Firefly Characters #7 of 7: The Ship

In preparation for this year's Christmas Game, I'm going through the process of converting the crew of Betty from the Serenity system to Firefly. In effect, this actually means rebuilding the characters from the ground up, but that's okay. Nonetheless, it may be worth comparing to the previous version.

In the Firefly RPG, as in the Serenity RPG before it, ships are treated largely as characters in their own right - they have Attributes, Distinctions, and Signature Assets. Ships don't have skills, but that appears to be the only significant omission. As for the Serenity RPG, this is an interesting and entirely approach to handling ships in this game.

Oddly enough, my previous stats ofr Betty have never actually seen use - the ship was actually modelled as a Firefly in the first one-shot and didn't appear at all in the second. Therefore, what follows is an entirely new construction.

Betty's three Distinctions are "Auriga Class Transport", which is new, "Battle-Scarred", and "Smuggler's Delight", and her two Signature Assets "Computer-Assisted Controls" and "Hidden Storage". Between them, these model both the ship's extreme age and her use in smuggling cargo.

Betty: Modified Auriga Class Mid-Bulk Transport

Attributes

Engine d10
Hull d8
Systems d6

Distinctions

Auriga Class Transport
Designed as a multi-purpose boat, the Auriga Class Transport is now falling out of use due to the venerable nature of its design. Although variations exist, all Auriga Class ships are engineered with certain fixed compartments: cargo hold, engine room, and bridge.
Runnin' On Empty: Create a Low Fuel d8 Complication to step up Engines for the rest of the scene.

Battle-Scarred
Your ship proudly displays the scars of many battles fought during the Unification War. Though she's showing signs of wear, your boat's still here. Guess that means somethin'.
That Part Don't Work Anyway: Step back your ship's Hull Attribute for the rest of the scene to step back a new Complication that's just been inflicted on your ship.

Smuggler's Delight
Certain ships have been modified to address the needs of "privacy-minded" crews.

Signature Assets

Computer-Assisted Controls: d8
As part of the modification for paraplegic use, Vriess has installed significant computer assistance in the controls. This is frequently useful, but also somewhat glitchy.

Hidden Storage: d8
Salvaging derelicts is good work, provided a captain has the license for it. For those operating outside the Law, hidden storage compartments provide ways to stash precious cargo, illegal salvage, etc.

Roleplaying Notes

"This piece of gosa is even older than I am!"

If the Firefly class is the iconic ship design of the current era of mercantalism, then the Auriga-class would be the standard-bearer for an earlier age. You don't see many of them around these days, but half a century ago they were near-ubiquitous in the spacelanes. Through a combination of design and excellent build quality, the Bernard-Lingotti Corporation managed to capture lightning in a bottle. Between five slightly different official models, and any number of knock-off designs, more than 200,000 Auriga-class vessels were commissioned before the line was finally superseded.

Betty started her operational service as a fairly standard 05-model Auriga class, outfitted for cargo lifting. However, even from the outset she was maintained with exceptional care, thus explaining why she remains in active service even so long after her first registration.

Over the decades, Betty has been reconfigured and repurposed several times. Somewhere along the line, her entire engine assembly was removed and replaced with the integrated systems and power plant from a Firefly-class vessel, a modification that vastly extended her operational lifespan, but one that is itself showing its age. At least one owner was of a sufficiently larcenous bent as to have all manner of hidey-holes fitted for the concealment of small, high-value (and probably illegal) cargoes. And Vriess has gone to some lengths to further advance the ship's systems, installing some highly illegal transponder-foiling software, as well as accessibility controls allowing a pilot to fly the ship without the use of his legs.

Betty's service in the Unification War was, regrettably, rather unedifying. Her previous owner was a Browncoat sympathiser, and took to running weapons and materiel. He was promptly captured by the Alliance, tried as a war criminal, and shot. Betty spent the rest of the war locked in an impound, before being auctioned off. Thus, she made her way into the hands of Frank Elgyn. 'Course, whether her new use is any better than smuggling weapons is a matter of some debate...

Firefly House Rule: The Noble Sacrifice

One of the things that the Firefly RPG deliberately doesn't cover is a rule for death & dying. Characters can be Taken Out of a scene, but this is generally assumed not to mean "killed", at least for PCs. The book includes a sidebar saying that this is deliberate, and that groups should work out for themselves what, if anything, they want to do about death.

So I've given some thought, and here it is:

Noble Sacrifice

At any point, a player can declare that his PC will make a Noble Sacrifice, giving up his or her life for the good of the Crew. At this point, all hostile NPCs are immediately Taken Out of the scene (the GM will decide what happens to them - as with PCs, this doesn't necessarily mean "killed", or even "captured").

Thereafter, the player gets to narrate the rest of the scene, including the PC's inevitable, heroic, and ultimately tragic, death.

Any other PCs involved in the scene can at this point opt to gain 1 PP in return for accepting a d6 "Traumatised" Complication. Or, if they're hard as nails, they can choose not to.

Firefly Characters #6 of 7: The Mechanic

In preparation for this year's Christmas Game, I'm going through the process of converting the crew of Betty from the Serenity system to Firefly. In effect, this actually means rebuilding the characters from the ground up, but that's okay. Nonetheless, it may be worth comparing to the previous version.

As I discussed in my earlier post, it is my intent to build these characters by first working out the three most important things about the characters, and using that to select Distinctions. Further, as a rough rule of thumb, I intend to select two of these from the depiction of the characters in "Alien: Resurrection", and add a third to better suit the character's use in home games.

The most obvious aspect of Vriess' character is his disability - the character is in a wheelchair. Unfortunately, I found in the "Firefly: Furiously Fast" one-shot that this could lead to a player focussing on what the character couldn't do, rather than what he could. However, I'm hopeful that this will actually not be the case in the Firefly RPG - the character is assigned the "Invalid" Distinction, which is a clear fit, and also has his chair listed as a Signature Asset. Hopefully, this will turn a seeming weakness into a strength, without totally negating a key part of the character.

The other Distinctions for the character are the obvious "Ship's Mechanic" role, and "Steely Reserves" - Vriess has had a knock, but he's a tough one.

John Vriess: Engineer

Attributes

Mental d10
Physical d8
Social d6

Skills

Craft d4
Drive d6
Fight d4
Fix (Engines) d12
Fly (Transports) d6
Focus d8
Influence d6
Know (Art) d6
Labour d4
Move d4
Notice d6
Operate (Machinery) d10
Perform d4
Shoot d6
Sneak d4
Survive d6
Throw d4
Treat d4
Trick d4

Distinctions

Ship's Mechanic
A ship's a living thing, no matter what they say. You can feel when she's sick, and she makes you proud when she's well.
Miracle Worker: If you replace your Fix Skill with a d4 for your next roll, gain a Big Damn Hero Die equal to that Skill's normal die rating if your roll is successful.

Steely Reserves
People think you're a pushover. They're always a mite surprised when you don't bend.
Not Today: When you take a Complication to stay in a fight, you can spend 1 PP to double an appropriate Attribute in your next roll.

Invalid
You can't get much of anywhere without somebody's help.

Signature Assets

The Chair: d8
Vriess has been working on his chair for years, constantly modifying and refitting. Part mechanised transport and part concealed arsenal, it is practically designed to foil a weapons scanner.

Roleplaying Notes

To hear Vriess tell it, he was born in battle at Serenity Valley. He was serving with the Browncoats when a stray bit of shrapnel hit him in the lower back. In that instant, the man he had been was killed, and the man he is today was born.

His reticence to talk about his life prior to this moment has led others to conclude that he doesn't like to talk about his injury, but the truth is quite different. To his way of thinkin', there's no point in dwelling on the past and on what was lost. He reckons he's already survived the very worst the 'Verse can throw at a man, and so he can live without fear. He's actually quite cheerful about it.

After the war, Vriess spent a lot of time in a Veteran's hospital, where he came to profoundly hate doctors, but more especially that breed to beautiful young woman who will come and 'cheer' patients with their sympathy. Bad enough that he was disabled, without them inflicting new torment on him by looking at him as a cripple, instead of as a man.

Eventually, he had had enough, and he fled the hospital, only to find a new hell outside. Nobody had any time for injured vets, especially an injured vet from the 'wrong' side. Work was nigh-impossible to find, and starvation beckoned until an old foe, Frank Elgyn, crossed his path. Elgyn was puttin' together a crew for his ship, and he needed a good mechanic. Although they had been on opposite sides in the war, he knew ability trumped sentiment, and so a deal was struck. And in the years since, the two have forged a strong, if quiet, friendship.

Firefly Characters #5 of 7: The Newbie

In preparation for this year's Christmas Game, I'm going through the process of converting the crew of Betty from the Serenity system to Firefly. In effect, this actually means rebuilding the characters from the ground up, but that's okay. Nonetheless, it may be worth comparing to the previous version.

As I discussed in my earlier post, it is my intent to build these characters by first working out the three most important things about the characters, and using that to select Distinctions. Further, as a rough rule of thumb, I intend to select two of these from the depiction of the characters in "Alien: Resurrection", and add a third to better suit the character's use in home games.

In this regard, Call is a little tricky - the key feature of the character in "Alien: Resurrection" is that she turns out to be an Auton, an artificial person. Of course, Autons aren't a feature of the Firefly 'Verse, and after trying this out in the "Firefly: Furiously Fast" game it was felt that this element of the cross-over was best avoided. So Call needs some rework to make fit.

