From the Attic: Secrets of Traveller's Jump Drive

Part of the genius of Traveller is that it leaves a lot of room for the referee to explain why things work. It also helps personalize your Traveller Universe.

Coming up with explanations for the various piece of Traveller Tech is a favorite pasttime for many Traveller Referees including myself.

One thing I messed around with is how Jump Drive works. It doesn't have much in the way of rules but what I like about this explanation is that it boils all of Traveller's super tech down to one difference in what we know about the universe. The ability to control gravity.

Many people don't realize this but a lot of the far out stuff like Time Travel, FTL Drives, are possible in our universe. However they require extreme manipulation of time-space i.e. gravity and tremendous amounts of energy. A daunting engineering task by any standards. However if somehow you found a efficient way of controlling and manipulating gravity then a lot of these things become possible aside from nifty grav belts and speedy air/rafts.

It turns out that there is one theory out there that can serve as a explanation of Jump Drive and explain why the control of gravity is important to it's discovery. Let's take a jaunt to the last 21st century and see how it happened.

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Kaukji Hyperspace Shunt Drive aka the Jump Drive
(Excerpted from Omnipedia on June 7th 2148)

Kaukji Hyperspace Shunt or KHS Drive is an outgrowth of continuing research into control of gravity. When manipulation and control of gravity became possible in 2071, researchers realized that several avenues of achieving Faster Than Light (FTL) speeds became possible. In the late twentieth first century several FTL theories emerged that remain consistent with Einstein's Theory of Relativity. All of them had massive engineering problems to overcome or required the generation and control of massive gravity fields. See

With the discovery of how to generate and control gravity fields several groups launched research programs to investigate intense gravity fields. By 2085 many of these research groups relocated to stations built in the asteroid belt as gravity field strengths were too dangerous for planetary surface or near orbit.

A group, sponsored by Japan's Institute of Technology, was involved in the investigation of warping time-space. This group was lead by Dr Fawzi Kaukji. On March 16th 2087, Experiment Sled #13 was enabled. A malfunction caused a field to be generated to be a 100 times stronger than planned. Space was folded around the Sled and it disappeared from the sensors of the Kaukji's group. 170 hours later it reappeared 1 AU near The California University Research Consortium Station where its telemetry signals were picked up. Its travel path (if it could be called that) cut a chord across the orbit of the asteroid belt. It traveled over 3 au from JIT station to .25 au off of the CURC station.

While it didn't travel faster than light, analysis revealed it was 8 times faster than best drive at the time. The research program of Kaukji's group was altered and the next six sleds were devoted to the exploration of this effect. Experiment Sleds #15, #16, #18,and #19 all disappeared without a trace. #17 reappeared 160 hours later in the same location with its structure shattered.

Note: Sled #18 was found in 2142 in Jupiter's trailing trojan point by a GsBAG mining ship.

Experiment Sled #20 activated on July 16th and reappeared 180 hours later. It was found 1 au near the Earth/Moon system. CURC began a parallel research effort beginning in May and recovered its first experiment sled on July 28th.

By the fall of 2087 several additional research consortium's were able to replicate both the CURC and JIT results. However the CURC efforts stalled when they moved their main research operation to Earth Orbit. For six months they experienced no successful recovery of experiment sleds. Meanwhile Kaukji published two important findings. The first that successful recovery always occurred between 150 to 185 hours, and second by varying the initial field configuration; direction and distance can be controlled.

In November of 2088 JIT awarded Nissan Space Inc. the contract to build a craft capable of carrying a man. In April 2089 the Sunrise, folded at the Nissan Station in the asteroid belt and reappeared 172 hours later 200 diameters outside of earth orbit. In August 2090, Kaukji announced that KHS field decay was constant +/- 15 hours regardless of distance traveled. In addition a successful fold could not reliably occur within 100 diameters of a massive object. This opened the possibility of Faster Than Light Travel.
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This is based on the Alcubierre drive specifically a variant where space is folded so that only a narrow neck connects the bubble with the real universe. This reduces the energy needed to "charge" the warp field by several order of magnitude. This neck is microns in diameters.

The big problem with the Alcubierre drive is controlling speed and direction. What science discovered that there are 15 possible configurations of Alcubierre fields that are stable enough to initiate travel. If you setup one of these 15 fields properly you will go in a particular direction faster than light. The fields will naturally collapse 150 to 180 hours later causing the ship to emerge into normal space. This also explains why in some versions of Traveller you have the issue of Jump Shadowing. If the straight line path comes within a 100 diameters of a massive body your fields will destabilize and pop you back out.

However only the six fields are dynamically stable corresponding to Jump 1 to 6. Think of the fields as being at the bottom of a valley. If you get the parameters slightly wrong you naturally slide to the bottom into the most stable configuration.

However 7 to 15 are like being on a top of a hill. Even the slightest deviation from the ideal parameters will cause your fields to destabilized. Which why canon Traveller stops at Jump 6.

