Helldivers

Been under the weather today, but still tossing around some ideas for WormGate or as Needles has been calling it "High Tech Mysticism & High Caliber Adventure".
Swords & Stitchery continues to be churning out great ideas! I love his latest  post featuring MODOK also some great ideas using.A.I.M.
In using my Google Fu I came across some great Sci Fi artwork by Theo Stylianides you can find his gallery here. 
Here are some of my favorites from his site. He calls these Helldivers!

 Wow are these cool or what!!?  Remind me of Rifts in a good way.  : )

WormGate Runners! Was Something with Gunz part 2 or is it 3?

     I'm continuing to work on my "Something with Gunz!" Campaign concept although as of this moment I'm going with the working title of WormGate Runners.  I've apparently inspired Needles over at the Swords & Stitchery blog to post some of his thoughts about this as well.  He ran a similar based game years ago.  Great minds think alike I suppose. I think its great how the blogosphere allows us to share and build on one anothers ideas! Good Stuff!  : )
Anyways tossing around some ideas I was thinking about referring to the Wormholes/portals that the groups use as Wormgates? hence the title WormGate Runners...still considering ideas.

Wormgate

  I've abandoned the idea of using the X-plorers RPG for this, I want something a bit more D&Dish. Still working on things but at this point I'm gonna use psionics, random alien tech and random robot generation from Carcosa, Terminal Space for the well "Space" stuff, Lovecraftian beasties from both sources, ya never know just what the Hell is on the other side of that Wormgate!  Loot mutations and stuff from Mutant Future as needed (you come upon a foul smelling herd of Xeno Cattle! yuck!).  Still narrowing down the specific OSR system to tie it all together, I haven't decided yet but its getting close.  I will be using a couple of NON-OSR Products though...*GASP*...a shudder ripples through the blogosphere.
A couple of 3.0 products actually!...One by none other than Monty Cook himself! 
I'm talking about Chaositech!

Here's the blurb about this book,
"Chaos Rules!

     This unique sourcebook from 3rd Edition codesigner Monte Cook introduces chaos-powered items that resemble both technology and magic, but are truly neither. Within these pages, discover the secrets of devices like the cohesion blaster, the darkness imbiber, and chaosomatons.
     Chaositech also contains rules for chaos magic, including dozens of new spells, plus lots of original feats and prestige classes. Topping it off are chaos cults, mutation rules, plus the Galchutt, the fused aberration, and other all-new chaotic monsters."

Hope I don't lose my Grognard cred by using this one, No I won't be using Feats, AoO, or Prestige Classes, but there is still alot of stuff to loot and pillage, I'll just toss out the icky 3.x stuff that I don't need. 

And finally (for this post at least) I'll be using a great gaming product from my 3.0 Dragonstar gaming days that I never got to use... I want guns in this campaign but I want unusual and interesting guns I want Techno-Magic Guns! I'm gonna use Arsenal!

The blurb, "Technomagic: Arsenal intensifies your d20 campaign with the following equipment:

· Over 200 magical firearms, from the arcane blaster pistol to the divine vindicator autocannon, modifiable by 11 special abilities and 10 accessories. · 8 different types of advanced magical armor.
· 36 special abilities for armor.
· 12 specific suits of armor, from Blisskin designer gowns to the divine Paragon Battle Suit.
· Over 100 different types of grenades, explosives, launchers, missiles and rockets.
· Combat rules options, additions, and suggestions for maximizing your lethality with the new equipment."
 Here's an example of one of the weapons from this book:

                               Calefactor Heavy Machine Gun!
This godgun focuses holy power into a ray of solar brilliance, emitting a blast of light that sears like the hottest fire accompanied by a loud sizzling sound. The calefactor is the only divine weapon that is commonly found without signature technology restricting the user. Gods opposed to the undead graciously permit anyone to use their weaponry to destroy such beings. Calefactors focus the purifying light of the sun and inflict greater damage against undead.

 Anyways that's all for now.  Thanks for reading my crazy rant!  -B.

Something with Gunz!

