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Author: Patrick Kanouse

Diceless Adventuring: Bounty Hunter

Diceless Adventuring: Bounty Hunter

For the past three years, Kickstarter has had an annual event known as Zine Quest:

Our annual Zine Quest prompt bestows creators with this valiant mission: Bring your RPG to life with maps, adventures, monsters, comics, articles, and interviews. To participate, launch a two-week project for a single-color unbound, folded, stapled, or saddle-stitched RPG zine on A5 or smaller paper. 

The zines tend to be small in size, and thus relatively inexpensive. This year, I participated, purchasing a few supplements for Mothership (you can read my review of this RPG here) and Mörk Borg along with a few full-fledged RPGs. One of these was Bounty Hunter, which I received in PDF and hard copy a few weeks ago.

The game was created by Guy Sclanders, a personality on YouTube who offers often excellent advice for gamemasters (GMs) and reviews on his How to Be a Great GM channel. Bounty Hunter focuses on an original setting and a non-traditional mechanic for RPGs: it is diceless.

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Co-op Adventuring in Dungeons & Dragons

Co-op Adventuring in Dungeons & Dragons

When I started playing RPGs all the way back in the early 1980s, I did not have a group of players at my age to play games with (well, at least none that I ever found). Hence, I subjected my brother to Traveller and Star Frontiers — and eventually Marvel Super HeroesTwilight: 2000, and others. RPGs had always presumed that the game would have a game master (GM) — sometimes called Dungeon Master, referee, storyteller, keeper, and others — and the players.

The GM is largely responsible for crafting the story, running all the non-player characters (NPCs), adjudicating the rules, and responding to player decisions by adjusting the story as necessary. Hence, I acted as the GM and my brother played the characters in the story. Typically, far more players are looking for GMs to run games than GMs hanging around without players. This is, of course, highly dependent on the games being run, location, and so on. With online gaming, it is usually more challenging to coordinate time zones.

That said, GMs may have trouble finding players to play anything but the giant of all RPGs, Dungeons & Dragons. However, D&D often serves as a gateway to other RPGs, and the incredible success of Cyberpunk Red and Aliens shows that as more players enter the hobby, a fair number are willing to expand beyond the D&D horizon.

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Reckoning: Twilight: 2000‘s American Campaign, Part III

Reckoning: Twilight: 2000‘s American Campaign, Part III

This is the third of three articles covering GDW’s published adventures in the “American Campaign” for Twilight: 2000’s first edition. The first, “From the Mountains to the Oceans,” can be read here, Part 2 is here.

The final three adventures of Twilight: 2000’s American campaign leap from Pennsylvania to Los Angeles to Baja Mexico. Twilight: 2000, GDW’s apocalyptic World War III RPG first released in the 1980s, always kept a firm eye on the individuals — usually US soldiers negotiating this challenging environment — while incorporating broader events. For the American campaign of adventures, the primary broader event has been the rising power of New America — a fascist tyranny run by the mysterious Charles Hughes — using its power and the competing US government’s two halves (MilGov and CivGov) to establish control over ever more area. New America has been a prominent opponent in the earlier adventures Airlords of the OzarksUrban Guerrilla, and Gateway to the Spanish Main.

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From the Mountains to the Oceans: Twilight 2000‘s American Campaign, Part II

From the Mountains to the Oceans: Twilight 2000‘s American Campaign, Part II

This is the second of three articles covering GDW’s published adventures in the “American Campaign” for Twilight: 2000’s first edition. The first, “Going Home Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be,” can be read here.

For the characters at the start of their adventures in Twilight: 2000 — presuming they start with the default location in Poland — the situation in America is essentially unknown. They may learn more clearly that the United States government has split into competing units: the so-called MilGov and CivGov. However, the nature and extent of the collapse of society and the rising of powerful alternative forces would largely be unknowable.

The nuclear strikes against America overwhelmed governmental services either because they were taken out in the strikes (the main body of the federal government), the vast quantity of desperate refugees put civilian leaders in no-win situations for shelter and food, or the collapse of the intricate infrastructure of food production and delivery stripped civilian government of any authority as people turned to baser instincts for survival. Even the Roman emperors understood the importance of food supplies and ensured that the citizens of Rome had free supplies of bread.

