DEPARTMENTS

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

Gonzo Sci-Fantasy - Running and Playing It - Equipment and Monsters

Hello All,

Welcome back to this second post about gaming Gonzo Sci-Fantasy. Last post I went over a brief description of what it is. This post will focus on some basic guidelines for equipment and encounters in this settings.

Running this sort of setting as a game is not all that hard unless you are trying to imitate the tropes of a specific series of books or shows. Most fantasy RPG classes, weapons, monsters and abilities are all present in Gozo Sci-Fantasy completely unchanged or with some minor tweaking to the flavor text. These settings still have warriors, rogues, casters and other such archetypal elements though the origins or exact natures of their powers may be different. For example, a paladin or cleric is a bit harder to explain if your world does not have actual gods though this may just mean that these characters tap into a different energy source than wizards or are simply not present with wizards taking over all casting roles. It might even be possible to have your "divine" casters tap into some sort of new secret power source that is wholly unknown to most and may as well be a "god".

EQUIPMENT
Weapons and equipment often exist in these settings unchanged in function but with a different character. Simple materials such as steel and iron are often given new names or replaced by convoluted names like "plasteel" or "armorite". Their effectiveness in the game remains mostly the same. What we do often see is a proliferation of weapons and defenses with magical effects, making the whole setting a bit more high powered. A warrior might wear a suit of armor that is defended by "magnetic sealing" that gives it extra protection, working much like magical armor. This is easy enough to do by just subbing in appropriate magic items from the lists and giving them those snazzy names. Other items might actually provide spell like effects and as such items such as "shield bracelets" or "climbing gloves" can simply be designed as a simple item with a built in spell effects and a number of charges available before it must be recharged or reloaded with a handy dandy power pack.

There should be little concern over making such items available to PCs from the start as it is certainly a guarantee that the threats will rise to meet them and their enhanced capabilities. Anything they can do, the bad guys can do better (until they fail).

MONSTERS AND ENCOUNTERS
Most encounters in this sort of setting are pretty much the same as fantasy RPGs. A group of heroes find themselves in a dangerous place facing the local dangerous inhabitants. One of the main differences is that I have found is that the encounters are often in their own lands and not just dungeon squatters as they are often portrayed in RPGs. This is not universally true but when you are fighting the Centaurpedes you may very well find yourself doing so on their home turf. Creatures are often depicted as minions of a greater power or monstrous beasts which are often unbeatable, often needing to be simply stopped or avoided rather than defeated outright.

Monsters are often caricatures of humanity with some feature enhanced to make them seem bestial, more enlightened or just plain weird. Robots and cyborgs are also popular themes in this genre along with hybrid creatures. These themes are often encountered in varying mixes in creatures as well. It is not strange thing to encounter a robotic minotaur, dragon, or giant and using the statistics of such creatures with minor modification should be no great task. Add some armor and damage capacity and immunity to mind-effecting abilities and you have a pretty straight forward robot monster.

Another element that factors in, especially in the cartoons of this genre, are traps. Villains in gonzo universes love to throw death traps at the heroes. Such traps are often convoluted and elaborate, providing the heroes plenty of opportunity to figure them out and escape. Spikes, energy fields, horrible substances or timed bombs. Power draining effects seem particularly popular methods of menacing heroes.




Monday, November 13, 2017

Gonzo Sci-Fantasy - What is it?




Hello all,

It's been a bit since I blogged on gaming in general. Life has taken over and I am pretty sure that blogs have been relegated to a bit of an old guard status, replaced by Facebook groups and YouTube channels but as I started here, I thought I would revisit this realm of communication to begin talking about some things that have come to mind for RPGs, miniatures and gaming in general. To start this return, I would like to talk about gonzo sci-fantasy.

This is the sort of fantasy that really used to the be the norm back in the days when I first started gaming. Fantasy itself was a lot more wondrous and over the top and hadn't learned to take itself so seriously. But this form of fantasy went a step further and intertwined itself with science fiction. Worlds built on this foundation were full of odd mash-ups of knights on robot horses, ray-gun wielding folks clad in strangely medieval garb, or laser word wielding barbarians. Monsters were often simple, odd-ball and a bit goofy. 

Sometimes it was as simple as adding a techno prefix or suffix to and existing medieval/fantasy word or crushing together two words to make strange compound words. This was most frequently done when naming equipment and creatures as it provided an instant reference point for what such a thing was. In cartoons of this sort, these combos were often as blatant as they sounded and seeing the critter on the old 480p TV screen after school or Saturday mornings left zero question what it was. 

