Character Creation: Adventure Maximus!

FOR THE FINAL GAME OF XMAS, TWENTY-TWENTY-FIVE,
TWELVE ADVENTURES MAXIN',
ELEVEN HARES A-BONDIN',
TEN BLOODY LOINCLOTHS,
NINE SENTAIS SENSIN',
EIGHT MONSTERS FIGHTIN', 
SEVEN LAWS A-SCOFFLIN',
SIX CHAOS GOOSES,
FIVE MOONLIT GIRLS,
FOUR SCREAMING LOONS,
THREE ***************,
TWO CORVID COURTS,
AND CAIRN, BUT NOT THE ONE I ACTUALLY RAN!

Whew. Another year of chargen under the ol' belt. Shall we talk numbers?

This character will make 99 for the year. Less than I usually shoot for (last few years, I've been trying to do 10 a month and 12 in December for a total of 122), but I wanted the last one to sync up with the this index post getting to 500. Coincidentally, it's also been five years since the previous index post, meaning I've averaged 100 characters a year.

So do I have any hope of ever finishing this project? Well, on January 1st, 2025, I had 184 games left to do. Twelve months and 99 characters later, I have 185. So, um. I've obtained 100 games this year. 

Now, that sounds like a lot, but it bears noting that buying a couple of bundles accounts for at least half of that. I don't actually "buy" games all that often, but I do back Kickstarters and suchlike a lot (not using my own name, of course, after a couple of incidents where creators refunded my money, unasked, because apparently my money is somehow tainted and evil? Or they were taking a "stand" against...something? Like, people, if you're going to sell your game commercially I could just buy it anyway). 

So: I'm starting off 2026 with 186 games undone. I'm gonna try to do 10 a month plus an additional two in December, for a total of 122. If I bought exactly 0 new games (lol) I'd be done in 19 months. If I bought (or otherwise obtained) 50 new games in 2026, I'd wind up done in two years. But of course, if a bundle supporting a good cause comes along, it's entirely possible I'll buy it. You know. Assuming my money is good enough. 

Anyway, for the last game of 2025, here's a blast from the past.

The Game: Adventure Maximus!
The Publisher: Eden Studios, Inc.
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one 

Adventure Maximus! is a kid-focused game. I picked it for the "twelve lords a-leaping" slot for the same reason I picked Hero Kids a couple years back. Oh, also, some version of the song list the 12 slot as "bull a-roaring" and there's a minotaur on the cover.

This game was on of the earliest I backed on Kickstarter. It funded in June of 2013, delivered the following August, all good. My kids would have been...what, 10 and 6 when it came out? So I'm not sure why we never played it, because they were both definitely gaming by that point.

Well, whatever. It sat unopened and unused on my shelf until now, and so with the snow coming down like it means it and the last hours of 2025 slipping away, let's MAXIMIZE or whatever. 

The setting here is basically fairytale/general fantasy, though there is a fun mad-lib style adventure generator. Chargen involves a bunch of randomly drawn cards, and I'm good with that. We start by playing the race card. Well, actually, we draw three and pick the one we like. I get...Dwarf, Dragon-kind, and Were-kind. I think Dragon-Kind is closest to either lords or bulls, so I'll take that one. I get three action tokens, but they're in a punch card so I'm not gonna pop them out. 

Next, class! Same drill, draw 3 and pick my favorite. Swashbuckler, Sparkemancer, or Archeologist. Well, I think Sparkemancer sounds fun. I get a wand, sparkles, and a gown, I guess? Let's keep reading. Oh, I see. The wand is my close attack, the sparkles are my far attack, and the gown is my armor. I also get one action cards, three equipment cards, and three spell cards. Do I just draw those? Yes, I do. Let's do equipment!

Equipment cards (I get two) gives me a monkey's paw (oh no), a leprechaun trap of wishes (I can make a wish using only 5 words, which then discards the card) and a Dwarven arquebus. For when sparkles just don't cut it, I guess. 

My action cards is...Doctor Steel Good! It gives me a bunch of options relating to healing damage. Weird that these aren't class-dependent. Well, sure.

Spells! I get Check Your Fly (I can make someone fly), I Can Change (transform into a creature), and Stun on a Bun (I reduce someone's action tokens). 

I get 2 Willpower, and then I add up all the Armor on my cards and get...0. Great. But that's pretty much it!

We'll name my dragon-kind sparkemancer Archie. Archie has pearly scales and some of those whisker-things that Chinese dragons have in pictures. He got the leprechaun trap from a merchant, but it was the leprechaun that gave him the monkey's paw, which, like, cool! Extra wishes! No way that goes wrong.

I think Archie's flame breath is white/pink and sparkly, but still, like, burns. 

And that's it. Happy 1000th character-mas! 

Movie #905: Chopping Mall

Chopping Mall is an 80s sci-fi/horror movie starring Kelli Maroney, Tony O'Dell, Barbara Crampton, Russell Todd, John Terlesky, Karrie Emerson, Suzee Slater, Nick Segal, and Dick Miller.

"A more classic plot, there isn't!" as the great Harold Zoid might say. A group of horny teens break into a mall (well, less "break in" and more "hide out until everything closes") in order to have an all-night party in the furniture store owed by the uncle of one of said teens, Ferdy (O'Dell). So it's Ferdy and his bro-tastic buddy Mike (Terlesky), slightly less annoying Greg (Segal), their respective girls, ditzy Leslie (Slater) and slightly less ditzy Suzie (Crampton), couple who married early to open a mechanic shop Linda (Emerson) and Rick (Todd), and odd girl out Allison (Maroney), who just screams "final girl" except that she's blonde. 

So they all hang out and have sex in proximity to each other, like couples do, except Ferdy and Allison who have been set up as a blind date and get along famously just chilling and watching old movies. Sounds like a good time...

...EXCEPT FOR THE KILLBOTS! Yeah, this mall has recently brought three security robots online, one for each of the three floors that have important stores on them, I guess (the mall actually has seven floors). All they're supposed to do is patrol the halls and taser or sleep-dart anyone that doesn't have a badge. But then lightning strikes the building and turns them into killbots! (Killbots was actually the original title of the film, and it was released under that title in some places.)

