When someone asks you if you're a DM you say "YES!"

  I was approached at Rogue's Gallery during my D&D Encounters session and asked "Are you a Dungon Master?"  Well, as a very wise ghostbuster once advised me to do, I said "Yes!" The gentleman then asked me if I would run a D&D game for his son's birthday, since he REALLY wanted a D&D birthday and had only played Encounters once or twice.  I thought about it and said I'd do it.  Kinda sounded like fun.  It turns out I'd have a group of players only two of whom had actually played before, and both of them only experience at D&D Encounters.  Time to break in the newbies!  Below is my report on how the game went, plus a little foster care status info.

  So the birthday party was a smashing success.  I had seven 7^th Graders and one dad playing.  Mom sat on the couch, drank a glass of wine or two, and watched us all play.  Of the kids at the table, only the birthday boy, Dakota, and his dad had ever played before- but that was an organized play event at a Rogue’s Gallery (our Friendly Local Game Store), and organized play events tend toward lots of fighting and very little roleplay.  Two of the kids, Jacob and Kiara (the only girl there) were pretty skeptical about this strange diversion, in fact Kiara was downright dismissive of it and Jacob tuned into his iPod and decided he wasn’t going to play.  So we began our adventure in a tavern (where all good adventures begin) with our heroes given a chance to establish themselves by interacting with the barman and his Halfling waiter.  Now, the birthday boy was having a grand time being domineering over his friends, by assigning them the characters HE thought they should play and even forcing them to use the names he had made up for them.  Kiara immediately rebelled by renaming her Elven Ranger “Bob”, much to Dakota’s dismay.

  Suddenly – Goblins attack the town!  The heroes of course rise to the occasion of defending the tavern and its customers, spells fly, swords clash, the ranger gets on top of a table and fires her bow into the fray.  The hulking Dragonborn paladin blocks the door with himself (played by a cute little guy named Rushi) and the dad, John, playing a thief goes out the back door to circle around the goblins.  Dakota, playing a wizard, duels the goblin’s hexer as he spouts off game statistics for the goblins in an attempt to sound authoritative to his friends who at this point are so caught up in the playing of the game and the battle of the tavern that they could care less that he’s memorized the Monster Vault.  They wanna see goblin heads roll!

  When the smoke clears, the goblins are all dispatched save the hexer, who had the good sense to run away, but not before shaking his fist and declaring that the White Claw would see vengeance done!  The characters had time to rest, and I gave the players a post-battle restroom and snack break while I got my notes set up for the rest of the game.  The kids immediately headed for the Xbox to play 4-person HALO save a couple, who wanted to ask me about game rules, and dice, and other details.  Jacob decided he wanted to play after all, because this looked like a lot of fun- so he became a half-orc Assassin.  He didn’t like the name Dakota had made up for him, either, so he became Alucard.  Oh, well- so it’s not original, it’s the kid’s first game.

  The first Xbox break turns out to be the last, as the kids become enthralled in the story.  An old sage who lives in the town explains that the White Claw is the name of a Dragon who is attempting to stake his claim to this territory, and the goblins are the dragon’s servants.  He offers the adventurers 100 gold each if they will hunt this young dragon and defeat it before it becomes larger and more powerful.  The kids, having no idea what 100 gold is worth one way or the other, immediately demand more money and one even demands a town of their own.  The old sage patiently explains that he has no more money, and certainly no town to give them, but he can give them his staff.  The three spellcasters in the group, the Wizard, the Druid and the Illusionist, immediately begin arguing over who gets the magic wizard’s staff.  One of the players, Dylan I think his name was, politely tells his friends to shut the heck up because we need to know what happens next.  Once it’s decided the birthday boy gets the wizard staff (of course) the party is back on track.  The old sage says to defeat the dragon will be no small task, and perhaps they will find a weapon to help them in their quest in the tomb of the famous warrior Rogahn (this name and plot point is cribbed directly from the 1978 module “In Search of The Unknown”)

