The One Shot Idea

I'm not good at creating one shots, however my reading activities have sparked an idea and an urge to do so. Not exactly a one shot, but series of them where the characters names remain the same but the skills and perhaps players change. 

At the beginning of 2020, I started rereading The Damiano Trilogy by R. A. MacAvoy. It's a historical fantasy about witch who finds adventure galavanting around Europe in search of his heart. Its pretty standard fare for early eighties fantasy, swinging from super light to moderately dark concepts. Clearly, the 90's antihero was not yet in fully realized, but these contemplative stories had the kernel of the idea gestating a decade before. 

At about the same time, I purchased Aquelarre Breviarium. I got the Spanish Language edition, so it's been a slow slog for me. But from the character descriptions, it seems like this rule set captures the ideas of the Damiano series very well. 

Aquelarre takes history and morphs it into a playable system. Characters don't have classes, they have professions. There are no races, there are cultures. 

Damiano, the titular character could be a couple of different professions, however the Trilogy breaks the character into different phases or evolutions throughout the series. This is fairly neat for a character in a game because each aspect is divorced from the others except for the name. 

Damiano could be un Mago or un juglar (minstrel),
each distinct from Saara the witch and Gaspare the dancer. 

The lengthy list of professions are well suited for dealing with not only the main character but also the associated secondary characters. I could see doing a series of one shots where the characters from the books display one profession per session. The names stay the same, but the professions change. Therefore, if the players change for each one shot session, no one cares. 

If you like you can pick up Aquelarre in English via DriveThruRPG.

#31daychallenge, Part 2

Get those dice warmed up. It's time for the #31daychalllenge. Roll a character a day. 

Yesterday, I declined the challenge myself, but offered 20 sets of die rolls to create your own character. I want to spend my time reading a blog a day in January. 

Today, I'm reading blogs. Games in Libraries is up to the challenge, as is Spodding. 

Now for the plug. I wrote a book called "Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners" specifically designed to roll up NPCs and to give Player Characters professional skills. It's meant for B/X and AD&D e1. It's available at DriveThruRPG for PWYW. I also have a handy dandy character sheet for AD&D e1 and Unearthed Arcana. It's a scan of a sheet I created in the 80's in PDF format. Suitable for printing. 

And with that, I am off to read some blogs. 

New Links for Products by TheseOldGames.com

I've always wanted links to DriveThruRPG to look like links to Amazon. However, most of DriveThruRPG doesn't work like that. If you look to the left of this post, you can see an example of what I wanted, which is an affiliate tool for the Daily Hot New Book. You can get that link by logging in to DriveThru and scrolling to the bottom of the Affiliate Resources Page.

The code looks like this (excuse the image, blogger doesn't like code tags):

It displays the ad like this:

Hottest New Book City of Nexus | 20x30 Battlemaps [BUNDLE]

By harvesting their code, you can change what is displayed by manipulating the code, like I did for my Swashbuckler Character Class.

Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D Swashbucklers for D&D and AD&D

You can get the product page link via the Social link on DriveThruRPG. 



That will automatically append your Affiliate Id to the link, which is super handy. The image associated with the product can be directly linked to by right clicking the thumbnail and copying the image address. Many times you can plug that image link right into the code.  

Zero to Hero: Uncommon Heroes Zero to Hero

The thumbnail seems to be generated by .css, which will rescale the image to 139 by 196 for the product page. However, if the author uploaded a larger image, you will have to rescale the image and host it yourself. That happened to me with all of my products. I should probably go back and rescale all of the images so DriveThru does less work to display a thumbnail. 

Character Sheet for AD&D Character Sheet for AD&D

You can combine the code above with the table html to create side by side links, like I did below.

Kobold’s Folly Mini Setting Kobold’s Folly	The Hex Pack The Hex Pack	Compass Rose Inn Mini Setting Compass Rose Inn

31 Day Character Challenge

A few days or weeks ago, I saw Tim Brannan's post on a 31 day challenge. The goal is to post 31 characters in the month of January. See his first right here.* I thought that was awesome, I love rolling characters. 