So the robots kill several supporting characters, including poor unfortunate Dick Miller who never seems to get out of these situations alive, and then start killing off the teens in horrifically memorable ways. The most memorable is obvious Leslie's head exploding from the lasers that the robots can suddenly throw around, but they also throw Greg to his death and snap Mike's neck (or cut his throat, it's not entirely clear). Eventually everyone's dead except Ferdy and Allison, and then Ferdy seemingly dies after taking a blow to the head that bleeds (which is usually a pretty good sign that you're dead in movies like these), leaving Allison to destroy the last robot by luring it into a paint store and blowing it up with paint thinner! "HAVE A NICE DAY!"

I said not long ago that I was rediscovering my love of schlocky 80s movies, and holy shit, what I should have said was the Roger Corman is a goddamn genius (he and his wife co-produced, and while he's not mentioned in the official credits the cast and crew talks about him a lot on the blu-ray interviews, so I have to assume he was directly involved). There is not a dour moment in the movie, even with lots of people dying, but there are still "valleys", as the director says, where the characters can catch their breath a little. The robots do not make any goddamn sense but they never try to make them make sense - why do the robots have tasers powerful enough to electrocute people? Why do they have lasers at all, let alone lasers powerful enough to explode a human head? (Just once, though.) Why do they have plastic explosive squirters? 

As long as we're asking stupid questions, Ferdy, at one point, asks out loud "what if the robots can read our minds?" If that's meant to be him cracking up, then it's a good line, but it never goes anywhere and he's not any more hysterical than anyone else, so I have to assume it's just a dumb line. And yet, that's the kind of movie this is, the kind that you wind up saying "what?" to the screen a lot. 

Disclaimer: There is no chopping that happens at any point. 

My Grade: C (it is not a good movie)
Rewatch Value: High (it is an amazing movie)

Next up: Conan the Barbarian 

Character Creation: Root: The RPG

THE ROOT. THE ROOT. THE ROOT IS ON TIRE.

(If we were stopping our /f/ sounds, you see.)

Anywho. Sing it with me now!

FOR THE ELEVENTH GAME OF XMAS, TWENTY-TWENTY-FIVE,
ELEVEN BADGERS ROOTING,
TEN LEMURS BARBING,
NINE LADY ROBOTS,
EIGHT MONSTERS WRANGLING,
SEVEN SCOFFLAWS SCOFFING,
SIX GEESE DESTROYING,
GIRL BY MOONLIGHT,
FOUR ELDER GODS,
THREE FRENCHIN' HENS,
TWO CORVID COURTS,
AND CAIRN, BUT NOT THE ONE ABOUT ANIMALS, LIKE ROOT!

The Game: Root: The Roleplaying Game
The Publisher: Magpie Games
Degree of Familiarity: None with this game, but I'm plenty familiar with the system
Books Required: Just the one

So! Root is based on a board game, which I have not played. The game is pretty simple, though, and it really does remind me a lot of Cairn (this one, not this one). It's a big woods (called the Woodland), everyone's an anthropomorphic animal, and there's enough setting to play around in. The real difference is that the Woodland is at war and that's a big deal; everyone used to be ruled by the birds of the Eyrie Dynasties, then there was a war and everything kind of balkanized, and now the Marquise de Cat has rolled in with her cat-troops and taken over parts of the Woodland, the Dynasties are trying to get their own back, we've got a citizen's army called the Woodland Alliance, and the fourth faction is just the everyday denizens of the Woodland.

And then there's the Vagabonds, sellswords and adventurers that don't normally roll in groups, but hey, if there was such a group they could really bust some heads! (Those are the PCs, if it's not obvious.)

It looks fun, there's a ready-made setting good for one-shots, I dunno, maybe I'll put it on the game menu at some point. Meantime, let's make a critter.

As is often the case in PbtA games, we start by picking a playbook. Hmm. These aren't bad, though they definitely don't have as much individual flavor as, says, the ones in Masks. Harrier, Ranger, and Ronin all appeal, and I think I'm feeling Ronin today. I was a servant of a master of one of the factions, but am now masterless. Nifty.

Next, name, species, details, demeanor. Let's think about species first, since I'm sure it'll influence who I used to work for. I think I want to be a snowshoe hare. He and his village were one of the first invaded by the Marquise, and he joined her army because all his buddies were doing it! And besides, it wasn't like there was any real fighting happening, mostly we were going out into the Woodland and trimming it back, making roads, stuff like that.

And then there was this bear. (Bears, in-setting, fill the roll of "ogre" and similar monsters.) It killed three of the squad, and we sent a message back asking for help. The response was: "Can't spare anyone. Kill the bear, shouldn't be that hard." The bear killed all the rest of the squad, except Rillinton (for 'tis his name), who fled. 

Good start! Rillinton is, as I mentioned, a snowshoe hare, uses he/him pronouns, militaristic demeanor (the training worked), carries a little medal given to him for excellence during the training process. He is polite, all the time. 

Background questions! Where do you now call home? Let's say it's "the forest." He ran out into the Woodland after the attack, and has made a little den that he can return to.

Why are you a vagabond? There are a few options. I like "I want to build a masterless life." Rillinton doesn't hold a grudge against whomever left his squad to kill the bear. That's the nature of being a soldier. He just wants nothing more to do with it. 

What happened to your last master? Hmm. These options all assume that something did happen to him. Let's say "justified overthrow," although Rillinton doesn't know it. That flippant order to kill the bear cost the governor put in place by the Marquise his position. 

Which faction have you served the most? Almost certainly the denizens. 

With which faction have you earned a special enmity? The obvious choice is the Marquise de Cat, but I think I'll actually go with the Woodland Alliance. Rillinton seems like an obvious recruit for them, and he's just not feeling it. 

Natures & Drives. I get one Nature, chosen from either Survivor or Pilgrim. Survivor, obviously. I get two Drives, this time from four choices (Principles, Revenge, Thrills, Wanderlust). Well, definitely Wanderlust. And then I think Principles, though he probably wouldn't say that if asked. 

Stats! I start with Charm 0, Cunning +1, Finesse 0, Luck -1, and Might +2. I think I should probably have more Finesse, being a hare, so I'll put my free +1 there.

