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Hunter's writers had the good idea that hey you should try to get out of the mindset of a typical RPG group but Holy poo poo do they overshoot the mark. Maybe early playtests had like everyone being an ex-Navy SEAL or something, that's the only rationale I can think of for "NO MILITARY CHARACTERS EVER".
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Apr 22, 2020 06:17
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 Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century The Technology Book: Beanstalks and Other Fun Structures  The Technology Book weighs in at a slim 32 pages, half the size of the World Book. It mostly details equipment but talks about some broader stuff as well. The first 6 pages are all about habitation and making places for people to live in the 25th Century, so let’s go through all that.  Arcologies get the first entry. The arcology was an idea developed by the likes of Paulo Soleri and Buckminster Fuller, Soleri coining the term around 1969 per Wikipedia. It’s a huge enclosed megastructure holding a large population who live there, work there, shop there, basically need never leave.The original idea was kinda environmentalist, basically you build these huge enclosed, self-sufficient structures so that the surrounding environment can be left alone. In the 25th Century they were mostly used by the Russo-American Mercantile Combine to house the millions made homeless by the last big war- now those independent arcologies, still mostly under RAM control, are Earth’s only really organized communities. Of course the term also applies to things like the cities on Luna and Mercury, some of the big pyramids in Coprates Chasm, etc. Then we get to Terraforming. Because nobody has figured out how to travel beyond the Solar System in any reasonable length of time, humanity has to figure out how to best use the real estate they have. Some of this was covered in the World Book but there’s a lot more detail here. Mars was a three stage process. First they slammed “icesteroids” into the southern icecaps, creating tons of heat, and releasing both the water in the icecaps and in the asteroids themselves. Secondly, they drilled into dormant volcanoes to create eruptions, releasing more heat into the atmosphere, and capped those volcanoes to use as a heat source. They even found some water in underground aquifers while boring around the Valles Marineris, the main colony site. Finally, they introduced bio-engineered organisms that feed on the iron oxide that’s everywhere on Mars, excreting oxygen. All of this took place over a couple of hundred years. Mars now has two shallow seas, a number of canyons, some of which contain life, and big open plateaus where the desert runners live. The challenge with Venus was getting rid of the layers and layers of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, mostly CO2. They engineered a bacterium to feed on the CO2, and used icesteroids to create large seas. This brought the pressure and temperature down, but not quite enough. They subsequently introduced sulfur-eating bacteria into the cloud cover, thinning out the acid in the atmosphere and creating water, making cities viable in the clouds and on the highest plateaus. While continued seeding of CO2 and sulfur-eating organisms took place, the lowlands still remain too poisonous and high-pressure to be habitable by normal humans- hence, the Lowlanders. Despite Luna being mostly underground cities, the Lunarians have succeeded in being able to convert some lunar soil to its component gases via huge expenditures of energy (mostly solar). The deepest craters on the Moon now have air pressure equivalent to the highest peaks of the Himalayas on Earth, which doesn’t do much. In three hundred years there might be enough air for people to go outside without tanks, but at the same time it’s probably impossible for there ever to be free-standing water on the surface, so this is basically something the Lunarians are doing because they have the money to do so. In the meantime they’re happy enough with underground living. There’s a brief passage on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn but not much new information (though apparently RAM’s approach for Titan involved introducing bioengineered algae that produce oxygen into the air, then setting off fusion bombs to burn off the excess.) Sandwiched in this is a section on Spin Gravity, which (along with acceleration and gravitol) is one way to counter the problem of weightlessness in deep space. Spin something fast enough on its axis and you can create enough centrifugal force to stick people to walls. Of course, a ship or space station has to be a certain size for this to work, otherwise the coriolis effect means everyone gets thrown around sideways all the time. Some large spaceships (mostly battlers) have living spaces mounted on a separate rig surrounding the ship, so they can rotate and have gravity while the central hull is stable.  Orbital colonies are giant space stations which support large populations (in the hundreds of thousands.) They’re designed to be completely self-enclosed and self-sufficient, with gravity from rotation (hence most colonies are shaped like cylinders or donuts, though you can stack the torus-shaped ones on top of each other along a central axis), as well as an internal ecology with plants and animals. The first orbital colonies were all toruses, but later giant cylindrical colonies were built around Venus and Mars. Finally, in the Asteroid Belt, several rocks have colonies built into them- the smaller ones have been given spin to simulate gravity, but the largest asteroids actually have (very) low gravity. Some asteroids were also used to build the Mariposas around Mercury, since the rock makes for good protection against solar flares. Finally there’s a section on the Mars-Pavonis Space Elevator. A space elevator is one of the weirder ideas for achieving space travel, basically a giant beanstalk is built up out past the atmosphere. It’s way impractical and the consequences if it ever falls could be pretty cataclysmic but hey, it’s Mars, RAM’s got walkin’ around money. So they got a miles-long cable, attached it to Phobos, and lowered it down into the Martian atmosphere, using rockets to anchor it over Pavonis Mons, an extinct volcano which reaches several miles straight up (and is so wide that the upward slope is barely noticeable.) They attached elevators to the cable to directly transport stuff up and down at first, then later constructed a massive base at the bottom a stronger tether all the way up to the top. The whole process took over a century. (Something like this is in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars, and well, problems ensue.) That does it for the overviews for now, so next we’ll get into equipment listings, starting with Communications and Gadgets and Gear! Maxwell Lord fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Apr 22, 2020 |
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Apr 22, 2020 06:24
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century Communications, Security, Gadgets and Gear: Facetime, OF THE FUTURE! So the main thing I take away from the Communications section is “Man, these guys did not anticipate the cell phone revolution at all.” Cell phones are mentioned but the tech has… not advanced, and obviously I’ll let them off the hook for not anticipating smartphones and such but it’s interesting. Maybe you can handwave that all the satellites we rely on now got shut off in the Last War or something. Basically there are two entries here, one for Personal Radios, one for Videophones. A personal radio costs 10 cr and weighs up to half a pound, and they’re all pretty small. These are transceivers that can patch into phone lines as long as you’re within 20 miles of a circuit. Outside of that they’ve got a practical range of 100 miles before the signal starts to drop, and after 150 it disappears completely. One big disadvantage is a radio can’t send and receive at the same time like a telephone. Personal radios use solar batteries with last for 48 hours, and can be recharged by exposure to Earth-level sunlight for an hour, or being plugged in for 10 minutes.  Videophones are common, though some people use plain non-video phones for privacy reasons. A telephone still has to be wired into a circuit or, if they’re cordless/cellular, be within 1/2 mile of a phone line. Videophones, on the other hand, work like weird directed TVs- you send a signal out on a beam that only a designated receiving unit or units can pick up. It’s also mentioned that these are used for interplanetary calls, but it doesn’t really go into the tech of that, surprisingly. Next up is Security- most of these aren’t gadgets the PCs will be carrying, it’s more stuff they might see in the field. Pressure Sensors, at 40 credits a piece, detect changes in air pressure, and are usually tiny things placed in walls or on ceilings. Works kinda like the motion sensing in the Alien movies I imagine. Infrared Sensors, at 50 credits, detect temperature changes down to a single degree, and more sensitive versions (75 credits) can set off alarms if a man-sized warm object enters a room. Recognition Pattern Sensors track audio and video and look for authorized faces/voices, unrecognized persons setting off an alarm. At 100 credits you get a sensor that can recognize up to five different people, for every additional 25 credits you get five more personnel. Which seems like a weird way of doing it to me. There’s a category for Voice Prints, Retinal Scanners, and Palm Scanners, which “average out” at 25 credits (they don’t really go into specifics for this.) They’re all basically more primitive versions of the Recognition Pattern stuff, but cheaper. Finally, there’s an entry for Locks, Guards, and Watchdogs, which lists the cost as “variable” and basically only exists to note that all these things still exist in the 25th Century. Thanks? Okay we finally get to a section full of stuff the PCs are gonna use: Gadgets and Gear. A Plasmatorch is basically a futuristic welding torch, just a fuel canister, nozzle, and lighter. It can be used as a weapon to do 1d4 damage but you have to keep your finger on the switch to keep the flame lit, so there’s a -2 attack penalty. You can use it to cut or weld and it’s 60 credits, nothing fancy. Macroglasses are super-advanced binoculars, they can enlarge an image up to 10 miles away. They can also take pictures, storing up to 10 images, with each additional image you want to store requiring an extra microchip. Man that’s quaint. Anyway the basic thing costs 150 credits.  A Bioscanner is a handheld device that can be used to monitor the vital signs of a subject and do basic diagnostics (like detecting poison in the bloodstream.) It costs 400 credits and is designed for use on humans only, but 50-credit memory modules let you scan different kinds of animals. A Tech Scanner, for 500 credits, does a similar thing for machines, but works on a weird scale- the base unit only effectively diagnoses problems in machines costing up to 100 credits, and for each 100 credits you spend on upgrades it can diagnose an additional 100 credits’ worth of machinery. Compdexes are portable PCs (I forget even “laptop” wasn’t really a common term back then), measuring 9” by 6” by 3”, weighing three pounds, and costing 200 credits. That’s… actually kinda reasonable. They’ve got wifi set up and can interface with main computers up to 500 miles away, but a NEO compdex won’t read a RAM computer and vice versa so we’re not exactly cyberpunks here. You can also get a printer module for 50 cr. We start getting into heavy survival gear next. A Pressure Tent is sealed well enough that two people can survive up to 5 days in a vacuum, and the exterior is a hard fabric with an AC of 3. There’s tech inside to recycle air and water, as well asheat the place. They cost 250credits, with larger models also available.  A Watchbox is a small robot (about a cubic foot) that acts as a basic security system, it recognizes individuals and gives off an alarm if someone not-registered approaches. I mentioned these guys earlier when talking about equipment, they’re still neat. An Atomic Generator costs 600 credits and can generate power for 72 hours before the battery which regulates the very small fission reaction inside it gives out (at which the thing shuts down, thankfully.) A Gillmask extracts air from water so the wearer can breathe, and this actually doesn’t have a duration on it- the chemical reaction involved just keeps going. Makes underwater adventures more viable, which is good considering the multiple species of Gennies that live there.  Finally there’s the Fieldfence. This is another one we looked up in the Equipment chapter, it consists of a generator and at least two six-foot posts, which, when properly hooked up and set up to ten feet apart, send out a magnetic field which will act as a barrier against any projectile containing ferrous metal, and will also gently caress up any electronic devices caught between them. Mechanically this translates to a 70-90% miss chance for any projectile attack the field can affect- it won’t stop lasers, it won’t stop the slugs from Buck’s old pistol because those are lead, but it will hamper things like the common needle and rocket pistols, as well as Desert Runner crossbows. Each fieldfence post also comes complete with a free packet of metallic chaff you can throw into the field- the magnetic field will make it swirl around and it does 1d6 damage to anyone in the field who doesn’t have a natural armor of AC 5 or better (if you do then it’s harmless.) It takes about 5 minutes to set up the basic set of 2 posts and a generator, which costs 900 cr. Additional posts cost 250cr each and each take an extra 2 minutes to set up. The fieldfence is a pretty cool gadget because it doubles as an environmental feature in a combat encounter- if the players run into opponents who have one they have to strategize around it, and if they have one and are anticipating some kind of siege they can use it to their advantage. It’s nifty. With basic gear out of the way, next time we will cover Medicine and Power.
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May 11, 2020 01:47
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century Medicine and Power: Be Sure To Pack A Can of Skin Medicine in the 25th century boils down to “We can cure anything, but it’ll cost ya.” The genetic revolution has made it possible to track down and treat just about anything, including most cancers, and hereditary diseases are easily phased out with manipulation. Organ transplants are common, and even vat-grown replacement limbs are a thing. Of course it’s all quite expensive, but they don’t list costs for major surgeries- in the event that a PC needs something of that nature, the GM has to work that out. (Fortunately I don’t see that coming up often in this system, there’s no real “needs a new kidney” status.) But it can be assumed that healthcare in the future is at least as stratified as it is today. Now on to the stuff the PCs can use! The Autosurgery is a very useful, very expensive tool. For 1,000 credits, you get a 2 foot cube that unfolds into a computer, video scanner, and set of electronic arms that can be programmed to perform surgery. It can do very basic stuff automatically, like setting a broken arm, putting a patient under, stitching and cleaning a wound, etc., but an actual doctor or medic is needed to perform specialized stuff. Not quite a full on Medibot but close. A Drug Fabricator is another fun device which lets you synthesize almost any drug you need, in pill or vial form, in anywhere from a minute to an hour. It does take some programming finesse to enter a new drug formula into the system’s memory but this is at GM’s discretion. It’s 500 credits for the machine, but 1000 for the necessary chemical supplies (which last for around 50 doses of most stuff.) It can’t synthesize drugs that don’t exist yet, and it can’t synthesize certain drugs that resist duplication. What are those? Well, read on. The two big wonder drugs of the age- and the ones you can’t get from a machine- are Gravitol and Lifextend. Gravitol, as I’ve covered before, is manufactured exclusively in the lowlands of Venus, derived from plants native to the area. You take a single half-ounce dose every 30 days to counteract the negative effects of a zero-gravity environment. Without it, you lose a point of Strength and Constitution every 30 days, becoming incapacitated if it ever reaches 2. However, every 15 days in gravity of .5 or greater lets you restore 1 point of each so long as you exercise and remain active. Anyway, Gravitol’s 50cr a dose, and considering a dose lasts a month that’s pretty reasonable. (It honestly probably isn’t worth tracking in-game, unless you come up with some situation where the PCs would have a hard time getting their hands on any and have to spend months on end in zero-G.) Lifextend is another Lowlander export. As the name implies, it’s basiclly an anti-aging drug- one dose a day means that for that day, you basically don’t age- poisons are broken down, cells replenish faster, etc. So it’s only significant if you take it regularly over a long period. And every single dose costs 100cr. So this is really only available to the super-rich, reinforcing the tiered health care system. This game just won’t stop with the social commentary. There are two major drawbacks- one is that eventually the drug loses its potency and you’re not functionally immortal; your maximum life expectancy with the drug is around 150. (Normal is 90 in the 25th Century.) The second is that it does nothing to protect the brain, so senility, dementia, etc. are all still problems. This section finishes off with a brief overview of other medical advancements. Basic OTC drugs we have now, like painkillers and antihistamines, now work in minutes and way more effectively. There’s no point curing the common cold when you can have a drug that completely suppresses all symptoms for two weeks. Most wounds short of a severed artery can be treated with a synthetic skin spray, which also includes coagulant and disinfectant. Burns are easily treated with a salve or spray-on liquid which shares properties with the synthetic skin. The section on Power Sources is very brief. Solar power is captured by various mirror systems throughout the system, most notably the Mariposas of Mercury, and then turned into microwave energy for transmission via satellites. The whole “broadcast power” thing is probably the single most implausible tech in the game, even with how weird the gene manipulation gets, but it’s worthwhile to have Mercury be as important a player as it is. Chemical ignition is the second category of energy; while fossil fuels have been rendered inefficient and obsolete by now, some arcologies and many smaller buildings are powered by chemical reactors. Most of the rocketships use nuclear fusion converters, which are actually sort of a hybrid- a fission reactor is used to superheat gases and liquids, turning them into plasma, which then gets put in a magnetic bottle which is bombarded by electrons, making the atoms fuse. You know what, sure, fine, it sounds sciencey enough. The full process is only done outside of a planet’s gravity well, though, for fear of the magnetic bottle getting disrupted by gravitational fields- the ship can also run on just the fission reaction, with the plasma vented out the back of the ship. No doubt there are many conspiracy theories as to what the bright streaks of gas in the sky really are. We’re halfway through the book! And next time, we start on the really fun stuff: WEAPONS!
