White Dwarf at 400

Some time in the last few months, "White Dwarf" magazine started appearing in Tesco. I was finding it increasingly difficult to resist the urge to pick up a copy and have a look, despite not being a particular fan of Games Workshop, despite not being a customer of Games Workshop, and despite my extreme dislike of their handling of that "Space Marine" copyright thing.

When issue 400 appeared a few weeks ago, complete with a Tau battlesuit on the front (basically, it was Shockwave), I finally weakened and picked up the issue. Which I duly read, and finally finished yesterday.

My first, and most immediate, feeling about the magazine was that it is frankly a travesty that "White Dwarf" made it to 400 issues, while "Dragon" got cancelled at 359. And no, the electronic version doesn't count.

My second reaction is that it is, absolutely and unashamedly, a big paid-for advert for Games Workshop's latest products (specifically the newly relaunched Tau army for Warhammer 40,000). But... it is an entertaining and well-made advert for their products. Indeed, it was actually considerably better than I remembered - at least this issue bothered to include genuine painting tips and advice, and some stuff about modelling backgrounds and the like. Plus, the battle report was the highlight, as always, pitting the Tau against Tyrannids (the Tau won, of course - the new army wins these things at least 90% of the time).

My final reaction, though, is that this was actually a really dangerous purchase. Because having read it, I really want to invest in a shiny new Tau army. Purely because those battlesuits are very much the descendants of Shockwave, and that's cool. (And, indeed, I felt a similar pull to the Necrons a little while ago. But it's all nonsense - if I were ever to go back to 40k, it would of course be to expand and update my Ork force.)

Anyway, that's that. Given the cost, it's not really a purchase that I regret, despite not actually having any huge interest in the subject (and despite definitely not wanting to get back into that side of the hobby). But the question now is: do I buy issue #401?

Playing It Straight

As the name perhaps implies, the "Star Wars: Imperial Fist" game cast the PCs as servants of the Galactic Empire. Indeed, their mission was to hunt down one of the remaining Jedi and bring him to justice.

Now, there are two classic ways to present a "play as the Empire" Star Wars RPG. Probably the most common of these is to have the PCs fairly quickly realise their error and operate as double agents within the Empire (or, indeed, defect openly to the Rebellion). The other, of course, is to do the "evil campaign" - the PCs are out for their own benefit, and woe betide anyone who gets in their way.

However, there is a third approach, and this is the direction I took with the "Imperial Fist" one-shot, and the one I will try to adopt with the campaign when it comes: play it straight. That is, the PCs are agents of the Empire, yes, but they're not necessarily evil. They may be misguided... or they may not.

In the one-shot, it turned out that the Jedi in question had fallen to the Dark Side. This isn't really a surprise given what we see in the films - the Jedi spend years fighting a pointless war, large numbers of them are killed, padawan training is frequently abridged, and then, just as victory is at hand, their allies turn on them and they are slaughtered and they are villifed.

Based on that, it's no wonder many of those who survive are driven mad by their experiences. Others could well determine that they're involved in a new war, with ever fewer resources, and fight accordingly (see the start of season 3 of BSG).

And, of course, there are also the possibilities that the Imperial Fist team won't just deal with Jedi. There are all manner of corruptions in the Empire that could be tackled, or local authorities could invent a Jedi threat to cover their own abuses. Or...

The evidence suggests that that should actually work really well. The PCs will do their stuff, some moving towards the Dark Side, others remaining the 'good guys' or being appropriately neutral.

But then the really interesting discussions crop up once the PCs finally track down a Jedi who is one of the good guys, and then they have a choice to make. And I do so enjoy those interesting decisions!

Star Wars: Imperial Fist in retrospect

On Saturday, I ran the second of my one-shot games for the year. It is my hope to fit five of these in this year, being the 'normal' four I try for plus the Firefly game I ran a couple of months ago (which had been intended for last month).

In truth, Saturday wasn't quite the ideal time to run the game. I had had a truly manic week, what with work, LC's birthday to bake for, a night out at the theatre, and our regular game night on the Tuesday. Additionally, I had a nephew's birhtday event in the morning, which meant that the event was pushed back from a 1:30 start time to 3pm, with a corresponding slip in the end time.

As it happened, though, that didn't matter too much. The players were okay with the change to the start time, I was able to get through all the prep that was needed, and I was back in plenty of time for the first arrivals. It all worked out in the end.

The game was attended by four players, one short of the number of spots I had allocated. That actually worked well, because it allowed me to withdraw one of the characters that I wasn't entirely happy with.

The adventure was split into three acts: an investigative first act in which the PCs gather and piece together clues, a quest-like second act where they entered an abandoned underwater facility and fall into a trap, and an action-packed third act in which they race back to confront the enemy.

