This may be promoting the competition....

...But this looks damned cool! Awesome name too, wish I'd thought of it first.

EDIT: Probably should point out I spotted it here

After Action Report: Alpha Play Test May, 7 2011

Pictured:Somebody's Kubelwagen I found when I did a Google image search.

I was tweaking rules right up until character generation time, so I am not surprised we hit a couple of snags there. When Lee Ann got here we got started, but her and Ashli took off on a snack run, which was actually helpful because it let me concentrate on just Mona and John's character generation to begin with. Right off the bat it became obvious to me that my "chance of officer" rule was too lenient and needed to be scrapped entirely when both Mona and John made 2nd Lt. So I ditched the officer rule and went more squad level, which was what I was aiming for anyway; I just added the officer rule because I thought it would be cool. I was wrong. It was annoying. Oddly enough, my rule for starting at a rank above private probably needs to be tweaked to be more lenient, because with 4 players we got 2 privates and 2 PFCs. My plan was to have rank (and medals) be rewards for leveling; I think now that I may just have to have the group vote for one of their own to be the "party leader" or "Sarge".

Character generation also made me break down my "Fighter" class the GI into two separate classes, tentatively called "Rifleman" and "Heavy Weapons"; and I think Heavy Weapons is going to be forced to specialize in a specific heavy weapon- the fighting later on showed us that.

In the end we wound up with most of the classes represented. Lee Ann played a Medic named Candyman, Mona was a Sniper named PFC "Nevada" Jones, Ashli was a Heavy Weapons soldier by the name of Pvt. Pyle, and John played a Rifleman named Pvt. Reed who we nick-named "Professor" because of his super high education stat; he was also the only on randomly determined to have volunteered rather than been drafted. Since PFC Jones, as a Sniper, was in a combat arm and the only other PFC was a Medic the group determined that Mona should be the squad leader.

Equipping the Characters was pretty easy, they each got a weapon issued to them appropriate to their class, if there was more than one I let them choose. I was pretty lenient with sidearms too. I let Medics carry weapons if they want too, ours chose to. I gave everyone 1d4 pineapple grenades too. I put off assigning stats to the weapons until the last possible second, trying to balance rates of fire, damage, recoil penalties and how realistic I wanted to go with magazine capacity and number of rounds carried. John in particular kept begging for more realism. So they got, at the last possible second, statted out with real magazine capacity and rates of fire for a six second round*.

Now, what I didn't count on for this early alpha test, since I didn't have any vehicle rules at all yet, was that they would beg me for a bazooka. Worse, was I said OK; I figured what the hell, I'd just statted out all those other weapons, what's one more? So I gave our BAR Heavy Weapons Soldier a Bazooka and 3 rounds for it just to see how that would turn out.

Then we started. I couldn't decide on a setting or scenario right up until the last second, I had a few running through my head, so I went with mid-June 1944 Normandy, on a prisoner snatch mission. They were given intel about a farm house being used as a CP by the Germans and wanted to snatch an officer, so over land and through some hedgerows they went. They avoided an enemy 1/2 track; which I threw in just so they'd have a chance to use the bazooka, but they figured would be too loud and would alert the enemy to their presence so they just hid from it instead. Their next encounter was with a machine gun nest set up guarding a field they were going to have to cross to get to the enemy farm house. They spotted the Germans first, so I figured it really wouldn't be much of a fight. I was wrong. Sniper set up and Rifleman set up to fire after the sniper. They both missed. This made me think that maybe I should have pregened the characters myself instead of having them do it, or made there be prerequisites for entering each class. Turns out the Sniper's Coordination (Dex) wasn't that great. Neither was the Rifleman's. The Nazi's opened fire with their light machine gun (MG-42) and tore through both the Sniper and the Rifleman; teaching me a lesson of modern warfare and D&D- more shots is better. It also taught me that if I want to have a comic book feel to this game I may need to greatly increase the number of hit points for characters. I failed to remember to have them make saving throws here, but it still wouldn't have mattered, even half damage would have put them into wounds, unconscious and out of hit points.