  Off the brave adventurers go, to find the tomb of Rogahn.  The old sage told them the long-lost tomb had been uncovered by a recent landslide, but when they arrive, they find a curiously excavated graveyard that looks like it had never been buried at all.  The headstones are standing, there’s even a mausoleum that looks untouched by time.  Around the site are the sheer, almost smooth cliffs showing where the rest of the area had been buried, but this whole graveyard just seems to be – there.  Surely nothing sinister could be at work here…  Sure enough, zombies rise from the crypts and attack.  Along with some skeletons for good measure.  Skeletons always make me think of old Ray Harryhausen Sinbad movies, and I actually did a bit of the Thriller dance when describing the zombies.  You kinda have to.  It’s at this point I notice I’ve got the full and complete rapt attention of everyone, including Mom and Dad.  Everyone wants to know what happens next.  The group swings into action, and with a kind of unrehearsed team coordination I’ve never seen in a group of new players before (thanks probably goes to World of Warcraft) the kids (and dad!) engage the vile undead foes.  Kiara, once skeptical of D&D being any fun at all, immediately has her ranger scramble up a tree and begin laying down covering fire with her bow.  The Druid has his wolf animal companion run interference while he whacks the zombies with the magic staff he’s talked Dakota out of temporarily.  The thief (dad) manages to backstab some of the zombies who are otherwise occupied, and in the thick of it all the smallest of the players physically – Rushi and Jacob – are being mighty warriors as the Dragonborn Paladin and the Half-Orc Assassin.  When the battle ends, the intrepid adventurers explore the mausoleum, finding the crypt of Rogahn covered with a marble sarcophagus lid carved into an image of the once-great warrior in repose and in the hands of the statue  - Rogahn’s Axe!  When the characters move to take it, a booming voice demands to know who they are and why they’ve disturbed his rest.  They explain that they are seeking to end the depradations of the dragon, and that they are trying to save the town.  The voice tells them to take the axe with its blessing and defeat the dragon.  The players are relieved that after skeletons and zombies they don’t have to fight a ghost, or worse.

  Travelling to the icy lair of the dragon in the nearby mountains, the adventurers fail to escape detection upon entering the dragon’s lair – but the dragon is unafraid.  It tells them it has sent all its guards away (totally lying) and that if they can choose the safe path to its lair they can foolishly walk right in and face him.  They look at the map and debate on which way is the “safe” passage.  The kids guess, correctly, that the passage that looks most ideal for an ambush is indeed the safe path, with the relatively benign-looking room being a deathtrap.  They choose the safe path, and enter the dragon’s lair.  The dragon is waiting for them, with four goblin guards!  The battle is joined and the adventurers split into two groups, the spellcasters and the ranger and theif in one, and the warriors in the other.  In another uncanny show of teamwork (and D&D rules that didn’t exist when I was in 7^th grade three editions ago) the spellcasters and the ranger create the perfect dragon trap, pinning the beast between an illusionary chasm and a fountain of fire while the ranger uses her ability to knock creatures prone with a well-placed arrow to deny the dragon escape.  While they have the creature bottled up, the warriors bravely (foolishly?) rush in, facing its icy breath, and begin to attack.  Between deft control of the battlefield by the illusionist, wizard and ranger and the foolhardy charge of the battered and bloodied paladin, druid and fighter the dragon is on the ropes.  Kiara looks over my dungeon master screen (kinda cheating) and exclaims “It’s only got one hit point left!”  The race is on to land the last blow on the dragon.  Rushi misses.  Jacob swings and misses.  Dad swings and misses.  Now the druid sends his wolf to do his dirty work and… HIT!  The wolf bites the dragon for the last bit of damage and the mighty beast goes down.  Cheers erupt from some of the kids, groans from the warriors who feel outdone by a cute little doggie.  Even mom is kinda excited at this point, having watched the story unfold.  Kiara asks me where she can write down her ranger’s history and details.  I squee internally.  A new gamer girl is born.  In fact, a table of new gamers has real potential here.