Fortunately, it's possible to rewrite her background to keep the core of the character intact: make her hugely secretive with something dark in her past, give her infiltration and computer skills, and retain her role as ship's technician. With that in mind then I've assigned her the Invisible Ops Distinction to reflect her hidden agenda in the film, Mysterious Past to reflect the big, dark secret she has (albeit a different one from the film), and Wet Behind the Ears to reflect her being the newbie on the ship.

Annalee Call: Technician

Attributes

Mental d10
Physical d6
Social d8

Skills

Craft d4
Drive d6
Fight d8
Fix (Hotwire) d8
Fly d6
Focus d4
Influence d4
Know (Electronics) d8
Labour d4
Move d4
Notice d6
Operate (Security Systems) d12
Perform d4
Shoot d4
Sneak (In Plain Sight) d8
Survive d4
Throw d4
Treat d4
Trick d6

Distinctions

Invisible Ops
I could tell you what I do, but then I'd have to kill you and everyone on this ship and I do hate making a mess
We Were Never Here: When acting on your secret orders, spend 1 PP to step up or double Sneak for an Action.

Mysterious Past
You weren't born to the life you're livin' now.
Ghosts of Yesterday: Create a d8 Complication relating to your history to step up your Fight, Know, or Sneak for a scene. This Complication cannot be stepped back by spending PPs to activate Opportunities.

Wet Behind the Ears
Folks say you're naive. It ain't that. You just grew up a mite sheltered, is all.

Signature Assets

There's an App for That: d8
Call carries a bunch of electronic gizmos about her person. These are useful for disrupting the operation of many electronic systems.

Roleplaying Notes

The newest member of Betty's crew, Call seldom talks about her past. She was born to an unremarkable middle-class family on an unremarkable planet, and enrolled to an unremarkable school. However, her native intelligence, coupled with her affinity for computers let to her quickly being fast-tracked into a top-notch religious school. The rigourous discipline of the school, coupled with the intensive learning environment, lead her to joke that she was built, rather than born.

In her inevitable teenage rebellion, Call avoided the classic "drink and boys" mix, in favour of hacking and burglary. She proved quite adept at this, and so avoided being caught for all but the most minor of infractions. But, of course, since getting caught was a large part of her purpose, this merely inspired her to ever-greater exploits. Eventually, people got hurt.

After her schooling, Call spent some time drifting from one job to another. She could have easily commanded a high wage in a legitimate career, but she could never stomach the tedium. And so, a few months ago she signed on with the crew of Betty, with no real goal than just seeing more of the universe.

Call is an inherently secretive person. She has several talents that she'd simply rather people didn't know about, even those people closest to her. And she's fairly prone to going off-mission, in order to pursue some agenda of her own. Still, outright betrayal is not really her scene - she's more than smart enough to realise the value in not burning bridges.

Firefly Characters #4 of 7: The Pilot

In preparation for this year's Christmas Game, I'm going through the process of converting the crew of Betty from the Serenity system to Firefly. In effect, this actually means rebuilding the characters from the ground up, but that's okay. Nonetheless, it may be worth comparing to the previous version.

As I discussed in my earlier post, it is my intent to build these characters by first working out the three most important things about the characters, and using that to select Distinctions. Further, as a rough rule of thumb, I intend to select two of these from the depiction of the characters in "Alien: Resurrection", and add a third to better suit the character's use in home games.

Sabra has always been the most difficult of the characters to generate, as there was very little to hang the character on. But Firefly makes it almost ridiculously easy to generate the character: the "Ship's Pilot" and "Hitched" Distinctions match the two things we know about her from the film, leaving only one to choose. For the upcoming adventure I have created a new Distinction, "Not Guilty", reflecting the fact that Sabra was the only character not to feature in the previous "Bound by Law" adventure. The fact that she, alone of all the characters, doesn't have a criminal record is liable to prove very useful...

Sabra Hillard: Pilot

Attributes

Mental d8
Physical d8
Social d8

Skills

Craft d4
Drive d6
Fight d4
Fix d4
Fly (Transports) d10
Focus d4
Influence d8
Know d4
Labour d4
Move d8
Notice d8
Operate (Computers) d6
Perform d4
Shoot d4
Sneak (Surveillance) d8
Survive d4
Throw d4
Treat d6
Trick d10

Distinctions

Ship's Pilot
The list of folks wanting to hire you is longer than your arm. You're just that good.
Born Behind the Wheel: Spend 1 PP to step up or double your ship's Engines Attribute for your next roll.

Not Guilty
You may have been before the magistrate, but nothin's ever stuck.
These Aren't the Goods You're Looking For: Step back your Physical die to step up your Social die when convincing someone you're not a threat.

Hitched
You ever been with a warrior woman?

Signature Assets

Betty: d8
She may be a piece of le se, but Betty can still turn a trick or two with Sabra at the helm.

Roleplaying Notes

Sabra Hillard was born in the Black, and has lived most of her life out there. Indeed, she prefers the feel of artificial gravity to the real thing.

Growing up, Hillard was constantly on the move, constantly seeing new places, new faces. And, when the time came, she eagerly joined the Trader's Guild, following the same career as her parents before her. And she was happy there for several years.

But in time, even sticking with the same job proved to be stifling to her, and so when the opportunity came to sign on with Betty, she eagerly did so. Shortly thereafter, she became involved with the captain, and things were good.

Once again, though, Hillard is beginning to find the routine of it all uncomfortable. She's starting to think that her future is elsewhere again. It's not that she wants to leave; it's just that she's not sure she can stay.

Firefly Characters #3 of 7: The First Officer

In preparation for this year's Christmas Game, I'm going through the process of converting the crew of Betty from the Serenity system to Firefly. In effect, this actually means rebuilding the characters from the ground up, but that's okay. Nonetheless, it may be worth comparing to the previous version.

As I discussed in my earlier post, it is my intent to build these characters by first working out the three most important things about the characters, and using that to select Distinctions. Further, as a rough rule of thumb, I intend to select two of these from the depiction of the characters in "Alien: Resurrection", and add a third to better suit the character's use in home games.

In the case of Christie, then, the two Distinctions from the film are simple: we know he's the First Mate, and we know he is a crack shot specialising in twinned pistols. For the third, I have selected Friends in Low Places, to tie in to the background I have invented for the character. From there, it was all reasonably easy...

Christie: First Officer

Attributes

Mental d8
Physical d8
Social d8

Skills

Craft d8
Drive d6
Fight (Kung Fu) d8
Fix d4
Fly d4
Focus d4
Influence (Streetwise) d6
Know d4
Labour d6
Move d8
Notice d8
Operate d6
Perform d4
Shoot (Trick Shots) d10
Sneak d4
Survive d4
Throw d6
Treat d4
Trick d4

Distinctions

First Mate
You're the captain's right hand, but as often as not you're his fist.

Dead Eye
You're cool under fire and a keen shot.
Take Aim: Step back Move until the end of the scene to create an In My Crosshairs d8 Asset.

Friends in Low Places
Those of us on the Rim don't have much, but we stick together. There's a power in that.
I Know a Guy: Spend 1 PP to create a d8 Asset when you call in a shady friend with the skills you need.

Signature Assets

Guns Akimbo: d8
Christie has two pistols concealed in the sleeves of his greatcoat. These are attached, so cannot be disarmed, but neither can he "drop them!"

Roleplaying Notes

Christie has lived a hard life, partly through outrageous fortune, and partly through his own mistakes. His first error was being born the son of a writer who aspired to be dirt-poor. On Osiris, that was a minor transgression, although one that was probably forgivable. But his unforgivable sin was that his mother was the daughter of one of the planet's richest advocates. When she elected to marry Christie's father, the old bastard disowned her, cut her off from all connections, and then systematically blackballed Christie's father.

Nonetheless, Christie's parents knew the value of a good education and of refined manners, and they ensured their son acquired both. Unfortunately, amongst the poor that only made their son a target. Christie was bullied for years, right up to the point where he fought back - sadly, a little too well. That was the last time he was ever bullied, but it was also the last time he went to school, or saw his parents. He ran - better that than a murder rap.

During the war, Christie fought for the Alliance, purely because the military gave him a place in the 'Verse. Sadly, once the war was done, his family connections bit him again, and he was out. That was when he signed on with Elgyn, and found a new place for himself.

Christie is broadly loyal to his captain and his crewmates, but he is very definitely his own man. In particular, he won't accept being bullied. He also now takes a somewhat perverse pride in remaining poor - he appreciates what money can do, but prefers to use it for short-term pleasure, rather than accumulating it and risking becoming his grandfather.

Fixed and Flexible Rules

In most games, because of the competitive nature of the game, the rules need to be fixed, clear, and (hopefully) complete. At no point during play should you reach a point where you have to ask "what happens now?", because if you've reached that point then you are in a position that someone has to make a decision that will favour one side or the other. (Note that this even applies to games with an impartial referee in place - the job of the referee is to apply the rules, not to cover for any holes in them.)

Due to the cooperative nature of roleplaying games, however, an exception can be made. Provided the players trust the GM to be fair, the rules don't have to be fixed and complete. And this is a good thing, because the range of scenarios covered by roleplaying games is vastly different from other types of games.

This gives the designers of RPGs a choice: they can either attempt to provide a comprehensive ruleset, covering as many possibilities as possible, and trying to eliminate the corner cases; or they can leave sections of the ruleset vague and flexible, and let the GM fill in the blanks as needed.

(You can see examples of both approaches in D&D: 3e and 4e both attempted to provide comprehensive rules; 5e has deliberately been designed with flexibility and GM rulings in mind.)

I don't think there is a 'correct' approach here: many players will enjoy the security that comes from knowing exactly how things will work ahead of time... but any attempt to provide a complete ruleset is ultimately doomed to failure.

