Random Thoughts & Links for 8/30/2024

It's the end of another week.

- Delta has some Star Frontiers minis he's made from molds. You know how much I love Sathar!

- This is an interesting take on treasure - per hoard, not per gp.

- Marc Miller has plans for Traveller to continue after he dies.

- My playthrough of Persian Gulf continues. Things have gone bad for the US and its allies, despite the Soviet's inability to roll well on the Combat Results Table. There are just too many of them, and some poor choices cost the US some time and space. Turkey is overrun and its last units are getting mauled. Iraq looks to be next. Jordan's force in Iran was expelled from the city they held, and now can't break back through to the mountains. The Kurds are largely eliminated, and the rebellious Iranian army units - that sides with the US - are all destroyed. The US holds the swamps and oil fields around As-Basra and Iraq, and that's about it. Poor rolls on maintenance have meant the US can't keep the B-52s rolling week after week, and through sheer numbers the Soviets are contesting the air a bit now. I'll play it out, but it's looking bad . . . the US has almost nothing else coming (a few reservists in Iraq, that's all) and the Soviets have another 10 divisions coming and some units a week or two later. They're all poor quality units (Mig-19s, for goodness sake, and 3rd-rate reservists) but there are a lot of them. The US needs nuclear escalation to the next level for air-delivered tactical nukes, but unless that comes soon it won't change anything.

Still fun, but man, I forgot how hard it is to stem a wildly aggressive Soviet player with so few units. If you don't get deep into Iran fast enough to sieze the mountain passes, you're toast.

Why so stingy for selling monster bits?

Last session, my players had their characters drag home a dead young chimera/stone bull hybrid to try to sell it in town as a curio. It did not sell, and they were forced to dump it.

In generally, monster bits are a tertiary form of loot in DF, behind actual found money and cashing in empties - selling weapons and armor.

Why is that?

First off, it's in the books that way.

The DF books highlight the valuable monster bits that can be sold. There are not a lot of them, and they rarely sell for much. A few monsters have very valuable bits - dragons, for example - but most have nothing especially valuable and a few have some moderate value.

So suddenly turning every monster into a pile of bits requires either a generic ruling about value, or assigning specific values to each and every monster. Then, logically, I'd have to apply a percentage off of that based on type and amount of damage. If you reduced the Baby Mira to -8xHP (for example), with -5xHP being auto-death and -10xHP being total destruction, that's going to reduce the value. But what about it dying right away at -1xHP due to a failed HT roll, but, say, you killed it with fire? I could just wave that away, sure, or apply broad-strokes rulings, but again, I'd need to generate a value system for monster corpses.

The next bit is that it would change the game. It would go from "Finding the monsters and kill them, and hopefully find loot!" to "Harvest the latest crop of monsters." The goal goes from exploring a huge dungeon at great risk for wealth and to fight evil, to find any monster and kill it in the most corpse-preserving fashion possible and probably leave enough to repop for next time because they're valuable. I know the arguments about how people used all the bits of whatever animal, and animal tails and furs are useful commodities, and so on . . . but this doesn't sound fun.

Additionally, it would result in a lot of mechanical logistical annoyance. Kill the monster, have a specific weight for it, figure out how to carry it out, and repeat. On top of that, people who wanted to maximize the value might just take the valuable bits - surely the meat of an owlbear is not as valuable as its pelt, and does anyone really want the beak? If not, now we're looking at a system for that, too - how much does the skin weigh, how much time to get it off, which bits are worth which amount, etc.

I talk not from some abstract theory of what would happen, but what has happened repeately in my games even in the face of failure. Even knowing - being flat-out told - it's unlikely anyone would want anything that isn't already highlighted in the books as especially valuable, players tend to try to eke out just a bit more loot with dragged home monster bits not known to be valuable.

So, in my experience, allowing monster bits to be sold as a matter of course would add headache to my end as the GM, and change the nature of the game from "Get rich and fight evil!" to "Farm monsters." And I don't want to play the latter, so I skew the rules to the former even if that annoys players who know real-world people buy bits of dead animals all the time.



So for now, and for all time, 95 to 99 times out of 100, dragging whole monsters home isn't going to pan out. The 1-5%? Live ones, intact, and the special bits called out. If the rules - mine or published - don't say it's valauble, it's not, and no Merchant rolls, Charisma levels, or whatever will change that. Leave the dead lie and keep looking for gold.

DF Session 197, Felltower 133 - Chimera, Stone Bulls, and Baby Mira

Date: 8/25/2024

Weather: Sunny, hot.

Characters Chop, human cleric (301 points)
     Harold
     Samual
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (300 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (316 points)
Persistance Montgomery, human knight (300 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (306 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf martial artist (266 points)

We started off in town, gathering rumors, and the PCs found and hired Harold and Samual, two human guards, to join them at double pay.

They headed off to the dungeon, intending to go into the dragon's cave entrance to Felltower and kill off the stone bull and chimera they spotted there with scrying a while back.

Basically, that is what they did. They headed up, sent Vlad in to scout, and snuck in ready for action once he reported sounds that could be inhabiting monsters.

They rushed in and attacked, finding a chimera and a stone bull.

In a close-in brawl, they managed to slay them both, with lightning from Duncan and lots of sword and axe blows plus some arrows and hatchets and kamas from the rest. The PCs got a little too confident in some Vigor spellstones and bunched up to "finish off" the stone bull when it rushed them, and that got Thor, Harold, and Samual turned to stone.

Chop un-petrified Thor in time for them to find three baby chimera/stone bull hybrids. They killed them in short order, despite Vlad wishing to take one captive to sell in town.

Having butchered the lot figuratively, they used Create Earth to wall off the caves deeper, looted a bunch of assorted small coins and junk plus the Helm of the Rat, and used Prepare Game on some of the dead to salvage saleable bits. Sadly, none had any. They did Seek Earth to find gold, silver, and oricalcum, but all three castings came up empty.

In the end they took their coins and the least badly chopped up baby mira to town but found no one wanted to buy it.

Notes:

- quick, good session. Bunching up against the stone bull was the only real mistake they made, and lucky for them Chop wasn't affected and could un-petrify their stoned friends.

- MVP was Duncan for effective Lightning use. 4 xp each.

- And FYI the point totals are way off up there. I have no idea any longer what people's characters are worth.

Assorted Links and Thoughts for 8/23/2024

A few thoughts and links for today.

- there is still a GURPS sale going on.

- same with that Bundle of Holding for Dying Earth DCC.

- Felltower is on Sunday.

- Matt Riggsby noodles on about historical writing for games.

- My Persian Gulf game stalled a bit from being busy. That said, the Soviets have overrunn most of Iran (their ally), savaged Turkey and took most of it, and are now moving into Iraq. As much as the cards favored the US and its allies well, the rolls for aircraft maintenance have housed them. The B-52s haven't been a factor since that one nasty logistical strike. I'm not sure how the US bails this out; the Soviets have them badly outnumbered and it's just Iraq, a few Kurdish units, Jordan, the Saudis, th Israelis, and the RDF . . . holding Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and a tiny slice of Iran. The Soviets have almost a dozen more units on the way . . . I think the US might be able to salvage a Minor Soviet Victory but it's looking like it'll be worse. We'll see.

4th edition GURPS Anniversary Sale

GURPS 4th edition is 20 years old. I got my start as a book author - rather than just an article author - for SJG with GURPS 4th edition. So although I got started with 1st edition and played a lot of 3rd edition, 4th edition has a very special place in my gaming heart. It's also the system that I use and have used for what's my longest running campaign, DF Felltower.

There is a sale going on for it.

Click HERE for the details.

DCC Dying Earth Bundle of Holding

There is a DCC Dying Earth Bundle of Holding for sale. I went in on the basic level of this, because $17.95 (or more if you prefer) is a great deal on a $40 PDF.

Also, I don't play DCC, but the DCC version of Lankhmar is very true to the source material, so I want to see the DCC view of Dying Earth.

Click HERE if you're interested in seeing the offer page.

Felltower Updated for 8/18/2024

I had very little free time today, and what little I had I spent on TWW:PG. But I did get some Felltower work done, because I make sure to every Sunday.

- I updated the VTT files - the GURPS module, add-ons, and the basic Foundry build.

- I updated the rumors.

- I did a small bit of stocking of one corner of the dungeon I had been avoiding doing any work on.

- I did a little research for one of the gate destinations.

I've been running silent on the blog because of little to write and a lot of non-blog work to do. But the campaign should kick back up into gear once we're past summer. It usually does.

TWW: Persian Gulf update

I've played a few more turns of Frank Chadwick's Third World War series game, Persian Gulf.

It's been a hot mess.

At the moment, we're just starting Pact First Impulse for War Turn 4.*

- the conflict went nuclear as fast as possible. On the end of War Turn 1. It narrowly avoided going from level 1 to level 2 last turn. All of this benefits the Pact, since Soviet forces get 2:1 on artillery/short range tactical nukes.

- the Pact luck on airpower kept up for 2 more weeks (turns). The RDF B-52 wing was out with maintenance issues for 2 weeks. They shot down the precious A-10s and turned about the AV-8Bs once as well. Severely weather kept the Western Asian theatre out of threat from NATO airpower.

- The Syrians got massacred. Their entire expeditionary force was wiped out after a severe brusing with the Iraqis. They tried to limp home but the Turks crushed them.

- The US 24th ID (real world - become the 4th ID) and a tank bridge and a few assorted units rushed a Soviet force and mauled them badly . . . but when the conflict went nuclear, they suffered from the exchanges. The 4th ID and attacked armored brigade barely escaped destruction, and were mauled badly enough to need to flee to the coast and to get evacuated to Saudi Arabia (well, Bahrain anyway) for reconstituion. In game terms, they have proficiency 7 and took 6 disruptions each. Ouch.

- The Soviet's first wave of reinforcements arrived while the Turks were finishing off the Syrians. Looking at the board, I chose a different approach. In the past, I'd used them to backstop my Iran positions and try to finish off American units. This time, Turkey seemed vulnerable. So I had them rush Turkey . . . and it worked. They smoked most of the defenses and are now debauching into northern Iraq.

- The US had to back off, the Jordanians are surrounded in Iran in Kurdistan, the Kurds have been mauled, the Turks are mauled, and there is little left of the rebel centrist Iranian army.

- But then, the worm turned a bit. A Soviet gambit to finish off the 24th ID cost them a Motor-Rifle Division (in NATO parlance, a mechanized division) . . . in fact thei best one (it was 9-9-6, when front line units in Germany are 10-9-6 and most on the flanks are 7-7-5). And then weather cleared over Western Asia, the B-52s were back in action . . . and turn 4 began.

- The US was able to, finally, use the B-52s for deep strike missions, and went after logistical depots. The B-52s inflicted 46 brigades worth of unsupplied markers in one massive strike. The Soviets had 43 brigades in theatre. So suddenly, the Pact units whooping it up and chasing the mauled RDF to the coast are unsupplied. There aren't remotely enough units to deprive to change this much (using emergency supply redirection to keep the key units in supply), but we'll see. If the US can keep this up, it might change the war. If not, this is a brief respite before the Soviets finish off the rebel units in Iran and crush most if not all of Iraq. We'll see.



* Turns are interesting. Once you do some preliminaries, you get Pact First Impulse, a second phase for Pact units not in a ZOC, then a NATO Reserve Impulse for units not in a ZOC, then a Pact Second Impulse and second phase, then two NATO phases. It's all based on doctrinal assumptions about how both sides make war. Potentially, a Pact unit can move 4x and recover damage 2x; a NATO unit 3x and 3x. Usually it's less thanks to ZOCs (zones of control) and movement.

Random Thoughts & Links for 8/9/2024

Busy week, just a few bits.

- I'm reading Jon Peterson's new book. It's good, and it does have some details on the early days of gaming that the first volume didn't, but it's not so dense as the first one. Much more readable for someone who just wants to learn the history, but I did enjoy the deep detail of the 1st edition of Playing at the World.

- I really need to link up all of the recent sessions on the DF campaign page. I've just been doing too much other stuff to take a moment to do that.

- I forgot to mention that hidden GM rolls seemed to work just fine last game session. It really makes a big difference for us when they are on versus when they are off.

- So busy these past few days that I didn't have time to play any more Persian Gulf. I need to complete it by early next week, so I expect a marathon of turns on Sunday and Monday.

Felltower: Upcoming Game Dates

Thanks to the Summer scheduling messes, the next Felltower game day is 8/25. I'll have posts in between, but no summaries until then.

DF Felltower: Sage Research Results for the Pool of Fire

Here are the results of the research request on the flaming pool.

- It's almost certainly a mostly one-way gate from the Realm of Fire, one of the elemental worlds.

- It matches the description of other one-way gates from such places in all of the important particulars - ever-burning oil, supernaturally hot flames.

- such gates are two-way only for beings of fire, but might be the outflow from a normal gate in the Realm of Fire - in other words, it might be an exit even if you can't use it as an entrance.

- the "hemisphere" that Hannari briefly fondled - the sage insisted on the word choice "fondled" - is likely part or all of some kind of salamander or flame beast akin to flame lords. It almost certainly pulled back when it encountered something it couldn't burn.

- Whatever Hannari fondled, it will be aware of your existence now. Be careful around the gate as fire creatures could come through.

- It's possible other pools in the room are the same. Although it's also possible that they are not. But one-way exit gates are more likely than two-way gates.

And that's all.

TWW: Persian Gulf update

I decided after all to keep playing TWW: Persian Gulf as is.

I probably needn't have worried too much about the Soviets. They've steamrolled their way south, demolishing the few rebel units in their path and seizing a few important locations along the way. They managed to get as far as seizing Abadan and Shiraz. They had phenomenal luck with air defenses, and bad luck with ground attacks. The US tried to stop their steamroll with a B52 strike - which a lucky "6" aborted, and with an F-16 attack (halved by AA). Ground fire also aborted an A-10 deployment against one attack. Only some USMC AV-8Bs (Harriers) managed to get useful ground support in. But low rolls on the attacks meant they dealt damage but suffered disruptions across the board. Same with a Syrian attack on Iraqi units, which did nothing but bruise everyone.

However, the US RDF has landed and struck back. The first direct US vs. USSR fighting on the ground was a counterattack on Abadan. The Soviets held it with two MRDs (Motorized Rifle Divisions, which are mechanized infantry). The US counterattacked with the 82nd Airborne (airborne infantry), a helicopter brigade, the 9th Light Mechanized Division (light motorized, a division that never came to be as the game envisioned it), and some Iraqi units - some Revolutionary Guard tanks plus regular infantry and armored. The MRDs were forced to retreat and disrupted heavily passing through ZOCs on their way out. A Jordanian expeditionary force took Bakhtaran with some light Kurdish help. And the Iraqis counterattacked the Syrians and achieved as much as the Syrians had - mutual bruising, with the Iraqi suffering a lot of units damaged to two Syrian units banged up. Still, they're fixed in play with the Turks nearby . . . not that they can coordinate attacks as they're rival nations.

And the Iranian army, fighting on both sides, has suffered about 50% of so casualties in effective units. Ouch. The IRG took losses, too, but they can recruit replacements.

FWIW, if you're familiar with the game, I am using the Chemical Warfare rules, which inflicts extra damage on non-NBC equipped troops and reduces damage if one side doesn't have CW and the other does. It's a fun rule that makes the minor powers really minor, and what might be a soft target a bit harder when they'll use nerve gas against your unsuited troops.

The aborted A-10 mission was a godsend to the Soviets because they provide a 4-column shift in odds. Your 6-1 attack becomes 2-1, for example, and 3-1 becomes 1-2 (1.5-1 is a column). It stayed 6-1. And aborting that B52 strike was potentially short-term game-shifting. Most air units have a rating for air-to-air, ground attack, and strike ranging from 0-5. The Tu-96 Blackjacks have a 6. Otherwise, the heaviest strike wings have a 5. The B52? 10. That's enough to reliably inflict 2-3 disruptions on every unit struck, and potentially 10. The elite of the elite are eliminated with 9 disruptions, and most US units have 7, 8 for the elite, and Soviets 5, 6 or 7 for the elite. Oh, and it slows movement. No worries, AA got the mission nullified. It could have wrecked two soviet divisions right next to US forces that could counterattack . . . instead, nothing at all.

Now it's War Turn 1. I'll pick up there next time.

Overall, my strategy for the Soviets has been damn the torpedoes full speed ahead. I'll spend units like bullets if I have to in order to take cities for the victory points, and I'll need a big whack of them and some luck in the air war to crush the RDF. But the US doesn't get a lot of reinforcements, so do I slow it down and let the reinforcing armies roll up and make a big final push with everyone? I'm not sure. We'll see what it looks like after the Turks enter the war and if the Syrians can survive.

Favoring humans in DF Felltower: Setting Bias

I mentioned in the comments on my proposed DF rules option for humans that DF Felltower biases a bit towards humans.

So, how does DF Felltower bias towards humans?

None of it is a big bias; nothing here makes it harder to be non-human. But it is all stuff that makes it easier on you as a human.

Most equipment found is SM 0. That's fine for a good number of non-human races, but is fine for 100% of humans, even the SM+1 ones.

Most armor found is SM 0 and human-shaped. So elves might have a bit of an issue; dwarves definitely do.

Most NPCs are human, and on the whole are more likely to show up as friends or enemies. Advantages that are race-affected or don't cross racial barriers are more limited for non-humans. And there are races that have special antipathy for elves, for dwarves, for half-elves, for halflings, etc. - but not any with a special hatred for humans that doesn't also hit the human-adjacent races.

In short, the world assumes a human majority, places the campaign in a human-majority location, and provides most gear for humans first and to non-humans as an afterthought. Humans might not get the nice little power jump that most non-humans get, but they get a bias across the board in the setting towards them.

Random Thoughts & Links for 8/2/24

It's the end of the week, which means random stuff too small for its own post.

- Got 12 minutes? Then you can hear about how DF1 Monster's Leaping Leeches aren't fiction, but fact.

Leaping Leeches!

- I've played 9 turns of Third World War: Persian Gulf. So far . . . I'm a little underwhelmed. I chose to randomize the diplomacy cards for the pre-war phase using an optional rule. The results were . . . interesting, for sure. The usual suspects went Pact - Syria, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Iranian Communist Party. The US got pretty much everyone else - the Saudis, Iraq, the Kurds, Jordan, Israel, the majority of the Iranian Army during a revolt. All fine. But because the diplomacy cards to alert the military forces (Alert the RDF for US/NATO, Mobilize the Southern Military Districts for the USSR) are held to the end, nothing much has happened. Some jockeying and movement, but no actual fighting, no air war, nothing. Everyone is just primed to go. And now that the end phase of diplomacy is coming, the US has the advantage. The RDF is small but powerful and arrives quickly. The Soviet reinforcements arrive slowly (6 weeks later!) and aren't as powerful. When I used to play face to face, generally as soon as someone could, they'd start the call up. Once things got along a bit soemone would intervene in Iran and the other side would invade, or vice-versa. You'd have fighting breaking out in Iran, followed by US/USSR conflict for a few weeks, and then you'd pull the trigger on general mobilization and war. Now . . . there is going to be 1-2 weeks of pre-war fighting before mobilization, and the Soviets will receive their main reservists before the ones called up by the special mobilization, which is both odd and kneecaps their ability to steamroll Iran (or in this case, the rebel army units in Iran.) They only have 8 weeks of war turns before the game automatically ends, so then what? It's really not that dynamic of an environment.

So I'm deciding between playing it out, and restarting, but allowing a free swap-in of the Alert/Mobilize cards as soon as they apply, and then go back to prewar diplomacy, allowing only for an Invade/Intervene swap-in as appropriate.

We'll see . . .

- Lots of grail history in the preface to this game discussion here - the Quest for the Holy Grail.

- This is me, explaining to my players why the tough monster placed to stop them isn't loaded with loot.

OOTS 1306 Out of Pocket

Favoring humans in GURPS DF

I think there are a few reasons people play non-humans in GURPS DF.

One is just the interest factor - why play fantasy and not play an elf, dwarf, cat-folk, half-demon air-infused dark one, etc.?

The second is pure munchkin. I've had people ask for races outside the DF Felltower list basically because it fit a particular build. Not as in, "It would be cooler if my guy was a half-giant/cat-folk/sea elf/whatever," but as in, "the point costs work out to make a more optimized guy if it was a half-giant/cat-folk/sea elf/whatever."

I'm guilty of both - Handsome the half-orc scout is such because it makes him cooler and because it was a good point buy.

It might be worth balancing the scales a bit. Sure, in theory, a point buy system means it doesn't matter if you're a dwarf, you paid for all of that stuff as the same rate as a human would. But in practice, you have a hard disadvantage limit and a race that comes with -20 in disadvantages and -5 in secondary stat reductions and comes with 45 points of cool stuff costs 20. You get +45 in cool stuff and pay 20 to get it.

Looking at DFRPG Adventurers, disadvantages run from -5 (half-elf) up to -22 (Cat-Folk) without counting attribute reductions, for most NPCs.

One option: Allow humans an expanded pool of disads. Instead of -50 (plus -5 in quirks), allow them -65 (plus -5 in quirks.)
To avoid sameness, the additional -15 points can come from either secondary characteristic reductions, off-template disadvantages, or on-template disadvantages.
Net/net, nonhumans are still a good deal. But humans now have 15 points to play with.

You could even go 20 points, but I think that makes some racial choises - like half-elf and gnome - a net loss unless they exactly match what you need from them. -15 seems like a good go.

I haven't tried this, but I have players who make characters for a hobby so I expect they'd be willing to give this a try. It might go a ways towards making humans a good basic choice in a way that they aren't when point-efficient and useful packages like dwarf (the single most popular) are out there.