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May 19, 2020 09:07
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century Weapons, Part One: "I'm out of ammo, do any of these walls have an outlet?"  We kick off with something the players will probably never use, but worth talking about anyway: Mass Drivers. Mass Drivers are a popular sci-fi concept, using electromagnets spaced along a track to accelerate a magnetized payload (either the material itself is magnetic or it’s enclosed in some sort of shell) to very high speeds, hitting escape velocity as it’s launched skyward. This is mostly used to get payloads into orbit, and there are multiple mass drivers on Luna, a couple on Earth, and some on Mars, Mercury, and the Asteroids. There is another side of this, of course: a mass driver is potentially a weapon of mass destruction. Luna is the only power so far to have ever done this; during the war between RAM and the SSA, they bombed a battlefield and base in Australia, pounding the area flat to send the message that they weren’t going to take sides, and that any attempt to drag them into this or other wars would meet with the same response. The rocks thrown in this manner struck with a force of 5,000 megatons a piece, creating holes five miles wide and hundreds of feet deep. (More than enough to fill the Albert Hall.) Never underestimate the brutality of the Neutrals. But now, on to the kinds of weapons we can use! I talked about these some earlier, but I’ll try to be more detailed here since this is where the full listings are.  Laser guns- both pistols and rifles- work on capacitor technology. The clips for these weapons contain ceramic capacitors each storing a strong electrical charge, which is expended to create a big bolt of laser energy. Used clips can be quickly ejected and replaced, and even recharged if plugged in for a few hours. A laser beam is about 1/8” in diameter and can burn a hole through steel. However, lasers can be deflected, much like light, which is a reason you see a lot of curved surfaces in the 25th century. There’s even a bit about how lasers can be tuned to emit different colors of light to make it easier to tell friend from foe. A laser pistol costs 300 credits, has a maximum range of 800 feet, shoots three times every two rounds, and does 1d8 damage, with 7 shots per clip. A laser rifle costs twice has much, has a range of 3000, does 1d12 damage and has 14 shots, but can only be fired once per round. Pistol clips cost 50 credits, rifle clips 100.   Now on to Rocket Pistols! As I’ve said many times before, the rocket pistol is the OG Buck Rogers weapon, dating as far back as the comics (and was sold in toy form in 1934, the first toy sci-fi gun ever.) These fire bullets with internal solid-fuel rocket propulsion, ignited electronically in the firing chamber. They even have a tiny radar system that lets them stay on course- there’s no actual accuracy bonus to using one, but you can use “dumb” projectiles with a -2 penalty. Rocket weapons can even be loaded with chaff or aerosol rounds for defensive purposes. A rocket pistol costs 400 credits, has a range of 400 feet, fires twice a round and does 1d10 damage. A rocket rifle costs 500, has a range of 2000 feet, does 2d8 damage and has twice the ammo capacity, but can only fire once per round. Smart ammo costs 10 credits a round, “stupid” ammo costs 4. Needle and Bolt guns are like tiny mass drivers, using electromagnets to propel needles/bolts at high speeds. The big advantage is their rate of fire- you can shoot 3 needles in a round, each doing 1d3 damage if they hit, or 2 bolts, each doing 1d4. The drawback is that the projectiles can be diverted from their line of fire by a magnetic field, and not just something like the Fieldfence- anywhere where there’s a lot of electronics could screw things up, such as the inside of a spaceship. The penalty for using these guns in such an environment ranges from -1 to -5, and needles get it worse because they’re smaller. Also there’s a battery charging the electromagnets in the gun, and after 60 shots it needs to be recharged for an hour. And since they get 3/2 shots per round that’s kind of a short time. Not so sure about that. (Despite all this, the Needle Gun is the starter weapon in Countdown to Doomsday and is pretty effective, and I don’t think the magnetic fields or the battery recharge come into play.) The Needle Gun is 200 credits, the Bolt Gun is 250, and they’re pretty similar in size and weight, but the Bolt Gun has a slightly longer range. A Heat Gun is basically a small flamethrower, projecting a stream of plasma up to 60 feet, in a pretty thin cone (3” at its maximum.) It does 2d6 damage and costs 400 credits, which isn’t bad, but the main limitation is how it eats up ammo- you get 7 shots and each individual tank, which powers one shot, is 80 credits. They’re also dangerous in enclosed areas for fairly obvious reasons. Still it’s a tiny flamethrower and some things you can’t put a price on. Microwave Guns (which cost 350 credits) fire microwave radiation, burning the target for 1d10 damage. The microwaves can travel up to 400 feet and go through a number of barriers, such as plastic, glass, etc. It even shoots twice a round, and while the book notes that it doesn’t have as much range as a laser, 400 feet is honestly pretty much going to cover most RPG combat situations so I don’t see this as a huge drawback. What I DO count as a major drawback is that microwaves are reflected by, and cannot penetrate, any form of metal; pretty much all armor besides Light Body Armor will reflect it, making it useless against a bunch of targets. This also has a charging mechanic, as opposed to ammunition; the transformer gets depleted after 10 shots, and it takes ninety minutes to fully charge (though 10 minutes is enough for one shot.) This game may not have anticipated smart phones but I am now imagining a lot of charging stations and characters lugging around USB cables. The Sonic Stunner is an interesting weapon. It fires a beam of concentrated sound that is inaudible to humans, but affects their nervous system such that any human (including Martians, Venusians, etc., but not Gennies) who is hit by it has to make a save vs. Paralysis or else pass out. Only the person hit by it has to make the save, anyone else notices an unpleasant sound but isn’t really affected. The basic model costs 300 credits, and for an additional 100 credits you can get a module letting you affect a particular type of Gennie (though it takes a round to adjust settings.) Sonic Stunners won’t work in a vacuum, naturally, and in a thin atmosphere targets get a +2 to their saves; in thick atmospheres they get a -2 penalty, and if you use it when both shooter and target are underwater it’s a -4 penalty. This also has a battery, good for 14 shots and requiring an hour to recharge, or 5 minutes to charge enough for a single shot. And this section is getting long, so I’ll break here. Next time, we’ll handle two more specialized weapons, and some melee and heavy weapons. Maxwell Lord fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Jun 15, 2020 |
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Jun 15, 2020 09:07
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If the forums go down I hope someone finds a way to keep the F&F magic going. If I don't get to finish my Buck Rogers overview, it's a good game and probably kinda hard to find now, but keep an eye out because there's a lot of good stuff in it.
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Jun 24, 2020 19:40
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century Weapons, Part 2: America's Favorite Corn and Rice Cereal Next are a couple of exotic weapons (or at least they’d be called that if Exotic Weapon Proficiency had been invented yet.) I talked a lot about the Desert Runner Crossbow during chargen, and here it is again. This is basically the only non-electronic ranged weapon listed in the game. There isn’t even really an explanation of the technology, it’s a crossbow, it can fire either streamlined bolts or explosive shells- the bolts do 1d4 damage, the shells 1d8. It’s a cheap weapon at 100cr and only has a range of 200 feet but again that covers *most* combat situations. Non-Desert Runners have a -4 penalty to their attack rolls when using the crossbow, though it’s not really explained what’s so special about the design that makes it hard to use- it says Desert Runners use it a lot and are especially proficient at it, but that makes it seem like it should be a bonus for Desert Runners, not a penalty for everyone else. The penalty can be reduced if a character uses it exclusively for a while, but why bother? The big advantages of this weapon are that the ammo is cheap, and you never need to recharge anything.  The kryptx (which I mentioned only briefly) kinda fits the mold of the classic weird sci-fi weapon that doesn’t make a lot of sense but it looks neat. The kryptx is used exclusively by the Venusian priests of the Ishtar Confederation. It’s a long staff with a sphere at the end, and metal knobs channel electricity at the end. There’s a laser at one end which does 1d6 damage and has a range of 400, less than a normal laser pistol, but that’s not the real attraction. When used as a melee weapon, it can administer a powerful electric shock. The user actually modulates how much damage the shock does, from 2 to 12 points, and the target has to make a saving throw vs. stun or be knocked out. For every point of damage above 7 the target gets a penalty to their saving throw, and for every point below they get a bonus. You can’t buy a kryptx- none of the priests would ever sell one, and even selling a forgery would get the Ishtarians on your case. Even if you could somehow get your grubby hands on one, you wouldn’t know how to use it- the whole thing’s controlled by a keypad and only the priests know how to operate it, and they would literally die before telling you. You cannot have one and stop asking. A bit extreme, maybe; couldn’t a smart enough character work out the process given time to experiment? But I do like the Ishtarians having something like this and it reminds me a LOT of the weird Vulcan weapons in the “Amok Time” episode of Star Trek, so cue the music.  Mono blades come in two varieties- the knife costs 200 credits and does 1d6 damage, the sword does 1d10 damage and costs 2000. (It also has twice the reach.) These blades are cut from synthetic diamond and have edges one molecule thick, meaning they cut very fine. The mono knife is sometimes called a “laser knife” because of the laser beam that is produced on the blade’s edge to make it stand out. Mono knives automatically retract when you’re not pressing the activation button. Swords don’t retract, but have a diamond hilt and also a laser. The laser beams don’t do any damage but do produce little char marks or melt substances on either side of the cut. Mono blades can be used as a very slow cutting tool, and they have a small battery powering the laser. The battery can last up to 60 days if the blade’s used 20 rounds per day, and it can be recharged by a charging unit or just leaving it in sunlight for an hour, so realistically you’ll never have to track this. Now we go to heavy weapons. Grenades require a bit of backtracking since some of the rules were in Characters & Combat; they come in many varieties, from straight up explosive grenades which do 4d10 damage to anyone in a blast radius of 10 feet (saving vs. explosion means you take half), to sun grenades, dazzle grenades, and gas grenades. Okay, by many I meant four. A PC can throw them as many feet as their Strength times 5, with a 100 foot maximum and 30 foot minimum. You make an attack roll as per usual, but if you miss, you roll 1d4 to determine the direction you missed in, 2d20 to determine how far it was from the target, then use the blast radius to decide who was affected. Anyway, all the non-explosive grenades require a saving throw to avoid being knocked out for 1d6 rounds. Stun grenades require a save vs. paralysis/stun/fall, dazzle grenades are vs. electrical shock, and gas grenades are vs. gas/poison. All grenades cost 50 credits each. The Grenade Launcher, purchasable for 500 credits, lets you chuck grenades as far as 200 feet. It works by using compressed air, and between shots you have to pump up the pressure chamber, meaning you can only use it once every other round. It also can’t normally be used in a vacuum, unless you have some kind of air tank. Still it’s a useful thing, weighing only 3 pounds. I imagine it looking like a portable bicycle pump. Rocket Launchers fire “smart” explosives as far as 1000 feet. Rockets do 5d10 damage to targets within a 20-foot blast radius, and there’s no indication of any saving throw. However, the Launcher also can only be used once every other round, because the firing chamber needs to cool. The cost is 1000 credits, and the rockets cost 100 credits apiece, but the memories are priceless. Plasma Throwers work a lot like Grenade Launchers, with a compressed air system, except they launch canisters of explosive, flammable gel which spray plasma over a 25 foot blast radius for 4d10 damage. Again, same rate of fire, and no apparent saving throw. The Plasma Thrower costs 800 credits and its canisters cost 80 credits a piece. And that’s weapons! We’re 3/4 of the way through this book! Next up, armor!
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Jul 3, 2020 23:28
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century Armor and Smart Clothing: But Does It Have Bluetooth? While armor in Buck Rogers basically uses the AD&D mechanics (descending AC and all that), the way it works out is actually quite a bit different. There aren’t any class restrictions, as with weapons, and I think it’s a bigger deal with armor because it means no class is especially squishy. It’s all about what you can carry and what you can afford. Included with the armor sets are some individual accessories.  Smart Clothes are what most military personnel are wearing in the future. They’ve got all sorts of ultra-tiny computer circuitry woven into them, which can be used to control temperature or run various “packs” including communications and ECM material (We’ll go into those in a bit.) On top of this the wiring also can disperse various types of energy, absorb kinetic blows, and use ECM modules to foil smart bullets. The mesh also gives you a +3 to saving throws vs. radiation. Smart Clothes cost 1,000 cr for a full outfit, but can also be bought piecemeal (tunic, pants, gloves, boots) if one garment needs to be replaced. For 200 credits you can buy a helmet, coverall, and recycler that allow the smart uniform to serve as a spacesuit, providing full protection from the vacuum for up to 24 hours before the recycler needs to be recharged. Also important to the whole ensemble is the belt. A utility belt costs 200 credits and while it does nothing for your defense, it contains a power pack that runs everything the suit uses for 24 hours before needing to be recharged. There’s also an onboard computer that helps run any other attachments, but they can apparently be used without the belt as clip-on attachments. A standalone power pack can also be purchased for 25 credits, either to power things on its own or as a backup, but it lasts only 24 hours. An ECM package costs 50 credits and gives any attack with a smart projectile (rocket pistols mostly) a 50% miss chance. A stealth unit costs 25% and makes you invisible to security systems that use sonic- or heat-based detection. A security pack costs 35cr and projects a field 50 feet around you that detects sound and motion and triggers a silent alarm. Finally, for 50 credits there’s a Communications Pack which includes a radio, speaker, and microphone, and can broadcast signals up to 20 miles. Moving on from Smart Clothes, the next item is Spacesuits. Starting at 200 credits, a spacesuit provides an AC of 6 and, more importantly, provides protection against the total vacuum of space. In fact it’s made from fabric that self-seals in the event of a puncture or tear of any kind. (I suspect this is basically so they don’t have to explain why a spacesuit isn’t instantly ruined by any successful hit.) The variable cost of spacesuits has to do with the air-recycling and radio systems included- at 200 credits these last for up to 12 hours, at 300 they last 24, at 400 they last 72 hours, and at 500 credits they last a week. Each spacesuit also has a water reservoir that can supply you for up to 24 hours, and there’s also a system for water recycling, plus nutrient paste that can last you as long as the air supply. So spacesuits aren’t the best armor for all situations, but they’re relatively easy to get (you have a ton of ‘em in Countdown to Doomsday) and their out-of-combat usefulness is quite good. Body Armor is next, and it comes in two varieties, Light and Heavy. Light armor costs 250, weighs 15 lbs., and gives you AC 7- Heavy armor costs 1,500, weighs 35 lbs., and gives you AC 2. It’s all made of high-density plastic, and the heavy version also uses beryllium crystals. Simple enough right? Well, no. This armor is modular, meaning you can buy and wear pieces separately, or use the armor if some pieces are lost or damaged. You’ve got the torso protector, pieces for the arms and legs, and a helmet. Not wearing the torso piece reduces the armor’s effectiveness by 5, and since there’s no AC higher than 10, there’s no point in wearing light armor without the torso piece- unless you wear both the helmet and two other pieces of gear, in which case you at least get AC 9 (6 for heavy armor). Going without the arm or leg protectors increases your AC by 1, as does going without the helmet; if you are missing three or four pieces (counting each arm and leg separately) AC is increased by 2. And as long as you have the torso piece your AC can never be worse than 8 (light) or 4 (heavy), and MAN the switch to ascending AC did not come fast enough. Also you can wear your armor on top of spacesuits or smart suits if you still want the mechanical benefits of either. Moving on. Battle Armor is the real heavy stuff. It’s a full suit of armor, made up of the same stuff as heavy body armor with a supporting exoskeleton. This exoskeleton includes various enhancers to muscle and joint movement, basically so that you don’t suffer any penalties to your reflexes while wearing it. Battle armor costs 2,500 credits and gives you an AC of 0. It takes ten minutes to don or remove it, and you can’t do it unassisted. You can wear smart clothes inside and still get all the benefits, but a spacesuit helmet won’t fit- fortunately battle armor itself has the sealed and self-sustaining capabilities of a spacesuit. But it actually gets better, somehow- for 3,000 you can get Battle Armor with a set of defensive fields, lowering your AC to -2. The fields themselves are an ECM field that gives smart bullets a 75% miss chance, and an aerosol mist sprayer to diffuse laser fire. The major drawback to battle armor is the battery powering the movement enhancers- it lasts for 24 hours, but if it goes dead you suffer a -4 penalty to Dex and can only move half speed. The ECM field has its own 12-hour battery, and both can be recharged by exposure to sunlight or being plugged in for an hour. The section finishes up with a couple of devices that aren’t armor themselves but help with it. An Aerosol Mist Shell/Grenade creates a spray of dense mist that diffuses and basically completely neutralizes laser fire coming in. The shells are self-propelled and can be loaded into a rocket pistol/rifle, cost 50 credits for a pack of 5, and create a field with a 25-foot radius. Aerosol grenades are 50 credits a piece and create a field with a 100 foot radius. You gotta be careful using it near yourself, though, because if you’re in 10 feet of the initial detonation you take 1d4 damage. (And any laser weapons you have are useless too, of course.) The battle armor’s mist sprayer works like the shells. Chaff Shells, like Aerosol Mist Shells, can be loaded into rocket guns, and on exploding some 50-100 feet from where they were fired, release a sphere of metal chaff which completely blocks any smart bullets or radar beams fired into it. The sphere is 25 feet in radius, and lasts around 10 minutes unless there’s a strong wind, or you’re in zero gravity, where it only lasts a round. Again you have to watch for contact damage if you’re close to where it explodes. Anyone who goes into the field without eye protection, or is close to the shell when it explodes, has to save vs. explosion or be blinded for 1d4 rounds. That wraps up armor, and we’re very close to the end of the book now!
