Unhand me, Knave!

Playing D&D by S J Tucker

2012-01-21T23:37:00.000-08:00

"Playing D&D" -- SJ Tucker

From The Victorian Adventure Enthusiast

2012-01-21T02:45:00.000-08:00

Dear Readers,

In a recent excellent interview in The Victorian Adventure Enthusiast with Phil Masters, a GURPs guru, there was a rather interesting discussion regarding an alternate dieselpunk world called Brittanica-6 for GURPS Infinite Worlds.

This then is that discussion:

VAE: In more a steampunk vein you've written GURPS Infinite Worlds: Britannica-6. Despite its late 19th century setting Britannica-6 is *not* Victorian setting. What makes this different than other steampunk and Victorian settings out there?
PM: The origin of that was a typically brilliant one-paragraph note by Ken Hite in his GURPS Infinite Worlds, which I initially took as inspiration for a convention demo game, and then expanded into this publication. It's an alternate history in which Queen Victoria was never born, because a rather peculiar incident in early 19th century history turned out differently (and if you look, Victoria was only born as the result of some quite strange political stuff!), and a very different British Empire has got into internal squabbling involving some weird-tech super-weapons and gadgets.
So I took the absence of Victoria as the key. It's not a Victorian era! And the easy replacement for Victorian society is a continuation of Georgian/Regency society, which has the right flavour of dynastic squabbling, too. (I think that this is what Ken had in mind from the first, actually.)
Then, I decided that the technology, having had 70 years to run away with itself, could have got beyond steam. Dearly as I love steampunk, it's become a bit of a cliche; I wanted something a bit different. And Ken's paragraph had mentioned things like "the Electrical Terror".
Right. Electricity! Let's go for a post-Victorian feel here. After all, diesel power and electrical gadgets can give these crazy science- loving aristocrats and royals a bit more credibility to their mad science. Steam is a bit too cumbersome for a society with the dial
jammed on fast-forward, let's face it.
So it's diesel-electric rather than steam, and Regency rather than Victorian.
VAE: The fashions of Brittannica-6 are strikingly different than the buttoned up conservatism of the Victorian era. How do you sum them up for people?
PM: The tag line I sometimes use is "Georgette Heyer with glide bombs". A player in one of my demo games pointed to a bit of unconscious '70s/'80s cop show influence, too - fast cars and garish nylon clothing.
It's all a bit decadent, in a very Regency way. (Remember, the Victorian era was in many ways a reaction against the Regency. There's not been any reaction on Britannica-6.) Technology is running away, and while a lot of people seem to be having fun, if you want a dark undertone, there's a sense that the whole thing may run into a brick wall at some point

I thought that this seems wonderfully inspiring for anyone looking for an alternative to Victorian Steampunk adventure - a Regency Dieselpunk expedition anyone?

Your Humble Servant,
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.

[Serenity/Firefly RPG] More Musings about the Reavers, or, Reavers are a Virus

2012-01-21T02:33:00.000-08:00

Gentle Readers,

I have posted before on matters concerning the Reavers for a Serenity/Firefly Game before on this Journal and in comments at The Black Campbell. However I have had further thoughts regarding them based upon a brief skimming (in a secondhand bookstore) of one of the most unsavoury and vile comicbooks of recent times called Crossed.

Crossed has a group of survivors lurking in a world of roaming packs of vile murderers/rapists/cannibals created by a Plague which causes a cross-shaped lesion on their faces as they act out their worst desires with these sickening grins. I won't go into any detail about the disturbing scenes contained within - but suffice it to say - I was unable to look at another comicbook for another two weeks afterwards.

It did however give me an idea for an alternative scenario for the origin of the Reavers. Suppose as a result of terraforming a moon on the outskirts of the 'Verse a mutated virus was produced which caused the infected to behave in what could loosely be described as an ultra-violent manner. The Group that I had postulated was helping the Reavers survive the effects of radiation sickness (in my earlier post), may have originally been trying to cure the disease. This Group's efforts may then have changed to attempts to mitigate and control the Disease (in addition to studying it at a safe distance). Those infected who took the Medicine and continue to take it survive as Reavers, those who don't have died out as they lost control.

