#Yes it has the rules where you gain XP from treasure

[mariana-oconnor]

Reading Stranger Things fics and just thinking 'Not one of you has mentioned THAC0 once, what even is this?'

[wizardoftrash]

Warcry is good. now how do we Necromunda-style mod it’s campaign?

Oh man i’ve given this some thoughts but never really wrote these down. The reason I hadn’t pounced on this is because I already play Necromunda, and Warcry is a nice simple diversion for me. That being said, i’ve given this some thought already.

Leaders and Champions: In order to determine which models should be able to spend experience deliberately on advancements, we’d need to determine which characters in each war-band would be considered a leader or champion. Leaders are easy, they have their own keyrune. For champions though, I think it would be a faction-by-faction basis which keyrunes denote someone who can gain advancements however they’d like vs someone who rolls on a table on a fixed xp value.

Experience: there is already something of an experience system in the current campaign, but with some tweaks. Basically I’d implement an advancement table similar to necromunda where experience is spent, except ignoring all of the weapon traits. Yeah that wouldn’t leave much (move, toughness, wounds) however that’s not where I’d want most of the character customization/development to be. One that I’d be interested in tossing around with would be a Gifts of Chaos deck, either a random advancement would cause you to pull one of these cards, and leaders/champions can buy single pulls, pulling 2 and choosing 1, or pulling 3 and choosing 1.

Lasting Injuries: I think a more complex injury table would be good. I imagine it would be simpler, 2D6 added together with 7 and below being only temporary injuries if any at all. However, Permanant injuries would have 2 effects. One would be an injury reminder card that you’d slide under your character card (poking out to the left) showing what the debuffs of the injury are. In addition, each injury would have a Blood value. Each time a fighter gets taken out, you add the Blood value of their injury to your 2D6 roll. If the new injury you roll is worse than the one you have, you replace it with the new one. A good chunk of these injuries forfeit the loot cards carried by the fighter for the scavenging step in a post-battle game. This happens every time your new injury causes you to forfeit loot, even if your new injury is not as severe as your current one and would be ignored.

Equipment: I would NOT want to include some kind of crazy list of weapons and armor that can be bought. No house lists, no trading post, nothing like that because it is impossible to parse the strength/attacks/toughness characteristics from the model and their starting gear. Instead, I’d implement “loot” decks of equipment and currency. Equipment cards would be standard sized cards with their name at the top, prerequisites in the middle, and the rules/stats at the bottom with their points cost at the very center-bottom and types and limits if-any near its cost. You’d slide the equipment card under the character card so that the name and prerequisites of the equipment are covered up, leaving the stats and points cost.

Name: Self explanatory

Prerequisites: keyrunes or minimum stats required to actually use the equipment. This can be anything from a faction or leader keyrune, to generic keyrunes that appear on several fighters (like berserker, or beast), to toughness or move, and can even require minimum stats from their weapon(s) such as Strength or Attacks. Why? Because we wouldn’t want a goblin shoota using a Strength 7 hammer meant for an ogre. Some prerequisites can require a fighter NOT have something, such as NOT the mount keyrune.

Stats: Either this is a weapon stat line similar to the ones that appear at a bottom of a character card, a description of what the item does when used as an action (yes, I would think drinking a potion mid-match would be an action), an ability requiring a double or triple (or quad if its crazy), or some combination of the three, like a Weapon (harpoon) with an associated ability (drag).

Points cost: The points value of the weapon, which modifies the characters points cost. Not sure if a campaign would force you to match points with your opponent, but these wouldn’t be free... That is unless they are found mid-battle which I’ll cover later.

Type and limit: Equipment sometimes would come with a type, such as Boots, Helm, Armor, Bulky, etc. Each type usually has a limit associated with it to show how many of that type of equipment a fighter can have. Most items only allow you to carry 1 of its type (can’t wear 2 helms). Bulky items are also limited to 1 per fighter and they represent something that you’d have to carry in at least one hand, like most weapons and shields, daggers being the exception by not having a type. Rings have a limit of 2.

There is a kind of loot card that would appear in the loot deck that is not equipment, and that would be treasure. Treasure usually is not equippable and doesn’t do anything, however it has a points value. Generic treasure values are also given to players on occasion as a result of a scenario or challenge, and are added to a warband’s tracker without a card. The value exists only for bartering which I’ll get to later. 