  It’s now 10:30PM, six hours after we started.  The kids are ready for more.  I told them that’s the end of the story – this time.  They ask if we can play again.  I tell them I’d be happy to find the time if I can, and this time everyone can decide for themselves what kind of adventurer they want to play.  General excitement.  We cut the cake (a replica of the cake from the Xbox game Portal, this is where I note the Xbox hasn’t been touched since the first restroom break) and sing “Still Alive” from Portal in lieu of “Happy Birthday.”  And I thought I loved video games when I was a kid.  Dylan proclaims Dungeons and Dragons the best game ever.  I tell him that’s why I’ve been playing since 1985.  These kids were born around ’98 or ’99.  Mom and Dad tell me I must have the patience of Job to put up with all the hootnanny, and I tell them it took me back to my mom’s kitchen table circa 1987, and it was a sheer pleasure.  The only difference was not quite as many Def Leppard fans.  Kiara corrects me by queuing up some Def Leppard on her iPod, which starts a conversation about how 80% of what the kids have on their iPods is 70s and 80s rock that I grew up listening to.  I approve mightily.  Dad tips me (a totally unnecessary $50, which I use to buy Mary and I a mixer that she’s been eyeing.  Okay, the mixer was more than $50, but every bit helps) and I wonder to myself if there’s money to be made doing professional Dungeon Mastering at birthdays, weddings, bar mitzvahs…  Nah.  I head home content in a job well done…

  On the Foster Parenting front.  Mary and I have been licensed by TX for almost two months, still no placements.  We have had an “almost” placement of a little girl who the state required be in the care of the foster parents most of the time – IE, court stipulated a stay-at-home mom or dad, no daycare.  Since we couldn’t do that, we had to pass.  They understood, in fact they knew we both worked but wanted to ask anyway.  We are doing some babysitting/respite care for other foster families in September, and continuing to wait.  This Saturday we renew our CPR training.

Another month, another blog.

I really hate the amount of time that seems to go by between these blog entries.

I've just finished another semester at AMU.  Another A, and another A or B+, depending on how Professor Fliegelman decides to finish up.  All in all, I'm pretty pleased - although a pair of As will make me VERY pleased.

No word yet on the Foster Care license.  We're coming up on six weeks, so the four-to-six figure our agent gave us is almost up.  We'll see what happens - I am excited and cautious at the same time.  I realized one of my friends from High School has a son who's a junior at the school we graduated from.  Really drives home that Mary and I are starting late.

Speaking of which, my birthday just passed- 25 JUN.  My old scouting/JROTC buddy Jimmy Navarro reminded me that if we were in Logan's Run, I'd be running right now.  Thanks for pointing that out, man.  I'm now a year away from my "late" 30s and find it kinda depressing that I have not reached parenthood or college graduation yet. 

On the bright side, I won a WoTC writing contest.  I know, pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of life, but it made me feel good.  The prize was a copy of the Shadowfell boxed set and a display box of the Encounter Cards.  Pretty nice haul for 200 words.  Of course, I had a very difficult time trimming my entry to 200 words.  I was told 200 words was an opening sentence for me.  You know, that's not far from the truth with my writing style.

You know, I was going to write some more about gaming... but contemplating age and lack of real accomplishment has kinda soured it for me...

Of Hives, Cruises, Homestudies and STRANGE DREAMS.

  It's been too long.  Over a month this time.  I really have to make time to make this blog a regular thing or there's really no point in doing it.

  So, college is going well.  3 As and a B+, and my current average in the classes I'm currently enrolled in are both As.  Military History seems to suit me so far, but 8-week semesters are a challenge.  The cruise kept me away from the keyboard for a week and I'm still feeling kind of struggling to keep up.  I wrote my entire Clausewitz paper last night in a single marathon session.

  The cruise itself was pure bliss.  A week of leisure, visiting Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Cozumel- although my part of our landing party took a ferry to Playa Del Carmen for the day.  We ate, drank (more than I have in  years), vaped, hung out in the cigar bar, danced, basically had a GREAT time.  And yes, we did game on the cruise as we had promised to do.  Bobby Dean ran an amazing two-part Ghostbusters game in the ship's library.  It was done with the PCs playing themselves as ghostbusters, and was an great time.  Hooray for psychomagnatheric slime piped through a ship's fire supression system.