However the idea of the Reaver as a Virus may explain how they can continue to exist - those strong and susceptible to the disease may join the Reaver ranks, those weak and/or immune serve the Reavers in other ways. It may also explain in "Bushwacked" why Mal was eager to advises the Alliance Captain to destroy the derelict vessel - in order to avoid possible biological contamination or booby traps.

Very well that is just a few musings on the subject, that might interest some people.

Your Humble Servant,
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.

Welcome to a New Follower

2012-01-21T01:53:00.000-08:00

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to Welcome a new Subscriber to this Aetheric Journal, The Venerable Bead. I would like to warn you that this Journal isn't devoted to political matters, rather matters of Story Telling Entertainments, otherwise called Tabletop Roleplaying Games. I hope that this will be of interest to you.

Your Humble Servant,
The Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.

Happy New Year

2012-01-07T02:42:00.000-08:00

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Tempus fugit (time flees) as they say in the Classics. Another year has passed with few signs of life on this Aetheric Journal. I would review the year - but that would be a waste of time. Unfortunately my rare spare time has been spent on Tumblrlogs such as THIS making facile and superficial entries rather than striving to do anything more in depth.

I have resolved this year to make more of an effort in my more substantial Aetheric Journals and to symbolise this new start - I have re-titled this Journal. From now on it shall be known as "Unhand me Knave! I am a personal friend of the Khedive" (inspired by faux Victorian phrasebook terms at Dogwash).

And so let us begin the New Year, with Resolutions of Greater Effort.

Your Humble Servant,
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.

Musical Interlude: Roll a d6

2011-07-02T00:08:00.000-07:00

Roll a D6 by SirConnorAnderson (HT Strange Stones)

Congratuations to Scott Rhymer and His Good Wife

2011-04-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Scott Rhymer (of The Black Campbell) and his Good Wife on the birth of their Daughter, Sophia Campbell Rhymer on 16th of April, at 3.32 a.m.

(Image courtesy of FunnyImage.net)

Musical Interlude : "This fantasy world" by The Doubleclicks

2011-03-12T03:56:00.000-08:00

“This Fantasy World” — the Doubleclicks (video by Brad Jonas)

(HT Topless Robot)

Musical Interlude: It's the End of the 'Verse As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)

2011-03-12T03:50:00.000-08:00

Now for a little inspiration for those with Serenity/Firefly campaigns.

Eben Brooks -- It's the End of the 'Verse As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)

Now for a word from our Sponsor...

2011-01-20T03:18:00.000-08:00

(Hat tip to Five Copper Pieces!?)

Belated Merry Christmas & an Explanation

2010-12-26T02:06:00.000-08:00

Dear Readers--

I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

You may have noticed some posts have vanished from this Aetheric Journal. I was getting malware warnings for my Journal so I ended up deleting the whole journal. I built a new one and replaced some of the text posts and did not replace any of the pictorial posts just in case.

This is also the reason why the numbers of Followers is much lower than in reality. When I replaced the template it got rid of the names and details of the Followers.

In any case I am making a New Year's Resolution to post more in this Journal and so replace the lost posts.

I hope all the Readers of this Humble Journal had a Pleasant Christmas and that you have an even better New Year.

Your Humble Servant,
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.

Malware Warning for Troll and Flame

2010-12-25T05:32:00.000-08:00

To the Owner of Troll and Flame,

I keep getting malware alerts for Troll and Flame and I have had to remove your site from my Reading List to avoid malware alerts on my own Aetheric Journal. You may wish to get some Babbage Engine boffin to look at your Journal and see what is what.

Yours sincerely,
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.

