Spes Magna Games

Well, I’ve not posted anything in a while. Got to stop doing that, which means posting something. So, here’s a new magic item and, since new magic items ought to be earned, here’s also a villain who uses that new magic item.

The villain’s illustration is by Jeshields, who has some great stock art for sale. Check it out.

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Dúr Feredir makes her living as a mercenary and assassin. She specializes in the longbow, but she is almost as skilled in melee combat. Quick and clever, Dúr poses a serious threat, especially if she gets the drop on her target.

Dúr seldom works alone. She has more than enough experience to know that whatever her strengths, she needs partners or underlings. What’s more, Dúr has not gained that experience without learning important lessons about when and where to pick her battles. She is no crass brawler, but instead considers herself an artist who crafts tapestries of death.

Dúr Feredir
Medium humanoid (human), lawful evil

Armor Class 16 (studded leather)
Hit Points 75 (10d8+30)
Speed 30 ft.
Ability Scores STR 14 (+2), DEX 19 (+4), CON 17 (+3), INT 11 (+0), WIS 14 (+2), CHA 11 (+0)

Saving Throws CON +5, DEX +6, STR +4
Skills Acrobatics +6, Deception +2, Investigation +2, Perception +6, Stealth +8, Survival +4
Senses passive Perception 16
Languages Common, Orc
Challenge 7 (2,900 XP)

Assassinate. During her first turn, Dúr has advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn’t taken a turn. Any hit Dúr scores against a surprised creature is a critical hit.

Cunning Action. Dúr’s quick thinking and agility allow her to move and act quickly. She can take a bonus action on each of her turns in combat. This action can be used only to take the Dash, Disengage, or Hide action.

Skillful. Dúr gains a +2 bonus to attack rolls she makes with ranged weapons. Dur’s proficiency bonus with Perception and Stealth is doubled. These bonuses are included in Dur’s statistics.

Sneak Attack. Once per turn, Dúr deals an extra 10 (3d6) damage when it hits a target with a weapon attack and has advantage on the attack roll, or when the target is within 5 feet of an ally of Dúr that isn’t incapacitated and Dúr doesn’t have disadvantage on the attack roll.

Unseen Reserves (Recharges after a Short or Long Rest). Dúr possesses hidden reserves of vitality which have one or two effects. On her turn, Dúr can take one additional action on top of her regular action and a possible bonus action. On the same turn, Dúr can use a bonus action to regain 14 (1d10+10) hit points.

Actions

Multiattack. Dúr either makes two melee weapon attacks or three ranged weapon attacks. She scores a critical hit on a 19 or 20 with any ranged weapon attack.

Longbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, range 150/600 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d8+4) piercing damage.

Rapier. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d8+4) piercing damage.

Dúr’s Longbow
Weapon (longbow), very rare (requires attunement)

Any arrow fired from Dúr’s Longbow ignores its target’s damage resistances related to piercing attacks. For example, a nonmagical arrow fired from Dúr’s Longbow does normal piercing damage to a creature whose damage resistance is to nonmagical attacks. If the target has damage immunity to piercing attacks, an arrow fired from Dúr’s Longbow inflict one-half piercing damage (as if the target had resistance). Also, once per day as a bonus action, an arrow fired from Dúr’s Longbow transforms into a lightning bolt that inflicts 4d8 lightning damage on a hit, or half as much damage on a miss, instead of the weapon’s normal damage. Whether the lightning bolt hits or misses, each creature within 10 feet of the target must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw. Each of these creatures takes 2d8 lighting damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

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If you’re in the market for new monsters for your 5E D&D game, check out Chance Encounters IV. Help a guardian angel protect its charge. Party with a gang of beastfolk. Survive the psionic radiation of the Calefactive Cavern. Emerge victorious against the onslaught of bull-headed monsters under the command of a minotaur blood prophet. Chance Encounters IV presents thirteen new monsters and a place of power with which GMs can challenge their players.

Tags: 5E D&D, magic items, monsters, NPCs, Spes Magna Products

A week ago, I resigned from my teaching position. Starting tomorrow, I go from unemployed to semi-employed. I’ve started offering my services as a private tutor. You can read about me here.

Also, during my abundant spare time last week, I released Narvon’s Sinister Stair and The Bishop’s Secret, two short adventures for Swords & Wizardry and Swords & Wizardry: WhiteBox, respectively.

I also watched The Creeping Terror, one of the worst movies ever made, which explains what follows for use with Mutant Future.

Nearly 20 feet long, covered in both fur and some sort of chitin, multiple eyestalks bobbing about as it shuffled forward, emitting the most terrible noises, the creeping terror advanced through the hail of bullets and arrows, seemingly unconcerned about the damage it suffered.

Creeping Terror
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 60′ (20′)
Armor Class: 5
Hit Dice: 10
Attacks: 1 (bite)
Damage: 3d8
Save: L5
Morale: 10
Hoard Class: None
XP: 2,400

Mutations: Alien Physiogomy, Digestive Analysis, Sonic Paralysis

Some alien civilization engineered creeping terrors as a means of testing the native fauna of distant worlds, perhaps to see if those worlds would be suitable for colonization. Due to their extraterrestrial origin and Alien Physiogomy, creeping terrors can withstand incredible punishment. They take half damage from physical attacks, and they are immune to poison and radiation. Creeping terrors move slowly, dragging themselves forward with two blunt feet and undulating their lengthy torsos in a series of motile contractions.

When they sense prey, creeping terrors emit a cacophony of shrieks and howls. Living creatures within 30 yards of the creeping terror must attempt a Stun Attacks saving throw. Failure induces sonic paralysis for 2d4 turns. Affected creatures stand motionless, perhaps screaming and gaping in fear, but otherwise unable to act. Creeping terrors attack with a powerful bite. On an attack roll of 19 or 20, the target is swallowed whole, and takes 3d8 points of damage per turn from the creeping terrors powerful digestive enzymes (see page 58, Mutant Future, for more details about paralysis and swallow attacks).

Within the digestive tract, creeping terrors have a variety of alien technological artifacts that analyze creatures swallowed whole. Powerful transmitters send collected data into space, presumably to be collated and studied by whatever alien creatures create creeping terrors.

Tags: monsters, Mutant Future, Spes Magna Products

Before we get to the meat of this post, a few announcements.

Most significantly, I’ve resigned from my teaching position. Why? Here’s the short version: The hours I had to work to stay caught up with all the administrative and teaching duties caused sufficient stress that my health suffered. The most bothersome signs were the almost-daily migraines and the hypertension-levels of blood pressure. I’m not a young man any more, and the one heart attack I’ve had was one too many. Of course, I’m not pleased with having to leave before the end of the school year, but the prospect of two months more of pain, dizziness, et cetera, was too daunting.

So, for the third time since June 1985, I’m unemployed, but I’m confident that, just like those other times, this too is a temporary setback. In the meanwhile, I’m planning on staying busy. Yesterday, for example, I drove my wife Katrina to work, ran some errands with my son Christopher, did some chores around the house, cooked dinner, and so far today, I’ve prepared biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast and typed this post.

Later today, I’ll attend daily Mass at Our Lady of Walsingham, do a few more chores, probably go with Katrina to the gym after she gets done with work for the day, and try to get caught up on a few writing projects, first of them being Dangerous Monsters 3.

And, the last announcement: My son Christopher has a part in a university stage production of Pride and Prejudice, and rehearsal this Saturday takes him out of the DM chair for our ongoing 5E D&D adventures in and around The Village of Hommlet. The rest of us plan on gaming. I’ll be running Save Innsmouth: A Student Documentary for The Cthulhu Hack, doing it in a style somewhere between Memento and Friday the 13th.

And now for some proper gaming content!

Do you like the radio dramas of the early decades of the 20th century? Have you dreamt of a roleplaying game designed to emulate the radio drama genre? If so, then you owe it to yourself to checkout On the Air by Spectrum Games, which can purchased for a mere $4.95 from DriveThruRPG.

