The race and the swift

If you want to get cracking on the wargame deck from yesterday's post by writing your own cards, here's a blank. It's the same size; just click on it.

Feel free to print them all out, but I'm interested in hearing about whatever it is you come up with.

If you're wondering about the titles, they're from Ecclesiastes; I might use the first for the deck.

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Nor the battle to the strong (1)

You might remember a while back I linked to a post Big Jim wrote at Galaxy in Flames on the wow factor and GMs in 40K, and the discussion we had in the comments on creating a kind of automatic GM for players who want more unusual action in games.

This is a start on one possible approach, three cards for a deck of interlinked cinematic events. Although the original discussion focused on 40K, I've generalised here, aiming to make it compatible with a range of wargames, hopefully with very little adapting in-game.

As you'd imagine, the idea is that each player has a hand of cards and is able to play a given number per turn, applying each to a target listed below the title, with some targets created by the deck itself. You can see how Spill creates a new element for interaction, which is also a target for Spark, and Spark in turn creates one for cards like Plume.

To make things more reasonable, it could be that it a vehicle can only be targeted when it moves, a weapon when it fires etc. and depending on the game, the weapon can be a heavy weapon or artillery piece only. The wording of the cards also allows for effects to be selected via a table when a potential target acts, but that's all still to be worked out.

One obvious point to make re Spill and Spark is that they are less suitable for settings pre-black powder or combustion engine. In cases like this, Spill would be best dropped and Spark could have the weapon and vehicle target options struck out on the card. As the deck grows, there should be ever more cards suitable for a fuller range of settings.

I can see it borrowing not only from the death scene post, but also the living objectives idea for 40K and maybe even the ever-present, still open Getting out of the boat project.

All feedback welcome - I recommend reading the discussion over at Big Jim's as well.

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The noble art of the rip-off?

Tied loosely to the subject of the last post is this suggestion - link found here - that Electronic Arts has been heavily inspired by old GW tanks. The usual debate follows.

One commenter even writes: "Nothing’s been truly original for the past 50 years or so, however the given combination of unoriginal can produce something original." It's not so original a claim, but coming up with a specific number of years shows creative potential.

Another links to this exchange on replicating miniatures. Could the commenter who says "The onus is on the rest of us to get these stupid laws changed" have a point?

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The noble art of the yawn

For me there is value in this discussion on genre at Monsters and Manuals. But having followed it up by watching scenes from Sucker Punch, I'm feeling mild despair right now.

By the by: Does anyone see in this Butthole Surfers video a spark for the video for "We Come 1"? Or think the Streets ran with that Faithless theme for "Turn the Page"? If you don't know the Butthole Surfers, Independent Worm Saloon looks a good place to start.

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Handle - mat - collapse

As the rhyme goes on beyond the door, you reach for the iron handle. Movement on the floor catches your eye, and with a puff of dust the doormat strikes, sinking bristles deep.

You fall back, off balance, and seize a wiry root running out through the brick wall. For a moment it takes your full weight, then pulls away, and with a pounding of brickwork and rush of loam the tunnel collapses, carrying away the world in cold dust and damp earth.

Silence. Pressure and pain. The darkness grips tight and you realise you are buried - held down deep. You splutter in panic, spitting out clumps of soil and worms. They tumble back. Choking.

Cry out for help   Blog One

Struggle against the weight   Blog One

Attempt to compose yourself and take stock   Blog One

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40K OSR? (19)

What's a 40K OSR? There's some basic info on 40K here and a definition or two for 'OSR' here.

Colonel Kane's logo is to the right, and ready for anyone who identifies with the idea. If you use it, consider giving him credit and adding Tales from the Maelstrom to your blogroll for the inspiration.

Like the Inq28 battle report posted yesterday, which also has news on a July event at GW HQ.

Here's the list, with a lot of new rules especially.

• As per yesterday, The M42 Project lives on, still looking to improve on 40K.

• Big Jim over at Adventures in Wargaming updated the Soul Reapers codex.

• Bryssling has core rules for Kill Team IV, and a fix for Necron destroyers.

• At Warpstone Flux jabberjabber posted a blended ruleset for Mighty and Planetary Empires and has the map and background for the campaign.

• Hum_Con at Wargames & Stuff looks at creativity and random tables, covering emergence and narrative in wargaming and Ghazghkull's history.
  

• At Do You Have A Flag? Headologist gives us rules for a space marine chariot attack bike - conversion here - and more on the world of Mawdryn.

• Brian at A Gentleman's Ones has a Killzone roster and trails the tables.

• At Confessions... dwez has the story of techno-archeologist Avro Vulcan.

• A while back I forget Dark Magenta's new Inquisitor pdf - the full list is here.

• At Spiky Rat.. izeColt finishes the Rifleman and okkiW begins Nicodemvs.