From the Attic: The day I lost the Majestic Wilderlands

Over on Zenopus Archives, there is a post about the brown dice found in the original Marsh/Cook Expert Set. Zach relates a story about how they were playing in the car and the father took a u turn too fast and the dice went flying out the open window.

I had a similar experience except I nearly lost the Majestic Wilderland and all my AD&D material.

My first car was a Dodge Polara, a year younger than me and older than my friends Dwayne and Tim.

To say it had issues is putting it mildly. If I took a tight corner the entire electric system would flicker which was very disconcerting at night. One virtue the car had was it was huge. Big enough for a brief smuggling career when two of my friend got into the trunk and I drove them into the County Fair past the admissions gate.  I could pack all my gaming stuff in the back seat along with room left over for friends to ride along.

Anyway in the middle of my hometown there is Diamond Square which is a oval park with a main road around it. Well one day with Tim and Dwayne in the car I was driving to run a game at another friend's house and I had to go around the Diamond. Well I took it too fast, the door flew open and my milk crates full of Majestic Wilderlands notes, miniatures, and gamebooks was ejected from the car.

Luckily the milk crates, they were the wooden kind, were tough and nothing important was lost. It was more embarrassing than anything else.

From the Attic: Greyhawk Gods

 In the early 90s I was reading the Greyhawk Boxed set for the Nth time and I was hit with an idea how to rationalize the Greyhawk Gods into religions (as to opposed to a list of powerful entities)

This is the result.
http://wilderlands.batintheattic.com/greyhawkgods.html

From the Attic: Where are all the humans in Greyhawk?

Over on Hill Cantons, ckutalik writes an interesting post on the very low population density of the World of Greyhawk.

To which I added that well it because there are many creatures that are sentient and capable of forming cultures. In fact over a 100. And therein lies a table.

For some reason back in the day I decided to categorize all the monsters in the Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, and Monster Manual II. I have a small blue 3 subject notebook filled with my lists. It is because of this project I know pretty much the number of sentient culture forming races in AD&D 1st. 
I will eventually post the complete transcribed notebook but here are the two pages  with the sentient races plus the scans of the original.

Humanoid Lists under the fold

From the Attic: Fantasy Hero 1st Edition

Prior to 1985, I played several other RPGs than AD&D 1st, Traveller, Call of Cthulu, Gamma World, as well as having familiarity with other systems like Runequest 2nd Edition.

But my break with AD&D didn't come until my second year of college with the release of Fantasy Hero in the fall of 1985. My first year of college saw two campaigns of AD&D, one of which was a Dragonlance campaign that turned me off from trying to run an Adventure Path for several decades. I also ran a third AD&D campaign back home during college break).

During that first year I tried Champions for the first time. The game was a revelation. A relatively simple design, from my point of view anyway, allowed for a infinite combination of traits that simulated well just about anything. It appeal to my wargame sensibility by making it clear what effect the combination had in the game.

While I like superheroes, I still own much of my original tattered collection of comic books, I liked the fantasy genre more. So when I heard of the imminent release of Fantasy Hero, I put in a special order at my FLGS in Indiana and eagerly awaited its arrival. And when it came I was not disappointed.

Character Creation
Like all Hero System game, Fantasy Hero is point based. The Hero system defines several base and derived attributes. Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Body, Intelligence, Ego, Presence, Comeliness are the base attributes.  Physical Defense, Energy Defense, Speed, Recovery, Endurance, and Stun are the derived attributes. Points could be spent on both base and derived characteristics. Since Fantasy Hero focused on normal individuals there was a maximum for each characteristic beyond which the cost per point was doubled.

Beyond that you can buy skills which are based a formula of 9+(Attribute/5). You bought the base for a certain amount (3 pts for Climbing), and get +1 per an additional small amount (Climbing was 2 pts per +1). Some skills, like Weapon Familiarity were a fixed amount (3 per weapon type).

You could take Disadvantages. Disadvantages reflected the physical, mental, or social background of the character. As they limit the character in someway they granted points that reduced the total character cost. Perks and other positive traits wouldn't debut for the Hero System until later editions. Also some of the disadvantages actually granted benefits like a Friend and Reputation. They are counted as disadvantage because they are a source of complications for the character.

Fantasy Hero characters typically start with 75 points.


Magic 
This section is what sets Fantasy Hero apart from other RPGs of the time. It adapts the design of the Champions power system into a system for creating magic spells. It is literally a do it yourself magic system. For example a character could buy the ability to cast a 5d6 blast for 50 points. Without any advantages or limitation it is a energy blast defined for roleplaying purpose as a stream of fire. The base effect requires an attack roll, has a range of 250 hexes with -1 per 3 hex range modifier and takes 5 Endurance to cast.

