WotW: Earth – When?

This was the question that struck me last night as I tried to process the jalapéno peppers in my pizza.

When is WotW: Earth set? (and for that matter, when am I going to get a better name for it?)

The way I see it, there are several options

  • 1898 – this was when the book was written. This would allow us to bring a lot of estbalished background, real and fiction alike. This was the era of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Wells himself, Jack the Ripper, Spring Heeled Jack. For fiction, we can turn to the tales of Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu, “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, Victor Von Frankenstein, Dracula and of course, Van Helsing. In a post-invasion world, would you want to meet some of these luminaries? Would Dracula ally or fight against the Martians (considering both of them are technically vampires, would Dracula want to protect his “cattle”?)
  • 1938 – the date of the Orson Welles radio broadcast. In the real world we had the beginnings of World War II, the work of Robert E Howard and H.G. Wells was still alive. Crowley was moving from latest madness to the next big fad. In fiction we had the birth of Batman, Superman was in his adolescence. We had Zorro, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers. Lots of options for heroic player characters.
  • 1953 – the year of the film which depicted them as flying swan-necked machines. Not long after Roswell, the US gripped by McCarthyism, Winston Churchill in his third cabinet – the era of Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, Humphrey Bogart, the beginnings of Hammer Horror. In fiction we had the birth of James Bond in 1952.
  • Modern Day – well, wouldn’t that be easy?

At this point, I don’t know quite where to start. I have some more “martian-related” stuff to post, but I think the “When” question will decide a lot of things. My gut feeling is to go for either 1898 or 1938….

WotW: Earth – New Hope

As humanity climbs out of the ruins of their devastated society, we must now look at our future. We have seen the terrible destruction wrought by the Martian fighting machines and flying machines and the awful power of the Heat Ray as it turned all it touched to fire.

We hurry along the roads, as gusts of smoke continue to erupt into the air, fearful of attracting the baleful stare of one of the few fighting-machines left stalking the countryside. This morning, we passed two of the fighting-machines, toppled and stinking, by the roadside. A third fighting-machine appeared in the horizon and we did not tarry to investigate. The ghostly touch of the Heat Ray and the issue of the Black Smoke keeps us scuttling from crater to crater, from fox-hole to fox-hole. We can only guess what keeps these monstrous tripods moving when so many of their brethren have fallen. Some new dark surprise may await us.

There are nearly twenty of us now, holed up in a small village. We have enough food to live for a few months perhaps and we have begun to venture forth in the early morning when the fighting-machines seem less active to plant new crops and sow the seeds of our future. We can only hope that the grey skies will pass – at times I forget which season it is. The continued spread of the Red Weed frustrates our attempts to cultivate even the smallest plots but we have seen the first green shoots and with that, renewed hope.

Last night I turned my eyes skyward, looking again for the red planet and though I know it to be impossible, I could swear I saw a tell-tale green plume. I returned to our camp in the crypt of the village church and fell into a fretful, restless sleep.

WotW: Earth – Premise

“No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinized as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets. And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us.” – Narration by Bichard Burton at the beginning of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds.

You may be a fan of the book by H.G. Wells or have seen the recent film with Tom Cruise. You might remember the 1953 The War of the Worlds or have even listened to the Orson Welles radio broadcast which caused mass hysteria in 1938. All of them end the same with a bit of a damp squib. I’m sure it was entirely deliberate of Wells to depict science and the military as being utterly ineffective against the Martian war machines. In this way he reminds me of Lovecraft’s Mythos stories where the actions of humankind are ultimately ineffective.

From a RPG plot point of view, it’s not very interesting. The players can’t really get into the mix at the start as, frankly, they’d get pasted. They would have to dodge the evil Black Smoke, the insidious Red Weed, the deadly Heat Rays and the throngs of panicked humans. And after all of this, the blinking aliens are defeated by some innoculous bacterium? How deus ex machina can you get! If this were a scenario, it would indeed be one of the world’s worst.

So, we can’t play in that sort of game world. We have to think of something else. The logical thing to do is extrapolate. Here’s the things we have to consider.