Reading List for Victorian Roleplaying Games

2010-12-25T05:22:00.000-08:00

Gentle Readers--

Those who are interested in learning more about the Victorian Period whether it be simply for the joy of knowledge or to fertilize their imagination when running Victorian Storytelling Entertainments (I am looking at you Victorian Adventure Enthusiast) may like to go to a recent post at The Black Campbell which gives some tried and true historical reading suggestions for the Victorian Period.

Your Humble Servant,
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.

An ingenious use for Castle Falkenstein Rules

2010-12-05T02:14:00.000-08:00

As part of a review of Castle Falkenstein, Scott Rhymer at The Black Campbell made the following wonderful and ingenious suggestion:

While I highly recommend the game, one of the first things I did was ditch the magic and monsters and port the setting of Space: 1889 over. The system has performed well for me for 13 years, even without the fantasy elements.

This idea frankly blew my mind when I first saw it. What a delightful idea. It got rid of what I considered to be the annoying features of the Falkenstein setting (Victorian fairies, dragons, dwarves, etc.) and replaced it with, in my opinion, a better setting ; and it got rid of the annoyingly cumbersome system for Space 1889 while replacing that with a simpler more cinematic one. I can just see the players writing up their adventures on Mars and Venus in their little personal Journals.

[Castle Falkenstein RPG House Rules] : From Scott Rhymer

2010-12-05T02:08:00.000-08:00

I am going to quote the whole post because it's all valuable, I want the complete information available on my Journal and I don't want to run the risk of only quoting a part and then having a dead link some time in the future.

So from The Black Campbell:

Here are a few of the house rules we’ve developed over the years to make Castle Falkenstein flow faster and better.

1. Each player and the GM get a deck of cards for play. Discards get shuffled back into your own deck. This seems to speed play by not depleting the a solitary player deck.

2. New combat rules…

Initiative options for gunfighting — an opposed Perception and/or Gunslinger test. (Skill is in the Six-Guns & Sorcery book.) For fisticuffs or fencing, draw a card from your fortune hand and add to the applicable skill.

One we use for speed and a bit of random chance: for brawling and fisticuffs, as well as for gunfights in the same is all characters and the GM cut their fortune deck and add the result to their fisticuffs, fencing, gunslinger, or firearms skills — whichever is appropriate. It’s a fast way of knowing who goes first and is more random than drawing a card for the action.

Once initiative is determined, firearms tests are conducted as per the usual rules — marksmanship or gunslinger test+card drawn from the fortune deck v. athletics draw of their target.

Fencing/fisticuffs is where we changed things up a bit. This is the only time the fortune deck changes from the standard 4-card hand. Characters with skills of good or great gain another card (5), excellent or extraordinary two more cards (6.) this represents the greater number of opportunities a more skilled fighter can see/exploit. This is the number of cards they will have for the whole of the action round. It is replenished at the end of the round.

Those with initiative go first, making their attack. Attacks do not have to be skill suit specific (i.e. clubs for fisticuffs.) Instead, the attacker chooses a “line of attack” based on the cards in his deck. He can choose upper (torso and head represented by diamonds), middle (arms and abdomen/groin represented by hearts), or lower (legs/groin represented by clubs.) Spades are an all purpose card used to defend on any line of the attack and represent the ability to dodge and weave out of the way of an attack.

The face value of the card (if in the correct line of attack) is added to the appropriate combat skill. If the player chose upper, but had not diamonds, they can play multiple cards of other suits — each adding one. [Yes, players have had to do this...] The defender must play a card of the proper suit (an upper attack requires an upper defense), but if they don’t have the right suit, they can play the spade for full face value, or any number of the other suits in their hand at a face value of one.

Example: Sir George is fighting the nefarious Han Ping with swords. George has the initiative and goes for an upper attack. He pullss a 10 of diamonds, giving him an 18 with his great fencing, and holds it, waiting to show. He calls the line of attack, and Ping’s player draws a card from his deck. He has no diamonds, but does have a jack of spades. With his good fencing, it’s a 17 — doing Ping an injury. (You can use the original rules for weapon damage and injury or the Comme il Faut with this…I prefer the CiF, myself.)

