Friday Rucht Hour: Alpha Wolf Pack Update

It's been a while since the last Alpha Wolf Pack update. Here's a more detailed look at the Ith'k, an enemy the Minions of the Monster Master fought in one of their podcasts. 

The Ith'k

The Ith’k are a large group of alien constructs based in Alpha Centauri system. They appear mainly on the planet of Persephone, but also appear on Argus and Orpheus. It is debated whether or not the Ith’k are an actual species of alien, since it is unknown whether they are alive or not. As far as observers can tell, the Ith’k are following some form of complex program or protocol left over by their creators who are long since dead.

The body of an Ith’k is cold to the touch and is made of large colonies of nanites. The Ith’k themselves are unnerving to look upon. Each is a tall humanoid with gray skin, towering over most humans at the height of seven to eight feet. When typically encountered, the Ith’k are usually motionless, found usually standing about the ancient temples which are attributed to their construction. When encountered in this way, the Ith’k are said to be in their ‘sleep’ state. 

The Ith’k typically gather around large, complex structures which are colloquially known as temples. These large complexes are only named temples because there currently exists no other designation for them - the precise purpose of these ancient buildings is still unknown.

Each Ith’k temple is thought to exist in multiple dimensions beyond our normally perceived four. For that reason, each temple has features which seem to stutter in and out of existence. For example, an Ith’k temple might have doors which flicker in and out of existence. It might have barbed rooftops that bear angles that are impossible to count - the number of angles counted by those observing them continually changes.

It is not known how one rouses an Ith’k from its sleep state. There are known expeditions which have go so far as to break pieces of the Ith’k off or even destroy them, producing no reaction. However, there have been known expeditions that have awoken the Ith’k by simply getting near them or even just by observing them from afar. There appears to be no consistency as to what will awaken an Ith’k or not. One thing is certain, however. Ith’k who have been awoken by humans tend to go into an aggressive state. 

Their primary form of attack spawns from the nanites that comprise their bodies. These nanites can swarm from Ith’k bodies and electrify victims they contact. These swarms appear to be long, undulating columns of grey mist that spark with energy. The Ith’k can also somehow drain energy from human technology. Power suits, weapons, vehicles - anything that is powered by humans can be shut down if the Ith’k choose to drain power from it.

The most dreaded ability of the Ith’k, however, is their so-called drinking ability. When they come into contact with human beings, they start to take on the appearance and personality traits of those they contact. They may start repeating phrases that a particular person says often. Their faces make take on similar appearances to those they contact.

As Ith’k make more and more contact with humans, their apparent autonomy and intelligence grows. There are reports of Ith’k who, after drinking several humans, were able to converse with their victims briefly before killing them, though it is not know what precisely was talked about. 

Incidents abilities:

The Director is able to invoke Incident abilities by spending Incidents. The Director gains Incidents each scene that players have Crucibles and do not invoke them. 

Something Surrendered:

You can feel insects crawling all over you. You feel as if things are crawling underneath your skin. Tiny bugs are skittering inside of your skull. You have a choice:

1)     The Ith’k have gotten inside of your mind and are trying to read all of your thoughts and memories. Take on a Crucible as they turn your own thoughts against you.

2)     The Ith’k have gotten into your skull, but you push them out. Instead, the minds of the soldiers under your command have been compromised. The Ith’k get to automatically succeed on one roll against them.

3)     You and one of the Ith’k are now locked in a mind link. Twice in this mission, you may Invoke a Virtue to know generally what the Ith’k are doing, but each time you do this, the Director gets another Incident, because the Ith’k get access to your mind as well. 

The I in You: 

Your personality is becoming intertwined with that of an nearby Ith'k. Choose:

1)     You and the Ith'k share your language. For the next scene, you cannot speak except in an alien tongue, but while this is happening, you can understand any Ith'k writings. 

2)     As you both share senses, you can see through the eyes of the Ith'k, but all Ith'k are aware of your location. You and anyone with you are considered to be in plain sight. 

3)  You begin to lose yourself in the dreams of the Ith'k. You begin to hallucinate wildly of an ancient time. You gain the knowledge of a piece of Ith'k lore. However, the Ith'k nearby increase their intelligence by three factors, since they now understand your technology. 

