Alien Hunter X: The Soldier Class Sneak Preview

Heres a little look at the start of the basic class "The Soldier."

The Soldier

Unlike most Powered by the Apocalypse games, theres no planned limitations on how many people can play any particular class. The soldier is your average X-Com Rookie!

Alien Hunter X: Lethality

Now that I've shown some of the basic moves, maybe its time to talk a little about what my plans are for making AHX different from Dungeon World.

Lethality
In dungeon world, you get assigned a number of Hitpoints based on your class and your constitution - just like from any of the Dungeons and Dragons games or works inspired by them. X-com has allways been noted for how easily the soldiers you control die and i'm keen to make sure that's something that sticks around but making the game more suitable for roleplay.

I decided to go with something more akin to World of Darkness.

Wounds are graded from 'Light' to 'Mortal'. Each of these grades has a number of boxes beside them.
When you take one of those wounds, you fill boxes until you have filled a box in the appropriate grade. If you cant fill a box, you move onto the next most serious grade and mark a box.
When you've taken a mortal wound, roll to Cheat Death.

So an uninjured soldier would look like this...

Light Wound        [ ] [ ]
Medium Wound   [ ] [ ]
Heavy Wound      [ ]
Mortal Wound      [ ]

But a soldier who had taken a single Medium Wound, followed by a Heavy Wound would look like this...

Light Wound        [X] [X]
Medium Wound   [X] [X]
Heavy Wound      [X]
Mortal Wound      [ ]

If the same soldier had taken a Heavy Wound, followed by a Medium wound, however...

Light Wound        [X] [X]
Medium Wound   [X] [X]
Heavy Wound      [X]
Mortal Wound      [X]

He's going to have a bad time.
The reason I went with this is to represent that a Light wound means nothing if you then get a hole put in your chest, but if you start with a hole in your chest, even a light wound can push you over the edge.

Different classes will get different numbers of check boxes. Levelled up troops may gain additional checkboxes.

Armour gives one-use health boxes, up to the threshold of damage they can survive. Someone in a Tactical Vest may gain a single Light Wound box, which does nothing against a Plasma Cannon handing out Heavy Wounds, whereas a suit of Power Armour may offer 5 boxes of protection against anything as powerful as that Plasma Cannon.

Are we sick of RPG ideas yet?

"Music is Power"

Hey, at least this one actually has a dice mechanic I thought of that went with it... as far as my ideas go, this one is actually pretty far along by comparison.

Psionic energy exists in all things. Extreme situations can put so much stress on a person's mind that they tap into the rhythm of the universe. It starts as a tapping, then other sounds in the world begin to add to it, building up into a spike of psionic energy that permenantly awakens the person's psionic potential. The awakening event is called a 'Crescendo'.

Each character has a Style and a Genre.

Style dictates what psychic abilities you have acess to. A character who'se Style is Percussion focuses mostly on physical improvement, where a Vocalist's abilities are based around controlling the thoughts and actions of other people.

Genre changes how base abilities work. A Punk  is going to have faster and harder attacks or his abilities will work faster than someone elses whilst a Classicist is going to be slower but have a much more powerful final effect, for example.

Dice System is... fairly simple?

You get a number of dice based on your skill level and a target number to roll on each dice - say, 3. You roll all your dice and the more of that specific number you roll, the better you do... However, you can also decide to use a different number on the dice instead of the target number for your sucsesses, with a small 'per step' penalty.

For example, you roll 7 dice and have a target number of 4.

You roll: 4,3,3,2,2,2,2

You could chose the 4, which would be a marginal sucsess.
If you instead decided to take a 1 step penalty and chose the 3, you would lose 1 success but still have another, giving you a marginal sucsess.
If you took a 2 step penalty you could chose the 2's instead, granting you a minor sucsess instead of a marginal.

That's pretty much all I've had idea wise. I wanted to have some sort of mechanic that would let people in a group/band use abilities that gave each other bonuses, like a band playing together for a bigger effect.