If I wanted a spell similar to traditional D&D style fireball I could make as follows

Blast 5d6 50pts

Base Cost 50 pts

Advantages
Explosion x1/2

Active Cost 75 pts

Limitations
Incantations +1/2
Gestures +1/2
Concentratre  +1

Real Cost 15 pts

Explosive Fireball (5d6) Range Mod -1/3", Max Range 250", Obvious Gestures and Incantation, Concentrate while casting (0 DCV), 15 End*

*FH characters can easily start between 30 to 50 Endurance.

Some of the other effects are Clairaudience, Cloak, Create, Dazzle, Haste, Heal, Silence, Telepathy.

The system is not only used for spells but for magical abilities as well. 

Magic Items can be created but the character making them has to permanently spend character points in order to make them. For example a healing salve (3d6) cost 9 points to make. The difference between a spell and a magic item is that magic items have the Independence limitation a +1 bonus.



Combat
Combat works by subtracting the target's Defensive Combat Value from the the attacker's Offensive Combat Value adding the result to 9. For example Roghan with an OCV of 9 swing his sword at Venger with a DCV 10. 9-10 is -1 add 9 which means Roghan need a 8 or less to hit.

If the attacker hits he rolls damage and either physical defense or energy defense is subtracted from the result. Like other Hero System games there are two different ways of dealing damage. Killing attacks and Normal Attacks. The damage rolled for Normal Attacks is applied to Stun. For each 6 rolled you do 2 body, for 5,4,3, and 2 you do 1 body, and for each 1 no body is detail. Defense and armor subtract separately from Body and Stun damage. For Killing Attacks the number rolled is the amount of BODY damage. You roll 1d6-1 and multiply that by the body damage to find the amount of STUN damage.

Each combat round is 12 seconds divided into 12 one second segments. Each character has a Speed Characteristic, typically between 3 and 5. That determines how many times within each combat round the character acts. These are called phases.  There is a speed chart showing which segment the different speeds move on. During each phase each character picks a action which can include combat maneuvers. For example a character can do a Half Move and attack with a Sword.

The combat maneuvers grant different effects and bonuses and generally take a 1/2 phase to use. So a character can do a half-move and execute a maneuver. Or do two maneuvers like Attack and then Dodge. The attack allows the chance to hit with a weapon (or spell) and the Dodge grants +3 to DCV until the character's next Phase. If two characters act in the same segment they go in the order of Dexterity. If the Dexterity is the same then they act simultaneously.

The system is straight forward once you learn it. I pretty much type the above from memory. Like all Hero System games, the character sheet for Fantasy Hero includes mini cheat sheets that give all the details in a compact form while leaving room for notes and character details.




Presence Attacks
A holdover from Campaign Fantasy Hero allows the character to execute a presence attack. In short they can "stun" an enemy by their sheer awesomeness.  At a minimum a successful presence attack will allow the character to act first in a phase, the maximum result is that the target is cowed and will either run away, quail in fear at a DCV 0, or fall to his knees ready to obey the character's commands.

Modifiers to the base Presence attack add or subtract additional d6s.


Experience
Experience is given out in characters points which may be spent on characteristics, spells, or skills. Experience is granted at the end of the adventure which a typical award being three.


Campaigning
Typical DM Advice of the era with a lot of emphasis on creating plot and roleplaying.

Sourcebook
 Equipment, sample Magic Items, Monsters (many fully stated), and Spells used for evil opponents. Point Packages that allow characters to spend points to be one of the traditional fantasy race; Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings are covered. Races also get different maximums for their characteristics. Like GURPS it costs points to be a different race thus most campaign tend to be dominated by humans.

Note each of the Magic Items come with the spell that can be bought to create the item.

Demon Fang
This rust-red dagger was forged by Alcamtar the Cleaver early in his career to protect himself., should his magics fail.

1 1/2D6 Killing Blast linked to +2 Accuracy vs Enchanted Beasts End 2 Cost 21
Note in the book they give the full breakdown so you can see how it is created by the Magic rules.

Package Deals bundles skills and abilities to allow players quickly make a stereotypically fantasy archetype. Vikings, being a follower of an organization, Warrior, Rogue, Priest, Mage are all covered.

Next is a list of sample spells.

Mystic Focus
Floating green runs before the caster. 
Accuracy (+2 OCV) END 4 Cost 5

Like magic items the books has a full write up so you can see how each spell is built with the magic rules.

Conversions
Gives rules for converting from Runequest, and Middle Earth Roleplaying, 

Finally winds up with is own version of Appendix N of fiction. Newer fiction include Stephen Brust Jhereg series which was very popular in the 80s.

Adventures
Adventures include the Flaming Falcon Inn, The Hunt, and the detailed The Affair of Wizards,

Conclusion
Fantasy Hero made an immediate and favorable impression on myself and my group. It quickly became our main fantasy system for three years (86 to 89) and several Majestic Wilderlands campaign were run using it including one memorable one.