The Living Martians – not all of them will be dead.

The Dead Martians – what happens to a dying Martian. Does it decompose?

The Humans – society is still in a shambles.

The Red Weed – although affected by Earth’s bacteria as well, it obviously was able to survive better than the Martians themselves.

The Black Smoke – a binary nerve agent? Very topical in todays terrorist-fearing news.

The War Machines – there’s all this alien technology just lying about….

More Martians – they wouldn’t have committed this much without ensuring a second wave for resupply. By now they would have realised the attack was a failure….

George Pál, who produced the 1953 film, conceived of a War of the Worlds TV series which was finally shot and which ran from 1988 to 1990. Their premise was the aliens had not died but had slipped into a state of “suspended animation”. There’s some vague explanations as to why the aliens now look human (ahem, budget!) but the entire series seems a little tired (and frankly too hard to obtain to give a good review).

So, we’ll begin this by writing a little prose….and covering the areas we have mentioned above…

WotW: Earth

I was reading a posting on RPG.NET about how War of the Worlds was a typical game-master railroad, total player kill and then GM fiat to save the day. I disagree.

I reckon it was just background flavour.

The game starts now. Invasion over….ish. Some Martian war machines will alive on iron rations as they hadn’t been drinking blood. They’re getting desperate as their rations run out and waiting for the resupply from Mars. New machines, new rations…they’re forewarned and forearmed.

Meanwhile on Earth, our scientists are making Earth-Mars technology hybrids – human war machines – ….they just need 2 fighter pilots, 2 field scientists and some support team members…

Powder Rods and Bayonets

Powder Rod
The Powder Rod is the long range weapon of choice for the Arbiter. They are commonly made to order, personalised for the Arbiter and are usually the same height as the owner. The rod is hollow, usually black with a matte sheen, and cool to the touch. The top of the rod has a hole, the diameter of a finger and a groove along the outside for accepting a bayonet attachment. The bottom of the rod has a screw-click device which lends weight to the rod as well as being the firing mechanism.
Powder Rods are kept unloaded but a skilled operator with a loading partner can fire a round every other second. Alone, an Arbiter will be able to fire off a round every 5 seconds. The round is a discrete unit containing munition, wadding, propellant and igniter. The munition load is commonly a single slug or a handful of flechettes though for training and “normal usage” it may aso be loaded with sand – this produces a distracting, blinding, stinging, nonfatal cloud.
Powder Rods are usually armed when they are to be used. The slugs used must be prepacked and are barrel-loaded. The slug is ignited by striking the base of the rod sharply.

Bayonet
With or without bayonet, the rod is an effective hand-to-hand combat weapon. The rod material is tensile without being fragile. This increases the versatility of the weapon considerably. The bayonet is usually worn by the Arbiter on a belt and only attached during very serious circumstances. It is a sharp stabbing or cutting weapon, balanced for throwing, made out of the same black material as the Powder Rod.

More about the Reeve

Some of the Reeve are administrators, involved in the movement and recording of infomation. Others sit in cloisters and debate the merits of the appeals presented to them.

The majority of the Reeve are involved directly in the enforcement of our laws and the judgements required. The application of Reeve law in the Citadel is challenging and it is the duty of the Arbiter to seek out and rein in lawbreakers. There are no tomes to consult when a judgement is difficult and there are times when it is you alone with the transgressors of the law. An Arbiter must be strong in mind and body, perceptive and quick witted, skilled with powder rod and bayonet and able to command a presence.

Zian will soon be accepted into the ranks of the Arbiters unless she chooses an administrative post. She will then begin training.

Viride: Outsider Castes

There are some who do not suit the untroubled life of the Artisan, the austere contemplation of the Reeve or the enduring clemency of the Consors. There are outsider castes but they are neither respectful nor respectable. They have their role in our society but we do not consider them. When they are needed, they are needed but it is a matter kept between the closest and most discreet of friends.

In some areas of the Citadel, the rule of Reeve does not apply. There are Artisans in exile who will copy any treasure. The Reeve do their best to cleanse the Citadel but there is only so much time and the tunnels are almost endless.