Alien Hunter X: Basic Moves

I've been tinkering with some ideas for Basic Moves for Alien Hunter X.

If you aren't familiar with the Apocalypse/Dungeon World style of dice rolling, I'll sum it up for you:

Roll 2d6+An Attribute
10+ Succsess
7-9 Sucsess, But...
1-6 Failure

Basic Moves are available to all Classes, but some Classes may change how those moves work or have a 'Better' Version...

Shoot to Kill

When you take aim and shoot at an enemy at range, Roll+AIM.

On a 10+ you have a clear shot—deal your damage.

On a 7–9, choose one (whichever you choose you deal your damage):

• You have to move to get the shot placing you in danger of the AC’s choice
• You have to take what you can get: Downgrade Damage 1 Step
• You have to take several shots, reducing your ammo by one.

Close Quarters Combat

When you attack an enemy in melee, Roll+AIM

On a 10+ you deal your damage to the enemy and avoid their attack. At your option, you may choose to Upgrade Damage 1 step but expose yourself to the enemy’s attack.

On a 7–9, you deal your damage to the enemy and the enemy makes an attack against you.

Go into Overwatch

When you and any other members of your squad find a good position to wait for the enemy to make a move, the AC will choose an Alien to take an action. If the Alien’s action would bring them into the line of fire of the squad, each Squadmember may chose to react before the alien has completed its action. If a player choses to Shoot to Kill, they take a -1 Forward to that roll.

Recon

When you closely study an Alien, Situation or Civilian, Roll+WILL.

On a 10+ ask the GM 3 questions from the list below.

On a 7–9 ask 1. Take +1 forward when acting on the answers.

• What happened here recently?
• What is about to happen?
• What here is applicable to the mission?
• Who’s really in control here?
• What here is not what it appears to be?

Civilian-Military Interaction

When you you have leverage on a Civilian or group of Civilians and Want to convince them to do something, Roll+WILL.

Leverage is something they need or want.

On a 10+ they ask you for something and do it if you make them a promise first.

On a 7–9, they need some concrete assurance you can follow through with your promise, right now.

Cheat Death

When your wounds are too great (And your Damage Threshold has been overcome), fall to the ground incapacitated. Roll with no attribute:

On a 10+ you’ve cheated death - you’re still in a bad spot but you will eventually recover fully.

On a 7–9 You have a choice to make…

• Gain a permenant injury and reduce your maximum Damage Threshold by 1 permenantly and, provided your team can safely extract you, you will live to fight another day
• Regain back 2 of your Damage Threshold and survive until the end of the mission, whereupon you die regardless of medical attention. You cannot cheat death again.

On a miss, your fate is sealed. Your wounds are too great to recover from and will be dead by the end of the mission.

Entrench

When you find suitable cover and prepare to protect a Person, Location or Item Roll+DEF.

On a 10+, hold 3.

On a 7–9, hold 1.

So long as you are in cover, when you or the thing you defend is attacked you may spend hold, 1 for 1, to choose an option:

• Redirect an attack from the thing you defend to yourself
• Downgrade Damage by 1 Step
• Open up the attacker to a Squadmate giving that Squadmate +1 forward against the attacker

Improvise

When you take an action not covered by your training, describe how you intend to tackle it and Roll. If you do it...

• … By utilising your technical skills, +WILL
• … By hunkering down and enduring, +DEF
• … By using your raw athleticism, +AIM

On a 10+, you do what you set out to, the threat doesn’t come to bear.

On a 7–9, you stumble, hesitate, or flinch: the AC will offer you a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.

Wynn Wednesday: Attack of the continued RPG Ideas...

"Alien Hunter X"

Short, mission based 'Whoever is available' gaming where Aliens are invading earth and its up to a small non-copyright infringing anti-alien military group to fend them off. Fairly high PC turnover because the aliens either have more high tech gear or are genetically superior to humanity.

