Game Review - AD&D Second Edition - DMGR2 The Castle Guide

Title: The Castle Guide
Editor: William W. Connors
Year: 1990
Pages: 128 pages
Rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have a real love hate relationship with Second Edition AD&D. I had always played a mix of B/X smashed up with 1e AD&D. When I started picking up 2nd Edition books at Walden's Books, I found them mystifying. They didn't have the same rules as my AD&D. But some of them made perfect sense, like The Castle Guide book. 

This book published in 1990 could easily be used to upgrade or improve Keep on the Borderlands, guide high level characters into domain level play or simply be a guide for the DM to have consistent castles. 

Why does it work? Because it really doesn't include any new rules. Where it does include rules for Warfare!, those rules are framed in terms comparable with both the original DMG and the ship rules from B/X. It's not a bridge to far to mash em up. 

In retrospect, I know it was meant to tag team 2nd edition and Battle System, but since is it so non-specific, it does neither very well. TSR utterly failed to market this a vehicle to a new game system by missing those details. And that actually makes it a good guide book for any system.   

To this day, I am of the opinion that the second edition guides are perfect companions to any edition of D&D and maybe some other game systems. The ones with Connors' name as editor are particularly fine editions to own for any fantastic setting. Connors follow a great formula for editing dissimilar writer's work into a see less product. One author's voice is used to amplify and enhance other writer's ideas. The Guides edited by him are excellent. It could be his authors didn't have access to the newest, latest edition and were a bit circumspect, which is great for guide. 

This particular work introduces a Quick Resolution system that could easily be used for high level domain games today. I believe that it is a part of the Battle System, but in this form is pretty vague. Like the warfare section, it seems to call back 1e's DMG or perhaps the warfare rules in B/X. B/X had a fleeting love affair with ships as they appear in many titles. Those could be worked up into sieges and castles with very little effort.   

The artwork is good, but typical 90's fare. There are several color plates which could be paintings or digital art, it's hard to tell. Many of the interior pieces are thick lined with simple styling. 

Others are worked entirely into circular medallions, which I find interesting. 

It's a steal at $9.99 from DriveThruRPG. 

Film Review - Thor (2011)

Title: Thor
Publisher: Marvel Studios
Year: 2011
Rating: 1 of 5 stars. 

Yeah, I review movies now. 

Thor is my all-time favorite Avenger. A Thor comic book was the first I ever bought. My favorite superhero, in general, is Beta Ray Bill, who is just a different sort of Thor. So it is with great shame that I have to admit Thor is one of the worst films in the MCU. Not the bottom, but close to it. 

But because of this film, this is what I do on Wednesday. 

And here lies the rub. 

Everything wrong with Thor has nothing to do with the story, the production values, or the actors. The name is wrong. It should have been called "Loki". For that one little change, I would give this exact same film, 4 or 5 stars. 

The title is the only problem. It's not about Thor at all. It's about Loki. Where the titular hero should be the one who grows, he does not. He's frozen throughout the film. In fact, not only is Thor not the protagonist, he's not even Thor for most of the film. Thor is full of great things and of himself. Which does not make a good film or character. 

A character needs to be brought to life by more than the light of the projector. In this movie, who's origin story do we get? 

Loki's, right from the first 10-15 minutes. 

When Odin is preparing his children to be king, who doesn't want to be a childish warlord, and who wants to be a ruler? Loki. You can see even young Loki knows better than Thor how to deal with people. You don't go around picking fights, even when you have an excuse. 

Who had flaws to be corrected? Thor who stands before the assembled court of Odin or Loki who is in Thor's shadow? Well, Loki. Thor doesn't realize that his large ham behavior is not valued by Odin. 

But Loki's flaws are bigger. The disapproval that Odin has for Thor is interpreted by Loki to extend to himself. He is a bit of the definition of a narcissist but had a few atypical traits such as self-reflection. Additionally, you can see that Loki knows his father is not entirely comfortable giving his own child, his firstborn the title of heir-apparent. Of course, Loki being Loki thinks he isn't even in the running. He is overwhelmed by Odin's disdain and worries. 

Loki evolves, Loki changes. Thor does not. Sure, Jane and Thor had a love story, which is as hamfisted as Thor is. There really seems to be no chemistry between the characters. He also takes a moment to assume the role of protector and guardian to the townspeople, but even that seems contrived. 