However, there is definitely at least one 'wrong' approach, which is to write an intentionally vague and flexible ruleset and then to start providing large numbers of "official rulings". Because what that means is there actually is a 'correct' way to play the game; it's just that the designers aren't going to tell us what it is.

If the game is intended to be left open for GM judgement calls, then leave it open for GM judgement calls. Don't immediately start closing up all those gaps you deliberately left in place!

(Of course, the above doesn't apply to places where the rules are simply mistaken - where they simply don't say what they were intended to say. However, even that isn't really a place for 'official rulings' - that's a matter for errata.)

The Character Sheet Blues

Why is it that every RPG ever seems to be saddled with bad character sheets?

Okay, that's a serious exaggeration, but it really does seem that most if not all games have official sheets that are almost but never quite what you really want.

The latest offender is the Firefly RPG, which actually has quite a good sheet. It's a single page in landscape format. Top and centre are the attributes and skills, which have rather neat visual representations (and which make replacing this sheet with another very unappealing). To the right are the character's three distinctions, complete with triggers. And on the left we have things like the character's name, background, and appearance, and then a box for Signature Assets.

Shiny! Except...

In the Firefly RPG, each Distinction and Signature Asset has a little block of descriptive text. This same text appears in all the pre-gen character write-ups. It's very nice. And it's missing in the Distinctions box. Likewise, the Signature Assets box omits the spaces for the Asset triggers entirely. It's really close to being ideal... and really painful that it just misses it.

The sheet also has two other flaws - one thing that should be there but isn't, and two things that shouldn't be there but are. Specifically, each character should have an "Episode Guide", being a list of episodes that they've been in previously. This works somewhat like XP in other games. These really should appear on the character sheet, as they'd be good to have.

Conversely, the sheet has spaces for the character's Plot Points, and five different types of Big Damn Hero dice. But because these change quite often, it's better to handle these using tokens handed out during play (just as you would Assets and Complications) - Plot Points are best done with poker chips, while for BDH dice you could either use literal dice (colour-coded for convenience, of course), or generate some cards to that effect. Or, all else failing, just use a post-it note.

(Firefly doesn't have any concept of hit points, or anything equivalent. But for systems that do use hit points, I've long been an advocate of not including a box for these on the character sheet. Again, just use a post-it note, and use the space freed up for something more worthwhile.)

To come so near, and yet not quite get things just right is frustrating. Especially since I can see what would need done to fix it, but just don't have the means. Sigh.

The Four Act Structure

I've been reading through a lot of the published Firefly adventures recently, and I was struck by something in the structure - they all have exactly four acts. It took me a while to realise this, as I'd expected some to have three, some five, or whatever; or perhaps for the number of acts to vary with the length of the adventure. But, no. Four acts it is; no more, no less.

Now, I was of course familiar with the 'classical' five-act structure: introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement. And I was equally familiar with the compression of this into the three-act structure (where the falling action is compressed to the "final scare" and the denouement is almost non-existent). But I hadn't encountered a four act structure before.

(Incidentally, how come I had to learn all this from reading JMS talking about crafting "Babylon 5"? Why wasn't this covered in English at High School, even at CSYS level?)

I therefore did some investigation and found out what was going on. For obvious reasons, the three-act structure can also be described as "beginning-middle-end". However, the problem with this in terms of movies or TV shows is that the beginning and the end are usually quite short and self-contained, while the middle is extremely long. Therefore, it is common to define a mid-point in the story, and thus split the "middle" into two acts, thus giving beginning-mid-dle-end. Perhaps more importantly, though, it's important that this mid-point has some sort of meaning - that is, the second act "mid" should be somehow different from the third act "dle", in terms of what is happening, or of tone, or whatever.

(Not coincidentally, American TV shows are structured so that the ad breaks fall between the acts. Or, at least, they should be.)

What this means, as far as story goes, is that we have something like this:

• Pre-credits: Introduction, and "inciting incident"
• Credits, and ad break.
• Act One: Immediate reaction to "inciting incident". Statement of the problem.
• Ad break
• Act Two: Attempt to fix the problem. Doesn't work. Add complication.
• Ad break
• Act Three: Second attempt to fix the problem. Partial success. Raise the stakes.
• Ad break
• Act Four: Completion of the solution.
• Ad break
• Denouement: All wrapped up nicely. Coincidentally in 42 minutes. Huzzah!
• End Credits

Of course, that's not an absolute template, or TV would be incredibly dull. But it's pretty good.

What this means in terms of RPGs, and especially for something like the Firefly RPG (which deliberately models itself on a TV show) is that a session can be structured into four distinct parts. Each part should be 'about' something, probably representing a distinct step in solving the 'problem' of the session, coming naturally to a climax in Act Four. Plus, it's useful for pacing purposes - if you have 3 hours in the session, each Act should be about 35 minutes long; if you have 5 hours, each act can stretch to 65 minutes. (Plus 10 mins each for Introduction and Denouement; and a few minutes for breaks, waiting for late players, and general goofing around.)

(This of course needs to be flexible. But that goes without saying.)

Unfortunately, defining all that's the easy bit. Somewhat harder will be populating the various tags as required for the "Firefly: Inglorious" game in a few weeks.

Chameleon

I've just hit upon the solution to my difficulties with the character of Sabra in Firefly one-shots!

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm inclined to think that the best way to create characters for this game is to write down the three most important things about the character, and use these to create the character's Distinctions - probably the key defining element of characters in this game.

However, Sabra had always struck me as something of a 'void' character - she's the ship's pilot, she's involved with the Captain, but other than that we know virtually nothing about her. Well, except that she gets killed by an alien while swimming.

So, I was trying to come up with a good "third thing" about the character. And, being honest, I was doing so with one eye on the upcoming Christmas Game. However, I kept hitting on a criticism: "isn't it incredibly convenient that she just happens to..." Plus, of course, if she just happens to fit this adventure, she probably doesn't fit the next one.

Then the solution hit me: what if this character didn't have a fixed "third thing", but was instead built with two 'permanent' Distinctions with a third assigned at the time so that she always "just happens" to fit the adventure?

(Which is not without precedent in the Firefly RPG - one of the things that threw me on my first glance through the book was that the character of Saffron was actually quite different from Yo-Saff-Bridge. Because they took the wise decision to limit the complexity of NPCs, the publishers established that it was legitimate to rebuild such characters if they need to play different roles in different Episodes.)

So, that's my solution: Sabra will be built with the "Ship's Pilot" and (probably) "Hitched" Distinctions, plus a third "Chameleon" Distinction which will be assigned closer to the time. And that's that problem solved. Huzzah!

Game Reviews

I have something of a problem with reviews at the best of times. Because taste is such a subjective thing, I found a long time ago that most film reviews were of limited use to me. Eventually, the approach I found worked was to find someone with broadly similar tastes to my own, and then trust what that person said. That was reasonably reliable, but not totally.

However, it's in the field of game reviews that I've really started to see some problems. In particular, I have a big issue with game reviews that come out prior to the release of RPG products. There are several issues with this, which I shall state in question form:

Have you even read the thing? This is a big, big question that leaps to mind, especially with RPG reviews. Very often, these are very large, hardback tomes. And there are no full-time RPG reviewers - everyone who does that job must necessarily fit it around the rest of their lives. That means that actually reading the books, a prerequisite for doing a decent review, takes time, and a significant amount of it. Actually digesting the material and giving it some thought takes yet more time.

But then...

Have you played it? Actually, this is probably the bigger issue. An awful lot of games play out differently from the way they read, some better, some worse. So merely reading the rules (or adventure, or whatever) is actually quite a poor guide to quality. And, sure enough, that takes yet more time.

When you played it, did you play it as-is? I've played "Arkham Horror" all of once, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. But I'm in no position to review the game - I know fine well that the game we played was not the game as presented in the rules. There's good reason for that, and those changes are no bad thing... but they do render any review I might do invalid - my experience will not be your experience.

So it is with many RPGs, and especially adventures - there are very often significant flaws in the material that a DM will simply adapt for. This can give rise to a good experience... for that group. But "you can fix it" doesn't mean "it's flawless".

What are your biases? This is a big one. And, in RPGs, it pretty much renders reviews useless. Fact is, we've just come out of some very nasty Edition Wars (and, indeed, they may well still be ongoing in some parts). This means that any review of a D&D product may well be written by a D&D fanboi, determined to present only the absolute best side of 'his' game, or might equally be written by a D&D hater, determined to present the opposite. And likewise for Pathfinder products. (Worst of all, many of our biases are unconscious - it's entirely possible that someone could set out to do a fair review and yet be literally incapable of seeing things that don't fit his biases - just as some Rangers or Celtic fans are literally incapable of seeing the good in the 'other' side.)

Anything to declare? If you received a free copy of the game, you are not in a position to rate it based on "value for money". You're dividing by zero.

Conclusion:

The whole topic is a tricky one. Reviews clearly aren't useless, and yet pretty much every review is questionable in some regard, and probably multiple counts. In theory, something like Metacritic might be worthwhile, in that lots of reviews can be aggregated and some sort of average arrived at then... but Metacritic is known to be badly flawed itself in at least two ways. (And, besides, there aren't huge numbers of RPG reviews out there from which to do such an aggregation.)

So... caveat emptor, I guess.

And, yes, I am still going to do the occasional review on the blog. And it will be exactly as flawed as every other review, mostly failing on the "have you played it" question.

Firefly Characters #2 of 7: The Mercenary

In preparation for this year's Christmas Game, I'm going through the process of converting the crew of Betty from the Serenity system to Firefly. In effect, this actually means rebuilding the characters from the ground up, but that's okay. Nonetheless, it may be worth comparing to the previous version.