  So, while snorkling in Grand Cayman I managed to pinch the nerve of my left foot that runs down the top of the foot through a combination of stupidity and poorly fitting swim fins.  Upon my return, I was perscribed prednisone for the injury, and boy howdy do I seem to have a poor reaction to that.  Now, for what it's worth, it's very rare according to my Doc to be that sensitive to Prednisone.  It has side effects, sure, but most folks don't break out into full-body hives so angry and puffy it looks like you're wearing Martian digital camouflage when you're naked.

  It took me six says to get rid of the gives once they set in.  Worst case of itchy craptacularness I've had in my entire life.  Not fun.  Bendadryl and Zyrtec and Aveeno baths for a week.  I was in a perpetual state of groggy from the benadryl.  I'm back at work today, and I see no splotches on my skin, but I do still itch here and there.  Hope it's gone for a long time.  There is a good chance the allergic reaction wasn't to the prednisone at all but to something else - problem is it's impossible to tell what that is until I stumble into it again.  It was just perfect timing with the onset and the fade of the hives to the prednisone.

  Mary and I have now completed our homestudy, HUZZAH!  This was the last piece of our part of our foster care license.  Now we wait the six weeks or so for the homestudy to be written and submitted to CPS.  This means we may have children before the summer is out.  We are both very excited, and looking forward to whatever God has in mind for us.  Speaking of God, a big shoutout to the assjackets who caused the whole fuss and stir about the rapture occurring last week.  You're the reason people think all Christians are nutcases.  Thank you for the wonderful publicity.  I'm a Christian, and I'm as normal as the next guy who likes to spend his weekends pretending he's a MechWarrior, Starfleet Officer, ancient wizard, WWII paratrooper, or some other flavor of fantasy or historical character.  I also like mustard on my fries from time to time.  But perfectly normal, yes.

  OK, last night I had a very vivid, but very odd dream.

  I was at my college campus, but it was a different version of my campus with a large atrium.  Apparently it was also run by a general.  This general had a daughter who was wronged by some sailor in the past, and there was a curse placed on the campus that the first male to walk across the atrium on a given day would be struck by lightning in diabolical vengeance for the deflowering of the general's daughter.  First of all, I'm not making this up- it really was in my dream.  Second, I found out about all this third-person from the comical musings of two maintenance men who were working on power lines as the obvously dangerous storm clouds approached.  They regaled each other with the legend of the curse in expository film fashion, alerting me, the dreamer, to the impending danger.
  But I wasn't there to worry about curses, no.  I had a computer lab to run.  Apparently, it was the same computer lab I ran in 1996-8 at Northridge for the CIS department, right down to having old 386 and 486 PCs running Windows 95.  But it was lunch time, so I took the elevator down to the hospital (WTF?) and walked to the other building, which was a large asian grocery (Again, WTF?)  I am struck as to how things that are jarringly incongruous in the light of day seem perfectly normal in a dream state.  Anyway, the asian grocery had some wonderful wonton soup and sushi, and I just missed my wife as she was coming off the other elevator as I was headed down.  She was apparently waiting for me in the lab when I got back.  But I never quite made it back.  I ate my soup, and had some difficulty with getting the sushi I wanted, so I headed back to the hospital to return to the computer lab.  While in the hospital, I ran into Stana Katic from Castle and we shared an incredible kiss - I mean absolutely toe-curlingly amazing.  It was a total non-sequiter moment, that made no sense even in the context of this screwed up dream, so Stana and I just kind of stared at each other awkwardly for a moment and made a silent vow never to speak of this again.  I then continued on back to the lab, where I arrived just as my wife was leaving...  I walked her down to the ground floor where she got in the car and went back to her work.  This is when I saw the ominous storm clouds circling right over the campus.  I was rather annoyed that I had to deal with the curse when there were hard drives to replace, so I stalked past the still-chattering maintenance workers and into the atrium, where I walked right across the part of the floor we were told we aren't supposed to walk across lest we be the recipient of a lightning bolt from on high and basically dared the annoying curse to try to zap me.
  A giant snake appeared out of the clouds, itself being made of cloud-stuff.  I had glowing eyes and fangs and writhed its way down to about 150 feet above the ground, where it looked at me and issued forth a lightning bolt from its mouth as the two maintenance guys ran for cover.  I just raised the palm of my hand, knowing that God wouldn't let a gaint cloud-snake kill me with a ligthning bolt on my own campus, and the lightnign bolt harmlessly impacted my hand and the snake disappeared in a puff of clouds.  I then went back up the elevator to my lab and began pulling the yellowed beige-colored case off a CompuAdd 486.