Sunday Rucht Hour: The View from Dragon*Con - Gaming Edition

So, last time I talked about Dragon*Con and showed off some of the cool costumes. What about the gaming?

Well, because our gaming panel track expanded this year, I didn't get to game as much as I would have liked. Still, got in a playtest of Alpha Wolf Pack with some of the crew at Epic Games. That was very much fun. Those guys are already big fans. It was pretty neat to sit down with the president of the company, their lead level designer, one of their lead developers, and one of the founders of the Escapist website and roll some dice with them.

I also got to hang out with Darwin Bromley, one of the fathers of modern board gaming. He's largely responsible for bringing Settlers of Catan over to the United States and turning board games from monopoly into something akin to what we have now. He taught me how to play Seven Wonders, and we played a game of it. Seven Wonders was the big hit in terms of board games that year. It was like Argricola in scoring, but had a neat mechanic where you passed cards around to your left or your right. You had to pull cards to make runs or matches, but you had to pull cards so that your opponents to your left or right couldn't make runs or matches.

Jason Bulmahn, the lead Pathfinder designer, hung out with us quite a bit as well. He even taught us a few drinking games.

Jason Morningstar was there, heralding the indie spirit, and ran a fantastic panel for us where everyone got to participate in some indie game techniques through live participation. He helped run the Games on Demand tables, so if you came, you could have played in a game with Jason Morningstar. Clint and Jodi Black showed up as well (the folks who run Savage Worlds). Eloy LaSanta, one-may publishing house was present as well, being the jack of all trades.

The big coup, of course, was getting Monte Cook and Tracy and Laura Hickman. Monte was there to talk about his TSR days and to hear about his new project Numenera. Tracy Hickman ran our charity event, which was a role-playing session with the Guild. The cast of the Guild played a table top RPG with Tracy and we auctioned off one seat at that table for charity - our annual drive for Lou Geherig's disease.

Anyhow, I'll leave you with a few pictures of our panels and the Warmachine tournament which ran in the gaming basement.

Jason Morningstar, Tracy Hickman, and Laura Hickman do a panel on Storytelling through Roleplaying

It's the Legion of Everblight vs. Trollkin! Both sides were exquisitely painted. 

Great shot of some Trollkin on the move.

Two warbeasts slug it out. 

He wasn't used in the tournament, but he made for a great picture - the Trollkin Mountain King. Amazing model and paint job. 

A size comparison of that Mountain King.

An exquisitely painted Deathjack and support squad.

Infinity! Check out that awesome Infinity terrain! 

And here's the big panel! Tracy Hickman runs an RPG with the Guild playing the game! 

Friday Rucht Hour: RPG Retreat

So, right after ManCabin, I had the privilege of going to a gaming event of another kind. A very old friend of mine who works in the video game industry ran a small gaming con out of his house. Unlike ManCabin, where boardgames are the flavor, this was a scheduled RPG con. It was neat to play table top RPGs with some big names from the video game industry, and gratifying that the designers of many of our favorite video games play table top RPGs as well. But the highlight of the weekend was spending time with old friends, some I had not seen in at least six years. So, what did we play?

Alpha Wolf Pack

Yes! I got to playtest our budding system twice over the weekend and got strong, positive results. There were plenty of compliments all around and lots of great constructive criticism. Probably the best thing that happened was that I started hearing the thing that I was hoping to hear. And that's that it AWP scratched a particular gaming itch. It's narrative and cinematic. But at the same time, it's tactical. It addresses both of these desires, as far as I can see.

I was excited about AWP before, but I'm mega-excited now. So, that's the big news out of the way.

Amber Diceless Roleplaying 

The first game that I got into was Amber. The Amber system has been around for a long, long time and is sort of famous for being diceless. In fact, that's all most people know about it. I'm not familiar with the Roger Zelazny books, but fortunately the game master and a fellow player brought me up to speed.

As inhabitants of Amber, your characters have god-like powers. For example, each character has the ability to reach through the multiverse and pull something from one of the infinite realities. Each of them has superhuman strength, speed, and skill as well. So, the setting ties into the system. If your fighting ability is such that most of the great warriors of history are just shadows to you, then there's no point in you rolling to hit something. You just do it. When up against people who also have god-like abilities, you simply compare ability scores to determine who wins. The trick is, you never know what abilities the other guy has. Also, to add some nuance to the game, when up against an equal opponent, there different "stances" you can take like all-out attack, all-out defense, feint, etc, which adjust your ability score up or down in comparison to your opponents. All-in-all, a fantastic time. I definitely want to do it again.