As I discussed in a previous post, it is my intent to build these characters by first working out the three most important things about the characters, and using that to select Distinctions. Further, as a rough rule of thumb, I intend to select two of these from the depiction of the characters in "Alien: Resurrection", and add a third to better suit the character's use in home games.

In the case of Johner, the Distinctions were easy: the character is essentially Jayne, meaning I could simply copy a lot of material. In particular, the Mercenary and Crude Distinctions fit perfectly. Jayne's third Distinction didn't fit, but a third Distinction seemed entirely appropriate: Mighty Hideous - I mean, just look at that face!

Johner: The Muscle

Attributes

Mental d6
Physical d10
Social d8

Skills

Craft d4
Drive d4
Fight (Knives) d12
Fix d4
Fly d6
Focus d4
Influence (Intimidation) d6
Know d4
Labour d8
Move d8
Notice d6
Operate d4
Perform d4
Shoot (Rifles) d10
Sneak d4
Survive d6
Throw d4
Treat d4
Trick d4

Distinctions

Mercenary
They don't pay you to look pretty. They pay you to shoot things.
Time for Some Thrillin' Heroics: Spend 1 PP to go first in any battle or combat scene. On your first Action, you may reroll any dice that come up 1 instead of accepting a Plot Point.

Crude
You're a little gorram rough around the edges.
Obnoxious: Gain 1 PP when you choose to disrupt, upset, or challenge the social order of things when you have the option of being mannerly or polite.

Mighty Hideous
You weren't pretty to start, but then you got yourself deformed somethin' fierce. Now folks try not to even look at you.

Signature Assets

Thermos Gun: d8
Johner usually carries his weapons openly, but when he needs to sneak something past a search or a scan, he has just the thing.

Roleplaying Notes

Johner was born on Higgin's Moon, and dragged up by a succession of 'uncles'. He spent two seasons farming mud, and as soon as opportunity permitted he jumped that rock. He hasn't looked back since.

Johner fought on both sides during the war in various mercenary units. Provided the money was good, he was happy to do whatever was required - and there was no shortage of work. In fact, peace is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to him.

Johner signed on with Betty early on, bringing to the table a significant talent for destruction, coupled with an almost complete lack of morals. Just about the only thing that causes him moral outrage is when he doesn't get paid enough for the job.

Johner is actually quite good with money. He has a secret bank account, into which he funnels most of his pay, and then he (naturally) pleads a poverty of ready money to the rest of the crew. The contents of his account are pleasingly high, but never quite pleasing enough - he's permanently one big score away from retirement. Though what he would do if he did retire, he couldn't say.

Firefly Characters #1 of 7: The Captain

In preparation for this year's Christmas Game, I'm going through the process of converting the crew of Betty from the Serenity system to Firefly. In effect, this actually means rebuilding the characters from the ground up, but that's okay. Nonetheless, it may be worth comparing to the previous version.

As I discussed in my previous post, it is my intent to build these characters by first working out the three most important things about the characters, and using that to select Distinctions. Further, as a rough rule of thumb, I intend to select two of these from the depiction of the characters in "Alien: Resurrection", and add a third to better suit the character's use in home games.

In the case of Elgyn, then, the two Distinctions from the film are simple: we know he's the Ship's Captain, we know he has at least one Friend in High Places, both of which are existing Distinctions. For the third, I have selected Not to be Crossed, to represent his vendetta against Silas Cho-Zhu. So that's done. Even better, it's relatively easy to select appropriate triggers for those Distinctions, the skills match up reasonably well, and so the character basically falls into place:

Frank Elgyn: Mercenary Captain

Attributes

Mental d8
Physical d8
Social d8

Skills

Craft d4
Drive d4
Fight d6
Fix d4
Fly d8
Focus d8
Influence (Leadership) d10
Know (Bureaucracy) d8
Labour d4
Move (Running) d6
Notice d6
Operate d4
Perform d4
Shoot (Pistols) d6
Sneak d4
Survive d6
Throw d4
Treat d4
Trick d6

Distinctions

Ship's Captain
A natural leader, you're responsible for the Crew and the ship you all fly in.
Lead the Crew: When one of your crew directly follows one of your orders, spend 1PP and give that Crewmember an asset equal to your Influence die rating.

Not to be Crossed
Just so we're clear: if you cross me, I will end you.
To the Edge of the Black: When you pursue someone who crossed you into obvious danger, create a d8 Asset for the scene.

Friends in High Places
The Alliance thinks highly of you. That's the only opinion that matters.

Signature Assets

Betty: d8
Elgyn has a close connection to his ship, an Auriga class mid-bulk transport, and won't allow just anybody to fly or fix her.

Roleplaying Notes

Elgyn was born and raised on Shadow, and would have made for a natural Browncoat were it not for a deep survivalist streak in his nature. He saw the forces arrayed, and calculated that the Purple Bellies had the manpower, the ships, and the technology. Knowing that a neutral could never benefit from the war, he signed up quickly, and made sure to seek a nice, safe, administrative role.

Make no mistake: Elgyn's no coward. He's tough, and more than willing to get his hands dirty. But he's also smart, and he knows good and proper that the only sure way to live through a fight is to be elsewhere.

Having found himself an undistinguished role as lieutenant in the Alliance Quartermaster's Corps, Elgyn quickly learned the value of contraband. In every war, there are always those who will profit, and there are always luxuries that cannot be easily had. So, with the tacit (and well-paid) approval of Captain Perez, he got his start. And after the war, he made the smallest of career changes, and carried right on making money.

Elgyn has been doing this for a good number of years now. He has a ship, and he's found a crew. The jobs come - they come with some difficulty, especially since the Alliance got that bloody nose a few years back - but they come.

He prides himself on his good name. He doesn't claim to have much honour, but he knows that he's good at what he does, and he knows that other people know it also. He would hate to see that tarnished. And on those rare occasions when his conscience does trouble him, he reminds himself of his two golden rules. Either that, or he drinks his troubles away.

What Are The Three Most Important Things About Your Character?

One of the things I like most about the Cortex+ system used in Firefly, and probably the thing I like most in the character creation system, is the use of "Distinctions". Basically, a Distinction is a short description of the character, which could be a role the character fills, a relationship with another character, a personality quirk, or something from the character's background.

Each character has three Distinctions, and so character creation becomes a matter of picking the three most important things about the character. For example, Mal Reynolds' three distinctions are "Ship's Captain", "Things Don't Go Smooth", and "Veteran of the Unification War". But it's easy to see how, by simply switching out one or two of these, you can get a very different character - switch out "Things Don't Go Smooth" for, say, "Friends in High Places" and you get a well-connected captain who served on the other side of the war.

I'm inclined to think there are three keys to making this system work well:

1. You should probably try to write down those "three things" as your first step in character creation, and probably without reference even to the master list of Distinctions.
2. Having written down the "three things", you should check if any match with the master list. If there isn't already a good fit, then rather than trying to force a "best fit" you should probably just go ahead and create a custom Distinction. After all, it's not that hard.
3. Conversely, if there does exist a Distinction that seems to match one of your "three things", but it doesn't quite work for you in other ways (because you don't like the Triggers or, more likely, the keyed skills), you shouldn't hesitate to customise the Distinction to fit your character, rather than either go for something that you're not happy with, or changing your character to better fit some other Distinction.

(Incidentally, it's best if at least one, and preferably all, of your Distinctions can be read as both a negative and a positive in at least some situations. Because every Distinction has a Trigger whereby you can use it to add a d4 instead of a d8 to your Dice Pool and thus gain a Plot Point. And since Plot Points are officially nice to have, it's best to have that option. Especially since it is the player who chooses whether to apply that option or not.)

So What Now?

In the last few weeks, my D&D 5e game has lost both of the two original players. This takes us back down to only two players, which is really less than I would like to continue the game with. I've put out a call for more players, but there weren't any takers, nor do I really expect there to be.

The most likely consequence of this is that the game will simply stop. Indeed, unlike the Star Wars campaign earlier in the year, this one will not be brought to any sort of a conclusion - it will simply die. Which is a real shame, but given that we're only two sessions in, that's not too bad.

As far as I can see, the root cause of the issue here is simply one of bandwidth: we have several campaigns running concurrently, and people simply don't have the ability to commit to one more. Plus, given that my schedule basically restricts me to alternate either Tuesdays or Wednesdays, this further limits the number of people who can attend.

Unfortunately, I can't see that changing. And I really don't want to set up a campaign and then find myself scrabbling around for a quorum every session - the ideal is to have a group of five players signed up and be assured that we'll reliably have four of those (not necessarily the same four) in attendance at each session. But that dream scenario really seems like an impossibility just now.

The consequences of that are... less than ideal. Firstly, in the immediate term, it looks like that D&D game is dead. I'll give it to the weekend, but if we don't get at least one more sign-up then I'm going to call it.

Secondly, my plans to run two mini-campaigns next year are also shelved for the time being. The mooted Firefly game in February has attracted surprisingly little interest, and since it should be the more popular of the two there seems little point in even contemplating the other. There's obviously just too much else going on, and I just don't have the fortitude for a third fizzled campaign.

That leaves the question of one-shots. Again, this year hasn't been terribly successful - neither "A Lament for Lustivan" nor "Ultraviolet: 2XS" managed to attract a quorum. I'm still hopeful that the Christmas Game will go ahead, but we'll need to see - Christmas is always a tricky time for gaming. Beyond that, though, I'm not planning any one-shots.

The answer to the question "so what now?" once again seems to be an enforced break from gaming. I'm not entirely sure that that's such a bad thing.

