Prince Valiant on Mars

The following is my implementation of an Edgar Rice Burroughs type Mars setting based on the Chaosium Prince Valiant Game by Greg Stafford (which is sadly out of print, but it shouldn't be too hard to track down a used copy). This is a brilliant little game that I highly recommend picking up if you're looking for something really rules lite and which does a good job of creating the feeling of old style adventures like Hal Foster's Prince Valiant, Flash Gordon, or even Burrough's Mars novels. The system is ideal for introducing new players to the idea of roleplaying. It is also notable for being influential on many later designs but was relatively unsuccessful when it came out. I've substituted dice for the coins the game uses, and I've created a set of careers and skills specific to Mars. For a fuller explantion of these notes see the Prince Valiant rulebook.

Maybe I'll try to write up some of the characters from the Burroughs books in the next few days.

PRINCE VALIANT ON MARS

SYSTEM

Characters are rated from 1-6 in just two attributes. These are BRAWN and PRESENCE. The rating indicates the number of D6s they may roll when making an attribute check. Attribute checks roll ONLY on the attribute.

Skills are rated from 1-6 and also indicate the number of D6s they may roll when making a skill check. However, unlike attribute checks, skill checks combine the skill and the attribute to get a total dice pool.

For example: If you were rolling on your Horsemanship skill and your Horsemanship was 3 and your Brawn was 2 you would combine these for a total dice pool of 5D6.

Any roll of 4 or higher is considered a success. Any character that rolls successes for ALL of the dice in his current dice pool has attained a COMPLETE SUCCESS. Any character who rolls a complete success may add 1 additional success to his roll.

If the action you take next round is related to the action you took this round (such as a continued opposed contest like a fencing duel between two characters)then the character may BANK his/her successes for the following round if they so desire (Note: this banking may only be done ONCE).

DIFFICULTY FACTORS

1 Successes: Very Easy

2 Successes: Easy

3 Successes: Normal

4 Successes: Difficult

5 or more Successes: Very Difficult

Skill contests (like combat) involve rolling your dice pool and comparing the number of successes with your opponent. The one with the most successes is the winner.

A tie indicates the contest was a draw.


CHARACTER GENERATION

Beginning character have 7 points to divide up between their attributes. Each attribute must have at least 1 point in it and no attribute may have more than 6.

ATTRIBUTES

BRAWN
PRESENCE

Next, divide 9 points among 6 skills, with at least 1 point to each. No skill may be rated higher than 6.

BASIC SKILLS

AGILITY
ANCIENT SCIENCE
ARMS
BATTLE
BRAWLING
CHARM
COURTESY
DEXTERITY
DISGUISE
FELLOWSHIP
FIREARMS
GAMING
HEALING
HUNTING
LORE
MECHANICIAN
MONEY-HANDLING
ORATORY
PILOTING
READ/WRITE LANGUAGE
RIDING
SPEAK LANGUAGE
STEALTH
TELEPATHY

OCCUPATIONS

(Red Martians)

Airman
Must have Arms and Piloting.


Assassin
Must have Arms and Stealth.


City Noble
Must have Courtesy and Telepathy.


Merchant
Must have Money-Handling and Charm.


Prince / Princess
Must have Arms and Courtesy.

Scout
Must have Hunting and Riding.

Scoundrel
Must have Brawling and Charm.


Slave
Must have Courtesy and Dexterity or Agility (Choose one)


Warrior
Must have Arms and Firearms.


(Green Martians)


Barbarians
Must have Riding and Firearms.


(Black Martians)


Pirates
Must have Piloting and Stealth


STORYTELLER POINTS

A character may use a single Storyteller point in order to invoke a Special Effect at an appropriately dramatic moment. This effectively allows the player to temporarily take control of the narrative and automatically declare that a particular event happens.

Here is a listing of the Special Effects that can be invoked:


SPECIAL EFFECTS

TERRIFY
SAVE IN COMBAT
FIND ESCAPE ROUTE
ESCAPE BONDS
FIND SOMETHING HIDDEN
HIDE
KILL A FOE IN COMBAT
KNOCK AN OPPONENT SENSELESS
INCITE LUST
SUPRESS LUST
INSPIRE INDIVIDUAL TO GREATNESS
CONFUSE CHARACTER
AROUSE PASSIONS OF CROWD


MODIFIERS SUMMARY

Melee

Mounted vs. opponent on foot +1
Superior Position +1
Superior Numbers +1
Flanking +1
Surrounding Opponent +3
Attack from Behind +3

Weapons

Normal Weapons +1

Ranged

Target Behind Cover -1 to -3
Draw and Attack -1

Morale

Positive: Love, Loyalty +1 or +2
Negative: Fear, Panic -1 or -2

Presence

Character has 1000 Honor or more than opponent: +1
Character has 10000 Honor or more than opponent: +2

RANGED WEAPON DIFFICULTIES

1 Success: Point Blank Range
2 Successes: Short Range
3 Successes: Medium Range (Default)
4 or more Successes: Long Range


ADVANCEMENT AND HONOR

(Awards per Session)

Minimum Award 100
Standard Award 200
Significant Award 300
Maximum Award 500

100 Known among circle
500 Famous in Home Town
1000 On the Road to Real Fame
10000 A Famous Adventurer
50000 Famous throughout the Country (and the World)

1 Skill increases 1 point at the 1000 Honor mark (and every subsequent 1000 mark).

1 Attribute increases 1 point at the 5000 Honor mark.

Skills may also be increased if a complete success is rolled. The character should then roll an unmodified skill roll (with no attribute combined) and if that roll also comes up all successes then the character may add an additional point to that skill.