Now is where my weapons defining hubris and the poorly defined Medic skills come into play. First, our BAR gunner Pyle doesn't even consider trying to duel BAR vs. MG-42, he drops that and loads up the Bazooka he's been lugging around too, then blasts the Nazi machine gun nest to hell. Well played. Now I have to redefine the way bazookas and other anti-tank weapons work. I am thinking that they will have a separate attack value vs. armored targets and a separate damage type. I probably would have thought of this if I had considered any vehicle rules yet, but what ever; you live and you learn.

Now the Medic I had been using the 2d6 Thief skills B/X variant for Medic skills, essentially a "heal" check after each wound. My thinking on this is that this is not supposed to be a realistic game, this is the cleric replacement but there are no spells, as you level you will get better at treating wounds and we need some way to keep PCs alive and moving. Now I realize that I need to more clearly define what constitutes a distinct wound, "Professor" Reed took 3 rounds from the machine gun, is that 1 wound or 3? Does the Medic get 1 check or 3? My thought was that a Medic would get 1 check per combat encounter, but that may not be sustainable.

Next, the Hit Points themselves, which I need to rename simply because they specifically do not only represent physical damage** to a character in this game; I need more of them and I need more ways to quickly restore them. I am thinking that the Medic can have this ability to automatically "fix you up" if you have lost any HP in an encounter after the encounter is over. I am also thinking of giving "Sarge" a leadership check to try and inspire. We'll see. In the most strongly anti-munchkin moment I have ever seen in a game, John actually thought that wounds should be worse for his character and have a more deleterious effect on his ability to perform in the field. I told him there are realism options coming for the future, let's just playtest the basic system for now, eh?

Next the squad made it to the farm house with out further incident and then chose to go with a smart plan rather than something I would have expected. They hid in the pear orchard behind the farmhouse and avoided the guards while they waited for an officer to come and use the out house. Then they rushed over and took him prisoner pretty much without incident. Since it was late we broke there, but their plan at that point was to toss grenades into the barn where most of a squad of German infantry were, by this time, sleeping; then steal one of the kubelwagens parked out front and drive back to allied lines with their prisoner.

*Which I surprised myself by being shockingly accurate with just off the top of my head, all those years of tactical level WW2 gaming were not, apparently, wasted.

**In fact I would say that HP represent only the most minor physical damage here, more like bruising, knock-out damage and fatigue than permanent harm.

B/X WW II Update 05-07-2011

Just finished first alpha playtest, included player character creation, and a short mission. Full AAR tomorrow probably, although I am not sure when I'll squeeze it in since it is Mother's day. I'll be sure to include the good, the bad and the ugly. I fear I may have to stray a little further from B/X than I wanted to to make the genre work.

B/X WW II Update 05-06-2011

Quick update- I am a pretty slow writer, but I have got an outline for the basic book done; and I have hand written out a bunch of notes. Alpha play testing begins tomorrow!

Mail Call 05-06-2011

A shipment of miniatures from Ebay today; as always the pics are from the auctions.

This guy was labeled Grenadier Ranger, I'll take their word for it, but I don't recognize him.


This guy was called Mideast "Lay" Leader- I don't see anything that screams middle eastern about him though.


He was called "Lame Beggar", I can see that.


Human with Horn was an accurate if none too inspired description of this Celtic guy.


Helmed Adventurer with pack didn't really do this guy much justice either.


Fighter with Battleaxe.


Fighter with 2Handaxe.


Court Page.


Court Jester.


Armored Noble Knight may have oversold this guy. Armored cranky old SOB by the look on his face would maybe have been more apt a description.

Now, anyone know where I can find reasonably priced 25mm or 28mm WW2 miniatures? I do so hate to change scales; and I went searching at my parents house to see if I could find my old HO scale WW2 stuff and apparently it has simply disappeared; much like my 15mm Napoleonics, but that's a completely different complaint. I assumed that my dad being an HO scale model railroad guy, modeling the 1940's no less, that the WW2 stuff would be safe there.