Consors: blessed with caring

The darkness echoes with the delivery of another young life. This is my favorote time. We are not supposed to have an opinion but I can see who is special. I am able to see into their eyes from a few hours old and tell their future – this one will be a great healer, this one a leader, a third an engineer. There have not been any outstanding siblings for a while. Things seem to be stable. Not like a few years back. I wonder what happened to some of the bright souls who passed through my care. The Citadel is so big I sometimes never see them again.

The nursery is full enough, the young are strong and always beautiful. Not much parental interest as is usual which is not abnormal – as Consors we are the new parents. We start as nanny and surrogate mother, through their maturity, ending up as the closest thing to grandparents many have. It is true that more children of Consors end up as Consors than any other castes – it is the way of things.

We take pride in our role. We are the lucky ones. We get to see the new faces of the future and sculpt how our civilization grows. Tending the flock is the best role you can get. We are blessed with caring.

My name is Dauna as I was born on the cusp of the season when the suns are brightest. I am Consors.

Reeves: lawgivers and officers

When I wake and until I again sleep, I am a Reeve.

It is a burden but not without it’s pleasures. My days are spent in deep debate with other Reeves, with Artisans in conflict and with Consors who need the permissions they cannot take. Because of my youth I am known as a Mediator and my judgements must be passed to the Reeve Chambers for consideration. I have made more than 700 summary judgements and none have been overturned. When I reach a thousand consecutive correct judgements, I will become an Arbiter. I will have the authority to issue judgements without recourse (though they can appeal).

I must memorise the Hundred First Laws. I must carry a symbol of my status. i must be vigilant, I must always be ready to assist in judgements.

Today I assisted in the judgement of propriety. Society has rules and the Reeve are all stops a descent into anarchy. Without our guidance, Artisans would turn upon each other, Consors would make decisions on upbringing with questionable outcomes.

Artisans: engineers and crafters

The Artisans within the Citadel are skilled without compare. They create the greatest structures, like the vast cooling vanes in the heights and depths of the rock. These vanes make it possible to live here and they provide clean, cool water – a true necessity in this hot, bright world. Their construction is certainly the pinnacle of Citadel art and engineering and they are the envy of all.

The Artisans remain aloof from the rest of us. They who maintain the cooling vanes reside at the top of their insular pecking order for it is their responsibility to keep us all alive. Further down are the engineers who build and maintain the tunnels. Farther still are the builders of household machines. And at the bottom are the makers of trinkets, embroiderers and stone polishers. When you are born, they make decisions about which art you may pursue. Through hard work and dedication a lowly stone polisher may ascend through the ranks to become a Vane Master. It has not happened in a lifetime or more but can be assisted through sponsorship from a senior, an advantageous partnership or displays of extraordinary ability.

I would suffer no ills upon them, despite their aloofness, as I can barely comprehend the forces they have mastered. The things I wear I owe to them. They represent the summit of our culture.

Viride: contribution by others

I started a thread about Viride in the RPG NET forums and I hope to continue to discuss the game in that neutral forum in the future. There have been a couple of contributors to the thread including some very thought provoking stuff from KRNVR which I think is probably evidence that he/she has the power to read my mind.

My vision for this is that it should be an “open source” type project. It’s a bit crap calling a book “open source” because it’s a term filled with Web 1.0 hype. I would like to encourage others to write here and we should form an editorial team to see if contributions can be hammered into exactly the right “theme”. I see this content then being reformatted into an actual web site with art and everything as well as a PDF which would be either sold or given free, depending on the editorial team, with any profits decided on by, again, the editorial team.

Viride: be like the rock

[Zian continues]

The Citadel can be seen for hundred and hundreds of miles I am told. I have never seen this for myself but it is immense and I have no reason to doubt.

It is a vast, black rock which contains hundreds of miles of tunnels and chambers which are home to tens of thousands of humans who live and work within. These are my people, my brothers and sisters, and they represent all that is good and honourable in this world. There is a saying amongst our people:

In matters of honour, be like the rock.