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Going Home Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be: Twilight: 2000’s American Campaign, Part I

Going Home Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be: Twilight: 2000’s American Campaign, Part I

This is the first of three articles covering GDW’s published adventures in the “American Campaign” for Twilight: 2000’s first edition.

The published adventures for Twilight: 2000 did not stop with the players returning home in Going Home, the final adventure in what is referred to as the Polish Campaign. A series of nine adventures followed, all set in the United States — or what the United States as become the setting. The first three published adventures, Red Star/Lone StarArmies of the Night, and Allegheny Uprising presume the players did manage to return to the United States from Europe.

Unlike the linked — albeit loosely — adventures of the Polish Campaign, with its opening escape, fleeing to Krakow, working toward Warsaw, and then eventual crossing into Germany, these three first adventures of the American campaign exist independently. An enterprising game master (GM) and players could find a way to connect them, though the distances are vast — particularly for Red Star/Lone Star and the other two — at least vast in a post-apocalyptic world.

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Disaster Adventure in Space: Coriolis’ The Last Voyage of the Ghazali

Disaster Adventure in Space: Coriolis’ The Last Voyage of the Ghazali

How does one present a science fiction roleplaying game to a group to introduce both the setting, the basic mechanics, and give a good flavor of how it will run yet extend beyond the typical rulebook starter adventure? Free League Publishing’s Coriolis is called “Arabian Nights in space,” and its tone and setting are evocative and fresh. Set far in the future in an area of space called the Third Horizon, humankind lives and thrives on a variety of planets and space stations. While many factions exist, one major divide is omnipresent: the Firstcomers and the Zenithians. The Firstcomers fled the Second Horizon, and after a decades-long war called the Portal Wars, were eventually cut off from that area of space. Meanwhile, centuries before the portals that allow travel among the stars were found, a generation ship called Zenith left Earth for the star called Kua. Once there, they found the Firstcomers.

With its Middle Eastern aesthetic, its religious undertones (a number of icons are revered — or not — among the population), and the Emissaries — mysterious entities who recently appeared and seem to be associated with the Icons — the game has more than the traditional Western culture-based science fiction setting many RPGs call home. Introducing a playing group to the game can be a challenge, and that’s where The Last Voyage of the Ghazali comes in.

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Exploring Degenesis Rebirth: Primal Punk

Exploring Degenesis Rebirth: Primal Punk

Degenesis Rebirth is an RPG that keeps calling me. It’s an ear worm of the imagination. The developer, SIXMOREVODKA, has launched a fabulous website that features an interactive map, timeline, stories, audio clips, and more. It is as rich and in-depth as the books themselves and also, like the digital copies of the game, all free. The world is so rich, in fact, that one struggles at times to deal with it all.

Degenesis Rebirth is a post post-apocalyptic game. In 2073, Earth was bombarded by a number of asteroids that was as close to an extinction event without quite doing the human species in. The people of this world call the event the Eshaton. For hundreds of years, humanity struggled with the new reality and sudden shifts in the world. The game focuses on Europe and North Africa, so we know that the plummet in temperatures set off another ice age. The drop in sea levels cut the Mediterranean off from the Atlantic. The Adriatic Sea between Italy and Croatia largely disappeared. The Sahara has bloomed with vegetation and life.

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The Psionic Masters: The Zhodani in Traveller

The Psionic Masters: The Zhodani in Traveller

When Traveller first released in 1977, it did not have an official setting. This quickly changed with the introduction of the Third Imperium, a large, multi-star system empire. While alien species like the Hivers, Droyne, Aslan, Vargr, and K’Kree — out of many — are prominent features in many Traveller campaigns, the fact is that the Imperium is human dominated. And the Imperium’s two major foes, the Solomani Confederation and the Zhodani Consulate, are human dominated.