This Fantasy World - video by Brad Jonas - the Doubleclicks

Some more nerd win- spotted by my wife.

Roll a D6

Everyone else is doing it.

Revenge of the 5th!

All my Jedi friends- watch your backs out there today, I've got a bad feeling about this...




As a giant Star Wars nerd I couldn't let this lesser known Star Wars holiday pass either. Enjoy, it's also Cinco de Mayo!

Happy Star Wars Day!

As big a Star Wars nerd as I am, I couldn't let the day pass without making note of it. The kids forgot this year though, so sad after years past when then spread the nerdy gospel of Star Wars.







May the 4th be with you!

Mail Call 05-04-2011

As always, pics from EBay-


2nd edition Twilight: 2000 was not my favorite iteration of the game, I vastly preferred the 1st edition despite it's flaws. 2nd edition fixed some things and introduced new flaws while subtly changing the flavor of the game in a bad way too, in my opinion, and I won't even get going on the 2.2 update! Anyway, this is the single supplement I always intended to pick up for the 2nd edition of the game and never got around to, it just kind of fell off the radar too quick- so when I saw it for $3.00 on EBay I figured I had to take a shot. Apparently I was the only one who felt that way, so huzzah for me!

These two GURPS historical books represent probably the last GURPS books I will ever buy, I now have, I think, every GURPS setting book that I could possibly be interested in using as a resource for other games. I have said it before and I will probably say it again, GURPS isn't my kind of game, but they make some great setting books.

B/X WW II Update May 4th 2011

I have 3 ideas running simultaneously through my head here-

First is that there are a couple different modes of running a WW2 RPG that are not necessarily mutually exclusive of each other. The supernatural elements can be kept completely absent for a "natural" war RPG. The supernatural elements can be kept to a discrete minimum, for example the occasional "unquiet dead" or "Nazi occult activity"; this also works for occasional science fiction elements where Nazi scientists are experimenting with Tesla technology or some other weird science to create super weapons; since they actually did this it is barely in the realm of science fiction, just here you can have it actually work- sometimes! Lastly, you can have an all out magic works and supernatural creatures are everywhere kind of a game, in this case you can have Magic-User and Cleric PCs and are pretty much just playing a WW II themed game of D&D*; I haven't played it and I don't own it, but as I understand it, this game has pretty much been done as a D20 game called Weird War II**, so I am not going to go that route here, although it is clearly possibly to do so with what I am working on.

Next is that there are a couple of ways to handle the mortality level here. Modern weapons are meat grinders for PCs. I have already stated my preference for running the whole thing as though it's a comic book or TV series version of WW II, I think this is the only way it's really going to be fun for people to play as "realistic" or even slightly supernatural game; any game without clerical healing magic, healing potions or resurrection/raise dead spells is going to end with a lot of dead PCs if you play it straight, rules as written, D&D with modern weapons; even if you bump starting levels of PCs up to say, 5 (which I am opposed to on general principal), a single burst from a submachine gun is going to cut that guy down most likely. I have a plan to accommodate both modes of play here anyway, just because I hate to toss an idea out when I get it, so for realism we can look forward to wounds that diminish capacity and more maiming, mortal wounds and instant kills as critical style hits.

So we have 2 axises of realism here: the Natural-Supernatural and the Heroic-Realistic. My default game plan is to set things up for Heroic-Natural/Slightly or Occasionally Supernatural play; but I can see how it might be fun to play the Realistic/Supernatural, kind of like the Call of Duty Nazi Zombie scenario. My son loves that scenario more than the regular game.

