Monday, March 30, 2020

100th Day Post Celebration

Today, I made it to my 100 day playing Star Smuggler. I thought I should do something to celebrate. A few weeks ago, my dad sent me a foam cutter, so I decided to try it out using my drawing of the Buffalo Heavy Transport. 


Not bad so far. You'll notice I have a very shaky hand. My Dad uses these foam cutters like a kid uses crayons. I'm not very good right now, so why not check out one of his castles
Top view
Cockpit, top down
Cockpit, bottom up
Rear of ship, bottom side
Bottom of ship
I've only cut the rough details and not even all of them. The aft bottom of the ship is nearly featureless. I can't wait to finish this project.

Wish me luck!

And thank you for sticking around for 100 days of game play.

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 100 – March 30th.

If Duke took off his beret, he
wouldn't look like this. 
If Han Solo had a beret, he wouldn't
look like this. 
This trip was unrewarding, so we are off to Nipna.

We enter the system in the middle of a space battle. We slink away and make landfall in the ruins. We get an interesting roll on landing. We are attacked by a Mynkurian death squad. Two guys have suicide vests, two have poison darts and the last two have heavy hand weapons. The event describes them as attacking no matter the tactical situation.

I call BS and decide that we need something more cinematic for day 100!

If that last instruction is followed, they will run up to the ship as it lands, and I will slowly gun them down as heavy weapons, bombs or poison can't hurt the ship.

Instead, let’s try this. David, Lefty, and Duke are leaving the ship via the ramp when they get charged by these guys. They have Tech Level 6 equipment, while Duke, David and Lefty have TL-4 Heavy Weapons, Military U-Suits and PS-Bots. There is no air on this world, so this will be brutal and short.

All six guys try to charge to the ship's ramp in their first round. Deadeye, from the gun turret has a shot at them. Audrey’s turret can’t turn that far, so she doesn’t get a shot. Besides, we won't ask her to kill anyone on her first day. Deadeye has tech level 1 guns and a 6 marksmanship. He needs to roll 7 or less.  He rolls a six and one guy takes 10 hits.

Duke needs a 9, Lefty a 10 and David needs an 8. All three hit. Duke hit’s the other guy with a suicide vest and he explodes (The guy had 3 Endurance, so he's toast on a 2-7 and dead by vacuum on 8-12). Lefty hits one of the poison dart guys as does David. One takes 4 points of damage while the other takes 2. That doesn’t kill either of them, but their suits breach and they go down. They’ll die if no one helps them. None of us are all that helpful.

Next round. The guys with heavy weapons stop running and open fire. Each has a markmanship score of 4, with TL-6 weapons, gives them a 10 to hit. They shoot first. Both hit, one on Lefty and one on Duke. Duke takes 7 points of damage while Lefty is knocked out by concussion. Duke’s suit is breached and the PS-bot begins emergency life support. David fires and hits one guy, knocking him out by concussion.

At this point, Emily realizes something is wrong and jerks the ship into the air, allowing Deadeye another shot (they were too close to the ramp before). The last guy is vaporized, but Deadeye and Audrey take a moment to hose the bodies with the ship’s guns. This takes 3 more rounds.

In the aftermath, Emily sets the ship down and investigates. I am going to rule that all of attacker’s equipment is destroyed.

Emily takes a team out to search the ruins while the medics patch up the team. Emily comes home with a small collection of coins worth 30 secs. Instead of adding them to our inventory, she distributes all of them among the crew.

We have 218,186 in cash, have 6 hypercharges.  We are wanted on Palatek.

You probably noticed a lack of ads in these posts. That's because affiliate clicks have jumped off a cliff. However, if you have $5 or $18 or $20 lying around, I would like to suggest The Gardens of Ynn. It is a procedurally generated adventure, it has a curious setting which allows for plug n play into any adventure setting. Personally, I'd use it for D&D, but the book is pretty close to rule set agnostic.

A Great Book from DriveThruRPG
 Gardens of Ynn
Gardens of Ynn

Sunday, March 29, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 99 – March 29th.

We have reduced the outing party to David, Lefty, and Duke. By leaving Emily back we can have a hopper and the ship come to our rescue.

We get the same option to ransack an office and again we pass on it. We interview and hire a Starship gunner. We hire her on for 100 right now and the typical 1% for the crew. I totally made that up on the fly, she would normally get much less. We outfit her from the Cargo Bay, so she has weapons and a U-suit. I'll get her a PS-Bot soon enough.

Our final roll is for Hopper Guns, again. They are not armor piercing, so we pass.

While Duke and the gang are shopping, our engineers are engaging in RRR to install those boat guns.


Saturday, March 28, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 98 – March 28th.

This planet is dangerous as they are at war with Nipna. Duke, Lefty, David and Emily are out to get supplies. Michael and Jonathon are at the ready to pilot the ship and one of the hoppers. Deadeye is manning the guns for the ship.

Each roll is four hours, but if we can start an activity we are allowed to finish it. So that is three rolls.

