Some Quick RPG Notes

Starblazer Adventures
I finally managed to run a game of Starblazer Adventures this past weekend, and I was very pleased at how things went. It uses the FATE gaming engine, and really incorporates some interesting and genre appropriate mods (like rules for building starhips, star empires, and space monsters just as you would for a normal character). The only issue I had during play was keeping track of my player characters' Aspects. Aspects are neat little traits the players make up for their characters that help flesh out who they are.

An Aspect can be anything, really. One example is "Girl in every starport"; a player could use this to invoke a contact not fleshed out ahead of time by the GM. The GM could also use it to create a complication for the player. Each player has 10 of these Aspects, and there is no set list. As the GM, I have to keep track of all of these and remember to compel them, or bring them into play, once in a while. Of course, the players can remind me, and I think they will as we play more sessions. We all just need to get more comfortable with the process of playing the game.

BASH: Ultimate Edition
As any regular reader of this blog knows, I am a superhero nut. I collect supers games. I never got the first edition of BASH (Basic Action Super Heroes), but I purchased the print version of this revised edition (not yet released) and got the PDF for free along with it. I am really enjoying it so far. It looks like a supers RPG that successfully walks the middle road between highly detailed power and action systems (HERO, M&M) and very free-form (Truth & Justice, Super Crew). It is also miniature friendly right out of the gate, so I am excited about that as well.

Anyway, I may try to throw together a game over the holidays and see how it plays.

Both of these RPGs get my thumbs up!

--Scott

Starblazer Adventures

Well, after quite some time discussing it I got to run a chargen session with Starblazer Adventures on Friday night. I've got four pretty interesting player characters to work wih, so we'll see how it shakes out.

I am using the rules to run a Star Hunters campaign, where the player characters act as intergalactic bounty hunters tasked with tracking down war criminals from a recently fallen religious dictatorship. My party will consist of a grizzled merc with some terrible sins in his past, a psychic soldier from some forgotten meta-program, a twisted scientist/medic with a penchant for close-up saw work, and a re-programmed pilot robot who once worked for the very people they'll be hunting!

Neat bunch. We'll see if the group can get a handle on the rules. There's a lot there to latch on to, but it is very different from other games we've played. The more I read the book, the more sanguine I become!

--Scott

P.S. And yes, we'll be using miniatures. So I will have cause to share some pics when I get a chance!

Another Sci-Fi Crewman

If you're anything like me, you have a mighty backlog of unpainted metal and plastic miniatures crying out for attention. When an RPG like Starblazer Adventures (still reading, pg. 313 of 630) and a miniature game like AE Bounty come along, it can inspire you to dig into the backlog and find hidden gems that cry out for painting.

Here's one of those little seen gems, all the way from the old ShockForce universe, he's a diminutive little rat-guy with some serious attitude. I've long since lost the packaging on these guys, but they are part of a faction of ratmen that include large, more human-sized versions as well. I like this little guy and figure he's part of the Captain's crew of procurers, sent into a starport city to gather intelligence as well as supplies. He may be small, but he looks to be able to handle himself in a fight.












I'll talk about the Gnome to the right of the rat later this week. Hat tip to Leutenant Brittan from LAF for giving me the idea to use my extra Chainmail gnome for sci-fi!

Scott