Firefly: The Lost Years

I'm hoping to run two short campaigns next year, of which the first will be the imaginatively named "Firefly: Season Two". As the name implies, this will be a Firefly RPG campaign, and will pretend to be some sort of a continuation of the series, albeit with the oddity that it's a new crew and a new ship. (Hmm... perhaps "Phase Two" would be a better name, mirroring the aborted Star Trek project of the same name...)

Anyway...

One of the things that I have done with my various one-shots to date is that I've maintained a loose continuity with the existing series, advancing the timeline at the same rate as real time. That means that since "Firefly" was broadcast in 2002 and "Serenity" was released in 2005, "Season Two" will take place 13 years after the series and 10 after the film. That, in turn, places it (apparently) 17 years after the end of the Unification War, and in the year 2530.

Which begs the question: what happened in the intervening years?

Well, here are my basic ideas. I should note that I've lifted just a couple of things from the Firefly "expanded universe" - specifically a name and two ideas from the unproduced episodes section on Wikipedia. However, for the most part I'm ignoring all that material, largely by virtue of being completely unfamiliar with it.

For what it's worth, the below is essentially how I would lay things out for the start of a real Season Two, if I were somehow to be charged with bringing back the show. Which sucks if you were a Wash/Book fan, sorry.

The Alliance: Immediately following the Miranda scandal, the Alliance went into a media lockdown, clamping down hard on unauthorised broadcasts of all sorts. The official story was that the Reapers don't exist, and that any hand the Alliance may have had in creating them was therefore a hoax. At the same time, things became increasingly difficult for independent spaceship operators, who found their margins squeezed, their ability to travel restricted, and increased graft and corruption throughout.

This largely fizzled out with the very public capture, confession, and execution of Mal Reynolds, the fanatical Browncoat responsible for the hoax. His death largely put to bed the Miranda scandal, and things more or less returned to the status quo. That said, the years of the clamp-down had further increased tensions on the Rim, forced a lot of formerly-legitimate traders to supplement their incomes illegally, and generally pushed the 'Verse closer to a second civil war.

Last year, two events of particular note took place. The smaller of these was a much-publicised gunfight on the Rim moon Tombstone, where the local sheriff gunned down a trio of local thugs and then herself disappeared without a trace. This event, although of little significance in itself, has grabbed the public imagination in a big way, leading to many communities becoming much more pro-active in dealing with their problems. (And what is seldom said, but often thought: if they're dealing with their problems independently, then what do they need the Alliance for?)

The biggest event, though, was the assassination of the Alliance prime minister, Davis Andrews, on Ariel. With a single bullet, the 'Verse has been thrown into chaos, and it's not yet clear what will happen next.

Mal Reynolds: To be honest, he's looking pretty good for a dead man. Mal has spent the bulk of the last decade in a deep dark hole on Perdition. However, last year he was broken out by agents contracted by Inara, and he's now back on Serenity, quietly avoiding notice.

Zoe Alleyne Washburne: Under normal circumstances, Zoe would not have rested for a moment until Mal was recovered. However, the timing of events was such that she had a higher priority: barely a month after the death of her husband, Zoe discovered she was pregnant with his child. She therefore left Serenity, and so by the time she learned of Mal's capture it was already too late. Zoe therefore retired to the moon of Tombstone where she has lived quietly with her daughter Emma, eventually taking on the role of sheriff. That came to an end a few months ago, when Zoe learned that Mal had escaped Perdition. Immediately thereafter she took action against the local thugs who had been a nuisance to her community, and she and her daughter left to rejoin Serenity. At the present time, they are yet to do so.

River Tam: In the past decade, River has largely overcome her conditioning at the hands of the Alliance, and has become the pilot of Serenity. She remains a reader, and still has significant difficulties wist social mores and with crowds, but she's much more stable than she once was.

Simon Tam: Simon's relationship with Kaylee was depressingly short-lived, largely due to his almost complete inability to keep his foot from his mouth. It was, in short, a mess of mixed messages, unfulfilled longing, and general farce, with Kaylee eventually leaving the ship deeply hurt and Simon remaining to blame himself. Simon remains on Serenity with Mal, Inara, and River, serving as ship's doctor. His contacts in the underworld proved especially useful in tracking down Mal's prison and then in contracting a crew to rescue him.

Inara Serra: With Mal captured, Zoe left, and Jayne too self-centred to help, it fell to Inara to take charge and coordinate the rescue efforts. That has been her main focus, and increasing obsession, for the past several years. She has gradually burned through every contact and every resource, but has eventually rescued Mal. Inara now remains on Serenity, no longer as a Companion, but as a member of the crew and a fugitive along with the rest.

However, Inara has a significant problem: she suffers from a terminal, and contagious, disease that will take her life if not treated. It cannot be cured, but can be controlled with drugs that she once received from her order. No longer being a Registered Companion, however, she now has months to live.

(Note to self: There's a one-shot in there. Christmas Game 2015?)

Jayne Cobb: In the same misadventure when Mal was taken, Jayne and Kaylee were separated from the rest of the crew. Given the lack of profit in the fugitive lifestyle, and given Kaylee's recent heartbreak, they had little incentive to join up with the crew, and so instead Jayne jacked a ship, and went into business for himself. Jayne now travels with a team of four: himself, Kaylee, and a rotating crew of mercs who never quite seem to work out.

Kaylee Frye: As mentioned, Kaylee's relationship with Simon never quite worked out. Heartbroken, she left the ship with Jayne, and has been travelling with him ever since. Kaylee recently learned of Mal's escape, but has not yet decided whether to return to Serenity or stay with Jayne.

Five Ships

The consequence of this is that the setting, initially at least, has five significant ships flying around. These, and their crews, are:

• Serenity: Mal (captain), River (pilot), Simon (doctor), Inara (ex-Companion), plus a new mechanic.
• Violet: Jayne (captain), Kaylee (mechanic), plus a rotating team of two mercs.
• Mutt: Zoe (captain), Emma (passenger).
• Betty: Elgyn (captain), Christie (first officer), Sabra (pilot), Vriess (mechanic), Call (tech), Johner (merc).

and, of course, the PCs' boat, whatever that may be.

5e is Great, But...

I'm very much enjoying running the 5e Starter Set adventure. I like the system a great deal, I like the group we've got together for this one. All in all, it's great. But...

I have no great burning desire to run 5e beyond this adventure, nor do I see that changing in the foreseeable future.

Part of the issue is simple boredom with D&D-style fantasy gaming. This is largely due to the (very successful) "Eberron Code" campaign I ran. As that game took three years to play through, it really burned me out on this style of play for some time. In theory, this should correct itself in time... hopefully giving nice time for WotC to publish the Eberron conversion guide for this new edition.

The other part of it, though, is that I'm not impressed with what I've seen of "Tyranny of Dragons" thus far. The inaugural adventure path (sorry, "story event") for 5e feels a great deal like a tired re-tread of the old Dragonlance story, mixed with something about dragon masks (which, sad to say, just screams "GO GO Power Rangers!" to me), all tied up in a nicely railroaded bow. It really doesn't grab me and make me feel "I must run this!".

And that's potentially a problem for this new edition. It does appear that WotC are intent on focussing more on the adventures for this new edition, which is a good thing, but they're very definitely playing catch-up with Paizo, who now have the art of writing an Adventure Path down to a fine art. And while I'm not hugely likely to ever actually run a Pathfinder AP, neither am I going to waste my time slogging through a WotC (or third-party) path if it is an inferior product.

It's possible, of course, that I'm maligning "Tyranny of Dragons". After all, I've not yet had a chance to read through and digest the adventure book, and it is true that I was wrong about the Starter Set and so may well be wrong here. But, for now, it does look like 5e is an edition for home-brewing adventures. Which is great, but for my lack of time.

On the other hand, I am very much looking forward to running some "Firefly", so things aren't all bad!

My First 5e Houserules

Now that I've actually played the game, I can confirm some of the house rules I'm going to be using for 5e.

• Inspiration points: As anticipated, I largely forgot to make any use of Inspiration last night. So, instead I'll be using Inspiration points. At the start of a session, each player gets 3 (actually, 1 per hour the session is expected to last). These can be spent at any time just as Inspiration is used currently, including giving them to another player.
• Alignment: Yeah, I'm not using it.
• Encumbrance: Yeah, I'm not using it.
• Ability Score generation: Each player can choose for himself which of three methods to use. You can only choose random rolls if you roll in front of the group, and the moment the first die falls you can't change your mind. The three methods follow:
• Random roll: 4d6-drop-lowest, arrange to suit. Reroll if your highest stat is 13 or lower, or if your net modifier is +0 or less (before racial modifiers).
• Standard array: The scores are 16, 15, 13, 12, 10, 8. Arrange to suit.
• Point buy: You have 28 points to spend. The costs are as per 3.5e: 8 -> 0; 9 -> 1; 10 -> 2; 11 -> 3; 12 -> 14; 13 -> 5; 14 -> 6; 15 -> 8; 16 -> 10; 17 -> 13; 18 -> 16.

I won't be using these for the remainder of the "Lost Mine of Phandelver", but intend to start with my next campaign. This gives me a little time to consider them further before confirming them. But I'm 90% sure this is the way I'll be going.

5e in Actual Play: First Impressions

I hosted my first game of 5e yesterday, playing through the first part of the "Lost Mine of Phandelver" adventure from the Starter Set. There were two players, both of whom elected to play custom characters (rather than pre-gens). It was a little disappointing to have three call-offs, but such is life.

The game played out largely as I had expected from my read-through of the Basic Rules and the Starter Set, which is to say that I was very, very impressed. This version of the game is refreshingly light and extremely intuitive (though I'm sure we got some things wrong!).