Had Ping gotten an 18 (a queen of spades or hearts), he would have stopped the blow. If he stopped the blow, or was still able to act, he would pick a line of attack, Sir George would defend.

Changing initiative: Once a player/NPC has initiative, they keep it unless on of three things happen: 1) their attack on someone fails by three or more points (UNLESS they pull a spade of equal or higher value to the attack card!), 2) they are struck by their opponent after having made an attack, 3) the opponent disengages from the fight. Once the opponent has initiative, they keep it until one of these factors is met.

Example: George clipped Ping, but the injury was not serious. Ping strikes back with a quick slash lower (clubs) with a 4 of clubs: 10 total. George has nothing in clubs or spades! He plays two hearts for a total of 10. He stops the blow and retains initiative. The fortune hands are replenished. (5 for George, 4 for Ping since Ping has one hit to him [ordinarily, with a GOOD fencing he'd have 5.]) George has crap cards, however: he plays a 4 of hearts for a total of 12. Ping draws a 6 of spades: he equals George to stop damage and beats the face value of the attack with a spade…he takes initiative for the round unless George can beat his next attack by 3 (or has equal or higher spade to the attack card.)

EFFECTS OF INJURY: each injury taken lowers the fortune hand of the character 1 card. This is the only time the fortune deck can drop below 4 cards and reflects the effect of injury on the person and the limitations they have to exploit openings in combat.

When you no longer have cards, you can no longer fight and drop unconscious for the rest of the scene.

STOP HITS: Sometimes, you can make a desperate attempt to stop an incoming attack. You don’t have the right suit or a spade to defend. If the player has a 2 or 3 in their hand, they may “stop hit” — attacking to stop an incoming attack. The unresolved attack card is placed face down on the table and the attack defends against the stop hit as normal. If successful, their original attack follows through. If their defense fails, the original attack does not happen and the card is discarded.

If a stop hit succeeds by three or more, the defender gains initiative.

Example: Ping goes for a head strike and lays face-down his queen of diamonds. George’s player, seeing the delight in the other player’s eyes, knows his 3 of diamonds isn’t going to cut it. He calls “stop hit! Upper!” Ping’s player has no other diamonds and his queen is committed. He has no spades and plays all three of his remaining cards for a total of 9. George hits with an 11. He injures Ping again, and stops the attack, but does not gain initiative…

JOKERS: Jokers play like a 15 on an attack or defense, but also give a special bonus as an attack or defense. In an attack, the player may chose to disarm their opponent, grapple, or knock them down or back. A joker played in defense allows the defender to disengage from the fight, and either run for it or find a better position and retest for initiative, if they want to reengage. I have allowed them to disarm their attacker if they succeeded by a wide margin (3+.)

If both players draw jokers, the defender gets to disengage without harm, but the attack may disarm them. Initiative is redrawn.

GRAPPLING: conducted as Physique challenges using the ability suit (clubs.)

I’VE ONLY GOT SPADES….AND INITIATIVE: You lose your attack. you just couldn’t see an opening. You do not lose initiative next round unless the other player succeeds in striking you.

MULITPLE OPPONENTS: There are only so many openings that can be exploited by multiple opponents. For each extra attacker, the GM may add a card to the attack fortune hand (which is a base of 4 cards.) Example: 4 guys jump Sir George on the Wapping Docks. He pulls his swordcane and gets his attack fortune hand of 5 for his great fencing. The attackers have 7 cards in their hand (4+3 extra attackers.) The opponents only get one attack/round, but they’re more likely to hit.

While a bit fast and loose, these combat rules make combat fast! and aid in giving a sense of what your character is doing. Calling lines of attack gives ideas for what they are trying to do and gets away from the “18! I hit!” mediocrity of a fight sequence.