  What a dream, eh?

Good parenting news, good diet news, upcoming cruise, and some neat-o other stuff.

  This is what I get for letting the blog go so long between posts.  I have a lot to blog about and not so much time with which to blog it.  Lotsa schoolwork for this college boy.  I know I've said it before, but I really didn't remember THIS much reading and writing in college the first time around.

  So, first - the really important bit of info.  Arrow has received our last bits of reference paperwork, and our caseworker has informed me we are on the list for the homestudy.  This is the home stretch in a journey that has been half a decade in the making, from Mary's hysterectomy, to discussion surrogacy with Rob and Cami, to working with Marywood and finally to Arrow and our hopefully soon-to-be-finished foster care license.  I am excited.  Also, a bit nervous.  Parenthood is a big job.  God will probably maintain the balance of the universe by making sure I get stuck with kids that are just as difficult as I was for my parents.

  Next, weight loss.  As most of you know I started dieting in August of last year at a weight of 308lbs.  I'm pretty frankly ashamed to have let myself get that large, and I'm overjoyed that 9 months later I'm lighter, but nowhere near as light as I'd hoped to be.  My current weight as of this morning was 276.9, meaning I've lost 31lbs.  Now, 31lbs is nothing to sneeze at, but that's a rather unimpressive rate of less than a pound a week.  Problem has been tha I regained weight over the holidays and then hit a plateau earlier this year that had me bouncing the same 3-4lbs on and off over and over.  So what am I doing now that's let me get past the plateau?  Well, exercise is one bit.  Wii Fit every day from 30-60 minutes of aerobic step.  Add to that a modification of the Atkins diet.  I'm doing a generally low-carb regimen, about 20-40g of carbs or less a day but I've added a caloric cap (as of this week) to keep myself from going overboard on some things.  WingStop lemon pepper wings come to mind.

  Mary has lost a little over 30lbs, and it's frustrating to me because she cheats on her low-carb all the time.  Difference is, at her job she's on her feet all day long and gets a lot more PT than I do.  She looks GREAT.  Her before and after on Facebook are really telling, and she's looking forward to losing even more.  Low carb has worked pretty well for her.  BTW - I think she looks REALLY cute in her scrubs.  She got straight As last semester, bettering my A and B+.  Who knew?  I'm so proud of my wife, it isn't funny.

  OK, next item - on 1 MAY 11 the Royal Dragoon Guards get deployed to the Gulf... of Mexico...  Dragoons, Dragoon reservists and friends are going aboard Carnival Conquest in Galveston for a 7-night cruise to Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Cozumel.  I'll be wreck snorkling in Grand Cayman.  Mary will be swimming with dolphins there.  Most of us will be swimming through a Mayan cenote in Cozumel.  This is gonna rock.

  OK, other cool stuff.  Go check out http://www.mechcorps.com/  The folks at MechCorps are awesome.  We went to Chimaera Con in San Antonio - had a BLAST - and played a lot of Battletech on the tabletop and in the 'Mech pods.  So much fun, in fact, that we're hitting the pods the night before the cruise.  If anybody's in Houston on the evening of 30 APR 11 come to Track 21 Indoor Karting in Houston and have some fun with us from 1800-0000.  Some of us are going to go for our 25 mission qualification pins.

  Heroes of Shadow released for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition last week.  I purchased it, read it, and really enjoyed the content.  Now, all of you know that I'm a 1980s kind of guy.  I still run a 1st Edition AD&D game on Wednesday nights with my grognard friends.  Labyrinth Lord and Rules Cyclopedia are two of my favorite incarnations of D&D.  My B/X Moldvay Cook books are holy...