It would be false modesty to say that we are not a handsome race. Corpulence is a rarity and thought it is true that the most beauteous of us might be considered frail, we are without a doubt blessed. Our skin is pale, almost bluish in refinement and our eyes tend to be large and expressive and ringed with luxurious lashes. I am considered a beauty by many – my hair is long, black and lustrous though I keep most of it wrapped in a long braid down my back which is inlaid with polished stones. I wear a black embroidered tunic and a long flowing skirt. My legs are also covered with the same cloth, the texture of cobweb, and my shoes are hand stitched by Citadel artisans. To some this would represent finery, to me it is something to wear. My hands are frequently covered with embroidered gloves and I have a high collar as is the current fashion. I do not have a veil as I find it to get in the way of my work but I suppose I will have one when I am older. A veil would also serve to hide my nevus and what would be the point of that!

Everything about our culture represents our art and elegance. We are a beautiful people because we dedicate so much of our time to creating beauty and our souls are reflected in our work. No-one can match the craft of our artisans.

Viride: dweller in the darkness

I am Zian. I am here to relate this tale.

Here is the Citadel. Hewn from a mighty stone and held fast to the bedrock miles below it is cold where everywhere else is hot, dark when all else is eternally bright. Hundreds of miles of tunnels reach out in every direction and open into vast caverns containing an entire city. We live here and we die here and seldom venture forth upon the scorching sands or gaze at the blinding sun.

Out in the desert, under the unblinking sun, some live. Their bodies are dark, encrusted with the sands of a lifetime in the wilderness. They come to the Citadel to trade. Sometimes for stone, sometimes metal and sometimes words. They bring exotic gifts of food and objects they have found out in the desert. No-one trusts them. No-one can live without water. No-one can live without darkness. We fear them. We must always remain vigilant.

The sand is in everything. It falls from the sky, rises between your toes, in your eyes, your mouth, the water you drink, the food you eat. Out in the sands, there is only light and death. Some of our people fear the sands more than anything. The sand is everywhere. Everywhere but Here.

Viride: First Steps.

Concept:
I was struck by this image when I was looking at protein molecules floating in a lipid membrane. It gave me the idea for a world where civilisation lay on the “rocks” whereas there was a wilderness of dangerous “sands”. There was a considerable cultural difference between modern humans and the humanoids on this world. Differences in castes, upbringing, education, work – all aspects of life.

As gamers we find ourselves presented with different worlds and cultures every week with our game masters. How many of them have similar mores to our own world. They value gold. The epitome of attractiveness is bronzed muscular flesh. There’s good and evil. Evil things usually look nasty. Everyone has parents. They have siblings. It’s just a carbon copy of our own world with a few token changes. Maybe it’s a clone of mediaeval Europe with real magic. Maybe it’s covert operations with a Lovecraftian backdrop.

What I wanted to do was break from the norms of social mores and try to create something a bit different. A bit alien. It’s not the first by any means. Some people can easily point to Tekumel/The Empire of the Petal Throne as one of the most influential “Culture” games. It’s certainly the most alien. I enjoy Culture games most of all I think. I’m a fan of Jorune, of games that are set in far off different cultures (because I was raised in Western Europe, Far Easten cultures are alien to me). I like games where there’s a social aspect, there’s stuff to learn and there’s delight in doing so.

With this in mind, with some conversations with my girlfriend at the time, and with nothing to do I just started writing. Over the next few weeks I hope to tell a bit about the background to this game and then we can see if it’s any good at all.

Thus Viride was born.

Where is it going?

Things we have planned:

  • game reports – experiences of our gaming groups
  • game design – building a novel RPG before your eyes
  • tips – things we do before preparing to game

Where do you come in?  Well, we expect you to share your comments about all of the above.  Giving your view on a game we’ve reviewed or a tip we’ve shared will help others have different perspectives on the topic.

Perhaps of most interest is the game design: by contributing your views here you get to help shape the path of the game as we design it.  If you’re keen on designing your own game, seeing one way it can be done will hopefully help you get your project to the finish line.

