Monday, May 20, 2013
Friday, May 17, 2013
ACEN 2013 Friday!
Fun convention, it is always refreshing to play to a different demographic. Unlike Adepticon we were able to bust out the RPG for a spin.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
New Scenario- the Hunt
This is one of the 6 scenarios that are in playtesting right now.
1. THE HUNT (Offensive/Neutral/Defensive scenario)
Game and food are scarce and have been so for months. Your scouts have tracked a large herd of game, but it is ambling at the outer limits of your territory and slowly drifting further afield. An opportunity is slipping slowly away, and you cannot afford to watch it go. Your crew has been dispatched in a desperate effort.
All seems well in the first few days. After locating the tracks, your hunting party finds the herd but, as you close on the prety, the party realizes that it is not alone. The hunting party is already too strung out, too far from home to return around empty handed. Grab what you can and get out as quickly as you are able…
Objective:
Your hunting party must gain as many Resource Units (RU) as you can while sustaining as few casualties as possible.
Stances:
Offensive stances: "Forget the herds, get THOSE guys!"
You party gains 20 additional RUs for every enemy it scavenges, but earns 10 less RUs per animal or token.
Once combat is initiated, the player who initiated it may be shot from any other crew without penalty from any crew with a Neutral or Defensive stance.
Neutral stances:
You party gains 10 additional RUs for any animals downed with a silent weapon, and will lose 30 RU for initiating combat with another hunting party.
Defensive stances:
You party gains 20 RUs for every one of your Characters that survives the encounter without so much as a scratch. and will lose 50 RUs for initiating combat with another hunting party.
Set Up:
3x3 board or larger (Larger boards are highly recommended for more than 2 players).
Each table quarter should contain at least one pieces of terrain that is not impassible.
Roll initiative, the winner places the first herd of 3 animals. Following the order of initiative, players will alternate placing herds until all animals have been set on the table.
At least one model in each herd must be less than 18 inches from the center-point of the table. Each model in a herd must be within 2 inches of at one other model in the herd. Any model in a herd may not be closer than 4 inches to a model in another herd.
Number of Players:
1: place 6 herds
2: place 3 herds each
3: place 2 herd each
4+: place 1 herd each
After placing all herds, the player with initiative chooses one table edge as the deployment zone; that player may deploy a hunting party 2d6 inches from the deployment zone edge. In initiative order, opposing players may select any remaining table edge and deploy as above. All models must remain at least 12 inches from any enemy models that have already been deployed.
Each player marks one spot within the deployment zone to be their base camp. **
Special Rules:
Animal Instincts:
Gazelles or Deer **
AP/M/S/F/P/N/W/R
3/5/-/1/2/3/2/-
The herds are activated at the end of each round (during the end phase). Roll a d6 for each herd, and we recommend doing so near that herd. Models in the herd will move the number rolled plus the value of that herd? Movement attribute (d6+M). If a 1 is rolled, that herd will remain stationary. If a 6 is rolled, the herd will move as normal directly away from the nearest human model. Otherwise, the herd will move in the direction indicated by the top of the number on any die roll. In other words, if a 4 is rolled, the herd will move in the direction of the top of the 4, as it is rolled on the table.
All animals must end movement no further than 2 inches from another model in its herd.
A herd's Movement Attribute equals the Movement its slowest herd member, and a herd will always move as far as it is able.
If during the movement an animal gets into base contact with any Character, resolve a close combat attack against the character immediately; however, the animal will not get a charge bonus. The animal counts as the attacker. After the fight the herd will move on, if possible.
If any animal in a herd touches any table edge, the entire herd is removed from the game.
Hunting: If an animal is killed, replace it with a Portable Objective. A Character in base contact with a token can make a Harvest (W) Check during its activation. This attempt costs 2 AP. If successful, the Character retrieves the Portable Objective immediately, and is considered to have the Portable Objective until the model drops it, willingly or otherwise.
Dropping Portable Objectives: A model may drop any/all objectives in its possession at any point in its activation. This is a free action and does not require AP if done at the end of a character's activation (or 1 AP if done at any other time). If a model is forced to move due to Suppression, all tokens in its possession are dropped immediately before that movement.
Retreat: Players can remove a model from play by ending that model's activation in contact with any table edge. That model is immediately removed from the table and may not return this Encounter.
Ending the Encounter: The game ends after 6 Turns or if any side has no Characters left to activate.
Calculating Resource Units:
•20 RUs for each Portable Objective carried by an active character, with any Tokens remaining on the board being claimed by the last remaining crew for 20 RUs each.
•50 RUs for each Portable Objective your Characters placed in your base camp, or loaded on a pack animal that is standing at the end of the game, or has retreated.
•10 RUs each of your Characters wounded
•15 RUs for each of your Characters dying
•20 RUs for each of your Characters killed (not including pack animals and beasts)
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
A Few Pages of Reclaimers
In the vast wastes of overly aerated and un-palatable soil, lay millions of tons of ancient disposed of technology. To most, these pieces of long-discarded technology are of very little use or interest. However to the Order of the Reclaimer, they represent a treasure trove, that should be un-earthed, and examined, disseminated, and integrated into the scattered data clusters of North America and beyond. These unearthed caches of data, and archeological dig sites are seen as the keys to fundamentally understand the hows and whys of the Great Exodus.
Among the Reclaimers, there is great debate as to the reasons, and ultimately, the solutions to the problems caused by pre-Exodus society. While most factions have little to no interest in the past, and prefer to focus on their immediate needs and occasionally on their future, to the Reclaimers, the study of history represents the understanding of the apex of civilization. This information is of great interest and the subject of endless scrutiny among the Order.
