1000 Foot General

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

The Second Star Schlock Kickstarter is LIVE!

Oh yeah, I have a blog! I've been toiling away for several years to get my sci-fi skirmish game Star Schlock into production. Our Kickstarter is currently running, with a Starter Set, figures, deluxe upgrades and more. I've been running the game at conventions and as a demo at our booth and it's fun, fun, fun!

Check it out. The Kickstarter ends August 1, 2023. I really think you'll dig it.

Monday, May 17, 2021

24 Hours Left on my Kickstarter

I'm counting down the hours until the end of my first Kickstarter and it has been quite a ride. I was worried we wouldn't even make my initial $1000 funding goal and bothered even my non-gamer friends with pleas to just chip in a dollar on launch day. We're currently sitting at 1,600% funded, so I think my fears were unfounded.

The response has been so enthusiastic that I've managed to accelerate my plans for the line by years. Miniatures I had slated for Kickstarter 2 or 3 managed to get into this one. I'm totally psyched that we were able to bring so much of the Star Schlock Universe into reality so quickly. Check this out!

And that's only about half of the figures available in the campaign! We unlocked over 34 miniatures and there are still a few left we might be able to add with stretch goals. Here are a few of my favorites from the last few days of the Kickstarter.

I can't wait to get my hands on the 28mm "lead" figures later this summer. This project has been cooking for four years, and it's so gratifying to see it take its first steps into the world and be embraced so enthusiastically by other hobbyists.

The Star Schlock Astroguards Kickstarter runs until 9PM EST on Tuesday, May 18. Even if you aren't into sci-fi gaming, stop by and take a look at my baby!

Monday, May 3, 2021

My Kickstarter is Coming May 3rd!

Hello friends! I've been working on a line of sci-fi miniatures and the rules to support them over the last few years, and after a lengthy gestation the first release is ready to go.

These 28mm Astroguards are the core of my initial Kickstarter. With stretch goals I'll also be able to make special pre-painted figures in collectible packaging available as add-ons.

If the campaign funds within the first 48 hours I'll also be throwing in a free Space Cadet figure into every pledge that receives figures.

I'd love to send you some of my figures, but if they aren't your cup a tea even a dollar thrown my way would be invaluable. Please check out the Kickstarter that has occupied so much of my free time for the last few years. Thanks for all the years of reading my blog and supporting this new venture!

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

"Reactor Online. Scrum Con Online. All Systems Nominal."

Scrum Con is coming to a computer near you! After two successful conventions, we've decided to bring our local gaming con online to keep the tradition going. Scrum Con has featured a mix of RPGs and wargames that don't always get a ton of attention at some of the other conventions we attend. Fantasy, sci-fi, horror and pulp are the order of the day, often featuring older editions, weird side projects or under appreciated gems. We try to offer a wide variety of games so players can sample a lot of different types and styles of games. It's a veritable buffet of gaming options!

I'll be running my sci-fi game Star Schlock using Tabletop Simulator. TTS has been a big help in beta testing the rules during the course of the pandemic.

Currently I'm testing some ideas for vehicle rules and tweaking the individual abilities of specific. units, but the core mechanics of card based initiative, dice pools, and tactical flexibility have become pretty solid over the last two years of testing. The game I'm running at Scrum Con will be a basic introductory battle just to get new players up to speed on how the rules work and to collect additional feedback on them. I'd love to hear what you think!

If you are interested in trying it out you can find my game on Saturday April 24th but I'm also hoping to stream it so gamers who don't make it into the game can check it out.

There are a ton of other great games available that some exceptional GMs will be running over the course of the con, too. My buddy Joe got into a classic game of Chainmail run by Eric Hoffman that he's been raving about for months. We're lucky that Eric is running an encore presentation of this classic fantasy ruleset at the Scrum Con.

I've playtested In Deep Trouble, an MMO inspired dungeon delve among lovingly crafted terrain by a good friend of mine, and I know fellow scrum club member and HMGS veteran Walt has been working up a daring WWII air raid scenario.

I don't know about you, but I've sorely missed the convention experience over the last year. I'm very excited about having a chance to roll some dice and push some lead (even virtually) to tide us over as we finish the last of this pandemic.

If you'd like to spice up your weekend besides bingeing yet another Netflix show you can pick up tickets for Scrum Con Online before the convention kicks off April 24th and 25th. I hope to see you there!

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

ASTROGUARDS, my first sci-fi miniatures

Hello loyal blog readers! I know I haven't been posting as frequently as in the past, but it's only because I've been so focused on Star Schlock, the tabletop sci-fi game I've been developing. I've been posting small updates to Facebook and Twitter, but I'm finally at the point when I'm making real progress I can share.

Ongoing playtests are revealing only small tweaks that need to be made at this point, and I've moved on to fleshing out the point systems and vehicle rules. The first Star Schlock release will be a Kickstarter for a small collection of miniatures. The initial minis will be the Astroguards, a set of valiant security forces that defend the Union of Sovereign Star Systems from the machinations of hostile alien warlords.