But... I do this all the time. Click the Pregenerated tab to see over 100 characters. It would be better for me to not play along, go read other people's blogs and instead do something else for myself this year. I don't know what that is yet, but I've decided to post links to others doing this challenge as I come across them. 

I have to be honest, it took me 30 seconds to find Tim's post not counting the 30 minutes of reading his other recent posts. Follow those links above and subscribe. 

I can't leave you high and dry on New Year's Day. I do have a small contribution to this 31 day endeavor. Here is a list of 20 4d6 rolls with the lowest roll dropped. 

 Here they are typed out in order:

A) 15, 12, 12, 9, 16, 10
B) 10, 14, 14, 9, 12, 11
C) 13, 16, 17, 13, 13, 12
D) 11, 14, 15, 12, 12, 13
E) 9, 13, 12, 15, 12, 14
F) 14, 10, 10, 11, 10, 11
G) 14, 13, 10, 14, 16, 12
H) 13, 15, 14, 13. 14, 14
I) 14, 17, 16, 6, 9, 11 
J) 11, 13, 11, 12, 15, 14
K) 10, 15, 11, 13, 14, 14
L) 11, 8, 12, 13, 9, 17
M) 10, 16, 3, 11, 15, 18
N) 13, 14, 17, 14, 11, 15
O) 12, 17, 15, 14, 12, 12
P) 17, 10, 14, 13, 13, 15
Q) 10, 7, 13, 17, 12, 15
R) 12, 14, 10, 9, 17, 16
S) 13, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16
T) 14, 12, 16, 14, 15, 15

I hand rolled these numbers on my lunch breaks last week when I thought I would be participating. What I find interesting is, I don't ever recall rolling a 3 as a stat. I'd like to say I must cheat a lot when rolling dice, but in this exercise, I didn't roll a single 4 or 5 and the one 3 I rolled was actually four 1 in a roll. By the same standard, I only rolled one 18, 7 and 8. That is weird, but thems the dice for you. 

The Tek - December 2020

Ah, this is it: The Stats for December 2020. Now that I have enough data, I may post a whole year summary. I need more coffee. 

AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana: 1
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting: 4
Kobold's Folly: 4
Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D: 2
These Old Games Presents: The Hex Pack: 1
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners: 2

Downloads and sales were flat, but I can live with 14 total downloads per month. It's probably time to re-do, update and add to my DriveThruRPG offerings. 

Webstats were down a bit, almost 10%. But not horrible. 

Google Analytics Pageviews - 1,241
Google Analytics Sessions - 749
Pageviews per Session - 1.65

I've learned a bit in the middle of this pandemic. 

I have a whole year of data on my Rakuten Advertising ads. Many clicks, zero income. I am going to say goodbye to Rakuten. It is not aligned with my audience. There is a slight chance that I will keep one segment of Rakuten, The Lego Store. I may have zero people who will make a purchase, but I love the creativity of Lego and I will probably continue to link to the store. It's a content choice over marketing or advertising. It's nonsensical from a business standpoint, but I very much enjoy their photography and products. 

If you are looking for an advertiser that isn't aligned to games, then Rakuten is worth a look. It didn't work for me, but it does look like a useful tool. 

The clear winning Advertiser is DriveThruRPG. They brought in many times what I made in all other advertisers combined. Roughly, 7 times all other sources. It isn't a ton of money, but it is sufficient for me to pay for my site, to make some discretionary purchases and expand my offerings.  

My Amazon links are a conundrum. Virtually all funds from Amazon came in the last quarter of 2020, probably owing a loin's share to a single reader of this site. There does seem to be a correspondence between high quality posts with clicks and funds from Amazon. I do not receive a click by click rundown of commissions made, but I can see an incredible amount of clicks preceding those commissions. 

The Final Post of 2020

Hey, how about a respective post about 2020? Yeah, no. 

2020 was a dud. Today, I'll post a couple of images. Back when this s---show started, I pushed myself to practice drawing. 