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Jul 28, 2020 05:38
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century Vehicles: We Were Promised Jetpa- oh wait there they are NVM  We’ve seen Rocket Belts on some of the artwork for the game, and they’re a direct link to the history of Buck Rogers. In the first stories and comic strips, Buck and company all wore ‘gravity belts’, which let them jump and float through the air by turning dials. At some point in the strip rocket packs became the preferred mode of personal transportation. In XXVc, a rocket belt is a turbine and two pods which direct power from burning solid fuel pellets. It’s described as similar to the actually existing jet pack developed by Bell Labs. In practical terms, the belt costs 1000 credits, the fuel pellets cost 100 cr each, and the device can lift someone at 200 pounds at 20 feet per minute and last for about 30 minutes, all in Earth gravity. I guess you can do the math to work out the maximum limitations in other gravities and for other weights, but they point out that more often it’s used to make big jumps (yumps, if you will), lasting less than two minutes and moving at about 15 mph/1,000 feet per minute horizontally. There are two major limitations to the device- you need one hand to work the controls, so you can’t use two handed weapons while flying, and the fuel needs oxygen to ignite so it doesn’t work in a vacuum. To rocket through space without a whole ship, you need a Space Belt. This also costs 1,000 credits, and uses compressed gas. You only get 30 bursts per canister (canisters cost 20 credits apiece), but because of how space works- the whole lack of gravity and air resistance- a single thrust already sends you flying 120 feet per round, and the only way to stop yourself is to fire another burst in the opposite direction. Or you can get stopped by something, but if you’re going 200 or more feet per round when this happens you either save vs. falling or take damage (1d8, 2d8 if you’re going 400, 3d8 if you’re up to 600, etc.) I would assume the gas system doesn’t work in Earth gravity/an atmosphere but it’s not explicitly stated.  We also finally have flying cars, and while ground vehicles still exist they’re not statted here so who cares? A jetcar costs 35,000 credits and it’s about 15 feet long and carries two people plus 50 cubic feet of cargo, or just three people. It can go 100 mph flying at a steady altitude, and can go up at about 15 mph. Typical speed is more like 50 mph, and a single can of rocket fuel will last about three hours at that speed (and you can refuel in mid-air). There’s also a cheaper “skimmer” with no cargo space beyond a couple of fuel canisters and personal effects, can only rise two feet off the ground, and has 50 mph as a top speed- on the upside, it’s way more fuel efficient. Also it’s worth noting all those speeds are consistent whatever planet you’re on, because jetcars are manufactured to work in a specific environment. Finally there’s the Dragonfly, which is a one-man helicopter. Costing 15,00 credits, it can move up to 20 mph and is powered by an atomic battery lasting about 20 hours. This can’t be used in any environment where air pressure is below Earth’s, due to the aerodynamics of it. All three of these are more likely to be props/used for specific setpieces in an adventure than something the PCs obtain, but it’s nice to have the info here. And that FINALLY wraps up the Equipment book. There’s still a little bit to get out of the box set, though. Remember those flash cards I mentioned? Well I’m gonna scan some of ‘em and look over the info they provide. Coming up, we’ll meet some of the big-shot NPCs of the setting!
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Aug 17, 2020 07:14
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century Character Cards: Everyone Rolled Very Well So the box set comes with a big heap of flash cards, each the size of a normal sheet of paper but printed on card stock. They’re divided into three categories. A few are planetary maps and it’d be hard to list what information is on them without just copying them, so we’ll be skipping those. The information is basically summing what's in the World Book anyway. The bulk of them are spaceship cards, with a nice illustration on one side and stats and a damage tracker on the other. But first, we’ll go over the character cards, listing the big NPCs of the XXVc world. This being the early 90s, every RPG had to have prominent NPCs, but also this was a licensed game so they kinda had to bring back the characters they’d paid for.  And there’s no better place to start than with Buck himself. Col. Anthony “Buck” Rogers was a fighter pilot back in the 20th century, who volunteered for a space mission to shoot down the rogue Soviet satellite Masterlink, flying a space-plane equipped with an experimental cryogenic system. He succeeded in his mission, but a rupture in the cockpit caused the cryo to activate, and with his plane lost, he floated in suspended animation for over 450 years. He awoke in this new world of rocketships and gennies and after a series of events I’m still not entirely clear on (I think it was in a book or something) ended up allied with the New Earth Organization. Personality-wise Buck is described as straightforward, upbeat, and reliable, with a bit of a romantic side- he’s heavily involved with Wilma Deering and sometimes gets mixed up in situations with the spoiled heiress Ardala Valmar. All this pretty much tracks with Buck across all media- he’s always been just a stand-up guy who you can count on in a fix, with an emphasis on the old idea of “Yankee ingenuity”. Kinda generic old-timey hero stuff, but I think it’s distinctive enough. Buck is a 10th level Terran rocketjock, with some really absurdly good ability scores- 18 Dex, 17 Strength, and 16 Charisma. He has one distinct bit of personal gear, an old .45 caliber pistol that he was carrying on his fateful voyage. Has the same stats as a rocket pistol, but Buck gets a +2 bonus to hit with it, and since the bullets aren’t “smart” they don’t get thrown off by ECM. The downside is he’s only got 26 bullets for it on him (6 in the gun, 20 as extra shells) and he can only replenish his ammo at a few NEO bases.  Wilma Deering is a native of the Chicagorg Arcology, and lost her parents when they “disappeared” following a diplomatic mission on behalf of an Earth liberation movement. RAM was likely to blame, so Wilma became a freedom fighter attacking RAM installations. She got caught and imprisoned a couple of times, was liberated by pirates, became a privateer in her own right, before returning to Earth to join NEO. Wilma is a friendly but sometimes tempermental fighter, very passionate about the cause. She’s romantically involved with Buck, but also has a thing about “Killer” Kane, a former NEO comrade who went over to RAM. She’s an 8th level Terran warrior, again very good stats, no special abilities. Wilma Deering is interesting is that going back to the original stories she was always pretty independent and proactive, a soldier fighting alongside Buck. The love triangle with Kane is right out of the comic strip, too (and we’ll talk more about that when we get to him.)  Rounding out the classic trio is Doctor Huer. There was a Doctor Faustus Huer who was a friend of Buck’s in the 20th century, and he was an eccentric scientific genius with a bunch of crazy inventions, notably the life-suspension system in Buck’s spacecraft. When Buck arrived in the 25th century, there was quite a bit of culture shock, and NEO decided that he needed a friendly guide to help him get used to the world he now inhabited. Based on Buck’s recollections of his old buddy, they created Huer.dos, an equally eccentric and brilliant scientist. While he was created to help Buck, he also works for NEO as a sort of virtual ambassador, since he can go just about anywhere, and as a DP he has all the weird powers in cyberspace that we discussed earlier. He’s an 8th-level Digital Personality. Needless to say the whole AI thing is new to this incarnation of Doc Huer, but otherwise it’s pretty true to the classic- he’s the archetypal eccentric old scientist, and usually placed pretty high up in the chain of command. I do also really like the touch that he was created to help Buck, but is a character in his own right. It’s metaplot and won’t affect the PC’s dealings with him too much, but it’s just a nice little note. It’d be tricky to fit in Buck and Wilma into an adventure without having them overshadow the PCs, but I can see Huer being someone they interact with a lot.  One more for the road! Black Barney is a space pirate. Not just any space pirate, though, he’s actually one of a line of Terrine variants manufactured in a lab in the Jovian Trojans- the Barneys were designed to have a mostly human appearance, but enhanced by reptilian characteristics and subtly modified to be spooky and intimidating. 150 Barneys were bred, 48 died in training, then they revolted and killed their creators. There are now only 14 left, mostly space pirates, and Barney is but one. Though he’s shown with a mask he’s supposed to be human-like but intimidating, with a deep, passionless voice and lots of muscles. Very much a Boba Fett kinda guy. He commands the Free Enterprise, a liberated Jovian warship, and is a 10th-level warrior, again with ridiculously good stats. Barney is sorta neither friend nor foe. He’s basically a ruthless pirate, but after being defeated by Buck Rogers, stayed with him a while. The text is unclear as to what took place here (there’s something about “prime directives”) or what Barney’s status is now, but this makes him available for different campaign roles, from outright villain to uncertain ally. Black Barney first appeared in the pages of the comic strip, as a ruthless sky pirate, one of the first major adversaries after the Han storyline ended. I’m pretty sure he’s not in the TV series, but I appreciate Pondsmith finding a place for him here. This is a bit long so I’ll split things here. Next post, three major villains!
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Sep 20, 2020 21:02
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I only just now noticed WTF is with Buck's neck
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Sep 21, 2020 09:11
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century Villains: That's gotta be Kane!  “Killer” Kane (nobody knows what his real given name is, Hell, maybe it is Killer) grew up on the ruined streets of Losangelorg. He became a top pilot and fell in with NEO, where he fell in love with Wilma Deering and they had sort of an on-again-off-again thing. At one point he and Wilma were captured by RAM, and in exchange for them letting her “escape”, he offered to join them. At first it was a ruse/sacrifice to save the woman he loved, but eventually Kane decided he liked being on the winning team. He still carries a torch for Wilma but it’s a bit awkward what with the whole being on opposite sides of an interplanetary war. All romantic sentimentality aside, Kane is a ruthless character, albeit one who honestly believes he’s doing the right thing. He works for RAM still, but is convinced he can make it work for him, and end up on top. He’s naturally got a rivalry with Buck Rogers, and is obsessed with besting him in personal combat. Stat-wise, Kane is an 8th-level rocketjock with high scores in Dexterity and Charisma. He most often operates out of Luna, where he has a fortress, the “Mark of Kane”. In the comic strips, Cornelius “Killer” Kane was introduced first as a fellow member of the Orgs who sparred with Buck over Wilma, later joining up with the Han. In the 1939 serial he lacked this turncoat history or romantic rivalry and was merely the leader of the super-gangsters of the 25th century; he also showed up in the TV series, but wasn’t the main antagonist. I like this incarnation, it gets back to his roots while adding a few wrinkles.  Ardala Valmar’s family is closely linked with the Holzerheins, who pretty much control RAM. She’s a Martian socialite who works behind the scenes as an information broker. She buys and sells people every day, makes and loses more money in a week than most people see in a lifetime, etc. She even has a private orbital base devoted entirely to monitoring transmissions. She’s got a certain hankering for Buck Rogers, mainly because she can’t have him (she also really hates Wilma as a result.) She’s occasionally entertwined with Kane as well. Ardala Valmar is an 8th-level Martian Rogue, with an AC of 7 indicating light armor despite the picture saying otherwise. She usually carries a mono knife with a blue laser, though the write-up also indicates poisoned fingernails. Ardala was originally introduced in the comics as Black Barney’s gal pal. In the TV show, played by Pamela Hensley, Princess Ardala was the major villain of the first season, ruler of the evil Draconian Empire. (She also totally wanted to nail Buck.) This also established her “space bikini” look, in the comic strip she looked more like a gun moll. Here she’s a good potential campaign adversary, though the usual issues of running “seductive” characters at your game table apply.  And finally, the one NPC who doesn’t have any antecedent in previous incarnations of Buck and friends. Simund Holzerhein is the digital incarnation of the businessman who led RAM to its current domination over 100 years ago. His body is in suspended animation and his brain is still technically alive, but the real Holzerhein is all digital baby. He attends all RAM board meetings, and even is sometimes seen walking around the halls of RAM facilities, presumably to scare the gently caress out of peons. Holzerhein was a total bastard in life, and has become even more so thanks to being severed from the mortal world- not only does he want all the power he can get, he’s becoming something of a sadist. He keeps a low profile, letting subordinates struggle over control of day-to-day affairs, but is actually acutely aware of everything going on in the company at any moment. His major rivalry, naturally, is with Huer.dos, the one entity who might be able to outsmart him at his own game. Simund Holzerhein is a 10th level Digital Personality, and his stats are largely irrelevant because again, the game doesn’t really have any way for DPs and non-DPs to interact. But the personality notes are valuable. Holzerhein’s the biggest of the Big Bads and it helps to know what the major bad guy wants. That wraps up the character cards! It’s fun to see these new takes on classic characters; in every case Pondsmith seems to have understood the basic dynamics and translated them to the new setting. As actual NPCs in your game, the villains will probably be more useful than the heroes, and it might have been nice to have stats for the more low-level villains you’re likely to encounter in any given adventure, but a licensed RPG’s gotta have the stats for the licensed characters, that’s a rule or something. Anyway, after this, we will be looking at spaceships! I’m not sure how many posts it’ll take but it should be fun!