Some of the best examples of this from my own childhood and recently, thanks to Netflix, my adulthood are cartoons such as Blackstar, He-Man, She-Ra and, Thundarr the Barbarians even Thundercats. These shows were masters of "punny", forced, literal combinations of words and concepts into some memorable bits. I recall fondly wielding a broomstick as Thundarr's Sun Sword and battlling imaginary foes that were odd robotic versions of mythological creatures or wacky hybrids. 

In the early days of RPGs these things were not foreign to players and we saw much of this sort of fantasy bleed over into D&D and even more so Gamma World. Whole adventures such as "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks" was a D&D adventure that through the party into a crashed spaceship where fantasy and science fiction collided. Meanwhile, Gamma World often presented technology in the hands of post-apocalyptic savages as magic, indistinguishable to those people from true mystical abilities. The presence of psionics is another note of science fiction in fantasy as psionics or psychic powers have a long history of being magic explained as science.

So, there you have it. A brand of fantasy that was, for many of us, part of a splendid, wondrous childhood that has since gone to the wayside. It's fun, it's forgiving, and it is pretty simple to do. In my next post in this series, I'll look at some ways to run such a setting using tools you already have available in your existing collection of RPGs.

Take care,

And get out and game.

-Eli

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

20 Leagues Under My Belt - Living Statue

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While technically not an entire league, I wanted to post this latex adversary paint-up. This is a plastic stone or claw golem miniatures from the Reaper Bones line. I have cut it from its original base to help with an issue in how the plastic legs were positioned and re-based it. This is a simple paint job with a brown base coat, yellow sand wet-brushing, then a washing with brown tone from Army Painter, over which I did a drybrushing of a lighter sand color to highlight. 

Figures such as these are indispensable for Pulp Alley. They can pop up everywhere from tombs to desert ruins or even in the ranks of villainous leagues. They are also great for museum scenarios, art galleries, rampaging through the city after being mistakenly awakened. There just aren't enough uses for an animated statue. This particular miniatures is extra useful as it is quite generic in it style and could easily be placed in any number of cultures.

20 Leagues Under My Belt - Two Curious Fellows

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It's been a bit since I dipped my brush and got some color on my way too big collection of pulp miniatures.

This latest duo is made from a modified Copplestone Miniature and a chimp from a company that escapes me at the moment. These two should look quite familiar to anyone who grew up reading the antics of a certain inquisitive simian and his mustard-hued caretaker. 

The newer Pulp Alley league rules allow players to make leagues as a small as two characters. This is great for players on a budget or looking to get into the game with minimal painting or miniatures purchases. It also allows players to field those famous dues, dynamic and otherwise, that are such a solid part of the genre. I think for this league I'll write the ape up as the leader.




Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Ganesha Games "Star Eagles" - Kickstarter is Live!

Star Eagles Game Box Concept 

I know I sort of trailed off on posting news about the Star Eagle Kickstarter. Life got in the way and I had things that better deserved my attention. However, I have continued ot follow the development of this project and it is now live. 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/282429745/star-eagles?token=4cfd13f0

Friday, March 24, 2017

Elf Bait - Bad Sessions Happen

Hear how a recent game went a bit south and my thoughts and how to deal with it...


Sunday, March 5, 2017

Ganesha Games "Star Eagles" - Explaining Fighter Activation in Star Eagles

So, it would appear that I missed a few posts on the Star Eagles Facebook while I was attending to some family business. This has led to me posting updates a bit out of order. Things are returning to normal for me, so I should be able to keep up but please enjoy this post regarding how Fighter Activation works in Star Eagles. 

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FIGHTER ACTIVATION

Those already familiar with other Ganesha Games such as Song of Blades and Heroes or Galleys and Galleon will already have some familiarity with the basic of how unit activation works, but STAR EAGLES has some notable differences. 

When a ship activates, it will have an opportunity to move, attack, and perform other special activities such as scanning. Everything a ship does in Star Eagles is called an action. There are three types of actions; free actions, normal actions, and reactions.

Free actions can be performed without using any pilot actions and are primarily just basic movement and basic turning. Normal actions require the use of pilot actions and these include advanced manoeuvres, shooting, launching missiles, scanning and other activities. Reactions are opportunities the pilot may have to take an action outside a ship's normal activation as a result of enemy activity occurring nearby. 

When a Starfighter has an opportunity to activate it may choose to roll dice to get pilot action points to spend during its activation. The number of actions it gets will be determined by the Pilot's quality and the amount of risk the player want to take when activating. The controlling player may choose to roll 1,2, or 3 dice. The players choice. Each dice that rolls equal or higher than the pilots Quality rating provides one action point for the ship. These points will be spent during the ship's activation to perform 'normal' actions. Dice that roll below the quality of the pilot are called an activation failure. If a player rolls two or more failed dice during an activation, the opponent may take the initiative if he doesn't already have it or draw a COMBAT CARD.

COMBAT CARDS are highly useful tools which I will explain in a later post.
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