Next along the list is the renaming of stats. They need to map directly back to D&D, but have different names that feel more like they belong in a WW2 game. I am pretty sure that intelligence in D&D has usually been strictly a measure of IQ, here I am going to make it more a measure of educational level, you know, "book-learning". That contrasts it pretty well with Wisdom which has always been a pretty murkily defined stat in D&D anyway, encompassing everything from willpower to faith to perception and "common sense"; here I think we can ditch faith (except for supernatural games) and add "street-smarts" to the mix. Anyone got a name that covers all that? Strength can probably stay as it is, but I am thinking Constitution can change to something less Teddy Roosevelt sounding and maybe just get called Health? Or will that be too confusing with Hit Points? Dexterity is another catch-all stat that I kind of hate the name of, it implies simple manual dexterity, but what it really encompasses is that plus speed, agility, and, apparently, good eyesight because it gives bonuses to hit with ranged weapons. Charisma I am probably just going to rename Leadership.

At this point I should note that I haven't bothered to dig out the Sturmgeshutz & Sorcery article because I was informed that I would need a copy of Tractics to make proper use of it via comments, and I don't own a copy; and I don't really think I'll need it at this point. The memory of it alone was a good jumping off point for me.

I also note here that I was thwarted in my desire to alpha test some stuff last night because I have raised my kids to be too responsible. I encourage them to be involved in after school activities like sports and then when they get home late they just want to eat and do their homework. Actual play testing may have to wait for the weekend at this point. I am chomping at the bit though.


*In which case I suggest limiting Magic-Users to pistols as sidearms. Clerics are iffy, maybe they should be restricted to only being allowed to fight supernatural creatures, but use any weapon when doing it?

**This is not a slight to the makers of Weird War 2, I think it sounds like a cool game. D20 games aren't my thing really, but I'd consider giving this one a shot; it's gaming with my wife and kids that keeps me from diving into truly esoteric stuff like this.

Using D&D as a Generic RPG Template

I used to do this all the time when I was a teenager. We'd decide some setting or genre was a passing fancy, I'd whip up some quick rules, pretty much on the fly, and away we'd go! Funny thing is, now that I am older and I am trying to write this up for people who won't be sitting at the table with me for me to make a quick judgment call, it's a wee bit harder.

Anyway, I am planning on doing some alpha testing with my family tonight after supper and we'll see at least some of what needs tweaking.

So far saving throws vs lots of things and cover based AC bonuses are looking good. Mission objective based experience points and combat based experience points are looking like how the XP system is going to work.

I have a few ideas that I am going to include as optional, because they draw us away from an even compatibility with B/X or LL, but present them straight out of the gate anyway, just because they enhance the feel I am going for; for instance my HP vs CON as wounds plan, I think straight out lethality in a comic/TV serial version of WW2 should be for NPCs and Bad Guys.

I am also not sure how I can go about making it a rule, but I think it would be great if everyone played as a super clichéd member of the team, the southerner(From Georgia or Alabama, with a grandpa that fought with General Lee), the guy from New York City (usually Brooklyn or the Bronx, bonus points for Hell's Kitchen), the Texan (always a west Texas cowboy type), the scrappy Irish kid (usually from Boston), the European immigrant (his family came in the last generation, maybe from one of the antagonist countries causing tension in the squad), the mid-westerner (Tragically, this is always the nice blond kid that dies horribly to show what bastards the Nazis/Japs really are). Sometimes for diversity we throw in a Jew, a Mexican or an Indian, the rest of the country really is under represented.

Obviously for right now I am concentrating on Americans in Europe/North Africa, but this can easily be extrapolated for the Pacific theater or other nationalities too. I think a French resistance campaign could be a lot of fun too and the British invented Commando style warfare, so that could be cool too.

Fantasy/Supernatural are being considered as a default option, because every war has those kinds of ghost stories and Nazi Zombies are starting to crop up everywhere. Plus we all know from the Indiana Jones movies about the 3rd Reich's obsession with occult artifacts.

May 2nd 2011 Quick Post

The biggest news is, of course, that Osama bin Laden is dead. Since I live in NY state*, that's all I am hearing about today. I am strangely unmoved by this death. I suppose I would have preferred a trial, but at least this way it's over.

Secondly, my eldest daughter has returned from her JROTC Drill team nationals and her team won 5th in the nation! Congratulations Mexico High School Marine Corps Junior ROTC!