However the design still had too much of its Champion's heritage  which meant that a character could be picked up in a bar fighter, thrown through a wooden wall AND a brick wall, and still survive. The freeform spells system could be abused by character turning themselves into a johnny one-spell where they learn one extremely effective spell. In my case the character developed a short range, 1- hex, teleport spell that had the area advantage that only could teleport living matter, no armor or weapon. He cast the spell on his opponents and they would be stripped off all armor and gear.

These issues were fixed for the 4th edition of Fantasy Hero but by then GURPS had became our fantasy system of choice.

From the Attic: Janon News Report #1

Tim of Gothridge Manor co-DMed a couple of campaigns with me in the late nineties. One of the things he did well was supply "color" as the campaign progressed. One of them was in the form of news bulletins posted by a bard named Janon. This particular one was about Zik, a player character who was a elven wizard who loved his fireballs. Luckily it was GURPS Magic and Fireball only nailed a person at a time. But then it was GURPS that usually meant the person died or horribly injured.

Five City Guards Slaughtered!

Last night five city guards were savagely murdered. They were ripped and torn to pieces. At first, the guards believed it must have been a wild animal or crazed creation of one of the mages, but later on they discovered the identity of the killer to be an elf! This is a great embarassment to the authorities two days before the Jubilee of the Overlord is to begin. All the increases of security, the construction of walkways over the city, check points, and more guards was all for not. An elf single handedly destroyed whatever blanket of saftey the city guards thought they were providing. Although, I know little of elves and thier ways, I believe this should be a warning to the possible destructive nature of these outwardly docile creatures.

The elf is known as Zik. The city officials are also accusing Zik of murdering a father protecting his wife and child, crippling two draft horses, destroying a wagon, and the strangulation of a Gynorian belonging to the Brotherhood of the Lion. While the city officals are at it I would like to blame this Zik for making me loose 50d at the dice tables last night.

Zik apparently entered City-State a week ago and met with his long time friend Zepherus Hammerguard who lives on the northern end of Regal Street. The had some dealings together, although the details are sketchy at this point. Sources say Zepherus Hammerguard, Zik, and an unidentified person at this time ventured into the sewers and Zik did not return. The Frik brothers were on the scene and said they tried to warn and help them, but the mysterious adventurer hit Igny Frik with a powerful spell. The Frik brothers were so upset by the ordeal they went to drown their sorrows at the Red Axe Tavern.

Rumors of vampires are still floating around, but until I find more information I just let that dangle out there to tempt you till next time folks. Until then, stay away from elves and hug a guard.

as told by Jynon

Eventually Zik was brought to justice in front of the Elven Queen. Her sentence was simply.

As you treated others little better than an animal so shall you be treated as animal. You shall be transformed into a mule and for the next century offer a ride to all those who arrive at our gates. 

Again I have to credit Tim for coming up with this. The player's next character had a lot more respect for the powers that be of the campaign.

From the Attic: The Computation Book

The best cool tool for creating dungeons is a really big sheet of graph paper. The only problem is that it is too cool. You want to save it for the extra special dungeon that never seems to get done. But back in the 80s I found another one just as cool and more importantly it get used.  The Computation Book.

No it not a misspelling of this;

A Composition Book. While composition books are great I am talking about this.
The Computation Book.

A Computation is a bound book of extra large sheets of graph paper. Typically about 75 or so sheets per book with stiff cardboard cover. They are typically used to record the results of experiment and as I found out when I was a freshmen in college they make a great place to draw up dungeons, multiple dungeons!.

The above photo two of the two dozen or so dungeons I have drawn in this book. This Computation Book is pretty much the only dungeons that manage to survive the various moves I made. The loose leaf ones are all pretty much gone. Unfortunately I did not record the full keys, luckily I penciled in room descriptions as you see above if you zoom in. The nice thing about Computation books is that you can use the next page for the key if you want.  The page numbering makes it easy to make a index to keep track what dungeons are on each page.

For my Swords & Wizardry campaign up at Gold Star Anime I been having a lot of fun coming up with new adventure using these old maps. Although I am sure the three characters that got turned to stone last Wednesday wouldn't agree.

Computation Books are still being widely used and can found at various office supply stores on the internet or in your town. They are inexpensive, Amazon has one here for little under 12 dollars.

Even after 20 years of having this book, only half of the pages are full so you get a lot of use out of it.

From the Attic: Why D&D is the way it is; The Different Versions

Wizards is getting the word out that a major goal of the new edition is to reunite the D&D fan base. I figure it would be useful to list all the distinct versions of D&D that are out there. This list focuses on those games released by TSR/Wizards.