Mission Failure/Partial/Sucsess grants bonuses on post game research rolls, which add 'Prestige Classes' like Cybernetics (BELLATOR IN MACHINA MOTHERFUCKER) or DNA Manipulation, better equipment and advanced tactics to the basic character classes.

The nature of the aliens would be a 'Discover during play' style dealie with the players basically choosing their own enemies and the ST working out research projects for each alien type.

Since each mission would be a single session, it doesn't matter who turns up to the game,  but previous players who's characters havn't died get to use their previous character sheets alongside green rookies. Just like X-Com

Dungeon World crossed with X-Com, basically.

Fort Friday: Yet more RPG Concepts...

"Paintball Dystopia"

Human emotion has faded because the world's government has decided that a docile population is a safe and prosperous population.

There aren't' colours anymore and everything is a shade of grey, drugs hidden in people's food stifle creativity and strong emotional response. Music is Dead and Books and TV exist only to inform.

But a rebel group exists who have worked out a way to bring colour back into the world with paint that counter-acts the drugs in people's systems - Specific emotions keyed into specific colours that physical contact or prolongued nearby exposure to causes the chemicals supressing those emotions to be eliminated from the body.

Heavy themes of Liberty, Disregard for Authority and Beneficial Rebellion.

Somewhere between very, very dark but relatively non violent. For the most part, combat would focus on... well, paint. The police have high quality gear and grey paint that basically acts like riot foam whilst the players have acsess to a ton of colours.

Jet Set Radio crossed with 1984 I guess, with some Splatoon thrown in there for good measure

Wynn Wednesday: RPG Concept and Ideas

"Goetic Apocalypse"

Inspired by a drawing I did a while back about what I thought my 'Personal Demon' would look like.

An asteroid hit the planet.

No-one bar some dedicated meteorologists noticed, because by the time it hit the surface it was the size of a marble. Sadly, the alien disease that had survived the depths of space on that asteroid survived the atmospheric entry.

The disease was Psionic in nature, chewing up one specific emotion and leaving the others completely untouched.

Fear.

A world without fear is a dangerous world. There were no longer any voices in the back of people's mind that would warn them that it might hurt if they threw themselves out of a window. Nothing to say 'You cant fly a plane' or 'You shouldn't build bombs to prove a point'.

Some people survived the disease, though. As the disease attempted to consume their fear, their minds reacted violently to combat the disease immediately - their smallest fears suddenly bloated and exaggerated in their psionic awakening.

As their minds changed, so too were their bodies now capable of changing. They could allow the fears that plagued them constantly to consume THEM, letting their own personal demons out of their minds and into their bodies, shifting flesh and making them creatures of fear made manifest.

Bogeymen.

Now, the Bogeymen are humanity's white blood cells - being near a bogeyman... even one who looks like a human... allows humans to feel fear again as the presence of the Bogeyman fights the disease in their minds. The majority of this fear is aimed at the Bogeymen themselves, but its a small price to pay until someone can work out how to eradicate the disease once and for all.

... So yeah. My head can be a weird place sometimes. *Finger Guns*

Basically were-fears fight against alien disease that can probably make its own twisted versions of the Bogeymen that are exemplars of other emotions.

Its Fort Friday!

Hey Guys!

Sorry to say but there won't be a Fort Friday post with any actual content in it this week - i've just been super busy with things!

Lords of Gossamer and Shadow has picked up. We're now on a solid nine players which is pretty damn impressive for an IRC game with only one ST. Several story threads are being chased which is cool and exciting in equal parts as hopefully people will be able to find out hidden bits about secret backstory and stuff.

I've started running Dungeon World. Which is perhaps the most fun i've ever had at character creation ever.
I'm really gutted we didn't think to record the first session... but on the other hand, it would have been two hours of us pissing ourselves laughing...

Modelling and Painting has taken a bit of a backseat, sadly. I should get back on that! Slaine and Ukko are almost finished now!