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Oct 18, 2020 20:01
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I don't understand why Shadowrun in specific is a system they can never get right. It's "cyberpunks plus some fantasy poo poo", most generic systems can do that.
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Oct 21, 2020 05:13
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century RAM Spaceships: Big Red Rockets RAM gets the bulk of the ship cards, as they’ve got a dedicated navy and NEO doesn’t.  I talked a little bit about the X-23A Krait before. Listed as RAM’s Stealth Fighter, it’s the most advanced fighter rocket on the scene. It comes equipped with a stealth cloak that gives it a -6 to Armor Class as long as the ship’s moving, and this is on top of its AC defense bonus of -5, so what is an Armor Class of 6 is actually -5, so you’re looking at starting characters needing to roll a natural 20 to hit this thing. Maybe this only shows up in specialized situations due to the stealth element, I dunno. Has a crew of 1 and has only one gyrocannon, so it’s not especially dangerous, but the amount of time you’re gonna spend trying to hit this thing makes it a problem. The description doesn’t say where it’s designed for but I’m assuming Mars.  There is another fighter-type here, at least. The RMS Scorpion has been modified for Earth’s atmosphere, ditches the stealth cloak and is slightly slower. It also has an AC Defense Bonus of only -4, meaning its AC 6 is really a 2, which is… still pretty tough to hit for low level gunners. I get the feeling that the AC adjustments and such were designed with realism in mind (it’s harder to hit a smaller ship than a big one) but they have the unfortunate effect of discouraging a lot of dogfights. I wondered if the adjustments were relative, i.e. someone in a fighter would have an easier time hitting another fighter, but I can’t see any indication of that.  The RMS Maximus Argyre is an example of a RAM Medium Cruiser, the kind you’re most likely to encounter (and do in the sample adventure!). It’s 150 tons, 300 feet long, and has a crew of 50. It’s slow and easy to hit- the AC Defense modifier is +1 giving it an AC of 7- but it’s got plenty of HP and has a hull bristling with weapons, including beam lasers, gyrocannons, a heavy acceleration gun, and a K-Cannon. It’s still a little too powerful for characters in most situations to take on directly, and yeah there’s no “light cruiser” so I feel there’s a gap in good enemy ships.  The RMS Chryse is a Heavy Cruiser, weighing 500 tons and measuring 1,000 feet long with a crew of 135. It’s got even more weapons, a shitload of hit points, and while its armor is only slightly better than the Medium Cruiser- Maximum Military gives a base AC of 4, and the adjustment gives it 6- yeah these are the ones you run from as quickly as possible, don’t even bother getting off a few shots. Unless of course your players start cruising in a warship of their own, which is entirely possible.  The RMS Tharsis is a Battler, a massive capital ship weighing 5,000 tons, measuring 10,000 feet long, and with a crew of 1,700. It’s got 20,000 HP in the Hull alone, and 240 weapons. Like, all together. It can also carry up to 50 fighters. So these are your Star Destroyers and should be treated as such.  Finally a couple of specialty ships. Ardala Valmar’s Princess of Mars is her personal pleasure craft, and its stats also double for those of the ship the PCs get in the sample adventure. It’s a scout cruiser weighing 35 tons, it’s about 70 feet long and has a crew of 8. Adjusted AC is 6, it’s got two missile mounts and a beam laser, and HP is low enough that you don’t want it getting into too many scrapes. It’s a pleasure craft, capable of defending itself but only just about. It’s not the only ship Ardala has, but it never flies without her in it. (Presumably she doesn’t fly the thing, that sounds more like servants’ work.)  On a similar note here’s Killer Kane’s Rogue and WOW that’s a retro design. Like a lot of the rockets have a few deliberately retro touches, this could have been in a serial easy. It’s another Scout Cruiser, weighing 30 tons with a crew of 3, and its 60 feet long. Its adjusted AC is 2, it’s got a heavy acceleration gun and a missile mount, HP are decent enough- this could be a good fight, though I’m not sure how often your players will be going against Killer Kane himself. So in terms of usefulness as a ship bestiary, I think the collection has a gap or two- I have no idea why they made the fighters as hard to hit as they did, so there’s room for a few easy targets for the PCs to make quick work of. But we’re not done, and next post I will go over the rest of the spacecraft detailed, and with that, finish up the box set! Be there!
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Nov 20, 2020 20:05
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Everyone posted:This seems like something that PCs with some deep pockets to hire crewmen would try to steal and repurpose as a really badass pirate ship. As I was scanning it I thought the same thing.
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Nov 21, 2020 21:45
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century Ship Cards: To Boldly Plunder Where No Man Has Plundered Before NEO doesn’t have a lot of dedicated ships, which makes sense, their being a scrappy rebel organization and all. (The Star Wars movies gave the Rebels distinct capital ships out of visual necessity, but a tabletop RPG doesn’t have the same needs.) In fact there’s only one ship that’s specifically earmarked as a NEO vessel, the rest in this post are more neutral.  The F-66 Starfire is Neo’s Earth/space fighter. It’s very similar to the Krait, but they don’t have the stealth tech. Like the Krait and Scorpion it has an AC 6, and a -4 defense bonus bringing it down to 2. It’s slower than both the Krait and Scorpion, but is a little heftier with more HP in all its systems. It’s also a bit larger with more cargo space. A good solid workhorse, armed with a Light Acceleration Gun (more damage than a Gyrocannon, but lower range and a bit less accurate.)  The Lady Jane Gray is Captain Flint’s ship, him of the intro to the Character book. It’s a Light Stock Freighter, fairly common among scoundrels and smugglers making whatever the Solar System’s equivalent of the Kessel Run is. It weighs 30 tons and carries 15 tons of cargo, and has a crew of three. The effective AC is 6 (8 and a -2 bonus) and it carries 2 beam lasers and a gyrocannon. It’s slower than most fighters but can outrun RAM Cruisers easily enough, and that’s probably the important thing.  The LSS Copernicus is a Lunar scout cruiser. The Lunar government is pretty blunt about wanting to keep neutral so you’ll likely see a lot of these flying around near the Moon. At 25 tons and 50 feet long it’s a pretty fast ship, and has an effective AC of 4. Weapons are a missile mount and a gyrocannon, and they don’t have a ton of HP. I can imagine the Lunars sending a swarm of these after any nuisances, though.  The Luxus Triplanetary is a massive passenger liner, over a thousand feet long and weighing 350 tons. The card lists 300 crew & passengers though it doesn’t say how many of each. Liners like these run all over the inner planets, and can either dock at a Class A spaceport (as listed on the planetary reference cards) or use shuttle craft to get passengers to and from the surface. They are, of course, sitting ducks in a fight, with an effective AC of 10 and a speed of 1, but they do have 3 pumped lasers and a lot of HP. You’re more likely to encounter these as a setting for a pirate attack or a mission for where you have to track down a person of interest. (Or solve a murder, those are always happening on board passenger ships.) Still, they make good color.  The U of Deimos is an Asterover, one of many small ships that make runs between a planetary surface and ships or stations in orbit. It’s a bit larger than a fighter, slower but with more HP. Weaponry consists of a single pumped laser, and it has an effective AC of 6. No rules are given for the nifty mechanical arm. I can imagine a lot of scenarios where the players might need to make use of one of these.  And finally, we have Black Barney’s Free Enterprise. As you can see it has a similar design to Kane’s Rogue, to the point that I wonder if there wasn’t a shift in the game’s art direction at some point and those two are just the remnants of an earlier, more retro style. Anyway this ship’s a heavy cruiser, weighing 300 tons, bristling with weapons, and while its normal AC is 6, the ship has a camouflage hull that can actively blend into the space surrounding it, reducing its AC by 10 against lasers, gyrocannons, and acceleration guns. K-cannons and missiles, however, don’t suffer the same penalty. It’s got a respectable speed of 3, specifically modified by Doc Huer. I’m not really sure how you’d ever use this one in game (with a crew of 90 it’s hardly something the PCs can easily commandeer), but it’s kinda neat. And with that, we finally, FINALLY, reach the end of the Buck Rogers XXVc box set. It’s a very impressive package, and a solid game- the rules are quite creaky with the hindsight of three decades of design, and my recommendation is basically to just port it over to whatever generic system suits your fancy. The setting, however, is gold. Managing to actually bring together space opera and hard science fiction- two seemingly incompatible subgenres- is a rare feat, and the result is not just fun to read about but has a lot of hooks for a campaign. The license probably did the game more harm than good in the long run; people still mostly just remember the campy TV show, and the reruns are still on to this day. And of course, it makes this nigh-impossible to reprint, even if the rights to Rogers himself weren’t tied up in court. (The Dille Family Trust has since gone bankrupt, so they’re trying to solidify their claim on the IP so they can sell it off, and this could take a while.) At the same time, I like that they were able to modernize a classic comic strip hero in a way that feels genuinely fresh. As I said before Buck Rogers has always evolved with the times, and this feels like part of a proud tradition. But we’re not done yet. I may give my scanner a brief rest, but I’ve got a few of the supplements and modules and while it’s by no means comprehensive, I’d like to look at some of the additional stuff. And when we do finally reconvene, it will be with one simple restriction: NO HUMANS ALLOWED!
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Nov 25, 2020 20:17
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I actually kind of like the art in the Paranoia comic but the writing is very "Comics For ADULTS" garbage. The thing about a dystopia like this, or 1984 or Brave New World, is that most of your inhabitants shouldn't even know they're in a dystopia- to them this is just how Life is. They have no other frame of reference, the people in charge have effectively obliterated any notion of the way things used to be (though BNW carefully curates looks at the barbaric old ways so everyone is so grateful to have it better.) Every Player Character in Paranoia (and most NPCs of any note) is a traitor, mind you, so they have some knowledge that goes against the orthodoxy, but none of them have a clear picture either. Everyone's brain is warped.
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Dec 5, 2020 23:26
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I've been having thoughts both on the cyberpsychosis thing and CoC's Sanity rules, and I wonder if in both cases the answer isn't a system where you don't go "crazy", your brain just... changes. You are adjusted to a different reality. With Cyberpunk in specific I'm thinking of something like in some of David Cronenberg's movies, where changing your body inevitably changes the way you think- there's no inherent split between the brain and the rest of you, you change one part it causes changes elsewhere. The Fly's a good example, Seth Brundle can't help but start thinking like an insect. (And losing sanity in Cthulhu could just be an issue of perceiving the reality that we are food for strange gods, that everything we know is wrong, physics and mathematics are a lie, etc. You start thinking like an eldritch horror.)
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Dec 6, 2020 10:21
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century  No Humans Allowed: "But the cover!" "We're allowed to have one." When I reviewed the box set, I noted that one thing that was missing was a “bestiary”, a collection of stats for typical enemies you might encounter. There were rules for making Gennie NPCs and it was easy enough to mock up a 1st-level goon or whatever (one hit die, THACO 20, AC by whatever they’re wearing, damage by whatever gun you give ‘em), but it was notable. This is partly why I’m skipping ahead so far, since the game really didn’t get a proper bestiary until near the end. No Humans Allowed was published in 1992, and with Hardware (which I don’t have) is one of the last books published for the line. One of the benefits of this is they were able to include a lot of gennies that appeared in other modules and supplments, though there are plenty of originals as well. It’s a paperback, runs 128 pages, and retailed for $15.00 in 1992 (so a little under $30 now.) I got it for $13.50. And just to point this out, scroll back up, and look at the cover. What’s missing there? So yeah there appears to have been a slight attempt at rebranding with the last couple of books, just labelling them with “XXVc”. The general feeling about this game is that it likely failed because people associated “Buck Rogers” with the campy 1979 TV series, and maybe just with goofy space opera in general, in an era of RPGs dominated by cyberpunks and vampires. They didn’t stop using the license at all, the Dille Family Trust still gets credited with the trademarks, but it was easy enough to just not reference the comic strip characters. (Of course, it’s not like this worked- the line was cancelled with a few products still solicited, and 1993 saw the Buck Rogers High Adventure Cliffhangers game.) But anyway, here we are at No Humans Allowed, written by Dale “Slade” Henson. It’s actually quite a bit more than a Monster Manual, and there’s a lot of stuff to go through before we get to the creature listings. Some of it is of questionable utility, to be sure, and it’s honestly built so that the least-useful deep lore is in the front, so we gotta dig through that first. NEXT: A Brief but Complicated History of Genetic Engineering
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Jan 22, 2021 21:57
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 Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century No Humans Allowed The History of Genetics: Why Not Start With Turtles? There’s a brief introduction, which establishes that genetic engineering in the 25th century makes possible the creation of all sorts of lifeforms, suitable for habitation on pretty much all the known worlds. This is almost entirely an industrial process- gennies are bred to perform tasks for the major powers, mostly RAM. This naturally raises some questions about the morality of creating new life (sometimes intelligent) for the purposes of slavery, and while the book says they don’t take a major stand on this, the fact that it’s mostly the series villains doing this is notable. There follows some explanation of how the gennie profiles later in the book will work, which is basically like the AD&D Monster Manuals- you’ve got Climate, Frequency, No. Appearing, that sort of thing. The first proper chapter is a timeline of genetic engineering. The first paragraph says it starts in 1858 with Rudolf Virchow, but there’s a twist! It REALLY starts in 1611, with Kepler inventing the double convex microscope. Probably a late change. Anyway, we get a lot of historical stuff that really happened, Darwin publishes his theories, Mendel breeds some pea plants, etc., all the way up through 1988 when Philip Leder and Timothy Stewart got the first patent on an animal (the unfortunate “oncomouse”, bred to be susceptible to cancer for the purposes of oncological research.) The fiction starts in 1993, with Biofusion patenting a new form of algae after their last effort was sold. 1995 sees “the first complete mapping of human DNA”, which- I believe we’re still working on. (This version is at least fairly inaccurate.) We see cloned organs in 2004, and the first successful use in 2013, while 2012 heralds the first cloned human brain, though it’s not used in a transplant until 2054. (The recipient survives but has to be re-educated as though from birth. So, you know, it has its ups and downs. One little note here- the one major genetic engineering milestone anyone in the 90s heard about was Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal to be cloned. That happened in 1996. There’s no real equivalent milestone in the timeline- the first “higher life form” is in 2156, but that’s a gorilla, so that may specifically refer to primates. Honestly the realities of genetic engineering are too complex for me to wrap my head around so I’ll stop trying to compare the timeline with reality. Anyway, in the world of XXVc, genetic engineering hits a major snag in 2065 with a lot of people starting to question the ethics of it, until the gorilla cloning a half century later (which is done in secret on Mars.) The first attempt at a human clone is in 2172, but they die in gestation. In 2182 we see the first successful attempt (she lives for seventeen years before dying in a rocket crash), and the first official artificial life form, the Venusian Mud Turtle, is introduced in 2186. The following year we see the first geneticaly altered humans, and many firsts follow (including the introduction of the Delph.) The 23rd Century sees humans on the Inner Worlds start manipulating their genes to combat the effects of low gravity. In 2217 the System States Alliance tries to restrict genetic manipulation, but progress continues regardless, partly in secret. RAM creates the first terrines in 2268, and in 2275 they go to war. Once RAM wins the floodgates are open, we see the first Ringers, Stormriders, Spacers, and further variations on the Terrine, as well as some interesting animals we’ll see later. The most recent achievement is in 2455, when RAM creates the Terrine Mark II genotype (which we’ll see later) to try and hunt down the “Barneys” created almost two decades earlier. Their creator wins an award in a rushed ceremony, presumably the First Annual Simund Holzerhein Award For Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence. And that about sums it up. This was a tricky section to cut down but it’s a decent reference at least. Next time we’ll be looking at notable figures in the field! Some of whom are still alive! Maxwell Lord fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Jan 28, 2021 |
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Jan 28, 2021 09:52
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It's not the only problem but MAN the art of the Paranoia comic doesn't fit. It's trying to be 2000 A.D. and like Judge Dredd but in Dredd stories everyone knows poo poo's bad and sucks, again, the whole point of Paranoia is people are too afraid to say poo poo or think wrong and you have to pretend everything's okay even as it's falling apart in front of you.