The adventure was also much as expected: the first part is indeed extremely cliched (an inevitable goblin ambush and then a dungeon crawl), but as I had expected the dungeon design allowed for plenty of choice on the part of the PCs as part of their exploration, and the relative lightness of the rules gave me more headspace for role-play and other interactions.

Sadly, the session ended in a TPK, probably because the group had two PCs and the adventure was designed for five - I did reduce the enemy numbers in several places, but the lack of some character roles still made itself felt.

All in all, I was hugely pleased with the game, and remain highly impressed with the adventure, which I still rate as one of the best I've seen (and probably the best ever from WotC). I'm looking forward to the next part, and also to getting together a proper campaign using the system.

Ultimate Campaign

I got the Pathfinder book "Ultimate Campaign" as a Christmas present, and finally finished reading it yesterday. To be honest, it was a book I had always thought would be interesting enough, but didn't really have any burning desire to own, read, or use. (The problem is that I needed to pick out some Christmas presents for people to give me, and nothing leapt to mind.)

It turns out that this is one of the better RPG books I own, and one that's pretty widely applicable, beyond even Pathfinder - most of what it covers would work just as well with any system, and much of the rest would fit 3e, 4e, or probably 5e without too much hassle. It's certainly not a must-have, even for Pathfinder DMs, but like 3e's "Unearthed Arcana" it's certainly a nice-to-have.

The book opens with a chapter on character traits. This is something Pathfinder introduced early on - at the start of the campaign each PC can choose one or two background traits to customise his character, representing aspects of that character's background. (5e, of course, has exactly the same notion in "backgrounds", and it's also quite similar to 2nd Ed's notion of character kits.) It's a decent system, if a little power-creep-y, though I think it will probably work best if the traits are mostly campaign-specific - that is, when running "Kingmaker" everyone should select a Kingmaker-trait as at least one of their choices.

The second chapter is about Downtime, and gives several options for things PCs can do between adventures. Which is all well and good, but I doubt I would ever even consider using the material here. It's just too much effort for me to bother with.

The fourth, and final, chapter contains systems for kingdom building and mass-combat. These were pioneered in the Kingmaker adventure path, and are expanded and cleaned-up here. The systems are pretty good, provided the campaign is going down that route. (Frankly, the relative lack of mass combat rules in D&D is a bit of an oversight - the old Companion boxed set had some, but otherwise they've been largely omitted. A shame.)

But the real value of the book is in the third chapter, which contains lots of "Campaign Systems" - things like Honour, and Lineage, and Fame, and more detailed Alignment tracking, and Magic Item Creation, and built-up rules for Companions (be they animal companions, familiars, cohorts, or other).

This is all good stuff, representing a selection of side dishes for the DM to consider introducing to his campaign. (And, as I discussed ages ago, those side-dishes are really quite good. You don't need them, but it seems that a long-term campaign would significantly benefit from having something more than just "orc and pie".)

It's that third chapter that represents the real value of the book. Like the 3e "Unearthed Arcana", it's not something that will be used as a cohesive whole, but it's a toolkit of stuff that the DM can use to turn his campaign into something special. It's obviously not exhaustive, but it's good nonetheless.

So, this is a book I think I would recommend for DMs, be they DMs of Pathfinder, D&D, or indeed some other game entirely. It's not the top of that list ("The Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide" from 2nd Edition is still the best book about DMing I've read), but it's definitely in there.

The Lost Mine of Phandelver

It's still a terrible name. But...

I've now read through the adventure, and it's actually very, very good. Exceptionally so, in fact - in the years since WotC bought TSR they have produced only a very few adventures that I would consider to be 'good', and not too many that are even 'okay'; this is actually one of the very best. It blows both the 4e adventures I've read ("King of the Trollhaunt Warrens" and "Tomb of Horrors") out of the water, and it outclasses all of the 3e adventures back at least as far as "Red Hand of Doom". It's even a better adventure than the highly regarded "Sunless Citadel".

In short, although I can only recommend getting the Starter Set if you intend to use this adventure, if you do have use for a starter adventure, this one is worth the price of admission by itself.

So what's so good about it?

The adventure is split into four parts. The first part is very, very basic - there are some goblins, and a small dungeon. But this is good; for new players you want something immediately understandable, and for new players to the edition you want something to take them through the rules mechanics. Still, for people who know 5e already, I recommend just skipping this part; narrate some of the outcomes, advance them to 2nd level, and go on to part two.

Part two details a basic starter town, complete with several NPCs, competing agendas, and a few mini-quests. Which is rather nice. The confrontation at the end of the chapter is a bit obvious, but even that has its moments.

Part three then provides a sandbox-y wilderness area, again with several mini-quests and two mini-dungeons.

And then part four presents a larger dungeon, this one with a fairly clear objective.

So, that's already quite varied for an introductory adventure, and is suprisingly sandbox-y and non-linear. On top of that, the adventure does two other things that are worth noting:

- In each of the mini-dungeons, and also in the full dungeon in part four, there's no one clear way to go - there are several choices throughout. Granted, most of these choices come to "which will you do first, but that's still better than the extremely-linear nature of other adventures I could name.

- There's one encounter in part three that is almost certainly beyond the PCs, and very likely to get them killed... even if they do everything 'right'. This is something WotC has studiously avoided ever since "Forge of Fury" (the second 3.0e adventure published), which caused a massive backlash. It's also something I'm very glad to see - it seems the days of being sure you can just wade through everything are gone.

There's probably more I could say about the adventure, but I'd be heading into spoiler territory. But in terms of writing, of atmosphere, and of roleplaying opportunities, this one is way ahead of the curve.

Good work!

5e: Very, Very Impressed

I managed to find some time to go through the 5e Basic Rules, and then to look through the Starter Set. I haven't managed to read all of the latter, but have read enough to know what's in it, if not the detailed spoilers.

And, as the title above says, I'm very impressed indeed. Indeed, since I expected my response to be "meh", I've have a pleasant surprise.

5e, at least as presented in Basic, is a pretty simple game. It's vastly simpler than Pathfinder, it's simpler than 3.5e, and it's simpler than 4e. In fact, it's probably the simplest version of the game since I started with Red Box Basic, waaaay back in '88. And yet it's also built on a solid, consistent foundation, so that whereas reverting back to 2nd Ed or BECMI would very quickly drive me mental with its idiosyncrasies, 5e just feels... right.

I do also note that I got something completely wrong. I had assumed that making Basic free would basically kill sales of the PHB (because, you know, the core of the game is free, so why pay?). However, on reading through the rules I found that I would really need the 'full' PHB for proper use. Because while the game had enough to get started, it would very quickly get limiting.

And yet I also got the distinct sense that moving from Basic to the PHB would not represent any significant increase in complexity, because all it would mean was the addition of more options - as far as I can see, Basic includes almost, if not all, of the combat, interaction, and exploration rules. And, other than feats and multiclassing, there doesn't seem to be much else for characters - sure, there will be more backgrounds in the PHB, but the concept of a background itself is right there, and fully explained.

Which is all to the good.

(The one concern I do have concerns the longevity of the game. As I've mentioned before, I was surprised when running "The Eberron Code" that for one player the complexity of the magic item creation rules was actually a significant boon; he liked the complexity. For other players, I know the character-building mini-game is a sigificant draw, again probably due to complexity. But as far as I can see, that's largely gone.)

Obviously, it's hard to see exactly how a game is going to be prior to actually playing it - 4e played a whole lot better than it read, for example. Still, I'm extremely positive about this new edition, in a way I wasn't previously. It may just topple 3.5e as my D&D of choice.

The Starter Set

In addition to downloading Basic, I also picked up a copy of the Starter Set for the game, and I thought it would be worthwhile doing some sort of review of that also.

The Starter Set has a RRP of $20, which due to the cruelties of VAT and import duties works out to about £17, which is quite nasty. For that, you get a box the same size as the 4e Red Box, containing a set of dice, two booklets, five pregenerated characters, and a flyer advertising... something (with a blank character sheet on the other side). Oh, and a cardboard insert designed to make the box look fuller than it actually is.

In some more detail: The dice are just dice. As with the 4e set, you get a set of 6 dice (no "d10 percentile" die), and they're all the same colour. This is somewhat disappointing on both counts, but understandable. Besides, I have dice.

The five pregen characters are fine. They're just example characters: two Fighters, a Rogue, a Cleric, and a Wizard. What's quite nice is that they do each have some personalities, quirks, backgrounds, and such detailed - these aren't just the coldly mechanical characters of so many other editions. 5e tries to bake some of that into the game from the outset; I do hope WotC (and I) can make some it stick.

(What's a little unfortunate is that WotC didn't steal the idea from the Pathfinder Beginner Box of doing each character as a two-page spread, with lots of arrows pointing to and explaining the relevant bits of the sheet.)

The flyer is fine, I guess. The character sheet on the reverse side sucks, though - the glossy paper makes it poor for photocopying. But then, that should be irrelevant, as character sheets should be available for easy download. And I'm not going to say anything about the cardboard insert.

The first of the booklets is a 32-page rulebook. This takes a subset of the Basic rules, notably not including Character Creation, and gathers it into a printed form. It's fine, but there's nothing new here.

Thus far, everything in the set is either something you probably already have (dice), or something you don't really want (the flyer, the insert), or something that can be downloaded for free from the Wizards website (the rules, the characters, the character sheet).

The only thing that is exclusive to this set, and also of value, is the second booklet, a 64-page adventure book titled "Lost Mine of Phandelver". (Which is a terrible name, but never mind.)