We start with a 2, ransack an office. This is a bad idea which could get us arrested, so we pass on it.

Next we purchase some boat guns. Before the buy, we check to see if these are military grade, armor piercing guns (e54). They are not. They are tech level 6, so we’ll take that. They cost 150 each times 10. Well worth the money at 3000 secs. for two.

We get heavy hand weapons as our final roll (e50). They are Tech Level 4, have explosive rounds and cost a base price of 30. They end up costing 150 each, so we pass on them. We will try again tomorrow.

We have 219,360 in cash, have 7 hypercharges.  We are wanted on Palatek.

Stars Wallpaper and Heavily Hinting

I am putting together files for an upcoming project and wanted to share my stars wallpaper. This will be background art for this new project. I'm using Ubuntu 19.04, but it should be good form anyone. Sorry, it's not seamless or fractal in nature, so it probably wouldn't look good tiled or stretched.

Obviously, this new project is science fiction based and takes place in space. I can't wait to get more done so I can start sharing real details.

The image in the file below is 2560 x 1600. Click to download.


Another feature of this new project is a planet. I have wallpaper for that in 1024×576. It's meant to be blurry so I couldn't scale it up as the source was much smaller. Again, click to download.


Friday, March 27, 2020

Strictly (Duke) Springer - Day 97 – March 27th.


We have some choices to make. New Karma is a double world system with a Tech Level of 1 and a Wealth of 70. I need higher tech items at cheaper price. The two systems with connections to New Karma are Uruskop and Mynkuria. Mynkuria has two planets and each are Wealth 30 and Tech Level 60. They are also at war with Nipna. Uruskop is a single isolationist planet with an asteroid belt at Wealth of 40 and a Tech of 40. Given my choices, we are off to Mynkuria for the tech code.

We don’t make any contacts on the way in and we land on the second planet, at the military base. This planet has no air and a gravity of 5. The gravity ain’t bad, but combat here will be deadly.

Our contact roll indicates we found a strange device of unknown purpose. You know what? This ship is new and I’m not touching anything.

With that done, we settle in for bed.

We have 222,360 in cash, have 7 hypercharges.  We are wanted on Palatek.

Thursday, March 26, 2020

Seeking Zeros (Product Plug)

I'm looking for a few zeros and not in the way you'd expect.

Today I did a review of my products on DriveThruRPG and realized I am pretty close to some thresholds I'd like to hit. Here is a list of my total downloads for all 5 of my products.

AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana - 91
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting - 135
Kobold Folly Minisetting - 122
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - 244
Swashbucklers Character Class - 87

What I would like to see is at least 100 for my Character Sheet and Swashbuckler Character Class. I wish I was at 250 for Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners.

Let me recap what each product is:

The Character Sheet is just a character sheet with the 7 stats from AD&D and Unearthed Arcana, 1st edition.

The Swashbuckler Character Class is a gimmick character class, someplace between thief and fighter. The Swashbuckler does little to no damage per round, attempting to set themselves for killing strike on a roll of 20 or better. They are fast and adventurous, but perhaps not the greatest warriors. Very Errol Flynn.

Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners is a framework for creating NPC characters with specific non-combat abilities which balanced for D&D and AD&D 1st Edition. The booklet can also be used to create secondary or professional skills for PCs, which don't push the limits or make them OP.

The Compass Rose Inn Minisetting and Kobold's Folly are two maps sets for a generic campaign setting and are rules agnostic. They come with maps that can be printed as 1 inch=5 feet battlemat. Character backgrounds are provided to make these locations come to life with gossip and intrigue. 

I would like to invite all of you to download these products. Each is Pay What You Want. In this time of crisis, the "Pay" and "Want" should go away. Download them at $0.00. It's cool, that's how this works. Help me reach these goals, even though they are probably silly.

I appreciate every download.

Review of SM03 Cityguide to the City of Karan

Review of SM03 Cityguide to the City of Karan, available now on DriveThruRPG.



Title:  SM03 The City of Karan
Author: Dunromin University Press (Simon Miles)
Illustrator: Gareth Sleightholme and Simon Miles
Rule Set: OSRIC
Year: 2020
Pages: 70
Number of Players: N/A
Rating: ★★★★★

This book is a gazette style introduction to the City of Karen, the second city of the Land of the Young in the Barnarnia setting. I used the word gazette, but this book is 70 pages long. Each section delivers what the DM needs to walk their players through this excellent and unique setting.

The artwork is a step above Dunromin's normal work, Miles' typical artwork is there but Gareth Sleighthomlme really kicks it up a notch. Core to the product are three maps, one of the Land of the Young and the other two are maps of the City of Karan and the caves below the city. Check out the other books in the series, I just can't get over the art.

Priced a pay what you want, you can't go wrong with this title. I can't wait to check out the rest of the series.

Check out my other reviews from this series:

ORSIC Module Review - SM12 The Trials of a Young Wizard
Dunromin University Press' SM00 A Traveller's Atlas of Dunromin and the Land of the Young Review
OSRIC Module Review - M06 The Warren