Along with the Astroguards I'll be making additional figures available as add-on stretch goals. I've been painting up a few of the 3D printed test figures I have on hand that I'm using for QA before sending to my caster for creating metal masters.

If you are interested in either the rules or figures I'd love to have you to join the email list at starschlock.com so I can give you a heads up on further progress, Kickstarter launch notifications and the opportunity to playtest the rules.

Sunday, January 3, 2021

ALIEN: The Movie : The RPG

I've been busying myself with Star Schlock, my sci-fi miniatures game over the last few months, but took a break over the holidays to run the new Alien RPG for my family.

What follows is an account of the one night session we played. It's long (looooong), but I felt it was important to document it since I ran my wife and 12 year old son through the situation from the original Alien (1979) movie. The boy knew nothing about the creature or its life cycle, and it had been 20 years since my wife last saw the movie. How would a crew not controlled by a scriptwriter fair against the perfect organism? Would they make the same choices? Could they use their greater agency to make mince meat of the beast or would it be too overpowering and wipe them out as in the film?

HANDOUTS

I created a number of handouts and resources. Feel free to steal them for your own games:

Nostromo room descriptions

Nostromo Bridge and MU/TH/ER cards

Operations Manual

So in the name of RPG science, I present my findings - a report on the fate of the Nostromo crew and their investigation of LV-426.

SETUPMy son is aware of the ALIEN films. He's a huge scaredy cat, but seems nonplussed by them. "It's not scary. I already know what the alien looks like. He's got that big sausage head." After overhearing me playing the Alien RPG with some of my gaming buddies over Zoom he asked if we could play sometime. Not wanting the Prometheus lore of Chariot of the Gods to be his first exposure to the film, but knowing he wasn't ready to watch Alien (1979) quite yet, I felt my only choice was to introduce him to the concepts of the series through a scenario based on the first film. I certainly could have just told him the story, but felt this would be a more interesting version and give me a chance to perform an experiment to see how someone with no prior experience would handle the situation the crew of the Nostromo found themselves in.

Before playing I asked my son what he knew about the Alien movies. "Well, there's an alien. And there's a spaceship. That's it." He'd have to run multiple characters in the game, but to share some of the burden I also roped my wife into playing. She's seen Alien, but it's been about 20 years. She's not a big fan of RPGs as she doesn't like being responsible for making decisions or getting characters killed. I was pretty sure I could foist Brett and Lambert on her, and I asked her to avoid spoiling some of the surprises.

THE CHARACTERSI created characters for each of the crew and used them to explain how the rules work. I gave the players the option of replacing any of the crew with characters of their own design but they were happy to go with the stock crew. I told them I'd run Kane, the Executive Officer and Ash the Science Officer since in the movie "all they really do is feed information to the rest of the crew."

Happy with that explanation, they began picking characters. My son picked Captain Dallas and Brett. I was... surprised. Brett? "Yeah, he's great! Look how strong he is!" To make each of the characters equal I followed the chargen rules as written. Since Brett didn't seem to have a ton of interpersonal skills ("Right.") I put most of his character points into strength, close combat, etc. He turned out more formidable than I think he is in the movie. My wife chose Ripley and Parker. Lambert was a floater. I told them I'd run Lambert until they took a casualty but they felt they could run the pilot themselves so my son took on a third character.

THE "PROLOGUE"I gave my son a brief primer on the universe. "It's about a hundred years in the future. Private companies have handled all spaceflight research, kind of like Space-X now, so they became the ones who colonized the local star systems. That gives them even more power than even governments. You work for one of them as the crew of a commercial towing vehicle."

I pulled out a small, color map of the Nostromo's Deck A and gave them a brief tour of their vessel starting with the bridge and ending on the cryopods. "Ok," I told them, "now to get you used to how the rules work we're going to play a brief prologue scenario. Since you are close to your destination, you'll be docking the ship with a space station in orbit around Earth."

The crew collected in the galley, we made some test rolls for Jones the Cat to jump on to the table and so I could explain pushing and stress. The players were a bit surprised at how so many dice could roll up zero successes, a them that would carry on throughout the game.

"So the crew is eating and shaking off their grogginess from being in cryosleep for several months. Ash notices a yellow indicator light which means MU/TH/ER has a message for Dallas." My son directed Dallas to MU/TH/ER and I suggested the rest of the crew dock the ship. They assigned each crew to a role, Lambert as pilot with Ripley next to her as co-pilot, Kane and Brett behind them in comms. Since my son and wife don't know much about crewing a spaceship ("That's not true!" my wife piped up, "I'm watching The Expanse again. I know all sorts of stuff about ships.") I gave them a Nostromo Operations Manual with common procedures to refer to.