However, Loki's defense of his people is more nuanced. He becomes more like Thor, doing things that make him feel good at the moment as opposed to actually being good or wise. In the end, Loki was in it for the win, which by his own standard, he did. He crushed every obstacle in his path including Thor and Odin. Yes, it appears that he dies in the end, but that is exactly how a narcissist behaves. He suffered nothing and left everyone else wondering "what next?" And wham! does he deliver.  

It's why Loki is an anti-hero as opposed to a villain and why Thor makes a lousy hero in this film.

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You should do yourself a favor and get a Disney Plus subscription. Personally, I have the bundle with Hulu and ESPN which is about the same as buying a DVD a month. It's well worth the price. While I receive remuneration when I share some links, I get zilch from Disney for the same. It's just good, free advice. 

The Tek - June 2021

In June, my DriveThruRPG downloads suffered a slump. It's really time to make updates and changes or write another book, which I already knew. 

AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana: 1
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting: 0
Kobold's Folly: 0
Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D: 4
These Old Games Presents: The Hex Pack: 1
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners: 0

Webstats were "blah!". I shrank a bit, but had a huge pickup mid-month. 

Google Analytics Pageviews - 1,222
Google Analytics Sessions - 720
Pageviews per Session - 1.69 

My reviews have slacked off, but at this point, I am still ahead of schedule. 

I am probably going to end The Tek series, with a solid 3 years of data. This is July 1, 2019 to current. 

Google Analytics Pageviews - 28,310 (25 reads a day, or 786 a month)
Google Analytics Sessions - 18,227
Pageviews per Session - 1.55 

To round it out, here are downloads numbers for the same period: 

AD&D Character Sheet For Use with Unearthed Arcana: 97
Compass Rose Inn Minisetting: 167
Kobold's Folly: 154
Swashbuckler Character Class for D&D and AD&D: 120
These Old Games Presents: The Hex Pack: 151
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners: 115

Game Review - En Garde!

Title: En Garde!

Design and development: Darryl Hany, Frank Chadwick, John Harshman, and Loren Wiseman

Editor: Paul Evans

Year: 1975, 2005

Pages: 88

Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

We are from France! 17th or 18th century France. 

En Garde began is a fencing simulation and scaled up from there. It has more in common with Chainmails's Jousting rules and Star Smuggler or Barbarian Prince's time tables than D&D. This is rather refreshing. 

The rules are a detailed walk through this fantastic version of the 17th or 18th century. Your initial character build will require reading or skimming the entire book. While this may seem like a round about way of getting to character creation, the rules are so different than other games that the slog is totally worth it and completely understandable. The system requires no gamemaster, as it is result table based. It could support a gamemaster, if storytelling was desirable. 

I have also heard of people converting the system to an index card game for solo play. While not intended for this purpose, the results-ruling system lends itself to this. Where it falls down is the actual fencing rules. Random really isn't good enough for "reasonable" game play. However, I could see "building" a deck of index cards for certain NPC players so that they are semi-random in their actions, but still have believable drives and actions.  

Once your character or characters are built, it's time to plan. The time scale is a week of highjinx. You can duel, slum, or run off to war. Or find a mistress... Or two, if you're brave. 

The whole game revolves around picking tasks and attempting them with flair. Combat is deadly, unless your a yellow-bellied cad. Interestingly, since there is an honor system in place, you can avoid death by being a jerk. That's has ramifications for your character. 

You can get going with En Garde in about 2 hours. However, the game itself can go on forever. In fact, there really isn't a concept of party, its a social group. It's a great one shot system if at least one person knows the rules, which could turn into a session icebreaker for those who have flagging interesting the main "show". The system is quick with clear "break points" where the players can pause the action for another day. 

I found this game to be engrossing and engaging. 

I've been aware of this game since the 1980's, but only had a chance to pick it up during the pandemic. I am not aware of the rule changes that came between the original rules  and current 4th edition.  

One of the downsides of this game is the fact that there are clear gender roles which are asymmetrical. Personally, I play a rather "gonzo" style of play where I would simply ignore the fact that women aren't meant to be playable character and just roll with it. 