While I think that this is very much an improvement over the Official Rules - my recent discovery of Christopher Kubasik's Castle Falkenstein Rules (in the preceding post) makes me want to try that out in a more Story-orientated game and see how it goes.

[Castle Falkenstein House Rules] : Alternate Combat Rules from Christopher Kubasik

2010-12-05T02:04:00.000-08:00

As part of a series on his blog Play Sorceror about running Story Entertainments, Christopher Kubasik mentioned alternate rules for combat and other action resolutions using the rules from Castle Falkenstein. As Castle Falkenstein is a game that I find rather interesting I thought I would reproduce the alternate rules here:

I started this series by talking about the rules of roleplaying games. But what about rules for story entertainments? Well, I’m squeezing them in at the very end because they just don’t matter much in a story entertainment.

The key thing rules do is resolve actions. Primarily, they allow the slow and complicated resolution of physical conflict. They also create an element of uncertainty when resolving actions and combat. However, as noted three issues ago, they’re also random. Stories should be uncertain, but not random. So what to do?

I suggest we turn to Mike Pondsmith’s wonderful Castle Falkenstein. It’s wonderful for many reasons but for now, we have only time to talk about the resolution system.

In Castle Falkenstein all Attributes are rated from Poor to Extraordinary, with numerical values of 2 through 12. Everyone has an Average rating in all Abilities, unless otherwise noted during character creation. To resolve any action, you use the character’s Abilities and a deck of regular playing cards. At any time, a player holds four cards in his hands. Cards are “played” by adding their total to the value of a character’s Attributes.

Let’s say you wanted your character to jump over a chasm. You’d take the value of his Athletics (let’s say it’s Average, which has a value of 4) and add a couple of cards to it. The higher the better.

The game’s Host (the ubiquitous “gamemaster,” once more in another guise) also plays cards. He sets a base Difficulty, which corresponds to your character’s Attribute, and plays cards as well. It’s a race to see who has the highest total.

You, of course, could play all your best cards. But then they’re discarded. What if you draw replacement cards and they’re not that good as the ones you just used. You might want to hold some of the good cards in reserve in case you run into more trouble on the other side of the chasm.

So, moment to moment you determine how important something is to you. If Dalan, from above, had to cross the chasm to rescue his lady love, he’d blow all his cards to get over there. She is his Goal! Who cares what his probability would be crossing the chasm. What matters is How Much Does He Want to Get Across?

And you still might not make it. That’s the beauty of the system. Like any good fictional character, you can pour your heart out to do something, and still fail. You’re not rolling a random number off a piece of plastic. You’ve invested something into the outcome because you chose how much it matters. Because it’s of value you might have used valuable cards you might need later. You’ve decided it matters that much.

What’s especially intriguing about Castle Falkenstein is its easy to use graded success system. You can get a Fumble, a Failure, a Success, a Full Success, and a High Success. Fifth Business determines the results of each card play using this system. In the example above, if you get a Full Success you’ve cleared the chasm. A Success means you’ve made it across, but are holding on by your fingernails to the edge of the chasm. A High Success might mean you jump across and are not surprised by the werewolf ready to rip your lungs out; a Failure means you fail to clear the chasm and are trapped on a ledge some three hundred feet down. And a Fumble? Well, that one’s easy.

But what about combat? Jumping over a chasm is one thing. But what about the thrusts and parries of a sword fight? What about driving an opponent to the edge of the castle walls and nearly knocking him over? What about armor, and damage, and caliber….

Well, I have this idea….

Except for a few roleplaying games (Torg and MegaTraveller come to mind) most roleplaying games assume that the result of all actions with skills (but not combat skills) can be accomplished with a singe die roll. That is, you either jump the chasm or you don’t. You either pick the lock or you don’t. Roll some dice; find out what happens.

When it comes to fighting, however, we break the combat down into all these tiny little pieces. Why? As explained in the first article in this series, because of the heritage of wargames.