Each procedure had some in-world steps they could follow (but which I expected them to ignore) and some game rules in red for how to actually complete the procedure. They flipped through it until they found Docking Procedure via Main Bow Tube and immediately started reading through the steps.

"Ok, we need to contact traffic control. You do that. Here, just read it out."
"This is commercial vessel Nostromo, registration number 180246 contacting traffic control. Do you read me?"
"I'll start locking the navigation sensor on the docking bay."

I paused them there so we could practice a roll. I covered "aiding another" and despite a huge pool of dice, Ripley was unable to contact traffic control. They asked if they could try again but I let them know that they weren't picking up any radio traffic, let alone Antarctic control. In fact scanning everywhere, they couldn't even find Earth.

"Ok, so did Dallas get to talk to MU/TH/ER yet?"

He did. I explained only the ranking officer could use a thumbprint to unlock the keypass and access MU/TH/ER and that she was kind of like Siri, but could only communicate via a text readout. When Dallas asked for his message I handed my son a readout of MU/TH/ER's reply.

UNKNOWN TRANSMISSION INTERCEPTED
POSSIBLE DISTRESS CALL

FLIGHT PATH DIVERTED
CREW REMOVED FROM CRYOSLEEP

REGULATIONS REQUIRE INVESTIGATION,
RESCUE OF SURVIVORS

Dallas rejoins the crew. He explained the situation to the rest of the crew on the bridge.
"Where is the signal coming from?"
"You are near a gas giant, like Saturn. It has several small moons. The signal is coming from one of those small planetoids."
"What does the message say?"
"It's a radio signal that repeats every 12 seconds. You can't understand it, it could be coded or in another language, but you are sure it's from an intelligent source."
"Can MU/TH/ER decode it?"
"Ash volunteers to work with MU/TH/ER to decode the signal for you."
"Ok, we wait."
That was an unexpected response. Since we could be stuck at an impasse here, I suggested they approach the planetoid while Ash worked on the signal. They returned to their stations and within a few hours were in orbit high over a rocky moon, smaller than Earth but of such density that gravity would be similar. They tried to spot the source of the signal from orbit, but I told them cloud cover made precise location impossible, but they had narrowed it down to one area. I made a roll behind a screen for Ash's progress on the signal decoding and rats! he just hadn't figured it out yet.

"Ok, well let's land on the planet and get the prologue done so we can get to the real movie mission."

THE LANDINGThe players broke out the Operations Manual again and began going through the procedure. This was all quite unexpected. I'm accustomed to players ignoring stuff like this.

"Ok, we determine cargo orbital height and speed."
"I do that. Uh 'check!'"
"Right, so you guys should know the Nostromo is just a tug so you'll leave your cargo in orbit so it can land."
"Wait, don't we have a shuttle? Can we take that?"
"Unfortunately the Narcissus is for space travel only, so you can shuttle to space stations or use it as a lifeboat. It doesn't have shielding for atmospheric landings."
"Ah, ok. Well I check to make sure the EC pressure readings are under 5.0 psia."
"I'll lock the pressure seals and monitor the pressure readings."

Following the landing procedure from the rules I had them roll an initial piloting check. I was hoping they'd fail to get some damage to strand them on LV-426 but no such luck, Lambert aced the roll. I narrated the descent and told them the local storm required another piloting roll, but again Lambert killed it. "Lambert's great! He's becoming my favorite character. Is he this cool in the movie?" "Ah, not quite."

The Nostromo touches down on the planet. Howling wind batters the front viewport with particulate matter - ice or gravel or something. It's dark, but the ship is fine. They scan for the signal and find it's only 2000 meters away. "Close enough to walk," Kane mentions and offers to go find the signal.

"Ok, we let Kane go check out the signal. Wait. We should probably send someone with him. How about Brett."
"Brett?"
"Yeah, he's so strong and tough."
They discuss the composition of the search party and settle on Kane, Brett, Ripley and Parker. Dallas isn't an option since he's the captain and you never put the captain in harm's way, and Lambert has to stay on the ship since she's the pilot/navigator and essential to getting back into orbit.

They each get in an EVA suit and I tell them they can take one piece of gear. Parker takes a grapple harpoon gun that was stowed in the Narcissus, Ripley takes a rangefinder that can home in on the signal (to use Comtech rather than Survival to navigate to it), Brett takes a hand held light and I have Kane carry a multi-kit (a suitcase like object with parts to assemble emergency gear including a tent, stretcher, 12 foot ladder or winch with 60 meter cable).

THE DERELICTThey navigate towards the signal with successful rolls. The weather starts to clear and they spot a horseshoe shaped object in the distance. It's big, about half the size of the Nostromo, but weird. It doesn't seem to have any straight lines or hard angles. They reach the derelict and find two large holes in the side of it that could offer access. It's taken two turns to reach the derelict and poor Air Supply rolls have dropped Ripley to only 3 air remaining. My wife had been enjoying some "space wine" and started to forget her role in this process.
"Oh, no way. Ripley is not going in there!"
"But we've come so far," Kane replies "We must go on. We must go on!"