  That said, something about the shift that occurred when D&D Essentials came out really caught me.  All of a sudden, I just *got* it.  With the shift of martial characters back to being martial, the re-spin of monsters and the change-up in the class presentation somehow 4e just clicked.  Now, to be sure, it clicked as a good GAME.  I am not yet sure if it clicked as good D&D.  That remains to be seen.  There are three components that will allow me to test this.  Component 1 - Heroes of Shadow.  Component 2 - The upcoming Shadowfell boxed set.  Component 3 - a good group of 5 players.  #2 is on its way.  #3 I am working on, but since as an adult, student and soon-to-be parent, my gaming time is limited.  I can't get another campaign started any time soon.  Not without killing something that's extant now.

  The game I want to run to take 4e out for a shiny new spin in an actual campaign environment (I DM Dungeons and Dragons Encounters for Rogue's Gallery once a week...  this doesn't count as an actual home campaign environment) is basically Ravenloft by way of Castlevania.  I think the ideas I have in mind really fit the type of high-powered dramatic and tactical feel of D&D 4e.  Many people lament about the video game feel of 4e.  To that I say, well, the video games descended from tabletop.  The character types of Defender, Controller, Leader and Striker evolved out of the way we actually played our characters all these years.  Initially, back in 2008, I *hated* that the classes had been labelled and pigeonholed.  I've been running a lot of old school games since then, and realized that the labels are just a formalization of the way we played anyway.  Now - I'm not going to stop loving THAC0, lower-is-better AC, or Larry Elmore artwork any time soon.  I just want to see if the strengths I see in the 4e game will actually play out in an ongoing home campaign.  I see the ability to tell an epic adventure story with heroes doing cinematic things that the original rules only marginally modeled.  I'm willing and eager to give it a try.

  But you can have my Allston Rules Cyclopedia when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.  Still the best single version of D&D ever.

  One more thing - we did a playtest of Mecha RPG last night.  Definitely would not be in the running for replacing A Time of War in our ongoing Battletech campaign - it's much too cinematic and narrative for the amount of crunch our players like in their Battletech.  At the same time, that same narrarativism and cinematic flair appeals mightily to me and Larry, and Bobby seemed to dig it.  Larry said it would be brilliant for a separate campaign of its own playing to the anime-emulation strengths of the system.  I agree totally. 

Okay, folks.  See you next time.  Maybe I'll have some more info on Mecha RPG with an in-depth playtest review.  Maybe I'll have more on D&D.  Who the heck knows.

Excelsior!

Into The Second Semester - And Some Battletech Musings

  My first semester ended with an A and a B+, and now, in week three of the new semester I'm enjoying both Anthro and Intro to Military History.  Damn, but these 8-week semesters move FAST.  I feel like I just got started, and one prof has already posted about the mid-term...

  OK, most of you (that is, two out of the three readers of this blog) come here to see me post about gaming stuff.  So here's what I've been tinkering with, MechWarrior-wise.  I think I've sussed out that I want to borrow lots from Traveller, some from MechWarrior 1e and 2e, and then tack on some concepts from FATE.  When all this comes together, it should be the MechWarrior system I've wanted to play with.

  After some consideration, we'll be stealing bits of the Traveller character gen, and the concept of UPP.  Something else I like is with the Mongoose tweak of Traveller, the attribute bonuses are on a fairly tight scale, which might help keep high attribute scores from creating supercharacters.  One of the issues with MechWarrior 2nd Edition is that any character with a 6 ITN was godlike in pretty much anything but social interaction.  The flip side was that an 'average' person with 3s across the board needed a skill level of 4-5 just to be competent at something.  University Education only gave a max skill level of 3.  Your PCs won't be 'average' for the most part, but unless you're going to decouple PCs from NPCs for determining skills then you want the system to reflect some sort of internal consistency...  Hmmm... perhaps you COULD simply rule that the average NPC as the skill roll of a military regular at whatever it is they do and just ignore the math...

  OK, next thing I want to steal from Traveller is the lifepath system.  I want to find a way to make it interesting and useful, but not the amazing monster it became in MW3.  I think the big problem in MW3 was the way skill points worked.  If the lifepath is going to grant skills, it needs to grant skills, not skill points that must later be rectified into something else.  Mongoose Traveller even has a notation for granting a skill level and no higher.  I like that as well, as it allows for someone to reach a given experience level without exceeding it for certain things or types of training.  As an aside - I'd like to also borrow planetary UPP codes as well.