I had three players: Christopher, Terry, and new guy Leroy (which makes him the first actual Leroy I remember ever meeting). On the Air (or OtA hereafter) instructs the Director (read: gamemaster) to design a series, complete with a sponsor, a small cast of primary characters (PC), and however many supporting characters (SC), recurring or not, that fit the narrative. I completed the all of the above except for the SC, which we more or less made up on the fly during the game. You can admire my game prep and in-game notes in the pic below.

The series was Uncanny Worlds, sponsored by Estrella Coffee, and the episode title was “The Flying Jungle of Bellatrix”. The main cast of characters was Captain James Augustus Church, Lieutenant Commander Doctor Lana “Brains” MacAvoy, and Technology and Science Android XJ14 (TASA, for short). You can see the PCs here. Christopher played “Brains”, Terry played TASA, and Leroy played Captain Church.

The set-up introduced the episode by title, plugged the sponsor, and then described how the shuttlecraft from Space Exploration Teams Incorporated space rocket Ambition descended into Bellatrix’s atmosphere, heading to the largest of the famed flying jungles in a search for valuable deposits of floatanium, a rare anti-gravity element essential to space travel. Just as Shuttlecraft Navigator Trotsky announced, “Land ho, Captain!”, the shuttlecraft’s klaxon blared. A monstrous pteradon roared out of the clouds, claws extended, intending to prey on the shuttlecraft.

Which brings us to OtA‘s central mechanic: the Intention.

The players decided that they wanted to evade the pteradon while firing blasters out a porthole as the shuttlecraft came in for a safe landing on the flying jungle. In a traditional RPG, this would most likely be played out round-to-round, involving various skill checks and attack rolls. Not so with OtA. With the Intention system, what’s important isn’t the journey, but the destination. Everything is resolved with a single roll of the dice, and the results are narrated radio-drama style.

If you looked at the characters, you noticed they have three ability scores: Adventure, Thought, and Drama. Each score is rated, usually between -1 and 2 (but rules do include the possibility for higher ratings for super-heroics). Here’s where we hit our first foggy area in the rules, which seem to written based on the assumption of one Director and one PC.

The PC with the Intention figures out his total score based on the appropriate trait, perhaps tagging a Descriptor (such as Church’s “Former Space Soldier”). The total score may be adjusted by the opposition of an SC (such as the pteradon, which I arbitrarily decided was SC 3). Since multiple players described how their characters helped, I allowed multiple ability scores to determine the group’s total, and then reduced that total by 3 to reflect the difficulty of the encounter. One player then rolled the number of dice as shown on the “How Many Dice Do I Roll and What Do I Keep?” table. The total, which may be adjusted by Airwave Tokens (more on these later), is checked against the “Intention Results Table” to determine what happens.

An episode (read: adventure) has a time limit, which is defined by a certain number of Intentions. Since our series Uncanny Worlds has a broadcast time of 30 minutes, the episode is limited to 10 Intentions, which means the players get to roll the dice 10 times during the course of the game. Once all 10 Intentions have been used, the episodes ends, perhaps in a cliffhanger (as happened in our game session). Keep in mind that the 30 minute broadcast time is a narrative fiction; it’s not the length of the game session itself, which for us ran to about 4 hours with quite a lot of hemming and hawing and goofing off.

The “Intention Results Table” will be very familiar to anyone whose played Dungeon World or other games Powered by the Apocalypse. A 2-6 total results in a failure, which is narrated by the Director; a 7-9 means the player chooses between a Controlled Failure (narrated by the player) or a Conditional Success (narrated by the Director); and a 10+ is a Success narrated by the player.

(Nota Bene: The pulp-style cover to the right was made using Pulp-O-Mizer.)

Which brings us to narrating the game. Since OtA emulates radio dramas, everything must be described as if the game had an actual audience of people who can only hear what is happening. This includes the players and Director making appropriate sound effects. OtA has many paragraphs of advice on how to do this, and, at least for our group, it was easier to read about and explain than actually do. We’re programmed for traditional RPGs, where the audience isn’t an imaginary construct listening to the players through a radio, but rather is just the people actually in the room. Several times, we had to remind each other to explain how, say, certain hand gestures or facial expressions would be conveyed to people who couldn’t see them.