Kane crawls into the first hole. They discuss leaving someone outside. My wife's characters Ripley and Parker are particularly reluctant ("I'm not gettin' paid enough to go into this spooky old place!" Parker grouses) but eventually they all head in. The continue through a weird ribbed corridor before finding an opening in the ceiling into a larger chamber. They boost each other up, leaving Parker behind in the entry tunnel. The chamber is dominated by a huge structure, an enormous fossilized alien pilot fused to a weird control chair. They choose to keep their distance rather than inspect any closer (like what may have killed it). Kane spots an opening in the floor.

"Perhaps the survivors are down there." Kane volunteers to go down. They assemble the winch, Kane is lowered in and they hear him over the radio.

"it's a cave of some sort." "positively tropical" "row of extrusions on the floor. Like cabbages." "layer of mist" "appears to react when broken." "wait a minute. There's movement."

They hear Kane gasp, a squeal and then garbled gurgling. The line goes slack.

The players discuss what to do, immediately suggesting they send at least two people down to get Kane and figuring out the logistics of getting Parker into the chamber so he and Brett can rescue Kane. I remind them they can just winch Kane up which they happily do. Kane appears with some sort of brown organic creature sucked to his face, having crushed and pushed through his helmet. They are worried he's losing air but I assure them his lifesigns are stable for now, but that there is a slow leak in the mask. The entire crew makes another air supply roll with terrible results.

"We need to get out of here!" They disassemble the winch and using the LEGO-like abilities of the multi-kit reassemble it into a stretcher to carry Kane back to the ship. The wind has picked up again, but Ripley manages to find the Nostromo with Ash's help from his seat in the science blister. Air supplies continue to drop and by the time they limp into the pool of light from the ship's flood lights Ripley's air supply runs out. Parker and Brett struggle through the howling winds to drag Kane and Ripley to the cargo lift, pushing rolls, shouting over the comms to get Dallas to open the airlock. Dallas obliges and Ash opens the airlock, he and Dallas rushing Kane to the infirmary while Lambert pops Ripley's helmet off so she can breathe again.

KANE'S SONDallas, Ash and Lambert get to the infirmary, put on scrubs and get out medical tools. Ripley retires to the crew barracks to recover from her ordeal and de-stress while Parker and Brett take off their EVA suits and slump against the wall outside the infirmary observation window.

Dallas uses a laser scalpel to cut away Kane's EVA suit. He finds a brown, spider like creature with eight limbs stuck to Kane's face, a long segmented tail wrapped around Kane's neck. Two lobes ("Dad, what's a 'lobe'?") or pouches on the rear of the creature seem to inflate and deflate in rhythm with Kane's breathing. The look of disgust one my son's face was priceless.

"What's it doing to him? Can we scan him or something?" They move Kane to the autodoc and perform a scan which shows a long tube extending from the creature down Kane's throat. It could be providing him oxygen or it could be sucking nutrients out of him. They pull Kane out of the autodoc and Dallas prepares to cut it off with the laser scalpel, right at one of the lobes.

"Wait just a minute, wait just a minute." Ash interrupts, "If it's feeding him oxygen, if we cut it off we could wind up killing Kane."
"Hmm," Dallas ponders, "You could be right. Ok, you monitor Kane and study the creature. My agenda is to recover my tarnished career by getting things done for the company correctly and efficiently. Let's take off and get out of here."

Once the rest of the crew had rested and destressed, they took positions on the bridge and blasted off from the planetoid ("Good riddance! I hate that place!"). A few in-game hours later and an easy piloting roll and the Nostromo had picked up it's cargo and was on its way to Earth.

"So hold on, how far away are we from Earth?" Lambert does some calculations and reports the Nostromo is ten months from its destination.
"Hold on, hold on, hold on. TEN MONTHS!" we had now left my wife's spotty memory of the movie and she was incensed, "I thought you said it was only like six months from Thedus! Where are we! Show me a map!"
I was surprised at their reaction, but I dutifully got out the star map from the Starter Kit. We located Thedus and nearby LV-426. It looks pretty close on the map but I explained it can't account for Z-axis distance. LV-436 is obviously very "deep" along the galactic axis. Whew!

Ash interrupts the discussion via the ship's intercom. "Captain Dallas, I think you should join me in the infirmary. There's been a change in Kane's condition."

Dallas arrives to the infirmary to find Kane sitting up, a robe around his shoulders sipping a cup of water and being comforted by Ash. Ash explains that he'd been monitoring Kane, and was checking some samples at the analysis desk when he heard a noise behind him. He turned to find the creature had dropped off Kane and crawled into the far corner of the room, quite dead. He shows Dallas the dead creature, curled up on its back with its legs curled together like a dead spider.