Chainmail Fantasy Supplement in 1971
Original Dungeons & Dragons published in 1974
Supplement I Greyhawk published in 1975
added rules made Dungeons & Dragon into a form we recognize today.
Basic Dungeons & Dragons by Holmes in 1977
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in 1977-1979
Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons by Moldavy/Cook in 1981
Basic/Expert/Companion/Master/Immortal Dungeons & Dragons by Mentzer in 1983.
Unearthed Arcana for AD&D in 1985, Some say that this made AD&D 1.5
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition in 1989
Rules Cyclopedia for Dungeons & Dragons in 1991,  A one book compilation of Mentzer's BECM D&D, some consider this the definitive version of the original Dungeons & Dragons line.
Skills & Powers for AD&D 2nd edition.  Some say that this made a AD&D 2.5
Dungeons & Dragons 3.0 in 2000
Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 in 2003
Dungeons & Dragons 4.0 in 2008
Dungeons & Dragons Essentials in 2010. Some say that this made a D&D 4.5

From the Attic: Why D&D is the way it is; Levels and Hit Dice.

During the rampup to the next edition of D&D, I figure it would be useful to look at how D&D changed over the different editions. Today I look at the origins of levels and what they meant.

Levels started with the Chainmail Miniature Wargame. First off you have to remember that in Chainmail for the ordinary fighting man 1 hit = 1 kill. In the fantasy supplement to Chainmail there was the Hero and the Super Hero. A Hero was worth four fighting men, and took four hit to kill. The Super Hero was worth eight fighting men, and took eight hit to kill.

When Gygax developed D&D he changed the 1 hit to a 1d6 roll. Likewise for the number of hits a character could take he changed that to 1d6 roll and called them hit points. The three original classes varied in modifiers to the 1d6 roll with Magic-users being the worst, and Fighters the best.

In general a level in OD&D could be looked at as a multiplier. A 4th level character was four times as effective as a first level character, and a 8th level character was 8 times as effective.

From the Attic: GURPS Hommlet

In the mid 90s I ran a fantasy campaign using GURPS that combined the Village of Hommlet with the A series Slavelord Modules. It marked the first major use of my computer to prepare for a campaign. I rewrote the entire Hommlet module and even did a layout (without art) of it. Obviously I can't post the entire thing due to copyright but I do have bits and pieces I can share.

First off is the roster of NPCs I used. I changed some of the names to fit my City-State campaign. And to make it more confusing at some point after the actual campaign I must have tried to adapt it back into a GURPS Greyhawk campaign because all the languages and area knowledges were set to Greyhawk.

The characters are GURPS 3rd Edition done with Suerer's excellent Makechar.

GURPS Hommlet NPCs.

I am making a expurgated copy of the text I wrote. When I finish I will share it.

From the Attic: Experience Points Rules

Around 1983 I realized that I didn't like XP for gold or magic items. By then I ran several groups through the Majestic Wilderlands and realized that what fun about my campaign was the players building a legacy for themselves. Grubbing after gold and magic items specifically for XP was a distraction. Plus while I wasn't a Monty Haul referee I was never stingy for Magic items either. Plus I was one of those referee who allowed players to shop, within reason, for magic items. Particularly at the Sorcerer's Supply Shop in City-State.

Eventually I jettisoned xp for gold, and xp for magic items. I replaced it with an Roleplaying award. The system was simple, I set some factor for the campaign. Typically between 50 and 100. I rate the players on a scale from one to 5 as to how well they "roleplayed". Then use the formula of Base Factor times level time rating. That coupled with the xp from defeating monsters and enemies plus any prime requisite bonus is what the characters got for XP.

Of course the immediate question comes up is what is good "roleplaying". Then I defined as being in-character, reacting to the various situations as if the character was really there. If the player came up with a nifty scheme or pulled off a great plan then I award a 4 or 5.

Today I still use the same system for awarding xp. I still look for player reacting in-character to situations in the game. But now I also look for how the players is accomplishing his goals. When they hit a major milestone on their plans I give them a 5. While events are swirling around them in my campaign I don't really care what their exact plans are. I am not dictating a story here, I want the players to make their own way through the Majestic Wilderlands. So it may be that the goal of a player for his character is to become head of the thieves guild. Then through chance we get into into roleplaying about a princess the character fell in love with and the character wants to marry the princess. Now I look to see how the players is progressing with both of those.

So what happens to Gold and Magic items? Well they are just an in-game means for the players to accomplish their goals. Players have their characters seek them for their value in accomplishing whatever they want to do. Gaining treasure allow them more resources to accomplish their plans which boosts their roleplaying awards.

I no longer charge for training costs. Instead the players can spend up to a 1,000 sp per week to gain 1,000 xp. Since I adapted the harn price list and a silver based money system, a 1,000 sp is a substantial sum. For straight classic D&D I would go with a 1,000 gp per week. What happens is that if the players are little bit under they will spend time training between sessions. Also when the magic-users are copying spells into a spell book (1 day per spell level) the other characters usually train. I also jettisoned level limits for demi-humans. Instead the limitations are social and cultural.

Below is the original typed set of rules I used to implement my Roleplaying-experience system.

From the Attic: Early version of Majestic Wilderland Clerics

When I completely organized my roleplaying stuff last year I found some pages of my old AD&D notes. Then I promptly misplaced them, sigh. Well I found them stuffed in a spiral bound book of photocopied Judges Guild tables. So now I am presenting them for your enjoyment and inspiration.

