Simian Saturday

The Traveller Book

My hardback copy of The Traveller Book arrived today.

Well worth the $20 I paid for it.  Happy to have this to add to my collection.  Now to just find the time to squeeze in some gaming!

Memorial Day

Days of Mutant Futures...

My wife and I saw the latest X-Men movie today. X-Men: Days of Future Past

   Oh, wait that's not it...

Ok, that's the comic from back in the day...

         Ok that's better, anyways..

We both enjoyed it, I won't do any spoilers here, I hate it when people do that. It is a pretty good X-men movie, much better than X-3, course I realize that isn't saying much.  It has got me in a Supers Gaming mood, at least a Post-Apocalyptic Mutant Supers Mood.  I thought about seeing what I could do with the Mutant Future rules, but instead I dug out my copy of...

Yep, Palladium Books Heroes Unlimited.  I know folks out on the inter-webs have railed against the Palladium System, heck even I have at times.  But I've had a ton of fun with Heroes Unlimited over the years, the RPG Campaign that I've gotten the most praise from players over was not D&D or even Gamma World, but a Heroes Unlimited mish-mash I did back in the 90's, Hell I'm getting old. Anyways with the three Powers Unlimited books and the core rules for HU you can really do all kinds of super hero characters.   May see if I can rustle up some folks to make up some characters and see what kind of mischief they can get into! 
Good Gaming -B.B.

Inject some Star Frontiers into your Stars Without Number Campaign!

Do you have fond memories of Star Frontiers but your gaming grouping doesn't seem to want to learn/try a new (old) mechanic?  Love Stars Without Number but want some more aliens?  Or maybe you want to unleash the Sathar upon your Stars Without Number Campaign?

 Frontier Explorer has started a series of articles on converting Star Frontiers to Stars Without Number.

Starting with Issue 6
Issue 6 is a Sathar themed issue and has several Sathar beasts converted to  SWN stats.  Remember the QuickDeath?!  Its in there!

Issue 8 has info on character creation, including the Star Frontiers races!  I'm looking forward to seeing what future articles will cover! 

The Manor #6

Even though I'm in Sci Fi mode of late, I know when not to miss out on something cool.
The mailman brought me the latest issue of The Manor, #6 to be precise.

This is a great issue!
Features all kinds of cool stuff: 
A fantasy Brothel! The Guard Class, Witches, an adventure, Were-Spiders and more! 
A steal for $4 in print.

Starter Traveller

Some folks have asked me about Classic Traveller, for those who don't know Starter Traveller is actually available in PDF for FREE

So you can download it for free to get an idea of what Old School Traveller is like. The Traveller Book I just ordered builds on what is in Starter Traveller.

STARCRASH

Being in a Sci Fi mood of late, I thought I'd track down a Sci Fi movie from the 70's that I have heard about but never seen.  That movie was Starcrash!  I watched it last night and I'm not sure where to begin!

This movie is so Cheesy that the Cheese has extra Cheese!  But you know what, it was so bad that it was good.  The plot was ridiculous, acting terrible, special effects bad even for the era it was filmed in.  But you know what I kinda enjoyed it! 

And not just because of the scantily clad leading lady.   LOL

My favorite character was actually the "Tin-Horn" law-man Robot Elle. 
I may have to try to adapt some stuff from it for my next Sci Fi Campaign. 
Good Gaming- B.

Classic Traveller

Just ordered The Traveller Book off of RPGNOW. I had a blast playing Classic Traveller back in High School, we had Study Hall right after lunch, we would wolf down our lunch and start playing then extend our game into Study Hall.  Needless to say, we didn't get much studying done, we were too busy conducting guerrilla raids, engaging in galactic piracy, looting, pillaging and selling black market goods.  Ahh Good Times. Fortunately I've found I never needed Algebra in my adult life so I think it worked out pretty well.  LOL,  I contacted my best friend since High School, he lives many miles away so we may try to get in some gaming with Google Hangouts, we haven't ever played any games on-line, but Classic Traveller seems like the perfect game mechanic for it.  Will see how it goes!
Good Gaming - B.

Draculants

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.  I find myself back in a Sci Fi mood these days.  Read an interesting article about ants recently and decided to stat up a mutant/alien beast for Other Dust/Stars Without Number.  Just tweak them a bit and they are perfect for X-plorers or any other Old School Game.

Ant, Giant Vampire  "Dracula Ant"

AC: 6                                     No. Appearing: 1d8 (3d10)

Hit Dice: 1                             Saving Throw: 15

Attack Bonus: +1                   Movement: 30', 20' climb

Damage:  (bite) 1d4+1          Morale: 9

Special Abilities: Attach, Blood Drain

Attach: On a successful bite attack the vampire ant will attempt to imbed its mandibles into the victims skin in order to feed upon the victim's blood.  The victim must succeed at an Evasion save.  Failure means that the vampire ant has imbedded itself into the victim.  Each round the victim may attempt a new save to pull, twist and turn to remove the ant, if successful the victim suffers 1d4 damage from the mandibles ripping and tearing  the victim's skin. 

Blood Drain: Upon successfully imbedding its feeding mandibles into a victim's flesh, the vampire ant will then inflict 1d4 points of damage per round due to blood drain. The blood drain starts the round following a successful attach attack.  After draining 10 points of blood from a victim the vampire ant will break off the attack and return to its lair to feed the queen.

 Giant Vampire Ants (aka Dracula Ants) are a (mutant or alien,  if using in SWN) species of ant that on average are 3' long.  In many ways they act and behave like normal ants, except for their size and blood draining ability. Their queens feed exclusively upon blood.  Vampire Ant Queens are enormous bloated beasts that are nearly immobile and are dependent upon the colony to bring her blood to feed upon.  There are rumors that some queens are intelligent and even have psychic abilities but this has never been proven.

Inspired by this real world ant http://news.discovery.com/animals/6-new-dracula-ant-species-discovered-in-madagascar-140331.htm

Simian Saturday

Gorgeous Weather here! 
Off to do some yardwork.
Have a great Simian Saturday!