"And you are sure it is dead?"
"Quite certain captain."

My wife was rolling her eyes HARD at this point, despising Ash. "I do not trust that guy.", but we had left her spotty memory of the film (save for the one encounter mocked in Spaceballs) so she was in uncharted territory along with my son. As for my son, he had Dallas call the rest of the crew to the medbay to show them Kane was alright.

"Ok, so everybody's ok. We checked out the signal and found no survivors. So I guess the prologue is done. Can we go into cryosleep to get to the real mission?"

I told him of course, but cryosleep dehydrates you and Kane says he's famished, so maybe a final celebratory meal is in order. My son agrees that's a great idea and the crew joins in a jovial meal to toast Kane's good health. Kane is wolfing food down like there's no tomorrow when he starts to choke. Dallas tries to help him, but Kane starts to convulse and then flips on his back on top of the galley table.

"Oh no! Get a stretcher! We need to get him to the medlab!" my son exclaimed. I describe a spot of blood appearing on Kane's shirt. My son is confused. "Blood?" I describe a huge gout which sprays everyone in the galley as a small snake-like creature with metallic teeth and a pair of tiny t-rex arms erupts from a hole in Kane's chest.

"Wait. What?!" my son asks. Obviously the crew is shocked, and the chestburster is able to squeal and dart across the galley table before making its way into a small air duct on the far side of the room.

It was silent for a moment before my son came to the realization. "So Kane's... dead?"

SPACE BEASTTension levels were rising among the players. "We need to catch that thing. Are there any weapons on board?" I explain the Nostromo is just a big space truck and doesn't carry weapons, but the crew can improvise some things. The players agree to split up into pairs to gather supplies. Ripley and Brett head to the maintenance garage to get cargo nets and materials to assemble cattle prods, Ash and Parker move to the science blister where Ash says he can create some crude motion trackers. Dallas decides to get some info from MU/TH/ER while Lambert waits outside.

We discuss the computer's AI component and if it's aware of the creature. I decide MU/TH/ER has access to Kane's life signs, the autodoc scans and anything Ash has notified her about. I had a number of cards with stock text replies. Dallas interfaces with the computer and starts probing for info.

"What is the organism"
ORGANISM UNKNOWN.
"Has it been seen on another ship?"
UNABLE TO CLARIFY.
"We were so far from the distress signal. How did you detect it in order to reroute us to the planet. Wasn't there a closer ship."
DOES NOT COMPUTE.
"Aargh! I hate this stupid computer. Why does it not compute? MU/TH/ER, you sent us there. Why did you send us to that planet?"
UNABLE TO COMPLY DUE TO SPECIAL ORDER 937
"Wait what? What is order 937?" my son was pretty irritated and confused by MU/TH/ER at this point (naturally). "Hold on, I saw something in the manual," my wife offered. They flipped through until finding the MU/TH/ER instructions.
"I use my emergency command override. What is special order 937?" My son read the order explaining the requirement to capture the creature. Crew expendable. My son grimaced. "Where is Ash?"

He finds him in the science blister, just finishing up the motion trackers. Dallas tells Parker to take them up the galley ("I'm not taking them up there all alone, I'm not gettin' paid enough for this! We need to discuss the bonus situation." "I use Dallas' special talent to order Parker to the galley.") Now alone, Dallas pushes Ash against a wall.

"I know about special order 937!"
"I'm sorry captain, it was science officer eyes only. I had no idea we would be put in such jeopardy."
"It said 'crew expendable'. You knew!"
"I don't like this any more than you do, captain. I suggest we capture and contain the creature as quickly as possible."
"Ok, let's get the creature back to the company. This should look good on my record. Just don't tell the rest of the crew ok, this will be our secret."
"Of course captain."

At this point, I wasn't sure what to expect. I hadn't needed to prod the crew very much thus far, other than having Kane volunteer to go down into the derelict ship's cargo hold. They had revealed order 937 earlier than scripted but I was surprised by Dallas' conspiracy of silence with Ash. We were in uncharted territory for all of us.

After placing Kane's corpse in a sealed cryochamber ("His family will want to bury him."), the crew assembled in the galley to take stock of their supplies. In addition to the cargo net, cattle prods, and motion detector ("I want to know how it works. Dallas asks Ash to demonstrate it. I move my hand in front of the detector. Does it make a noise or something?"), they are also able to gather two incinerators, a few fire extinguishers and medkits. They took a look at the map of A deck and asked where the ventilation shafts run. At this point I told them the shafts run through the life support system and throughout the ship so it could be anywhere. To illustrate I unrolled three 18" x 24" blueprints, one of each deck on the ship.