I was dead chuffed to find someone link to one of  my blog posts on RPG.Net as well. Ok, it was just the pictures but thats KIND of like fame!

So yeah, thats the State of the Nation.

Back to Basics Wargaming

Remember when battle reports used to look like this?

I do. I used to love the old White Dwarf battle reports that had been set up in this way - When I was younger I was a massive Warhammer Fantasy Battles fan and the battle reports were allways the first thing I would look up whenever I cracked open a new magazine.

One of the things that allways bums me out when it comes to wargaming is that...  Well, imagination  will allways provide more ideas then the real world can provide for. If i want to have a platoon of sentient crystal golems invade the homelands of psychic hedgehog men... well, good luck getting the miniatures for that, right?

Except. Those little squares up above could be anything, couldn't they?

Yes. Yes they could.

So began my first 'Big' moulding project. I broke out the Silli and a skull shaped cookie cutter to see how  well  it would come out. I sanded down an old Domino we had laying around for the basic rectangular shape and then applied my terribly shaky carving hand to it until I got a shape I was pleased with.
I then applied Silli and went to work. When I got back 6 hours later, the following was waiting for me.

Sucsess!

A slight amount  of bubbling around the top, but I wasn't planning to fill the thing to capacity anyway.

The moulds are actually pretty flexible.

It had worked pretty well. I took  a small amount of Air Dough and pressed it into the bottom of  the mould,  using the back of the Domino to press it down and get a good flat back to it.

Tada!

Obviously,  I was very chuffed with how clever I was. I then proceeded to print out 91 of the little buggers.

I decided to go with a very basic 'one colour and a white triangle' colour scheme, with the little rectangle in the corner being white as well to allow people to write numbers on them for book-keeping during game. I used Citadel paints because... well, I have a fucking ton of them around. I then used some Devlan Mud/Agarash Earthshade/Liquid Talent to get into the cracks, painted the white on and cleaned up the colouring.

The whole process

Personally, i'm really, really happy with them. Next stop... Scenery!

Air Dough: My New Favourite Thing Ever

So for a while i've been looking to get into Resin Moulding. I have tons of ideas for stuff I want to make and play with and all sorts and the concept of getting into model making is really exciting for me. I went to my local model store to have a look one day with the Maid of Wynn and she pointed out to me that these guys were selling something called Silli (Which i'll make a post about next week...). I picked some up and then decided that really, I needed something to use as material for my practise moulds.

It was then that I discovered... Newclay Air Dough.

The little pot on the left was £3.00. The bag down behind it was £11 for 4 times the amount...

This stuff is pretty damn cool and pretty damn cheap. And for me, cheap is definately a deciding factor. (... I might make a GW negative post at some point out of frustration to explain...). Its a very light air-drying clay that would be exceptionally suitable for nursery schools (or Kindergartens for you americans out there)... As you might have told from the art on the front of the pot.

I played around with it for a while. You can mould it straight off and it dries in about 8 hours at room temperature. Theres a little warping, which is a shame but isnt too bad if you arn't expecting brilliance from something that costs £3 a tub.

Little car. Yes, its rubbish, but i'm not great with hand crafting yet...

Took two peices of air clay and mixed paint in with them. Sadly, i think mixing in the paint weakens the clay itself and causes those stretch-splits you can see there.

And a bunch of rocks. Yes, i'm aware one looks like a willy. Very adult of you

So yeah. I played around a lot with the potentials and limitations of the stuff. It dries almost like a weird paper mache pulp almost and is incredibly light. You can paint on it with Citadel Miniature Paints just fine and it holds the paint without a need for a Primer.

All in all, pretty good stuff.

Next, i'll cover my experiments with Silli and the awesome stuff i managed by combining the two in my craft projects...

Slaine and Ukko: A breif history lesson, and some unpainted models...

Slaine Mac Roth. My first ever fantasy hero.