Japanese Giant Robot and Monster Shows

Warning: YouTube nostalgia ahead!

I used to watch many of these shows and now inflict them on you!




For some reason I used to want to fly around in Rodak's bat wing space ship thing with the glowing white disco ball embedded in it.






Yikes! I'd forgotten I used to watch both Spectreman and Ultraman until I watched the openings!




"Use robot punch!"




Okay. . .I never saw this show when I was a kid, but I now want that guy's helmet.



Okay. . .I never saw this one either, but If I'd seen this when I was eight it would have been my favorite TV show ever. I would have then created a D&D campaign where they have laser guns, swords, and werelions on horseback.

Three Headed Monster Games

One thing I've always admired about the indie rpg scene is the very real way in which those folks support each other in publishing, promotion, and even just actually playing of each others games. It's nice to see a bit more of that sort of creative support coming together in the OSR. So check out the guys over at Three Headed Monster Games:

http://thmgames.blogspot.com/


I keep thinking about this fellow when I hear the name:

Where I First Saw OD&D

I mentioned this in my previous post, but I though I'd expand on this story because the memory now haunts me (but in a good way as you'll see).

I was a kid living in Crystal Lake, Illinois when I discovered D&D, and I would often make trips to our local bookstore which, despite it being an independently owned shop, was located in a mall. I can't remember the name of the store for the life of me, but it was something like "The Book Hollow", but their bookmarks, as I recall, had the image of a small gnomelike fellow with a beard standing next to an old gnarled tree.



So in around the spring of 1982 I discovered one of the later editions of OD&D in with a bunch of other D&D stuff at this store. The box set was from the last set of printings which have "Original Collector's Edition" written on the box. In addition to the box set they had individual copies of Men & Magic and the other two volumes from the boxed set. I'm also certain they had copies of Gods, Demigods, and Heroes, Chainmail, and Eldritch Wizardry.



These books confused me as I hadn't seen them in any of TSR's catalogs such as their "Gateway to Adventure" catalog which had come with my Basic Set. Maybe it was the cover to Eldritch Wizardry which said: "Okay ten year old Nick this one isn't for you. . .and besides HOW are you going to get this one past your Mom?" I don't think I even had a clear understanding that these were the original rulebooks--I probably thought they were freaky old miniatures supplements for AD&D. Only years later did I realize what those little white booklets were.



Now, I keep thinking: if only I'd bought them!

Yet I think it was this memory which was fired when I stumbled across places like the Knights & Knaves Alehouse and the OD&D Discussion Boards. Soon I bought the OD&D PDFs from RPGNow, and I was off into creating my houseruled version of OD&D.

I think in that initial flurry of the OSR it felt a bit like we were excavating the origins of so much stuff that's now central to our hobby. It was exciting. And all that made me love D&D again.

My Gaming History

Its far too late and I should go back to bed, but this just crawled into my brain and so I thought I'd post this. Here's what I've played from when I was a wee gamer until now.

This is a long post (I've been gaming on and off since 1982).

(I've stolen this idea from a thread at Vincent Baker's blog Anyway)

Here's mine:

Played made up "dungeon" game with a six sided and a dungeon board drawn on a piece of construction paper in my fourth grade English class (we weren't supposed to be doing this).

AD&D ran by a friends older brother (it was Against the Giants)

Got Moldvay Basic.

Left Moldvay behind for the siren call of those AD&D hardbacks.

I see one of the later editions of the "white box" in with a bunch of other AD&D stuff at our local bookstore. They also have copies of Gods, Demigods, and Heroes and Eldritch Wizardry. They confuse me as I haven't seen them in any of TSR's catalogs. If only I'd bought them!

Played Dungeon! over at my friend Tom's house.

Top Secret.

Gamma World.

(Wow there's a horrifying infomercial on right now for a "male enhancement product". That's what I get for being up this late).

Lots of AD&D!!

Lots and lots of Top Secret (This was our main game for several years).

Call of Cthulhu (this game blew my mind and led me to read the pulp trinity of Lovecraft, Howard, and Smith).

Traveller (we never used the Third Imperium Setting--I made up my own setting ripping lots off of Dune).

My friend buys GURPS claiming it is the Holy Grail of Gaming: you can play ANYTHING. That's intriguing but we never end up playing.

Marvel super heroes. I only got the original basic set and then wised I'd waited and got the "advanced" set--which was really a much better and more complete game.

Paranoia at my friend Mike's house. We all kill each other and laugh about it.

AD&D 2nd edition.

TMNT and Heroes Unlimited

Car Wars (I'm not very good and die quickly in our arena combat).