"Oh boy." They decide their best bet is to split into two teams. One team will search Deck A, the other will search Deck C. As they clear the decks they'll move to Deck B, hopefully flushing the creature there. Prior to them searching I decided to place the other lifeforms aboard the ship where they appeared in the movie, happy to move them in response to the crew's actions. Parker, Lambert and Dallas start on Deck A, while Deck C is searched by Ash ("Ripley doesn't trust Ash, give him the cargo net."), Ripley (motion detector) and Brett (incinerator). They take the maintenance lift down to the dimly lit bowels of C deck. They enter the vestibule outside the air scrubbers and activate the motion detector. It picks up a faint signal in the maintenance garage. The team enter the cluttered garage, stepping around cargo crates and a grav sled loaded with coolant cannisters. They use the motion detector again. It clearly signals a locker on the far side of the garage. They approach, tension rising ("I'm not tense. There's no way we are going to find it that easy Dad!"). Ripley flings the locker open, something small and brown darts out of it.

"Oh! I was wrong!"
"Does Ash need to make an attack roll with the net to catch it?"
"He would, but Ash raises the cargo net and lets it go."
"WHAT! Ash you traitor! I knew Ripley shouldn't trust him!"
"Ash looks at you surprised. 'It was Jones.' he says, 'It was the cat."

The crew let out a variety of Charlie Brown-style AAAARGHs before deciding they'd need to catch Jones first so it doesn't keep setting off the motion detector. Ash, having already put himself in harms way and in no way the owner of the cat states that it shouldn't be his responsibility to catch the cat.

"Fine. Brett can catch it. Which way did it go? Right here into the landing claw chamber? Ok, you all stick together, I'll just go in here and get the cat." Brett enters the landing claw chamber alone. The vertical shaft rises three stories above him, holding the enormous landing claw over his head. Maintenance chains rattle in the breeze generated by air vents high on the chamber wall. The condensation provides a constant trickle of water over every surface here which has rusted and corroded much of the metal in the chamber. Brett can hear Jones meowing in the distance and he spots a discarded transparent glove below the landing claw.

"A glove? I'll check it out. Is it gross? I don't want to pick it up."
"You can use a pen or a small tool to get it off the floor. You examine it and realize it's more like a discarded snake skin after it molts."
"Weird. Oh is it from that snake thing that came out of Kane? It's growing? What are these cards you are dealing out?"

I describe an enormouse black creature, it's long snaking tail and 'sausuge shaped head' crawl down the landing claw behind Brett. It drops to the ground, then rises up to attack! I roll a 2 on the Drone attack chart - 'Playing with its prey'. The enormous creature swats at Brett knocking him to the ground, his incinerator clattering to the floor. He screams. The A Deck crew hear him over the open comm channel and race towards the maintenance lift. Ash and Ripley turn and rush towards the landing claw chamber. Ripley is first in, dropping the motion dector and unslinging her cattle prod. She charges the beast, and fudging the rules a touch, I give her chance to make an attack. The cattle prod sparks and skitters across the creature's carapace. It whirls, grabbing her and 'Ready to Kill'. Its lips pull back, its jaws open revealing a second set of jaws inside. Ash reaches the door to the landing claw chamber. And closes it.

"ASH!" My wife and son are yelling now, both in character and ooc simultaneously. This game is great. The Deck A crew weren't previously dealt cards, so I redeal everything. Dallas reaches Ash first.

"What did you DO!"
"Captain, the creature inside. We don't know what it can do. I had to make the moral choice of protecting three other crewmembers against the two inside."
"Ash open this door! Wait, I can use my command talent!" Dallas rolls successfully and Ash reluctantly complies at the cost of a stress point to Dallas. With one action left, the players check to see what equipment they assigned Dallas so he can save Ripley.

"A FIRE EXTINGUISHER! We gave him a FIRE EXTINGUISHER!" My wife is apopleptic.
"Ok, can I shoot the extinguisher at the creature from here? Maybe it will scare it."

I remember the final scene of the movie where Ripley drives the creature from its hiding spot by venting gas on it. I tell my son he can vent the fire extinguisher which will give him an opportunity to attempt a manipulate roll to drive the creature back, but this will be the one and only time this will work. He agrees and rolls. 0 successes.

"Ugh, Ripley's dead. It's fine. I knew this was going to happen."
"Wait, I can push it!"

Dallas takes a stress point and rolls again, three successes. Cheers erupt from the table as we decide additional successes not only force the creature to release Ripley but compels it to retreat back up the landing claw out of sight. The rest of the crew gathers and attempt some ineffective incinerator blasts up the landing claw but are unable to even spot the creature higher in the chamber. Ripley grabs Jones and the crew retreat, sealing the landing claw chamber behind them.

"LET'S BLAST IT INTO SPACE"The crew collects in the maintenance garage, Ripley berating Ash for leaving them to die. Dallas quiets them and they start formulating possible solutions. They pull out the blueprints and realize the landing claw chamber spans all three decks, but there's only one door that provides access which they've just sealed. There's some concern that the creature may have "burrowed into other parts of the ship."