Fiasco

If you've followed the Minions of the Monster Master, you'll know that these guys are no strangers to Fiasco. I had the very distinct pleasure of playing Fiasco with Jason Morningstar, who wrote the game. We basically was the ref and aide for two different groups of us who were playing the game and would jump in from time to time as an NPC. I would highly recommend checking out one of the Minions actual play podcasts of the game, since its so easy to follow and is always highly entertaining.

The basic mechanic of Fiasco is the giving up of control. You can either stage a scene and have everyone else at the table resolve it for you, or have everyone stage a scene for you, and let you resolve it. What is best about Fiasco is that it's very non-geek friendly. You could easily play this with a bunch of non-geeks, family, or new initiates to role-playing.

Dread

If you are into indie games at all, you're probably familiar with this game. Dread is another diceless system that uses a Jenga tower as the mechanic. Each time you want to attempt something hard, instead of rolling, you pull from the Jenga tower. When the tower falls (and it will), your character is either dead or basically going to die very soon. If you knock over the tower of your own accord, you can at least determine the circumstances of your death, and you buy a free success.

The character creation for Dread is also top-notch. It consists of leading questions like, "Why are you afraid of water now?" "How did you recover from that terrible incident two years ago?" Stuff that makes you fill in interesting and engaging backstory.

All right folks, all for now. Next week, we talk about the Warmachines.

Sunday Rucht Hour: First Scenario for Alpha Wolf Pack!

Sorry I'm late again, but here we are.

I got the first scenario written up for Alpha Wolf Pack, even though the role-playing game is still in its very raw stages. As I've learned from previous playtests, you don't discover the rough points of your rules until you just play through your game. Then, as each game unfolds, you realize the points that you've missed. Like, hey, how do you grapple someone? (Always complicated.)

So, an opportunity has come up to playtest Alpha Wolf Pack with some interesting folks. I'll report back when that happens. Here's a few tease peeks at the first scenario written up.

Formatting is important to me, so I put in call-outs, chose interesting fonts, printed the whole thing on card stock and even rounded the corners of the paper.

As you can see in this last picture, each act of the scenario fits on a single page. Beyond that, there are player handouts, description of a space station, and things like that. But the important bit is that the whole adventure - the part that you need to run the scenario - is contained on four pages. 

If Alpha Wolf Pack takes off, this is the sort of thing I want to push with the game. I've seen four-hour modules that are dozens and dozens of pages long. Instead, I'd like to see scenarios written short and sweet. I got this idea from Savage World's one-sheet adventures, which are a great idea. Essentially, the idea is that an entire adventure is contained on one page, period. I'd like to keep refining a short scenario format until I can get it down to maybe one, short, four-hour scenario written up in just four to five pages. 

The idea is that picking up an adventure shouldn't necessarily be an entire walkthrough. Instead, a scenario might be like picking up another GM's notes and then taking the reins from there. 

Friday Rucht Hour: The Minis of Alpha Wolf Pack

Well, I wanted to get into Crucibles and Incidents, but I'll save that for a later date. Right now, let's talk minis.

The Alpha Wolf Pack system that I'm writing relies on mins for its combat, though you could do without it, if you really wanted. I ran a playtest back in May using proxy minis, but the playtest group definitely said that the game was lacking something with the proxies that I had to use.

So, I went about looking for some good sci-fi minis for my next playtest. I asked Mik and he directed me to Pig Iron, which was an excellent suggestion. I was able to get about ten good military sci-fi figures for about 30 dollars. A reasonable price for 10 figs. Much better than what I would have paid at Reaper.

Here's the work:

Here are some typical guys base coated. Heavy infantry. Need to get proper bases for all of them, though.

And here are two of them painted up. They paint up really fast. I was able to knock one out in 30 minutes. But onto something I'm pretty stoked about. I needed a heavy gunner mini, and here's what they had....