When I got the AD&D Dragonlance Adventures Hardback it really inspired me to customize the AD&D rules for the Majestic Wilderlands. It was the first time that it occurred to me that something like the MW Supplement could be done. Although it took 20 years before the opportunity to do something came about.

My initial design was very derivative of the Dragonlance classes. What I did is took the potpourri of gods and organized them into major groups. I think I had four as opposed to Dragonlance's three.

The only surviving text I have is for the Olympian which were I called my Chaotic Good/Sylvan/Elven gods. The idea is that these deities have separate churches but at the highest level they have a common hierarchy.

From the Attic: An early roster of gods for the Majestic Wilderlands

I have a file box fill with the first decade of material I created for the Majestic Wilderlands. Among them is a composition book which has some notes on the gods. On the inside cover I drew the symbols of the different religions and some of the sects and orders.

From the Attic: The Solo bites the dust and other Cyberpunk Stories

Over on the theRPGsite this lively thread on the Cyberpunk genre ensued.

CyberPunk to me always felt goofy even if it is being fun to play. A version of Urban Fantasy using technology instead of magic. Still Cyberpunk provided me with some of the best roleplaying moments ever.

I was playing a game of Cyberpunk 2020 and I was a Tech. We had an obnoxious player who was running a Solo with a lot of tweaks and mods to make him a virtual killing machine. The player was known to be a backstabber and a "All for me and none for you" type. The two other players were playing a Decker and a Corporate.

So early in the game we were able to upgrade to our weapons. Of course the Solo rudely insisted that I modify his weapons first. I did this and then I worked on everybody else gear.

So we go on the adventure which involves some breaking, entering, and stealing. Along the way we not only grabbed our target but some additional valuable tech and loot. The Solo is a combat monster blowing our opposition away.

Then at the end of the session we talked about dividing what we found. Of course being the combat monster Solo pulled out his big ass guns and stated that everything was his. Everybody groaned as nobody could even hope to match him in combat.

I said "I don't think so. I got a 9mm that says different". Mine you I haven't pulled out anything and he had his weapons out already. The Solo player laughed and told me to back down or he will kill me. I then told the GM I am drawing." Of course I lost initiative and the Solo goes to shoot me.

And nothing happened. The guns wouldn't fire.

Then I got the 9mm out and blew him away.

What happened was that when the players handed me their weapons to modify at the beginning of the game I slipped the referee a note. I put image recognition software on their sights. Then I programmed them not to fire if I was the target.

The look on the Solo player's face was priceless and the rest of the room burst out laughing. Shortly after he gathered his things and left muttering to himself.

---

The second story involves Tim of Gothridge Manor. We were playing a game of Shadowrun at Dwayne of Gamer's Closet's house. There were some new players there which made for an interesting mix for the game. Tim rolled up a Solo type with big ass guns and one of the new players rolled up a Decker. The Decker player had diarrhea of the mouth and just could not shut up about anything including how cool his Decker is.

During the game we were all riding in a limo going to a meeting with the Decker player yakking the whole way. He started to talk how tough his character was and how we better watch out or he will Null us and we be left with nothing as we be locked out of our accounts and the Net.

At this point Tim's Solo had enough; he was chipped with a lightning reflex mod and before the Decker could react he snatched the Decker of the character's hands.

Coldly he looked at the players. "So you think to threaten to Null me? Well I am telling you different." He proceeded to exert some of his augmented strength and cracked the case on the deck. The Decker's player literally turned white. "Now I need to squeeze only a little more and this Deck is toast. Are we clear on this demonstration?"

The Decker player quickly nodded and Tim's Solo tossed the deck back to the character.

This incident came in handy for me a few month's later when I sat down to be another Hero System Cyberpunk game at a convention. I didn't know anybody at this game but it seemed to start smoothly. I had some type of fixer with an electric stun stick. But there was another player that had diarrhea of the mouth and just could not shut up about anything and everything. Everybody was getting annoyed when I said

"I reach over and jab his, the annoying player, character in the body with the stun stick."

Everybody stopped and stared at me and the GM in silence. He had both of us roll and I hit. Rolling damage, it was enough to cause the annoying player's character to fall unconscious. I turned to the rest of the players.

"That will shut him up."

The annoying players was so mad and he tried to start protesting but the GM ruled he is unconscious and can't talk in-game. The rest laughed and gave me a round of applause. For the rest of the game anytime the annoying player started to act up I just said "I pull out my Stun Stick and rest in my hands.". The annoying player then shut up.

From the Attic; Before there was Hexographer

I never was a big fan of the "Mystara" style of mapping. But in the 80s Mystara was just as popular as Greyhawk if not more. I did one large map using the style. It wasn't anything related to any of my campaigns at the time I drew it just because. I believe I was thinking of 30 or 60 mile hexes here.