What Went Well

• Good group dynamic. Always important, this worked well here. We had two veteran players, one somewhat experienced player, and one completely new player. The mix of personalities was good, and the new player was able to receive any help he required with the rules. (Naturally, there was no real help needed with the setting, it being Star Wars.)
• The investigation. The Three Clue Rule was hugely useful here, with the PCs gathering all the clues they needed to solve just about all the mysteries in the game. The only thing they didn't work out was the identity of one of the traitors, and that was only because they chose not to follow up on some leads - they had everything they needed to finish the job.
• The action. Once we reached the second act, the game really clicked into high gear, and didn't stop until the end. In the last hour and a half of play, the party faced three tough combats, engaged in a chase, and wrapped up most of the key mysteries. Good stuff.
• The chase scene. After the last one-shot, I had noted a little dissatisfaction with my handling of the vehicle rules and of a chase scene. I was therefore determined to include such a scene here. I had made sure to give the matter a lot of thought for this session, with the end result that it actually worked very well - especially when one player rolled an extremely well-timed '20'. So I was happy with that.
• Dynamic Replanning. The third act was supposed to feature a big showdown at the spaceport. However, the players put together the clues they had rather differently, concluding that the hospital was the bad guys' next target. This was actually a much better, and much more logical, solution. And so, I shifted it. I felt that that was particularly good, both in that the players effectively fixed my biggest mistake (see below) and that they actually made the game even better than expected. (And, were I not so modest, I might note something about how I handled the revised ending...)

What Didn't Work so Well

• As I noted in the introduction, I was able to withdraw one of the characters that I wasn't too happy with. Star Wars Saga Edition has five classes (Jedi, Noble, Scoundrel, Scout, and Soldier), and since there were five spots for players I had created one of each. Four of the characters had really solid concepts, interesting mechanics, and a really good power level. The fifth, the Noble, I never felt quite clicked in the same way. And yet, looking at the character I didn't really see any way to improve him - he was just that bit less good than the rest. So I was quite glad to be able to remove him from play.
• Two rules mistakes. I made two fairly huge rules mistakes (actually, one mistake twice) - in SWSE a character gets either his level added to his Reflex Defense or an armour bonus. Only some Soldiers are able to add both. When statting up both the Varn Razorback and Obit Fyaar, I made the mistake of adding both, leading to a situation where the Razorback was virtually unhittable and Fyaar was just too tough. Luckily, I spotted the first problem soon enough to fix it, while in the second case the PCs had plenty of Force Points to spend to compensate. Still, a mistake.
• A pacing issue. The first act took about three hours out of six hours of play. This was rather too much, so I feel that perhaps I should have pushed things on a bit, to make some more room for the latter two acts. Fortunately, we didn't have an absolutely fixed end time, so it worked out okay, but if doing it again, I think I would have done that a little differently.
• One Big Mistake. There was one big mistake, in that in Act Two the PCs were supposed to get some absolutely vital information. But with us running late, and with me being quite keen to get to an action scene, I completely forgot until it was too late. Fortunately, we were able to work around it, with the players actually coming up with a far better solution than I had planned, so that was fine, but it could have been much worse!

Overall

I was absolutely delighted at how this game worked out. In fact, it was definitely the best game I have run since my "Ultraviolet: Code-500" game that I ran two years ago, and the second best game that I have run for a good many years. Everybody seemed to have a great deal of fun, all the planning came together very well... yeah, it was a good time.

In addition, in amongst just trying to have a good game, I was using this one-shot as something of a "proof of concept" for a campaign later in the year. I'm very happy with how it worked, so I think that that campaign is now a GO!

One final thought: after the game, I gathered up the character sheets, my printed notes, and any other papers that were generated in the course of the game, and dumped them into recycling - everything important is stored on my PC and safely backed up, so I don't need to keep the hard-copy. That's fine, but I do note that it was around 30 sheets of paper, mostly printed on both sides. I'm really starting to wonder - is it time to invest in an iPad (or similar), and try to go paperless?

Paring the List

After some further thought, and some one-shot adventure concepts that sank like lead balloons, I have rethought the list of games I'm going to be running. It turns out that the list has been pared down to five:

• D&D: Of course, D&D is one of those standouts. It looks like I'll be giving 5e a bodyswerve, as the more I hear about the game, the less I like it. That means sticking with 3e for the foreseeable future, unless I can come up with a system that does essentially the same things, only better. I expect to use D&D almost exclusively for campaign play, although may run the occasional demonstrator one-shot, or introductory session.
• Star Wars Saga Edition: Of course, Star Wars is always popular, as is a good game for introducing new players. So that stays. As noted previously, I won't be buying in to the new FFG edition (three reasons: no PDFs, use of custom dice, and the fact that after six previous editions, I really can't support a new one). So, again, I'll stick with SWSE. I expect to use SWSE quite extensively for both campaign and one-shot play.
• Serenity: This will almost certainly be superseded by the Firefly RPG when that gets released. It's another game that never seems to lack players. I put that primarily down to the setting being just fleshed out enough to be compelling, and yet sufficiently open to give GMs real space to play in. I can only really foresee using Serenity for one-shot play, though Firefly may be different.
• Black Crusade: The latest idea I'm rolling around in my head is the possibility of an open campaign structure, where lots of GMs run adventures in the same system, and where players come and go as they will, keeping the same characters. Black Crusade is probably the best candidate for the system to use for that one. It's also a game that seems to have no problem getting players, despite my own love/hate relationship with it. So we'll see.
• Hunter: the Vigil (World of Darkness): Probably the single best game I've run in years (perhaps ever) was a WoD one-shot based on the "Ultraviolet" TV series. That being the case, I'm keen to play some more of the system, either as a one-shot or as a campaign. (For one-shot play, I'd be inclined to stick with the base WoD rules; for a campaign, I expect I'd prefer the greater depth of the HtV expansion.) However, unlike the other games on this list, Hunter doesn't seem to have quite the same built-in fanbase - it made for a really great one-shot, but I fear it might struggle for players.

