OSR Character Sheet

The people over at Cirsova have a new OSR character sheet for commercial use. That pretty cool. 

I thought of creating an OSR sheet, but 99% of my rational of uploading my AD&D character sheet was nostalgia. I've been using this particular sheet for decades and though other people would be amused by is simplistic design values. My second version was done on the oldest software I could find to continue the sight gag. 

This sheet is pretty cool because it has those nostalgia values AND it's free for commercial use. That super generous. If I do a OSR one shot, I'll totally use this sheet.

You can download my file at DriveThruRPG using the links on the upper right. 

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 006 (RRR)

Dilemma time. Having reviewed the game Star Smuggler, I'm playing it and posting the results here one day at a time. If you aren't familiar with the game, you can read the review here or download the whole game there.

I have reached the point where the characters are doing Rest, Repair and Recuperation and not a whole hell of lot happens.

Mechanically, when you engaging in RRR, you roll a die to see if you have a forced contact at the start of the day. Roll a 6, there is a chance of an encounter. There are 7 varieties of encounters for each area and some areas by virtue of what they are preclude some of those 7. The ruins are one of those.

Going forward on RRR days, I'll share stats then I will tell you about things related to science fiction, outside of the Star Smuggler game which will probably contain an ad for something for you to purchase. 

Dear Diary,

Day six is less exciting than day five. We engage in RRR, again. Some parts are literally watching paint dry.

Here is today's stats:

1 Antelope starship,
2 Hopper with 15 units of fuel,
1 Stasis pod 2 CU,
24 Repair units (one used to repair the boat).
2 Skimmer,
1 Damaged U-bot.
and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

Crew:
Emily, weekly pay 15 secs. She has a sidearm and 35 secs.
Ratchet, weekly pay 15 secs. He has 30 secs.
Doc, weekly pay 10. He has the 10 secs that I paid him on day one.

Designated Heir: Emily.

I still owe 120,000 secs. in principal on the ship. I still have 350 secs in my pocket.

Welp, it was good while it lasted... Feedmegames.com

It was good while it lasted. It appears that feedmegames.com is gone for good.

I had to yank that off of Google's cache. I missed it in real time.

On the upside, the Buffalo Bills have another chance next tear... er, I meant "year".

Star... er Space Viking Book Review

Title: Space Viking
Author: H. Beam Piper
Year: 1963
Pages: 191
Rating: ★★★

H. Beam Piper's Space Viking inspired many idea in science fiction gaming. There is a reference to it in Traveller, in the form of the Spinward Marches' Sword Worlds.

It is somewhat a post-apocalyptic genre, all action takes place in the Sword Worlds, colonies founded by the losing side in The Big War. In the aftermath, a Federation of planets has collapsed into barbarism and is under siege from the titular Space Vikings.

 Trask, the leader of the so-called Space Vikings starts a campaign of conquest and revenge for the murder of his wife.

Space Viking really doesn't break any new ground, but all of the pieces of a classic science fiction story are there. Space Battles, check. Technology hampered by resources, check. Intrigue and revenge, check.

It's a solid read, but doesn't really soar.

Armor in the Movies and in Games

This week, I had two ideas collide. I finally finished The Mandalorian on Disney+ and received my order of the book, What is Dungeons and Dragons?. The book takes you through the process of how to create for not just Dungeons and Dragons, but many game systems, while the TV show follows the adventures of Baby Yoda and his newly minted father figure, The Mandalorian.

One thing that stands out in the TV show is how armor should work. Mando gets blasted and knocked around, losing bits and pieces all over the place. Like the real world.

Apparently, Mandalorians are the only Star Wars characters with fully functioning armor. I'd like to bring that into my D&D campaign.

In the original Unearthed Arcana book, there are a couple of options for this. First, there is field plate, which acts like hit points and a matching Magic Armor spell which does the same. I use a fusion of B/X and AD&D so this isn't too outside the box.

What I would like to do is create a system where all armor works to reduce damage. AD&D's armor class is nicely suited for this as 10 is a person's street clothes armor class, which is not protective. It stands to reason that I could simply create a table where dividing each minus to AC by 4 reduces damage by one.

AC
10 0/4 is nothing, so No Damage Reduction
9 is -1/4=.25 No Damage Reduction
8 is -2/4=.50 for 1 Point of  Damage Reduction
7 is -3/4=.75 for 1 Point of  Damage Reduction
6 is -4/4=1.00 for 1 Point of Damage Reduction
5 is -5/4=1.25 for 1 Point of Damage Reduction
4 is -6/4=1.50 for 2 Points of Damage Reduction
3 is -7/4=1.75 for 2 Points of Damage Reduction
2 is -8/4=2.00 for 2 Points of Damage Reduction
1 is -9/4=2.25 for 2 Points of Damage Reduction
0 is -10/4=2.50 for 3 Points of Damage Reduction

This table is nice because it naturally places armor in groups: none, minimal, medium and heavy, which is kind of what the game books do anyway. The table requires division and rounding, which is easy enough on the brain to do on the fly or I could simply make an index sized card for quick reference.

What do you think?

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 005 (RRR)

Having reviewed the game Star Smuggler, I wanted relive my past and play it. If you aren't familiar with the game, you can read the review here or download the whole game there.

This series will be a day-by-day play through of the classic game Star Smuggler from the point of view of the fictional hero, "Duke".

Dear Diary,

Day five is less exciting than day four. We engage in RRR, I watched the engineer repair the ship's boat. He did it, he doesn't even need a die roll. Ugh.