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Jan 31, 2021 06:43
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Arcanuse posted:The more I look at the paranoia comics the more confused I get. When was this comic again? I get the feeling the writer and the artist just weren't familiar with the material that much.
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Feb 2, 2021 08:09
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Here the designer does plenty of abstraction, just in weird and seemingly random places. There's no real thought to the kind of experience he's trying to give.
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Feb 11, 2021 08:03
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century No Humans Allowed Great Minds of the Times: Tonight, on Biography The next chapter is devoted to biographies of great geneticists. This is a very odd decision, as a great number of figures listed here are dead and cannot have any impact on the campaign going forward, nor do they really provide plot hooks. I feel this reflects the time this was written, a lot of RPG books of this era didn’t feel a need for their background info to be immediately useful, just so long as it fleshed out the setting. (I mean this still happens now, but back then it was endemic.) There are fifteen great scientists detailed here, and the ones that are still alive at campaign start do get full statblocks, so there’s some utility. We go in alphabetical order. Born on Mars, Mikeil Andropov (2266-2339) was a prodigy, starting young and hyped up by the text as some kind of super-genius. Before he was 20 he created the Saturnian Ringers (cyborg clones we’ll meet later), and was the first to synthesize DNA from silicates instead of carbon. Near the end of his life he began work that would eventually create the first humans ever to live in space without needing suits. He died before the first Spacers were born, but the genotype wouldn’t have happened without him, and he posthumously received the Tyrell Memorial Prize for it. Leonard Bronsk (2195-2238?), born in Moscorg on Earth, has a more interesting story. His major creation was the Woolsheep, a sheep which ate less food and produced more meat and wool; this meant a lot, as Earth was suffering major food shortages at the time. Shortly after receiving the Tyrell prize for his work, Bronsk disappeared. His wife was charged with arranging his abduction and murder on behalf of RAM, but authorities couldn’t produce any evidence. She did, however, become substantially richer after he vanished. Samuel Denning is the first NPC you might actually run into. He’s a 111-year-old Venusian man, walking with a cane and possessed of a biomechanical arm that can still pack a mean wallop. He prefers not to fight, though he is fond of smacking people’s butts with his cane if they piss him off. (This does no damage but is funny.) He worked on the Venusian Manta, a silicon-based life form used to help terraform the Venusian atmosphere, but it’s not clear what really motivates or drives him now, and there’s no indication of what side he might take, if any, in the major conflicts of the Solar System. Mechanically Denning is a 23rd-level scientist with most of his career skills at or over 100, though his HP are capped at a reasonable 31. His THAC0 is an 8, though, so watch out.  Rahji Duhein(above), also still with us, received most of the credit for the Venusian Manta. He’s 100 years old but looks much younger due to liberal doses of Lifextend. He hasn’t produced anything big since the Manta, so he’s a bit forgotten. He’s also extremely paranoid; whenever he meets someone new, he makes a Wisdom check- on a failure he’s convinced they’re an enemy or corporate spy (it’s not clear what the result is if the character actually IS a spy). His computer doesn’t even connect to the Internet. Oh yeah he also carries weapons and is not afraid to use ‘em. Duhein is a 21st-level Scientist. Barbara Hall(1996-2032) was a weird, sad story. She grew up poor and hated it, and specifically hated her parents for being poor. She basically ignored them after she left home, and didn’t go to their funerals. She had a husband but he was an unemployed dick who just made fun of her (for some reason) and they divorced and somehow he got the children and alimony. She specialized in using micro-robotics in genetic work, developing the Microbyte as her Master’s Thesis. Her professor tried to steal the invention but she sued him and won. In 2020 she had a nervous breakdown, which, given last year, is totally understandable. She spent five years in a mental institution, went back to work afterwards, but died (for causes not listed) before her big experiment was completed. Alex Jalsey (2200-2239) was involved with Leonard Bronsk when he was developing the Woolsheep, and was responsible for whatever magic caused the sheep’s increased wool production. Bronsk’s wife Anne made a fuss at the awards reception, accusing the two of having an affair, and shortly after that Leonard disappeared. Soon after Anne was acquitted of his kidnapping/murder, Alex was found dead, apparently of natural causes.  Back to the living! Theo Jameson is a young hotshot Terran working for Kiyev Research. His big accomplishment is creating killer viruses. He’s got his own personal rocket, and after a kidnapping attempt he’s started carrying weapons. His THAC0 is 10, and yeah, so far all the statted Scientists have good attack ratings, which is just one of those things with a system based on AD&D. Theo is 18th level. Albert Madison (2185-2270) was born quadriplegic, and had to learn to type and work with his mouth. At 15 he’d already started research into total interactive prosthetics, work which would later influence the Ringer cyborg genotype and even the concept of the uploaded Digital Personality. He published his findings at 16 and won the Tyrell Prize at 21. After this he pivoted to teaching the ethics of genetic research, and his anti-gene-tampering views forced him to flee from his birth planet of Mars to Earth, where his work was influential on the first SSA rulings against genetic manipulation. He died before the war started. Bjorn Moseng (1972-2062) was born in Sweden but his family moved to the US “to live the good life” when he was 10. Specifically they moved to the Bronx. However, when Moseng graduated MIT Magna Cum Laude, the University of Stockholm offered him a six digit salary to come work for them, so back he went. He and his students began work on cloning organs in 2009, and in 2012 they succeeded in cloning the brain of student Inga Atkisson. They received no awards recognition, though, since someone discovered a new stable element that year and really, what’s one more brain?  (just as a side note this one picture looks really weird if you mirror it.) Michael Shae is another live one, a 28-year-old prodigy from Pavonis responsible for the Terrine Mark II. The Mark IIs, which can easily pass for human, were designed to hunt down and exterminate the Barney genotype, so he’s basically a war criminal. However he calls himself “a lover, not a fighter” and prefers to call his private security team (2d6 Terrine Guards) to deal with threats while he deals with his work and his three girlfriends. “Some think him a peerless womanizer, others a cad.” It is not clear what the distinction is. He’s an 18th level scientist, and a pretty good villain for the players to deal with. Sort of a Carter Burke type. Wayne Stratton (2003-2066) was born in Unalaska, Alaska (which does exist, I checked) and went to college at a university in Anchorage. He drifted from engineering to computer science. His big contribution to genetics, however, is the invention of the Risson Microscope, more powerful than any then-available electron microscopes and capable of viewing the atom itself. The original prototype was way too bulky and expensive to catch on, and he died two years after completing it, but his contribution is still duly noted. Frank Vale (1992-2020) led a short but interesting life. He led the team that mapped DNA in 2018, overriding the 1995 map- but of course their map was itself inaccurate and would later be overruled. However, he never lived to see his work become outdated. Vale was an insanely proud man, prone to avenge any insult to his honor, and carried around his grandfather’s pistols, challenging offenders to duels. In 2020 he finally challenged someone who outshot him.  Carlatta de Vries.dop is one of two digital Docs statted up here. The original Carlatta was born around 2228, and was digitized at 48. No word on when her original body gave out, but her digital personality used electronic subterfuge to seize control of the Aphrodite Genetic Engineering Group on Venus (natch). She puts on a very innocent, dowdy appearance, but is prone to blackballing employees and putting non-employees who stand in her way in the path of RAM’s Terrine squads. She’s a level 33 Scientist and has a ton of stats that will only be relevant in Digital Combat, which you may recall the PCs can’t do.  Remus Wydlin is a 71-year-old Belter living on the run ever since RAM seized his lab in the Jovian laGrange points. He was the creator of the Barney Class Terrines, and on learning RAM was going to seize his work, programmed a hatred of RAM into the last 40 he made. He’s actually a good guy, probably the only definitive good egg on this list. He doesn’t fight much himself but likes rigging up his lab with booby traps. He’s 20th level with very good stats overall.  Finally, there is David Zimmermann.dop, another DP. He’s the head of the Gennietek Corporation on Mars and hoo boy he’s a sick bastard, having caused over a hundred “accidental” deaths due to tampering with electronic systems. He likes entering the computers of a rocketship, causing havoc, and escaping before they self destruct or fly into the sun. It’s not entirely clear what his motives are, he may just be bored by this point. Again it’s tricky for the PCs to actually confront him but as an unseen menace he’s got potential. There we go! There are quite a few entries here that, while they make nice little character sketches, have little use in a game. I won’t begrudge a supplement a bit of short fiction, but I do wonder if Henson had a certain amount of space to fill and needed to pad things out. But then, that’s the thing, when you’re making a game setting it’s easy to come up with background material like this. Supplements at the time, especially, tended to put in a lot of stuff you’d never really come across in play. But we’re done with that. Next time, we’ll look at a bunch of genetic engineering firms. Be there! Or be somewhere else!
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Feb 14, 2021 00:48
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century No Humans Allowed Gennie Manufacturers, Part 1: Leave your resumé with the dog-man Now we move on to a chapter all about genetic engineering companies. This is a welcome step in terms of utility, as all these organizations are still running in the present of the game world and industrial espionage will likely form a part of any campaign. I’m just saying, they put all the Monster Manual stuff in the back half, so be patient, we’ll get there. First up is the Aphrodite Genetic Engineering Group, founded way back in 2180. They hold the distinction of A) being the first in the phone book and B) creating the first true genetically engineered life form, the Venusian Mud Turtle, released in 2186. They’ve been coasting on the success of this for years now, trying to develop another genotype that’s as hardy and useful as the Mud Turtle, without success. They’ve been keeping busy with helping GennieTek modify the Desert Runners. The current person in charge is Carlatta de Vries.dop, who was described last chapter. Don’t get on her bad side. (Note: The PCs will get on her bad side.) There follows a map of AGEG’s headquarters, located at Maat Mons, which was the site of the Venusian space elevator that RAM destroyed. Only the main building is detailed, with security and maintenance having their own structures, but what’s here is pretty comprehensive and would make a good generic “genetics lab” map for any adventure where it’s needed. There are 15 locations noted, notes on security procedures and what level of Access Card is needed to enter certain areas without alerting guards, and the big centerpiece is a room full of growth vats. AGEG policy is usually to pursue any legal offenses against it through the strict Venusian courts, but they’ve been known to indulge in “personal justice” as well, usually against corporate spies- arranging accidents, altering memories, and a nasty bit of identity theft known as “complete erasure” which deletes any record that you existed and makes you someone they can either kill or subject to genetic experiments without any problems. The entry ends with AGEG’s mailing address, and an unrelated but amusing sidebar advertising an employment service that implants skills in its customers so they can become anything from a Venusian Tour Guide to a Terrine Force Trainer. BioScience is located on Mars and is, naturally, RAM owned and operated. Founded in 2202, they were instrumental in creating the Martian genotype, addressing problems that befell early colonists of the red planet at the expense of limiting their ability to live and work on other worlds. BioScience is also behind the Terrine and Worker genotypes, and the less successful Whitefang, which we’ll meet eventually. BioScience is not the same as the RAM BioScience Division but they do have to work under their supervision, and most of this is done by Division director Durella Valmar, sister of Ardala. She gets a quick write up, basically she’s a little more science-y, less cunning, still evil. We also get a couple of fake employment ads for the company. DNA-Recon, Inc. was founded in the Aerostates in 2190, setting up shop in what was going to be a university. Late in the 23rd Century they were infiltrated by a RAM spy, who set off a low-level nuke in their genetic stores, ultimately killing over a thousand people (a hundred or so in the blast, the rest of radiation poisoning.) Now they’re in a more secure location and almost completely cut off from the outside world, with strict policies not just against Martian employees but also any Venusians who aren’t Aerostaters. Their main product is the kraken, a flying food animal herded by the Aerostaters, though the entry also says they created the Martian sand squid (which doesn’t match the squid’s entry.) They’ve also been in contact with the Stormriders, who seem to have been helping them increase kraken herd sizes while in return receiving… nobody’s quite sure yet. The Drakolysk Corporation is a newer company, founded in 2430, though rumor has it they’re a division of BioScience. Also Martian, they’re responsible for the Tinker, the Terrine Mark II, and they also produce Workers. They were the ones behind the attempt to destroy Remus Wydlin and his stock of “Barney” Terrine 1bs, but while they had Holzerhein’s report, al they really succeeded in doing was blowing up the lab and thus gaining no information on the rogue genotype. The Genetics Foundation located on Earth isn’t so much a firm as it is a governing body, in theory. It was founded in 2195 to regulate gennie development and manufacturing, and it technically still has this jurisdiction. (Though they have no control over cybernetic implants, biotech, etc.) The Foundation was actually dissolved when the SSA passed laws restricting genetic development, but when RAM won the war they reinstated the Foundation as a puppet organization. They don’t do ethical stuff anymore, they just regulate the patents on gennies that are submitted to them- no patent on a genotype is considered valid unless it goes through the Foundation. RAM, of course, can look at the genetic samples and documentation for any Foundation-registered genotype, and that’s why they keep them around. They’re apparently located in Boulder. GennieTek is BioScience’s chief competitor, and was founded in 2212. They call themselves the hardest working genetics firm in the solar system, and they can point to over five hundred different gennies created since they were established. The most famous of these is probably the Desert Runner, which was a massive project plagued by delays- originally slated for 2215, it came out in 2220, and in between the company was forced to lay off half their staff. Their stock only really fully recovered when they won a bid to manufacture Terrines with a license from BioScience. Other gennies they’ve manufactured include the Stormrider, the Crocospider, and the Jovian Ray. (They’re also credited with the Coyodorg but this appears to be another editorial slip-up, as the MM-style entry says they actually represent a natural evolution.) To put a pause in this at the halfway point, we’ll stop at Ishtar-Genesis, oldest of the Venusian companies. Ishtar-Genesis was actually born from the remains of Biofusion, a company that aided in the initial settlement of Venus. The Biofusion scientists sent to Venus set up shop, started growing bacterium, and have since focused exclusively on breeding animals for Venus to continue terraforming the planet. (They focus on low-intellect animals because of the revolt of the Lowlanders.) One of the most interesting things they’ve been doing is focusing on silicate-based life. We get stats for the new CEO, Mariana Almisan. She doesn’t actually have a proper class or level, she’s just a CEO with 10 hp, good mental stats, and a few skills. She’s described as a silver-haired woman (not clear if she’s old or if that’s just the style) who wears regal robes, and she’s very smart, and there’s no indication of her attitudes towards RAM, NEO, etc. Presumably like the company she’s focused on the terraforming to the exclusion of all other matters. Next post I’ll wrap up the companies and, since it’s a very short chapter, include some write-ups on Medical Equipment.