Getting Equipment: There would be 3 main ways of getting equipment, from Treasure Chests, from Scavenging, and from Bartering.

Treasure Chests: Campaigns would include a step into your typical scenario where a semi-random number of treasure chests get placed on the field, including instructions for how they are to be placed. In my mind players would take turns placing them in or on structures, not within 6″ of any player’s deployment zones, not within 6″ of each other or something. Then you deal a number of loot cards to each chest. A fighter within 1″ of a chest can open it, allowing the player to look at the loot cards and add one of the cards either face down to their fighter (stowing it) or face up (equipping it, if they have the space). Each “open” action basically allows you to take 1 object of your choice from the chest, so conceivably one character can empty a chest in a couple of turns. Your opponent doesn’t get to see the remaining cards until they themselves open the chest. A character can drop equipment in the same way that they would drop a treasure token from a scenario. Infact you’d place the equipment face up or face down (depending on how the character got it) with a special treasure marker on it to show where that item can be picked up from. From that point on, the loot card can be “picked up” just like a treasure token would, without the caveat that you can’t carry more than one.

Scavenging: To the winner goes the spoils. At the end of a game, take all of the loot cards from fighters who got a lasting injury that would cause them to forfeit their loot cards and shuffle them face down. Then the winner of the battle draws one card at random for each of their fighters that was not taken out to represent their characters grabbing whatever gear they can before moving on. In the event of a tie, each player takes turns drawing one card at random for each of their fighters that was not taken out starting with the player who had priority on the final turn.

Bartering: When players visit a town or are visited by a wandering merchant, they can choose to barter. There is a small selection of services that can be bought in towns (called common services) like replacing lasting injuries with lesser ones, or hiring mercenaries. You also deal a number of loot cards to a town or wandering merchant to barter with. You can sell off your unwanted loot cards for half of their points value, rounded up to the nearest 5, or treasures for their full value in-exchange-for items that are in the random pool of loot cards presented by the vendor. When a town or merchant visit is generated, it will specify how many non-treasure cards should be dealt. Shuffle the loot deck, and deal cards until you deal that many non-treasures (setting the treasures aside). When the encounter is finished, shuffle the dealt treasures, unpurchased equipment, and any loot cards that were bartered-in back to the loot deck.

Special note - Loot cards are always carried by fighters, even when you are not in battle and even when they can’t equip the item. You can rearrange who is carrying what cards after each post-battle action, but make a note of who is carrying what. When fighters are forced to battle and are carrying loot cards you risk losing them to your opponent. That’s part of campaigning.

Hiring Mercenaries: Another step when visiting a town or with another suitable encounter (like a slaver or beast-trainer) is the Hiring Mercenaries step. To hire mercenaries, they must have a faction in-common with your warband (order, destruction, death, or chaos) or they must be unaligned (beasts). Apart from the Fly, Mount, or Colossal key-runes, they cannot have any key-rune that appears on your main faction’s card. Should they meet that criteria, they can be hired for their point value as if you were Bartering for them. I’d consider working some more rules into this, but I’m starting to come dry.

Maps, territories, and story: To be determined. I haven’t tried the quest system in the core book yet and I’m eager to do so before I decide to continue this project. I will get around to this though, it just may be some time after this winter.

[entergamingxp]

Rocket Arena Review — Remarkably Unremarkable

July 17, 2020 1:30 PM EST

Rocket Arena is a hero shooter that tries to make a mark, but doesn’t do nearly enough to help itself stand out.

The hero shooter subgenre is an odd one.

It’s not an oversaturated market, at least not yet, but instead, one that’s so dominated by a select few successes that it’s an uphill battle for any new game to come in and gain a foothold. For every Overwatch or Apex Legends, there’s a Battleborn and LawBreakers to match.

Rocket Arena — a debut project from Final Strike Games that released Tuesday under the EA Originals line — is the latest hero shooter looking to make its mark. But with minimal fanfare leading up to launch, a questionably high price of admission, and time spent playing a game that feels so derivative and uninspired, it’s a title that will have a hard time catching anyone’s attention, much less maintaining it.

“[Rocket Arena is] a title that will have a hard time catching anyone’s attention, much less maintaining it.”