I burned through pens and paper like crazy. Princesses, dragons, castles, knights, cat's, horses. I drew until I ran out of stuff to draw on and with. 

Thankfully, I resupplied in summer. And I'm still at it. 

This is a rough pencil drawing of a castle I'm working on. I've drawn it before and I'll probably draw it again. 

I wanted to work with my brush pen but it ran out a couple of months ago. 

This scratchy horse was done with a .5 sharpie pen. It was an iffy save. I figured I'd work on crosshatching if I couldn't do brush work. I don't know how I forgot that brush pen gave out and I never replaced it.

Ah, 2020. Kiss my... 

Green-5 Stats for WotC Star Wars

Green-5 is a unique droid to the Tarkeren Campaign. He has been on his own for far too long, Green-5 is suffering from corruption. He has taken on some traits that are not helpful. 

He has this obsession with turning speeders into fighters, which is less useful than it sounds. He has also taken on the idea he should know medicine. For a tactical droid, this is even more questionable than the thing with the speeders. 

T-Series Tactical Droid Statistics
Medium 4th-Degree Droid Soldier 3

Force Points: 2
Initiative: +6; Senses: Perception +7
Languages: Basic, Binary, Zabrak, Rodian

Defense:
Reflex Defense: 18 (Flat-Footed: 17), Fortitude Defense: 13, Will Defense: 13; Vehicular Combat
Hit Points: 30, Damage Threshold: 13
Immune: Droid Traits

Offense

Speed: 9 Squares (Walking)
Melee: Unarmed +1 (1d3)
Ranged: Heavy Blaster +2 (3d8)
Base Attack Bonus: +1; Grapple: +2
Attack Options: Quickshot (Heavy Blaster)

Base Stats:

Abilities: Strength 10, Dexterity 12, Constitution -, Intelligence 14 (Corruption. 10), Wisdom 14, Charisma 12
Talents: Battle Analysis

Feats: Armor Proficiency (Light), Armor Proficiency (Medium), Armor Proficiency (Heavy), Vehicular Combat, Weapon Proficiency (Pistols), Weapon Proficiency (Rifles), Weapon Proficiency (Simple Weapons), Point Blank Shot. 

Skills: Initiative +6, Knowledge (Tactics) +7, Perception +7, History +6, Use Computer +7, Treat Injury +2, Pilot +1, Astrogation +1.

Droid Systems: Walking Locomotion, Heuristic Processor, 2 Hand Appendages, Internal Comlink, Vocabulator, Backup Battery. 

Possessions: Heavy Blaster, Electrobinoculars, Durasteel Plating (Droid Armor; +6 Reflex), Cape, Notebook, Pen.

Availability: Unique

Tankeren's Defenses

The Tankerenian armed forces are not really what they should be. They have aircraft like the ship below. I call it an H-Wing. In real world terms, it's like an A-10 or a SU-25. However, no conflict has reached the level of needing those machines. Unlike their real world counterparts, they owe their robustness to devolved fighter designs of the Republic. They are incidentally tough, but not as tough as a Y-Wing or B-Wing. 

The whole planet probably has 200 of them. Of those, 20 or so of them are outfitted for training, aerobatic groups and the odd civilian hobbyist. Of the remaining fighters, 30-40% are down for servicing at any given time. Tarkeren doesn't have much a fighting air force. 

They have evolved this ship into a space fighter. The lines are more angular, the engines are bigger and the wings much smaller. Since the planet has a tiny space presence, these little ships are hot rods. They go from ground to orbit when needed. They are on par with an A-Wing in terms of speed, but lack missiles and maneuverability. They do have one advantage over most fighters, the pipe like structures are sensors so each ship acts as control ship. Maybe they have 100 of them.  

I showed this air speeder in my last post. It is unarmed, but a purpose build speed machine. It uses advance technology to perform more like a spacecraft than a speeder. It can reach orbit, but this is more of a stunt than a capability. Citizens of the Republic or Empire would be terrified at the power of this commercial speeder. But like I said, it's unarmed. These speeders are ubiquitous on this planet. 

Green-5 has transformed this air speeder into a power space fighter. It has heavy ion cannons for battle against capital ships, space for an astromech droid and powerful lasers. It can match TIE fighters in speed, Y and B-Wings for armor and has better weapons than both. It does lack missiles and photon torpedoes as the planet doesn't have the ability to produce either. 

The downside of this ship is, it is modification from air speeder to spaceship. That's expensive. Every fighter is a custom job involving droids and humanoids, which means that each one is unique. Also, it requires a humanoid droid or live pilot which means that Green-5, defender of the planet, does not have direct control of them once in service. Not enough droids are available to fly them, they type of droid required is not anything the Trade Federation has, so he needs Tankerenian pilots. 

So far, Green-5 has convinced the Lord and Lady to make 30 conversions. Half of them are still being assembled. He knows he needs 100 times that number to defend the planet against the Empire. 

Over the next couple of posts, I will stat up these ships. I hope you enjoy them. 

Tankerenian Speeders and Aircraft

I penned up some aircraft which are unique to my Tankerenian Star Wars Setting. 

For a warmup, I did a couple of open top speeders which are pretty Star Wars standard. Tankerenians are weird, they like fast vehicles, so these would only be found in cities and towns. They are small enough to fit inside a cargo transport so they are everywhere as a secondary mode of transport. 

What they really like are their skyspeeders, something like a cross between a cloud car and a snow speeder. They are insanely fast for 7 or more person vehicle. 

The Tankerenians only developed a vague sense of warfare and they do have some horribly antiquated fighters. They are limited to in atmosphere flight and are totally outclassed by even the oldest Republic designs. 

Mom, Dad... I'm in prison, and I don't like it.

This morning, I busted out some pens and graph paper to come up with the next scenario for my Star Wars campaign. This post is somewhat applicable for other campaign types, as you can grab the maps for just about anything. The links below go to the worldbuilding and character information about this campaign, in case this is the first you are hearing of it. 

In my worldbuilding post, I mentioned many names. Bergel was the Neimoidian viceroy in charge of the planet but he is playing a very sideways game of "not it". He knows the Empire or the Rebels will be paying him a visit very soon and he doesn't want to be the guy in charge when it happens. 

He set up the Tactical Droid, Green-5 as the pasty when whoever arrives has an obvious target to kill. He ordered the droid to protect the planet and Bergel charged him to work with the leadership of the planet. Additionally, Bergel has a Neimoidian bounty hunter, La'ow Houd keeping tabs on Green-5 and the leadership. His intention is to make sure that Green-5 puts up a bit of a fight, but not enough to get the planet glassed. Bergel is going to play the deposed leader card and say that Green-5 took over. 

Green-5 is pretty smart when it comes to tactics. He drew up a plan to kill everyone on the planet but since he's been ordered to work with the Lord and Lady of the planet this idea has been ditched. The Tankerenians are treating him like a living being which is causing him to wildy exceed his programing. He should have gone into safe mode a couple of times already but keeps lumbering on.  

In light of the riots and a party of unknown adventurers, he is in high threat mode. He has negotiated a plan to keep everyone safe. The Lord and Lady of Tankeren have granted him plot of land that contains a ruins. Green-5 started construction of a prison to incarcerate the rioters as he catches them. Currently, they are mostly held in place, which is very dangerous for his droids. They are not jailers or wardens. 

Bergel hates this idea. For one, the prison is far too close to the Capital making both a military target. Second, if anyone attacks the prison, it will be a bloodbath. This will cause the Tankerenians to fight with anyone that slaughters the prisoners. Bergel is an opportunist and has been exploiting the citizens, he doesn't mean to get them all kill or enslaved. This is exactly what will happen if the prison is completed. Someone will come to knock it out. 