• Ron at From the Warp has another sculpting guide, this time scrollwork.

• At Heresy Workshop Will Wright explained how to make icicles, introduced the counts-as Sly Marbo and showed an old-and-new mixed entourage.

• Pedro Kantor at 2nd City Warzone has some mechanicus weapon teams.

• LuckyNo.5 continued the Mariners Blight nautical marines at Eye of Error.

• Godfrey at Rites of Battle looks at marine body size in concept and minis.

• Apocalypse 40K posted a preview for a possible pre-Heresy jetbike...

• ... while Desert Scribe at Super Galactic Dreadnought showed IG originals.

• Outremer has been posting part-sculpt Nurgle conversions at The Back 40K, including sorcerers and a dread, and just posted scratchbuilt vindicators.

• Warhammer in Progress posted ideas for spawn and wants obliterators. 

• ShotDownMind converted a batch of Dark Eldar grotesques from all kinds.

• Fine Detail Miniature Painting have been busy, with 1, 2 more video battle reports for Necromunda, an ash nomad with long rifle and some spyrers.

• Odd-Leg has another Necromunda report, this time a multi-player game.

• Linked with that, 40Korigins posted some work in progress hive terrain.

• Rictus at Recalcitrant Daze has three posts on an alternative to Forge World interiors - basics, scatter pieces and a setup - and no. 25 on the wagons.

• This time too there's a Ragnarok, a past build newly souped up by Hudson.

• TheAmbit posted plenty of conversions, including a buzz saw deffkopta, warbikes and an unusual deffrolla, as well as a scratchbuilt warhound.

• Mordian7th has a command trench built around a separated titan head.

• Wargaming Workshop finished the Epic Squats and moved on to the Eldar.
  

• Still with Squats, Tentakel Games posted a trio of classic images, showing Squat bikers, Khornate Chaos marines and a Bloodthirster with stats.

• And Space Crusade art keeps coming at All Things Fett, with 1, 2, 3 more. 

The usual applies: if I've missed anything at all, just leave a link, even to your own posts.

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Back-to-back reality, or Ouroboral gaming

Cygnus of Servitor Ludi reminded me of this at the dis-Atlantean post. It's a sequence from an old episode of Red Dwarf, a sci-fi sitcom about a group of humanoid misfits lost in space three million years in our future. Just before the clip begins they're blown up...

After watching it again I really want to set up a marathon session with a mix of settings and systems, with each game flowing on into the next and the players running through scenes based on this one, or using the kinds of framing at the Conan le Barbare post.

It could be another approach for S. P.'s guerilla gaming concept, and there might even be a universal supplement in it, just inspiration and possible methods for transformation.

Maybe it could be integrated into the Pluristem campaign when it gets up and running?

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Grilled Porky

The interview I did with Loquacious for the ID series is up here at World of Wonder. If you don't know the series, the subject is game design and it goes wide and deep. All of the interviews are here, and to anyone interested in gaming I recommend a good read. 

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Still blogging our own

We have a new scene in the online adventure, a second option from Ricalope over at The World of Damnation, continuing up the dry streambed.

That makes 44 scenes at eight blogs. If you want to write one, go for it. Post it when it's done then drop the URL in a comment at the scene before. The master list is here.

Begin the journey here.

Update: Ricalope actually has three more than I thought - one, two from Sunday and one more today, all exploring the space beyond the hole in the earth. That's 47 in total.

Update: Make that 48 - Ricalope has another, catching the creature high up in the tree. 

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Campaign undercurrents

At the last sly-fi post I suggested a table for dark plots in old school gaming. On the same subject, here's a simple proposal for improvising shadowy dynamics through play. It's propluristemic, i.e. for various systems, and maybe for fiction generally.

                                                                                                                              

Campaign undercurrents

Roll one die after each event, i.e. each encounter or session in roleplaying, or turn, combat or game in wargaming; the lower the number of faces, the stronger the currents.

If the maximum result is rolled, the event hints at the currents. The DM/GM / players decide which aspect of the event was most unusual or clear and add this to a list; each aspect could be given a proximity to the eye of the storm with the 'well met' idea.

At regular intervals the list is reviewed and links made, and these are fed into the choice or design of future events. As the list grows, the details emerge more fully.

                                                                                                                              

For example, if the aspects on the list are a) a powerful blow struck by a weak member of a group, b) a defeated warband fleeing parallel to a river and c) a die chipping a terrain piece, these could be taken to mean the weak member is protected, a dark power lurks beneath a mountain lake and the physical world is decaying; as the campaign goes on, rains and erosion could intensify, highlanders could be driven from the valleys by raiding amphibians, and the weaker member could develop a strange ability or draw followers.

I'd guess a lot of us use a system like this already, more or less formally and with more or less complexity, but it seems worth putting out there for experimentation or tweaking.

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