Demon? Or the Prometheans? Or something else...by my count there's been at least nine games set in WoD if you count Mummy and Hunter as two separate games and NOT counting Eastern Vamps or the latest Changeling.  Ah, well...I stopped playing WW a loooooong time ago.
• A 24 page quick-start version of Paranoia.  I've never owned any edition of Paranoia, though I've played the original, but I tell you THIS is how they should sell the game...in a quick little pamphlet, easily digested and with plenty of holes for UV gamemasters to fill in the rest.  Paranoia just begs to be "Sweded" in an Old School way.  Who needs all those other rules to blast mutant communists?

In addition to the free stuff, I picked up a used copy of Albedo, Second Edition for $6 and I don't want anyone to give me shit about it.  I got the Platinum Catalyst version six months back, and it has some of the finest rules for modeling straight-up war in an RPG that I've yet seen...only problem is PC Albedo doesn't provide vehicle combat rules (a gross oversight), and the 2nd edition (an actually earlier edition) does.  For $6 I'm willing to check it out and shoehorn old rules.  And, no, I do not have a "fuzzy" fetish...and I don't think fans of Rocket Raccoon, TMNT, or Howard the Duck do either...

All in all, a pretty good haul from "Ye Old Game Shoppe" this weekend.