Connections would require a group, so I'll skip that.

Moves! I get three. Well, I definitely want well-mannered, which lets me rely on etiquette for some beneficial effects. I think I want the rules of war for a similar reason. And then I think I'll take always watching and raise my Cunning to +2.

I get one Weapon Skill; I shall take Cleave. Probably I have a polearm or something. 

And hey, next is Equipment! I get 11 Value, which I can use to "build" my gear. The formula is pretty simple. So let's say my polearm has four wear boxes (4), add the reach and large tags (6), and the bulky tag (5). 

And that's it, actually! Rillinton is a brown (or white, depending on the season) hare. He has a worn, but very clean, green waistcoat and pants, and wears his ears pinned back. He wears his emblem under his coat, and rubs it when nervous.

Marvel: Good Ol' Fashioned Bank Robbery

After nearly a month, here we are back in supers-land! 

Recall that last time, the heroes had left New York for Kamar-Taj, and then left Kamar-Taj for Malibu. They emerge from the portal into an alley in Malibu, and can smell sea air and hear people. Maria pokes her head out of the alley and sees they are between a bank and a candy shop. Ahead of her, a street and then a concrete divider, and beyond that, beach.

The rest of them step out onto the sidewalk, and Maria starts thinking about how to get everyone to the decommissioned Stark/SHIELD facility she knows about. Bucky glances down the road to the bank. "I think I shot someone there once."

Magnus just nods. Peter gets kind of wide-eyed, but then something else catches his attention - a sedan rolling down the street towards the bank with four people in it. Nothing overtly suspicious, but it's making his spidey-senses tingle...

He points this out, and the heroes see the people in the car pull masks down over their faces (Bucky: "Are you kidding me? Now?"). They pull around a corner and jump out, guns drawn, ordering the security guards from the armored car outside the bank to "GET ON THE GROUND!"

Maria, still hoping to avoid this exposing them, runs into the candy shop and tells them to call 911. Peter ducks back into the alley and changes into his costume, while Magnus kind of looks at the others ("Are we hero-ing?"). 

Bucky runs up and kicks the back tire of the getaway car, folding it in on itself and disabling the vehicle. He kicks it harder than he means, though, and the whole car shifts, and the thieves turn. Bucky realizes how easy it would be to kill these dummies, and he winds up Pulling Punches d8. 

Magnus comes up behind him and pulls a Whompin' Big Hammer d10 out of his jacket, and brandishes it menacingly at the thieves. The thieves respond by shooting at both of them, but Bucky easily deflects with his arm and Magnus' Runed Suit absorbs the bullets. 

At this point, Spider-Man lands on the roof of the bank and webs one of the thieves, yanking him up and immobilizing him ("No withdrawals for you today!"). Maria, back in the alley, uses her taser rod and a bit of technical know-how to set off the alarm in the bank, adding Alarmed d8 to the proceedings. 

Spidey jumps down onto the armored truck and tries to get the security guards to get up, but they stick to their training. He webs another of the thieves the floor, though. Bucky holds out his hand to a third thief and tells her to hand over the gun and get out of here, and, clearly the mastermind of the group, she does. Magnus says "say goodbye to your kneecaps!" and swings the hammer, but misjudges how big it is and hits the wall. The thief backs up and points his gun at a guard, yelling for the heroes to back off...but Maria, by now across the street over the divider, shoots him in the leg and he falls over.

The police arrive and start rounding up the thieves. Bucky gets the hell out of the way before someone recognizes him, and Spidey, not wanting to answer questions, swings across the street to land with Maria and Bucky near the beach. Magnus just starts walking away, but the police tell him to stay put - they need a statement. Magnus nods, probably planning on just leaving, but then things get weird.

Peter's senses tingle again. Turning around, he sees three humanoid creatures, glass skeletons with sand swirling around them, rise up out of the beach. Three more, these made of driftwood and seaweed, lurch out of the ocean. Magnus glances up and sees three more, these made of tar and roof shingles, drop off the bank roof and attack him!

They paw at him, maybe trying to immobilize him? He's not sure. All he knows is that when they touch him, he feels something watching him, and that feeling only half goes away. He thinks he hears a voice whisper "Magnus"...

The driftwood-creatures lurch over the beach, fall over the concrete divider into heaps, and then reform and keep lurching toward Magnus. Spidey leaps across the street to help, while Maria kicks one of the sand-creatures in the chest and shatters it. Bucky smashes the other two with his metal arm, and they obligingly fall apart.

Spidey grabs Magnus and leaps to the candy shop roof. Magnus pulls a vial of green liquid out of his coat and says "Can you throw this on target?" He tosses it up into the air, Spidey webs it and smashes it into the constructs, and the whole area burst into Greek Fire d10!

The driftwood-creatures are burned almost immediately. Bucky charges in, picks up a tar-creature, and uses it to push the other two into the fire, where they melt. But the fire is burning out of control! Magnus, figuring his work is about done here, pulls a doorknob out of his pocket and opens a trap door in the roof. "Come on, Spidey."

But Spider-Man can't ignore the fire burning out of control, and doesn't follow Magnus down. He leaps off the roof and webs a fire hydrant, pulling it open and spreading water everywhere. Unfortunately, he remembers too late that Greek Fire is basically napalm and it doesn't get extinguished by water. The fire spreads and the candy store starts to burn.

Maria grabs a fire extinguisher and puts some of it out, enough for anyone left in the store to run, while Bucky makes short work of the last construct. The heroes flee, all in separate directions. Magnus winds up eating a shaved ice a few blocks away. Maria gets on a bus and heads toward the SHIELD facility. Bucky ducks out of sight, avoids cameras, grabs a hat from a thrift store, and emerges to find Spider-Man sitting on a light post. 

Spidey changes back into his street clothes and the two of them head out. Bucky brings them to a HYDRA Cache he knows about - it's all covered in dust and grime, but there's some cash and a change of clothes, and it's a safe place to rest. 

Maria gets off the bus and finds the facility, easily bypassing the security at the front. She walks in as the system boots up ("welc - WELCOME - welcome"), and then tries to get a sense of how the land lays. 