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Feb 27, 2021 02:32
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The 'Nam game just makes me wonder what the designer's interest even was. Like- he didn't have to make a Vietnam war game, or he could just make one about the air war if that's the one thing he's interested in. There's a feel that almost every mechanic is there because he feels there needs to be something. Laos and Cambodia are sorta there but not in any detail, there are a lot of abstractions but not to any coherent purpose. Just, why does it exist? You can pick any war, any battle.
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Feb 27, 2021 22:11
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century Gennie Manufacturers Part II, and Scientific Equipment: That Wilma is Some Gal Continuing on with corporations, and it’s interesting how long these firms have been in business, especially given the sheer social instability of the setting. Compare to today where many of the major companies that own everything are less than a century old and old giants go under all the time, unable to adapt to the needs of a changing market. Then again, this may be a side effect of CEOs becoming potentially immortal, RAM consolidating firms, etc. Kiyev Research, Inc. was established in 2182 by geneticist Barry Freeman, who was tasked by Earth’s government with creating a gennie to tend waning fish stocks. Eleven years later the company perfected the Delph, one of the biggest successes in the field. Not long after this, Freeman left for BioScience, and Kiyev levelled charges of kidnapping and brainwashing against the RAM firm. However, Freeman ultimately left BioScience and the industry of his own free will. Kiyev is also where Alex Jaisey created the woolsheep, and most recently it’s been the home of hotshot engineer Theo Jameson, who has created the TVS and GAV viruses. MercTech is the one Mercurian firm on the list, and didn’t start as a genetics company- they started out in 2332 making solar arrays and building the Mariposas, before pivoting to DNA work to help create the Mercurian basic genotype. They still do a lot of non-genetic work. Their other notable gennies are the Depthines, who live on the deep ocean floors of Earth, and the Alchemcat, a sort of uplifted housecat serving as a companion to Mercurian miners. Among other details we learn it’s a bad idea to try and steal from these guys- they rig every cargo ship and personnel transport with fusion detonators that, if set off, cause 12d6 damage and force a Radiation save to stay alive (to say nothing of whatever ship you were flying in no longer being there.) Your one protection is that depending on the distance from Mercury, it can take a while for the detonation signal to arrive at its target. Riding With Death scenario, anyone? The Oberon Genetic Engineering Group is a newish company situated on Oberon, in the dark shadow of Uranus. Established in 2436, it treats its scientists and gennies as co-workers helping run the station and work on developing the powers of the mind. It’s almost a co-op, but divided into three Fraternities, with the Scientists in one house, the telekinetic Alpha Sidhe in another, and the non-psychic Sidhe in another. (Sidhe is pronounced SHE by the way.) The scientists have the most freedom, while the psychic Sidhe have the least. People can leave whenever they wish, but they’re instructed to keep silent regarding everything they’ve seen and anyone who blabs tends to get their memory erased. They also mindwipe people who turn down employment offers, so before sending that resumé out, think about your career path. Pacificus is… well it was an undersea station located near the Marshall Islands on Earth While the listed inception years is 2440, the description says it was created in the late 22nd century by Dr. Ramon Antilles. Apparently they were the real creators of the Delph, but Kiyev I guess got credit for the finishing touches? I think editorial missed a bit here. Anyway, the original Pacificus station was destroyed by a reactor meltdown, rendering most of the Marshalls uninhabitable, but also releasing a lot of gennies into the wild. including the sharcs (human-shark hybrids). Basically the RAM-held company is still up to its tricks somewhere on En-We-To, which is the one habitable island, and all this is specifically tied into the module Buck Rogers in the 25th Century which I don’t think I have. Anyway, they’re still hiring. RAM-Gene, established in 2280, is one of the more low profile companies. Their stock is cheap but only a small percentage of it is on sale to the public anyway. They’re responsible for the Ringers, the cyborg inhabitants of the Saturnian rings, as well as the Europan, the Ganyman, and the birdlike Talan. They have a strict Martians-only hiring policy. Finally there’s Wydlin Genetics, another company whose original HQ is out of operation. They were stationed at Jupiter’s L-5 point, where founder and owner Remus Wydlin- the hip old dude we met earlier- developed the Barney class Terrine, and turned them against RAM before freeing them. The Drakolysk Corporation led the raid that destroyed the Wydlin Genetics lab, but Remus Wydlin’s body was never found, and yeah he’s probably still out there, as are the Barneys. The chapter actually ends with a short guide to the Interplanetary Employment Register Application, which is a form just about everyone fills out applying to anywhere. The form itself is replicated in smallish text on the following pages, and it’s really just a fun bit of flavor, requiring applicants to list their contact information, references, if they can speak Sand Squid, whether they’ve got any talons or suction cups, radiation level preferences, etc. I particularly like the section marked “list all friends, relatives, and acquaintances, whether alive or deceased; digress three generations.” They give you six lines for that. It’s a goof, and a goof I approve of. And now the Bonus Chapter, giving us new and exciting Scientific Equipment. This is literally three pages, so I decided to get it out of the way here. Blood Coagulant costs 100cr per dose, and stops all bleeding in the area to which the compound is applied within 1d4 rounds. It doesn’t replace HP, but will save someone from bleeding out. (The rules don’t really cover that but eh.) Also if you use it on someone who isn’t bleeding, you’ve got a 25% chance of causing a nasty clog, though it’s up to the GM what that means. Microbytes are basically what we call nanomachines now, tiny robots capable of entering human cells and doing stuff. Making one is a complex process involving magnetic fields and stacking tiny sections of material, and each individual ‘byte costs 18,000cr, plus 5,000 for each duty it’s supposed to do and any sensors it needs. Antibody Microbytes (also called ABMBs) roam the body looking for viruses and bacteria, basically a more active immune defense system- but there are also Viral Microbytes which can be very aggressive and lethal viruses. Janitorial Microbytes are used to clear up various unhealthy buildups and blockages in the body, like cholesterol, cataracts, lymph problems, etc. Peripheral Microbytes help repair electronic or cybernetic implants. Genetic microbytes are the most relevant to the book’s subject- they enter cells and alter their DNA, and can even reproduce. In fact RAM at some point developed a series of reproducing microbytes that became cancerous growths in the bodies of test subjects. Finally, Hunter Microbytes are programmed to search out and destroy other microbytes in a system. The last bit of tech here is the Growth Vat, which is what’s used to grow Gennies. They have a base cost of 64,000 credits, plus 10,000 for the embryonic fluid (which has to be replaced), 5,000 for cleaning, and 400 credits per day for maintenance and electricity use. Gotta spend money to make money. The next chapter will all be about the mechanics and procedures of genetic engineering! Get ready for more than you could possibly want to know about lab procedures and the rules of organ cloning! Maxwell Lord fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Mar 12, 2021 |
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Mar 11, 2021 09:04
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century No Humans Allowed Genetic Mechanics: Are You Blind When You're Born? Roll d100 This chapter starts out by pointing out the obvious: whenever the Referee needs a gennie, they can create one, and they always succeed at doing so. Actually doing the mechanical work of gennie creation was broken down in the core rules, so this is more a detailing of the in-universe procedure, plus some rules to see if the gennie turns out as intended. I think this is more useful as flavor- if the PCs get involved in ferreting out secret RAM genetic projects and the like, it’s nice to have details to flesh out what they might find. There are six major ways of altering a lifeform. Cloning allows for very close copies of existing life. Genetic invention is building an organism from the ground up, like the silicon-based Venusian Manta. Bacterial manipulation uses bacteria to alter a cell. Microbytic manipulation uses the microbytes introduced last chapter. Irradiated manipulation is radiation exposure, which is very random and not commonly used. Finally there’s genetic splicing, in which scientists actually snip out part of a cell’s DNA and replace it with DNA from another organism. Whatever the process, the altered genes have to be placed in a receptive egg cell. Genetic cloning starts with extraction of material from the organism to be cloned; usually cells from the digestive tract or fatty material, because such cells are warmer and “less traumatized”. This part is a Difficult roll against the Biology skill, and causes one point of damage to the organism being cloned- 1d4 if the scientist botches. The cells have to be kept in a dimly lit place under sanitary conditions, before being placed in a growth vat. Clones have a chance to have something go wrong in the gestation process- the Referee rolls a d20 against the clone’s attributes, and a 20 on any roll reduces said attribute by one point. Organ cloning is also possible but RAW it’s more trouble than it’s incredibly difficult. There’s a Difficult Biology roll to extract the genetic material, a Difficult Bioengineering roll to actually clone to Organ, a Difficult Biology roll to freeze the organ if it has to be held or transported, an Impossible Biology roll to thaw it, a (thankfully Average) Treat Critical Wounds check to install the organ, and again if the organ has been frozen, a Difficult Biology skill to see if the organ remained viable or if it’s rejected. This section’s capped off with a summary of the chimbots and the Ringers, both of whom reproduce solely through cloning. Genetic Invention dates back to Mikeil Andropov in 2301, and is defined as the process of creating artificial genetic material, either in complete DNA strands or “stick ends” which can be spliced in. This allows for gennies to break one of the established rules of genetic manipulation, and actually have abilities not really found in the animal kingdom- Spacers’ ability to live in a vacuum being the chief example. Mechanically it’s a question of making an Impossible Gadgeteering check and an Impossible Bioengineering check. (I’m saying Impossible so much I’m now hearing bits of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella in my head.) Creatures with invented genetic structure can only reproduce with their own kind, so a scientist has to either create mated pairs or get cloning. Bacterial Manipulation is a tricky process because it involves creating the bacterium first, and each separate type of bacteria can only change one gene cluster, manipulating the “sticky ends” of unpaired nucleotides in a DNA strand. Creating the bacterium itself is an Impossible Bioengineering skill and costs 10,000 credits or above. The advantage to this is once you’ve created the bacteria you can replicate and reuse it repeatedly, making it more cost effective in the long run. The bacteria has a 55% chance of working on the cell it’s implanted in, and that’s only if it’s the right genotype- for genotypes it wasn’t created for, it’s 1%. Microbytic Manipulation uses all those microbytes we talked about in the last chapter. A microbyte can enter a cell nucleus and tinker with specific genes according to a program. This is similar to bacterial manipulation, but it needs both an Impossible Programming and an Impossible Gadgeteering check, and at least 15,000 credits. The chance of success on implantation is higher, though, 65%, or 5% if it’s in the wrong genotype. Also a single microbyte can splice up to two clusters instead of one. If they’re just altering a gene cluster instead of replacing it, they have a 75% chance of success. Irradiation Manipulation is the practice of exposing something to radiation and seeing what happens. Needless to say the results are usually “kills the subject” but occasionally you get weird effects like the mutation of fruit flies or growing giant marigolds. In the 25th Century geneticists generally don’t do this, and no mechanics are listed. Radiation’s only used to test radiation resistance of new genotypes. Genetic Splicing is the process of directly clipping out one gene from one DNA strand and clipping it into another. This has actually been done, first by Paul Berg in 1973 in his study of viral genetics. The scientist makes a difficult Bioengineering Check to “cut” the DNA cluster from one organism and an Average Bioengineering check to “paste” it into another DNA strand. Non-critical failures (critical failure is a roll of 01-05) result in a mutation, rolled randomly on a table. Some of the mutations are actually helpful but most are pretty bad (stat decreases, irrational anger, stillbirth, etc.) The main drawback seems to be that you have to make sure to do this for every single little thing you’re changing in the organism, meaning you’d have to roll a bunch, meaning more chances for failure. The example they give here is, amusingly, creating a human gennie with the face of a housecat- you’d have to splice out the skin structure, hair growth, the nose, the eyes, glands, skull structure, etc. adding up to eight removals and eight splices, or sixteen dice rolls.  Anyhow, once all this is done you put the altered genes in a receptive egg cell and grow it in a vat. How long the embryo has to be in the vat depends on the weight of the finished gennie, at one day per pound. Halfway through this process the scientist makes a Difficult Bioengineering skill roll to determine if the gennie is viable; failure means it won’t survive. Once the gennie is matured, it has to be removed from the vat in 1d4 hours before it drowns. The scientist examines the gennie and makes another, Average Bioengineering check- this time failure just means there’s an unforeseen mutation, again on the failure side-effects table. Much like a human infant, any newborn gennie is pretty helpless and has to be taught everything from the ground up. They learn quickly, though, and the process takes 1d4 + 3 months, with the Charisma of the scientist/teacher acting as a modifier, potentially adding or removing up to two months from the training time. The last big thing in this chapter is a table of Genetic Alteration Ideas- things like Acute Sight, Retractable Claws, altered size, gravity tolerance, etc. Each entry lists the difficulty of the skill check, the cost of such an alteration, and the kind of technique you use to get it, be it manipulation, splicing, or genetic invention. (Manipulation can presumably be either bacterial or microbytic.) The chapter finishes off with an overview of the genetic engineering techniques and their specific skills and skill difficulties. A handy little reference. Chapter 6, “Construction Guidelines” is also worth getting out of the way quickly; it’s a reprinting of the genetic guidelines in the core set. Gennies are based on real abilities found in real organisms, you can’t grow something with three hearts and laser eyes, etc., and gennies are designed for a purpose, though in theory you could have a mad scientist NPC create a bunch of weird gennies for no reason. Once again you have a system that the players are unlikely to engage with, but this time I think some of the flavor helps flesh out what all those genetic engineering labs are up to and what you might find in them. And who knows, the PCs might just decide they want in on this business. It’s probably happened at least once. Next time, however, in the last chapter before the gennie write-ups, we get to rules you really can use: The Gennie PC!