Rocket Arena’s foundation is built with an amalgamation of elements from other games. Online shooter with a colorful, Pixar-esque art style? That’s Overwatch. A K.O. meter that fills up and sends opponents flying off the map after taking so much damage? That’s Super Smash Bros.

The 3-v-3 team setup? Although it’s likely a means to help differentiate from Overwatch (6-v-6) and Valorant (5-v-5), the format, and the name Rocket Arena in and of itself, brings it awfully close to Rocket League. Hell, there’s even a handball-like mode to bring it closer with a sports-focused angle. And while we’re still at spotting influences, one of the playable hero’s special abilities feels like it’s pulled right out of Splatoon.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with taking inspiration from other games. It’s just that Rocket Arena doesn’t do anything new or interesting with ideas it’s pulling from. The aforementioned gameplay mechanics and rules function almost exactly like they do in the respective games that established them, leading it all to feel like they’re just included because they’re popular and familiar, not because the development team saw a way to expand or put a unique spin on them.

That isn’t to say Rocket Arena doesn’t try to do anything original. Its biggest selling point is that it’s a rockets (i.e. projectiles) only shooter, which on paper might sound cool. In practice, it’s quite literally hit or miss.

It takes some getting used to when you first start out. Most shooters make use of hitscan for the bulk of their weaponry (rifles, handguns, shotguns, basically anything that uses bullets), having hits register instantly so long as the aiming reticle is on target when you fire. Then projectiles (rocket launchers and grenades) are added in to help break things up, usually as secondary or special weapons that carry a blast radius, but need time to travel to their target. It’s risk vs. reward. If you connect, you can do tons of damage to one or multiple opponents, but you throw or pull the trigger knowing you might miss completely since they’ll have time to get out of the way.

Since Rocket Arena forgos hitscan almost entirely in favor of all projectiles, every shot has to be deliberate in order to consistently hit anything. At launch there are 10 playable heroes of varying skill sets, who each have their own weapons that come with different levels of forgiveness. For some, all you need to do is put a rocket within an opponent’s general area to connect, while others I’ve found you need to be dead-on with. And in the case of one hero, Plink, his automatic weapon is the closest that comes to conventional hitscan, which I found myself falling back on a couple times when I felt like things really weren’t going my way.

“The roster consists of archetypes and character designs you’ve seen before and have been done more interestingly elsewhere.”

There is a practice mode where you can take all the time you need firing away at bots to get acclimated with the game’s mechanics and find the hero or heroes that best suit your playstyle. I still found myself going back and forth on whether the rockets-only approach was a good idea or not once I jumped into online matches.

Small maps, the 3-v-3 format, timers, score limits and relatively fast respawn times are all there to keep rounds moving quickly and players constantly involved. Genuinely interesting means of traversal help out on this front, too. Shooting the ground below you mid-jump will give you an extra boost, and firing downward at a wall repeatedly will send you climbing up it in a way somewhat similar to Mega Man X’s triangle kick. It gives maps an extra layer of verticality, opening up chances to do a quick survey of the area or get the drop on opponents.

It’s mostly in combat itself where things felt like they were falling apart. Trying to anticipate an opponent’s movements and lead shots often felt like it was slowing the action down, and perhaps because the game just launched (at the time of this writing, Rocket Arena has only been out for a couple days), I’ve seen shootouts tend to devolve into just firing away and hoping for the best.

The game launched with five modes. Knockout, basically the Rocket Arena variation of Team Deathmatch; Rocketball, the aforementioned handball-style mode where goals are set up at the opposite end of each map; Treasure Hunt, a two-part mode that starts with competing for possession of a treasure chest (in simpler terms a game of keep away), then turns into a scramble to collect as many coins as possible; Mega Rocket, where teams fight to capture control points across the map; And Rocketbot Attack, a co-op horde mode. There are multiple ways to play and find success without having to deal damage thanks to the mode variety. Still, it doesn’t absolve Rocket Arena from the issues I’ve had so far with its gameplay, and the modes themselves have been seen before in dozens of other multiplayer shooters over the past decade, to the point where playing them here hardly feels like anything more than going through the motions.