Pendragon (great game).

Top Secret/S.I. This continued on from where our old Top Secret campaign left off (with the same characters).

I don't game for about two years.

Cyberpunk.

More Cyberpunk.

AD&D 1st edition Dragonlance.

Vampire.

FASA's Star Trek.

Amber Diceless (I've fallen in love)

Lots of Amber.

Mekton.

Ars Magica.

I buy the Different Worlds printing of Empire of the Petal Throne.

I buy Stormbringer (4th edition) but never manage to get a game going.

Gene Wolfe inspired fantasy thing using a AD&D 2nd edition and later a freeform system without dice (inflicted mostly on my friend Erik).

More time not playing.

Epic Mekton campaign that lasts almost two years.

Run a great long running Amber game.

Don't game for a few years.

Various homemade Amber-inspired settings using freeform rules.

Another Mekton attempt that crashes and burns.

Amber inspired thing using the FUDGE rules.

Supernatural themed FUDGE game inspired by British TV shows like Sapphire and Steel.

D&D 3.0

We convert our D&D 3.0 campaign to Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying System (which becomes our go-to system for a while).

Follow up/alternate take on our FUDGE amber inspired game using the Basic Roleplaying System--this one ends up being a grittier modern era game.

Abortive Star Wars game using Basic Roleplaying--the system finally fails us.

Pendragon (5th edition) using the Great Pendragon Campaign.

Figuring out what I want in D&D.

Discover Philotomy's Musings and the OD&D boards.

OD&D baby!

Simultaneously discover indie scene and the Forge. Now I have too many games to play!

D&D (4th ed)

GMless X-men thing.

Talisman with my wife and friends.

The 9th Division.

Tell me yours?

Dungeon Squad and Other Rules Lite Fantasy Games

So yesterday I spent a little bit of time reading up on a game I had downloaded a while back called "Dungeon Squad" but had never taken the time to really look at very closely. It strips the idea of something like D&D down to its essence in quite an interesting way.

The game was originally written by Jason Morningstar, author of such games as The Shab-Al-Hiri Roach and Grey Ranks, as part of a 24 hour rpg design challenge. According to the wikipedia entry on Dungeon Squad the idea came from an unsatisfying session of D&D 3.X which he ran for some kids at the local library. Dungeon Squad tries to cater to younger roleplayers by providing a fun and rules lite system with lots of rolling dice, killing monsters, and getting gold.

It looks like it could be a blast to play and its given me a kick in the butt to actually finish Dungeon Battle!--my ongoing dungeoncrawl boardgame project.

Here's a link to Morningstar's original draft of "Dungeon Squad":

http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/dungeon-squad

Here's a thread on Dragonsfoot from a while back with some discussion of the game as well as some great links. Meepo's version is quite good as it keeps the stripped down quality of the original with just a little bit of expansion:

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=23582

Here's are some of the various versions of Dungeon Squad which people have made posted at the 1000 Monkey 1000 Typewriters website:

http://www.1km1kt.net/?s=Dungeon+Squad

Here another little fantasy game called "Adventurer" which looks kind of nifty too:

http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/adventure-rpg

Here's a link to the brilliant Microlite 74 which is a distillation of the D20 system down to its essence so that it closely resembles the earliest editions of the world's most popular fantasy game:

http://www.retroroleplaying.com/content/microlite74

Here's a link to the 1000 Monkeys 1000 Typewriters website which hosts lots of cool free rpgs--poke around I think you'll find some interesting stuff.

http://www.1km1kt.net

9th Division: The Protagonists

Here's a brief description of my character and her aspects:

Name: Dietrich

Description: A bald woman in her late twenties/early thirties with an exotic air. She has swirling tatoos around the back of her head and wears dark forties style suits made out of unusual materials.

Here's her list of aspects as per the questions in Wheel of Fate:

What is your greatest strength?

Her physical superiority to human beings.

What is your greatest flaw?

Acceptance of her slavery (she's an android).

What do you want?

To be seen as the best cop she can be.

What is keeping you from getting it?

Perceptions of other officers about her being an android.

What are you doing about it?

Being a perfectionist/ overachieving.



Here's another of our character-protagonists.

Name: Dr. Victor Choi.

Description: 4'8" weightlifting psionic Chinese-American (2nd generation psion).

Here's his list of aspects as per the questions in Wheel of Fate:

What is your greatest strength?

Perception and analysis.

What is your greatest flaw?

His inability to relate to others.

What do you want?

To understand people.

What is keeping you from getting it?

His intellectual and conceptual remove.

What are you doing about it?

Being among troubled people / Working for the police.



Here's the last of our character-protagonists.

Name: ??

Description: Middle aged detective.

Here's his list of aspects as per the questions in Wheel of Fate:

What is your greatest strength?

Commited professional cop / workaholic.

What is your greatest flaw?

Ambition for promotion

What do you want?

Promotion out of the 9th Division.

What is keeping you from getting it?

Has the stink of corruption on him from a previous scandal which he was made the scapegoat for.

What are you doing about it?

Closing cases at all costs.