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Mar 18, 2021 23:07
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century No Humans Allowed The Gennie PC: There's No Rule Says a Dog-Man Can't Play Basketball  This chapter’s short but it’s pretty vital and i can comment more on the mechanics presented. In some ways it seems to be deliberately “fixing” something the designers decided went wrong in the boxed set, and is focused on opening up the possibilities for gennie PCs as a whole. It doesn’t address all the issues but the fixes it makes were much-needed and I appreciate it for that. It starts with class restrictions. They start by listing the allowed careers for gennies in the box set. Spacers can only be Rocketjocks or Warriors, Terrines can only be Warriors, and Stormriders can’t be anything at all. So here they offer an alternative “for the referee to consider”- basically, only using the actual stat modifiers gennies are given, and the stat requirements for each career, to decide what careers are off limits. Under this system- well, almost everything’s open. It’d be simpler to say what’s not available. Ringers can’t be Rogues, a Devastator can’t be a scientist (and yes, some of the gennies we haven’t seen described yet), Ringers can’t be Rogues, Sharcs can’t be Rogues or Scientists, Oberon Sidhes can’t be Rocketjocks or Rogues, Mark 1a Terrines can’t be Scientists, and Workers can’t be Scientists or Rogues. That’s it. The noble Stormrider can be anything they want to be. This is pretty big for the time. AD&D still held to racial class and level limits as a way of “balancing” nonhumans and keeping them rare within game worlds, and while XXVc isn’t quite throwing all that out the window, it goes a lot further than you’d expect. Granted other games weren’t doing this sort of thing at all for the most part, but hey, TSR slowly catching up to the zeitgeist was the best you could manage. There is one error I see, in that I think the table is even more restrictive than the stat requirements would suggest. An Oberon Sidhe has a -5 to Dex, which means that the highest you can roll for Dexterity is a 13- but that does just meet the minimum for Rocketjocks and Rogues. Similarly the Rogue is off limits for the Ringer, but their one penalty- to Charisma- doesn’t lock them off from the stat requirements. Going strictly by numerical possibilities, only the Sharc, with its -6 to Charisma, is locked off from the careers which need a 13 Cha. This is a minor nitpick, though. The game even suggests that you should be able to swap around attribute numbers one point at a time to try and meet the requirements for a desired career. PC gennies ignore their genetic Hit Die Type and use what’s appropriate for their Career. A section on Career Skills and General Skills sums up the info that was a little scattered in the original Characters & Combat book, but doesn’t make any changes. There’s then a section on THAC0 which actually does make a certain revision/correction. In the core rules, the way THAC0 progression was split up, Medics, Engineers, and gennies with d6 hit dice end up actually getting better at combat more efficiently than Rocketjocks and Rogues, at least after the first three levels. (At level 3 a Rogue will have a THAC0 of 19 and a Medic will have one of 20, but at 4 a Rogue’s will still be 19 and the Medic’s will be 18, and is a bit faster from then on.)  This book presents a new table for THAC0s of all the careers (including Scientists) and gennies/creatures, and it goes all the way to level 39! Rocketjocks and Rogues’ THAC0 drops more consistently now, though Warriors and Scouts are still best. The “1 is an automatic miss” rule is still in effect. We get a movement table for all the gennies in this book, including animal types. There’s also a new summary of the Saving Throw rules, again not changing anything but presenting the information in a slightly more concise layout. Finally there’s a big rear end table for all the racial modifiers to saving throws using all the human gennies in this book, including some special resistances and other situations where characters are outright immune to some conditions. (Ringers can’t be suffocated or suffer from toxic gas because they’re cyborged into their suits, for example.) Since this book was one of the last products released for the line, I do wonder if they were not only fixing some rules but aware the end was near, and wanted to present a few final changes and summations for the sake of players who had stuck with them. There is an emphasis on making gennies more playable but it’s also sort of a soft revision/reorganization and I like that they were paying attention to those details. And this sums up the chapter. So! Soonish, we will finally be getting into the reason I wanted to do this book first- the Bestiary, starting with Human Gennies!
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Mar 27, 2021 17:59
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It is kinda neat when a setting has secret lore you have to kind of work out through exploration and piecing together clues like in video games like Dark Souls or La Mulana, but sometimes module writers just plain forget to have the information be something the players can access at all. And I could even see maybe working up backstory that the players will likely miss, but you the GM know it so you can know how the NPCs are going to react to things and have things work "fairly" according to those rules (some horror movies are like that). But too often it just comes off as something that doesn't have any effect on anything.
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Mar 29, 2021 21:45
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century No Humans Allowed Human Gennies: From Asteroid Miners to Slightly Different Asteroid Miners to the Prince of Atlantis And here at last is what they call “the good stuff”. Not that the rest of the book isn’t useful but this is why we’re all here. All the gennie entries in this book are done in the style of the contemporary AD&D 2 Monster Manuals: each critter gets a full page, a picture, a bunch of short info next to that picture, and beneath that data, some more detailed material. Here, the info includes the conceived purpose of the gennie, and a more detailed section on the genotype gives a history of their development. This is one of the things I really enjoy about the book, the gennies are mostly corporate products with weird stories behind how they were “manufactured” and introduced. This in turn adds an interesting theme to the setting, with large swathes of humanity being bred for purpose and owing their literal creation to large corporations. All the ones in this section, being based on humans, are presented with information for them as a PC race, with attribute and saving throw mods.  Asterminers are a good strange one to start us off, people designed to work on asteroids and survive long periods in a vacuum (there are actually a few of these, but I can believe different genetic companies trying different approaches to the same problem.) They’re apparently based on an amphibian genotype, which gives them the weird ability to store oxygen in liquid form in their cell tissue. They can also seal their mouth and ears, don’t have any noses, and their eyes have hard lenses over them. All this means they can live up to ten hours in a vacuum environment, and they have a +3 to suffocation saves afterward. They’re tall, heavy, warm-blooded and apparently not that bright. Their big disadvantage is they can only stand to live so long in a gravity well before their muscles start to deteriorate, at a rate of one point of Strength and Constitution each day past a week. They tend to live where they work, spending long shifts mining asteroids. They were created by RAM’s Bioscience division after a lengthy process. As a PC race, Asterminers have +3 to Strength, Dex, and Constitution, but -3 to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. As mentioned before they have near-total immunity to suffocation, as well as a +5 bonus to Toxic/Gas/Poison saves and a +2 vs. Explosion/Plasma. Their skin also gives them a natural AC of 5. They first appeared in a module called N.E.O. in the 25th Century.  Belters are another asteroid-mining gennie, and it’s kinda weird to see these two right next to each other. (Indeed this conceptual space is pretty crowded with the Spacers and Ringers being based on similar ideas.) They’re based on Terrans, but with various little modifications to adapt to working in zero-g. They have opposable big toes and brain modifications that let them use all their limbs independently and interchangeably. They’ve also been modified a bit to be psychologically suited to their isolated existence. Unlike Asterminers they need suits to survive in a vacuum. The main drawback for Belters is they can’t live comfortably in an environment with gravity greater than Luna’s- this apparently starts instantly, with them losing a point from Strength and Constitution each day. Belters live in a democratic anarchy with every Belter voting electronically on every issue via a link to Ceres; this is mandatory, and missing five votes in a row without an excuse can lead to imprisonment or not being able to buy food, air, etc. Otherwise they just independently mine for ore. They also are often hired as gunners and engineers on rocket crews, so long as they don’t spend too long in gravity wells and can maintain a link to Ceres. Mechanically Belters aren’t great. They have +1 to Strength, Dex, and Con, but -1 to Intelligence and Tech (why?) and -2 to Wisdom and Charisma. Their saves are better, though not as good as the Asterminers- they have a +5 vs. Extreme Cold, but -5 vs. Extreme Heat, +3 vs. Suffocation, +2 vs. Paralysis/Stun/Fall, +1 vs. Explosion/Plasma, but a -1 vs. Electric Shock. Neither is hugely viable as a PC race due to the gravity limitations.  Cadrites come to us via a supplement called The Belt. They were bred by scientists on Pallas apparently as a warrior gennie, with high strength and a servile hive mentality. Their hivemind is apparently based on telepathy, as they know everything one of them knows, and they can only really focus on following the orders given to them by their masters. Should a Cadrite be unable to fulfill their orders they can only sit and shake, and if they’re completely unable to work the hive cuts them off mentally and they die in 1-4 days. They don’t use weapons, relying on their fists, which deal 1d8 damage, and they always get two attacks per round. There are some weird mechanical inconsistencies with these guys. They get a +2 to Intelligence, but the Monster Manual data lists their intelligence as average. The text says they have a +2 to saves against heat and cold, but the actual saving throw listing gives them only +1 vs. Extreme Heat and -1 vs. Extreme Cold. That, and their listed Strength modifier is only +1. In fact, mechanically they’re again a little weak, with overall more penalties than bonuses. One last interesting feature is their resistance to electric shock- they only take half damage even if they fail a save, and if they succeed they take one-fourth damage. One last detail is that recently, newly bred Cadrites have been more independent, with a weaker link to the hive mind. The possibility of rebellion exists, which would be, well, a problem. Also I’m convinced that’s Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner up there. Three down! These are wordier than I intended but these entries have a lot. Fortunately we’ll be running into some of the box set races soon so those will be shorter.
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Apr 8, 2021 23:32
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century No Humans Allowed Delpths to Devastators: Sealions, Tiger Men of Mars, and Bears, oh my!  Delphs have the distinction of being the first major gennie created. They were bred to tend ranches of fish and kelp in Earth’s deep oceans, and while they can’t breathe underwater, they can stay underwater for up to two hours. They also have webbed fingers and toes and are double jointed, able to use their feet as a sort of tail when swimming. They were discussed a bit in the core box set, and there isn’t a ton of new info here. They still need to immerse themselves in water every eight hours, so there are still problems with having these guys as PCs, even if they’re mechanically quite good.  Depthines, from the supplement Earth in the 25th Century, are this concept taken a little farther. These humans were modified by RAM to live at the very bottom of the ocean, not only breathing underwater but withstanding the huge pressures found in the ocean depths. They were created to basically clean up and repair the damage done to Earth’s oceans by man; they clean up pollution, help the local sea life, etc. They have big underwater cities said to resemble Mesa Verde in Colorado. A Depthine can range from 4 to 9 feet tall, with a weight of 80 to 180 lbs. They have brown and gray skin and large eyes, and a mouth with a ridge of baleen. They speak something like English, but with various clicks and inflections to help project underwater. As PCs they have +3 to Constitution, -3 to Tech, -1 to Charisma, and +1 to Strength, Intelligence, and Wisdom. They’ve got pretty extreme save modifiers, +6 vs Extreme Cold and Suffocation, -6 against Extreme Heat, -5 against Electric Shock and Explosion/Plasma, +3 vs. Radiation, +2 against Poison and -3 against Paralysis/Stun. The big disadvantage Depthines have is they cannot take the lower pressures of the surface world. Without a pressure suit, when they reach any depth higher than 10,000 feet they suffer violent decompression. And they don’t have pressure suits, because RAM wanted them to stay in place and do their jobs. The Depthines crave contact with the surface world but it’s long been denied them. In the meantime they’re stuck fending off hostile sharcs and sea monsters, and living a very precarious existence. If underwater adventure is your thing these guys would be good allies/people in need of saving.  Desert Runners have been covered before, of course. RAM bred them as shepherds for various herbivores, and because many separate companies bought them for protection, they were made very territorial. They’re quite aggressive even in their own packs, with lots of competition to be packmasters. Probably the most viable gennie race, even with their need for breath masks.  But wait, there’s more! The Desert Runner Mark II is a variant genotype, specifically mixing in panther and cheetah genes to create a faster warrior caste. The Mark II’s job is to protect their pack, while the pack protects the animals. While the Runners as described had sort of a patriarchal society, Mark IIs are 90% female. They can breed with other Desert Runners and the offspring is usually a mix of both types (though 25% are full-breed one or the other.) They have a lower Strength bonus than normal Desert Runners but a higher Dex bonus, and actually a -1 to Constitution, but +2 to Wisdom and +1 to Charisma. Saving throws are a little better than Mark Is on balance. One side note here- the text names Mark IIs as having a natural armor class of 8, but the MM-style data lists their AC as 9. This is yet another weird inconsistency between numbers and I’m starting to see a pattern. Perhaps editing got a little lax as the line limped towards its conclusion? Then again, this kind of intense copy-editing has never been something RPG publishers are good at, especially in this time period, and TSR was no exception. A lot of the numbers are off is what I’m saying. Brings down the book a little but I’m already way more into the setting than the system.  But let’s finish up on something new. This WH40K-lookin’ guy is a Devastator, RAM’s latest supersoldier project, introduced in The Belt. They’re still in the prototyping stages and the book even says “If the welfare of free space is to be maintained, the development of devastators should be curtailed.” These guys are a mix of human, terrine, and grizzly bear, and the only things holding them back are a weakness to light and an unstable cell replication process that leads to accelerated aging. So far they only exist in RAM’s laboratories on Vesta, and they haven’t lived long enough to be transplanted anywhere else. Naturally their psychology is all about fighting and aggression, though they’re loyal to one another and need a strong leader to actually get things done effectively. So, a Devastator character has +4 to Strength and Dexterity, +5 to Constitution, -2 to Intelligence, -3 to Wisdom, and -1 to Charisma. They have good saves too, all positive or neutral with no penalties. However, in any light stronger than that of daylight on Mars, they can’t see. They also can’t perceive any color higher on the spectrum than green, but can see deeper into the infrared spectrum than most beings (though they can’t perceive heat signatures.) Devastators can go berserk for 1-4 rounds once per fight, doubling their attacks per round and giving them +2 to hit and +4 to damage, but with their AC penalized by 6. Devastators are obviously a plot monster more than anything else- the PCs must stop the RAM development of these guys before they become the strongest warriors in the solar system. That said I can also imagine a “freed” Devastator making a fun PC, just the group tank who always sticks out in social situations. (Though the Charisma penalty isn’t that big, a cool pair of shades could offset that and take care of the vision thing.) Coming up, we’ve got quite a few core book races still to deal with again, but a few new ones, including the long-talked-about Ganyman! (P.S. I am sorry this took so long, taking photos on my phone and transferring them to the computer isn't *that* much easier than scanning, and you'll notice they're a bit warped, but it does spare the book's spine!) Maxwell Lord fucked around with this message at 23:11 on May 6, 2021 |
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May 6, 2021 09:10
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century No Humans Allowed Europans, Ganymen, and Some Reprints: Something for the Jupiter Ascending Fans  Europans are dog people. There’s no getting around it. Terran genes are modified by husky, malamute, and similar dog genes, giving them thick fur in two coats. They also don’t have as many blood vessels near the surface of their skin as most humans do. Europans were designed to farm food for other inhabitants of the Jovian planetary system, but violent tempers meant they quickly fell into fighting among themselves, with multiple arcologies at war over fishing rights and kelp farm ownership. Europans get +3 to Constitution, +2 to Dex and +1 to Strt. They get -2 to Intelligence, -3 to Charisma, and -1 to Tech. A major weakness is to very bright light- they have to make a Constitution Check after getting attacked by heat or microwave weapons, or be blinded for 1d4 rounds. The upside is they have no penalty to fighting in near-total darkness. Their actual saves are interesting- they have ablative bonuses against Extreme Heat and Plasma Weapons, starting at +2 and being reduced by -1 by every successful hit (it’s not really clear whether this is permanent or if it’s meant to wear off.) The bonus doesn’t apply to Explosions. The one other weakness Europans have is their temper; if they ever feel wronged by someone, they have to make a Wisdom check or else immediately attack them. Europans are rarely found off Europa, owing to the constant tribal warfare and whatnot. Still the entry mentions adventurers, and given their relative lack of crippling physical drawbacks they make a pretty good choice for PCs. And I do like the idea of having someone from way far out on the setting's frontier.  Next up is the one and only Ganyman! The core set took us through the creation process of this gennie, and gave us a lot of information, but this collects it all in an easier reference. Ganymen live in the oceans under the icy surface of Ganymede, farming sea life. They run 9 to 10 feet, with scaly skin and gills. They have a matriarchal government consisting of an elected council of women, called The School- it’s not really clear why only women, there’s no other information on how their society treats gender. They’re very religious and hold life as sacred, trying to only farm as much as they need to. They’re pretty isolationist as a result, not wanting to get involved in the wars of the Solar System, but maintain ice bases on Ganymede’s surface for offworld trade. A Ganyman’s attribute scores are pretty balanced out- +3 to Dexterity, +2 to Strength and Constitution, -4 to Charisma, and -3 to Wisdom. They’re practically immune to extreme cold, with a +6 save to that, though they also have a -6 to saves against Extreme Heat. (All their other saves are at least +1 though.) Their major drawback is that they can’t leave the water, losing a point of Constitution per round out of the water, so they have even more reason to just stay where they are. Needless to say this also pretty much rules them out as PCs, barring the Referee allowing some new technology like a watersuit. The Ganymen also have very slippery skin, giving them a +4 AC bonus against grappling attacks. (Their natural AC is 4 so they’re pretty hardy.) The Ganymen’s cities are domed, despite them being water breathers- they do this to keep the algae farms and the like corralled. They rarely get visitors, so it’ll have to be some unique circumstance that brings the PCs to Ganymede. Still, as a gennie created entirely to show off the creation rules, they’re pretty interesting. Next up, we have entries for four player races, the Lowlander, Lunarian, Martian, and Mercurian. I was unsure how to handle this, so I’m going over my old entries and seeing if there’s anything I missed. Lowlanders are the same mechanically, but there are some combat notes- since you’re most likely to encounter them in the Venusian lowlands, they’ll usually use bludgeoning or slicing weapons to try and wreck their enemies’ protective gear. They can also bite for 1d6 damage. Lunarians get a few culture notes. They’re stubborn and aloof and live in bright, comfortable tunnel cities, though there are also domed palaces on the surface mostly used to greet off-worlders. (Again, they’ve got major problems with agoraphobia.) They all have a patch on their foreheads denoting an individual’s rank, status, and family, though this isn’t reflected in the art at all. Martians weren’t very good mechanically in the core set, so they’ve been tweaked a little here. Now they have +1 to Dexterity, +2 to Intelligence, and -1 to Strength and Constitution. Saves are also now a small net positive. The Martians generally hold themselves as the best of humanity, and the natural rulers of the solar system. There’s also some stuff here about the manager class, the “middle class” of RAM between the elites and the genetic slaves- they live in boxlike malls on the walls of Coprates Chasm, with very few amenities (not even restaurants or theaters, so a bit like, well, the world this past year.)  Mercurians don’t get much different, but I didn’t put up a picture before, so here’s a guy. Also worth noting the Desert Dancers carry their own version of a mono-knife, called a technodagger. Up next, some old, some new, as we continue the human gennies.