Slaine was a character from the comic book 2000AD, the comic that instilled my love of fantasy and sci-fi in my formative years. Slaine was a story based on celtic myth and drawing heavily from it for the plot as well as the author's original twist on the tales.

Armed with a massive axe named Brainbiter and one of the most badass catchphrases ever muttered, Slaine was installed firmly in my brain.

And then, The Responsible One bought me some models.

Wargame Foundry are the source! Take a look at The Responsible One's blog for more info

This will be a work in progress!

Forsaken Larp Project

This won't mean a lot to a good chunk of people looking at this blog, I imagine.

I'm working on a thing which wont come to fruition for at least a year, but I want to be ready to roll out a proposal document for people to make a desicion about when the time comes. For the most part, its going to end up being a whole bunch of notes and reasons why I think its a good idea until we get closer to me putting my hat in to try and run it.

I'm a member of a Live Roleplay Society in the UK and one of the games we play is Werewolf: The Forsaken. We have... well, as of right now I think i'm confident enough to say at least 10 games with over 50 characters that play in them. Probably more. So for the Forsaken fans reading this going 'Jesus how many players is he planning for?'... well, a god-damn lot is the answer.

The Role of the ANST

As a start, i'd like to overhaul the job description of the ANST. As it stands, the ANST is a Direct storyteller as well as a team leader and an administrative organiser and rules-decider. While i understand that Teams do help with this serious spreading thin issue I think having the ANST write national level plots does take away from the personal, visceral nature of werewolf. Its not a story about how the Forsaken Nation won, its a story about a bunch of werewolves carving a place for themselves under the eye of an insane godess whilst trying to live up to the job they inhereted from their father.

 

As such, i'd like to put more power into the hands of the local ST's when it comes to plot and the freedom to write plot for their game and turn the ANST into a supervisory/advisory role. As such, my plan is to make the ANST responsible for the following:

 

• Creating and Modifying rules addenda
• Adjudicating Fetish Creation and Approval
• Adjudicating Renown at the Heroic and Legendary levels (4 and 5 respectively)
• Mediating the use of Venue Antagonists (Balehounds, Pure Society, Shifting Breeds, Hunter Organisation) at a national level to ensure the game does not suffer an oversaturation of various antagonist groups.
• Administrating for each of the local games in their purview to ensure that information is shared between games (such as when a non-local character acheives a renown-worthy deed or steals a fetish) and for ST handovers to be completed and passed along.
• Mediating ST/ST disputes and ST/Player disputes when they cannot be solved personally or locally.
• Helping local ST's organise games for Nationals and acting as a co-st during them.
• Translating local ST plot drops into Luna-Given Cahalith dreams and passing them down to players as the local ST requests them. (This is to give cahalith dreams more of a 'handed down by god'  feel)

Noticably, at this point there is no plans for the ANST to write plot at a national level.

 

Forsaken Character Creation Guidelines

• No Membership Class XP (This may change depending on society-wide desicions about how we use MC in the future, and I am using 'No MC' to represent my personal opinions and preferences until i'm told otherwise)
• Limited Fetish Ownership at character creation for the first 3 months of the new Chronicle. No fetishes at Character Creation after this point. (This is to give fetishes more of a feel of items of significance rather then useful tools and to ensure no oversaturation of fetishes occurs with the 'Fetishes don't cost XP' point in 'venue guidelines' section)
• No Renowns at 3 at Character Creation.
• Fighting Styles function according to the books except where stated. (... My plan is for a low powered game which actually makes fighting styles more applicable then a simple bonus or penalty applied to characters. This point is seriously subject to change and the fighting styles might be heavily addenda'd depending on the XP system we settle with)
• No Skills or Merits higher then 3 dots before XP is applied.
• No Attributes above 4 before XP is applied.
• No Pure, No Balehounds, No Shifting Breeds (The first two I am negotiable about, the last one no way in hell)

Forsaken Venue Guidelines

These will be a series of notes rather then a well organised thing for the moment as my brain meanders.