It's not great. Whatever remains of SHIELD has been told by the Avengers that Maria Hill, with the help of Spider-Man and an unknown individual in a tuxedo, broke the Winter Soldier out of containment and went on the run and have been implicated in the death of Stephen Strange. Strange's death hasn't been reported by the mainstream media, so Maria is hopeful that he's not actually dead, but she's out in the cold and the most powerful people she knows are compromised. She notes, too, that the weirdo with the mustache "news" site dailybugle.net is screaming about Spider-Man, as usual ("just moments after Spider-Man helped to free notorious terrorist James "the Winter Soldier" Barnes, another Spider-Freak, this time in sunny Malibu, assisted gun-toting criminals in attacking and burning a city block! This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Spider-Cult that I have been warning about!"). 

"DON'T FORGET TO LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE!"

Maria sighs, and decides it's not safe to stay connected to SHIELD in any way. She smashes her watch, severs all ties, and goes rogue (which, coincidentally, completes her Coming in from the Cold milestone). She then takes stock of what they have available here.

The answer is "not much;" this place was decommissioned after Stark vanished. But there's a gen-1 quinjet in the motor pool, though it'll need some love before it's ready to fly. She goes out to a nearby taco truck and buys a lot of food, and then goes back and gets to work.

Magnus, meanwhile, finishes his shaved ice and makes his way across town to the facility. The door is locked, of course, but he just teleports to the other side of the wall into a nondescript-looking waiting room. The desk in the room sinks into the floor and two humanoid robots slide up into the room. 

"Attention! You are an unauthorized visitor! We are the Iron Legion! Do not be alarmed! Please state your name!"

"Um...Magnus the Magnificent?"

"'Magnus the Magnificent?' is not an authorized visitor!" The robots raise their fists. "We are the Iron Legion! Do not be alarmed! Please place your hands on your-"

At this point the Maria cancels the alarm and the robots slip back into the floor. "Why didn't you just use the doorbell?"

"There's a doorbell?"

BING-BONG. 

Maria lets Peter and Bucky in, and everyone has tacos (Pete: "Oh, tacos. Is there a more perfect food?" Magnus: "Well, if you want to be pedantic..." Bucky: "We don't.").

Everyone is beat, so they decide to get some sleep. Bucky takes first watch. He's got tar in his arm anyway, so he takes it off to clean it.

A few hours later, Peter wakes up. He's back in high school. The halls are dark, but familiar, and he hears glass breaking, kids yelling...and MJ scream. He runs down the hall, turns a corner, and sees Adrian Toomes, the Vulture, holding MJ up by the neck. "Hey, Pete. Told you I'd see you again."

Bucky, still cleaning his arm, see Pete come around the corner, looking terrified. "Hey, kid. What's up?"

Pete screams "MJ! No!" and fires webs. Toomes ducks out of the way, and then swings his bladed wing at his face. Pete dodges easily, but then feels a tingle from behind him! He leaps out of the way, just in time to avoid the powered gauntlet of the Shocker!

Bucky swings his arm like a club, but it's like trying to hit wind. Maria appears in the doorway behind them and tries to tase Spidey to stun him, but he leaps out of the way. Bucky throws his arm and bonks Spidey in the head, and Maria manages to land the taser, shocking Spidey out of it.

"Guys, what happened?" 

"You tell me!" says Bucky. "And I just cleaned my arm, and now there's all this web stuff in it!" 

"Sorry!" Spidey grabs the arm and starts pulling webs out of the joints. Maria goes to make some tea so they can figure out what the hell just happened. 

Movie #904: The Changeling

The Changeling is a ghost story/drama from 1980 starring George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Melvyn Douglas, Jean Marsh, Helen Burns, Frances Hyland, and Michelle Martin. 

John Russell (Scott) is up in snowy upstate New York with his wife Bavmorda Joanna (Marsh) and daughter Kathy (Martin) when a terrible car accident kills both of them while John looks on in horror. 

Our tone thus established, we cut to some months later. John, a composer, has taken a teaching job at a local university (I don't know if it's ever established to be the University of Washington) and rents a big ol' mansion from the historical society in which to try and compose some new music. An agent of said historical society, Claire Norman (Van Devere) helps him to get acclimated and settle in.

It becomes clear pretty quickly (well, inasmuch as this movie does anything quickly, but we'll get to that) that the place is haunted. John composes (he thinks) and records a piece of music, but then finds a music box in a locked and hidden attic room that plays the exact piece. Gradually he discovers, through visions, a seance, EVP, and just good ol' fashioned investigation, that a little boy was murdered in that house. 

Turns out, though, that the boy's father killed him because of convoluted issues with his late wife's family's money - he killed him, adopted a replacement, and took him to Europe, where he remained all during the Great War. That boy was Albert Einstein has grown up to be one Senator Joseph Carmichael (Douglas), a very powerful and rich man in Seattle society. Russell tracks down where the real Joseph Carmichael was buried (down a well, now under a house owned by an extremely understanding woman (Hyland)), digs up his bones and finds the medal that proves his identity, and then...turns over all the evidence to Senator Carmichael. 

And then the house spontaneously burns down, and we get visions of the senator walking into it, but in actuality he dies of a heart attack. 

This is an interesting one. It's very much a ghost story, but it feels more like a drama or even mystery first and a ghost story second. The ghost's antics don't really feel scary or even eerie until the end of the movie, when the ghost apparently starts flipping cars and blowing up houses, and it does feel a little jarring. Likewise, thinking about it, I actually like that Russell's choice is to just tell Senator Carmichael that he knows the truth, that his adoptive father is a killer, and that the real Joseph Carmichael suffered a horrible life and death - it's not the senator's fault and there's nothing he could have ever done to prevent it, but now he knows and he can't un-know. 

I think the implication is that this isn't enough for ghost-Joseph (Ghostseph?) because it's after that point that we get the iconic scene of the wheelchair chasing Claire down a flight of stairs and the house burning down. There's a messiness to it that I find satisfying - a story like this doesn't need a clean, easy, Scooby-Doo ending where a killer is unmasked and gets arrested, and you figure that's what the ghost of a little child would want. But because we don't really see Joseph as violent before that point, like I said, it's a little jarring.