He's another heavy infantry guy, with an underslung rifle. But I wanted a more dramatic weapon for a heavy gunner, so I got an old heavy weapon I had from a Reaper mini that I had and did a replacement.

I used the Dremmel that you see back behind the fig. The tricky part was the weapon's stock, behind the figure's right hand. I had to saw that off carefully and reattach it to the soldier's hand. Anyhow, here's the final result....

Viola! He was definitely fun to assemble and paint.

And here's a parting shot of the back of all three figures painted so far. More later!

Friday Rucht Hour: The Threats of Alpha Wolf Pack

Last week, we got to peek at the Alpha Wolf Pack character sheet. This week, I thought I'd let you guys peek at one of the threats of the World of 2359:

Worms

Worms are formally known as temporal entities or T.E.s. This species of alien life appears to be actively hostile to the human race. It is believed that they possess some form of intelligence, though it is unknown to what degree this is the case. Social scientists point out that Worms appear to have no culture, construct no artifacts, and use no tools. At the same time, they appear to understand human language and are known for targeting key systems on ships and bases.

Worms were first discovered around the planet of Gorgon, one of two habitable planets in the Barnard’s Star system. They were discovered approximately one Terran year after the first science stations were founded on the surface of the planet. The first encounters with the Worms were exceedingly deadly. The entire science team that was planet side during the assault died, save one.

The site of the attack was a science station, known as EO6. It is now considered to be a no-go zone for all Terran personnel. Amongst the Wolf Pack Squadrons, the infamous science station is known as the “Ghost Pit” and has gained an almost legendary status in space lore.

Worms are often terrifying for those who encounter them, due to their strange ability to bypass the laws of time and space. Watching these beings travel back and forth through time, pass through solid objects, and occupy two places at once often proves disconcerting for those observing them. 

Worms take a variety of forms, but the most common is that of giant maggots which flow through space as if it were water. Their hooked mouths constantly open and close, continually chewing. Most advanced forms of Worms appear to be giant maggots with multiple limbs, though each of these limbs appears to be comprises of smaller Worms. Finally, there are the “sliders” which appear to be humanoid beings composed of swarming Worms that continually roil in space. 

So, there's some of the fluff. Let's look at some of the rules involves with Worms. The Worms get a number of special abilities. We call these Stunts in Alpha Wolf Pack. Player characters get Stunts as well. The Director also gets a number of story abilities called Incidents. They are a limited resource that he can play on characters and on the units they control. The reason Incidents are separate from Stunts are because they allow the Director to radically alter the story, setting, or part of a unit not just give his bad guys extra abilities. Here's an example of some incidents for Worms specifically. 

I’m Already Dead!

One or more a unit’s men has seen themselves dead. Pass a Leadership skill test or your unit gains the Horrified condition. Your unit has gained the horrified condition. This means that, to take action, you must pass a Leadership test first. If you take on a Crucible, you may eliminate this condition.

Separated in Time

A commander or her unit (or both) disappear into the past for a time. This may mean that they miss a scene or a round of Tactical Combat. While they are back in time, they are able to interact with the people and events there for a short period.

Schism

A time schism occurs, possibly slicing people in half or damaging equipment. Unit takes damage 3d6+6. Proper use of an Authority Skill in a one-off scene lowers the damage to 2d6+4. An outstanding roll or roleplaying can reduce the damage as well. Both a successful roll and good roleplaying bring the damage down to 1d6+2.

Man Out of Time

A single soldier slips out of time, but returns! He is shocked and horrified at what he saw. A dramatic scene might pull some more information out of him!

Loop Around

The platoon encounters an already damaged enemy (half Stress). When it is killed, it later appears in the game at full health, only to disappear when half of its Stress is done to it in damage.

Loop Forwards

Cause a damaged enemy to disappear - it may reappear anywhere or at anytime later.

Future Man
A character from the past appears amongst one of the Wolf Pack units. The group as limited time to interact with him before he disappears into the past again. Until then, the unit can protect the man just like an asset. They use crowd control to move the past-character and must protect him as well. 

Remember, to activate this ability, the Director must spend one of his incidents to do so. What's fun about this is that different threats will have different lists of incidents, making each one distinctive in tone and flavor. We'll get more into Crucibles and Incidents next time! 