En Garde! is from UK based group. You can find it here from the manufacturer. 

Minigame Tryout Compartments

This game is designed to be as simple as possible. There are limited number of systems and compartments on each ship. 

In the last post, I mentioned 6 different hit "locations" for criticals. Each type of ship has a list of six hit locations, all of which are different.  

You will notice that some ships are compromised by different types of criticals while others are not. A commercial ship doesn't have the same abilities as warships or auxiliaries, so they cannot lose these systems. Warships are hardened against many attacks, so they cannot lose particular abilities. 

A commercial vessel has the following critical hit locations: 

1. Life Support,
2. Communications, 
3. Hyperdrive, 
4. Sublight Drive, 
5. Compartment breech,
6. and Cargo Hold.  

The Auxiliary ship has a different list: 

1. Life Support,
2. Communications, 
3. Hyperdrive, 
4. Sublight Drive, 
5. Compartment breech,
6. and ECM. 

The Military Ship has the following: 

1. Communications, 
2. Hyperdrive, 
3. Sublight Drive, 
4. Auxiliary Drive,
5. Compartment breech,
6. ECCM. 

What effect do each of these things have on a ship? 

Life Support keeps the crew alive. If it is damaged, it must be repaired at the end of combat. If it isn't the ship must be abandoned at the end of combat. 

Communications are the ship's radio and other systems. If the ship loses it, it may not surrender, coordinate attacks with other ships, combine fire (and die rolls) of two or more weapons. It's not really critical, but more of a nuisance if it is damaged or destroyed. 

Hyperdrive, Sublight Drives and Auxiliary Drives are pretty explanatory. Without Sublight drives, you can't manuouver. Without a Hyperdrive, you can't flee combat. An Auxillary Drive is a backup system for both sublight or hyperdrives. It can either maneuver a ship or allow you to escape battle via a jump. Once the choice is made, the other is ceases to be an option. 

ECM is Electronic Counter Measures. It screws with an enemy's targeting of your ship. Losing it reduces the effectiveness of you defensive systems. If an Auxiliary loses this equipment, they are hit has often as a commercial ship would be, except criticals remain the same. Commercial ships don't have ECM, so can't lose it and it is deeply buried in a warship, it can't be lost. 

ECCM is Electronic Counter-Counter Measures or the ability to fine target another ship. Warships have them as an extra part in their design. Losing it reduces your effectiveness in combat. ECCM covers an array of combat situations. For example, ECCM allows a ship to target multiple ships with one weapon. Neither Auxiliaries or Commercial ships can have ECCM as a standard part. There are a few exceptions. 

Compartment breech and Hold hits damage specific areas on the ship. For the commercial ship, it represents a large area that is easy to hit on a Commercial ship. It appears twice on the critical tables, once at the top level and second time on the compartment table. Other types of ships have holds, they are relatively small and don't appear on the critical table until specific compartments are hit. 

If Compartment breech is rolled, you have lost the use of one item on your ship and any crewmen in that area are killed either by the impact or being spaced. They can be replaced from other sections of the ship. Some items can take more than one hit. 

Here are a list of all possible compartments, not every ship will have every type of compartment: 

1. Bridge, 
2. Shield Generator.
3. Emergency Station. 
4. Turrets
5. Weapons Bay, 
6. Engineering, 
7. Cargo Hold, 
8. Shuttle or Fighter Bay/Hanger, 
9. Magazine, 
10. Armory,
11. Medical, 
12. Vehicle Bay, 
13. Vault, 
14. Barracks
15. Medical
16. Quarters.  

Once a compartment is destroyed, the next item on this list is hit in subsequent rolls. The bridge is always item 1, shield generator and emergency station is always 2 and 3. Barracks, medical and crew quarters are always last. 

Players arrange their critical list as they see fit, using the rules above. Commercial ships and Auxiliaries are at a disadvantage as they typically don't have all 16 items available to them. 

An example layout of a ship could be: 

1. Bridge,
2. Weapons Bay, 
3. Engineering, 
4. Cargo Hold, 
5. Shuttle Bay,
6. Vehicle Bay,
   Vault,
   Medical
   Quarters.  