Part of the setting’s lore is that the so-called Ancients took humans from Earth and seeded them throughout what is called Charted Space. Often, the humans have been altered radically for the environments. Cafadans, Darmine, Darrian, and others were either altered by the Ancients or adapted to their environments and managed to survive after the Ancients destroyed themselves in a cataclysmic war.

The Zhodani, however, occupy a special place in the Traveller setting. While transplanted by the Ancients, they discovered the faster-than-light jump drive on their own accord. More importantly, they are the only human society that incorporated psionics into their culture and government. This has had a profound effect on them and on the Imperial perception of them when the two civilizations clashed in the Spinward Marches, a designated area of space.

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Twilight: 2000‘s Polish Campaign: Part III

Twilight: 2000‘s Polish Campaign: Part III

The Black Madonna (GDW, 1985), part V of The Polish Campaign for Twilight: 2000

This is Part III of a detailed review of The Polish Campaign, a 6-part adventure sequence published by GDW in 1985 for their Twilight 2000 role playing game. The campaign covers Escape from Kalisz, The Free City of Krakow, Pirates of the Vistula, The Ruins of Warsaw, The Black Madonna, and Going Home. Part I, which looks at The Free City of Krakow and touches upon Escape from Kalisz, is here. Part II, which looks at Pirates of the Vistula and The Ruins of Warsaw, is here.

Twilight: 2000’s Polish campaign is iconic in the world of RPGs for providing supplements and adventures that fit its sandbox emphasis. Many RPGs rely on set adventures with expected scenes and outcomes, and many game masters (GMs) use those preset stories. While this is all well and good (nothing wrong with it), most GM plans do not survive contact with the players.

Sandbox games flip the script. What do the players want to do? The GM then reacts to this, often relying on random encounter tables. However, pure sandbox play can pose problems around ongoing interest. Humans like stories because they have beginnings, middles, and endings. The Polish campaign proved extraordinarily successful at negotiating the balance. The books are not pure adventure nor pure sourcebook.

The Black Madonna is, perhaps, the most famous supplement. So popular is it that Free League added a revision by the original author, Frank Frey, as a Kickstarter digital stretch goal for their forthcoming edition of Twilight: 2000It is interestingly within the campaign the one that seems “out of sequence.” The previous supplements, Pirates of the Vistula and The Ruins of Warsaw, provided numerous incentives to the players to make their way from Krakow to Warsaw. The Black Madonna’s primary area of operations is northwest of Krakow and in Silesia.

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Twilight: 2000‘s Polish Campaign, Part II

Twilight: 2000‘s Polish Campaign, Part II

Pirates of the Vistula (GDW, 1985), part 3 of The Polish Campaign for Twilight: 2000

This is Part II of a detailed review of The Polish Campaign, a 6-part adventure sequence published by GDW in 1985 for their Twilight 2000 role playing game. The campaign covers Escape from Kalisz, The Free City of Krakow, Pirates of the Vistula, The Ruins of Warsaw, The Black Madonna, and Going Home. Part I, which looks at The Free City of Krakow and touches upon Escape from Kalisz, is here.

As I re-read Twilight: 2000‘s Polish Campaign, the set of adventure supplements that take place in the immediate aftermath of what starts the players on their adventures in the desolated landscape of World War III and Poland, I’m struck by how much world-building and detail the writers put into the world. For the Polish campaign is a rich sandbox for players and game masters (GM) to play around in. Encounters, towns, villages, NPCs, and mysteries galore fill the pages of Pirates of Vistula and The Ruins of Warsaw, parts 3 and 4 of the Polish Campaign.

The players, surviving US soldiers of the US 5th Mechanized Infantry Division, will have fought their way to safety, escaping the Soviet armies that crushed them. If they made their way from Kalisz to Krakow in the core rulebook’s opening scenario, Escape from Kalisz, they probably found some respite and have managed to resupply to a degree. They may have even made some friends. The overall, presumed player motive in Twilight: 2000 is that they want to return home, that Poland is but a stop over. Now, this could change, and it may not even be the case initially depending on the players. Nonetheless, the players need to find a way to survive in this aftermath of a world collapsing from the creeping nuclear holocaust. 

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