I mentioned the pacing earlier, too. The movie takes its time, setting up Russell, his grief, him living in the house, teaching his class, interacting with Claire, and I think that's actually good - it lets us learn the house and the setting and that's always appreciated. It's slow, but I don't think it's boring or languid, and it always feels like it knows where it's going.

I saw a review refer to The Changeling as a "minor classic" and I think that's accurate - it's well-shot (the shot of the medal slipping out of the dirt was fantastic, as is the overheard shot of Russell digging in the well), it's well-acted, and the it's well-scripted. There are some choices that I are interesting, but nothing that I think was actually wrong. 

My Grade: A-
Rewatch Value: Medium-low

Next up: Chopping Mall 

Shadowrun: FOOD FIGHT!

(Guest post by Michelle)

Fueled by what I can only describe as a fit of nostalgia, I agreed to run a game of Shadowrun 3^rd Edition for a game group in a monthly session. Yesterday was session .5, in which we go through a short combat in order to bring everyone up to speed on the basic system and figure out if the characters everyone had made worked as they wanted.

While I have run Shadowrun in the past (and worked on the system back in the day) It has been a HOT minute. Of those at the table, we have Matt (who’s played the video game), Travis (who played back in the day and has perhaps run it before), Toasty (who has played the video game and dreamed of playing this for AGES), Gus (who knows the video game and likes the setting, but has not played the TTRPG at all), and Cael (who loves the SR world and new-to-him systems but does not love 90s TTRPG design). I finally got over my old-job-PTSD to be comfortable-ish running the game, so I decided to use the enthusiasm to advantage and off we went.

The characters are:

• Kombucha, a dwarf drone rigger (Matt)
• Hocus, a human mage who’s a grad student at UW (Travis) 
• Diablo, a Hispanic troll street samurai (Toasty) 
• Cappy, a dwarf corp negotiator and “face” who runs for the thrill of it (Gus), and
• Coil, an elf transhumanist decker who HATES magic to the very core of his virtual soul (Cael)

Because there’s a high level of unfamiliarity with, if not the setting, then the mechanics for most of the table, I felt like it would be prudent to have a soft open for the game. I dusted off First Run and the old chestnut “Food Fight” for our test run. I told everyone that they weren’t locked into their characters or the specific builds – if they wanted to make changes once they’d played, they could do so, and the session just would have been a multiplayer VR game session their characters had all shared.

I asked a few questions of the table before we started – where were you at, what was the best thing, what was really annoying, what do you have happening tomorrow, what are you craving right now? The group was just at a rave where Coil was DJing; there was a food truck near the rave where they managed to score some fresh-from-the-fryer French fries, the kind with the perfect amount of salt and crunch, made of real potato starch at least; the really annoying thing was that Hocus’s phone kept blowing up all night with messages from students about the assignment that was due, that all were addressed in the prompt/syllabus; tomorrow Cappy was supposed to strategically blow a business deal for reasons he had not been made privy to, but he was happy to earn his fee; and Diablo was craving sleep. It was a late night for this troll, coming on 4am, and he was trying to get to bed before the sunrise. Luckily for Diablo, he had some wiggle room time-wise because it was one of Seattle’s rare thunderstorms. It was just dumping buckets of water down on the world, the kind of rain that gets inside your coat, running cold down the back of your neck, and makes your socks wet above your shoes, not to mention in them.

The group were in Kombucha’s van headed to drop people off, when they saw a Stuffer Shack and got hit hard by the munchies. They pulled up, went in, and got down to business finding their almost-morning fave snacks. The place was busy for 4 AM – a bougie rocker couple buying cat food, a woman and her teen son grocery-shopping, three gangers being excessively aggro to everyone, a cashier, stockboy,, and manager. The gangers were all part of the Chiller Thrillers, a low-rent thrill-kill/robbery gang with far more attitude than turf, which Diablo clocked when they walked in. He noted this over comms for the rest of the group, noting that something was likely going down.

Given the sign, the runners reflexively checked over the assembled people; a couple noted that one ganger talking seriously with the appliances likely had a shotgun under his long coat, the ganger girl in the fountain area was holding a bag like she wanted to shoot people with it, and some bushido wanna-be ganger was openly wearing a katana. As the runners moved off to get their various refreshments, the girl offered to climb Diablo like a tree, and asked if his name was Jungle Jim, the Toaster Oven guy ignored them, and Katana-man walked over to the counter to flirt with the cashier no matter how she felt about it. In response, Hocus called her over to ask her a pointless question about pricing, Cappy got between the couple arguing over their cat and life choices and Appliance Chatty-Cathy,, Kombucha fired up Big Harry, his Nissan Doberman drone in the van,  and Diablo very specifically set down his drink, out of the way. When three more gangers rushed in, then, guns at the ready, it wasn’t much of a surprise. Initiative!

The battle only went two rounds, but much was learned in that time, including the effects of damage (physical and stun), how to calculate spell drain, whether or not guns/implants did what was intended, and how no SR character is good at everything, and if you take something on outside your wheelhouse (particularly if you get fighty when your character isn’t), you are unlikely to be successful. Shadowrun 3^rd is clunky and charming in a 90s sort of way, but also pretty unforgiving. Cael in particular had a bit of a learning curve, since he was used to more narratively flexible games and nothing worked quite as intended; he rolled up and started a fight with Appliance Man as a decker who hadn’t really invested in physical altercation stats, but he figured out some new approaches fairly quickly. No non-combatants were injured, the property damage was kept to a minimum, and all of the gangers were either knocked out or shot dead by the end of the second round, done mostly in accordance with the actual rules (we messed up the first damage roll, but didn’t go back once we figured it out). Big Harry shot Katana Man twice, but then got zorched by a Coyote shaman ganger’s Lightning Bolt spell, illustrating the knock-on effects of electricity attacks on drones/vehicles, dump shock, and the expensive and time-consuming process of repairing said machines. Everyone got a lesson in the usefulness of armor and how damage codes actually work, as well as why not every spell needs to be at force 6. We also worked through first aid and magical healing to try out those systems, which all in all were a success.