The first six items are subject to hits all the time, while the items with no numbers cannot be hit until something is crossed off the list. If the ship lost engineering, the vault would replace it on the list. After vault is destroyed, medical is next. If the fighting was intense, the ship could be destroyed before anything else moves up the list. In any case, quarters would be the last compartment destroyed.  

Some items that can take more than one hit are as follows: 

1. Turrets,
2. Weapons Bay, 
3. Cargo Hold, 
4. Shuttle or Fighter Bay/Hanger, 
5. Magazine, 
6. Armory,
7. Vehicle Bay, 
8. Vault. 

The weapons bay and turrets can take up to three hits each and hits may be distributed at the captain sees fit. The first hit degrades the weapon or turret dropping it a tech level. The second hit knocks it out and third blows it off the ship. A vault can take three hits. The first two damage it and the third destroys it and its contents. 

The magazine and armory can take two hits each, but are non-functional after the first and blown away on the second. The armory stores weapons for ground combat, it has no meaning in a fight unless boarding occurs. The magazine feeds some weapons. When it is damaged, those weapons can only shoot with the ammo they have at the ready. For commercial ships, this one one more shot, for auxiliaries it's two and for military ships it is three. 

The hanger or vehicle bays can take one hit for the space and one additional hit for each vehicle stored there. Once hit, they may not launch shuttles or deploy vehicles until repaired. 

In each of these cases, the ability to be hit multiple times does not increase the number of hits a ship can take. If a commercial ship takes 5 and 5 criticals, it is destroyed. Usually. 

Cargo holds are an exception to the rule. A unit of cargo destroyed DOES absorb a hit above and beyond what a ship can take. The last hit guts the cargo bay. A commercial ship with 10 units cargo could absorb 10 additional hits to the cargo bay on top of the 10 needed to destroy the ship. Hangers and shuttles do not have this property as the items stored there tend to explode, burn or become heavy projectiles when hit. 

I haven't explained what every item is for, which will be the next post and subsequent posts will cover fighters, shuttles, boats and combat modifiers. 

Minigame Tryout

There is something liberating about a blank piece of paper. I have better tools, but paper and pencil is the best for ideation. After looking long and hard at Star Smuggler, I decided to create a mini-game based off of it. This is probably very derivative of many sci-fi games. 

Combat rules are simple. Roll one six sided die for each tech level of your guns. If multiple guns are available, they are either fired singly or grouped together. This will impact the number of critical hits you can do. If the opposing ship is a commercial vessel, you hit on a 1-3. If the opposing ship is an auxiliary ship you need a 1 or 2. If the opposing ship is a military vessel, only a one hits.

A Commercial ship is anything that is not designed by the military. A critical will be scored on two 1's or two 2's sequentially. Two criticals will be score on sequential rolls a 1 and a 2. These must be sequential rolls. For example a roll of 1, 1, 2, 3, is just one critical and four hits, while a roll of 1, 2, 1, 2 is four hits and four criticals. 

An Auxillary is a commercial ship designed with military tech and refits in mind. It is not a war vessel, but has some defenses. It is hit on a score of 1 or 2. A critical will be scored on two 1's, sequentially. Two criticals will be score on sequential rolls 1 and a 2. For example a roll of 1, 1, 2, 3, is just one critical and three hits, while a roll of 1, 2, 1, 2 is four hits and four criticals. 

A warship or military ship is designed specifically for combat. A critical will be scored on a sequential rolls of 1 and 1. Military ships do not take double criticals. For example a roll of 1, 1, 2, 3, is just one critical and two hits while a roll of 1, 2, 1, 2 is only two hits and no criticals.

A ship can take a number of hits depending on type not size. A commercial ship can take 10 hits, a Auxiliary can take 15 and a warship can take 20. Warships are designed to shed fire. 

Critical hits score a point of damage and damage a specific part of the ship. Critical hits are scored against certain parts of the ship: Life Support, Communications, Engines, Warp Drives, Shields and specific compartments. While each of the first 5 can be damaged only once, specific compartments can be hit multiple times. Think of it as trying to destroy a garbage can with a sledgehammer. It just keeps taking ugly hit after hit. Enough hits and it stops being a garbage can or in this case, a ship.  

Next post, compartments, shuttles and fighters plus roll modifiers. 