But what if we treated anything involved in combat the way we treated all other skills. Let’s say your character was fighting Baron Von Zephran on the outer battlements of Castle Falkenstein and you wanted to push him back and drive him over the castle walls. Instead of using typical combat rules that breaks everything down into smaller bits, with details of hit points and modifiers for certain actions, lets say you handled the action like picking a lock. You say, “I want to drive the Baron toward the edge of the wall and push him off.”

Fifth Business says, “‘Play card with your Fencing skill.” (I’m assuming you’re using the Castle Falkenstein rule for this. I would be. However, I should note that for whatever bizarre reason, Pondsmith put hit points at the tail of end of his combat system. I say bizarre, because it’s a game that dumped so much nonsense and then stuck it back in at the last moment. What I’m proposing here uses a combat resolutions system stuck onto his rules, but it’s not the combat resolution system of Castle Falkenstein.)

You play your cards, Fifth Business plays his cards. Did you get a Full Success? You drove him over the edge. A Success? You drove him half way there, and for color Fifth Business describe how you slashed him across the cheek (No hit points or such, though.) A Failure? The two of you are still locked in combat.

Want to shoot somebody through the heart? Play your cards. Want to shoot out the light? Want to take out three guards using martial arts without making a sound? Play your cards. Using the Castle Falkenstein system, you might do it all in one attempt, you might get part of the job done, you might fail completely.

(A note: by using the system this way, it might seem advantageous to ask for the most outlandish results possible and then suffer the consequences of a Success. In other words, ask to blow his brains out with a pea shooter, and be content if you knock him out. But the way the system works, the higher the difficulty, the great greater the chance for a fumble. If you ask for too much, you’ll probably get nothing. You’re better off dividing your combat into discrete, cinematic-type actions.)

How does Fifth Business determine the value of the base difficulty? He guesses, just like he does when assigning difficulties for jumping a chasm or picking a lock in Shadowrun or Vampire and other games. Most of us know as little about gun fights as we do about jumping chasms or picking locks, but we’re willing to make arbitrary difficulty values for those actions. I assume we can do the same for combat.

The trick is, as with all other skills used in roleplaying games, common sense. If you tried to pick a lock with a banana, your Storyteller/Host/Referee/Whatever would look at you and say no. If you wanted to blow up the Empire State Building with a .22 rifle, he’d do the same. If you used an A-Bomb, nobody would bother rolling dice. I offer that most of the adjudicating required for combat between these two extremes can be done off the top of our heads. Why we need all these rules to adjudicate combat I’ll never know, because we just don’t need them.

How does someone die in this system?

It depends on the circumstances. It depends on how you define our action.

Fifth Business says, “He draws his sword. What are you going to do?”

Having lost your sword when imprisoned in the dungeon, you say, ‘-Kick the chair up with my foot and try to knock him out.” If you’d said you wanted to kill him with that chair, well that would have been really hard. Fifth Business might not let you even try. But you might knock him out.

Or, say you’re armed. You reply, “‘I draw my sword, and duel with him, attempting to find an opening and kill him.”

Cards are played. You get a Success. You stab him. Blood his drawn. But he’s still up. Why? Your action is to kill him so you need a Full Success to kill him. If you wanted to disarm him the cards you had played might have been enough, because that’s easier to do than to kill someone. So, you could try to disarm him, and then kill him, breaking the combat down into easier bits. This also breaks a fight down into specific, cinematic-style actions, making it more interesting than “I swing, you swing.”

Do you mark down the damage done for a Success? Hit points? Who cares? YOU’RE TRYING TO KILL HIM! I don’t know how many of you have noticed this, but most fights in roleplaying games end in one side just dead, dead, dead. With this system you don’t pretend all the half measures really matter. ‘Cause they don’t. All that matters his who kills who first. Or, really, who accomplishes his stated action first.

You and Fifth Business play your cards back and forth. Your companions are fighting more guards on the other side of the room. It doesn’t matter. No rounds. No hit points. Is everybody doing something interesting? Fine, let’s move on.