One of the most important things that really hit home to the players, though, was the importance of good communication and teamwork. Because characters can become highly siloed, it’s important to be able to cover for each other’s weaknesses and augment each other’s strengths. This might sound self-evident, but frankly this is not something the video games show you, nor is it really the con experience of the game. It’s important that the characters and players know what the others in their preferred working group can do, particularly in terms of controlling environments, supporting up-front fighters, and generally keeping each other safe. I’m personally really excited by this, as I think it’ll make for some excellent RP going forward.

For our official session 1, I’ll do a more thorough write-up of the play-by-play, but in the end, it was just a co-op VR game that taught us all some valuable lessons. And really, that’s about the best outcome we could have gotten. Until next time, chummer!

Character Creation: Barbarians of Lemuria

BLOOD AND GLORY! VICTORY AT SEA! 

The "ten" slot in The 12 Days of Christmas is, most commonly, "ten drummers drumming," but one of the variations I've seen is "ten bears a-baiting," either of which seems pretty on-target for a game about barbarians. As such: 

FOR THE TENTH GAME OF XMAS, TWENTY-TWENTY-FIVE,
TEN BARB'RANS CHOPPING, 
NINE SENTAIS SENSING,
EIGHT MONSTERS WRANGLING,
SEVEN LAWS A-SCOFFLING,
SIX GEESE A-HONKING,
GIRL BY MOONLIGHT,
FOUR ELDERS GODS,
THREE TITTED HENS,
TWO CORVID COURTS,
AND IN THE NUMBER ONE SLOT, CAIRN!

The Game: Barbarians of Lemuria Mythic+ Edition
The Publisher: Ludospherik Editions
Degree of Familiarity: I played an earlier edition at Origins about 10 years ago, but it was retooled for Thundarr the Barbarian
Books Required: Just the one

Have to say, I'm kinda feeling this game. System is nice and simple, the book doesn't talk down to the players, artwork's cool, setting is fleshed out but not overly detailed or missing context for things that seem important (looking at you, Atlantis: The Second Age). I think I'd run this. The book adheres a little too much to the source material in terms of gender roles (that is, men are big and burly and warriors and women are buxom and hawt and damsels), but it at least acknowledges that warrior women exist in the inspirational sources and there are some good depictions of women doing badass stuff in the art. Book could stand to be a little less heteronormative, but that's not the kind of thing that would stop my table from making shit gayer. Let's make a barbarian!

First we "envision" our Hero. HRRMMMM. (That's the sound of envisioning.)

OK, I think I want to play a character from the jungles of Qo. He grew up in one of the many tribes that live in the jungles. His people, the Karzam (just made that up), have a particular way of hunting and fighting. They develop these thrown weapons, made by carving a heavy block of wood down to a sphere (or using a rock, there are differing schools of thought on which is better), and then taking a strip of leather hide and driving fire-hardened wooden spikes through it and gluing the leather to the sphere with some kind of natural adhesive. What you get are spiked throwing spheres - they work OK as weapons against enemy tribes, but if you're using them against humans (or Grooth, the big ol' man-ape things that live in the jungle and have this nasty habit of eating people), you want to poison them. Hunting small game, just the piercing damage is usually enough to encourage the creature to bleed out.

(Side note: One thing this game does that I really like is differentiate between "rabble", "toughs," and "villains." Rabble die easily and you can kill multiple of them with one attack, toughs are still no match for a Hero generally but require a bit more effort, and villains are about on par with a PC. So that means my guy could throw one of these things and kill a rabble, maybe even a tough, but it's just going to inconvenience a villain, which is as it should be.)

Anyway, it's common for hunters from the Karzam to carry small wooden bucklers and stick their spike-sphere in them for ease of reach, and also because it's not like you'd want one down your loincloth.

Right, so my Hero in particular. He's a skilled hunter and warrior, but he's always been curious about the bigger cities and the other tribes. When a group of the jungle folks (including some Karzam) got snapped up by slavers from one of the cities (maybe Shamballah), my guy - let's call him Diallo - volunteer to lead a contingent to get them back. Depending on where the story starts, that might have been successful, failed miserably, or still be in process. 

Next, Attributes! There are four (strength, agility, will, and appeal), and I get 4 points to split up. Average is 0, and if I want I could lower one to -1 and get another point, but the book advises against this. I think I'll put agility at 2, strength at 1, and appeal at 1. That leaves mind at 0, but that's fine, Diallo can be about average in the brain-meats. 

Now we do the same thing with the Combat Attributes (initiative, melee, ranged, and defense). Well, I know I want 2 in ranged, and I know I want 1 in initiative. The question is do I make myself just average in melee, defense, or both? I feel like the Karzam style of fighting doesn't emphasize close combat, so I'll put the 0 in melee and give myself a 1 in defense.

And now, the same basic thing, but with Careers. These basically act like skill groups; if you have the sailor career you know how to be a sailor, even if you just have 0 in the career (just means you know the basics but not much else). But that still gives you fictional positioning to do sailor shit. 

Well, Diallo is obviously a hunter, so we'll start there. Barbarian also makes sense, and hey, it's the title of the game, so sure. Given that Diallo got selected to hunt down slavers, let's assume he's had some training in being an assassin. And that leaves one more. Hmm. Let's give him dancer and say that tribal dancing and acrobatics in trees are also culturally important to the Karzam.

Score-wise, we'll put 2 into hunter, 1 into barbarian, 1 into dancer, and leave assassin at 0.

Languages are easy. I speak Lemurian because everyone does, and Shamite because it's the language of the areas surrounding Shamballah (though Diallo's people probably have their own unique dialect).

Boons n' Flaws! I get one boon for free, but it has to be based on my origin. I can then take other boons, but every one I take after the first gives me a flaw as well. 

Hard to argue that my first boon should be Jungle-born, so we'll go with that. Let's go ahead and take two flaws, because I want the boons. Diallo is illiterate (writing and reading aren't really part of his tribe's practices), and country bumpkin (I get a penalty die when making rolls regarding urban survival).

But, that all gives me two more boons! ARGH, there are a bunch I want. Well, I spent all that time time thinking about his weapon, so let's take Trademark Weapon (spike-spheres). We'll say I have three that are trademark-quality, though I could make more with the right materials and time. And then just because I think it's fun, we'll take Blind Combat. Karzam hunt by night (that's when all the most delicious animals are out), and you've got to get good at throwing spheres at noises rather than spotting targets visually.