     My darned Gamer ADD is kicking in again.  I'm currently running a "traditional" fantasy Castles & Crusades game on alternating Sundays (which has been alot of fun!) but lately I've had a hankering to run something different.  Yesterday's post   made me want to do this even more!  Something with magic, tech, different races...and most of all...Something with Guns!...
Heck I think that might be my working title for the Campaign/game.  "Something with Gunz!" LOL.
     I ever so briefly looked through some Rifts stuff...shudder...sorry but I just don't have the patience for hour(s) long character generation anymore, not to mention the combat, the system ..ok stopping that rant now. Onward with the topic/purpose of this post.
 Taking inspiration from yesterday's post, the premise of the players being mercs working for a Faustian organization looting other worlds and dimensions for arcane relics and tech just really appeals to me.  Course I need to narrow down the mechanic... yeah something OSR = "Oh Sh*t Run!" based, but wow there's a whole world of options out there for Old Grognards like me to use now.  Yesterday I was leaning towards the really fun X-plorers RPG but BlUsKrEEm has me rethinking this...Darn you BlUsKrEEm! ; )
X-plorers may not be gritty enough for my purposes...
Terminal Space has an awesome simple approach...just tacking on some basic tech stuff to good old D&D and it would readily allow me to plug in magic based characters. But I'm still trying to decide.  Blair has the awesome Planet Algol campaign based off of "regular" AD&D. I'm a big fan of Labyrinth Lord but I prefer Ascending AC....and don't really care for race as class...
 Hmmmm, I don't really see the need to make this a heavily skill based game, combat will be rough so no reason to have the players spend alot of time rolling up replacement characters...heh heh heh..
This could be done as one shots, go through the portal grab the stuff and bail! or a campaign or even a string of one shots tied together with the same background...."Everyone remember what happened to Skelter Squad not to mention the Crimson Cadre?!"  The hardened mercs all gave a shudder at the memory of the TPK's err the massacres at the Rim of Hell.
Hmmm...well no rush on deciding the mechanic just yet.  I've got time to think about this one some more. And with my notorious Gamer ADD I'm sure I'll change my mind a few times before settling on something.
Meanwhile after finding the issue of Warheads I went on to find a free online strip set in the same setting. It's called Loose Cannons.

It's an all female team and you can read the issues here! I really like the character Sister Sphynx!

I see her being some sort of Cleric worshipping the Egyptian Pantheon with some psionic abilities!   Oh yeah!  Once I finalize the system I'll get her stat'd up for sure.  You know Carcosa has a great Psionics system that would be perfect for....hmmmm....well off to do some reading.
Have a great evening and thanks for reading my ramblings.
-B.

Digging into the discount comics bin

Like most folks I'm having to watch my budget closely these days, and as a result my gaming purchases have taken a serious hit of late.  I still go to the "local" comic/game shop when I can (the only one left in town now), they recently put out several big boxes of old comics for 25 cents a piece! Woo Hoo!  I found several cool looking comics, I'll be talking about more of them later, but one that gave me some surprising fodder for gaming was this one. Warheads, its a Marvel UK short lived series from the '90s.

The plot is perfect for an RPG Campaign.  The Warheads are mercenaries working for a secretive group known as MYS-TECH.  This powerful multinational (planar?) corporation has found the secret of accessing and somewhat controlling wormholes via techno-magic and sends these mercenaries through portals to other worlds/dimensions/times to steal alien tech and artifacts for the company to use for some serious profit, supposedly the mercs get a percentage of the cut, but the characters receive limited training and die off pretty regularly, 3 died in the first issue alone. Sounds pretty OSR doesn't it! "Oh Sh*t Run!"

     There's more to it but that in and of itself sounded pretty darn cool to me. 

Seems like a great way to put together a mix of different characters, all low-level with a reason for being together and going out to get their butts kicked. Throw in some guns, alien tech, magic, monsters and you've got the makings of a fun campaign!

Now to decide on the mechanic? I first thought maybe Stars Without Number which could work fine, and has a nice Psionics System, I considered Terminal Space (and that would definately be cool) but for some reason and folks may think I'm crazy for this, I'm thinking about using the X-plorers RPG!  I mean the basic premise behind X-plorers is your a team of Troubleshooters sent out to "Fix" stuff.  Heh heh heh.

Anyways just thought I'd share my rambling thoughts.  Needless to say I was quite please with my .25 cent purchase.