Thirdly, I got these in the mail today-


I never owned this, but I remember it fondly as being kind of more helpful for DMs than for players. I never saw it with the smooth cover like this though, must be a later printing. Anyway, it was .99 cents.




This set was incomplete, but it was really super cheap, even with shipping.

Anyway, I am still rereading through the Moldvay basic book and mulling over my conversion ideas for the B/X WW2 game, which is going to need a name at some point too I guess.

*Like 5 hours from Manhattan, up in cow country. I am closer to Canada than I am to NYC, people who live in other states are closer to NYC than I am; New Jersey is right across the river for instance. Everyone that isn't from NY state always assumes that the entire state is New York City, it gets annoying; I mean look at a map NY state is huge.

B/X WW II Game

First off, I want to thank everyone that has recommended sources for me to check out. I have decided not to use them because I don't want to be too derivative of anyone else's work. Retro-cloning is a little ambiguously close to this anyway, but I figure with the glut of D20 stuff that hit after the OGL I can be given a little leeway on this, I just want to make a cool game where everyone gets to play without having to learn a whole new rule system. I have made my own entirely different games in the past, so I am pretty secure there*.

I have decided to work on this using a number of sources limited to-

B/X D&D as my primary engine. When I get stumped I will turn to it's closest relatives for answers, in this order; Holmes Basic, OD&D, then AD&D- but only the PH or DMG.

EGG's article "Sturmgeshutz and Sorcery" for his take on modern WW2 weapons in D&D (when I dig it out, it has literally been decades since I read that.).

Sgt. Rock Comic books and possibly adding in Sgt. Fury, Unknown Soldier and Haunted Tank Comic books. Mostly from memory, because I don't actually still have any of these.

Old Episodes of Combat and Rat Patrol, both of which ran before I was born and I have only seen occasionally and sporadically in syndication.

I have a couple of other ideas too, since I had time while I was over helping my dad switch out the snow thrower attachment for the lawn mower on his tractor; but I am still mulling them over. I am kind of excited about this project though!

*No, none of my stuff was ever published. My game designing days were mostly pre-college, and pre-internet; I never submitted anything anywhere for publication. The only evidence of my design days that I have left are some variant rules stuff I wrote for Axis & Allies that survived by virtue of being stored in the box with my Axis & Allies game AND having been written fairly late in my game design "career".

Another WW II Thought

B/X WW II anyone?

So I started looking at making a B/X version of Star Wars because, well, it's Star Wars which just rules all on it's own; and then I had a hankering this morning for some tactical WW II action and I got to thinking, after a while, why not a B/X WW II game too? Honestly, Star Wars and WW II have a lot of the same design issues that need to be addressed; although, unless you are going for a Weird War 2- Nazi Zombies and Werewolves kind of a thing, magic and Jedi are off the table. I was thinking either a Sgt. Rock kind of a deal or, maybe, a resistance thing; commando raids and sneaking around Nazi occupied areas, behind the lines kind of stuff; although patrols could be pretty cool too I guess. I am planning on giving myself bonus points though if I am still fully compatible with D&D, Sturmgeshutz & Sorcery style.

My first actual rules thought is to change the way Hit Points work to something like this-

You roll for your HP like normal, but 0 HP=Knockout.
Hit Points regenerate on their own at like 1/hour maybe with modifiers.
Negative HP start subtracting from your Constitution score as actual wounds.
Medics can "heal" hit point damage with first aid as a class skill, I am thinking once per encounter, it keeps a more "heroic" pace.
Medics can "heal" wounds, I haven't decided how well yet.
I also haven't decided yet if Medic is a Class or a skill available for players to choose, I am leaning heavily towards Class though. Mostly because I hate and want to avoid skill systems.

Obviously, I want to keep this abstract and comic book style heroic, so blast damage is likely to knock heroes out and bullets are likely to graze them or hit their helmets or whatever. NPCs and Nazis probably will just get regular style HP though, why make it harder on the DM?


OK, so here's some Nazi Zombies too.