Fifth Business explains the swordsman has gotten some success on your character. While your character isn’t dead yet, he’s bleeding. The enemy your character is fighting is good with that sword! You need a new plan because he might kill you first. Not wear you done. Kill you. just like that. It’s actually tense… unlike most roleplaying game fights.

A new plan comes to mind. You say, “Are there chandeliers in this room?” As a fellow storyteller, you’re allowed to help build the circumstances, setting, and details of the story.

“Oh, yes,” Fifth Business answers with a smile, because he knows you’re about to try something entertaining.

“I lure him under one of them, then slash the cord tied to the wall that holds it UP, attempting to knock him unconscious.

(Wait a minute? How much damage does a chandelier do? It doesn’t matter! It’s a story entertainment! You want to knock the guy unconscious with a falling chandelier? Fine. Fifth Business sets the difficulty, not the difficulty of the sword stroke against the rope, nor difficulty of the chandelier knocking the guy out, but everything, combined into one tense play of the cards …. )

Cards are played. Since slashing the cord is easier than driving your blade through his heart, you slash the cord, Shhhhwoooomp! A Full Success! The chandelier falls on top of the swordsman! He’s out! You run off to help your friends.

Story entertainments are a loose system that can only be adjudicated within the moment. There are no hard and fast rules… only the substance of what is entertaining and interesting. What matters most is the interaction of Character Goals and Obstacles, whether the obstacles are swords, ignorance, or deep hatred by another character. If you really want to create something closer a story you can. But you’ll be better off dumping most of what we consider necessary for roleplaying games; things we assume we need but just don’t. Approach the games not as a simulation, but as an improvised story.

[I know this is a sizeable part of the post but I want to keep all necessary information on one blog not link to something which may disappear in the future, leaving me without the information.]

[Serenity RPG] : The Matter of the Reavers

2010-12-05T01:55:00.000-08:00

This speculation was inspired by a post on the Reavers on The Black Campbell journal. The Reavers have always been a subject of debate among the watchers of Firefly and Serenity - How does their social structure work? How do they reproduce? Is Pax the only thing that causes Reavers? And so on.

However the major problem with the Reavers as portrayed in Firefly/Serenity universe merrily jaunting around the System canibalising and raping in Spaceships without radiation shielding rarely seemed to be discussed.

Namely the Reavers shouldn't exist - they should all be dead. They should be desicated irradiated mummies floating through the Black in lethally 'hot' corpse ships.

People can die several weeks after prolonged exposure to a teaspoon of radioactive material scavenged from radiological medical equipment. So the idea that you can spend years on ships with nuclear reactors without any radiation protection is ludicrous. You are not going to walk away with a few radiation burns as has been depicted (or sterility as I have seen proposed). You are going to be dead - and dead in days and weeks, not months and years. Being crazy is no protection from radiation sickness.

So the question has to be how do the Reavers survive? In my proposed 'Verse - I say that they have help. Someone is keeping them going by providing a vital medicine - containing anti-rads, steorids, anti-bacterials, aggressive mood enhancers etc.

Suppose there was an organization obsessed with human evolution and potential, an organization that say conducted experiments on human anomalies such as "Readers". This group would be very interested in a group of people on the outskirts of the System that had gone all Texas Chainsaw Massacre. [As a note - the events of Serenity didn't occur in my 'Verse. Reavers weren't caused by Pax - they were caused by some form of group hysteria as they went bat-sh*t crazy].

Suppose this Organization made a bargain with the first Reavers that in exchange for the bodies of dead Reavers, Reavers were given an experimental medicine that would keep them going. There may be a moon in Reaver space where the bodies are dumped and the Medication picked up. I assume that direct contact between the two groups is avoided. This group may even have helped "recruit" Reavers by experimenting on condemned criminals to see whether they could replicate the mindset of the Reavers - and sending the results into Reaver space (possibly with surveillance equipment to study their lifestyle).

I would also assume that information regarding Reaver lifestyles that was gathered would be studied by computers first to avoid possibly "turning" the scientists studying them.