Bergel is playing both sides. He set Green-5 on his course but also has La'ow Houd keeping eyes on him. La'ow has set his ship down near the prison site and has been evaluating the situation. He has a mandate to sabotage it any way he can. He doesn't have the means to destroy it himself, but he does know of a party of adventurers (click here for their character sheets) who might get the job done. In a perfect world, these adventures will do double duty: free the prisoners and destroy the facility. 

Last week, I posted some towers. I really liked these designs and incorporated them into the maps. When I drew them, I was thinking medieval towers but the slender design lends itself to sci-fi. 

The prison has 16 towers to jail prisoners. Green-5 is pretty sharp and he tried to eliminate as many problems with jailing people. Each tower is 6 levels or 22 meters high and 9 meters wide. They were carved right out of the local bedrock, so it should be impossible for prisoners to dig their way out. 

The bottom floor is the bathroom and showers. There are no windows on this floor. The next 4 floors are accommodations for the incarcerated. Each level does have a narrow slot window, but is far too small for an adult to crawl out of. The roof is for recreation. Prisoners are dropped off on the roof by a floating platform. There are no droid guards inside the towers.

The Tactical Droid has invented a variation of an oubliette, and the prisoners know it. Several smaller prisoners, mostly women and children have managed to get out of the towers and explore. They have not found a way to breach the walls, so they have not escaped. When they do figure out a way, they are going to destroy this place. This keeps the prisoners from fighting with each other. Wrecking this place is their game plan. 

I must apologize now for the orientation of the prison. The prison towers are on the south side of the map, which means that if I wish to continue this tour of the facilities, the maps will be upside down. 

South Ward (Prison Area)

In the map above, you can see the tower arrangements. The guns that point inwards are heavy stunners. The outward pointing guns are light and heavy weapons for taking down infantry and armor. The dotted lines are the gates. Imbedded in the ground are metal posts meant to stop vehicles while the gate doors slide sideways. They don't stop people, that's what the gates are for. At the bottom of the image are two ramps that lead to the fortress. 

As you can see from the arrangement, the towers block lines of fire. Green-5 believes that a force could come down the ramps and sweep up anyone trying to escape. He's never seen a prison riot before. 

The walls are hollow. There is a 1 meter wide and high tunnel through them, so Destroyer Droids can deploy from cover via secret openings. On the top towers of the prison side are two domes so that the Destroyer Droids can rally before rolling out into the yard. These tunnels are also how droids reach the weapon emplacements in the tower. 

The Command Section

The command area is much more reasonably designed. On the right bottom corner is the barracks area. Since only droids are station here, not much room is needed to store them. The towers along the perimeter have heavy weapons. The box like structures are missile launchers, however, they lob missiles upward. They cannot target anything inside the perimeter, not even the prison area. 

In the courtyard on the left are several faint pencil lines to mark where ships should land. This is also where the hovering platform is stored. These are not permanent marks and are moved, added and removed as needed. The faint pencil work at the top of the image is a duplication of the prison area so I can match the two halves of the map together. 

For the next session, La'ow will alert the players to the problem the prison represents to the people of this planet. He will be helpful, but not really helpful. The players will arrive before the entire structure is complete, they will see how the towers are constructed and gain useful recon information before making their assault. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday!

The season is upon us now. I'll be spending the next three days with friends and family, as much as we can get together in the middle of this pandemic insanity. We are going to make the best of it of what we have, each other. There will be food, drink and games. I can't wait to tell you about it next week.  

Peace! 

The Modelling Post - Figures for 1:144 scale models

I've been building some 1:144 scale models by Bandai. I have a snowspeeder and AT-ST built. I also have a couple of X-Wings, TIE fighters, two different Millenium Falcons and a few other things to build. 

I can't wait.  

I want to make some ground crew figures and have had difficulty sourcing them. The best I could find was 1/75 architectural figures. They're not a bad fit for the scale, being just a little too tall. I am going to end up modifying them, so I don't mind the off size. I'll be cutting and painting them to look like Star Wars characters. 

To get a sense of scale, I stood one up next to the models. They aren't too badly scaled. (Ignore the tape I used as a base.) For less than 10 bucks, I picked up a 100 of them. For the price, they're great.