Rocket Arena will reward you for mastery. Gameplay-wise, you can pull off techniques like comboing opponents off the map without filling up their damage meter through consecutive hits (another note taken from Smash Bros.). And in terms of progression, every hero has 100 levels of rewards, with experience going toward cosmetic unlocks like outfits, VFX trails, and parts for customizable banners referred to in-game as totems. Time spent playing also unlocks and levels up what are called artifacts, of which you can assign up to three to a respective hero to either boost certain attributes or reduce respawn and cooldown times.

That said, if the core gameplay isn’t enough to keep you going, progressing the heroes won’t do much to remedy the situation. The roster consists of archetypes and character designs you’ve seen before and have been done more interestingly elsewhere. The story and lore put behind them also, frankly, is nothing more than shallow justification for how a world can have pirates, magicians, dinosaur hunters, and underwater kingdoms co-existing all at once.

“Rocket Arena isn’t a bad game, it works exactly as advertised… I just found it to be really dull.”

Completing ranked and social matches also accumulates Rocket Parts, one of Rocket Arena’s two methods of in-game currency, which can be put toward purchasing specific cosmetic gear. The other is the paid currency, Rocket Fuel, which serves the same purpose. Yes, this game does have microtransactions.

On top of that, Rocket Arena has an upfront cost of $30 minimum for its standard edition (the base game only), and $40 for its Mythic edition, which comes with extra outfits, VFX trails, and enough Rocket Fuel to pre-order the game’s season 1 Blast Pass (a roughly $8 package that comes with more cosmetics and a temporary XP boost).

Maybe in isolation, there could be an argument to justify the game’s pricing model, and to its credit, the hero this season is adding will be free to everyone. The hang-up I have with it is that this game was published by EA, the same company that helped put out Apex Legends, one of the more popular hero shooters and battle royale games out there…and that’s free-to-play. By comparison, Rocket Arena is asking for way more for something that, to me, is way less exciting.

Rocket Arena isn’t a bad game, it works exactly as advertised — provided there wasn’t something else to it outside of that few minutes the game was given during the EA Play showcase a month ago — I just found it to be really dull.

It pulls from established ideas you’ve already seen elsewhere, and the one unique hook it puts at the forefront isn’t near stable enough ground for it to stand out.

The whole thing is just forgettable.

July 17, 2020 1:30 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/rocket-arena-review-remarkably-unremarkable/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rocket-arena-review-remarkably-unremarkable

[swipestream]

Session Zero: Confessions of an Uber Nerd

Just when you thought that the idea of a session zero wasn’t nerdy enough, along I come to show you how I recently upped the nerd-ante, hopefully to my benefit, the benefit of my players, and the game as a whole.

If you are not familiar with the concept of session zero, it is basically a session that takes place before the start of a campaign. In this session, the players and GM discuss what they would like out of the game, and often characters are created. If you would like to learn more about this idea, check out the delightful GnomeCast on the subject. Generally speaking, session zero is used by most groups as an opportunity to get all of the players on the same page regarding the campaign and their characters.

A couple of months ago, I began a new campaign with a group of six players. Five of those players have been in the group for several years. We had just finished a two-year game of Vampire: The Masquerade, and were now looking to play a campaign of the Kult horror RPG. An old friend was joining the group as a new player. I have grand ambitions for the game, and I thought I would start out by trying to make the most of my session zero. I had a few goals: I wanted to lay down the table rules, I wanted to discuss the framework for the campaign story, I wanted to get a sense of what my players were looking for from the game, and I wanted everyone to make characters.

Agenda

Yes, I created an agenda. Yes, I was roundly mocked for doing so. However, it did what a good agenda is supposed to do – it kept us on track, and kept the session moving along so that nothing important went unaddressed. Would you like to see it? Of course you would:

Session Zero Agenda

Survey

Table Rules

Table Safety

Start and end time, how long (years) should the game last

Scheduling, rescheduling, cancellation of games

Player Responsibilities vs GM Responsibilities

Leadership/Decision-Making

Recaps/Notes

Player Roles

xp, calendar, group gear, notes, maps, etc.

Motivation

All need to be interested in saving the world, or humanity, should that come up

All need to have an interest in being part of the group

Why would I stay with these a-holes? Whose responsibility is that?

Connection to other PC’s

Game Structure

Modern Game, intro session circa 1992

Family, but not parents

Everyone needs to have an emotional attachment to _______________.