Now there may be other reasons why this Organization helps the Reavers apart from them providing medical test subjects for anti-radiation and mood altering substances. The Reavers provide a justification for the Alliance military and military spending. Reaver attacks encourage the Rim Worlds to seek Alliance protection. In any case this Organization can provide numerous scenario possibilities and its support of the Reavers would certainly be a far more horrible secret than the one in Serenity.

[HEX RPG] : Influence of Real Hollow Earth Theories

2010-12-05T01:52:00.000-08:00

To be honest my main attraction to HEX, rather than the game per se, is the fact that it has acted as a gateway drug for me to get into the wild and woolly world of 'genuine' Hollow Earth theories!

There is a mine of adventure ideas and wacky theories out there that can serve as inspiration for a great many games (not just HEX itself).

~~The Acrobatic Flea at Heropress.net

Dear Readers--

This post was inspired by a comment made by The Acrobatic Flea at his wonderfully geeky Aetheric Journal HeroPress that his main interest in the Hollow Earth Expedition RPG was the excuse to get into the real "Hollow Earth Theories" and use them as inspiration.

I must confess that I had similar motivations. One source of encouragement was the wonderful nonfiction book on the history of such theories by David Standish called Hollow Earth : the long and curious history of imagining strange lands, fantastical creatures, advanced civilizations, and marvelous machines below the Earth's surface.

In particular I have a burning desire to see some of Richard S. Shaver's Deros in action. According to Shaver, Atlanteans created robot races to do their menial tasks. When the Altlanteans left because of the hostility of the Sun's radiation even in their underground caverns, they left the "robots" to fend for themselves. Some of the robots went to the surface and became humans. Others remained in the underground caverns. Deros (short for "Detrimental Robots") went crazy and began using Atlantean technology to kidnap, torture, and eat humans on the surface as well as the few remaining non-crazy "robots" called Teros. The Deros used mind control beams to implant thoughts and cause problems on the surface world (like the classic Influencing Machine such as the Air Loom of James Tilly Matthews. The Deros also used flying saucers.

Other claims of Nazi bases in the Hollow Earth, and Nazi UFOs are also food for thought.

Such ideas would of course mean changing the setting of the HEX game from the 1930s to post-World War II. I myself didn't care for the Thirties period and would have prefered a more Victorian or Edwardian time frame with a Boy's Own Adventure style - the idea of an Atomic Horror/Atompunk style HEX campaign is one that I have been working on for awhile.

Imagine not just Hollow Earth and Secret Societies - but also real aliens, pretend aliens, Nazis, Commies, Hitler's Brain in a Bottle, atomic testing, conspiracies galore, Secret Cold War explorations, attempts to control Atlantean UFO storage facilities and automated factories etc.

The habit of Alien craft crashing into the Earth could be explained by interference with Atlantean anti-gravity carrier waves still bathing the Earth's surface. Our own rocket technology may be too primitive to be affected by the normal level of such waves. The presence of Atlantean craft in close proximity could also explain the suppressive effect on electrical apparatus recorded in UFO literature. The obsession of some UFOs with Atomic Testing may have to do with testing occuring near transition points into the Hollow Earth and not with benevolent concern for Earthlings.

Any GM who isn't inspired by at least some of these theories should have their dice taken from them and the rulebooks confiscated.

Yours Sincerely,
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.

Greetings and Salutations

2010-12-05T01:19:00.000-08:00

Dear Readers--

Welcome to The Royal Ruritanian Geographical Society.

This Aetheric Journal will contain the frivolous Speculations and Musings of the Mild Colonial Boy, Esq. towards those Storytelling and Imaginative Past-times commonly known as Tabletop Roleplaying Games.

Google claimed that my old RPG Journal was infected with malware so I decided to make a completely fresh start at an entirely new Aetheric location. Old material may be reinstated later after careful checks.

Yours Sincerely,
Mild Colonial Boy, Esq.