Engineers are interesting, sometimes they can fight, they can always do repairs under direction and oddly can drive a skimmer. Every item repaired burns one Repair Unit (RU) per point of damage, no matter how big or small it is. 

At the end of the 10 hour day, I'm thinking of money. Here is today's stats:

1 Antelope starship,
1 Hopper with 15 units of fuel,
1 Hopper, no fuel,
1 Stasis pod 2 CU,
25 Repair units (one used to repair the boat).
1 Skimmer,
1 Damaged Skimmer,
1 Damaged U-bot.
and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

Crew:
Emily, weekly pay 15 secs. She has a sidearm and 35 secs.
Ratchet, weekly pay 15 secs. He has 30 secs.
Doc, weekly pay 10. He has the 10 secs that I paid him on day one.

Designated Heir: Emily.

I still owe 120,000 secs. in principal on the ship. I still have 350 secs in my pocket, but the gear will sell will help, a lot.

What is Dungeons and Dragons? Book Review

Title: What is Dungeons and Dragons?
Author: John Butterfield, Philip Parker and David Honigmann
Year: 1982
Pages: 231
Rating: ★★★★★

Way back when, my dad took me to The Tek Pharmacy and told me flat out, "I don't have any extra money to get you anything." As he shopped I made my way to the book section and was perusing the Choose Your Own Adventure Books. I didn't want another, I felt like I had "graduated" from those, even though they were always enjoyable.

Back then, things were not like they are today. Being a small pharmacy, the books on the shelves would be by today's standard very old. The books were perhaps as old as 5 year since their publication date being sold as new. This is why I can't nail down the exact year of this visit. But in all likelihood, I probably look like either one of the kids on the right.

After Dad picked up his script or whatever he was buying, he found me looking at a book called: What is Dungeons and Dragons? by John Butterfield, Philip Parker and David Honigmann.

As I put it back on the shelf to leave, my dad said, "Oh, a book. I have money for a book. As long as you read it." I was probably 10 or 11. Now I am almost 48. And I'll tell you, I read the hell out that book. The pages were falling out, the spine was shattered and the cover had gone missing a long time ago. Finally, the book met it's end when the basement flooded. It was a sad day because this book has been out of print probably for decades.

As you will note, this is my second 5 gold star review. My first was Nate Treme's The Moldy Unicorn. If I had it do over again, I would make What is Dungeons and Dragons? the first and The Moldy Unicorn second. My Mom is a publisher, my Dad writes game books and I write, too. I don't go forking out 5 gold stars for shits and giggles. (Normally, I don't cuss either, but it is what it is.) The content has to be not just superior, it has to be memorable.

I've read both over and over again and they both evoke the same feeling of nostalgia. Each was something wildly different than what I had encountered in the past.

Within Butterfield, Parker and Honigmann's book, you get a ground up approach to game play. The first 8 chapters cover a massive amount of ground. Back in 1982, this was the closest one could get to "The Internet". Chapter 1 is an introduction to D&D. Chapters 2-5 walk the reader through character generation, dungeon design, an adventure with examples, and the role of the Dungeon Master in the game. Each of these topics are presented in a solid and memorable framework, with the section on The Adventure standing out. The sample adventure is not a classic in the sense of many great modules, but is a model of what one could realistically expected to produce on one's own. And that is great!

The next several chapters cover more advance details, such as figures, accessories, computers and even AD&D with the same solid reporting of the first 5 chapters.

The final chapter addresses other game systems, in a rather cursory fashion when compared to the information now available to us now. At 231 pages, some of which are maps, diagrams, and indices, there is no way for this book to rival information available on even a couple of web pages, but this is all I had back then.

This book is a treasure. At this point I am going to throw an ad at you. If you love the history of the game, go purchase this book.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 004

Having reviewed the game Star Smuggler, I wanted relive my past and play it. If you aren't familiar with the game, you can read the review here or download the whole game there.

This series will be a day-by-day play through of the classic game Star Smuggler from the point of view of the fictional hero, "Duke".

Dear Diary,

Day four was boring. We found a Utility bot and a damaged skimmer. The end.

Bots are boring in this game. They have a Tech level but can't fight, they can also breakdown when being used and have a weekly secs cost to operate. They are a money suck most of the time. Since they can't fight, the Tech level is only increasing the chance of a breakdown. They have very specific uses, so don't get excited about them. 

For the record, all U-bots do is carry stuff. They can carry 3 CUs of items for you, which comes in handy because a human can only carry 2. 

At the end of the 10 hour day, I'm thinking of money. Here is today's stats:

1 Antelope starship,
1 Hopper with 15 units of fuel,
1 Hopper, no fuel,
1 Stasis pod 2 CU,
26 Repair units,
1 Skimmer,
1 Damaged Skimmer,
1 Damaged U-bot.
and the ship is fully fueled with 6 hypercharges.

Crew:
Emily, weekly pay 15 secs. She has a sidearm and 35 secs.
Ratchet, weekly pay 15 secs. He has 30 secs.
Doc, weekly pay 10. He has the 10 secs that I paid him on day one.

Designated Heir: Emily.

I still owe 120,000 secs. in principal on the ship. I still have 350 secs in my pocket, but the gear will sell will help, a lot.

Now throwing it back to Phil... I haven't tried to sell you anything in a while. This website is supported through ads on DriveThruRPG. You can also purchase my books posted on the upper right of every page. However, today I would like to suggest a title on DriveThru RPG called Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart. Like Star Smuggler before it, it is very much a child of the 80s. It also has two booklets, maps, pre-generated characters and is reasonably priced at $10.00.