And that's it. Five games, four for (potential) campaign play, and three for one-shot play. It's almost worth thinking about clearing out my RPG shelves - there's a huge amount of stuff there that will simply never be used again.

Regeration Sucks! (in 3e)

Okay, I've been away. For the past several weeks, things have been rather hectic, then there was my long-awaited holiday when I was either rushing around like crazy, or not well, or away relaxing. And then this week has been hugely tiring. So I've basically been beaten down by life, and just not had time to blog.

Basically, I've been away regenerating. Which is somewhat appropriate, given that I've been sitting on a rant about that very subject.

A couple of sessions ago, our heroes ran into a band of trolls (actually, half-dragon trolls, but that's not hugely relevant right now). Of course, the iconic feature of trolls in 3e is their ability to regenerate damage.

The way regeneration in 3e works is like this: any damage the creature takes, unless caused by the creature's specific weakness, is converted from lethal to non-lethal damage. This means that instead of counting down to 0 hit points, you instead count up. When the damage taken reaches the creature's hit points, becomes staggered, and if the damage taken exceeds the hit points, it becomes unconscious. However, the creature also regenerates a number of hit points per round, even once rendered unconscious.

On the night in question, the PC wizard wasn't present, and so suddenly they lost their most potent source of fire damage (acid normally works against trolls, too, but not these half-dragons... but who carries lots of acid around?).

The consequence of all of this was that the PCs would keep hitting the trolls, eventually dropping them into unconsciousness. Then the trolls would regenerate and get back up, then get knocked back down again, and so it went on. The combat turned into a really, really tedious grind-fest of bouncing trolls. (And it could have been worse - see below.)

The fundamental problem at the core of this is that 3e doesn't provide any means for characters to convert non-lethal damage into lethal damage. That being the case, without the use of fire or acid, it is all-but-impossible to kill trolls. Basically, you have to strangle them to death. Yes, seriously.

Strictly speaking, even once the trolls had been knocked into unconsciousness, you can't apply a coup de grace attack to behead them and thus finish them off - by the book, in order to do this you need to apply real damage (so, fire), and the saving throw is based on the real damage done (so, lots of fire). Fortunately (though it was a close-run thing), I had the wit to ignore that particular issue. Otherwise, we might still be resolving that combat.

The upside of this is that I've now realised (and seen graphically) just how much of a problem regeneration is in the game, especially if you don't have exactly the right attack mode available to deal with the problem. And so, I have a two-part solution...

• Firstly, I'm inclined to steal something from 4e. In 4e, regeneration works like this: on its turn, a creature with regeneration heals all damage taken that round. However, if it is successfully attacked by it's "specific weakness", the creature's regeneration is turned off for a round. That being the case, a troll could be attacked with a burning torch and then hacked to pieces. I think that's probably right. (That said, I'm not so keen on the "heals all damage" bit - I think I'd be inclined to increase the rate significantly, but not make the healing unlimited.)
• Secondly, I think that in the case of regenerating creatures, if the creature takes 10 more damage than it's hit point total, it is rendered inert. In this condition, it remains alive, but it's regeneration is vastly reduced. It will take a significant length of time (that is, weeks) before it regenerates back to having 'only' "hit points plus 10" damage, and so be able to regenerate properly. (To go along with this, I would remove the ability to apply a coup de grace to a troll without first disabling its regeneration. Which seems fair enough - you don't really need both.)

The net result of these two would almost certainly have been that the start of that combat would have been quite a bit more nasty. However, once the PCs realised how to knock the trolls down so that they stayed down, the combat would probably have closed down quite quickly - instead of having the trolls constantly bouncing up and down (and the frustrated Ranger not quite getting to apply his coup de grace), they would have been dispatched quite handily. And I think that's about right.

(Incidentally, 3e has a related ability, fast healing, that some creatures enjoy. Those creatures simply heal a number of hit points per round. However, because they are taking normal damage all the way through, this ability doesn't have quite the same problems as regeneration. As was demonstrated at this week's game.)