Friday Rucht Hour: The Shape of Things to Come

'Nuff said...

 Full character sheet - version 1.4

 Hmmm. What are these? 

What is this? 

Friday Rucht Hour: Dramatic Scenes in Alpha Wolf Pack

Social Skills in RPGs
Often, RPGs run into a social skills problem. And that is the cognitive dissonance of dice rolling vs. roleplaying. Here's an example. A player character walks up to a non-player character and tries to convince them of something. The player delivers a fantastic, convincing speech...and then rolls poorly on the dice. How does the GM resolve this? Well, there are a billion and one ways, which GMs have used over the years to combat this - everything from just waiving the die roll to calling it a success; to calling it a success, but perhaps not a spectacular success because of the poor dice roll.

But it still creates this sense cognitive dissonance, because basically, to make it work, we have to break the rules.

Our Solution
One thing we discovered in our old game of Rogue Trader was the great power of rolling first and then role-playing accordingly. When playing RT, many of the situations we ran into were so complex, so broad, and so diverse that it was actually far more efficient to roll the dice up front.

Thereafter, we would roleplay the different scenes out and angle them accordingly. Thus, in a particular scene, you might know ahead of time that your character was going to fail, and would roleplay your character towards that failure. At the same time, the GM could roleplay non-player characters to be more or less sympathetic towards a PC according to the roll.

The reason this was very powerful for us as an experience was because roleplaying failure became fun. If you knew ahead of time that you were going to fail an interrogation, you could make your character fail in a way that would fit your character, rather than be dictated how they failed by the GM.

That's what we've tried to do with Alpha Wolf Pack.

The Alpha Wolf Pack Method
In a dramatic scene, the Director or a player frames the scene. The Director calls the difficulty range of the task the that players are trying to accomplish. A simple difficulty would be 1 per player at the table. So, five players would face a difficulty of, say, 5 - 7 for a simple goal. Difficulties are always a range of numbers. The goal at hand has to be something big. It has to be big enough that all of the PCs need to be involved. This isn't something that can be handled by a single dice roll. For example, the issue might be trying to figure out who the traitor is in your camp; or re-distributing supplies to the platoon after a supply drop was torched; or treating two-thousand save civilians after a battle.

Once the Director has declared the difficulty range, each player claims a stake. They basically state how many successes they think they can get with their dice rolls. For example, let's say the difficulty is 8 - 10 for 5 players. Mik might claim a stake of 2, meaning he thinks he can get 2 successes. Chris, on the other hand, might only claim a stake of 1. This would mean the other players at the table would have to claim at least 5 total to even hope of succeeding.

Then, the group rolls off. Those who make their stake contribute that many successes to the total. Those that fail, contribute none of their successes to the goal. Then, the Director totals up the number of successes gained by all of the PCs. If they meet the difficulty, the goal is successful. If not, the goal was not successful.

Let's say that you really wanted to succeed, but you didn't. Here's where the Virtues come in. If you fail a roll, you can invoke a Virtue to get an extra die on your roll. But remember, if you invoke your Virtues too much, they can max out an become an obsession. If you fail the roll, despite invoking your Virtues, the Virtue you used drops to -1 less than it was when you started the scene. It drops, of course, because this represents your character becoming demoralized.

The Important Part - Roleplaying!
After this is done, then everyone roleplays their success or failure. Each player gets to frame their own scene incorporating other characters if they want. And here's something that sweetens the deal - good roleplaying from the group gains the platoon points of momentum. No roleplaying at all, or seriously weak roleplaying means that the group gains no points of momentum at all. Decent roleplaying gains them 1 point of momentum. Great roleplaying gains them 2 points of momentum. Why is momentum important? When it comes to combat, the group's momentum score is compared to the enemy. If it exceeds it, the party gains benefits on the field of battle.

All right, that's all for now in Alpha Wolf Pack. Next up, I'll be talking about minis and Warmachine. Then, we'll go back to more talk about AWP.

Friday Rucht Hour: Game Design Time!

So, we've had two posts about the world of Alpha Wolf Pack, now lets sneak a peek at some of the game mechanics.

In the game, there three types of scenes - dramatic scenes, action scenes, and tactical scenes. Dramatic and action scenes use one system, while tactical combat uses another. Tactical combat uses a minis-friendly, yet cinematic approach while dramatic and action scenes use a more narrative, cooperative storytelling approach.

Today, we'll look the basics of how dramatic scenes are tackled.

Roll camera!

No matter what kind of scene you're involved in, the most important attribute of your character are his or her Virtues. These are four initial qualities that you come up with. They can be anything you want, but should be a single word. For example, your character might have the Virtues of Honor, Loyalty, Discipline, and Grit; while your friend's character has the Virtues of Recklessness, Wit, Glory, and Camaraderie. You can have Virtues that are the same or similar to your pal's.

Each Virtue has a value from 0 to 4. They all start a 1 at the beginning of a tour of duty. We'll get into how these are used in a minute.

As we've said before, a dramatic scene is a sort of cooperative storytelling exercise. It uses a dice pool system. That means, you'll be rolling multiple dice every time you try to do something and counting up the number of "successes" you have. A success is declared on a 5 or 6 of the dice roll. You always roll a number of dice equal to the skill you want to use.

So, if you're using your Leadership skill to give your unit a pep talk, you would roll as many dice as you have in your Leadership skill. Let's say, in this case, it's 4. You would roll 4 six-sided dice and see how many 5's or 6's you get.

Using Your Virtues

Now, let's see you use your Leadership to give that pep talk, but roll 4, 3, 3, and 1. No 5's or 6's in sight. Huh. A complete failure. At this point, you can use one of your character's Virtues to enhance your roll. This is called invoking. Let's say in this case, you invoke your character's Honor. This means that you're using your own character's sense of honor to appeal to your men. It also means that, as you roleplay, you need to include in the scene your character bringing up his sense of honor and justice amongst his soldiers. If you invoked a different Virtue, like Recklessness, then you'd need to play the scene entirely differently. If you used Recklessness, perhaps your character appeals to his unit through his wild and maverick nature.

Invoking at Virtue gives you an extra die to roll. If that die still doesn't get you a success, you can keep on invoking your Virtue until you get a success or it taps out. You can only invoke one Virtue at a time. So, if you choose to invoke your Discipline Virtue, that's what you are using. You cannot switch to another Virtue.

So, here's the interesting part. Each time you invoke a Virtue, it goes up by one. That's right, it goes up. You don't spend your Virtues, because it doesn't make narrative sense. When you use your own honor to boost someone's morale, your honor isn't depleted. It's encouraged and emboldened.

But there is a danger of your Virtue getting too high. If your Virtue gets to 4, it cannot get any higher. At that point, it is considered obsessed. Meaning, you've invoked your Virtue too much. You've invoked it to the point that it's no longer a character strength, but a character flaw. In fact, your Virtue even gets renamed. So, in the case of Honor, if it becomes obsessed, it might become Martyrdom. Perhaps it means that you're so obsessed with your own honor that you're willing to sacrifice your own life or even the lives of the soldiers beneath you. You get to define what your Virtue becomes when it is obsessed.

There is also a danger if your character fails. If you fail in a roll during a dramatic scene, your Virtue gets knocked back all the way to 1 less than it was when you started the scene. So, if your started with a Virtue of 2, invoke it to 4 but still fail, it gets knocked back all the way to 1. If you started the scene with a Virtue of 1, use it to try to get a success, but fail, it becomes 0. You can only lose points from a Virtue you use in a scene.

In this case, failing at your dramatic action causes your character to become demoralized. This does reduce your character's Virtue. If your character's Virtue ever becomes 0, then it is considered devastated. Just like when your Virtue gets maxed out, if it bottoms out to 0, it gets renamed. For someone with Honor it might become Cynical - it means that your character has temporarily lost his sense of honor and becomes bitter for a time. This is just an example, of course. You get to rename your own Virtue when it becomes Devastated.

Just like when a Virtue gets maxed out, when your Virtue hits 0, you cannot use it anymore.

Whenever a Virtue becomes obsessed or devastated, you can only use it again when your character passed through a Crucible. A Crucible is basically a scene in which your character has to confront his flaw in a real and meaningful way. Maybe because your character's Honor has become Martyrdom, he has to be talked down from sending his unit into a highly dangerous situation. Maybe he becomes Cynical until a situation arises when his men really need him.

And here's the best part - you, as the player, determine and frame your own Crucible. You get to decide how your character overcomes their own character flaw. If you pass your Crucible, your Virtue is raised to 1 or reduced by one to 3 - depending upon if it was Obsessed or Devastated.

More on this later, when we talk about how dramatic scenes work with a group of players.

Friday Rucht Hour: Who is Alpha Wolf Pack?

So, we talked about getting our feet off of the ground, starting up our own RPG. Right now, as of this writing, I am working up the character generation chapter of the book and ironing it out. Also, I've just came up with our casualty system and I'm pretty jazzed about it. It's one of the more unique ways I've seen to come up with the question of: "Are you dead or not?"

Anyhow, last post I had, we talked about where this idea came from and the big goals for this project. Now, let's talk about the player characters in our RPG. What will the players be doing in this game?

The players will be taking on the role of members of the Wolf Pack Squadron, the elite fighting force in the universe as we know it.

In the year 2359, the United Planetary Nations is the most powerful political entity on the planet Earth. Because the UPN controls the value of the world currency and the world minimum wage, it wields tremendous economic power. It also possesses UPN Peacekeeping troops which are authorized to occupy and police other nations on terran soil if necessary to ensure peace and order are maintained at all times.

Discord on Earth is ever-present and constant. As Earth's resources dwindle, nations fight against each other in small, periodic skirmishes which must be watched and dealt with before tensions ignite a fourth World War.

Fortunately, the large and ever-present Peacekeeper forces around the globe help staunch these hostilities. But there is an elite faction of Peacekeepers, who are called to an even higher duty - the Wolf Pack Squadron.

The Wolf Pack Squadron are Peacekeepers who are given special training and sent into space, where they continue the work of the United Planetary Nations. Whether it be on the Moon, the Colonies, Barnard's Star or the Alpha Centauri systems, the WPS responds when the need arises. Earth is no exception. When special forces are needed on terran soil, the Wolf Pack is there.

The Wolf Pack's elite status comes as a result of their rigorous training. Not only are Wolf Pack members soldiers and police all-in-one, but they are also trained as astronauts and space engineers. Most Wolf Pack members possess advanced degrees and speak multiple languages.

Each Wolf Pack has a alphanumeric designation. There is a Beta, Charlie, Delta, and Echo Wolf Pack - all the way to Zulu. The lead Wolf Pack Squadron is known as Alpha Wolf Pack. The foremost military unit on Earth, Alpha Wolf Pack is made up of men and women who have previously served in another Wolf Pack but have distinguished themselves through their service. Thus, the Alpha Wolf Pack always contains some of the most experienced and hardened personnel the Peacekeepers have to offer.

Next up, we'll actually get down to the nitty-gritty and let you peek at our game system! 

Friday Rucht Hour: Alpha Wolf Pack

So, by now, you've heard the big news. We are going for the gold. Making our own RPG.

The question is, why? Well, some of this is serendipity. Mik is very active with the Minions of the Monster Master, of course, and they had been kicking around ideas for a Kickstarter project. I piped in and said that I had a idea, and we went for it.

I'm sure that if you've played RPGs for as long as I have then you have probably messed around with making your own RPG system before. Most indie systems or homebrews that I see out there are usually designed around a setting. Makes sense, right? The creators are trying to tell a story through their RPG and their setting and system is how they do it. But what got me really excited about this idea wasn't just the fact that we had a killer setting. But the fact that this was the first time I had sat down and designed a system in order to actually solve a few long-standing quandaries of mine.

Solving Long Standing Problems through an RPG

I love military science fiction. And one of the key elements of military sci-fi is the human drama of not just protecting your own life, but the life of the people around you. Your comrades and the people under your command are counting on you. These narrative elements help make a story epic, because you are not just dealing with a single character, but a cast of characters. And that cast of characters are dealing with the highest stakes possible. Their own survival.

However, most table top RPG systems out there focus on a single character, controlled by a single player, not a commander of soldiers. (Notable exceptions not withstanding.)

So, there you have it. I set out to design a system that solves these two dilemmas. One - can you design a system where a character is a military commander? Where you are in control of not just a single character, but a unit of troops? And, two - can you design a system that has the same feel of a classic, military-style fiction game?

Well, we think we have.

Now. Where to Set It?

While I was working on solving these particular dilemmas, I was also thinking about where to set my game. Far-flung future? Transhuman space? Instead of re-inventing the wheel, I thought about using a game setting that I knew had real teeth: the World of Alpha Wolf Pack.

I had created the Alpha Wolf Pack setting for a series of mini-campaigns we did about 10 years ago with the Minions of the Monster Master. The core idea behind it was that it was a setting where the player characters were colonial space-marines, fighting on space-stations and other planets. To make it distinctive, however, I made the setting one that was in the gritty near-future instead of a space opera set in the far-future. I wanted it to have understandable, speculative science.

I had the conflicts take place mainly in our own solar system. The idea was that, in order to be epic and amazing, you don't have to go to some far-flung alien world. That which is epic and extraordinary is right in our own cosmic backyard. Imagine a battle on a moon of Saturn, with Saturn and her rings filling up your horizon. Imagine a battle aboard a station floating over Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a storm the size of three Earths. Imagine a conflict on Mars as a massive dust storm approaches, threatening to wipe you and your opponent off of its surface.

As big as three Earths.

However, to incorporate some more of the frontier spirit and bring in more fantastical elements, we eventually opened up the campaign to other star systems. In the setting, as it currently sits, humanity has reached Barnard's Star and Alpha Centauri. But that's it. The idea behind this is to make the uncovering of two whole solar systems a big deal, because it really would be. We still don't know all of the ins and outs of our own planet Earth and we've lived on it for tens of thousands of years. Just finding a single new and alien world would provide us with multiple lifetimes of questions, opportunities for exploration, and new insights. Finally, it also gives the setting that frontier feel. It's a setting where we are taking our first tentative steps into a larger universe.

Next up, I'll talk about the men and women of Alpha Wolf Pack. Sign up now! Service brings honor to you and peace to our universe! Service guarantees citizenship!

The Big Announcement

Here's your Saturday morning "big announcement"! As you probably know I'm part of the [explicit] podcast over at Minions of the Monster Master. We basically just set up a microphone at the game table and have at it, it's not polished whatsoever.

Well, those guys and I have been gaming together for a long time, twenty plus years in a lot of cases, and in that time we've played a lot of games and had a lot of fun together. So we decided to take the plunge and do our own roleplaying game. Yup.

There's several reasons I brought my friend Rucht on-board as a writer here at Mik's Minis, but the main one is that he is central to this latest endeavor. He's no stranger to the gaming industry, and ultimately he's going to be steering the ship. Miller will be doing the lion's share of the artwork (just check out his logo at the top!) and I'll be helping with overall design and background. Everyone else, like Andy of Little Lead Heroes, is pitching in with playtesting and more. We're hoping to use Mik's Minis here as a launching point for designer diaries and the like to generate interest. Eventually, as the project takes on a more definitive shape, we'll move the material to its own dedicated blog.

So what is it? It's called Alpha Wolfpack, a military sci-fi roleplaying game of action and exploration. It will be a completely contained system and utilize open storyetelling formats that you see in many independent games such as FATE, Zombie Cinema, and the like. There will be skirmish elements as well to facilitate miniatures-focused play if that's what you're looking for. We've got some basic playtesting under our belts already you can check out here:

AWP Character Creation
AWP Playtest Session #1
AWP Playtest Session #2

Alpha Wolfpack is based on a D20 Modern campaign that we played together ten or so years ago. At the time D20 Future wasn't published so we 'homebrewed' a lot of that material into a futuristic setting. It was one of those 'magical' campaigns where synergy took over, everyone was pitching in equally, and when the dust settled and the last die was cast you just kind sat back and said, "Whoa."

We can't give you that campaign, but we're hoping to give you a rulebook where you can make your own equally memorable games.

Recon Trooper

I think we're still waiting on the backlog of episodes to release on the Minions podcast before the 'big reveal' for the 'big project' gets more light shed on it, but the observant of you that have been following the Instagram feed over on the right will have noticed a lot of LEGO content. The big project isn't LEGO-related per se, but it all goes hand-in-hand. Anyway, I thought I would post up a teaser pic of one of the Recon Troopers. Enjoy!