Stargate Universe Review

"What if you took Stargate and made it darker, sexier and edgier?", said no fan ever. This show swiped the best of BGS and mashed it up with some great music, in front of a gate. It probably wasn't very good material for Stargate fans. 

But it was a really good show. I'd give it 4 of 5 stars. 

The actors were top-notch, the pacing slower, the sense of discovery was put at the forefront. Probably too much at the forefront. They wiped their butts with whatever Stargate had established. 

But it was good TV and science fiction. They stole a couple of key concepts from the series that came before it and ran like hell with them. The communication stones from the original show were placed front and center in the plot. These devices popped up in Season 8 of Stargate. "Citizen Joe" was probably meant to be a "cheap, one-off " episode to save on cast and film costs, but it was frakking brilliant.  SGU took that simple idea and made the speculative science fiction and flipped it towards contemplative. What does it mean to be "someone" if you can trade places? 

Like that one episode of Stargate, SGU tries to get into the head of the watcher by leaning on the contemplative. Some of the time, it worked. There were a lot of misses, but you could see the direction the show was taking. 

The show has many callbacks to some hard sci-fi, stuff so hard that it often isn't recognized as sci-fi at all. My personal favorite episode was "Trial and Error" which is a close crib of The Defence of Duffer's Drift. Capt Young experiences a series of dreams where the ship comes under attack. These dreams are the Destiny's attempts to communicate with the crew directly to determine their capabilities. It doesn't work well because as a program, the ship was expecting a commander to have all the answers, not to be the head of a team that creates answers on the fly. Young was exposed to his own failings and it became personal. Very personal. 

Another episode zig-zagged from high action romps back to the speculative. In Season One the episode "Time", the crew finds a Keno camera that recorded their deaths in an alternative universe which provides some answers to their current situation, again ask "who are you, if it's not really you?" 

Much of this show asks the question, "What does it mean to be x?". While Stargate was probably not the best vehicle for this contemplative study, it was very engrossing.

D&D Starter Set Review

Title: D&D Starter Set
Design: Wizards of the Coast
Year: July 14th, 2014
Pages: 64-page adventure booklet, 32-page rule book, and character sheets.

Rating: 5 of 5 Stars

You have to hand it to Wizards of the Coast; they know how to make a boxed set. As of yesterday, this set is 6 years old. And it's perfect to get started playing D&D. It contains a 64-page adventure booklet, a 32 rule book, pregenerated characters, a blank character sheet, and dice. 

As a condensed game, it has some lacks. However, with introductory sets presentation is everything. It's very nice for the retail price of $20.00. The rules are streamlined for quick play, the pregenerated sheets are good models for new characters if you wish and the 64-page adventure book is extremely nice. 

At 64 pages, The Lost Mine of Phandelver is someplace between a guidebook and double size module. It is faced towards the DM with multiple maps and sidebars to keep the game moving. 

The maps are on par with Dyson Maps, which is to say, they are very good. Unfortunately, they are printed on the pages of the book which means you need a scan and print out stuff that didn't come in the set. The artist, Mike Schley has them available for purchase on his website. It wasn't that hard to find and it is only ten bucks for perfect, ready-to-go "custom" maps. This is a far cry from the borrow and Xerox format of AD&D. 

I very much like Mike Schley's maps and the fact that Wizards of the Coast is deliberately asking you to make a purchase from a content creator rather than themselves. Mr. Schley's maps are wonderful. Besides the set of maps for this game set, new maps retail for $2-3. That's a great price for having stylish maps that all have the same design principles.  

The Lost Mines book is not only a module but a campaign setting. When combined with the driver sidebars and the second hints and suggestion on the back of the character sheets, it really is everything you need to become engrossed with this game. 

Unfortunately, it's an expansive one-shot. The DM will have to get to work making this campaign come alive from their own work or "reset" to enter the main world of D&D with new characters and settings. At 64 pages, the Adventure booklet is a little overwhelming for a 13-year-old to emulate, but for older players, it really does provide a model for creating a campaign. Those sidebars and hints are pure gold when it comes to asking probing questions and how they fit into this set of rules. 

After a while, I am sure that the players and DM will want more which is exactly the reason for this set. To sell other products. As a primer and gateway to the game system, it is remarkably well done and suitable for all kinds of players.