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May 22, 2021 20:13
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JcDent posted:Rift Centipede Did they seriously not put in any rules for eating the black meat of the centipede? Wasted opportunity.
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May 26, 2021 07:51
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Just Dan Again posted:Room 103: "The Screaming Face of My Wife" This I find hilarious. "I'll tell you what's terrifying and will make you collapse in tears, MY FREAKIN' WIFE!"
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May 30, 2021 19:52
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5e strikes me as an even more limiting choice than the various d20 attempts during the 00s. 5e is very much focused on being a game of Dungeons and Dragons.
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Jun 6, 2021 01:03
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century No Humans Allowed Human Gennies, Ringer to Stormrider: Jawsome!  Ringers are another attempt at creating a self-sufficient deep space genotype, like the Asterminer, Belter, and Spacer. As the name implies they were created to inhabit and mine the rings of Saturn, looking for minerals and hydrocarbons. They’re a race of cyborgs, wired into mechanisms that let them survive in open space for months on end, only needing to occasionally replenish supplies. Ringers are also clones, produced on Atlas; every so often a Ringer will travel to that moon to donate genetic material to create more clones. They view the whole “sexual reproduction and gestation” thing as pretty gross. In fact, they generally view other people as pretty gross; they’re the most solitary of the gennies by far, making the Belters look like a drat commune. They pretty much only tolerate the company of Chimbots, helper apes with similar cybernetic alterations. Mechanically the Ringers have all sorts of weird quirks. They’re immune to Suffocation and Toxic/Gas/Poison, and can live up to 50 + d100 days on their own in space without any power or supplies. They recharge at stations set up around the Saturn ring system, though presumably any source of power will do. They can even have weapons grafted onto their armor, but every time they fire them it drains a day’s worth of energy from the battery. Ringers have weird Strength and Dex modifiers based on the condition of their suits. For a Ringer NPC, the the referee is supposed to roll d8-4 two times to determine the positive or negative modifier for each of the two attributes. Ringer PCs roll a d4 twice to get their beginning bonuses. This feels needlessly fiddly. Anyway, on top of those modifiers, Ringers have +2 to Constitution, +3 to Tech, and -5 to Charisma due to their acute misanthropy. They have a +6 to saves vs. Extreme Cold, +2 vs Extreme Heat and Radiation, and -1 vs. Explosions/Plasma and Electrical Shock. Ringers seem like they may be decent PCs on paper, though there is the whole “you despise the company of anyone else” element. Then again maybe your clone is just different.  Sharcs have been referenced before in this book, and they don’t disappoint. Look at that guy! That’s just a walking shark! That rules. Anyway, sharcs are modified terrines, like a cross between terrines and delphs, designed to operate in the ocean. They’re seven feet long, 300 pounds, and are loving sharks. Their one big disadvantage is they move very slowly not in the water, and have to either be immersed in brine or ingest ten gallons worth of the stuff every 12 hours. So they are sadly not true landsharks. A Sharc has a natural armor class of 5, 3d10 hit dice, and they can deal 1d12 damage just by attacking with their jaws. In what absolutely has to be a typo they’re given a -2 to Strength, but also a +1 to Dexterity, +2 to Con, -3 to Intelligence, -4 to Wisdom, and -6 to Charisma. They also have pretty decent saves all around. In combat they like to encircle their opponents, with as many as four going after one victim. The sharc (first appearing in the module Buck Rogers in the 25th Century) was created by RAM scientists on the island of En-We-To, but they quickly got out of control and took over the surrounding waters. Their primary interest is in attacking the delphs, whom they hate instinctually. RAM insists they didn’t create the sharcs to genocide the delphs but, well, yeah. Sharcs seem to make a pretty solid monster enemy. There’s enough focus on sea life in these pages that I think you could set a good portion of a campaign underwater.  Sidhe, Oberon is the next entry, and it’s pronounced SHE. They were created by the Celtic firm known as the Oberon Genetic Engineering Group, or OGEG, which we covered a while back. Why specifically they’re Celtic I dunno, we haven’t heard much about Ireland’s role in the world of the future, maybe they’re a major player. Anyway, the Sidhe are humans modified for heightened intelligence and mental powers. They look like regular folk who tend to go bald early (they don’t say whether this applies to the women.) The drawback to being such incredible nerds is that they’re quite physically weak, and can’t tolerate gravity higher than Luna’s, losing a point per dayfrom already-low Strength and Constitution scores under higher gravity. The most talented among them can deflect bullets and the like, but they can’t affect light so lasers and the like are still useful. So, Sidhe have +7 to Intelligence, +6 to Wisdom, and +3 to Tech, but -4 to Strength, and -5 to Dexterity and Constitution. They have no bonuses or penalties to Saving Throws. They also receive a modifier to their Armor Class obtained by subtracting their Intelligence from 16 (so, 17 reduces their AC by 1 and lower is better, you get the idea.) Sidhe telekinesis is based off their Int as well, for each point of Intelligence they can “lift” one ounce of material for one second. They can also throw objects as attacks but that only causes one point of damage. The Sidhe mostly want to be left alone on their facility on Oberon, where they continue their research and develop their abilities. Those who don’t make the elite “Alpha School” can leave when they reach maturity, if they want to, and those that do pass themselves off as Terrans and live normal lives, keeping their background a secret. They often end up working as scientists, geneticists, etc. on low-gravity worlds. The neutrality of the Sidhe and their desire to just not be bothered does leave them without immediate plot hooks but I can see conflicts erupting if any of the major powers finds out about them. They’re a solid concept. Spacers are unchanged from the core set. Their dependence on solar power means they need artificial energy sources to survive further out than Jupiter, and when they’re closer to the Sun than the Earth they can suffer from hyperactivity because of all the energy they’re absorbing. (This has no mechanical description so may just be for roleplay.) They only “eat” ice and water through their mouths, though they can also ingest powdered rock for some reason. They “breathe” through small holes under their jaw. I got a bit of detail in the original Stormrider entry wrong! Their stats, in the core box as well as here, are +2 to Strength and Constitution, and -2 to Dexterity and Tech. They do however have a Charisma penalty dealing with other races… only they don’t say how much. They still have the same restrictions regarding their breathing apparatus, but do have good unarmed attacks, dealing 1d6 damage (most everyone else does 1d4). The book notes that they have an active trade with the Venusian Aerostates, and most of their trade outside of Jupiter is for technology. We’re almost at the end! The last entry will feature a couple of new species, a bunch of old ones, and a whole bunch of Terrines.
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Jun 6, 2021 01:13
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Even if the City of Brass has its roots in the Arabian Nights, did they have to play up the connection this much? Most incarnations of it I've seen in D&D don't really lean on that beyond the efreets- it's honestly kind of its own thing (and different from what's described in the story). You could argue that's a form of appropriation but I think the approach in, say, Manual of the Planes is preferable to explicitly Arabic coding of a place inhabited by evil fire demons.
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Jun 9, 2021 07:01
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Robindaybird posted:Unfortunately it attracted a lot of stupid and where there's a lot of stupid people, the con artists dive in to keep the stupid going. They didn’t foresee how important it would become to right wing politics, especially once the tide turned on segregation.
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Jun 20, 2021 00:37
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Buck Rogers XXVc: The 25th Century No Humans Allowed The Last of Human Gennies: Handsome Boy Assassin School  Talans are bird people. Specifically they’re combat gennies made by RAM to excel in zero-gravity environments. The nonhuman genes are mostly from raptors, eagles, falcons, etc. RAM didn’t count on the Talan being highly intelligent, though, which does limit their usefulness to them, since RAM likes its soldiers dumb and obedient. The Talan first appeared in the Sargasso of Space module, which I might delve into later. Talan are short and light, ranging 4-5 feet tall and under 100 lbs. Mechanically they have +3 to Dex, +1 to Intelligence, Constitution, and Tech, but have -2 to Strength, Wisdom, and Charisma. Save adjustments are all in the +/- 1 category. They can’t fly, but they were designed to be at ease in zero gravity, so have an automatic Maneuver in Zero-G rating of 60%; if they’ve received RAM training this goes up to 95%. (People who remember the derelict mission in Countdown to Doomsday are seething with envy right about now.) They have a +2 AC bonus against ranged weapons in free-fall, and an additional +1 bonus to AC because they’re small; their base AC is 5, so good luck hitting these bastards. They can use weapons with their hands or feet, which gives them a 50% bonus to the number of times they can attack in a round- so if they normally can only attack once, then they can attack three times in two rounds, if they have 3/2 already that goes up to two attacks a round, etc. This again only applies in zero-G. Similarly while they move at 300 feet per round in gravity, that increases to 450 in microgravity. The book doesn’t really say anything about Talan existing outside of RAM facilities, but they do have a culture based on a strict pecking order; no two Talans have equal status, and they always know who’s above them and who’s below them. One imagines there being Talan mean girls. They do things in quick, jerky motions and cock their heads to the side when listening. So my one complaint here is basically that they created a race of bird people- always a good thing to have in your space opera- but confine them to being RAM special ops troops. I say let ‘em loose and find a good place for bird culture somewhere. They’re also one of those gennie types that would make good PCs since they lack any onerous survival requirements and even out of zero-G are basically fine (if a little slow-moving.) We move from Talans to Terrans! Yep, Humans. There is… really nothing new here, same stats and all. Still baseline generic. They have an aversion to genetic reconstruction and see themselves as “true humans” but, according to the book, aren’t bigoted about it the way, say, Martians can be. And of course there may be individual humans who’ve gotten work done, they’re not a monolith. And that’s it. Moving on! Terrine, Mark Ia, Standard is the Terrine from the core set; again, mechanically they’re unchanged. Most of the text is also copied from the core book with slight rephrases here and there. Look, TSR has a lot of products to put out this quarter and there’s just nothing new to say. Not for these Terrines, anyway…  The Terrine, Mark Ib, Barney Class has been talked about before in this book, the genotype that went rogue and caused RAM to blow up the lab they were made in. The Barneys were developed as assassins and guerillas, made to look as human as possible so they’d blend in easily. They were also given titanium skeletons because I guess Remus Wydlin was a big Wolverine fan but couldn’t make the claws work. They’re all muscular and agile but otherwise don’t look alike. Mechanically, a Barney has +3 to Strength and Con, +2 to Dex, +1 to Charisma, and -2 to Wisdom. Their saves are even better than a regular Terrines’, and they have a natural armor class of 7 and do 1d4+2 unarmed combat damage. Apparently all of them also carry retractable wrist daggers which do 2d4+3 damage on a hit, so hey, we got something like those claws after all! Obviously the main disadvantage of a Barney is they’re specifically hunted by RAM, so if they ever manage to identify one they’re gonna have everyone on their trail. But then, that’s a regular PC after a few sessions. There were originally 150 Barneys created, and in the chaos of the destruction of the Wydlin facilities, it’s estimated about 40 live in the wild. One of them is of course Black Barney, notorious pirate, and many of them have also turned to piracy. Like other Terrines they were originally bred to eat food paste and live in barracks, and most still lead pretty spartan lives, but some prefer to live large. Overall I kinda like the idea of a “hidden” gennie that has to be secretive about who they are. They’re maybe a bit too OP to be PCs, but otherwise they’re a nice touch.  And speaking of hidden gennies, the Terrine Mark II is a second try at the whole “covert assassin/infiltrator” model. All the shark genes and whatnot were toned down to make the Terrine look as human as possible, while still being near-perfect physical specimens. Mark IIs have +3 to Charisma, +1 to Tech, and +2 to all other attributes. Their saves aren’t quite as good as the Barneys, but they do have retractable claws which can attack twice per round for 1d6+3 per hit. Unlike other Terrines they don’t have any natural AC bonuses, though. Like other Terrines, the Mark IIs are raised in a rough, ruthless culture that prizes survival of the fittest. They’re raised to believe they are the second highest form of life, behind RAM Martians. They get snazzy uniforms and even individual names, which regular Terrines don’t. These guys would be harder to fit in as PCs, but as infiltrators and spies they’re brilliant- not so much more powerful that you daren’t use them at low levels, just an interesting threat to bring in and make everyone paranoid. (Also something I didn’t know before this that “terrine” is also the name of a kind of French dish. It’s kinda like aspic, sort of a chilled loaf, usually meat or seafood, that can be cooked later.) The rest of this chapter is all races from the core books. Tinkers have all the same stats as before, so let’s get into some stuff I missed: Tinkers live in Nests, small groups of five to ten individuals; the Nest itself usually just starts as a single room, but branches out into ducts and passages and just keeps growing. Tinkers are natural hoarders and love the comfort of being surrounded by stuff they’ve gathered. They’re mildly agoraphobic and must make a Wisdom check for every 24 hours in a wide open space, but neither this nor the core rules say what happens if a check is failed. Venusians don’t really have new info, and neither do the Workers, though I can finally put up an image for these guys. Seriously the text is basically the same for all of these, it’s just been arranged differently.  Time for go to bed! So an anticlimactic ending for the chapter, but there’s another big batch to go. The next chapter is Animal Gennies, and we haven’t seen any of these before! Stay tuned!
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Jul 14, 2021 07:34
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