This has a few pages giving the DM an ultra-rapid overview of the rules he needs for running the adventure. It then has a four-part adventure, a little section on what to do next (mostly comprising of "buy our books!"), and then an appendix giving the magic items and monsters used in the adventure.

There's basically nothing here about DMing in a wider sense - it tells you what you need for this adventure, and nothing more. (Note that part of that adventure is a starter town, so you might reuse that elsewhere.)

That's something of a surprise, or rather it would be, except that WotC did actually announce that as their strategy some time ago - the Starter Set is basically aimed at a new DM with the view to getting him running "My First Adventure". It's not a general-purpose tutorial for the game (like previous Starter Sets, including the Pathfinder Beginner Box and the old Red Box with which I started). Which is fair enough, I guess - they haven't pretended it's something it's not, and I can respect that.

(Note: the adventure is the bit that I haven't read in detail, so I can't comment on whether it's a good adventure or not. It seems to be well-received, but it's a published adventure, and indeed a published adventure from WotC, so I'm not getting my hopes up.)

What that means is that you should buy the 5e Starter Set if and only if you intend to run that adventure. (Or, I suppose, if you need some monster stats and really can't wait.) Everything else is available for free, so don't waste your money.

It's actually not a bad set, though. For people who want to try DMing, a pregen adventure probably is a decent way to get started. And for existing games, a pregen adventure isn't a bad offering (though this is a somewhat pricey one, especially in the UK). I'm actually happy with the purchase, despite warning others off it.

About Other Starter Sets

It seems the Edition Wars remain alive and active, because there's a significant thread on ENWorld caused by someone doing a negative comparitive review between the 5e set and the Pathfinder Beginner Box. Still, it's an interesting question - how does this new set stack up with other starter sets?

Well, firstly, it blows the 4e Red Box out of the water. That's not that hard, right enough - the best thing about the 4e set was, in fact, the box. (A bit more seriously - the 4e set has a not inconsiderable edge in terms of the extra "stuff" in the box; power cards and the like. However, it suffers from wasting far, far too much space on useless text and/or formatting, and it commits the cardinal sin of using rules that were not quite compatible with the 'real' game.)

I don't think the 5e set actually does compare with the Pathfinder set. The thing is that they're both good starter sets, but they're very different. Perhaps more importantly, though, whoever you are and wherever you're coming from, it's near-certain that at least one of them is simply the wrong tool. If you want to learn Pathfinder, why would you even consider the 5e set? (And vice versa.)

Even if you just want to learn a role-playing game and somehow don't care which, there's probably a clear winner: do you learn better with a "how to" guide but few pre-made examples (Pathfinder)? Or do you learn better with a single extended example (5e)?

In terms of 'stuff', the Pathfinder set wins... but this is explained by (and explains) the significant price difference (PF is $35, vs $20 for 5e). Besides, if one is just the wrong tool, what good is 'stuff'? What good is a lower price?

Bottom line: Prior to the Pathfinder Beginner Box coming out, we hadn't had a good starter kit for years (decades). Now we have two, or four if you include Dragon Age and Star Wars. Regardless of which is 'better', I'm claiming that as a win.

Now... I need to find time to actually play.

Okay, On To 5e

I finished my read-through of "Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space" last night, and have decided to move on to reading 5e next. I think I'll start with the Starter Set and then move on to the Basic rules as I think this is WotC's intended order.

Unfortunately, I was musing on this last night, and I'm not sure I'm in a position to give any sort of a review of the new edition: my gut feeling is that any new edition would just get a "Meh". I'm just not really in a D&D mood at the moment - I'm quite keen to play and/or run something, just not D&D (and not Star Wars, for that matter). Still, we'll see.

Games to Read

In a fit of excitement during the 50th anniversary celebrations, I ordered a copy of the "Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space Limited Edition Rulebook", which as the name implies is a special printing of the core rulebook for the Doctor Who RPG from Cubicle Seven. I had previously avoided picking up this game or any of its supplements because it was a game I couldn't ever see myself running.

I've now read through about two-thirds of the book and, sure enough, it's a game I can't ever see myself running. The fundamental problem being that, like Buffy, it's a set-up where you very definitely have a main character and a supporting cast. Which means that you essentially have one 'star' player and a bunch of other people, which is almost always a recipe for disaster.

That said, I don't think it's a purchase I regret (though I would regret it if I picked up all the supplements, something I actually did briefly consider!). Because while it's not a game I could ever see myself running or playing, it does make for an interesting read in its own right. And I suspect that may be the point - I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that Cubicle Seven were entirely aware that a lot of people would pick up their books to read rather than the use.

(Incidentally, my understanding is that Paizo are much the same with the Pathfinder Adventure Path - that far more people buy them to read than actually do to play. Which actually includes myself, although I'd be far more likely to run Pathfinder than Doctor Who! But it is true that despite having subscribed to Pathfinder from the start I've never quite gotten around to playing it, ever.)

Anyway, that's why I've not yet managed to get to the D&D 5e rules - I want to get this, and perhaps "Ultimate Campaign" cleared from my to-read pile before I tackle the new shiny thing.

Converting Serenity to Firefly

I'm now about halfway through the "Firefly RPG" rulebook, having made it through the full episode guide. Which is nice. (I really wish they'd been able to include the film in the Episode Guide, as the book really feels incomplete without. But given the details of licensing, that obviously wasn't possible.)

One of the things I've been looking out for is the mechanism for converting Serenity characters over to Firefly, specifically with a view to updating the crew of Betty. Well, it turns out that the answer to that one is pretty straightforward: don't. The two are just fundamentally different games, with Firefly being by far the superior system, so there's no real conversion to be made.

Fortunately, creating new characters appears to be pretty easy, so it shouldn't be too tough to recreate those characters in the new system. Which, conveniently, gives opportunity for a new series of posts...

Nothing Much to Say

We played Numenera again at the weekend. It was good, though the dungeon design in the adventure was both overly linear and didn't really use traps well. (Neither of which is the fault either of the GM or the system.)

Beyond that, I don't really have anything to say.

Firefly RPG: First Thoughts

Due to the repeated delays in the release of the hardcopy, I finally weakened and picked up the PDF of Firefly. Given that this was only $20, this wasn't any great hardship. That said, I'm really not a fan of reading PDFs - the use of a tablet/eBook reader may make this more enjoyable, but as I don't have either of these things they don't really help. Still, I've managed to read through a chunk of the book, enough to get a partial impression of it.

So, my initial thoughts...

It isn't the "second edition" I had expected. Instead, this game represents a complete revision of the Serenity RPG, to the extent that none of the rules material from that game is useful. That's not a bad thing, though - Serenity was fine for occasional use, but I wouldn't have even tried to run a campaign using it.

There's less to the characters, and more flexibility. This is probably the biggest thing I've noticed, and it's frankly rather welcome. In particular, I found that statting up Serenity PCs frequently left me with both a whole bunch of unspent points and a fairly poor representation of the character I wanted to build.

That said, it's very heavy on opposed skill rolls. By and large, I prefer a "one-roll" system, where there's a fixed target number to beat and the 'active' character must roll to beat it. Instead, this game requires both a roll to "set the stakes" (set DC) and then a roll to "raise the stakes" (success/failure).

I'm really not sure an "Episode Guide" is really a good use of 100+ pages. I've seen the show. And, frankly, if I wanted reminded of what happens I'd watch the show again. Plus, failing even that, there are better episode guides available online. Mostly, this seems a waste of a lot of text, which isn't ideal in a PDF, but it actively bad in a hardcopy where weight is an issue - the book would probably be better 100 pages lighter.

And, while we're at it, I'm not sure that "Episode Guide" is really the best way to teach the rules. I mean, I get that they're trying something new here, and I guess that's admirable - RPG rules are very frequently presented really badly for new players learning the game. But, you know what, I think I'd actually rather just have a rules digest; those 100 or so pages of the rules I actually need, without the rest getting in the way. After all, I mostly just want to play the game, not learn it. (Plus, the piecemeal approach isn't doing too much for my retention of info.)

All that said, I'm reasonably sure that this is going to prove a significant improvement over Serenity, which was fun but lacking somewhat in robustness. I suspect this game will, at the very least, be just as much fun, and probably a better fit for the 'Verse. So I genuinely do look forward to giving it a try-out, and I would be surprised if it doesn't replace Serenity as one of my go-to games.

Of course, the sooner that hardcopy arrives, the better...

Three Campaigns

I've been giving some thought to the notion of a future campaign. I have three ideas, each of which has its attractions:

Firefly: Season Two

This is exactly what the name suggests. Well, okay, not quite: the characters would be the crew of a Firefly-class ship, but they wouldn't be the crew of Serenity. But other than that, it's what the name implies: get a ship, get a crew, keep flying.

Pros: Firefly!
Cons: There are two cons here. The first is that I've no clear idea what such a campaign would involved. That's not a huge issue, as I'd intend it to be pretty sandbox-y anyway, but it would need some thought. The other big con, though, is that the new "Firefly RPG" isn't actually out yet, and so I don't know if it will be any good. And although "Serenity" is good for one-shots, I wouldn't like to use it for a full campaign; I would certainly prefer something more robust.

Star Wars: Mob War (working title)

Set in the immediate aftermath of "Return of the Jedi", this is a campaign centering around the vacuum of power caused by the death of Jabba the Hutt. The PCs would all be minor players in the underworld in the Outer Rim, cut adrift from their former patron. Of course, with Xixor, Darth Vader, and the Emperor all dead as well, there's a whole lot of chaos about the kick off.

(This would be a SWSE campaign run under the SW6 method I mentioned earlier. And with one important rule: no Jedi. In fact, the Force Sensitive feat, and everything associated with it, would be banned from the game.)

