[GAMES] Necronomicon: Fallout

[jordangreywolf]

I'm running 20+ hours of games this year at Necronomicon. (Technically, I've got table space allotted for *24* hours, but realistically speaking, unless I want to run into problems with going overtime and bumping up against other reservations, I'm going to be wrapping up scenarios *before* that point.)

Obligatory convention link: http://www.stonehill.org/necro.htm

Simplifying my plans somewhat, I'm sticking to one genre/setting this year (for the most part): Fallout. So, retrofuturistic postapocalyptic weirdness. However, I'm running with two different game systems.

Fallout: Wasteland Warfare:
Friday night, I plan to run two scenarios using the new "Fallout: Wasteland Warfare" RPG rules.

Truth be told, the system is a kludge, because it's built upon a miniatures game system that's too "clever" for its own good, weighed down with an over-use of color-coding and arcane symbols on every card and rule page, in lieu of simply adopting some meaningful game jargon. (Tip: Symbols are pretty and all, but if you don't know what a symbol means, you can't look it up alphabetically in an index the way you can with some bit of game jargon.) Also, it uses custom symbol-dice rather than just rolling numbers. With few exceptions, I hate custom symbol-dice.

However, that mostly just means that the learning curve is a bit steeper if: a) you don't know what you're doing; b) it's a competitive game; c) you're learning it on your own. Fortunately, I'm using this for RPG purposes, so "b" shouldn't apply as much, and I've gone through several playtest games, so I hope "c" won't be the problem, either. There's still "a," which is inevitable for such a new game (the RPG rules just came out this month), but, eh, I can't have it all.

So I'm running a game that I'm spending this much time griping about, eh? Well, the thing is, despite those gripes, it's still quite playable once you get over the hurdle of figuring out what the heck is going on. It basically boils down to having 7 main stats, and when it comes to skills, either you can do them or you can't, and you roll a die and compare it to the related stat (e.g., Perception to notice things) and if you roll equal to or lower -- tada! You succeeded.

There are all sorts of ways to complicate it beyond that, but the modifiers seem to be pretty tame. You get a bonus to your roll because of such-and-such special ability or special circumstance or piece of equipment? Add a green die, and there's a *chance* it will come up with a modifier to your roll. Need a penalty because you're doing this while injured, or under hazardous conditions, or some other detriment? GM adds a green die to the opposing roll (if applicable), or has you include a RED die with your roll (and the RED die sometimes has a *negative* modifier to your stat).

So, before you roll, you have your dice, and if the GM rolls any, he has his, and you know going into it more-or-less what the stakes are. Roll the dice, apply the modifiers right in front you, and you're good to go. In many respects, it's a lot easier than "+2 for this, -2 for that, one free reroll if you have this Edge," etc. that applies to games such s Pathfinder, or even Savage Worlds.

I've got a couple of scenarios that I ran through already with the play-test team (before the rules were in print), and the rules haven't changed much since our play-test, so I should be pretty much set there. I just need to print off a few hand-outs, and if time permits do a little paint touch-up work on some of the old scenery, and carefully pack everything for the con. So Friday night looks pretty easy.

Savage Fallout:
The other two nights, I'm running games of Savage Worlds, in the Fallout setting (or something resembling it). Saturday night, I'm running two "Rooby-Doo" adventures, basically doing a silly mash-up of "Scooby-Doo" conventions with the post-apocalyptic weirdness of Fallout. First is "Creature Feature," taking place at a "haunted" drive-in (I ran a play-test of this scenario). Next is "Scary, Indiana," taking place in post-apocalyptic Gary, Indiana (and I HAVE NOT done a play-test of this, and still need to work out a few of the kinks, but it should still be pretty straightforward).

Sunday is the odd one out: "The Unstoppables," which is actually a superheroic game with a bunch of superheroes from the Fallout universe -- or, rather, characters who exist in *comics* within the Fallout universe ("Hubris Comics"). I plan on running the scenario as a campy jingoistic romp with blatant propaganda and product placement, as Nuka-Cola mascot "Nuka Girl" joins the Unstoppables team, as they venture to a remote Nuka-Cola Secret Refreshment Facility to stop the dastardly Commun-Apes from sabotaging Nuka-Cola's brand new yet-to-be-revealed Refreshment Technology Experiment.

(As for the Commun-Apes, I figure I ought to have one lackey join in with, "Welp, we were considering 'Marxist Monkeys' or 'Leftist Lemurs,' but we ain't actually neither of those. My favorite was "Gorilla Guerillas" or "Guerilla Gorillas," but we couldn't agree upon which was which, and besides, we didn't want to tie ourselves down with a particular *tactical style* in the name. Then, there was the Anar--" "SILENCE, Comrade! I'm not finished monologuing!" "Oh, sorry, Supreme Primate.")

In other words, maximum silliness. Still have to hash out the "story" such as it might be, as most of my processing has been put into various game-gimmicks for the scenario, such as "Achievement Unlocked" tokens (rewarded for players who achieve various "tropes" of the genre) and various gags. But gags do not an adventure make. I hope I can get that worked out soon.

Comments

[tuftears]

Hmm, re: "alphabetical" order being problematic for symbols, it occurs to me some of the problems with that might go away if you added colors to the symbols, then you could use spectrum ordering -- ROY G. BIV.

Hope the gaming weekend will go great for you!

[jordangreywolf]

That's an interesting approach. I hadn't thought of that. However, the designers most certainly hadn't thought of that, either. In lieu of measuring distances on the table in centimeters or inches, they use a bunch of color-coded rulers (using an apparently arbitrary unit of distance to which I haven't found any sensible correlation to base size, box dimensions, or any other discernible standard), in the order of:

Short = orange
Slightly longer = yellow
Even longer = red
A bit longer than that = green
Still going = blue
The longest = black

A ROY-G-BV (I prefer to leave out "indigo" and just stick to primaries and secondaries) would have made perfect sense, and especially since they only had 6 steps. But there's no such progression in the game: orange to yellow to RED? Then green THEN blue, then ... BLACK?!? And they can't even use the excuse of "We didn't want to put closely related colors next to each other," because orange is next to yellow, and green is next to blue.

I mean, yeah, after a bit, you start to get used to the oddball order through sheer repetition ... but just now, I had to look it up, because I haven't played in weeks, and it just doesn't hit me as the least bit intuitive.

Honestly, I'd be tempted to just break out a tape measure to handle distances, but the big problem is that the game cards use color-coded symbols to represent ranges. (You've got a command bonus of 5? Well, we'll put a 5 on the card, and put an orange circle around it to indicate that your command range is a lowly Orange band.) Weapon ranges, movement ranges, are presented with colored bars, when, IMHO, a number in inches, centimeters or base-widths would have done the job nicely enough.

[tuftears]

Color-coding is itself problematic because some people are color blind to varying degrees, but at least it would have made a reasonable order! Ah well.

Someday you will be the one to write the RPG and then everyone will flock to play it!