Our narrations included using Airwave Tokens to edit the scene, repeated endorsements of Estrella Coffee (almost always delivered in character as part of the episode’s dialogue), and one station break to directly advertise Estrella Coffee (the latter activity earning a Sponsorship Token). Airwave Tokens are like action points or hero points common to many games. They are earned when the Director tags a character flaw, for making sound effects (once per scene), or for being clever and/or true to the genre. Players start with two Airwave Tokens, they’re easy to earn, and the players spent theirs freely for scene editing, power tagging, and boosting.

If a character has a relevant Descriptor to include with an intention, one die in the dice pool gets upgraded to a d8. A tagged flaw reduces one die to a d4. With power tagging, one more die gets upgraded to a d8. The Sponsorship Token was earned for roleplaying the advertising segment, which highlighted the virtues of Estrella Coffee by the primary characters and included the main antagonist saying Estrella Coffee’s noble flavor offended his evil palate. A Sponsorship Token can be earned only once per episode. The rules appear somewhat vague to me about which player, if any, “owns” the Sponsorship Token. We treated it as a group resource. At the end of the episode, Christopher used the Sponsorship Token for an automatic success to save Captain Church.

During the episode, the PCs formed an alliance with the Jaguar Men of Bellatrix to oppose the nefarious forces of Ying the Heartless from the planet Thongu. Ying’s soldiers had enslaved many Jaguar Men, forcing them to work in the floatanium mines. There was trouble with a T-Rex, whose floatanium-infused scales made it remarkably agile. Captain Church and TASA were captured and sent to the mines after a daring attempt to escape by riding swiftly on boaboa birds, a noble effort thwarted by a hypno-cannon. “Brains” was also captured, and taken to the tent of the Thongu captain, who later was revealed to be Captain Church’s long-lost brother Gregory. There were thrilling escapes accomplished by digging through the bottom of the floating island while “Brains” drugged Gregory and used the shuttlecraft to rendezvous with Church, TASA, and many Jaguar Men in the sky beneath the flying jungle.

At this time, the Jaguar Man leader revealed that the Thongu soldiers had a sonic transducer set up to transmit the “heart of floatanium” that enabled the jungle to fly. TASA and “Brains” lead Jaguar Men into the mine to face the giant crab monster guarding the sonic transducer while Church engaged his treacherous brother in single combat. TASA used the sonic transducer to teleport the giant crab to Thongu, but not without TASA being transported as well. Church lost to his brother, but the intervention of the Sponsorship Token changed the narration so that Trotsky came roaring in on the shuttlecraft with Jaguar Men reinforcements from another village, thus saving the day.

The episode ended with a cliffhanger as TASA and the giant crab appeared in the sonic transducer reception chamber within the palace of Ying the Heartless on distant Thongu.

Throughout the episode, there were lots of sound effects, repeated dialogue singing the virtues of Estrella Coffee, and plenty of ham and cheese in the form of overacting and punny quips. We even had a recurring subplot about supporting character Security Lieutenant Wilson’s unrequited love for “Brains” remaining unrequited despite his best efforts to win over the good doctor.

All in all, OtA was great fun. It is rules light, and all of the rules are aimed at emulating the radio drama genre. The only other genre-emulation game published by Spectrum Games I’ve played is Cartoon Action Hour, which is also great fun. I don’t see OtA becoming our main game, but I definitely want to play it again.

Tags: On the Air, reviews, Spes Magna Products, The Cthulhu Hack

So, my soon-to-be-released-in-playtest-format superhero RPG The Four Color Hack is almost ready for DriveThruRPG. As part of the section on villains, I include stats for agents of H.U.R.T., but I have no idea what H.U.R.T. stands for. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Also, let’s take a look at the rules for creating villains and mobs.

Each Issue features certain villains, mobs, and non-heroes. In all three instances, the rules for hero creation do not apply. Those rules exist for the Writers to create their heroes. As the Editor, you have more freedom.

Villains: Every villain has a level, which ranges from 1 to 10. The villain’s level determines his base damage, damage points, and Hero Dice equivalent for powers and abilities.