Brett's incinerator is low on fuel and the other is on the table in the galley. Ripley, Brett and Lambert head to A deck to get the second incinerator and refuel Brett's. While they are gone, Dallas confers with Parker.

"Is there any other way in or out of the landing claw chamber?"
"No. I mean, just the airlock in the floor of the chamber that allows the claw to deploy as landing gear."

"That thing's dangerous. We aren't going to be able to capture it. We can just blow it out the airlock into space."

There are airlock controls here at the door to the landing claw chamber. Dallas preps a manual override which seals all vents and ducts to the landing claw chamber, purges the atmosphere out of it and triggers the landing claw chamber to open against Ash's protests. The landing claw chamber retracts but warning klaxons and flashing yellow hazard lights erupt throughout the ship.

On A Deck Ripley checks a terminal and sees a warning from MU/TH/ER

WARNING

HULL BREACH

PRESSURE DROPPING

ATMOSPHERE ESCAPING

She warns Dallas over the intercomm who closes the landing claw bay. The klaxons cut off but the warning lights still spin, increasing the entire crew's stress. Spooked, they gather on the bridge.

Lambert relays a damage report. "Hull breach detected in life support on B deck."

"What? That doesn't make any sense."

"For more info you can head to B deck and check the Life Support Terminal."

My wife got a pained expression on her face, "But I don'wannagotoBdeck!"

She summons her courage and sends Ripley, Brett and Parker to B deck. Darting from bulkhead to bulkhead, swinging the incinerator and motion detector back and forth, jumping at shadows, they reach the terminal on B deck. They check the pressure logs and find the landing claw chamber seals all closed correctly, but when the door was opened atmosphere began venting from the life support ducts on B deck, drawing atmosphere in from throughout the ship and venting it into space.

They ask if they can just seal off the life support system. I explain the air scrubbers in the bow of the ship are a bit like the Nostromo's heart. Multichambered and delicate. While they are large enough to crawl through, there are a network of smaller ventilation ducts, like capillaries, that run throughout the vessel to carry air to each chamber of the ship from the airscrubbers. In the event of a hull breach in the air scrubbers (from something like a stray meteor), the air scrubbers can be sealed off deck by deck from the Life Support Terminal. Once contained, typically maintenance personnel will enter the air scrubber ducts to manually close the iris doors around the breached location. After isolating the specific breached scrubber and sealing it, the entire air scrubber complex can be re-opened.

"Can we just seal each deck of air scrubbers?"

"Well, for a short time, but you'll fill the ship with CO2 and eventually die."

"What if we just cut off one deck and get into cryo?"

"The cryo units still use the airscrubbers to maintain your oxygen levels in cryo. You could risk it with just 50% capacity, but you are 10 months from home which is really risky."

"So you're saying we need to actually crawl into the vents, find the breach, and seal it?" my wife confirmed, "Screw Weyland-Yutani and their dumb ship. Why did they even design it this way?"

Since the air scrubbers recorded a hull breach, they decided to wear EVA suits into them ducts. I cautioned them that the bulky suits plus equipment they brought would be tricky to negotiate through the ducts, but they persisted. They again broke into two teams. Brett and Parker would enter the ducts on B deck followed by Ripley, while Dallas, Ash and Lambert would descend to C deck and wait outside the other scrubbers in case the alien tried to enter the scrubbers from their level.

The B deck team entered the completely dark air scrubbers, slowly moving in single file from a single entrance tunnel into the chambers at the center of the complex. Only one person could fit into each section at a time, so Parker was the first to encounter a number of distressing discoveries. Slime coated sections of ductwork, some resin-like extrusions in another scrubber and finally an air scrubber that appeared to be completely covered in a waxy brown resin, worked into a number rib-like nodules spanning the floor to ceiling the scrubber. This entire process took forever. The character movement was slow, the hour was getting late for the players, and the stress level of both players and characters was rising. To get done faster, they decided to split up. Brett took a side duct, while Parker started sealing the air scrubbers coated in resin since they probably wouldn't be functioning anyway. On C deck, Dallas and Lambert entered the tunnel to start checking for the hull breach. At that moment Ripley activated the motion detector. A faint, indistinct signal emenated from the far end of the air scrubber complex on B deck.

"Oh god, it's here. We need to get out of here!"

Brett pushed forward down his side passage towards the exit. As he did so he discovered more resin coatings but also a huge rend in the air duct passage, bent and corroded that offered access to the crawlspaces between the walls of the ship's quarters and the outer hull. He had little time to inspect the breach as loud, skittering movement echoed down the ductwork from behind him.