Historical Game

Germanic Tribe circa 378 CE

How often do we switch?

XP – fast advancement or slow advancement?

Character Creation

Niche roles – options, how to decide?

Family members in modern storyline

Make the tribe in the historical storyline

Note that this game is making use of two separate timelines, with two sets of characters (that whole idea is a discussion for another day). When crafting an agenda, I recommend that you consult with players via email prior to the session in order to see if there are any burning issues that they would like to see discussed.

Using this agenda not only facilitated a very productive session zero, but when one of my players says something like, “I think my character likes the idea of the end of humanity,” I have something to point to when I express my incredulity. In the end, this was a very valuable document, and our session zero had many productive discussions which continue to be referenced during the game when needed.

Survey

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  What is that survey thing at the top of my agenda, you ask? In order to truly escalate this session into the upper echelons of nerdocity, I created a survey for all of us to fill out at the table and discuss. Note that this survey was created specifically for this campaign, so it has a variety of questions about horror and suspense. In crafting the survey, I took some inspiration from Chris Sniezak’s excellent article about the different types of fun:

Session Zero Survey       (1 is strongly disagree, 5 is strongly agree)

I like games with difficult decisions.

I like games where a central authority directs our course of action.

I like games where I get to explore something new.

I like games with a big mystery or puzzle to solve.

I like games with a lot of action.

I like games with a lot of side discussions or “back room” play.

I like games in which I feel that I can always trust the other PC’s.

It is important that bad decisions have dire consequences for the PC’s.

Gaining experience and advancing my character is important to me.

Gaining treasure or magic items for my character is important to me.

Having a personal connection with an NPC is important to me.

The central story arc is important to me.

Having a long-lasting antagonist that I hate is important to me.

Having a niche that I am the best at within my group is important to me.

Having a chance to explore the psychology of my character is important to me.

I like suspenseful scenes.

I like horrific or disturbing scenes.

I like scenes with gore or graphic descriptions.

I like scenes where I might have to make a horrible choice.

I like scenes with frantic action, where my character’s life is at risk.

I like scenes where we discuss things without using dice for a long time.

I think good pictures or visual aides are important for a game.

I think good props are important for a game.

I think good ambient music is important for a game.

I think appropriate lighting is important for a game.

  The key to using a survey of this nature during a session zero is to go through it at the table and have all of the respondents read out their answers. It was very illuminating for all involved. We discovered that one player didn’t love problem solving because she felt that she wasn’t very good at it. Another player loved exploring new environments best of all. Surprisingly to me, everybody liked graphic descriptions, but only one person felt that gaining treasure was important. Everyone thought that visual aids were important, but no one felt strongly about props. Some people felt that it was important to have a niche for their character in the group, but others did not; knowing this made everyone more sensitive about role-specialization during character creation, because even if it was not important to the person making the character, they recognized that it was important to others and didn’t want to step on toes.

This was a great experiment which wildly exceeded my expectations. The survey led to everyone understanding what the other players look for in a game, and it gave me some direction regarding how I spend my prep-time. Rather than invest two hours into creating a prop, I can spend that time looking for evocative pictures. I don’t have to have a lot of “treasure”, but I should make sure that I have some in order to satisfy one of my players. I don’t need to worry so much about censoring my descriptions of gore, because everyone is into that. When I have a big problem-solving session, I should make sure that I have something else for the player who is not into puzzles.

 The survey led to everyone understanding what the other players look for in a game, and it gave me some direction regarding how I spend my prep-time.  

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We Didn’t Finish Making Characters…

My agenda was so jam-packed that we didn’t end up finishing our character creation, which proved to be a bit of a problem during the first few games. However, I am not sure what I would sacrifice from my agenda in order to make sure that characters were completed. The survey was a goldmine of information that we have referred to many times over the first few months of play, and the other items of the agenda were all valuable. Should I have two session zeros next time? I can’t say that I would recommend that, but I will certainly give some thought to how I can make even better use of this time in the future.

What do you think? Is there anything that should be added to the agenda? Are there other tools that you use to facilitate a session zero? Is this entire exercise too much for you? I look forward to hearing what you think.

Session Zero: Confessions of an Uber Nerd published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames