Dark*Matter – Part 0, Background

I started by the players all making characters for the setting. Rather than start from a complete surprise about the paranormal, I opted to dive right in. This was essentially the introduction I gave them all.

You are all members of the Hoffman Institute - publically, a not-for-profit privately funded think tank with a focus on public policy (foreign and domestic), technology, and history. (Something like the Rand Corporation, McKinsey, or Deloitte). Privately however, it spends much of its energy and resources on research of the supernatural, paranormal, extraterrestrial. You are all members of the Hoffman Institute because of your past experience with, or belief in it; governments and corporations have their own interests at hand, and can't be trusted - and have shown signs of actively acting against the interests of the people they are supposed to serve.

Dark matter and dark energy are the hypothetic stuff that make up more than 95% of the total mass-energy in the universe. It is responsible for the acceleration of the expansion of the known universe, and has been around since the Big Bang. Unable to be directly observed or measured, it is not even know what physical properties it has - even as it permeates the known universe. But as the levels of dark matter crest and fall, it interacts with the very fabric of the laws of reality.

Much of the investigations and research that Hoffman pursues is nothing more paranormal than the coincidental intersections of low-quality video, skilled street performers, manipulative sadistic sociopaths, the willingly delusional, or many of the above. Occasionally however...

Character generation is easy in this system. The main thing to do first is to think of a character concept. For inspiration, think of a gritty cross between X-Files, Grimm, Marvel Agents of Shield (Season 1 especially), Bourne, Mission Impossible, James Bond, Homeland. Main restrictions are 1) Only human race, and 2) No Arcane Background (ie. supernatural abilities). So far, the PCs are:

1) Markov (Ari): Former FSB field agent. On a mission, witnessed the apparent wreckage of an alien UFO. He was subsequently sideways transferred multiple times until he was pushed out and then recruited by the Hoffman Institute.

2) Isaac "Maverick" Lee (David): Graduate student in history that became convinced of the existence of centuries-old non-governmental entities that manipulated world events and stayed in the shadows. Turns out some of those conspiracy theories aren't just wacko ideas. The Institute brought him onboard to put his investigative and analytical skills to work.

3) Lester (AJ): Brought in by Hoffman to create a new identity. He is wanted for felony murder after killing a cashier at a Dunkin Donuts... then saw him alive and well the next day - a man that Hoffman was also investigating.

4) Angus "Pug" McGillicuty (Thor): Crossed paths with the Hoffman Institute when he began searching for his mother. She was a Wiccan priest, and he grew up with her going to various Ren Faires and such; upon returning from an Army deployment, all trace of her was gone when her bed and breakfast was burned to the ground; the Institute was looking for her help when it found rumors of the return of witch-burnings.

5) William “Bill” Thulson (Lawrence): Orphaned at a young age when his house exploded while his parents were inside. A Hoffman agent looking into the mysterious circumstances after the police closed the case as a gas line eruption took pity on the boy and brought him into the care of the Institute. He has since trained to be an agent.

New Savage Worlds Dark*Matter campaign

Dark*Matter has been one of my favorite settings for many years – however, other than a very short one-off game some 15 years ago, I haven’t really gotten a chance to run it. D&D 3.x (and then Pathfinder) took us back into a lot of fantasy gaming. I’ve been itching to get back into running a longer modern or sci-fi game for several months now, and a few of my players were wanting the same.

So a few months ago, I brushed my Dark*Matter stuff off to finally run a game, but only played an aborted hour or so… and realized that while I used to love running the Alternity system, it no longer had the same appeal for me. But it was more than just prolonged disuse leading to unfamiliarity… my GM’ing style (and playing style if I think about it as well) has changed. And so, it was shelved again as another GM took over and has been continuing our Shadowrun campaign. And as much as I like playing – especially in the Shadowrun universe with all the recent excellent Harebrained Schemes Shadowrun video games being released, I still always have the itch to GM on a regular basis.

While mulling what to run, I came across a post at ENWorld saying that a new version of TORG was coming out in 2016. I went down the rabbit hole a bit and came across a Savage World’s version of TORG – which seemed to work very well. I’d played a Deadlands Reloaded campaign with the Savage Worlds rules a few years ago, and had a very good time of it (playing Joshue Rivera, a vacquero who uses his Cow-Chip Dynashot to take on zombie cows!). It was then that several ideas for games I’ve been wanting to run began to coalesce in my head. I had been looking for a system that was flexible as well as quick and easier to run; a system that also had modernish settings, was easy to convert material to, or both would be a plus as the amount of published adventure materials for Dark*Matter was extremely limited. Savage Worlds was it! And so last week , the campaign began in earnest.

AD&D A2 – Stockyards of the Slavelords, Part 2.1

My group wanted to finish playing A2, so this past holiday weekend, I continued where we left off last. As the party recuperated from the battle with the goblins, the Cleric/Magic-User and Paladin left to summon more help. In their stead, a human dual-classed Monk/Magic-User, a dwarven Fighter/Thief, a half-orc Fighter/Cleric and a human Ranger joined the group from among the rescued slaves. (The Paladin’s player couldn’t make it and the other wanted to switch PCs; three other players also joined – 2 first time AD&D players and 1 new to RPGs!)

 

Having rested up, the reinforced group opened the secret door concealed in the back of the surprisingly clean iron maiden. The rough worked stone passageway slowly filled with a mist as they worked their way forward. Some dozen yards later, it ended in a steep falloff to a new floor some 30 feet down. The scouts had no problem descending, and re-ascending 50 feet further ahead where the passageway continued.

 

As the group proceeded forward again, they unworked stone corridor began to once again show signs of having been worked.

 

Turning the corner and proceeding, a sudden horn blast echoed toward them from ahead as a net dropped onto the middle of the group. With only a moment to catch their breath, the forward guards raise their defenses just in time to see a group of wolf-riding goblins charge from around the bend into the entangled midst!

 

Falling net trap!

 

A frantic battle ensued, leading to a defeat of the goblins, but not without casualties on the side of the heroes. The newly rescued Dwarven Fighter/Thief and Monk/Magic-User were amongst the dead; the former claiming some vengeance on his captors before this fall, but the latter falling to the charging goblins before he had a chance to act.

 

 

Fallen heroes

New gamers!

My friend’s kids have gotten to the age where they can “get” TTRPG. As others have noted, with the popularity of MineCraft, many middle-school aged kids now are very familiar with the D&D tropes (hit points, experience points, leveling, skeletons and monsters, etc!), so it’s a small jump to tabletop RPGs.

This weekend, we had a little gaming convention with a bunch of friends; as a prelude, I ran the little ones through some introductory D&D games. I gave them free reign with Dwarven Forge tiles to build some layouts, then gave them a scenario.

The farmers from the outlying fields to the west failed to show at the last few market days; travelers from that direction gave reports of monsters lurking in the tall unharvested corn stalks. Since the Greyhawk Wars two decades ago, the adolescent PCs were the only able bodied men and women in Hommlett who could be spared to go an investigate…

Shadowrun: San Bernardino Barrens 2053

One of the regulars of our group couldn’t make our holiday game last weekend, so we decided to play another game for the day. Recently, I’d been playing Shadowrun Returns on the recommendation of the other guys in the group, so I offered up running a quick Shadowrun game.

All of them had just played / were playing SRR as well, so it was an enthusiastic yes!

I opened up my old files, and realized, yup, it has been 10 years since I ran or played in a SR game; and more than 5 years since I’d even looked at the rules (2004 April and 2009 Feb in fact)! Nonetheless, I remembered the basics enough that I felt fine muddling through the mechanics portion of it. Plus, one of the guys ran two campaigns for us, and another was a player with me in those games. As I knew 3rd edition best, and haven’t even looked at 4th or 5th, I decided on that rule set.

I had the BeCKs character creation files on hand, so they all quickly generated some characters (I wanted to keep it low level, so 225 Karma creation – that was something that always didn’t sit right with me about standard SR, PCs started pretty well off and experienced). I had an Excel sheet I made 10 years ago that randomly generated stats for low level characters and a old Word document with some Shadowrun adventures ideas that I used. We had a lot of fun, and may continue it as a side game for days when the whole group can’t get together.

Here is their tale:

--------------------------

Date: 2014 Nov 30

Player Characters:

1. Hellboy/John - Troll melee: His parents worked in Redlands, and when they gave birth to Troll, they left that insular society rather than give him up. Moved to the Barrens where he grew up. His father was killed when young while looking for work, and mother descended into substance abuse. He is left alone by the gangs due to his size and takes occasional labor work.
2. ?? - Dwarf shaman: He had a comfortable life working as a wage mage for Bourne Industries in the Barton area when he underwent goblinization later in life. One area of R&D for the company was the study of metahuman genetics, and his sudden change propelled him into being a very valuable resource for the company. Getting confirmation of his suspicions, he fled to the Barrens before he could be entered into the project.
3. Gruumsh - Ork samurai: Redlands was a wonderful place to grow up as a popular gifted young boy that was destined to be an Allstar baseball/football/wrestler. Goblinizing at puberty, all those plans were dashed and his parents moved to save the family from embarassement. Through friends, they were able to get him into a vocational security training program for Ilumina, who trained the innately atheletic young man and fitted him with cyberware. Those plans for a comfortable corporate job were dashed when a meta go-gang led a raid into a warehouse he was tasked to guard. They made off with valuable equipment, and knowing that he would be held to blame, fled into the Barrens to track down the thieves.
4. ?? - Elf conjuring samurai: Growing up in the Morongo tribe, he heard from the spirits that the elders were betraying the tribe. When looking into the accusations of the tribal casinos being sold to LA megacorps, he suddenly found that he was being regarded as a threat by the leadership. Fleeing west to the Barrens, he met up with his acquaintance.

 

Hellboy welcomed the newcomers to the Barrens in exchange for some cred. In the first week, they found the body of a salariman who had succumbed to his addictions in the Barrens where he sought his next hit. They find an unsecured cred stick with 186 nuyen on his body, which they bury in the cemetery. Deciding to celebrate, they head to the nearby Stuffer Shack at Foothill and Baseline, but are attacked by some go-gangers who mistakenly saw them as easy targets. The group dispatch the gangers and return to the cemetery home to lick their wounds.

Needing healing, Hellboy leads them to Father Oscar who asks for their help in return. An acolyte training under him, Paco, had recently showed that he possessed the gift of healing. The Falcons kidnapped him when he was visiting his mother in their territory as the Falcon's new young leader Miguel sees him as the key to expanding their territory. Until now, Father Oscar was the only healer in the area, and his warehouse church was a neutral zone where the surrounding gangs - the Falcons to the northwest, the Metas to the east, and the Stripes to the south - put aside their differences to heal. Miguel was keeping Paco secured at the Falcon base of operations - a converted Walmart strip mall, and the implicit threat to his mother kept him there.

The group decide to try getting the mother to safety first, and take their mopeds into Falcon territory. They are stopped by some Falcon go-gangers, and tell them that they are trying to join the gang; they are told that they need to collect sufficient "taxes" to buy their way to see Miguel - 2,000 for them, and 5,000 for Miguel.

Hiding their bikes, they make their way on foot stealthily to her domicile and convince her to go with them to Father Oscar's house, for the safety of her son. They sneak back in, and reach the Walmart, where several dozen of the gang are milling about or resting in the strip mall.

Peeking into the Astral, the dwarf glimpses another in the front of the store who likewise is watching the Astral. Rather than attempt the sneak through the well-lit parking lot full of humans, they head around back where the dwarf calls an urban spirit to conceal all but the troll. They fail the bluff the 3 youngsters guarding the back door, and when the oldest goes in to ask Miguel for guidance, they pounce. The troll rushes in and turns off power at the fuse box, breaking the handle in the process, while Gruumsh and the dwarf incapacitates the other two guards in the back. In the confusion, the elf severely wounds the shaman with several well placed AK-97 rounds. As the gangers begin getting a light on the ork, the troll and elf rush in and carry off the confused Paco. The dwarf's manabolts takes care of the remaining guards in the back and grabs their keys to the two scooters in back.

The ork, desperate to finish off Miguel barely limped out of the back door, bleeding from a dozen wounds that would have fallen a man. As they zip off in the stolen bikes, the dwarf summons another urban spirit to grant him speed and concealment, appearing as a dog running alongside the bikes.

Upon returning to Father Oscar's, they hid in the back as they hear the Falcon's bikes pulling up. Peeking through the holes in the wall, they see the Falcon's bringing the wounded to Father Oscar - among them, a barely breathing Miguel. "My boy, my boy, what have you done?" the older man softly says to him, even as he moves amongst the others, soothing the wounds of some and closing the eyes of others.

Dwarven Forge Caverns Kickstarter

I finally got a chance to play around with the DF Caverns I received from the Kickstarter they did. They are gorgeous and so I threw together some set ups and snapped pics.

Rise of the Runelords–The Shadow Clock, Part 2

[Game date: 2014 Feb 02]

1. Session 19
   1. Date: 2014 Feb 2

                                                              i.      PCs: Camla, Derik, Gragdar, Vaelmorn, Dikembe (Shoanti barbarian played by a guest player)

2. Returned to Townhouse

                                                              i.      Took bats with use of darkness, and managed to return without attracting too much attention.

                                                            ii.      Carried bodies of Ironbriar and Xanesha

3. Met with Lord-Mayor

                                                              i.      Filled him in, and he fainted. Removed magical ruffle.

                                                            ii.      Convinced him by taking guards to Sawmill and showing evidence of Ironbriar’s journal

                                                          iii.      Got rewarded.

                                                          iv.      Met his personal bodyguard, Markinen.

1.      Met Four-Tooth, Lieutenant of the guards

2.      Met Dirk, sergeant of guards

                                                            v.      Invited to a ceremonial dinner

                                                          vi.      Got a writ from temple of Sarenrae to have Restorations cast

4. After resting, went with Dirk to collect evidence at Clock Tower

                                                              i.      Waited outside as guards went in and encountered Scarecrow.

                                                            ii.      Went in and defeated it

                                                          iii.      Valemorn levitated with Camla to top.

                                                          iv.      Gragdar climbed stairs and triggered bells falling. Barely survived, but many on ground perished.

                                                            v.      They cleared out the clocktower

5. At the dinner party, were honored.

                                                              i.      Lord Mayor then asked them to look into a small matter with the Black Arrows. They are a group of rangers based out of Fort Rannick that keep the ogres and giants from the Storval Plateau in check. They have missed sending reports the past few months. The last messages from the hamlet of Turtleback Ferry indicate that they hadn’t been seen in several weeks.

6. Return to Sandpoint

                                                              i.      Camla requests and gets Tsuto’s body to return to Ameiko for burial.