The circular sea to the west was meant to be a meteor strike or a big magical explosion. In the northeast is a complex coastline that is meant to be fjords a viking home. One of the large southern islands was supposed to be the X1 Island of Dread. The center area of the southern continent suffers form rainshadow, very arid and has lots of deserts.

If it inspires you feel free to use it for your own game. If you want to clean it up a bit try Hexographer which is one of the best mapping software out there for the Mystara style.

From the Attic: Lisal

A lot of people like the hexmap style of the Known world of Mystara. Hexographer is one of the best program to get to map in this style. Here is bunch of volunteers have put together a comprehensive collection of Mystara maps.

I too dabbled in the style. For a while in the late 80s I did some work on a campaign world that was completely my own work. I figured if I ever got a chance I would use this for publishing stuff as the base of the Majestic Wilderlands belonged to Judges Guild. It never worked out so it still sits in a folder. Many of you will recognize this as basic backdrop of the How to build a Fantasy Sandbox series.

Here is the entire map of Lisal as it was originally done.

The reason you don't see settlements or borders is because I had a separate folder full of historical maps. Some of which you can see here.

From really deep in the Attic: Medieval Admiralty Law

I found this interesting document that has one of the earliest codes for Admiralty law in Western Europe. It was promulgated by none other than Eleanor of Aquitaine the wife of King Henry II of England the mother of King Richard the Lionhearted and King John.

Her first husband was king Louis VII of France and she accompanied him on the Second Crusade. During this she was impressed at how the Byzantines and the Arabs handled maritime disputes and brought it back to her for use in the Duchy of Aquitaine. Later it became the foundation of Admiralty in England when she ruled England in Richard's absence while he was crusading.

Article XX may be relevance when the PCs are members of the crew. Hope two man parties work out for the group and that one day's ration last them.

Article XX

When a vessel arrives at Bordeaux, or any other place, two of the mariners at a time may go ashore, and take with them one meal of such victuals as are in the ship, therein cut and provided; as also bread proportionably as much as they eat at once, but no drink: and they ought very speedily, and in season, to return to their vessel, that thereby the master may not lose his tide; for if so, and damage come thereby, they are bound to make satisfaction; or if any of their company be hurt for want of their help, they are to be at such charge for his recovery, as one of his fellow mariners, or the master, with those of his table shall judge convenient.

From the Attic: Star Wars, Star Trek, Galactica and oh what the hell add Battle of the Planets

James over at Grognardia has a good series of posts on his memories of pre-Empire Star Wars.

Likewise for me in the summer of 1977 Star Wars had a huge impact on me. Then in rapid succession we had Star Trek the Motion Picture, and Battlestar Galactica. The first anime cartoons were also being adapted for US televisions. While I loved the early 70s stuff like the Six Million Dollar Man, Planet of the Apes (move and tv series) These three movies were head and shoulders above what came before.

Coupled with reading Niven, Heinlein, Asimov, Pournelle, Piper, for the first time. The late 70s fired up my imagination just before I found a little game called Dungeons & Dragons.

I collected a good collection of 6 inch Star Wars figure. I had some sets but I also had a mix of other 6 inches stuff like a few micronauts, the Space 1999 Eagle (boy that was huge) and other.

I had to put together in some grand story like the sci-fi novels I was reading at the time. I threw some Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and even some Battle of the Planets. Even had a map which I used to set adventures I created for my characters. I used a compassed and I had a set of rules which I still remember after 30 years that I use to create it quickly on a piece of paper.



It started out as the United Federation of Planets as human dominated space faring civilization. The backbone of the fleet was the mighty battlestars which was represented by an upside down ship hull. There was a series of model kits you could buy to build a sailing ship. The base of the kit was a solid hunk of wood about 12 inches long that was carved in the shape of a wooden sailing ship.

For some reason this particular model never got built. So I inverted it, carved some weapons bays, a niche for the bridge, and there was line of holes intended for attaching hook for the rigging that became launch tubes for the vipers and x-wings based on the battlestar.

The Enemies of the UFP were the robotic Cylons, The Spectra Empire was ruled by the bad guy from battle of the planets. And the remains of the Benin Republic once the rival of the UFP. There was a bunch of small states scattered along the frontiers.

However not all was idyllic in the Federation and a coup occurred transforming it into the Imperial Empire. The Battlestar Galactica was trapped behind enemy lines and had to make an epic journey with all kinds of adventures to make it back to the last free remnants of the old Federation.

Before I turned to D&D and RPGs full time, the Federation was slowly coming back making headway against the Imperial Empire.

I had an elaborate backstory which proved excellent preparation for when I plunged into D&D and other RPGs.

From the Attic: Traveller Errata

For those of you with older editions of Traveller you can find the latest errata here. It is good that Far Future on top of this and made good use of the fanbase. And yes I do think that 68 pages overall and 50 pages for the core rules was excessive back in the day when I originally found much of this on the GEnie online service.