Pros: The idea for this one came from a moment of inspiration, which is generally a good thing. Plus, it's a rich vein of material which could be productively mined.
Cons: I've just done Star Wars, and came away rather disillusioned. Perhaps it's better to do something else instead?

Age of Worms/Dark Sun

This is a campaign that I wanted to run way back when "Age of Worms" was first published. There was something about that Adventure Path that seemed particularly suited to use in Dark Sun, and the whole combination seemed to fall out nicely.

Plus, it being an Adventure Path, the required preparation work would be fairly minimal.

Pros: Little preparation required, and good source material.
Cons: It's an Adventure Path. Whereas the other two campaigns are much more sandbox-y in style, this one would very definitely have a pre-written storyline with only so much opportunity to deviate from that. (It would also require some conversion notes, but those are reasonably minimal, I think - between Dragon's"Dark Sun" articles, the "Expanded Psionics Handbook", and "Sandstorm", a lot of it is already done.)

The Itch

So, I was rather glad when my campaign wrapped up, especially given that it ended very well indeed. At that point I felt really burnt out, and fully intent on not running anything for a good long time.

Two weeks later, and I'm starting to feel "the itch" - that feeling that I'd really like to be running something. Which is crazy, because the issues that led to the early campaign wrap are still there and unchanged, I still don't have any great ideas for something to run, and I'm still over-tired. But still, I've always had things going on, and it's really weird not having at least one iron in the fire.

(But... competition season is about to start, and the school holidays are not far away, so I have other priorities. It's probably actually a very good thing that I have one less thing to worry about for now. Though perhaps a little prep work wouldn't hurt...)

Possibly Stupid Thought: SW6

It turns out that SWSE isn't actually a great fit for Star Wars. It's not the game, as such, that's the problem, but rather the level-based nature of it - it turns out that characters start way too weak, end up way too powerful, and very quickly flip between the two. There's actually a fairly short period when they resemble the characters seen in the films terribly well.

So, how about this:

1. Characters are created a 6th level, per the normal rules.
2. Each session, characters gain either one additional feat or one additional talent, alternating after each session. These can be selected from any feats or talents for which the character qualifies, as normal.
3. Instead of selecting a new talent (but not feat), a character can instead choose to "buy in" to a Prestige Class. Before doing so, he must meet all the feat/talent/species/etc restrictions for joining the class (but not level, BAB, or similar). The character adds the talent trees available to the Prestige Class to those he has access to from his 'regular' classes. In effect, he's trading immediate power for a greater breadth of power later on.

And that's it.

Basically, what this means is that characters start of in the "sweet spot" for the game, and they then remain there, permanently. They're not too fragile, but neither are they so powerful that they can laugh off blaster bolts (as happens later). And yet they do gain in power, albeit slowly (and without escalating the numbers).

As far as I can see, this works pretty well for all characters in the films, except for Luke and Anakin, who are the only two who gain large amounts of power as the films go on. But since those two basically break the paradigm anyway, causing all sorts of problems from an RPG perspective, I'm not sure that's a huge problem.

(Incidentally, the above is somewhat based on the old "E6" materials for D&D 3.5e, hence the name.)

Roll the End Credits

My "Star Wars: Imperial Fist" campaign came to an end last night, somewhat earlier than expected. Fortunately, it ended on a really good last session, making for a rather satisfactory resolution to what had been, ultimately, a somewhat disappointing campaign.

So, briefly, some wash-up:

What Went Well

• Despite everything, I do think the campaign had a fairly strong concept. I don't think I'd run this campaign again, as I'm inclined to think it probably works better as a one-shot, but it wasn't bad.
• The use of the 4e-style stat-blocks was a success, and made for much easier preparation work. That said, I think they're probably still a bit over-powered - SWSE characters just aren't as powerful as 4e ones. Likewise, the switch to a character-based "healing value" was a good one.
• Some of the action scenes were pretty good.
• The character of Gooti, in particular, was a highlight. The notion of a made Jawa with a jetpack and an explosives fetish was totally bizarre, but in a good way.
• The last session made for a very satisfying end for the campaign.

What Didn't Go Well

• The big issue was the stability of the player group - we started with a group that was about the right size, but with one player who just couldn't make the commitment, then we added another player, and then lost one, ending with three regular players but a different set than we started. That hurt.
• The campaign had some significant teething problems when the PCs were totally mismatched to the first adventure. Ah well.
• Disney decided to gut the Expanded Universe canon. This shouldn't really have impacted on the campaign, but it did.
• The combination of the above really gutted my enthusiasm for the campaign.

Lessons Learned

• Don't over-plan the campaign! I was probably locked into too specific an idea of how it would be before the start, meaning that when the PCs didn't quite mesh with my pre-conceived ideas I got quite disheartened. More flexibility on my part would probably help this - that, or being clear up-front that it's an "adventure path" campaign rather than a "sandbox" would do it.
• Watch out for the group being spread too thin. At present we have something like 4 campaigns going at once. This is great for the group as a whole, but it means we don't really have bandwidth for another campaign starting up. Better to wait for one to end, thus freeing up players, or to wait for new members to join the group. Or, perhaps more suitable, is to put out feelers, and if not enough people attend the start session to give the thing a miss for the time being.

What Would Have Happened

For all that I talk about the campaign being over-planned, the outlined plot was always somewhat nebulous. The original theme for the campaign was going to be "divided loyalties", with both PCs and NPCs shown to have conflicting loyalties - to the Empire, to their team-mates, to their crime boss, and so on. At one point, I intended to have an inquisition on the Restorer, probably just after it was revealed that one PC was himself Force-sensitive.

Originally, the central mystery of the campaign was going to reveal that the Emperor was himself a Force-user, explaining some of the odder events in the background, but also leading to the Imperial Fist team suddenly having to go underground as their superiors decided to take them out for knowing too much.

At the same time, I was working towards revealing a genuine Jedi plot to assassinate Daala and Tarkin by bombing the Restorer, with the PCs thus scrambling to stop them. I wasn't entirely sure whether this should happen before or after they had to go underground; the latter being more interesting, but harder to pull off.

After the campaign was refocused, all of that disappeared. Instead, the intent was going to be that the party had to spend some considerably time tracking the Dracul through various means, such as through the Tibanna gas, tracking Delurin's former aide, investigating the disappearance of IF2, and so on. In this case, it would be up to the players to plan their approach in a fairly "sandbox-y" way. Obviously, all of that also went by the wayside when Malik's player dropped out and I decided to bring it to the close.

One last thing: early on I also had the notion that I would drop in a mysterious prophecy to the PCs... and would never explain it. My intent was to then run another Star Wars campaign in a few years, set after the Legacy era (about 200 years post-RotJ), probably called "Twilight of the Force", and reveal the meaning of the prophecy then. Obviously, that never happened. "Twilight of the Force" might yet happen at some point, but I don't currently have any plans in that direction, especially given what's currently happening with the canon.

Burnt Out

So, I've been on holiday for the past two weeks, during which I've given barely a thought to gaming. I've not even updated the character sheets or done any prep work for the game tomorrow, which probably wasn't the best idea ever.

I've been feeling something of a malaise as regards gaming for some time now, and most particularly for the past month. Basically, I'm burnt out. I've felt this way before, and it inevitably passes, but for the moment it just sucks. As far as I can tell, there are two main reasons:

• The current campaign just isn't what I'd hoped for. Such is life - sometimes, things just don't work. But when a player dropped out recently, that was a massive hammer-blow to my remaining enthusiasm for the campaign.
• The edition-change sucks. During the changeover to 4e I felt something similar, in that D&D has just left me behind, but this time it's somehow worse - not only does 5e leave me cold (and increasingly so as time goes on), but the lack of solid information is a constant irritant. It really shouldn't get to me, but it does.

One thing I have been thinking about over the past two weeks is a general de-stressing and de-cluttering of my life. I'll probably post something on that on the other blog in a while, but as far as RPGs are concerned, what that means is:

Campaigns

"Star Wars: Imperial Fist" is now rapidly heading to its end. There are three sessions now scheduled to come to that end, but I'm actually wondering if I can bring that forward - could we cover everything in one or, more likely, two sessions?

After that, I have no plans to start up a new campaign. "Black Crusade: Hand of Corruption" is off the list (as with everything else "Black Crusade" related), and it hasn't been replaced by anything. At some point, I may have a great idea for a campaign, and then it will be time to start building again, but for now, it's time to take a long break.

One-shots

I've also dropped my commitment to one of the two scheduled one-shot games for this year (September, to be precise). The annual "Christmas Game" remains scheduled, and I do still plan to run it, but the other is under reconsideration.

My intention here is to run one-shots (or three-shot weeknight games) as inspiration strikes for the next little while. However, my intention is also to avoid any long-term commitments - if I have an idea then I'll set it up, schedule the sessions, and run the game pretty much right away. This structure of planning one-shots a year in advance is unhelpful.

Playing

This is unchanged. I hope to play in the occasional game on the occasional weekend, with a specific hope to complete the current "Numenera" arc, and perhaps play some more "Gumshoe" is that becomes available. But I won't be joining a regular campaign, for the same reason I won't be starting one of my own - for now, I'm looking to de-clutter.

Nutshell, and this blog

Nutshell is basically dead. Every so often I tinker with a few bits and pieces, but the whole is probably never coming together. I bet that's a shock. (It's also not really a change so much as the reality of the thing.)

I'll keep this blog going on a fairly irregular basis - if I have something to post then I'll post it. Most likely, though, the next flurry of activity will come when I get an idea for a one-shot that I want to prep. That, or the updates of the crew of Betty to the "Firefly RPG" when that releases.