Keeping track of time

One of the more challenging aspects of being a GM is ensuring the game world retains its believability. Mature players (by this I mean anyone who role-plays, rather than someone who plays a one-man-army war-game) demand a world in which things happen much as they do in this world–all actions have consequences (some of which are unforeseen), and much more is happening in the world than what the characters see.

Part of creating this illusion is of course in your world building, but an equal part is time management–keeping track of all the events that you have planned to happen, and making up new ones based on the actions of your players.

One method I’ve used to do this is a simple table of time/characters. With time along the top of the table and characters (including PCs and NPCs) down the left, it is simple to prepare before the start of a session by jotting down what the NPCs will do assuming the PCs do nothing. As the session progresses, you can modify that based on player activity. One thing to be careful of is the linear nature of a table can lead you to linear thinking on the part of the NPCs. This might sound dumb, but having a table like that will literally encourage you to think within the box.

Another method I’ve used is more like a traditional brainstorm–bubbles with text associated with arrows. This means you can keep track of NPCs actions (and even non-action things like desires and intentions) in more of a flow-chart. Drawing new lines of association between bubbles as different events occur to change the landscape means that it’s more likely that things will be less linear. However, little bubbles scattered over a page make it harder to keep track of the times when events are going to occur.

Finally we get to the method I currently use, which is a mash-up of the two. I use bubbles to note down events and ideas, and a table to tell the order in which they will happen and did happen. That way the game flows freely, I can make notes quickly and still tell where everyone is at any given time, and when the players are talking among themselves I can update my table as I go.

I’ve found that having the bubbles makes it much easier for me to think up sub-plots and micro-plots on the fly, and to ensure that the characters that are relevant to that plot are available at the right times to be involved.

Marvel Super Heroes Saga

Both of us at lategaming are fans of Super Hero games. For Matt, it’s because he misspent his youth reading comic books. For me, it’s because they’re the pinnacle of escapism, and one of my favourite campaigns I ever played in was a supers game.

In this supers game, we used the old Marvel system (not the old-old one, the one after that). Matt was the GM at the time, and his reason for choosing Marvel (when not playing in a Marvel universe) is that the system is very simple for resolving things, keeping the game fluid, and reducing the rules-lawyering or number-crunching which can plague other games (*cough*DC Heroes*cough*).

(Incidentally, we were talking the other day (again) about how all role-playing games are essentially super hero games–you have a character who probably has fairly broad strokes of personality (at least initially) and who has some kind of abilities which makes that character stand out from the crowd. Think about it: Vampire, D&D, Ars Magica, SLA Industries and so on ad infinitum. They all give you special powers and let you wreak havoc.)

So, when I first heard about the Saga system, which used cards for resolution in an effort to reduce the rules and numbers and promote role-playing and storytelling, I thought this was going to be excellent.

Enough rambling, let’s discuss some nitty-gritty. The game was actually published in 1998, but often that doesn’t mean much in the RPG world–I hadn’t even heard of it till last week. It was released in a boxed set (as were all the Marvel games) that comes with two books: one for rules and one with Marvel character stats in it. It also comes with a deck of cards that are used for all the resolution in the game.

The books are colour-covered but black and white on the inside. My first gripe with the game is that the font is some kind of Comic Sans-derivative font, which is incredibly hard on the eyes for reading long stretches of text, and of course should be banned. I think it’s acceptable in a comic book because those books are hand-drawn, so why not hand-written? In any other book, it smacks of amateurism. The cards that come with the game resemble those you might find in your average collectible trading card game. Full colour images of comic book heroes, with various semi-cryptic numbers and symbols wrapped around them. Having only black and white on the inside doesn’t bother me – this was after all in the age before the rise of very cheap digital printing.

The system itself is … interesting. You hold a certain number of cards in your hand at any given time (somewhere between 3 and 7, with 4 or 5 being normal for the X-men level characters). These cards are your hit-points (you discard cards when you get wounded), your dice rolls (they have random numbers on them which you use to determine success or failure) and your character/hero/karma points (i.e. using them in a particular way allows you to affect things more than you normally would be able to do). Having a hand of cards is a bit like saying you have five dice rolls to choose from each time you want to resolve something, and when you use one of them you have to roll that dice again to bring the total back up to five.