GEnie was the original haunt of Traveller on-line fandom. Back then there were hourly charges so most of developed hit and run techniques to minimize the charge. You log on, dump the file listing, and log off. Read it or print it out, pick out what you wanted. Log back on, get what you wanted, and log off.

Believe or not I still have a copy of on such dump. It migrated as part of my traveller archive from computer to computer as I upgraded. It dates from February 1993. You can download the full file from here.

1435 DIASPORA SECTOR X J.FUGATE 890731 31500 56 10
Desc: Diaspora Sector UWP Data Listing
1434 DAIBEI SECTOR UWP DATA X J.FUGATE 890731 31500 61 10
Desc: Daibei Sector UWP World Data List
1430 MT CONF 7/29/89 X J.FUGATE 890729 22680 55 10
Desc: MegaTraveller Conference, 7/29/89
1420 WBH INDEX X J.FUGATE 890725 8820 73 10
Desc: World Builder's Handbook Index
1419 FORNAST SECTOR X J.FUGATE 890725 36540 53 10
Desc: Fornast Sector UWP data listing
1418 CORE SECTOR X J.FUGATE 890725 37800 77 10
Desc: Core Sector UWP Data Listing
1416 MAC UWP DECODE PGM X J.FUGATE 890722 41580 53 10
Desc: UWP Decode program for the Mac
1414 HINTERWORLDS SECTOR X J.FUGATE 890720 30240 60 10
Desc: Hinterworlds UWP Sector Data
1413 DAGUDASHAAG SECTOR X J.FUGATE 890720 39060 60 10
Desc: Dagudashaag Sector UWP data
1412 AS01.TXT 7 B.BORICH 890717 3780 25 10
Desc: HIWG PUB AS01
1411 UWPSRC.BAS X W.WHEZELTINE 890716 15120 41 10
Desc: Scource code for UWP.EXE
1410 IBM-UWP.ARC X W.WHEZELTINE 890716 46620 50 10
Desc: Plant Stat Decoder for MegaTraveller
1406 GUSHEMEGE SECTOR 7 J.FUGATE 890715 37800 62 10
Desc: Gushemege Sector UWP data
1404 REFT SECTOR X J.FUGATE 890715 8820 61 10
Desc: Reft Sector UWP Data
1398 HIWG4103 7 B.BORICH 890709 7560 29 10
Desc: This is HIWG document 4103
1397 DEEP SHADOWS 7 M.MIKESH 890709 120960 53 10
Desc: MegaTraveller draft adventure
1394 MT STARSHIP DESIGN 7 S.OLSON4 890706 20160 86 10
Desc: A discussion of MT starship design.
1390 MEGATRAVELLER CAMPAIGN1 7 B.BORICH 890702 5040 53 10
Desc: This is an intro to the campaign
1385 HIWG1701 7 B.BORICH 890630 7560 44 10
Desc: This is HIWG pub #1701
1352 TROJAN REACH X J.FUGATE 890603 27720 79 10
Desc: Trojan Reach Sector Data
1351 DELPHI SECTOR X J.FUGATE 890603 25200 71 10
Desc: Delphi Sector Data
1349 VARGR.PAS 7 MBAY 890603 13860 24 10
Desc: Souce code for a Vargr word program
1336 M-TRAVELLER ERRATA 6/1 7 J.FUGATE 890527 32760 106 10
Desc: MegaTraveller Errata 06/01/88
1321 ANTARES SECTOR X J.FUGATE 890520 39060 74 10
Desc: Antares Sector data (MegaTraveller)
1320 LISHUN SECTOR X J.FUGATE 890520 42840 63 10
Desc: Lishun Sector Data (MegaTraveller)
1313 VLAND SECTOR X J.FUGATE 890512 35280 76 10
Desc: Vland Sector Data (MegaTraveller)
1312 CORRIDOR SECTOR X J.FUGATE 890512 18900 91 10
Desc: Corridor Sector (MegaTraveller)
1295 DENEB X J.FUGATE 890503 27720 102 10
Desc: MegaTraveller Deneb Sector
1290 SPINWARD MARCHES X J.FUGATE 890501 30240 118 10
Desc: MegaTraveller: Spinward Marches
826 TRAVELLERMAGICSYSTEM X D.PROSSER1 880623 8820 69 10
Desc: beginnings of a magic sys 4 travellr

End of Directory.

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Library: Traveller/Megatraveller

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From the Attic: An interview with David Wesely

If David Arneson was one of the father of the roleplaying game David Wesely is the grand father. His Braunstein games inspired Arneson to create Castle Blackmoor which led to all that followed.

Theory in the Closet interviews David Wesely and what a great interview it is. I really related to the description of the Braunstein game as it was roleplaying with a bit of live-action (milling around talking to people). His description of being up to 2am and talking to people at various times during the game mirrors my experience of being an event director of a NERO live-action event.