  From MechWarrior 1e and 2e I'm taking the personal combat system.  I think personal combat should be very close to 'Mech combat to keep the paradigm from shifting too much for players.  Also - I love hit locations in personal combat.  Gives a bit more flavor to the fighting.  We're going to go for a straight  +1 damage per MoS in combat, avoiding the math in AToW of 1/4 point here and 1/2 point there.  Armor will be handled like it was in MW2e, since the whole BAR/penetration system is linked to AToW's system.  I don't think scaling will be as much of an issue as to require us to use the whole gamut of BAR.

  Skills give me pause.  AToW uses a 0-10 skill level scale.  I'm not sure we are going to use 10 skill levels.  I'm almost tempted to use untrained, green, regular, veteran and elite (with possibly one or two levels above this) as skill levels to keep things simple.  It also allows a quick assignment of target number to NPCs.  OK, stream of consciousness here, in MW1e, there were 8 skill levels.  If we go with 8, that means keying Regular to a TN of 5, green to 6 and untrained to 7 or 8...

  I really have to stop with the stream-of-consciousness notations...  I always lose focus and end up tinkering with stuff that has no direct effect on the project at hand...

  OK, so chargen and skills etc. What about FATE integration?  Well, we're looking at replacing the EDG attribute with something like the refresh mechanic used in the Dresden Files RPG, where the GM sets a refresh rate and 'powers' are subtracted from that number.  For the purposes of MW, a 2nd Edition or AToW-style natural aptitude (roll 3d6 keep best 2) would be a power.  Most advantages might be considered for powers, like sixth sense, etc.  Have to make a list, I s'pose.  We're also going to leave SOC and EDU as aspects.  Like "Swordmaster of the House of Dencourt", which would have a value assigned to it by the GM, or "Graduate of the DeChevalier Military Academy" which would have a number assigned likewise.  Why do it this way?  These things I want decided on based on style and character background, not balancing a pool of points.

  Hmmm...  I'm starting to see a White Wolf-style character sheet for some reason...  No, wait, eight bubbles next to each skill would be a bit much.  Speaking of skills, the skill list needs to be pruned a bit.  AToW gives for a skill list so long that every character in our party needed more space for skills and required me to make a custom character sheet to deal with it.  And then a sheet of JUST skills for two of the nine PCs in the party.  This will bear looking into...

  This is almost making me want to... yep... I'm going to go tinker with a character sheet...  I will try to post more soon...

MechWarrior meets Pendragon meets Traveller?

  Last night, I ran a one-shot of MechWarrior First Edition.  It took me back... waaay back.  And while I was running this one-shot I was making mental notes on some things I'd like to do with a MechWarrior game.  I've made posts before on message boards about how I love the original feel of the MechWarrior universe.  The Dune-inspired post-apocalyptic neo-feudal universe where 'Mechs are the lords of the battlefield and can no longer be constructed- or at least constructed on a small-scale.

  This has given me some ideas for what I would consider "my" version of MechWarrior, or MechWarrior 1.5, as it were. 

  I want to use the 1st edition rules as a basis and I'll admit its out of nostalgia.  Let's start with that and take a look at the things I'd like to keep or modify.

• The game uses 2d6 task resolution.  This I want to keep because it's the core of the Battletech game, with which my version of MechWarrior should remain compatible.
• The ability scores run on a 12-point scale.  I think it's possible to keep this scale, or even to expand it to 15 a-'la Traveller for an old-school hexidecimal UPP scheme...  Hmmm...  Traveller-style systems for MechWarrior...
• The basic system of ability scores giving a modifier to target number works for me.  The challenge here is to create a scheme by which ability scores have an effect, but not as much of an overpowering one as MechWarrior 2nd Edition had, where a character with a 6 ITN was godlike.
• I like the HTK system, and having HTK by body location.  A Time of War has overcomplicated what should be a simplification by reducing the number of damage points a character has, then having margin of success add 1/4 point or 1/2 point to damage.  Why not just keep a larger pool of hit points and count full points?
• I have been looking at the Battletechnology article on character creation.  It gives a variable number of CP for character creation based on the throw of 2d6-2.  This gives a range of 145-225 CP rather than the 150 CP normally alotted by the original MechWarrior RPG.  It also gives several different training possibilities with differing skill packages.  This is terribly old-school in its complex crunchiness.  I may or may not keep some of this just out of nostalgic grognardism.
• I like having experience classes.  They give the old-school feeling of "Levelling" without really having a bunch of levels.  There's Green, Regular, Veteran and Elite.  I like that.
• Crunchy as it is, I like giving out XP for skill use, combat damage, etc.  But I am going to alter XP rules to allow for more non-combat XP for non-combat characters.