Derived traits! I get lifeblood equal to 10 + strength (11), 5 Hero Points, and nothing in Arcane Power, Fate, or Craft Points (since I don't have the careers that give you those).

And, finally, stuff! I get what I should have, which is very much my preferred way of doing equipment and in such stark contrast to Shadowrun (which I was playing yesterday). Diallo has leather (or snakeskin) clothes, light armor at best. He's got his little shield, and his three spike-spheres attached to it. He probably also has a bone knife in his belt, and that's about all he needs!

A knife does d6L (basically, roll two dice and take the lower) for damage, but what about his spike-spheres? They're lightweight, but I feel like they're designed to cause bleeding, so let's say they do d6 damage (if I were the GM I might argue, but since there isn't one, suck it). 

And that's pretty much it! Diallo has dark skin and black hair, and light purple eyes. His hands have the characteristic scars and nicks of Karzam hunters (you gotta learn to handle those spheres, and you get cut in the process). I think Diallo would either wind up as a slave for a while or free his people and send them back, but choose to stay in Shamballah for a while.

Character Creation: Sentai & Sensibility

Closing in on the end of the year! Probably make some big philosophical post on the 31st in which I reveal a Dark Truth. Or maybe it'll just be a post about dumb TV shows, who knows.

FOR THE NINTH GAME OF XMAS, TWENTY-TWENTY-FIVE,
NINE LADIES IN ROBOTS,
EIGHT MONSTERS WRANGLIN'
SEVEN SCOFFLAWS SCOFFIN'
SIX GEESE A-HONKIN'
GIRL BY MOONLIGHT,
FOUR ELDER GODS,
THREE HENS WITH TITS,
TWO CORVID COURTS
AND CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIRN! (you have to imagine the word stretched out and hitting all the notes in the usual "partridge in a pear tree" line)

The Game: Sentai & Sensibility
The Publisher: 9th Level Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one 

So, this game combines Austen-esque Regency sorts of vibes with Japanese sentai kinds of things. Giant robots what combine into one big robot, that sort of thing. It's cute, perhaps not my thing, but I think it'd be fun with the right table. It's a Polymorph System thing, so every character type has its own die and success depends on what kind of thing you're doing (see also: Scurvy Buggers, The Very Good Dogs of Chernobyl, and Mazes). 

With that in mind: Filling out our "dance card" starts with a Society (though several other things are mentioned first). Everyone in the group is meant to have the same Society, but since it's just me, what would I push for if I were playing? Ooh, actually, we can do this randomly...Racers! Sounds good to me.

Next up we pick Station, which is effectively character class or role or whatever. I think I'll lean into my predilection to play support and be the Dragoon. 

Next, Temperament. These hinges on Humour (as in, the four), and we can do this randomly, which is I think what I'd like to do. So: We roll a d4 to pick a Humour (2, Choleric). That sets my Element as Fire and my Season as Summer. I roll a d6 to set a tens place and a d10 to set a 1s to pick a personality trait, and that gives me...27, which is Modest. Sounds fine to me. Nowhere to put that one the sheet (rather, there is, but there's not a text box for it). Well, let's roll a d12 for a favorite color, anyway. Umber. Sure, sounds great.

Machina! This is a giant machine that I summon to help fight against the Abominations of the Syndicate. Again, I can randomize it, and I'm happy to do that. Rolling a few dice lands me on condor. Fuck yes. Big ol' umber-colored condor. SQRAWK.

Weapon! Again, I'll go rando. "Bo-hiya," what the fuck is that? OH SHIT ROCKET LAUNCHER. Hells yeah.

Need a Henshin device, which is an object I use to transform into my Ranger persona. Will I randomize again? YOU KNOW I WILL! Ring, that's nice and easy.

Next few steps are just basics; name and pronouns. Let's name my guy...Sandford Wilcox (he/him).

Right, now Rival and Confidant. These can change week by week, and can be other PCs or other folks in the greater community. Let's say that Sandford's Rival is Eve Marshall. Eve is a soldier and peacekeeper, and she and Sandford are technically on the same side, but they really don't see eye to eye on particulars. His Confidant is Cleveland Cordova (am I using a random name generator? why yes I am). Cleve is the fellow who designed and maintains Sandford's weapon and they just click. And perhaps the looks that Cleve gives Sandford are...meaningful?

That's about everything. Sandford is big, but not, like, buff. He's tall and has really long arms and good reach, and he's sturdy on his feet. When he changes into his Machnia, he reaches out his arms and lets them grow into wings, resembling the condor emblem on his ring. I think his bo-hiya melds with him and winds up on his back, so he can fire while flying. 

And that's about it!

Character Creation: Monster Wrangler

"Catching 'em all" isn't really the goal here. 

FOR THE EIGHTH GAME OF XMAS, TWENTY-TWENTY-FIVE,
EIGHT MONSTERS WRANGLIN'
SEVEN LAWS A-SCOFFIN'
SIX GEESE A -HONKIN',
GIRL BY MOONLIGHT,
FOUR ELDER GODS,
THREE FRENCHIN' HENS
TWO CORVID COURTS,
AND CAIRN FROM THE O-S-R!

The Game: Monster Wrangler
The Publisher: Blackout Games
Degree of Familiarity: The system is pretty reminiscent of one I know well, but otherwise none
Books Required: Just the one

My friend Amanda pointed out that, in the song, it's never specified what the eight maids are milking, so here we are. 

Monster Wrangler is, as is probably obvious, "Pokemon-knockoff the RPG." Rather, it seems to be. My exposure to Pokemon is limited - I played Pokemon Go! when it was first released and it became a way to be sociable while still social distancing (fuck me, I never thought I'd look back on 2020 fondly), but I don't really know the lore, so I don't know how closely this game resembles it. I do note that Blackout Games hasn't been sued out of existence by a notoriously litigious company, however, so there must be some difference (or else Blackout is too small to bother with).

Blackout Games, incidentally, also brought us Madhouse, for which I made a character some time back. I wasn't real enthused about that one. I had higher hopes for Monster Wrangler. It was actually a game I read thinking I might pitch it to a group, but I put it down because I wound up with some concerns.