The ultimate garbage pickers; Reclaimers attempt to reverse engineer the technology left behind since the Exodus. Technology is the cornerstone of their way of life and beliefs. For example, Reclaimer’s weapons will have a higher damage output but are less reliable, and prone to blowing up in the users face. Whereas a crossbow will probably give you similar results day-in and day-out, a plasma-caster cobbled together from salvaged parts can explode, misfire, or not fire at all, but has a tremendously greater destructive potential. This is the way the Reclaimers prefer to see the world, as the potential to advance technological understanding, at whatever the cost.
Devout scavengers of the old world, they bring back the spoils of their garbage picking to walled Data Hubs and Havens that are sprinkled across the continents. Reclaimer military campaigns have been forged just to ‘exhaustively research’ the effects of found or newly created weaponry.
Sites where a satellite or space structure have fallen back through the atmosphere are of particular significance, and maintain an almost religious importance, as many sects of the cult herald the day when the exodus, with all of its amassed technology, came crashing back to Earth.
Since the Exodus, the Reclaimers have expended much of their energy towards finding these vast troves of old technology. Numerous sites have been discovered that are basically landfills full of high tech junk, such as the Oklahoma Scraps, which is an old e-waste site that is hundreds of square miles.
In the 23rd century, as the United States declined as a global power, much of it’s e-waste became a domestic problem instead of being dumped onto third world countries. In Year Zero these sites are both holy sites and greedily mined with a combination of re-purposed machinery and press-ganged workers from nearby communities and captured enemies. Without the recent population boom due to the Resurgence, this would be an impossible undertaking. Due to the Resurgence, communities are growing faster than ever, and in many cases, a few people are barely missed. In this environment, cast-outs can be rounded up quickly, and easily. A quick Zealot expedition, or trading with a less than ethical caravan are means to gain able bodies to be used to unearth the treasures that lay buried under feet of dirt and concrete. Not all Reclaimer sects use forced labor, but the lure of so much available technology makes it difficult for some to resist.
While Reclaimers revere technology, only the most radical sects of the faction will ever meld technology and the human body. It’s seen as sacrilegious by most Reclaimers to even consider it. Those that do utilize bionics are seen as tacky at best, and heathens to be stamped out at worst.
Using Infrared signals and radio waves to create intermittent cross-continental communications between communities, Reclaimers sometimes intercept garbled satellite code from ancient military or corporate sources. For centuries, a small cell of Scriveners has been dedicated to unlocking these ‘transmission from the gods’. Sites where space junk has fallen back to earth are prized and considered holy by the Reclaimers, especially if they involve one of these fallen satellites or other space debris.
Among the Reclaimers, there is great debate as to the reasons, and ultimately, the solutions to the problems caused by pre-Exodus society. While most factions have little to no interest in the past, and prefer to focus on their immediate needs and occasionally on their future, to the Reclaimers, the study of history represents the understanding of the apex of civilization. This information is of great interest and the subject of endless scrutiny among the Order.
The ultimate garbage pickers; Reclaimers attempt to reverse engineer the technology left behind since the Exodus. Technology is the cornerstone of their way of life and beliefs. For example, Reclaimer’s weapons will have a higher damage output but are less reliable, and prone to blowing up in the users face. Whereas a crossbow will probably give you similar results day-in and day-out, a plasma-caster cobbled together from salvaged parts can explode, misfire, or not fire at all, but has a tremendously greater destructive potential. This is the way the Reclaimers prefer to see the world, as the potential to advance technological understanding, at whatever the cost.
Devout scavengers of the old world, they bring back the spoils of their garbage picking to walled Data Hubs and Havens that are sprinkled across the continents. Reclaimer military campaigns have been forged just to ‘exhaustively research’ the effects of found or newly created weaponry.
Sites where a satellite or space structure have fallen back through the atmosphere are of particular significance, and maintain an almost religious importance, as many sects of the cult herald the day when the exodus, with all of its amassed technology, came crashing back to Earth.
Since the Exodus, the Reclaimers have expended much of their energy towards finding these vast troves of old technology. Numerous sites have been discovered that are basically landfills full of high tech junk, such as the Oklahoma Scraps, which is an old e-waste site that is hundreds of square miles.
In the 23rd century, as the United States declined as a global power, much of it’s e-waste became a domestic problem instead of being dumped onto third world countries. In Year Zero these sites are both holy sites and greedily mined with a combination of re-purposed machinery and press-ganged workers from nearby communities and captured enemies. Without the recent population boom due to the Resurgence, this would be an impossible undertaking. Due to the Resurgence, communities are growing faster than ever, and in many cases, a few people are barely missed. In this environment, cast-outs can be rounded up quickly, and easily. A quick Zealot expedition, or trading with a less than ethical caravan are means to gain able bodies to be used to unearth the treasures that lay buried under feet of dirt and concrete. Not all Reclaimer sects use forced labor, but the lure of so much available technology makes it difficult for some to resist.
While Reclaimers revere technology, only the most radical sects of the faction will ever meld technology and the human body. It’s seen as sacrilegious by most Reclaimers to even consider it. Those that do utilize bionics are seen as tacky at best, and heathens to be stamped out at worst.
Using Infrared signals and radio waves to create intermittent cross-continental communications between communities, Reclaimers sometimes intercept garbled satellite code from ancient military or corporate sources. For centuries, a small cell of Scriveners has been dedicated to unlocking these ‘transmission from the gods’. Sites where space junk has fallen back to earth are prized and considered holy by the Reclaimers, especially if they involve one of these fallen satellites or other space debris.
A Stone In the Tides
New short story set in the Wreck Age world- it can be picked up at http://wreck-age.net for fifty cents! https://www.dropbox.com/s/72yzrhap37wyghk/AStoneInTheTides.pdf
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