• Everything is owned. There should be no territory where a werewolf or a pack of werewolves can just walk in and claim it unchallenged. Packs new to the area should have to work towards gaining territory. Wether its held by Azlu, Pure, Forsaken, Claimed, Powerful Spirits, Vampires or Mages doesn't matter.
• There should be no gaps between player territories unless it is a serious plot point. Werewolf packs should be in close proximity to each other and causing problems on each others territories should be common. Werewolves should feel like everyone else is constantly on the border of invading their territory.
• There should be at least one neutral territory on a VSS to allow live games to occur.
• When a pack is created, they should have less then 5 points of Loci between all members. How this is distributed across the territory should be discussed with the pack and the ST.
• The entirety of a pack's membership should be on a single Vss, not split between multiple.
• The entirety of a pack's territory should be on a single Vss, not split between multiple.
• If the VSS has 5 or fewer local players, they should be a single pack.
• Totem Benefits only apply to your local VSS - Totem spirits won't venture far from a pack's territory and are NPC'd by your ST only. Yes, this means that travelling to other domains robs you of your totem benefits. Yes, this means that travelling to National Games robs you of your totem benefits. I am considering some sort of 'Temporary Lodge' for these national games which grant benefits that apply to the nature of the national game so that everyone has a way to get involved.
• Each Pack should make a short list of territories they would like. The ST should make sure that at least one of these territories is owned by another PC pack (if a Clutch or Tur game) or an NPC Pack (if a Pack game). One of these territories should be within the bounds of the pack's territory but as so far unclaimed/neutral by the pack or contested.
 
• Each VSS should decide wether it is a 'Pack' game, a 'Clutch' game or a 'Tur' game.
• Pack: All local players are members of the same pack and plot revolves around that pack's territory and local area.
• Clutch: Two or more packs who are often at odds if not downright agressive to each other. Pack on Pack conflict is common, co-operation should be begrudging. Plot should focus on causing conflict between the packs either requiring them to battle it out or come to a temporary truce to resolve the problem.
• Tur: Two or more packs who have created a Tur. Packs may be at odds with each other but a truce stopping them from downright attacking each other exists. Packs can also be genial to each other. Co-operation is common and Pack on Pack conflict is rare. Plots should focus on the Tur coming together to resolve issues.
• National Games should be Warbands, Moots or Revels. Each National Game should be based on a VSS's location with the local ST acting as the Lead Storyteller or as the decision making part of a National ST Team if they don't feel comfortable running a national game as the lead ST.
• Warband: The Game focuses on Forsaken Society in the UK having been called to a location by the local pack/s in order to battle or otherwise defeat a foe that cannot be beaten alone.
• Moot: The game focuses on a large gathering of the UK forsaken having been called together to discuss 'Political Matters'. Im not sure how this one would work but ideally there would be locally run plots that several games in close proximity to each other share that require deep thought from multiple werewolf packs.
• Revel: The game focuses on a social get together hosted by packs local to the area for the Forsaken of the UK. Cahalith Storytelling and Branding, Individuals and Packs bragging about their acheivements, Hunts (Competative or for Ritualistic Purposes) and perhaps music and a buffet.

• Combat should be quick, viscious and savage
• Fetishes should not cost Experience to purchase but require either a Ritualist to create them or for them to be stolen/looted from foes.
• Talens should be common
• Low level fetishes should be uncommon but present.
• High level fetishes should be plots unto themselves or inhereted from dead family/packmates.
• Renown should not cost Experience to purchase but after the first two levels they should require serious effort. A characters level 2 renowns should be able to be detailed by their Packmates, level 3 renowns should be able to be detailed by non-packmates on the VSS, Level 4 renowns should be able to be detailed by Cahalith from other domains and Level 5 renowns should be able to be detailed by every character living within the UK for any length of time.
 

And thats what I have had bouncing around my brain for a few months now. Finally written somewhere I can't easily lose it like my notebook...