To wit: The game is largely based, mechanically, around pitting your pet monster(s) against other monsters in combat. There are rules for easy healing, so that's nice, but I know my players, and "harm to pets" is one of our common lines. A whole game around what is basically dogfighting with fantastical monsters wouldn't be an easy sell. 

Now, with a group that was a little more willing to explore or gloss over that angle? I think it would be kind of fun. The setting is well-explained and interesting, there's a great variety of monsters with their own personalities and ecologies, and having played Monsters and Other Childish Things and Predation, I know how much fun a game in which you have your own personal pet "monster" can be. 

The game system here is basically OWoD second edition; roll a d10 dice pool, variable target number, count successes. It'd be easy enough to run, I think. I dunno, maybe we'll give it a whirl someday and focus more on exploration and monster wrangling than monster fighting, although that minimizes a lot of the rules.

For the moment, let's make a character!

Step One: Concept & Gain XP. I actually do kind of have a concept. The book goes into the history of the Chosu Region (but not in such exhaustive detail that I couldn't finish it over a cup of coffee), and describes the nations that currently make it up. One of those, Arensa, produces movies - it's basically the Hollywood of this world. I want my character to be a young actor who starred in what was supposed to be a series of films, and then dropped out to be a monster Wrangler. So what happened?

Well, Obsidian ("Sid," to his friends and fans) was the star of a film called Majuul: The Beginning. See, without going into too much detail, the nations used to be all part of the Majuul Empire, which then fell and fragmented. One of the reasons it did so was because they attacked a nation that used monsters, and said monsters kinda handed the Imperial troops their lunch (there's a lot more to it, but that's the important bit for my purposes). So this movie was supposed to chronicle the development of the Empire, and the execs figured that the first movie or two, being set before the advent of Wranglers, didn't need a lot of monsters on set - cheaper!

The movie...kinda flopped. Turns out people like monsters in their movies (also the script was weak and the director got replaced halfway through). Sid, who at the time was using his birth name of Sidnathy, took the movie flopping kinda hard. Since the movie didn't make its money back, he could back out of his contract, and he did. 

Sid went out to the country house that his parents had bought with his advance money, and wound up finding a Vamyoru that had been injured. He nursed it back to health and bonded with it, and decided that he didn't want to go back to movies - not when he could follow his inclination towards dark clothes, dark poetry, and a blood-drinking monster buddy!

(Yes, Sid went a little goth. Give him a break, it's better than a lot of child stars do.)

This is a Vamyoru, by the way

 OK, good enough for concept! I get 30 XP, which I can spend during chargen, so...yeah, I have that.

Step Two: Choose Abilities. Abilities are broken down into Classes and then further into Basic/Expert/Advanced. I need to pick a Class, for which I get the Signature Ability, and then I can take another Ability from that Class or a different Class. Let's see. 

Well, I think the Class that makes the most sense of Sid is Trainer, because he's really doing this for its own sake. I get Command: Call Out, which lets me make a monster I control use a Technique. That's fine. Is there a "pose for the camera" Ability? Not really. How about Command: Pounce? That seems pretty useful. 

Step Three: Perks & Flaws. Standard arrangement. Perks cost XP, Flaws give you XP. Can't have more than three of each.

Well, looking at Perks, I want Famous, obviously. Let's take Ally and say that Sid's Aunt Glaima was his "assistant" during filming; she's been making movies for a while but always on the technical side of things and never wanted anything from Sid or his fame. And finally, let's take Strong Voice (Sid took classes). All together, these cost me 5XP. 

Flaws, then? Oh, let's take Gullible (though in Sid's case, "Sheltered" might be closer to the truth). Let's take Overprotective (if a monster I control becomes Bloodied, I have to make a Mind roll or stop the fight), and Rumormonger (like all actors, Sid is a gossip). That gives me 6XP total back, so I'm ahead by 1. 

Step Four: Purchase Skills. I get a big fat 0 in all Skills, but I can buy them 1-for-1 with XP. 

Well, Athletics is always a good bet. I think one level of Archery and Brawl would be good; figure that was on-set training. Obviously I need Perform, and Persuade makes sense. So does Subterfuge, although being Gullible maybe I don't need that. I do want a point in Monster Lore, though. Oh, and obviously Knowledge: History, given the subject matter of the movie. 

So let's say:

Archery 1
Athletics 2
Brawl 1
Knowledge: History 2
Monster Lore 1
Perform 4
Persuade 3
Scrutiny 1
Wrangle 1

That's 16 total. 15 left. 

Step Five: Attributes. I start with 2 ranks in each one, and then they cost [new rank x 2] with XP to raise. I feel like I should raise Energy (force of personality); going to 3 would cost 6. Anything else? Yeah, let's say Sid's a good study and learns his lines, and spend another 6 to raise Mind to 3. 

Step Six: Calculate Combat Attributes. These are based on my Attributes, so:

Defense is equal to Speed (2).

Willpower is equal to Mind (3).

Armor is 0 unless I buy some.

Health is equal to 2 + (Vitality x 2), or 6. 

Movement is 25'. Size is Small. Bonded Limit is 3 (so I can have three monster buddies before they start getting persnickety). 

Step Seven: Equipment. Ugh. I have 50 onz (the currency of the world). Do I want to buy anything in particular? Eh. I hate shopping. 

Step Eight: Monster. I already know I want a Vamyoru. He's a Juvenile, which makes him about 2'5" tall and about 30 pounds. I think Sid has a thick glove and a hood, so his Vamyoru can hand from his arm and snooze during the day. His monster's name is Hyde, named after one of the most feared generals of the Majuul Empire! Hyde's Personality is...ah, heck, we'll roll for it. "Wary." I'm good with that Hyde broke a wing when he was a baby and it's still a little weak, so he's a little cautious around new people and monsters. 

Step Nine: Finalize Backstory. I've really got this about done, but I do have 3 more XP to spend. Let's dump it into Skills and buy two points of Stealth and one more of Scrutiny. 

That's it! Sid is about 13. Dyes his hair black, wears blacks and greys, likes to pose with his leg bent at the knee and Hyde draped over it, absently stroking his head.