Base damage shows what to roll when the villain makes a successful attack. You’ll need to define that this attack looks like. Damage points are divided between Body and Spirit in whatever ratio seems appropriate for the villain. Also, the villain has base protection points equal to his level. These base protection points are divided between Body and Spirit as deemed acceptable. The Hero Dice equivalent column shows you the strength of the villain’s powers and abilities. Average the Villain Level column to approximate the villain’s actual level if you mix and match values from the chart.

For example, let’s consider Brutacles, who is something of a novice villain, but he’s not a complete novice. He is level two for base damage and damage points. He derives his powers from mutagenic steroids, which has a d8 value, and he wears protective armor and fights with a ball-and-chain.

Brutacles (Level 2 Villain)
Body: 66 (2 protection)
Spirit: 20 (0 protection)
Base Damage: d4
Powers: Ball-and-Chain d6 (1d4+1d6+1d8 damage), Brutal Armor d6 (4 protection), Mutagenic Steroids d8

Sadistic and violent, Brutacles fights with a Ball-and-Chain aided by muscles enhanced with Mutagenic Steroids. He is physically tough (6 points of protection for Body), but his mental and spiritual defenses are quite lacking. Brutacles is strong enough to lift about 2,400 pounds.

Mobs: Not all threats rise to the level of villain, but that doesn’t mean they can be ignored. Mobs represent a middle ground between villains and non-heroes. Most heroes won’t have too much trouble dealing with mobs, but these bad guys can still serve to slow down, confuse, and harrass heroes. All mobs have d3 base damage, 80 damage points, and at most a d4 Hero Die equivalent. They have one point of base protection at most, and some item of equipment usually explains this defense. Each mob represents either a large group (9-12 individuals) or small group (2-5 individuals). Divide the mob’s damage points as evenly as possible among the individuals.

When a mob (or part of a mob) targets a hero, don’t expect a roll to defend against each member of the mob. A single roll suffices, but increase the mob’s damage by +1 for each member after the first. For example, a mob of ten H.U.R.T. agents lay down a barrage of blaster fire at Diesel. Diesel’s player rolls 1d20 to defend, and fails. Diesel suffers 1d3+1d4+9 points of damage from the combined assault, which is probably enough to inflict a small amount of Body damage to the metal-skinned hero.

Agents of H.U.R.T. (Mob of 10)
Body: 50 (5 per agent)
Spirit: 30 (3 per agent)
Base Damage: d3
Equipment: Body Armor (1 protection)
Powers: Anti-Hero Weaponry d4

The agents of H.U.R.T. are trained, paramilitary operatives. Individually, they present little threat to heroes, but they operate in squads and are typically armed with high-powered blasters or other anti-hero weaponry.

Tags: Spes Magna Products, TFCH

Thoughts about superhero gaming in general as rough drafted in The Four Color Hack.

The first step to playing your comic book is to get all of the players together. One player assumes the role of the Editor. The Editor referees the game during play. Also, the Editor prepares Events and Issues, including the various villains and regulars that the heroes may encounter during a game session. The other players will assume the roles of the Writers, whose job it is to create a hero and determine what that hero does when, where, why, and how during the game.

For your first session, the main goal is to have fun creating the setting and the heroes that your comic book will be about. Don’t worry about figuring out every single detail of your comic book’s setting. Right now, you just need to answer some of the big picture questions that help define your setting in somewhat broad terms. If you want to get really serious about setting creation, I heartily recommend Microscope by Ben Robbins as the best collaborative roleplaying game for creating a campaign background.

Style

Every setting has a certain style and a certain focus. The styles can be divided into four broad categories: Humor, Four Color, Cinematic, and Gritty.

Humor: Think zany. Think older cartoons such as Mighty Mouse or The Impossibles. Think newer cartoons such as Freakazoid! or Darkwing Duck. Think Adam West and Burt Ward being menaced by an egg-wielding, bald Vincent Price. No ever gets killed or even seriously hurt, and evil the wickedest villain’s schemes have a strong dose of silliness.

Four Color: The heroes are definitely the good guys, the villains are certainly bad, but the tone seldom ventures too deep into darkness. We expect the good guys to win, and the fall out from the villains’ schemes seldom have dire, lasting effects. A Four Color world is also a black and white world. Contrasts are sharp, and the lines between right and wrong are clear and inflexible. Think of stories such as the Silver Age Justice League of America. Think of the Comics Code era and its restrictions on graphic violence, sexuality, et cetera.

Cinematic: Shifting to Cinematic, we find that our heroes are less like mythic figures and more like ordinary people with extraordinary abilities. The action tends to be melodramatic, focusing on a sensational series of events that play on emotions while avoiding too much character development. Many of the big-budget motion pictures depicting superheroes fit into the Cinematic style. So too do some of the more recent comic books, such as Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Uncanny Inhumans. Cinematic stories might tackle real-world issues, but usually in a ham-fisted manner, ignoring nuance and even accuracy in order to emphasize melodramatic elements.

Gritty: This style seeks to emulate the real world while emphasizing those elements of life that create ambiguity, uncertainty, and apprehension. People in the Gritty style still believe in right and wrong, but those with strong moral convictions often face existential challenges that threaten to undermine or even destroy their certainty. Real-world issues are a mainstay of the Gritty style, and heroes that face strong temptations to resort to extreme measures that blur the line between heroism and villainy. The late 80s to early 90s series starring the Shadow written by Gerard Jones and Eduardo Barreto fits the Gritty style. So too does the recent Netflix series Daredevil and Jessica Jones.

Focus

The foci can likewise be divided, but into three broad categories: Street, Superhero, and Cosmic.

Street: This focus keeps most of the story confined to a particular city or part of a city. The heroes seldom stray too far from their stomping grounds, and, when they do, they usually end up involved in another city’s Street focus. The villains’ plans likewise tend to be localized and don’t usually require widespread destruction. Examples include the aforementioned Daredevil series and many stories involving Spider-Man and Batman.

Superhero: The heroes’ sphere of concern expands to encompass an entire nation or perhaps the world itself. The heroes are likely to be jetsetters, traveling long distances in their efforts to thwart villainous plots that might affect millions, even billions, of people. Marvel’s The Avengers and DC’s Justice League of America exemplify this focus.

Cosmic: As you’ve probably deduced, a Cosmic focus means the heroes travel from planet to planet, maybe even from galaxy to galaxy, in their quest to fight the forces of evil. Jim Starlin’s thoroughly awesome Dreadstar exemplifies the Cosmic focus.

Keep in mind that neither style nor focus speak definitively about the power levels of either the heroes or villains. Gotham’s most famous masked vigilante has regularly had adventures across all three foci, and he’s run the gamut of styles from Humor to Gritty.

Period

When does your comic book take place? Today? Some time in the recent past, such as the 1960s with the Cold War at its height? The most distant past, such as the American Revolution, Augustus Caesar’s Roman Empire, or maybe further back when the ancient Israelites fought to conquer the land they believed had been promised to them? If the present day or the past don’t interest you, there’s the uncharted decades or centuries of the future waiting for your heroes.

Genre Crossovers

Is your comic book going to be a straight-up superhero saga, or do elements from other genres appear? If the heroes all work for a secret government agency, then spies and intrigue enter the picture. Have strange visitors from distant worlds made contact with your comic’s world? If so, then all sorts of possibilities from “To Serve Man” on The Twilight Zone and The War of the Worlds to the more recent Defiance television series make themselves available. Perhaps all of the heroes are high school kids dealing not only with villains but also social pressures and homework?

To Trope or Not to Trope

Superhero comics, like any genre, tend toward certain conventions or patterns. The colorful, skin-tight costumes worn by most superheroes, for example, is a nearly ubiquitous trope. Hardly anyone in Metropolis thinks its odd that the Man of Steel wears his underwear outside his tights. Many superheroes also have romantic difficulties ranging from missing dates because Professor Evil is at it again to having loved ones kidnapped or attacked. In short, you should decide on two or three tropes that your comic book embraces and two or three tropes that your comic book downplays or avoids entirely.

Tags: Spes Magna Products, TFCH