The cards have five suits. Each one is a different colour, is based on a different stat, and is named after a different Marvel character who exemplifies that stat. Resolution is as you might expect: take an ability/stat/skill/power and add the value of the card to beat some target value. The more experienced your character is, the more cards he/she can play at one time. The different suits also function as trumps for their relevant stat, so playing a “5 of Agility” from your hand for an agility based action allows you to draw a card from the top of the deck and add that to the total (and continue to draw and add for as long as you continue to draw the same trump suit).

One suit (Doom/Dr. Doom) has the added drawback that the GM (or Narrator as he’s known in this game) gets to keep those cards and use the numbers on them against you at inopportune times. This is a nice little thing the players have to keep in mind when they play those cards.

The downside of the cards is that they are completely relied upon for resolution of everything (even things like the weather, if you want). So what happens if you lose some or all of them? It’s not like dice where you can just go buy a new set. Perhaps in 1998 TSR planned to make the available to buy, but eBay is about the only place you might find them now. Also, I found the rules at times difficult to understand, but that could be just because I haven’t yet played it. Reading them didn’t make them become clear, and the examples they gave just served to muddy things even further.

The game is clearly intended to be used to play in the Marvel Universe, and with Marvel characters and a large number of the most popular are included in the Roster Book. The game itself is light on source material–it expects you to read the comics (or possibly some supplements) to fully understand anything about the universe or the characters. There’s no history or timeline as you might find in other game settings. Perhaps it’s naive of me to think that it might be necessary for those of us who haven’t read all the Marvel comics since the 1960s.

Character generation is fairly simple, but relies heavily on GM adjudication. In fact, the system is intended to be used to generate those characters that weren’t quite popular enough to be included in the Roster Book but that still feature in the comic books. It even goes so far as to say “bring the comic book with you to every session, so that everyone knows what your character looks like”.

In summary then:

Good

+ Cards are a neat idea
+ System emphasises roleplaying

Bad

– Cards can get lost/damaged and aren’t easily replaced
– System wasn’t easy to understand, examples even less so
– Lack of background info not so good for people who don’t read a lot of Marvel comics
– Bad font choice

Overall score: 3d6 (out of a possible 6d6)

If I played this game a bit to see how well the system actually worked, this might go up to 4d6.

Welcome to the new LateGaming site

This is more or less what LateGaming was meant to be.

The origin of the name was because we always started a gaming session by turning up between 7 and 7:30 pm. Then we’d settle by 8 pm and finish up gaming at 1 am. That was when I lived within walking distance of the game or when I was driving. Before that gaming would end at 10:50 pm to give me a chance to rush round to the train. When I moved up to Belfast it was a lot easier. I’d spend hours and hours just chatting to one of my housemates about stupid gaming-related topics. This was around the time when petrol stations started staying open all night meaning that we’d often take a walk round there to get milk for my coffee (Jeremy had, by this time, eschewed both milk and water in his coffee, preferring to just chew the grinds…)

So, in essence, it’s about being able to stay up late and play the games we love to play. It’s also about being able to tell stories about past games in order to learn something from them. We won’t bore you with “There was this one time, in AD&D….” stories. We’ll just give you ideas for your games which we found worked well for us.

The Big Change

With the change of LateGaming from an old-style static site, to something a little moe dynamic and, well, content-filled, we have some administrivia to take care of first.

Testament
“and one day, it was the end of the world. who knew? one day you wake up and well…you don’t wake up. it’s over. goodnight gracie. but then, what are you still doing here.”
You can download Testament here.

Creed
“something big is going down and you’ve got a ringside seat. turns out the world is ending and people who summon demons, people like you, people like me, are in deep shit.”
You can download Creed here.

The other LateGaming games might make it out the door…

As for Crucible Design games, you can likely get hold of them from Key20. So I’m told.