Random thoughts...

  The MechWarrior 1e game was often criticized for not being able to do much more than make MechWarriors and pilots.  Something that crossed my mind while reading Pendragon the other night was that Pendragon is a game that makes Knights.  Only knights, pretty much. Pendragon is touted as one of the greatest genre games ever made.  So... what the heck is wrong with MechWarrior being designed to make... MechWarriors?

  Now, don't get me wrong.  I think there's a LOT more to the Battletech universe than BattleMechs.  There's so much history, culture, so many nooks and crannies in the universe to fit into that have nothing to do with 'Mechs at all.  I've run a couple of campaigns like this and they were brilliant.  The deal is, if Greg Stafford could design Pendragon to handle the Knights of the Round Table, why can't MechWarrior be designed to deal with the Knights of the Inner Sphere- IE, MechWarriors?

  Pendragon gives me some inspiration here.  Each character is assumed to be a landholding noble.  Isn't that really the feel of the original MechWarrior universe?  That MechWarriors were the landed nobility by virtue of having a BattleMech?

  So why tweak the game to assume that the characters are either these landed noble MechWarriors and Aerospace Pilots or their retinue?

  So the default character type would be a MechWarrior.  Other possibilites would be aerospace pilots, tankers, etc.  There would be a clear social like between MechWarriors/Aerospace Pilots and everyone else.  Much as knights had serjeants, I think every MechWarrior would have a small number of tankers as retainers.  And maybe some infantry.  These would be to support the 'Mech, and to guard the household when the 'Mech is away.

  Which brings me to the 'Mech being away.  Just as a Knight was required to serve his lord for a period of time per year, why not have MechWarriors required to serve a certain amount of time in active duty to their liege.  In fact, one could even take some of the household mechanics from Pendragon and even include something like "The Winter Phase" for the fortunes of the house and the household members. 

  Now, at this point, I have to mention that I've cribbed a lot from "A Song of Ice and Fire" about houses and house fortunes, etc.  I think we might look to MechWarrior 1st Edition and come up with some additional ideas for building landholds and figuring house fortunes.

  I'm ruminating on possible projects around this.  MechWarrior 1st Edition sourcebooks, maybe.  Or maybe start with an article a'la Battletechnology covering governing a landhold.  I can take a look at Pendragon and it's sourcebook Lordly Domains, plus the Song of Ice and Fire rules, and see what we've got going on to adapt.  I think it would be awesome to come up with something retro, but useful...

One Semester Down...

  Well, that was a quick eight weeks.  And a challenging one.  COLL 100 Foundations of Online Learning and HIST 300 Research Methods in History are under my belt, leaving me 61 hours to complete my degree.  I have 35 credits I can't use which represent a significant amount of time and tuition I used a decade ago that aren't doing me any good right now.  Kinda frustrating.  Oh, well.

  These two classes I've just completed were eye-opening for me.  They really showed me it's time to kick in the spurs and get back to serious academics.  These classes aren't the walk in the park I thought going back to college would be.  I did a lot of reasearch and writing in the last eight weeks, and I'm proud of my paper on the history of the roleplaying hobby and all the hours of reading and researching that went into it.  Oh, and the $100+ of old books I purchased to help in that endeavor.

  My next classes up for bids are MILH201 Introduction to Military History and ANTH100 Introduction to Anthropology.  I'm looking quite forward to both of them.  This will be my first course specific to my major.  Huzzah.

  I get a week off.  Then it's back to the books.  Things are going quite swimmingly.