The alien leapt towards Brett, pushing him from the ductwork and into the white paneled hexagonal chamber outside. Laying on his back, desperately searching for his dropped incinerator Brett screams as the creature looms over him. Over open comms the entire crew hears his desperate strangled cry. Dallas and Lambert begin panicking as well. On C deck, Ash can look up into the chamber above, watching Brett's predicament. The creature retracts its lips, descends on Brett for a fatal 'head bite', Brett's skull is crushed by the beast's secondary jaws. The creature descends the ladder towards C deck landing next to Ash.

Parker manages to squeeze towards the ductwork in time to see the alien's tail disappear down the hatchway. He checks Brett but can offer no aid but looks down the hatchway gleefully, knowing Ash is finally going to get his due.

"The creature rises up from a crouch after landing next to Ash. The science officer backs against the wall, trying to squeeze into a corner of the hexagonal room. The beast whirls on him..."

"Yes! Finally! Get some Ash, it's what you deserve!"

"...but ignroing him turns towards the open tunnel where Dallas and Lambert entered."

"WHAT!!?!"

Using info from a cut scene in Aliens where the creatures ignore a similar synthetic, I decided the alien would treat Ash as just another piece of equipment. My wife and son, not realizing Ash was a robot, were shocked and dismayed. On his turn Parker pointed his incinerator down the hatch towards the creature and let loose, bathing it in flame. The initial attack hit it square in the back for three total damage, but the fire intensity only inflicted a single additional hit. The beast hissed and shot an arm up the hatch, yanking Parker down hard onto the C deck floor. Ripley finally manages to extricate herself from the air ducts to see the beast looming over Parker.

"What do you do?"

"Oh my god, I only have the motion detector. Oh we are so dead. So dead. Wait, Brett is here right? You said he dropped the incinerator?"

"Yes, it's laying in a pool of blood next to Brett's shattered corpse."

"YES! Ok, I drop the motion detector as a free action, pick the incinerator as a fast action and I'll use my slow action to shoot at the alien."

"You ready the incinerator, point it down onto C Deck. Ash has backed away, but the creature is engaged with Parker. You are going to hit them both with the flame."

"Oh my god, oh my god. We are screwed. Ripley's dead. Ok, what if I bash it with the butt of the incinerator? Can I jump down and try to smash it? The alien will kill Ripley but maybe Dallas and Lambert can escape."

"Sure, in fact I'll treat it as a blunt object which gives you an extra die."

"Ok, Ripley has, let's see, 3 strength and (oh great) 1 close combat. But I get to add 9 dice for my stress, right? Ok, here goes nothing."

Ripley flung herself down the hatchway, using her momentum to drive the butt of her incinerator into the creature's enormouse domed head for three points of damage (and no facehuggers on the stress dice!). Unfortunately for her the alien receives 8 dice for its armor. I reluctantly gathered the handful of dice as I knew the creature would likely be tearing poor Ripley to bits next round. The armor dice clattered across the table resulting in zero successes. I checked the creature's remaining health.

"The butt of the icinerator impacts the back of the creatures head, splitting a seam down its entire length. Caustic yellow fluid squirts from it and..." rolling 1 success on a whole handful of acid dice "... burns Ripley for a single point of damage. The beast collapses, shudders, and dies."

There was a moment of silent shock as the fact registered.

"You mean... we killed it?" I nodded and the table erupted in cheers. They had spent the last hour playing while standing up as a way to bleed off nervous energy from the rising tension. Now they erupted in excited, nervous laughter, "I can't believe it, I can't believe we killed it!" "Oh my gosh, that was great that was so great." "I was sure we were dead. I really thought I was going to get Ripley killed!" This was the first time I've ever seen my wife engaged by an RPG and my son was over the moon.

We played for about five hours, finishing up just before midnight on New Year's eve. We chatted about the game for a few minutes, then rushed to the couch to watch the ball drop with two minutes to go. As it did we cursed 2020 and welcomed 2021, watched some lame bands play to non-existant crowds, and finally gave up on NYE coverage around 1:30. As we tuned out my son piped up. "Dad, I know it's late, but can we watch Alien. Like, now?" So we did, and he was scared, and he was thrilled, and I got to share not only one of my favorite movies with him but the most unique RPG experience I think I've ever had with my family. This game is great.

Monday, August 3, 2020

Battletech Campaign #18: Factory Assault

With the last of the stubborn Lyran defenses on Parakoila shattered, Captain Razor gathered the members of his mercenary company together for a final briefing.

The icy caverns hidden within the mountains that had long served as their base of operations were now returned to their former primordial beauty. The mech repair gantries, heated barracks, and ammunition stores had been packed away on transport hovercraft or scuttled to avoid capture by the Lyrans. Now illumination from the last few unstowed work lights were refracted by the icicles hanging from the arched ceiling, filling the dozens of faces turned towards Captain Razor with an unearthly bluish glow.

The Captain stood before the assembled mechwarriors, mechtechs, supply officers, commandos, medical personal, drivers and other support personnel of the Raiders and began outlining the plan for their final mission on the icy world.